Page 40 of Eight Years Gone

Grace shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Of course, it matters. Especially if you’re still in love with him.”

She focused on her toes again instead of responding.

“Do you love him, Grace?”

She blinked as her eyes filled. “I don’t want to love him. I’ve waited so long for him—”

“He’s here, honey.”

She adamantly shook her head this time. “And now that he is, I know I can’t do it again. The way he hurt me… I can’t let myself go there.”

“Well, speak of the devil,” Christy murmured.

Grace frowned. “Huh?”

“The really sexy running god at your twelve o’clock.”

Grace turned her head, staring at Jagger’s powerful body as he jogged out of the woods on one of the lake’s numerous nature trails—glistening, glorious pecs and washboard abs dripping with perspiration.

At some point, he’d taken off his shirt, tucking the end in the elastic of his sweat-soaked gray shorts.

“How is that even legal,” Christy said under her breath.

Grace swatted at her friend’s leg, then lifted her hand in a wave.

Jagger waved back before he disappeared into the forest again.

“That was Master Jagger from the taekwondo place,” Brennan yelled. “He’s so cool!”

Christy looked at Grace, wiggling her brow as the wind picked up, lifting the blanket’s edges. “Half-naked and hot. That’s not fair.”

Grace forced a small smile when she knew Christy was trying to keep the mood light. But it was impossible to recalibrate when Jagger kept popping up in unexpected places. “No, it’s not.”

“He’s here,” Christy said again as the sun vanished behind the dark clouds for good.

She shook her head. “I can’t.”

“What if you guys sit down for a cup of coffee and just talk?”

“That sounds so simple.”

“Can’t it be?”

Grace shook her head again. “Nothing’s simple with Jagger. Nothing’s the way it used to be. I don’t know how to be around him anymore.”

A low roll of thunder rumbled in the distance, cutting off Christy’s next comment.

“Mom!” Brennan yelled, scrambling off the rocks, hurrying toward his tube in the choppy water.

“Swim back,” Christy encouraged as she stood, moving to the shore when the next rumble echoed closer.

Grace gathered up the blanket, folding it, then grabbed Brennan’s towel as the panicked first grader made it back to the beach.

Brennan wrapped himself in the soft cotton Grace handed him, jumping up and down. “We have to hurry! We’re going to get struck by lightning!”

Fat drops of rain started falling in torrents, instantly soaking them.

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