“I saw you first. Only days before he did, but I still saw you first. I was walking in the woods and I saw you along the road. Your hair was in a ponytail and it bounced against your back as you walked. You had on jeans, white tennis shoes, and a pink hooded sweatshirt.
“The sun made you glow like an angel and something happened in my stomach. It felt like the air was knocked out of me and it was a kind of sick feeling. You stopped to look at some purple flowers, picking one to tuck behind your ear.” He inhaled deeply, his voice ragged when he continued, “The next time I saw you, you were with Cole, and that was that. But I saw you first, Sara. And when I saw you, I knew you were meant for me. I’d never felt like that before and I’ve never felt like that since. I tried to deny it, I tried to forget you. Every woman I dated; I hoped she’d be the one to take the place of you in my heart. Only it never worked. Not even the fact that you were my brother’s could make it stop.
“The guilt I felt, have always felt, it’s torn me up inside. The anger and resentment I’ve fought against every day since that first day I saw you with him; at myself, at Cole, at fate. It hurt every time I saw you hug or kiss, because I wanted to be the one doing the hugging and kissing. The way you looked at him…I wanted that for me as well. Wanting my brother’s girl, wanting my brother’s wife; what kind of horrible person was I? Didn’t matter. I kept wanting you.”
She couldn’t breathe. Sara was struggling to breathe and nothing was happening. She wanted him to stop, to shut up, to quit saying the words he could never take back, the words that could never be erased once spoken.
“Then the wreck happened and the guilt became too much, because, sometimes, I’d thought about if Cole wasn’t around, maybe it would have been you and me. Not that I’d ever wanted anything bad to happen to him, but just, like if he’d moved away, or was married to some other woman. I never would have wanted to happen what did, but sometimes, in the back of my mind, I wondered if I was to blame. Maybe it was my fault, somehow, for wanting the woman I could never have. And the pain of losing him was horrible, agonizing, but the thought of losing you was unbearable.
“The worst thing is…after everything…I still want you,” Lincoln ended softly, his voice raw, pained. “I saw you first, but you never saw me. Never have. Not even now.”
Sara closed her eyes. The air shifted behind her and she felt his heat seep into her back and knew he was close. “Don’t. Lincoln, I can’t hear this,” she said, her voice cracking.
“It’s already done. I can’t stop. I won’t stop,” he said raggedly. She felt the feather light touch of his hand as it brushed hair away from her neck and Sara shivered. “I’m done stopping, Sara. See me. Please. Just once. Turn around and see me.” His hand wrapped around her upper arm and slowly turned her around. Sara kept her eyes closed, not strong enough to accept what she knew she would see in his eyes.
“Look at me. Look at me, Sara,” he commanded, his fingers digging into her shoulders.
Sara mutely shook her head, tears dropping from her eyes and falling down her face. Her heart hurt from the tightening in her chest.
“Look at me,” he pleaded.
The entreating note in his voice was too much and Sara could no longer deny him his request. She finally did. Sara looked at Lincoln. Her eyes drifted over his lowered eyebrows, his intense gray eyes, his straight nose, and stopped on his full lips pressed together. The tightening in her chest and heart deepened. God, he was beautiful. Lincoln was wrong. She saw him. She had for a long time. Sara just hadn’t been able to acknowledge it to herself.
“Cole had it all. Good looks, easy-going manner. He was the well-behaved one, the quiet one, the one that didn’t blow a gasket at the slightest provocation. There was the slightly reckless side to him, but nothing too major. He got decent grades and didn’t get into too much trouble. I was never jealous though. I never felt less than. He didn’t let me. I never wanted what he had.
“Until you.” Lincoln’s fingers tightened on her arms. “You I wanted. And that was the first and only time I was jealous of Cole. I’m still jealous of him. I’m jealous of my brother, who’s dead. How fucking sick is that? I can’t stop it though. I can’t stop the way I feel about it, about you. He still has you. The only thing, the only person, I ever really wanted, and you’re his. Still. Always. You never see me, not even with him gone.”
“I see you, Lincoln,” she told him softly.
His features tightened, his laser gaze locked on her. “What do you see, Sara? Tell me. Tell me something.”