God, the care in his voice, layered with absolute steel. “Not the way you think,” she managed. “Not…physically.”
His thumb stroked over her skin, rough with calluses but somehow comforting. “There’s a lot of ways to hurt someone,” he finally said. “To make them bleed.”
The utter truth. And since she didn’t trust herself to speak, she didn’t.
“Little Lucas is an idiot,” he said.
A shocked laugh bubbled out of her, and she lifted her head as her heart began a heavy beat. Because she knew what was coming next.
The kiss.
Her gaze fell to his lips, which seemed to curve slightly. “You going to give me a topic?” he asked.
She blinked. “Topic?”
“For my three truths and a lie.”
Oh. Right. He’d just given her a stay from paying up. Even if she wasn’t all that sure she wanted one. “Your topic is…” There were so many things she wanted to know about him. Where he’d been, what he’d been doing, if he was staying…But he’d been good to her, so she started with what she thought might be the easiest for him. “What brought you back to Cedar Ridge?”
He took a long pull on the bottle and offered it to her. She drank, too, incredibly aware that her mouth was right where his had just been.
He appeared to think about his answers for a moment before speaking. “One,” he said quietly. “For the past nine years, the military’s been my family. Two, I just recently lost someone close to me there, someone I thought of as a brother. Three, afterward I realized I had blood family that I’d walked away from and shouldn’t have. Four…” He shrugged. “So I came back. It was natural for me to do so. There’s a lot for me to do here, work-wise and family-wise.”
She was pretty amazed at his work ethic, that he’d take on lake patrol shifts while on leave…and also impressed that he wanted to make things right with his family. That said a lot about him.
And he’d been right when he’d said he was good at this game. He was good. But maybe because pain recognized pain, she could easily see his lie.
A few minutes ago Jacob had wanted nothing more than to have five minutes alone with Sophie’s ex for ever making this warm, sweet, sexy, amazing woman hurt, however he’d hurt her.
But then she’d switched the game up on him, put him beneath the microscope, and that sucked. He waited while she studied him, but it sure wasn’t easy, not after he’d just unintentionally stripped himself bare-ass naked for her.
Or maybe it had been intentional. Maybe he’d wanted someone to hear him, to forgive him.
Turning the bottle in his hand, he studied the way the light from the boat’s control panel shined through the liquid, which was how his legs felt at the moment. Liquid. Good thing he was sitting down.
Her voice washed over him. “Four’s the lie.”
He didn’t ask how she knew. Somehow, as the night had fallen, the sky going black, cocooning them into the illusion that they were entirely alone on the planet, creating a sensation of intimacy, it didn’t matter that she’d seen right through him.
“And you cheated too,” she said. “Because it was only half a lie. You came back, but it wasn’t natural at all, was it?”
He slowly shook his head.
Unbelievably, she used his own tactic against him and waited him out. He couldn’t remember anyone ever doing that before.
Nor had he ever cared. He told himself he didn’t care now, that the Scotch had just gone to his head. But the truth was that Sophie Marren had gone to his head. Sophie of the sharp yet somehow vulnerable eyes, Sophie with the sweet laugh and sexy body, just out of arm’s reach… “I made a mistake in walking away from my family like I did,” he said. “At the time I thought I had no choice, but I was wrong, something I didn’t realize until…” Christ. He closed his mouth, unable to spell it out.
Sophie slid her hand into his and squeezed as if she was willing her strength to become his. “Your brother-in-arms died,” she finished for him gently.
“Brett,” he managed. “Killed in a roadside bombing.”
Soft green eyes cradled his. “I can’t even imagine,” she said. “But you know it wasn’t your fault, right?”
“Yeah.” He paused and then admitted the rest. “But I feel guilty all the same.”
“Life’s unfair,” she said. “Bitterly so. But being home again must be a bittersweet silver lining?”
Because her gaze was so clear and deep, making him feel exposed, something he didn’t do ever, he closed his eyes. “Coming here is about guilt too,” he said. “I just kept thinking if it’d been me who’d died, Hud would’ve gotten a letter or someone at the door. After all those years of not seeing him, a stranger would’ve had to say good-bye for me. I was selfish to stay away from him for so long.”
“What about your mom?”
He opened his eyes and stared at her. Shit. She was a sharp one. “I’ve seen her,” he said, admitting a truth he’d told no one before, not even Hud. “I came into town whenever I was on leave to check on her.”
She raised a brow. “Hud didn’t know?”