“Stop what, Piper? Thinking about you every second of the day? Missing you so much I climb the fucking walls? Stop being hungry for you? I can’t turn any of that off and I don’t want to.” When he turned Piper around, she saw he was visibly concerned by what she’d revealed. Well, welcome to the party, bucko. “Okay, let’s start from the beginning. We’re going to talk about my marriage. Not how she died, but what it was like.”
She took a breath. “I don’t know if I want to.”
“Can you trust me, honey? I’m just trying to get to the light. Get to you.” He waited for her nod, then did that wide-stance, settling-in thing and crossed his arms. As if letting her know he was immovable. “I knew Desiree my whole life, but not well. She was a girl a year above me in school. Quiet. I didn’t really get to know her until I started working for Mick. Right around the time my parents moved out of town, he took me under his wing and became kind of a . . . guide. He showed me this thing I love. Fishing. How to do it well. And over time, I guess she became family, too. I never felt . . .” He lowered his voice. “There wasn’t an attraction like I have for you. I’m not just talking about sex. We were friends, in a way. She was always trying to meet her father’s expectations, and so was I, after he gave me the Della Ray. He obviously thought we’d make a good match, so I asked her out, and I think . . . both of us just wanted to make Mick happy. That’s what we had in common. So we just went through the motions, even when it didn’t feel right. When she died, I kept the ring on, kept my vows, to keep him healed as much as possible. Then you showed up, Piper. Then you. And it felt wrong having ever given those vows to anyone else.
“Was she strong? Was she comfortable waving off me and Mick every time we left the harbor? Yeah. I guess she was. But she had decades to get there. It’s been a month for you, Piper. Less, if you count the time we spent pretending we didn’t want each other. So that comparison is unfair. You’re unfair to yourself.”
There was no doubt Brendan believed everything he was saying. And it was hard not to believe him, too, when he stood a foot above her, a sea captain in his domain with a voice full of conviction. He was huge in that moment. So intense she had to remind herself to breath. Was she happy his marriage hadn’t been full of passion? No. This man deserved that. So had Desiree. But that part of his life had been a shadowy corner, and it helped to have the mysterious aspects of it gone. “Thank you for telling me.”
“I’m not done.”
“Wow. Once you get going, there’s no slowing you down.”
Brendan stepped closer, seized her by the elbows. “Last night, you said a couple of things that bothered me, and now we’re going to work through those.” He leaned down and kissed her forehead, her nose, her mouth. “Don’t ever tell me again there are a thousand others like you, because that’s the biggest pile of bullshit I’ve ever heard. And someday, trust me, I hope I meet the person who told you that. A person doesn’t rebuild a legacy for a dead man unless they have character and can accept responsibilities.” He kissed her temple hard. “Last night, I watched you in the bar, how you immediately made everyone your best friend. Made them count. And do you know what it meant to me having you show up at the hospital?” He didn’t speak for a moment. “You have perseverance, character, and a huge heart. I think you might still be finding your way, but so am I. Me and my stupid routines. I thought I had it all figured out until you made me start breaking them. I want to keep breaking them with you.”
As he’d been speaking, Piper had turned into a limp linguini noodle in his arms. The tip of her nose was red, and she had to blink up at the sky to keep from tearing up. Warmth and a sense of belonging reached all the way down to her toes, curling them in her ballet flats. “This is a lot to process,” she whispered.
“I understand—”
“I mean, we’re boyfriend and girlfriend now. I guess you got what you wanted.”
A rush of his breath passed over the crown of her head. His arms were crushing her to that burly chest now. “Damn right I did.” A beat passed. “About you going back to LA . . .”