Page 34 of The Summer We Kept Secrets (The Destin Diaries #4)

She tapped her green bottle to his. “To free therapy.”

“Oh, you want some now?” he asked before taking a sip.

“Not me, my favorite idiot. You . You are going to unpeel your onion, and I’ll be the therapist. Come on, let’s drop the anchor and get comfy.”

A few minutes later, the Sea Ray was bobbing in the water, and they were stretched out on their backs, side by side on the bow.

He propped his arms behind his head, regarding her from under his lashes, which were easy to see since he’d left his glasses on the console.

“So where do you want to start?”

“Your emotional damage from…” She bit her lip. “That linoleum today. Don’t you need closure?”

Chuckling, he looked at the sky. “Tip number one: never go for closure. You want to open all the dark, soft, wounded areas.”

“God, your job sounds like fun. And I thought stringing vineyard lights for atmosphere was challenging.”

“It can be fun,” he said. “Sometimes in those wounds, you mine gold.”

She regarded him through narrowed eyes, wondering where his gold was and how she could get it. “Then tell me why, Dusty Mathers, you were such a bad, bad boy and now you are a good, good man.”

“I think that’s a country song.”

“Now that was a Tessa Wylie deflect,” she volleyed back. “Answer or I’ll make you swim laps around the boat.”

He laughed, but the smile disappeared after a moment. He turned a little, facing her, letting his fingertips graze her shoulder.

“Two words,” he said gruffly. “Dumpster fire. That’s the only way to describe my childhood.”

“I heard a rumor,” she said softly. “Dad drank and your mother…”

“What mother?” he scoffed. “My dad was a nasty SOB who once made my brother shovel dog poop with a soup spoon. In July.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. And my mom? Wasn’t even a ghost. Ghosts show up sometimes. She didn’t.”

Ghosts . She remembered the diary entry again. “It explains a lot of your behavior, Dusty.”

“Not all of it,” he said. “Crappy childhood is a good excuse, but as you love to point out, I am an idiot.”

“Far from it.”

“I did one good thing in my life,” he said.

“Kelly?” she guessed.

His whole expression changed. “Yeah. She was the first, last, and only perfect thing that ever happened to me and I still can’t figure out how or why.”

Tessa turned toward him, the only sound the slosh of waves against the hull. “Tell me about her.”

He thought for a long moment. “I just did—she was perfect. Grounded. Brilliant. Warm. When she found out she couldn’t have kids, she just accepted it.

When she found out she was going to die, she was more worried about everyone else than herself.

She trusted God, her family, and, for some reason, me. ”

“How did you meet?”

“We met when I was…well, let’s say I wasn’t the guy you see now. I was twenty-three, angry, hungover most mornings, but I’d gotten a job volunteering at a group therapy place for court-mandated teenagers.”

“Which are…”

“Kids who get told by a judge to get help for drugs, underage drinking, shoplifting, gangs. I’d been in a time or two in high school and got to be friends with the people that ran the clinic.

I was trying to clean up my act, so they helped by giving me a job…

ish.” He sighed deeply, lost in his memories.

“Kelly was in her first year working for a mental health non-profit and she came in to do an audit. We spent five minutes together and I knew then and there I couldn’t live without her. ”

Everything in Tessa just melted. “Oh. That’s…romantic.”

“Or I was being an idiot again,” he joked.

“That woman taught me everything from how to fold fitted sheets, to paying taxes and making meals that weren’t frozen.

She was the first grown-up I ever met who wanted to keep me and, honestly, she helped me become a real… man.” His voice cracked on that word.

Tessa’s throat tightened. What would it be like to not think anyone wanted you? That was an emotion Tessa never had, and for that, she was grateful.

“But she got sick,” he continued. “It was slow and ugly, an insidious blood disease that sounds like a toy but sure isn’t.”

“What was it?” she asked.

“It’s called aplastic anemia, which is a rare condition where the blood marrow stops producing new cells.

Hers was chronic, started kind of quietly with fatigue and bruising and infections.

One day, it all blew up into a semi-permanent residence at the ICU with lots of transfusions and, ultimately, internal bleeding that couldn’t be stopped. ”

“Oh.” Her whole body ached just thinking about it, and she put a comforting hand on his arm. “God bless you for going through that.”

“The last three years were sheer hell. I took care of her full-time.” He swallowed. “But she died at home, which was nice, in the bed we used to share. I was holding her hand.”

She closed her eyes, empathetic pain punching her.

“And now?” he added, his voice reed-thin. “Now I want easy. I want fun. I want to sleep in the middle of the bed and not wake up to check if the person next to me is breathing.”

Tessa didn’t respond right away. She watched the sun wink over the horizon, slow and golden and impossibly still. She let her mind replay every word he’d just said, imagined him feeding, loving, bathing, and hand-holding his sick wife.

She couldn’t help realizing all that told her about this man.

“At the risk of not getting paid for my therapy services,” she finally said, forcing herself to keep her voice light. “Can I ask you a question you might not like?”

“They’re the best kind.”

She sat up a little. “Why are you lying to yourself about what you want from a woman?”

He just looked at her, silent.

“I mean, you say you want fun and frivolous, and no commitment or caretaking, just a great time with someone who may or may not stick around, you don’t really care.”

He flinched. “I don’t know if that’s exactly what I said.”

“It’s exactly what I heard.”

“Fair enough,” he conceded. “And you don’t think that’s true?”

“Not one syllable.”

He blinked. “What?”

She was being honest now, and couldn’t stop. “I don’t think you want just fun and easy. No one who’s had a love like you’ve had wants to face the possibility of never having it again. No one who has loved with that much ferocity can exist without something like it in their life.”

He stared at her, silent.

“I get that you don’t think you will want it again. I get that you want to figure out how—or if—you can be alone without losing yourself. You want to believe you can survive without it. I get that.”

He took a shaky breath. “And?”

“And you are surviving,” she added. “But you’re lonely as hell.”

“Wow.” He exhaled. “Hey, if the event planning thing doesn’t work out for you, you might have a future as a therapist.”

“I just like you, Dusty,” she whispered, the truth bombs obviously still detonating. “And I can see through you and into you. Also, if you think any of that made me like you less? You’d be dead wrong. It was like a love potion and I’m…feeling drunk. And, apparently, quite honest.”

For a long moment, he just looked at her, the storm of emotions in his eyes subsiding, leaving a hint of a smile.

“So, you like me, huh?” He inched closer, his smile widening.

She put a hand on his chest, holding him back with a sure touch, not quite ready to give up the fight to the inevitable kiss.

“Why do you say you want a good-time girl, Dusty? Why not go find another real thing? Something that lasts?”

His mouth twisted into something sad and raw as he moved away and let his head drop back. “Now we’re getting to the wound.”

“Open it,” she urged.

He closed his eyes. “Because I don’t deserve that twice . I barely deserved it the first time. Kelly was the kind of woman you only get once in a lifetime.”

“That’s not true.”

“You don’t know that,” he shot back.

“I know you. ” Her voice cracked a little, but she didn’t care.

This was serious and important and needed to be said.

“You’re kind and funny and—God help me— brilliant at figuring people out.

You don’t have to earn love by being perfect, Dusty.

You just have to let someone in. I know because I never have. ”

“Would you?” he asked. “I mean…if the right guy happened to be on the bow with you in the sunset?”

Tessa froze, heart hammering. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t think I’ve ever offered that to anyone before.”

He reached for her hand and eased her closer, his fingers warm, his grip gentle. Neither of them moved for a long time.

Then, slowly, like gravity was pulling them together, he leaned forward and kissed her.

It wasn’t wild. It wasn’t rushed. It was careful and warm and deep, like they both knew this was a line they couldn’t uncross.

And when he finally pulled away, she sat back hard against the bow bed, breath gone, heart racing.

“Wow,” she murmured.

He didn’t answer. But he looked at her like he was afraid to say anything that might break the spell.

She wanted to say something. Wanted to ask him to try, to risk, to want more.

But she didn’t. She could only be so honest, so she drifted back into character with an easy laugh and a wink. “I think I like therapy.”

He grinned and they just rested there without saying a word until the sun had disappeared over the horizon. Eventually, they pulled up the anchor and rode back to the marina. The whole time, her heart felt like a tangle of nerves and hope.

Because she didn’t want to be his no-strings girl.

And she wasn’t sure he’d ever let anyone have his heart again.