The Restarting Point

by Marci Bolden

  “It’s kind of hard not to.”

  “I know,” she said gently, “and I’m sorry for that.”

  Another lingering silence filled the call. Xander redirected the conversation back to the cabin, the lake, and wondering how soon they could visit again. Jade was thankful for the distraction, but the resentment she was so determined not to feel had started simmering in the back of her mind.

  Thirteen

  Jade had just turned on the shower to warm the water and wash away an absolutely horrid day when someone knocked on the front door of her cabin. Her first instinct was to ignore whoever had come calling so late in the evening, but then she recalled Darby’s insecurity and Taylor’s frustration. Whatever had brought one of them over at this hour likely needed to be addressed, and the sooner the better.

  After turning the water off, Jade wrapped herself in her swimsuit cover since she didn’t have a robe at the cabin and walked to the door. As soon as she yanked it open, her stomach clenched. “Liam? What are you doing here?”

  He gave her one of his sly smiles as he held up her cooler. “You forgot this in the midst of your tantrum.”

  Jade narrowed her eyes at him and reached for the cooler. Before she could grip the handle, he pulled it from her reach. She crossed her arms, leaned against the doorjamb, and scowled at him. “You accuse me of having a tantrum and then play keep-away. I’m not sure you’re equipped to accurately assess my level of maturity.”

  “Invite me in,” he said.

  She looked down at her knee-length wrap. Though the teal material covered all the essential areas, it barely did so. The area where the material crisscrossed left a precariously high slit between her thighs and, while the front of the top looked more like a sun dress, the back was open down to her waist. Though Liam had no way of knowing, Jade was keenly aware that she was naked underneath the thin material. “I’m not dressed for company.”

  “So get dressed.” With that, he slid by her into the small living area of the cabin. “I’ll wait.”

  She closed the door. “I didn’t invite you in,” she stated as she turned around.

  Liam set her cooler on the counter and slowly took in the cabin. “We got off on the wrong foot when we met. I thought we were making progress toward righting that until you paddled away today.”

  “You know what,” Jade said flatly, “I’ve been through a lot lately, and I simply do not have the patience to deal with someone who wants to cast stones to distract from their real problems.”

  He smirked. “Isn’t that what you’re doing? Pretending to pick yourself up and carry on as if your divorce is just one more hurdle to overcome.”

  God, he knew how to light her fuse. Jade inhaled slowly, determined to not go yet another round with him. “Nick made his choice. I can’t change that, and I’m not going to wallow in something I can’t change. My choice to pick myself up and carry on is the only choice he left me.”

  “Stop with the tough guy act, Jade,” Liam said. “Having someone end a decades-old relationship is soul shattering. You don’t just dust yourself off and keep going.”

  “Oh, really?” she asked with a sarcastic lilt. “What should I do, Liam? How should I behave to appease you?”

  He put his hand to his heart and creased his brow. “You feel it, Jade. You were lied to. You were cheated on. That hurts. Let it hurt. Be angry. Cuss and throw things. But don’t just smile, go on an adventure, and act like you’re fine.”

  She leaned closer and blinked several times. “Wait. I told you my husband was leaving me. I never said he’d cheated. How do you… Darby,” she said. “Darby told you. Why would she do that?”

  He shrugged. “I asked.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I was curious,” he said as if that were the most obvious answer in the world.

  “Well, don’t be curious about me, Liam. It’s not your place.”

  He cocked his head. “It’s not my place? I didn’t realize I needed permission to want to know more about you.”

  “If you wanted to know more about me, you’d ask me, not my friend. Getting to know someone is a two-way street. Otherwise it’s just you taking a shortcut to get wherever the hell you’re trying to get.”

  The muscles in his jaw flexed like he was biting back the words he wanted to say. “The thing I’ve noticed about you, Jade,” he said after a few tense seconds, “is that you avoid the pain of your past like you can outrun it. You can’t. It will be there. Nick’s affair, your cancer, those things won’t ever leave you. They are part of you now. You have to…”

  “Thank them?” she asked sarcastically. “Thank Nick for breaking my heart and cancer for nearly killing me?”

  “Not Nick. Not the cancer,” he said softly. “Thank the lessons, Jade. Thank life for what you learned. Thank whatever force is pushing you, for the understanding that you’ve found, the strength you’ve found. Until you can do that, you aren’t moving on. You’re simply avoiding. That isn’t healthy.”

  Jade heard his words, but she was too enraged to actually hear them. “Thank you, Liam, for teaching me that I should be more careful of the company I keep.”

  Liam stared at her as if he didn’t know how to respond. Jade wasn’t going to allow herself to be swayed by his puppy dog eyes and pouty lips. She’d fought with Taylor. She’d fought with Liam. She’d found out her husband had not only signed divorce papers, but he couldn’t even wait for Jade to officially be out of his life before trying to introduce her kids to his girlfriend.

  The unexpected prick of tears forced her to roll her eyes and look away. “You need to leave.”

  He sighed and raked his hand over his hair. “Jade, I don’t know what I did to make you hate me—”

  “I don’t hate you.”

  “Well, you don’t seem to like me very much.”

  “I’ve had a bad day…year… I don’t need you confronting me because I’m not following your life mantras. You don’t know me. You don’t know anything about me. You don’t get to tell me how to recover.”

  He lowered his face. His shoulders sagged. “I guess I misread you.”

  “I guess you did,” she said and turned back toward the door to show him out.

  He gently grabbed her arm and stopped her. “I thought you needed a friend. I wanted to be that for you. I know what it’s like to have to start over with nothing. You’re standing on the edge of a precipice, putting on a brave face, but I can see that you’re terrified and hurt and all those other things that make a person feel weak. You’re not weak, Jade. You’re hurt. There’s a difference. I wanted to help.”

  The tears she’d been fighting ever since her call with Xander filled her eyes and trickled down her cheeks.

  Liam dragged his thumb across her cheek. “Let me help,” he all but begged.

  Jade ground her teeth together. How dare he put voice to the truth she’d been ignoring? How dare he shine light on the monsters hiding under her bed? That wasn’t his place.

  But he was right. To a point. She wasn’t avoiding and ignoring her pain, but she was keeping the pain in a cage in the corner of her mind. Liam wiped another tear from her cheek, and in that moment, she didn’t care if he was gasoline and she was fire and this was going to burn them both. As he looked down at her with concern in his eyes and tenderness on his face, her anger gave way to something else. Stupidity.

  Jade threw her arms around him and pressed her mouth to his. She hadn’t changed her mind about him. She still thought he was a womanizer who shouldn’t be trusted with her heart, but she didn’t care. Not when, once again, she felt like her world was crumbling around her.

  Only a few seconds passed before Jade realized Liam wasn’t reciprocating her kiss. She leaned back and met his wide-eyed gaze. Okay. She’d taken him by surprise. Now that he was expecting her advances, she tried again.

  Liam put his hands on her hips and pushed her back. “This isn’t why I came here.”

  “Oh really?” she asked with a di
sbelieving scoff.

  “I was worried about you.”

  Jade’s lips fell into a frown as once again she found herself feeling embarrassed in front of him. She didn’t know why she’d kissed him, but his rejection was the last bit of bullshit she could handle. The irritation that had been brewing turned into raw anger—anger at Taylor for treating Jade like she was too stupid to know what she was getting into with the cabin, anger at Nick for leaving her, and absolute fury at Liam for toying with her for the last few weeks only to push her away when she reciprocated.

  “I think we could be friends,” Liam continued as she pulled away from him, “but I don’t get why you keep giving me the cold shoulder.”

  “Because of this,” she said with a tense voice. “I knew you were playing games with me.”

  “What games?” he asked, sounding like he had the right to be fed up with her. He was the one who had come here, well into the evening hours, smiling and wiping her cheeks dry.

  “You’ve been coming on to me from the moment we met—”

  “I’ve been nice to you,” Liam corrected.

  “Please don’t act like you don’t know how you treat women. Like we’re disposable. Like we’re toys you can play with and throw away when you’re done.” She poked his chest with her pointer finger. “You did not show up here at ten o’clock at night to bring me a cooler and tell me you want to be my friend. You’re playing head games, and I’m not in the mood for them.”

  “Okay, this is…” he said calmly, “this is getting heated and I don’t think it’s all directed at me. I can take it, but you need to recognize that this isn’t about me as much as it is about your divorce.”

  She wanted to tell him to go to hell, but he wasn’t wrong. She wasn’t going to admit anything, however, not when she was so angry. Her day had finally taken its toll, and she was close to erupting.

  “Look,” Liam continued, “I admit that I’m a flirt. It’s who I am. But you…you have to know I’m not here to get you into bed. Don’t you?”

  Jade considered his words for a few moments. “You know what really bothers me about you, Liam?”

  “Somehow, I don’t think it’s my endless charms and boyish good looks,” he muttered.

  “You’re fake,” she said, her words dripping with accusation. “Your smiles and your winks and your smooth approach… They’re fake. You’re fake. And I’m really not in a place where I want to be around people who lie as easily as they breathe. I spent a year fighting for my life while my husband talked about a future he knew damn well he wasn’t going to be a part of. His lies might have had some noble intention, but they were fake, and I simply have no room for that kind of bullshit anymore.”

  Liam stared for several seconds before saying, “I didn’t realize I offended you so much.”

  “Well, you do.”

  “Okay,” he said softly. “Message received.”

  “Good.” She walked to the door and opened it in a silent gesture for him to leave.

  He made it all the way to the porch before turning around and holding her gaze. “Take some time for self-reflection, Jade. I’m not sure you’re as real as you like to think.”

  Rather than responding, she closed the door in his face and turned the deadbolt. “Jerk,” she muttered and headed back to the bathroom. She turned the shower on again, stripped down, and stepped in before the water had a chance to completely warm up. The cold water was a shock, causing her to gasp. As soon as the surprise wore off, however, the emotional outburst she’d had washed over her.

  She heard Liam’s words, saw the hurt in his eyes, and confusion filled her mind. Not just at her actions, but his. The mixed signals he’d been sending were too much. She couldn’t sort them out when she was such a tangled mess herself.

  Pressing her palms against the shower wall, Jade braced herself as a sob welled in her chest and burst forth. For about five minutes, she’d felt like she had her life together. For about five minutes, she thought she could pick herself up and move on. And why shouldn’t she? Nick had moved on. Nick had moved on a long time ago.

  And Taylor? Even though Jade cared about her, maybe it was best if Taylor walked away and left Jade and Darby to their unique friendship. Jade could find a different contractor to make the cabin what she wanted it to be. She and Darby could sit in the cove drinking juice out of fancy glasses and ignoring what the world thought of them.

  And Liam? Liam could go straight to hell. She didn’t need someone, even a friend, who couldn’t stop twisting and turning things around.

  Despite telling herself all those things, another cry escaped Jade and misery filled her chest.

  Jade hadn’t slept a wink. She finally rolled from her bed and wrapped herself in a blanket to sit by the cove as the sun rose. A layer of fog hovered just above the water as she put another log on the fire she’d built. The fire wasn’t quite warm enough to ward off the chill of the morning, but she refused to go back inside. Every time Jade walked into the living room, she remembered what an ass she’d made of herself the night before.

  She’d thrown herself at Liam. After accusing him of being a player, after accusing him of toying with her, she’d been the one to blatantly make a move. He was the one who threw cold water on the moment to stop her from doing something she’d regret.

  God. What an idiot she’d been! What an absolute fool.

  “You look cold,” Darby said softly. “I made you some hot tea.”

  Jade smiled when she was offered a cup. “Thank you. You’re up awfully early.”

  Darby shrugged. “I was worried.”

  “About what?”

  Darby sat in the chair next to her and pressed her hands together. Even though it wasn’t even seven in the morning, she’d taken time to put on a thick layer of makeup and curl her hair. Jade was beginning to wonder if she really did wake up looking like that.

  “You’re going to change your mind, aren’t you?” Darby asked. “About buying the cabin. You’re going to back out.”

  Jade offered her a soft smile and shook her head. “No. I’m not.”

  “Even though Taylor doesn’t want you to?”

  “It’s not Taylor’s decision, Darby. It’s mine. The only thing I’m starting to second-guess is if I should move here. I might just use it on the weekends.”

  Darby looked at her hands. “Why? I thought you wanted to be here.”

  “I think I just…” Jade blew out a long breath. “Taylor’s right about one thing. I’m not thinking clearly. Despite my determination to keep myself together, I’m kind of falling apart. I did something really stupid and embarrassing.”

  “What?”

  Jade winced and pulled the blanket closer around herself. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Darby sagged. “Come on, Jade. I’m the queen of doing stupid and embarrassing things. Maybe I can help you sort through it.”

  “Liam stopped by last night.”

  A dramatic gasp filled the air. “You shagged him?”

  “No,” Jade stated. “God, no. But”—she frowned as she considered how far things would have gone if Liam hadn’t put an end to her advances—“I kissed him.”

  Again, Darby gasped with all the melodrama of a soap opera actress. “You didn’t. Jade! Why? What happened?” She scooted her chair closer and tried to hide her excited smile. “Tell me everything.”

  Despite Darby’s enthusiasm, Jade’s mood sank a few notches. “Well, after going out on the lake with Liam, he pushed the wrong button and I paddled away like a defiant toddler. Then Taylor showed up and we had a few words about the cabin.” She glanced at Darby. “Which is not your fault, so don’t feel bad about that.”

  “If you say so,” Darby muttered.

  “Then I talked to my son and he told me that Nick signed the divorce papers.”

  “Oh,” Darby said. “I’m sorry.”

  Jade sighed. “Nick wants our boys to meet his girlfriend.”

  “Yuck.”

 
Burrowing deeper into her blanket, Jade frowned. “Yeah. So I was feeling really crappy and…Liam showed up at the cabin.”

  Leaning closer, Darby asked, “So you kissed him?”

  “Well, I told him I didn’t like him very much and we had a pretty heated exchange. Then I kissed him.”

  Darby’s eyebrows shot up. “What did he do?”

  Jade felt heat settling in her cheeks. “He rejected me.”

  “Liam?” she asked with wide eyes.

  “I know, right?” Jade laughed softly. “I told him he was fake and made him leave. But, of course, after he did, I realized he was right. I have been acting like an idiot. I made a fool of myself, Darby.” Rubbing cold fingertips into her forehead, Jade confessed, “I feel so humiliated.”

  “I’m so sorry, Jade. Just remember that you’ve been going through a lot. You’re not thinking clearly. You acted in a way that lots of people do. I know that doesn’t make it better, but sitting here beating yourself up isn’t going to change it. It happened. All you can do is what you’ve been doing since you got to Chammont Point. You have to keep moving forward.”

  Jade nodded. “Yeah. Easier said than done. I was mean to him, and he didn’t deserve that.”

  Darby ran her hand over Jade’s arm soothingly. “We all have bad days sometimes. I’m sure he’ll understand. Listen, I want you to know that if you decide not to buy the cabin, it’s okay. You don’t have to do that if you don’t want to. I’ll figure something out. I always do.”

  “I’m buying the cabin, Darby. That’s the only thing I do have clarity on. I want to.” Jade smiled at her friend. “My life has been hell lately, but you know what? Having you to talk me through it has been the best thing that’s happened to me in a long time.”

  Darby smiled and wiped a tear from her cheek. “Me too. I’m glad you’ll be my neighbor. If you decide you only want to spend weekends here, I’ll keep an eye on the cabin for you.”