He felt empty and bereft.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
IT TOOK EVERYTHING Jessica had not to chase after Jamie. She turned to her father and he shoved his hands in his pockets.
“Dad! Really?”
He had a mulish look on his face. “I wanted to know if he’s the one who hurt you.”
“No one hurt me.”
“When you came back from New York—”
“That’s none of your business! And you shouldn’t have come barging in here!”
“I came to check on you. I might have accidentally set the lock on the store. When you didn’t come home I was afraid I locked you in.”
“I would have called you if I needed you.”
“It’s bad out there tonight,” her father said stubbornly.
“For Pete’s sake, he wasn’t my date for high school prom! I don’t have a curfew! I’m an adult. You know what the problem is with Timber Falls? I can’t grow up here. I can’t grow at all!”
The words had come out in a rush of feeling. She saw she had hurt her father, and she was instantly sorry, even if it was so true that a complete stranger that she had met only for a few moments had seen it. Vivian Ascot had seen it before she had seen it herself. Jessica was trapped in a cozy, lovely life. If she wanted to be alive—fully and completely alive—she had to outgrow everything she had ever known.
She had to face her fear.
She left her father and went to find Jamie. She wanted to finish what they had started. Somehow it felt as if her life depended on it.
But when she got there, he had already left the B and B.
“I told him it wasn’t a good night to go,” Ethel Clariman said, worried, “but it seemed as if he couldn’t get out of here fast enough. He left something for you, though.”
Ethel went back into the office and came out with a large garment bag.
Jessica took it and got out of there as quickly as she could, hoping she had not looked as shaken as she felt that he was gone.
The hard truth was that he regretted what had happened between them as intensely as she embraced it.
He couldn’t get out of here fast enough.
She went home, opened the garment bag and slowly put on the blue dress. She twirled a few times in front of the mirror. This was the woman she could be. This was the woman she wanted to be. How much courage would it take to get there?
She went to bed in the dress. She let the tears come.
And the fear came out of the misty corners of her mind and showed itself to her.
She recognized the core belief that had ruled her entire adult life, had shaped every single decision, that had made her choose safety and security over boldness and full engagement.
In her mind, love equaled loss.
In her mind, the avoidance of pain had become paramount.
In her mind, love equaled the potential for the destruction of the entire world as she knew it.
It occurred to her it was not Jamie she had not trusted. It was herself. If the loss of Devon had crippled her for so long, what could the love of Jamie, so much hotter, so much brighter, do to her?
Leave her in ashes, obviously.
She had not trusted herself to be strong enough, and resilient enough to cope with what life and love gave her. To cope, to become more courageous, and more confident in her ability to survive.
So, each time life had given her a gift, she had turned away from it.
No thanks, that might hurt me.
Jamie had been a gift.
It was time to find what was at her core. It was time to rise to the challenges of life instead of shrinking away from them.
It was time to embrace love in all its capriciousness. In all its uncertainty.
In the morning, she picked up her phone and, with no hesitation whatsoever, she dialed his number.
It went straight to voice mail, which, given the complexity of the journey to Timber Falls, was not unexpected.
She listened to his voice. She listened to the beep. Jessica took a deep breath.
“I am not afraid to love you,” she said, and then ended the call.
She slipped the phone into her pocket. She didn’t feel as if she was waiting for a response. She felt as if she had set herself free.
For the first time in so, so long, she was not afraid.
Because she knew she was strong enough to handle whatever life gave her next. Three days passed, and she heard nothing. Still, her belief in what she had discovered did not flag. There was an ultimate gift in loving someone and in being open to love: it didn’t rip you down, it didn’t destroy you.
It made you better than you had ever dreamed you could be.
And then, after a week had gone by there was a tap on her cottage door.
She opened it and was stunned to find Jamie standing there. It wasn’t until that moment when it started beating again that Jessica realized her heart had stopped when she had left him that message. Her heart had been waiting, even as she went on.
Jamie looked beyond haggard. He looked haunted. And uncharacteristically disheveled, his shirt wrinkled, his hair a mess that made her want to fix it with her fingers.
She was in her pajamas, she remembered suddenly, the ones with ducks on them. They did not make the statement about the new bolder, braver her that she wanted to make! She wanted to just close the door in his face, at least until she went and changed, but there was something there that was so tortured about him, that she could not.
Love told her this was not about her.
“Jamie?”
He looked as if he was going to reach out and touch her cheek, but then
