“Glad I could help. Would you like something dry to change into?”
She looked down at her clothes, still dripping. “No. Sorry. I won’t be here that long. I just came to...ask you something.”
So she hadn’t come about Juliet. Or at least not only about her. “Sure. Ask away.”
She swallowed, her eyes nervous again. After a pause so long even Jock started to look anxious, she released a long breath. “Earlier today, you said something and I was too afraid then to ask what you meant.”
“Oh?” he asked, suddenly wary. He had told her many things he had never shared with anyone else.
“When we were out on the porch of Sea Glass Cottage, you...asked if I had to go and you said you wanted me to stay. I should have asked you why but I didn’t. So I’m...asking you now. Why do you want me to stay in Cape Sanctuary?”
He had a hundred reasons. Thousands. He wasn’t sure he could put them into words. “Because you’re my friend and I care about you. And because your mom needs you and so does Caitlin,” he finally said.
“Oh.”
She looked crushed suddenly and he knew he had said exactly the wrong thing. He could do better. If he could jump out of airplanes and bust people out of vehicles with the Jaws of Life, surely he could find the right words to tell Olivia Harper he was in love with her.
He grabbed her hands, seeking the peace he found whenever he touched her. Her fingers were cold and trembling, but she didn’t pull away, and he felt calm determination flow through him. “Those are all important things. But the truth is, I don’t want you to go back to Seattle because I need you here. Because the thought of not having you in my life makes me want to go into The Sea Shanty and start knocking down that crappy paneling with my bare hands.”
“Does it?”
She looked astonished and maybe a little alarmed. He couldn’t blame her. He was seriously screwing this up. He had to tell her. All of it.
“I don’t want you to leave because I want to see where this goes between us. I’m crazy about you, Liv. Every time I’m with you, I fall in love a little more.”
She blinked, gazing at him as if she wasn’t sure whether to believe him. Finally, she smiled, eyes suddenly radiant.
“Oh,” she breathed. “That’s a good reason.”
“The only one that matters,” he murmured, then tugged her toward him, wrapped his arms around her and lowered his mouth.
As she settled against him, damp and still cold, joy crackled through him, strong and powerful. She kissed him fiercely, with a heat and passion that left him light-headed. She was so much more than he deserved, but he wasn’t about to let her go now.
“Please stay,” he said gruffly. “I didn’t feel like I could ask earlier, with everything that has happened and everything I’ve done, but I’m begging you now. It’s not easy for a guy like me to admit to being scared of anything, but the thought of not having you in my life straight-up terrifies me.”
“Oh, Cooper.” She smiled, a radiant, take-his-breath smile he didn’t know how he could ever live without. “I don’t want to leave Cape Sanctuary. I want to stay here, with my mom and Caitlin and Mel and her boys. And, just like you, I want to stay here so we can see where things go between us.”
If he had his way, he knew exactly where they would go. He wouldn’t let her out of his arms or his life ever again.
“Because I’m crazy about you, too,” she finally said in a rush. “It helped that you said it first but I probably would have gotten around to it eventually. I’m in love with you, Cooper. You might find this surprising but I kind of have been since I was twelve years old.”
“You have not,” he exclaimed.
“Ask Caitlin. She has the diaries to prove it. You were everything I ever wanted in a man back then and you still are.”
He wasn’t. He was so unworthy of an amazing person like Olivia Harper, but he couldn’t wait to spend forever trying to be better.
“What about your job?” he asked a long time later, after they were cuddled together on his sofa under a blanket, his gas fireplace on, while the storm raged outside.
She lifted her shoulders against him. “I want to see where I can