“First I came to tell you that I was wrong.” He winced, his own eyes burning from the terrible and still-vivid memory. “I went to your place to tell you that I didn’t mean what I’d said at the old barn. That I loved you just as much as you loved me. That I had for years. That I was only pushin’ you away because Woodman loved you so much and I didn’t want to hurt him after everythin’ he’d been through. But I loved you, Gin. I did. I swear to God, it’s true. I came after you later that evenin’.” He paused, staring at her stricken face. “Your door was unlocked. When I knocked, it opened. I walked into your house, I climbed up the stairs, down the hall, and—”
“No!” she screamed, putting her hands over her ears. “No! No, no, no!” She stared at him, her eyes wild, tears coursing down her face as her breath came and went in jagged spurts punctuated by broken whimpers. “Stop it! Stop talkin’! Please, stop . . .”
She slid her hands to her face, covering her eyes as she wept—long, hard sobs that racked her body and made her seat tremble. And it was fucking unbearable for him to watch.
Cain lifted the bolster between them, unbuckled her seat belt, put his hands under her arms, and lifted her from her seat onto his lap, wrapping his arms around her as she buried her face in his neck and cried with long, wrenching sobs of sorrow, of anguish, of lost chances and terrible revelations.
He closed his burning eyes, pressing soft kisses to her hair.
“You’re wrong,” he murmured. “It isn’t complicated, darlin’. It isn’t complicated anymore.”
She took a ragged breath. “You saw. You saw me with him.”
Cain clenched his jaw before pressing another kiss to her head. “Yes, I did.”
“That’s why you left a week early three years ago?”
“Yes.”
“That’s why you hated me so much . . . at the . . . the BBQ.”
“Yes.”
“That’s why . . . that’s why you said that Woodman deserved better than me.”
He nodded. “But it was my fault too,” he said softly, holding her tighter. “I was so cruel to you, princess. The things I fuckin’ said to you.” He winced. “When I think of your face—the way you looked at me when you told me I’d never hurt you again, then turned and walked away. I wanted to kick my own ass. Part of me wanted to die for hurtin’ you like that.”
She looked up at him with glassy eyes. “I was so devastated, and . . . he was s-so good to me. My heart was sh-shattered, and Woodman—”
“Princess.”
He stopped her because it hurt. He wished it didn’t, but it was painful to remember her limbs entwined with his cousin’s so soon after telling him she loved him. And yes, he understood his part in pushing her away, in pushing her back to Woodman, and he regretfully owned it. But the loss he’d felt at the time, the betrayal, the sickening sense of “too late” wasn’t something he was anxious to relive.
“If it’s all the same to you? I get it. I do. I know why you ran to him. But I just . . .” Cain scrubbed his hand over his face, looking down at her face, which was cradled on his bicep. “I want to move on from that day. I don’t want to look back.”
She sighed, leaning against him. “Me too. I want to move on, but . . . Cain?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“You think we’re only bound by grief?”
He pressed his lips to her forehead. “Darlin’, I’m not even sure I know what that means.”
“Remember at the BBQ? We were spittin’ mad at each other. We could barely be civil. Now here we are, goin’ out on a date. Are we just doin’ this because we both miss Woodman and we’re sad and we lost him and we’re turnin’ to each other in our grief?” She gulped and he felt it against his chest. “And then, one day, we won’t be as sad anymore, and then you’ll remember I was the whore who told you she loved you and slept with your cousin, and I’ll remember you were the heartless bastard who threw my love back in my face.”
“Is that how you feel about me?” He knew his voice was rough, but it ached to hear her describe herself and him in such stark and awful terms.
She looked up at him, held his eyes in the dim light, and shook her head. “No. Not anymore. Not at all.” She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth and held it for a moment. Her voice was barely a whisper when she asked, “But is that how you still see me? On some level?”
“Not even a little,” he said sadly, “and I fuckin’ hate it that we ever felt that way about each other at all.”
She was quiet for a moment before saying, “Maybe . . . maybe we had to be there to get here.”
He nodded, leaning back so he could at her face, just inches from his own. “We’re bound by somethin’ much stronger than grief, Gin. We’re bound by memories and dreams and rides in the rain and skippin’ stones. By knowin’ each other as little kids and stupid, dreamy teenagers. By destroyin’ each other but still not bein’ able to let go. I can’t stop thinkin’ about you. And some of the time—fuck, most of the time—I’m pretty sure that I was made for you and you were made for me because there ain’t another woman in the world who affects me like you do. Maybe you’re right. Maybe we had to go through the bad to get to the good.”
He searched her eyes, his heart hammering as he lost himself in her gaze, surrendered himself to her warmth, which took the icy shards of their broken hearts and was somehow putting them back together. “I don’t know why or how. I only know this: We’re bound, princess. That’s all I know.”