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She tugged her eyes up to Kyle’s face and plastered on a smile. “Thank you for your help with all of this.”
“You’re welcome, Julia. I would do anything to help you.”
She pouted at him. “Including put me in the hospital. Is there really no way out of that?”
“I’d rather have you monitored continuously,” he answered as a shadow crossed in front of them.
She shifted her gaze to find Luke eyeing her, his features pinched. “Are you okay?”
She nodded, her stomach twisting again. “Yes, I’m fine.”
Kyle arched an eyebrow as he glanced at her heart rate monitor.
“Stop it,” she said before he could comment. “Can you give us a minute?”
“I’m not comfortable with–”
“Kyle, please.”
Kyle’s jaw tightened as he shifted his gaze between the two of them before he finally nodded. “Fine. Just a few minutes, though. And don’t get her too excited. Her heart rate is still too elevated.”
Luke followed Kyle’s departure before he took a few steps closer to Julia. “Is that true? Is there something wrong?”
Julia shook her head. “He just worries too much. This happened a few times before. And after a good night’s sleep, I’m always fine. I just wish I was going to get that good night’s sleep in a real bed, not a hospital bed.”
“Maybe that’s for the best, though. You’ve been through a lot…not just tonight.”
The ordeal in Maine months ago had been a frightening close call, too. Her mind stretched back to it and the events leading up to it. She gazed into his dark eyes, knowing they needed to talk. They both needed closure.
When she’d walked away from Maine, they hadn’t spoken about it. Instead, he’d shown up on her doorstep months later, a changed man, a man vying for her heart.
As much as she wanted to avoid it, they needed to have a conversation about that. She sucked in a deep breath as she pressed her lips together. “We need to talk.”
He let his gaze fall to the ground. “I don’t like that look or that tone.”
“I’m sorry,” she answered with a shrug of one shoulder.
“The last time I heard it, you left me in that dock in Harbor Cove. You walked out of my life, and when you walked back in, you were married to another man.”
“I’m sorry about how that happened, Luke, I really am. That was…unfair.”
“It’s in the past, Julia.”
She stared at him as she forced the next words through her lips. “So are we, Luke.”
He puckered his lips, refusing to meet her gaze. “I don’t feel that way, Julia.”
She heaved a sigh, her forehead pinching. “I know. I’m sorry. But we just…don’t work.”
“That’s not true,” he said, finally looking at her as he shook his head.
“It is.”
“It’s not,” he insisted. “Julia, we worked for a really long time until you left.”
“I left for a reason, Luke. I left because if I stayed, we both would have ended up unhappy. Me for staying there and never trying to make my life bigger than what it was, and you once you realized I was unhappy.”
“You love Harbor Cove. You love the sea, you love the town, you love your family. Why would you be unhappy?”
