herself, relaxed in the corner of the sofa. It was a bit more difficult for him to find a comfortable spot, what with the towel and the blanket. When he finally got situated, she was grinning broadly.
“Don’t make fun of me,” he said, but his voice held a trace of humor.
“Hey, you were the one who decided to go for the swim, not me.”
A sigh escaped his lips. “Only because we were getting too close to...”
His words trailed off. To what? Making a mistake? Making love? Both phrases made his chest tighten. He opted for humor. “To getting naked on Jeremy’s beach.”
She coughed and laughed at the same time. “Oh, can you imagine if they’d seen...”
He met her gaze evenly. “That dip was my equivalent of a cold shower. I like you, Jess. We have chemistry.” She made a sound that was the equivalent of “yeah, we sure do.” He held the blanket tightly in his fingers. “I’m not sure sex is in our best interests right now.”
She nodded. He wished he didn’t notice how full her lips were when they were open just that little bit. Or how her eyes glowed, the little tiny striations of gold and green in the blue making him think of the water at the edge of the lake at Merrick. Or even how her chest rose and fell anytime things heated up between them. Even now, just talking about it and not touching. He was so attuned to her.
Her throat bobbed as she swallowed. “Because of Jennie.”
“Yeah. It wouldn’t be fair to you.”
“Tell me about her, Bran.”
He broke eye contact and looked away. Across the room was a matching love seat and one of the pillows was out of place.
But she edged over closer to him and put her hand on his blanket-covered knee. “You need to talk about her. There’s no judgment here, Bran. Just talk. Tell me what she was like. Tell me why it’s so hard.” She squeezed his knee. “I can put on some coffee if you want.”
He debated. It was strange thinking about telling the woman you’d almost had sex with about your dead wife. And yet not so strange thinking about telling Jess. Besides, if she knew everything, maybe this horrible, wonderful attraction between them would be nonexistent, and he wouldn’t have to worry about making a mistake.
“I don’t need coffee,” he murmured, resting his hands on his knees. The hem of the towel cut into his pelvis, but he didn’t care.
He’d already told her about how he and Jennie had met. But the last year of their marriage...everything had changed.
“The year or so before they died was really different for us,” he began. “Owen had been born, and Jennie was such an amazing mother. Like Tori, you know? Loving and caring and tired and fun. She’d spend hours counting his toes and making him laugh. Or just sitting in a rocking chair with him while he slept, wanting to hold on to those first baby days forever.” Emotion rose in a wave and he fought it back, not wanting his voice to crack as they spoke.
“Does seeing Tori make it worse for you?” she asked softly.
“Sometimes. It just hurts, seeing Rose grow and knowing that one day soon she’ll start having the milestones that Owen never had. But it’s not their fault, and he’s my best friend. I can’t stay away, you know? That’s not fair.”
She nodded and put her hand on his back, rubbing reassuringly, just like she’d done that day of their picnic on the rock. “But it still hurts.”
“Yeah.” He took a deep breath. “My career had really taken off by then. My eighth book had just released, and it was a big deal. It hit the lists in its first week, and there was a bunch of appearances set up.” He frowned. “I let it go to my head a little bit. I had to be here, there. Signing books. Doing interviews. I’d gone to our apartment in the city for a few weeks to tackle it all, planning to go home on the weekend in between. But another opportunity came up and I was so tired that I stayed in the city.” He tried not to think about the argument he’d had with Jennie about not going home that weekend. She’d been 100 percent right about how he was losing sight of his family.
“The next week Jennie decided to surprise me by driving up from Connecticut. We’d fought about me not being home, and we didn’t fight often so it felt so very wrong and off. I had no idea what she was planning until I got the call from the police.” His chest cramped so much it nearly made him lose his breath. “I was listed as next of kin, our address the one in New Haven. By the time they reached me, the accident had been cleared and their bodies at the hospital.”
His voice finally broke. “I can still see them there, Jess. She was cut up bad. But Owen...he looked like he’d just gone off to sleep. God, I pray he was sleeping and never felt anything. I hope it was all so fast that neither of them suffered or knew what was happening.” The well of emotion threatened to strangle him. “They shouldn’t have been on the road that night. And they wouldn’t have been, if I’d been less full of myself and had gone home as we planned. All she wanted was for us to spend time together as a family, and I was too damned important and busy.”
Jess’s hand was still rubbing his back. “You blame yourself.”
“Of course I do!” he snapped, then let out a breath. “She was my wife. He was my son. The two most important people in the world to me, and I let them down so badly. It should have been me.”
“You don’t feel you deserve to live.”
“No! Yes. I don’t know.” He shifted away from her hand. “That’s the thing, Jess. For a long time, I didn’t want to live. And now I do, and I’m left wondering if that makes me a horrible person.”
Jess was quiet for a long moment. She finally let out a long breath and angled her body toward him. “When Ana got sick, I was so damned angry. But I didn’t cause her cancer. You didn’t cause that accident. It was an accident, and they happen.”
“But she wouldn’t have been on the road at all if I had just gone home like she’d asked.”
“And maybe you would have had an accident going home. Would you want Jennie to feel like if she just hadn’t asked you to come home that you’d still be alive?”