by Lindy Zart
“I know. I’m an ass.”
Her anger faded at the look on her husband’s face. It was full of self-recrimination.
“And proud.”
He nodded somberly. “That too.”
She felt herself soften toward him, as she always did. Cole looked so young, so pitiful. “I still love you.”
Cole looked up, flashing a grin brighter than the sun. “Good to know.”
“But if I was dead, I wouldn’t.”
“I’d still love you if I was dead,” he retorted, trailing a hand along her hip and causing her to shiver.
“Okay, you two, it’s fun watching you almost making out and everything, but can we get going?” Spencer asked from where he lounged on the seat, Gracie beside him.
Cole moved to captain the boat and Sara walked toward Lincoln. The boat lurched forward as it accelerated, Sara grabbing the ledge to steady herself. She adjusted the yellow swim shorts as she neared him, tightening the straps of the turquoise bikini top. He didn’t look at her as she approached, his cool gaze trained ahead.
“Thank you,” she said quietly, sitting in the seat next to him.
Lincoln glanced at her. “I was scared out of mind, Sara, when you went under and I couldn’t see you. I—“
“Earth to Sara.” She ran into Lincoln’s chest, his hands steadying her as he set her back. “Sleepwalking again?”
She shrugged, her face burning. I don’t know what I would have done if anything had happened to you. That’s what he’d said. She hadn’t wanted to think about what it could have or could not have meant at the time. Sara wasn’t inclined to think about it that much now either. And yet…why had he brought up that day? Was he trying to tell her something without telling her something? Was she looking into it too much? Did he want her to remember what he’d said? Did Lincoln remember what he’d said?
“Why that day, Lincoln?” she pressed. An icy sharp wind started, tousling her hair around her face. Sara impatiently pushed it behind her ears, not letting Lincoln look away.
His neck convulsed as he swallowed. But he didn’t look away. Lincoln’s eyes were zeroed in on hers, looking at her in a way that made pressure form in her chest. “That was the day things changed for me.”
“Meaning?”
Lincoln finally looked away, tapping a pad of paper against his thigh. “Do you remember what I said to you, after it happened?”
Sara wasn’t prone to lying. She didn’t like being lied to and she didn’t like doing it to others. He was so intense, so still as he waited, like what she said mattered astronomically to him. Lie, Sara. For him. For you. Lie.
She opened her mouth—
“Yoo hoo! Mr. Walker!” a short, stout lady with graying blond hair called, waving from the barn entrance. She had on paint-splattered jeans and a blue flannel jacket.
Lincoln sucked in a lungful of air, giving Sara a wry glance. “There’s the possible client. Better say hello.”
He strode toward the middle-aged woman and Sara followed, frowning at the realization that she didn’t think she could lie to Lincoln. Not about something that seemed so important to him. Not about anything.
14
She found him by the stream at the back of the house. It was still winter, but March was on the horizon and that let Sara think maybe the snow wouldn’t linger too much longer. Still, she was glad for her winter coat, gloves, and boots as she made her way through the foot of packed dirty snow. Spindly trees surrounded them, caked with white. The sun was behind clouds, casting grayness to the air that Sara imagined would resemble her heart if it were to be cut open. Icy, gloomy, numb; that was her. Broken. Splintered. Oozing sorrow like a shallow wound oozed blood. Only her wound wasn’t shallow; it was bone deep, right into the marrow.
Lincoln’s head was uncovered and the gentle breeze played with his dark waves. He wore jeans, boots, and a black sweatshirt. His head was down and she wondered what he was thinking about. Her eyes drank in the sight of his strong frame. He was more muscular than his brother had been; taller.
“Did you get the job?” Sara asked his back.
He slowly turned, no surprise showing on his face at her presence. She was sure he’d known she was near; he always seemed to know when she was close. Lincoln’s eyes went up the length of her until they connected with hers. Heat swept through her and Sara crossed her arms, looking at the slowly trickling stream of water. Most of it was frozen, but there were patches where water weaved through the ice.
“Of course I got the job.” His tone wasn’t arrogant, simply matter-of-fact.
“So…what are you doing?” Sara asked, not sure what to say. Just his nearness had put a crack in the numbness that was her. Maybe that was why she’d ended up at his place when she’d decided to go for an aimless drive. Lincoln was able to take the emotionlessness away.
“I’m wondering if I have it in me to swim across the massive body of water before me.”
The stream was about six feet in width. Sara looked at it and couldn’t help the snort of humor. Lincoln was taller than it was long. “I don’t know, Lincoln. I’m not sure you’re up to it.”
“Are you saying you doubt my masculinity?”
“You could just lie across it and call it good.”
It was his turn to snort. Lincoln glanced at her, a smile teasing his lips. “Now what would be the sport in that?”
Sara took a deep breath of frozen air, the air so cold it was hot inside her mouth and throat. “I remember what you said.”
He stiffened beside her, his expression giving away nothing. “What do you mean?”
“On the river, two summers ago, what you said. A few weeks ago you asked me if I remembered. I did. I do.”
Lincoln stared down at the ground. “It doesn’t matter.”
“But it must. I mean—you wouldn’t have brought it up otherwise, right? Is it supposed to mean something? I don’t understand the significance of it. Or maybe I do, but I don’t want to. Or…not. I don’t know what I’m trying to say.” Sara sighed and faced the wood house.
“It was nothing, Sara.”
He was lying to her. Sara turned her head so she could see his profile. He didn’t move, he didn’t blink, as her eyes perused the side of his face. “It was something,” she clipped out.
“You’re right. It was, but…” Lincoln sighed. “It doesn’t matter now.”
“Why doesn’t it matter?” She waited for his answer, wondering why she was having such a hard time sucking air into her lungs.
His eyes fixated on her; there was something about the endless gray depths of them; the way they smoldered like smoke from a fire, mysterious and magnetic. “I’m trying…so hard…to do the honorable thing, Sara,” Lincoln said, his voice harsh with emotion.
She frowned, moving back a step. “What do you mean, Lincoln?”
“I feel like Jekyll and Hyde most times I’m around you.” He studied her face. “You must think I’m crazy.”
“Right now, at this moment, yes, I do,” she said.
Lincoln didn’t laugh; he didn’t even smile. “When you want something so bad, when you deny yourself it, day after day, for so long, after a while, you ask yourself why you’re even doing it. You hope it will fade and die; you hope your secrets won’t be revealed, because it wouldn’t just kill you if they were, but it would kill other people as well. So you forsake yourself for the greater good, but sometimes, most times, it’s too much of a burden, Sara. Do you know what I’m saying?” he asked slowly.
She backed up another step, shaking her head. “No. I don’t,” she said, her voice cracking.
“Sara.” Lincoln moved for her.
Sara put a hand out. “Don’t.” She spun around, hurrying up the hill. He called after her in a ragged voice, but she didn’t pause, didn’t turn around. Tears, warm and unwanted, trickled down her face and her chest hurt so bad she wondered if she could pass out from it. Whatever he was trying to tell her, she didn’t want to know it. She couldn’t know i
t.
***
As soon as the door opened, she blurted, “I’m sorry.”
He blinked tired eyes at her, moving away from the door to let her enter. “For what?”
“For the other day, when I left. I’m sorry. And also, for now, for showing up so late and unannounced. It’s almost ten at night and you probably have to work tomorrow.” She was shivering, partly from the cold, partly from the words that had haunted her since the minute Lincoln had spoken them.
Lincoln groaned, rubbing his eyes, making them redder than they already were. “Oh my God, Sara, I’m so sick of hearing you say that. I don’t want your apologies.” He turned away from her.
“Then what?” She swallowed; eyes on his tense back. “What do you want?”
He swung around, locking her in place with his gaze. “Do you really want to ask that?”
Sara backpedaled from the power of Lincoln’s gaze, from the ferocity of him. “I don’t know what you mean.” Yes, you do. She felt like she was playing a game and one false move and she would lose. But it wasn’t a game; it was their lives.
“You always say that. But I think you do.” He cocked his head. “Maybe you just don’t want to.” Lincoln stepped toward her. “I’m sick of this, Sara. I’m sick of you blaming yourself, I’m sick of seeing you hurt like you do. I’m sick of pretending, I’m sick of being your buddy when all I want to do is…” Lincoln pressed his lips together, shaking his head.
Sara sucked in fast breaths, her hands opening and closing at her sides. She showed Lincoln her back, his words incomprehensible, the look in his eyes undeniable. Sara closed her eyes against it, but it was burned into her retinas. She couldn’t make it unseen. She couldn’t remove it from her mind.
“I saw you first,” whispered through the air.
Sara stiffened, her heart immediately beating too fast. She kept her back to him. “What?” came out strangled.
“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.”
Sara opened her mouth, but nothing would come out. Her pulse was racing and she knew if she voiced her thoughts, nothing could go back to the way it used to be. Maybe it couldn’t already anyway. Maybe that was done; those people she and Lincoln used to be no longer existed. The way Sara was now, the person standing before her; that was who she and Lincoln were now, be it good or bad, wrong or right.
Her stomach dipped. “I…Lincoln, I have…feelings for you. I don’t know how that happened or when exactly, but it did. I don’t even know what they are, but I have them. Do you know how that makes me feel? Horrible. I feel like a horrible person. I just know…I can’t turn them off and I wish I could and I don’t even understand what they are, not really. It scares me. I’m scared.” Sara’s eyes burned and her throat tried to close.
Lincoln slammed his fingers through his hair, messing the waves up. His eyes were pained, his mouth turned down. “How do you think I feel? He is…he was…my brother. I’ve wanted you since the day I met you. How do you think that makes me feel? I’m torn up inside, Sara. My insides are ravaged and ruined and I don’t care. I don’t care. All I know is it hurts to look at you and it hurts even more not to. I need you. I need you.
“It doesn’t matter that he’s my brother, it doesn’t matter that he is…was…your husband. It doesn’t stop me from needing you. I see you when I wake up, I dream of you, I see you in every woman’s face and I see you in the sky and even the grass. You’re everywhere. You’re everything. That’s all that matters. You’re all that matters. So hate me. Neve
r speak to me again. Doesn’t matter. I’ll still need you. I’ll need you till I take my last breath and I’ll need you even after that,” he panted, his chest heaving up and down.
“Stop, Lincoln, don’t.” He was making it worse. She couldn’t hear anymore. It hurt. Her heart was breaking, hearing the words pouring from Lincoln, hearing the conviction in them. This was wrong; it had to be wrong.
But he wouldn’t stop. Maybe he couldn’t. Lincoln continued, relentless. “All those times I wanted to hold you, all those times I wanted to pull you into my arms and couldn’t, not the way I wanted to, not the way you needed me to, but would never admit; it killed me, Sara. It’s still killing me. I want you for mine. I want you always.
“I started to slip up. These last few months…I couldn’t stay away. I couldn’t pretend anymore. That’s why I’ve been acting so—so crazy. It was too much, loving you and not being able to. Every time I saw you, I just wanted to hold you and take your pain away. And I know I did. I know you feel it too. But you don’t want to.”
“Please,” she beseeched, wanting to shut off the sound of his voice, wanting to stop the sinking feeling taking over her. She was falling, fading, suffocating from it all. Her, him, them. Words she didn’t want to hear, but couldn’t not hear—it was destroying her. The way she felt, not knowing how she felt, and about her husband’s brother; it was agony.
Lincoln reached for her, his hands cupping her cheeks. “I want you, Sara. I’ve always wanted you. Damaged, broken, irrevocably ruined, I still want you. It doesn’t matter to me. I don’t care. I’ll always want you. No matter what. No matter where you are. If you’re with me or not; I’ll want you. It’s not ever going away. Maybe Cole was it for you, maybe none of this matters, and I’m tearing out my soul for you for no reason, but…you were it for me. You’re it for me, Sara. Always have been.”
Sara stared at him, seeing how unhinged he was, her breath leaving her much too quickly when Lincoln raised his intense eyes to hers, not once removing his gaze from her face as the minutes slowly ticked by. His words washed over her, seeped into her, warmed her, and made the numbness go away. She blinked her eyes against tears, feeling so many conflicting emotions she had no control over. It didn’t matter what she wanted to feel or not feel; she felt what she did, and what Sara felt scared her.
