Page 79 of The Lightkeeper

“He’s unconscious. Stable but unconscious.I have to go. I have to go to him—to the hospital.” I shook my head wildly, unsure where to even begin. “But all my things…”

“Aurora.” Kit squeezed my shoulders. “Breathe. In and out.” I did as he said. “Again.”

“I have to be with him—be there when he wakes up. They said he needs another surgery—another bypass.” I shook my head. “I have to get back to Boston.”

Kit looked like I’d just twisted the knife buried in his chest, but it wasn’t my choice. I couldn’t change where my father was—where I was from—any more than I could change the state of his health.

“I’ll drive you to the B&B to get your things, and then Jamie will take you back,” he declared, his statement like a bucket of ice water over my head.

My things?I didn’t have any things left at the B&B, so the only reason he was taking me there was so that Jamie wouldn’t pick me up here.

And that brought me to his brother.I watched in a daze as Kit stood and fished for his cell, calling Jamie and asking him to take me.Of course, Jamie said yes.The Kinkades were the kind offamily you could count on at a moment’s notice, day or night. I wanted to argue—to protest. Hell, I wanted to beg him to take me. To come with me.

But as soon as he faced me, I knew I couldn’t.

Back into town was one thing. Around people he’d grown up with was one thing. Back to the place where he’d almost lost his life… that was a whole different kind of thing.

I could never ask it of him, not because I knew he’d say no, but because I knew he’d say yes. He’d take me without batting an eye. He’d help me like he helped the other victims of the bombing that day—without even realizing his own injuries were on the brink of killing him. And it would undo everything he’d worked so hard to overcome.

“Kit.” I reached for him, and he pulled back as soon as my fingers landed on his hot skin.

“I can’t,” he rasped low. “I can’t… go back there.” Slowly, his head lifted, the pain in his eyes just as heartbreaking as the truth—the one we’d avoided this whole time.

My place wasn’t here, but his was. My home—my life—was in Boston, somewhere he, understandably, couldn’t go. Like a bird and a fish, we were from two very different worlds. And the lighthouse… these months at the lighthouse were nothing but a bubble that had lifted this fish into his sky.

I’d stay.

I’d come back to him… if he wanted.

But one look in those eyes, and I knew he’d never ask. No matter how much had changed, no matter how far he’d come, he still saw himself with missing pieces while I saw the whole picture.

“Kit…” Tears exploded down my cheeks.

“You have to go.” He cleared his throat and looked over to my shelves. “Grab what you can, and I’ll ship the rest to you.”

Our time had been severed. These last weeks of the semester that should’ve given us time to explore our future had been cutshort. Amputated. The shock alone made it hard to breathe. The pain… I knew the pain wouldn’t fully settle in until later.

“Wait, please, I have to tell you?—”

He took my hand from his chest and brought it to his mouth, kissing the center, his eyes darker and more tortured than the day we met.

“Don’t,” he said.One last warning: don’t tell me you love me.I saw it as clear as day—clear as the beam from the tower in the middle of the night. “You need to be with your dad. He needs you.”

The lump in my throat wouldn’t go away. It was filled with so many words—so many feelings—I wanted to say, but for maybe the first time ever, I couldn’t bring myself to say them.For the first time, I heeded his warning.

“Kit…” His name was hardly anything above a whisper, and my pulse slowed to hard, heavy beats, afraid of what the next one might bring.

“You need to go. Be with him. Finish your semester. Your masters. Get your degree and the job of your dreams.”

My lips parted. “And you…”

His big body shuddered.“I’ll be here. Where I’ve always been.”Alone.

“And this?”I wanted to scream.What about us? What about love?Instead, all I could offer was every inch of my heart as I stared up at him and hoped it was enough.

And then his jaw flexed. A flex I’d observed and then studied and finallyunderstood.It was never anger or frustration that triggered the muscle, it was always restraint. Holding back from what he wanted. What he deserved.

“This was only an experiment,” Kit said lowly. “Now we know.”

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