“I’m asking you to take a chance on this. On us.”
She stared, fear and confusion and a deep ache of yearning swirling around inside her. “There is no us,” she protested. “All we’ve done is kiss a few times. I’ve only been here for two weeks!”
“I know. But two weeks is certainly long enough for me to realize I’m falling in love with you.”
She snatched her hands away as if he had pinched them. “You are not.”
He gave a rough laugh. “I had the same reaction. Disbelief maybe, mingled with no small amount of dismay. I don’t want to fall in love right now. I wasn’t looking for it, believe me. But you drove into our lives with your trailer and your courage and your tough attitude and I couldn’t seem to help myself.”
She swallowed. “Well, you can fall right back out.”
“I’m afraid it’s not that easy.”
Jess could feel panic biting at her. She was wholly unprepared for this. In her wildest dreams, she had never imagined Nate Whitaker professing that he was falling in love with her!
He couldn’t be. She was all wrong for him. He needed someone soft and kind like Rachel, not a former staff sergeant who lifted boxes and trailered her pickup across the country for a living.
“I am not the happy-ever-after type of woman, Nate. You knew that about me from the first.”
“Only because you’ve sold yourself that narrative. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true.”
“Of course it’s true! I’m not my sister.”
“Agreed. Rachel is a terrific person. But she’s not you. Your lives have been shaped by different experiences.”
They had spent thirteen years being shaped by the same experiences, though. Experiences that had impacted them in completely different ways.
She was only now seeing that Rachel hadn’t been untouched by the pain of those experiences, as Jess had somehow thought.
“You can’t love me,” she said again. The concept was too huge, too unbelievable for her to comprehend.
He took her hands again and she so desperately wanted to fling herself into his arms and hold on tight.
“How could I not love you? I love your strength. Your compassion. Your courage. I love the way you can handle yourself in the toughest of situations. I love your fierce loyalty to those you care about. You are the only woman I want, Jess.”
She remembered that kiss in the waiting room of the hospital, as if she was his everything. She couldn’t be that. Not for anyone, not even Nate.
She straightened and pulled her hands away.
“Don’t do this to me. It’s not fair. I told you nothing could happen between us. I made it clear from the beginning. This...this isn’t what I want. I have to go.”
“Just like that. You’re not even going to consider staying?”
“I can’t.”
She looked at the Airstream that she had worked so hard to restore. It represented so much more than just her home. It was the life she had created for herself, the one where she felt safe and needed.
“I have to go,” she said again. “I’m sorry, Nate.”
To his credit, he didn’t try to stop her. He only stood watching, his expression closed as she climbed into her truck.
Oh, she hated this.
She started the truck and the engine turned right away.
There was nothing else keeping her here.
She put the vehicle in gear and pulled away, feeling the tug of the trailer on the engine, like the weight of all she was leaving behind.
Fighting tears and the heavy ache of impossibilities, she looked in the rearview window only once to find him standing where she had left him, watching after her.
She wanted to leave town immediately, go as fast and as far as she could, but she had promised Rachel she would stop in at her house one more time before she left.
How would she endure another goodbye?
With her throat achy and tight from unshed tears, she drove the short distance to Rachel and Cody’s house.
At least she found some comfort in knowing she was leaving Rachel in a much happier state than she had found her when she showed up in town two weeks earlier.
Jess had spent the entire day before with her sister and her family, driving in their minivan through the beautiful national park, and she had been relieved to see Rachel and Cody seemed to have found a new closeness together.
They held hands most of the day as they hiked on a few short trails. Several times throughout the day, Jess had caught them stealing kisses, as if they were newlyweds instead of a busy couple with three children.
At Rachel’s house, she knocked and her sister opened the door a moment later, wiping her hands on a ruffled apron.
“Come in. Don’t mind the mess.”
It was a mess, Jess saw, with discarded jackets and toys scattered along the hall. The kitchen was worse. Mixing bowls, measuring cups and flour were spread across the island, the sink full of dirty dishes.
Still, it smelled delicious.
At the table, Silas seemed to be completely focused on more flour and a ball of dough in front of him. The flour was everywhere—the floor, the table, even in his hair.
“Wow. What’s going on here?”
Rachel made a face. “For some reason, I woke up in the mood to make homemade bread today. Cody loves it and so do the girls. Silas was helping me make the dough and had so much fun with it that I mixed another batch just for him to play with.”
What a good idea. Silas looked in heaven as he pounded the dough on the table and squished it between his fingers.
“He seems to be having a great time.”
“Until we have to clean it up, anyway,” Rachel said ruefully. “I’ve got a loaf of bread for you, if you want.”
“Thanks. I’ll take it with me.”
“You’re leaving now?” Rachel’s face fell. She wiped her hands on her apron. “Oh, I wish you could stay longer. Yesterday was so fun.”
All these people who wanted her to stay. Jess was completely unused to it. “I can’t. You know I have that job in Vegas waiting for me next week.”
“Of course. Well, it’s been wonderful having you close these past few weeks.”
“I’ve enjoyed it, too,” she said truthfully. Even with the heartache she knew was only beginning for her, she was glad she and Rachel had at least begun to rebuild their relationship.
“How’s Eleanor?” her sister asked.