to you,” she said softly, tucking the pictures under her arm.
“I didn’t think he’d actually hit you. Fuck, why didn’t he hit me? I was the one on top of you when he found us.”
“Because he’s a wifebeater, Will.” She spat the word. “That kind of sick human doesn’t go after other men who are bigger and stronger. They go after weak females who are dependent on them.”
She started up the beach, but he was right next to her.
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
She froze and let out a dry laugh. “Do? I’m not filing charges, if that’s what you mean. I did what I needed to do, Will, fifteen years ago. I left. I gave up the only thing in the whole world that mattered to me and I ran away, put myself through college, and started a life three thousand miles away. It’s too late to do anything else now.”
She kicked some sand as she took off toward her villa, absolutely unable to stand the way he was looking at her. She could never look at Will Palmer again without knowing he was seeing those pictures, her pummeled, helpless body.
Pictures that Charity insisted on taking and using to get Guy to resign from the sheriff’s department and hole up in his house for fear of having those images on the cover of the Mimosa Gazette.
Will was next to her in three steps. “What did you give up?” he asked.
She slowed again, kind of unable to believe he didn’t know. “What do you think?”
He frowned and then everything just fell. His shoulders, his mouth, his heart.
“I gave up you,” she said, confirming what he’d obviously just figured out.
“It was me.” He almost choked on the realization. She could see the moment it dawned and all the pieces of the puzzle fit. “I was the person you sacrificed for love.”
She didn’t have to confirm or deny; the sucker punch contorted his expression.
“You walked away from me, to protect me, when I should have protected…” He closed his eyes, unable even to voice the last word. “Oh, God, Jocelyn.”
This was exactly what she didn’t want. His hate and guilt, his regret and anger, his inability to look at her without feeling inadequate.
“This is why I didn’t tell you.”
“But I never went after you. I was… waiting.” His lip curled in self-loathing as he said the word.
“I didn’t expect you to,” she replied quickly, aching to take that look off his face. “In fact, I was relieved you didn’t. I didn’t want you saddled with Guy Bloom any more than you…” Her voice faded away as she realized what she’d just said. “I guess I failed and you’re saddled with him after all.”
“Like hell I am.”
She drew back, surprised by his vehemence.
“If we can’t get that son of a bitch in jail, then the old-age home is the next best thing.”
“Now you want to put him in a home?”
“Now I want to put him in a grave.”
“Well, I’d prefer you didn’t, since I gave up an awful lot a long time ago to make sure you didn’t commit murder.” She kept on walking, her eye on the villa in the distance. If she could get there, she could survive this. She could get through this moment of hell.
“Where are you going?” he demanded.
“Away.” She finally turned and looked at him. “I’m going away.”
“Damn it, why? Why do you always do that? You run and you hide and you disappear. You can’t do that again, Jocelyn.”
Oh yes, she could. “That’s how I survived the first eighteen years of my life, Will. I’m not about to change. Even for you.”
His face registered the hit, and while he stood stone still, she made her escape.
And, just like the last time, he let her go.
Chapter Seventeen
Will Palmer, man of fucking inaction. Protected by the very woman he was supposed to protect. Hatred—for himself, for Guy, for the messy cards they’d been dealt—constricted his chest so hard he could barely breathe through the pain.
He could have gone his whole damn life and not have known that because of him, the only woman he’d ever really loved got the crap kicked out of her.
Because of him.
Shoving his hand in his pocket, he pulled out his bandanna and wiped the sweat from his face, starting the trek across the beach to the path.
This time he was not waiting for an invitation. He was not waiting for a goddamn thing ever again. Not this woman, not permission, not