“I’m here with my brother. No one else,” I assured her, and she looked back at me, relieved.
“Oh,” she simply replied.
I wasn’t good at this. I had dealt with loss. I had lost my mother, whom I barely remembered, and then my grandmama, but never someone I was in love with. Never someone so young with a life ahead of him. “You want to talk about it?” I asked.
Bethy frowned and glanced down at her glass. “I don’t know. Not really.”
I had never been loved or been in love so I wasn’t sure how that felt. How vulnerable it made you. I just knew the hurt I had endured from trusting someone who betrayed me. That had been painful, but it didn’t hold a candle to this.
“Some days I think I’ll wake up and this will have been a nightmare,” she said, still staring down at her glass as if it held all the answers.
I decided the best thing for me to do was stay quiet and let her talk. I was a good listener. I could help her that way.
“But then I wake up and he’s gone. He’s not beside me. He isn’t smiling at me with those pretty eyes of his. I don’t have him to snuggle up to and plan forever with. He was my safe place. I’d never had a safe place before. But Jace had been my safe place. He had taken care of me . . . and I . . . I didn’t deserve him.”
I started to tell her that wasn’t true, but she kept talking.
“He never knew the truth about me. He never knew my secrets. I wanted to tell him everything. But I knew once I did I could lose him, and I couldn’t lose him. Then . . . then Tripp would come home for a visit and I would spiral out of control. The memories, the lies—it all was too much. That night I’d been drinking because I had finally convinced myself to tell Jace the truth. He deserved to know who it was that he loved. And because I was a coward, I drank. And then . . . I killed him.”
I reached across the table and grabbed her hand. “You didn’t kill him,” I assured her. I knew that much. Jace had drowned.
She lifted her eyes to me and the tears pooling in them rolled slowly down her face. “He was out there saving me. I had walked out into the water and almost drowned. It should have been me,” she gulped. “It should have been me. He should have let me go and saved himself, but he wouldn’t do it. He saved me and it should have been me. I was the liar. I was the unworthy one.”
It wasn’t my business. I didn’t know her secrets and I didn’t want to know. But what I did know was Jace would have saved her regardless. Love didn’t just go away because of lies. I loved my dad, and he was very far from perfect.
“He would have saved you even if you had told him these secrets. Love doesn’t just go away. He might have been hurt. He might have even been unable to trust you again. But he would have come after you, because that’s what love does to a person.”
Bethy let out a small sob and covered her mouth. “He deserved life. A full, happy one,” she said once she dropped her hand. “I took that from him.”
I couldn’t help her forgive herself. It would take time.
“But you made a mistake. Jace protected you. Someday you’ll be able to stop blaming yourself. Until then, try to think about all the good things. Don’t dwell on the bad things.”
“But Tripp is in town now. He reminds me. Just seeing him from a distance reminds me.”
I had no idea who Tripp was and why she kept bringing him up. Again, not my business. He was obviously a part of the past that tormented her. “I’m sure a lot of things will remind you of him and the past. In time, it will get easier.”
Bethy closed her eyes tightly. “I hope so,” she whispered.
I didn’t want to leave her here alone. “Why are you here by yourself?” I asked.
She frowned. “I like it. I don’t want to see people. But I think I’m ready to go home tonight.”
I squeezed her hand and pulled my hand back to my side of the table.
“If you ever need someone to listen who isn’t attached to the situation then I’m here,” I told her as I scooted to stand up.
Bethy gave me a weak smile. “Thanks, Harlow. That means a lot.”
Grant
Rosemary wasn’t a big town. It was a small strip of beach. So how was it that Harlow had managed to completely avoid me for three days? I had done everything I could think of to run into her. I knew she had Mase here but I still wanted to get her alone so I could talk to her. I needed to find my peace with her.
I stood outside the club, waiting on her to pull up. She had tennis in ten minutes. I had cheated by having Woods call Adam and ask her court time then had him change it for an hour later. He hadn’t been happy about it but he had also wanted me out of his office so he had agreed as long as I left him alone for the rest of the day.
I watched as Harlow pulled her car up to the valet and climbed out in a short white tennis skirt that didn’t help my focus. Tennis skirts weren’t meant to be that damn sexy.
I walked over to open the door for her before one of the staff could. She lifted her eyes and stopped walking when she saw me standing there. I could see the questions in her eyes and I wanted to answer every damn one of them. She just needed to listen.