“Sweet?” Reaching out, I brushed aside a strand of glossy chocolate hair that’d come loose from her ponytail. I tried to ignore the way my heart stopped pounding and once again rattled demonically at my ribcage. It wanted out. It wanted her. It wanted a different kind of life. “I’m many things, but I’m not sweet.”
“Jacob, I…” Her green gaze latched onto my lips. She licked her own, ensuring my body reacted in all the wrong and horribly right ways. “I’m not sure what’s going on.”
I dropped my hand. “Let’s just say I woke up with new morals.”
“And these new morals mean what exactly?”
“That I’m done being such a loner.”
She scowled. “You can’t just switch off something like that.”
“I can if it’s hurting those I care about.”
I can try at least.
Her entire body froze. “Don’t do this. Don’t do what you did at the feed store.”
“Do what?”
“Make me believe you actually have feelings when you were pretty successful at proving you didn’t.”
I sighed, hating the way my body shook. Hating the weakness she caused me. The regret she gifted me. “I do have feelings, Hope. They’re just not easy to deal with.”
“Feelings for me?” She winced as if she hadn’t meant to say that out loud. “I mean—”
“Feelings for everyone.” I paced in front of her, needing to move before I exploded with the itchy, irritable sensation of allowing emotions to control me. I was so used to switching it off, pushing it away, pretending I felt nothing.
Standing in that office, I drowned in everything.
It was the hardest thing I’d ever done.
Rubbing my throat, I strangled, “Look, it was wrong to chase Carter away. I know that.” My jaw clenched, unwilling to voice my next sentence. “I-I can get his number for you. If you want. Go out with him. I want you to be happy, Hope. Despite what you think.”
She laughed under her breath. A cynical, cold little laugh. “You still don’t get it, do you?”
I raked a hand through my hair. “I get that I’m still hurting you, and I’m doing my best not to.”
Her eyes glittered for a second before she nodded sharply. “Sorry. Ignore me. I appreciate your offer, Jacob, but no. I don’t want his number.”
“What do you want?” I breathed.
Hope stiffened. I froze. The room became half the size, filling to the roof with tension.
Shit, I shouldn’t have asked that.
She smiled sadly. “I don’t think you want an answer to that question.”
I didn’t know how to reply.
I’d come here hoping this would be easy. But Hope scrambled me up. She made me sweat. Made me churn.
Emotions were cyanide, and distance was the cure.
Cold-hearted cruelty the only antidote.
A single dream about Dad telling me off couldn’t prevent the triggers that’d governed my life since he died. A nudge from my unconsciousness couldn’t fix me.
As much as I wished it could.
I sighed, kicking the leg of the dinged-up table.
What the hell was I thinking?
I’d stupidly woken with the idiotic thought I could be the man Hope wanted. That I could attempt—just attempt—a…relationship with her.
A physical, emotional relationship that would shatter me into smithereens.
But standing there, on the precipice of changing my world forever, I couldn’t do it.
I wasn’t brave enough.
I wasn’t man enough to fall.
Every time she smiled my way or helped with a chore, I desperately wanted to be sane enough to love her.
What wasn’t there to love?
She was a farm girl. A farmer’s girl. A diligent worker who didn’t care about mess and mud and mayhem.
She was perfect.
She was kind and gorgeous and a huge part of my family already.
It should be so easy to love her.
So why was it so fucking hard?
Caskets, cremations, and crying littered my mind, trapping my feelings, caging my love, preventing me from breaking the chains I’d lived within since childhood.
Maybe, I had it wrong.
Instead of being afraid of love…maybe I truly was incapable.
Impotent against the end.
Powerless against forever.
Death was always just around the corner. Slithering in the shadows, selecting its next victim.
I wished I’d known then what was about to happen.
I wished I’d understood how simple this complicated moment was when faced with what my future had in store.
But I didn’t.
And I struggled like a coward, giving up the fight as I settled back into my familiar.
Clamping both hands on my head, I looked at the ceiling and exhaled hard.
Silence fell for an eternal moment before I let my arms tumble to my side and faced Hope with an apology instead of bravery. “There’s something I want to ask you.”
She didn’t know the war I’d just fought. Didn’t understand the conclusions that’d caused bloodshed.
All she knew was I was a master at causing her pain.
“Okay.” Her green gaze travelled to my mouth, hypnotising me with the way she stared. The connection between us lashed tighter than any rope, and I would’ve given anything to grab her. To kiss her again. To pretend I was cured and normal and capable of affection like so many others.