Derek finally turned to look at her. His jaw had slackened, but he didn’t say anything. Only stared.
He just didn’t get it—and he never would. She’d been stupid to bring it up in the first place. What could it really accomplish except remind her that her brother had been right?
“Forget it. I’ll see you later.” She turned on her heel, heading deeper into the forest away from him, longing to break into a run. If she had on her Brooks, there’d be no question, but her current shoes would only leave her with a twisted ankle to go with her smarting heart.
Ashley picked up the pace, climbing the ever-increasing slope of the trail until she reached wide stone steps that led up to a treeless bluff overlooking the ocean. She’d taken the first two steps when she heard footsteps behind her.
“Ash, wait.”
She pivoted. “You didn’t have to follow—” But she’d miscalculated the depth of the step and twisted off the edge completely. Ashley’s water bottle went flying, and her squeak got muffled in Derek’s broad chest as he caught her mid-fall.
He wrapped his arms around her, cocooning her in safety. His heartbeat pounded in time with her own.
For a moment, Ashley kept her hands where they’d landed against his stomach. Then, as if of their own accord, her fingers trailed along his middle. He sucked in a breath as she hooked her arms around his lower back and laid her head in the crook of his chest, breathing in the scent that was all his.
And she never wanted to leave, even though she knew she had to.
He rested his chin against her forehead, and they stood there, breathing, waiting—for what, she wasn’t quite sure, but she didn’t want anything to break the sanctity of this moment.
Finally, Derek spoke. “The reason I only called you once was because it hurt too much to talk to you.”
At that, she pulled her head back to look up at him. The firm set of his mouth showed her there was no tease in his statement. No hint of a lie. Only the truth. “What do you mean?”
“You lied to me.”
“What? When?”
“Before I left. We were supposed to meet at Mimosa’s. You canceled at the last minute. Said you were sick.”
Dread pooled in her stomach. Because yes, she had done that. She’d been so excited, thinking that Derek had finally asked her on a date. That’s how she’d interpreted it, anyway. But then Ben …
He continued. “The next day I was getting some soup to bring you and ran into Shannon at Ms. Josephine’s. I asked if she knew how you were doing and she said you’d been fine when hanging out the night before.”
Ashley blinked up at him. A piece of brown hair hung in his eyes, and she nearly reached up to push it away, to push away the pain in his eyes. “Derek …”
“It’s fine. Like I said, no use digging up the past. Still, I don’t want you thinking of me as some jerk who didn’t care about you.” His gaze swept her face and he dropped his arms from around her. “But why did you lie?”
Stepping away from him, she huffed out an incredulous laugh and wrapped her arms around her middle. “It wasn’t quite a lie. I realized how ridiculous I was being, and it did make me sick to my stomach.”
He lifted an eyebrow.
Great. She’d have to explain, as embarrassing as it would be. You’re the one who wanted to get things out into the open. She could kick herself for that impulse right about now. “I’m sorry I didn’t elaborate at the time. But I couldn’t face you.”
Ashley turned and studied a nearby tree as if the bark were the most fascinating thing she’d ever seen. Anything to avoid seeing Derek’s face when he realized the truth about the depth of her feelings—what they’d been, anyway. No way was she divulging her heart’s traitorous longings as of late.
She sucked in a breath of courage. “I thought you’d asked me on a date. And I was being all dumb and twirling and humming getting ready for it, and Ben stuck his head into my doorway and asked what was going on, and when I told him you’d asked me out, he shook his head and reminded me of the crush I had on you in high school—”
“You liked me in high school?”
She waved her hand, still refusing to look at him. “Yes, it was a dumb little crush when I was a freshman and you were a senior.” Ben had found a notebook she’d covered in Ashley plus Derek equals love, and he’d laughed at her.
“Anyway, he reminded me that I’d followed you around with puppy dog eyes back then and that I was still doing it, all these years later, and that you only saw me as a friend. He didn’t want me getting hurt like he had—that was not too long after Elena dumped him—and warned me that my love … er, affection for you was way too obvious, not just to him but to everyone in town. So I canceled on you because I was afraid that you would see that I’d misinterpreted what you’d meant as just another hangout, and things would never be the same between us again.”
Oh, goodness. She had not meant for all of that to come tumbling out. Guess her emotions had been more stoppered than she’d realized.
Derek was quiet behind her. Served her right. She picked at a piece of bark dangling from the tree, pulling at it until it came clean off, revealing a gentle green layer.
Then he was beside her, the sides of their arms touching. “Ben may be my best friend, but he can be a real idiot sometimes.”
She jerked her head up. “What do you mean?”
He stared straight ahead
