I raise my hand to brush the hair away from her cheek, just like I used to brush her bangs back all those summers ago. I see the recognition in her eyes.

“I was dreaming about that day in the woods.”

“Then why were you crying?”

“Because I knew I’d never see you again.”

“I never meant to hurt you, Kennedy. I was just a stupid kid.”

She nods and tries to smile. “I know. I had just hoped you’d be more.” She sighs and I can tell she’s preparing to move, but I’m not ready for this to be over yet.

“I thought about you for years after I left.” She watches me intently, making no comment. “In a way, I wished you’d given your virginity to someone else. Someone who deserved it.”

Her laugh is soft yet tinged with bitterness. “I wanted you to have it. It was the one thing of mine that I had left, the one thing I could give away. Before he took that, too.”

I have an immediate reaction to what it sounds like she might’ve meant by that. The blood leaves my face and my jaw gets tight. But surely she couldn’t be saying... “What do you mean?”

Kennedy’s face is open and sad, not guarded and tough like it has been since the moment I saw her again. “After Hillary died, Hank started…visiting me. At night. In my room. He’s why I would run and hide in the woods.”

The bottom drops out of my stomach. “Are you saying that he…he…”

I feel like the world is perched, perfectly still, on a pinhead, waiting for her to answer me. I pray to God that I’m hearing that wrong, but something tells me I’m not.

“That’s the one part of my innocence that he was afraid to touch. There would be proof. But that was the only part.”

I’m filled with a mixture of rage and disgust for what Kennedy’s father had done to her. It churns in my gut and burns through my veins. But I also feel an overwhelming sense of guilt. Kennedy needed a decent person in her life, not another shitty man who would ultimately hurt her in another way.

She looks down at my shirt, fiddling with one of the buttons as she laughs, a hollow, heartbreaking sound. “Yeah, I used to think that you could save me from him. From life. From sadness and pain. But then I realized that no one could. That no one would. There was no Superman waiting to rescue me. I realized that if I was going to survive, I’d have to rescue myself. I couldn’t wait around for anyone else to do it.”

I release Kennedy and roll off the bed to my feet. I drag my fingers through my hair, feeling like I might burst into furious flames at any moment.

I pace the floor, at loose ends, not knowing what to do with my fists or my anger, not knowing how to deal with this new information. I’m so caught up in my own head, so deafened by the sound of my rapid pulse in my ears that I barely hear her quiet words when she speaks.

“I know. It’s disgusting. I couldn’t even go to his funeral, I felt so dirty.”

“Disgusting? It’s…it’s…” Words escape me. Then a thought occurs to me and I whirl to face her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Kennedy is sitting up in bed, her hair wild around her head, her eyes wide and tortured. “I didn’t want you to feel differently about me. I was afraid of what you’d think.”

Her words are like a battle axe to the chest. “What kind of a monster did you think I was?”

Her smile is small, but it is belied by the shimmer of tears in her big green eyes. “I didn’t think you were a monster. I loved you. I didn’t want you to know. It was as simple as that.”

“But Kennedy, you’d been abused! If I’d known, I would’ve taken better care. I would’ve been gentler. I would’ve…”

“You were gentle. You did take care. There was nothing I would’ve wanted you to do differently. You were wonderful. It was everything I wanted it to be until...”

In my head, I finish her thought. “Right up until I disappeared.”

I see the hurt before she drops her eyes to watch her hands where they’re toying with the hem of her shirt. She doesn’t have to confirm it. I know I’m right. And I honestly don’t think I’d feel more like a monster if I’d killed somebody. I might as well have killed Kennedy. By leaving her, I sentenced her to a childhood where she was at the mercy of another kind of monster. And, without me, she had nowhere to run, no one to help her. She trusted me when she couldn’t trust anyone else, gave me the only thing she had to give, and I shit all over it.

My throat feels tight as I try to explain, knowing that nothing I say will ever change what happened, ever make a bit of difference. But I’m desperate to make her see… “My father came to get me that night. He’d pulled some strings and gotten me into Oxford for the fall semester. Said I was the oldest, the one who had to carry on the family name, the one who had to provide security for my brothers. He said it was my last chance to make my mother proud. He knew that if nothing else he’d said would make me go, that would. He knew she hated me. Maybe he even knew why. But I know he knew I’d do anything to finally get just one little bit of love from her. Just the tiniest bit of approval.” I turn to face Kennedy, sitting like a damaged angel in a bed of pain. “Not that any of that matters now. It doesn’t change the fact that I was weak. I never wanted to grow up to be like my father and he knew it. But that manipulative bastard outsmarted me and I grew up just like him anyway.”

“You’re not like your father, Reese.”

“How can you say that?” I ask in angry disbelief. “After the way I treated you, how can you say that? Look what I’ve become.”

“You always treated me well, Reese. Like just a girl. A girl worth spending time with. But if you feel that way, if you’re unhappy with what you’ve become then change it. You’re the only one who can.”

I feel fingers of hopelessness wrapping my soul in their icy grip. “I am what I am, Kennedy. Like it or not, this is it. This is who I turned out to be.”

“Then be happy with that. Regret will eat you alive if you let it. The only choice we have is to do the best we can and move on.”

“Is that what you did? You moved on? Learned to hate me?”

The thought of her hating me is appalling, but I know it’s a very real possibility, just like I know that I can’t change the past.

“I don’t hate you, Reese.”

“You should.”

“No, I shouldn’t. You’re right. We were both just stupid kids. I expected you to be my hero, but that wasn’t fair. I shouldn’t have put that on you. I needed to learn to be my own hero, because in the end, people can only hurt you if you let them.”

“So now you keep everyone at arm’s length so they can’t get close enough to hurt you.”

“Don’t judge, Reese. You do the same thing.”

I don’t answer her. Maybe she has a point.

The need to heal her, to make up for all the pain I caused her, to give her happiness in place of all the heartache wells in my chest like a hot spring. Maybe it’s man’s instinct to protect the weaker sex. Maybe it’s the residue of the love I had for a girl a long time ago. Maybe it’s something more. Who the hell knows? But it’s there.

I have a few weeks to show her some goodness in life before we part ways, a few weeks to put to bed old flames. To exorcise old demons.

I walk to the side of the bed nearest her, stopping to stare down into the face that’s even more beautiful than I remember. More beautiful than it was yesterday.

“Let me make it up to you.”

She starts shaking her head immediately. “No, Reese. That’s not what I wanted. That’s not why I told you.”

“I don’t care. I want to. All you have to do is let me.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX - Kennedy

A small part of my brain is wondering if this whole scenario is even real. I just spilled my guts to the guy who broke my heart and shattered my world all those years ago. And he just gave me a little peek into his. And now he’s offering…what? I don’t really know.

More importantly, I can’t believe I’m considering it. But the truth is, I never stopped loving Reese. Like scars and bad memories, some things never go away.

“Even if I wanted to, I can’t.”

“Yes, you can,” Reese insists, dropping down onto the bed beside me. “You can be with me. You can let me be with you. You can let me give you the happiness that you deserve.”

My heart thrills at what he’s suggesting, even though I know he doesn’t have forever in mind. I’m not sure I’d trust him to give it to me at this point anyway. But he’s offering me right now.

Only…

“Reese, I work for you. Can’t you understand that it feels…dirty? Like I’m a…a…prostitute? Like you’re paying me to…”

That heart-stopping smile that has haunted me for years spreads across his mouth, bearing the edges of his straight, white teeth. It’s lopsided and sexy and it turns my stomach to mush.

“Oh, I won’t be paying you for that. You’ll be off the clock for anything more…intimate.” As if he senses my hesitation, he adds, “If you decide that’s what you want, that is.”

He’s already giving in a little. A day ago, he wouldn’t have left it at if. He would’ve said when.

“But Reese—”

“But nothing,” he interrupts urgently. “Please, Kennedy. Do this with me. Don’t make me beg.” His eyes search mine until a teasing light enters them again. “Unless that’s what you’re into.”

I can’t help but smile. “God! Reese!” I exclaim, slapping his arm. He flinches like I hit him with a taser.

“Okay, so you’re into the rough stuff. I can do that, too.”

I laugh outright this time, rolling my eyes at his melodrama.

“I don’t know. I just…”

Reese takes my hand and brings it to his mouth, rubbing his lips across my knuckles as he watches me over the top of them. “Then let me show you. Just give me a chance. I can give you some of the best weeks of your life. Trust me.”

It’s my turn to flinch as he touches my one raw nerve. “I don’t trust anybody.”

“But you can trust me. I’m not the boy I once was, Kennedy. I’ll give you nothing but the truth. Nothing.”

I bite my lip nervously, one reservation still preventing me from diving headlong into everything that Reese is offering.

He must sense my reluctance. “What?” he asks. “What is it?”

“I don’t want to be another of your cruise flings, Reese.”

“You’re not. You could never be.”

I raise my eyes to meet his. “I don’t believe you.”

“Then do it anyway and let me prove it to you. You’re nothing like them and nothing I’ve said or done should tell you otherwise.”

“But Reese—”

“Look, you sleep on it. Just give me tomorrow. And by the end of the day, you won’t even want to say ‘no’.”

I’m tired of arguing, tired of trying to fight it. Tired of trying to fight this, fight him. “Okay,” I agree, relief loosening every taut muscle in my body. I don’t think I was fully aware of how very hard it has been to feign indifference to Reese, to pretend that I want nothing to do with him.

His smile is brilliant and I have the sudden urge to reach over and drag him down on top of me.

Reese gives me some sort of pleased man-growl kind of thing as he leans in toward me. Slowly. Closer and closer. I don’t move away. I just watch his luminous eyes draw near, letting myself get lost in them. For just a moment.

“God, I can’t wait for morning,” he says, his lips so close to mine, I can feel his warm breath fanning them. But Reese doesn’t kiss me. As much as I want him to, he brushes his mouth over my cheek then nuzzles it before pulling away. “Get some sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be a beautiful day.”

I nod as Reese rises and walks toward the door. When he’s half out in the hallway, he stops and looks back at me. He smiles again and winks before he disappears, closing the door behind him.

********

I’m awakened by the tickle of lips and the light scratch of short scruff as someone kisses the curve of my neck. The warmth that floods my body has nothing to do with the heat radiating from the hard, masculine form at my back.

I open my bleary eyes to glance at the bedside clock. Not even 6:00 AM yet. “Don’t you sleep?”

“Not when this is waiting for me in the next room. Do you feel like working out?”

I take a moment to do a quick self-assessment. No nausea, no lightheadedness, and the boat seems to be more stable this morning. “Yeah, I think I do.”

“Good,” Reese says, biting my earlobe and then smacking my butt through the covers before he scoots off the bed. “I brought you some tantalizing clothes to wear. I’ll give you a minute to change and then we’ll go.”

“Wait, I’ll need some things from my room,” I tell him, leaning up onto my elbow.

“I brought your toiletries. Anything else?” Reese looks awfully proud of himself.

“I…uh…I guess not.”

“Five minutes,” he says, opening the door. Before he exits, he glances back at me, his lagoon-colored eyes twinkling. “Unless you need some help getting dressed. In that case—”

“No, I don’t,” I tell him, trying not to smile. “I’ll be out in five minutes.”