Page 23 of Every Heartbeat After

“I can’t do this with you.” Her voice is low, but not so much that I can’t hear it breaking.

The air around us shifts. In an instant it goes from electric to something heavier. I want to fold her into my chest. Hold her till whatever is fracturing that confident exterior of hers is gone for good.

“Do what?” I say, but what I really mean is,Let me in.I’d settle for a fraction of the honesty we shared in my car that night in Loveless. An ounce of the vulnerability.

As though she realizes she’s slipping, she sucks in a breath and squares her shoulders. Her cheeks are still flushed, but her green eyes are bright. Glistening, like she’s blinked back a few tears she refuses to cry.

She’s retreating, and I suddenly, desperately want to bring her back out before she disappears from sight.

“I came to see you, you know.”

Her lips part. Close. Then, “When?”

“That next morning, after…” I let my voice trail off, but I can tell she remembers our kiss. Her chest crests and falls on rapid breaths. That pretty blush spreads down her throat. I want to trace its path with my tongue, but I settle for trailing it with my gaze. “I went to the inn. You didn’t answer the door, and I was…concerned. So I checked with the front office. Marcy said you’d checked out just thirty minutes prior.”

The owner had looked at me like I’d grown a second head when I asked where Tess was. Then, when the realization dawned, she’d smiled ear to ear.

“Then I drove to Gary’s place, but you’d already left with Zo for the airport.”

If I thought Marcy was perplexed by my motives, Tess’s uncle was downright suspicious.

Tess clears her throat, her delicate hand landing there like it might assist her somehow. Her familiar stack of rings glitters in the hall light. “Why?”

“Because I couldn’t not.” It’s the simplest explanation in the world, but the only one I have.

Just like I couldn’t not get on that plane yesterday. Whether I understand it or, quite frankly, want to feel it, where Tess is concerned, my actions are more impulse than conscious thought.

A wrinkle forms between her brows. “Gary never mentioned it.”

I chuckle miserably. “Yeah, well, that’s probably because he essentially told me to fuck off. Said things were tough for you right now, and the last thing you needed in your life was someone like me.”

It’d hurt, but I couldn’t exactly argue. Not when all he’d ever seen from me was mindless flirtation and brief situationships that ended as quickly as they began. I couldn’t tell him how I felt for Tess was different. Not when I could hardly admit it to myself, much less decide whatdifferentmeant in the long run for either of us.

He’ll be none too pleased when Tomas reveals where I’ve run off to.

Tess grabs her suitcase handle and uses her other hand to retrieve a key packet from her pants pocket. Her expression has gone blank. All that heat, all that life has been locked away. She turns, crosses the hall, and reaches for the door to her room. The small keypad beeps and the latch groans. In seconds she’s pushing it open, and the blue-white light of the sky floods the hall from the balcony windows I catch a glimpse of on the far end of the suite.

“Tess—”

She glances over the sharp right angle of her shoulder. “You should’ve listened to him, Kit.”

With that, she lets the door fall closed.

You should’ve stayed gone.A different voice, echoing through the years. I can’t help but fear my ex-wife was right even then.

I stumble back into my room. The door shuts with a resounding thud. Through the gap in my balcony door, laughter trickles up from the pool. I pull it open wider and slip outside. Wet heat coats my skin in a matter of seconds. I brace my elbows on the white-painted railing and hang my head.

WhatamI doing here? Did I think I’d just show up and Tess would be overjoyed? That we’d romp in the sunshine for the next two weeks and then she’d finally be out of my system and I could move on?

She deserves better than that. And I’m an idiot if I thought that’s how this would work.

Something about Tess makes me lose all sense of reality. I’m not this person. Not anymore, at least. The last flight I got on for a woman, I arrived home just to find her in bed with someone else. It damn near ruined me. I swore right then that I’d never let my heart lead the way again.

And yet, here I am.

Courtney was nothing like Tess, I quickly remind myself. She was selfish. Conniving. She wanted a comfortable life at home, everything she could ever want provided, and not much else. Not from me anyway. From every other airman on base? Well, that was another story.

But I was young and thought myself in love, and the rest was a blur of wedding bells and, when I joined the Air Force, long periods of me being away. She thrived when I was gone, unlike the other airmen’s wives. I prided myself on choosing an independent woman. Boy, was I an idiot.

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