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“They had a boy!”
“Great. But quit dodging the question.”
“Yeah.” I paused, trying to figure out how to explain everything that had happened, and the complicated feelings I had about it all.
I started at the beginning—the moment we left the hospital. And I talked and talked for what felt like hours, telling Christine more than I’d intended.
“After we... you know,” I said, feeling the heat climb my cheeks as Christine’s eyebrows waggled. “Archie told me why he’d left the navy. But the thing was, I already knew why.”
Christine shook her head. “I’m confused. What are you talking about?”
I sucked in a deep breath, but it didn’t steel me for what I needed to say. “I already knew why he left the navy because that reason was the event that killed my brother.”
“Archie Kasper was there?” I’d told Christine about my brother before.
“He was in the plane that caused the accident.”
Christine slapped a hand over her mouth as her eyes widened, but a second later, she slumped down again and shook her head. “But, you knew that? When you came here? Or did you just figure it out?”
“I knew.”
“When you kissed him? You knew?” Her bewilderment confirmed the wrongness of my actions.
I nodded, staring down at my hands on the duvet cover. Guilt made me heavy, dark. “It’s part of why I came here in the first place.”
“To meet him? Or to seduce him?”
“To meet him. To learn more, I guess. And I pitched a story to get me here, but then my editor suggested that if I could get in on the hunt, I could get the cover. And that would pretty much unlock the next level in my job. My life.”
Christine shook her head slowly and I knew she was realizing how complicated it all was. “So the attraction between you... that’s real?”
“Totally real.”
“Wasn’t part of the plan?”
“God, no.” The atmosphere in the room was laden with everything I’d revealed. Dense and expectant.
“That’s a lot,” Christine said finally. “I’m kind of trying to sort through it all.”
“I know. Sorry.”
She sat up, swinging her legs over the edge of her bed to face me. “First, I’m so sorry about your brother. I knew he’d died inan accident, but I’d never really known the details. I understand why your father is so bereaved—you really never got any closure. And it makes sense that you’d come here looking.”
“Right . . .”
“But,” she said, holding up a finger. “You’ve kind of dug a hole with Archie.”
I hung my head, guilt swamping every other emotion inside me. “I know.”
“Why didn’t you say something when he told you the story?”
I looked for words that would explain how I’d felt in that moment. “I guess...I thought if I told him when we first met, he’d probably distance himself. And then I wouldn’t learn more about the hunt—so no cover story, and he’d never tell me more about what happened with my brother.”
“Okay, but once you’d gotten to know each other? Like, maybe after the kiss?”
I sighed, wretched misery making me wish I could do things over again. Better. The right way this time. “I don’t know,” I moaned. “I’m just selfish, Chris. I didn’t want to ruin everything. And I haven’t felt this way about anyone in so long. Maybe ever.”
That perked her up, her shoulders straightening as her eyes widened. “What way?”
