The Girl in the Mirror (Sand & Fog #3) (45 page)

“Really? Could have fooled me. You hardly looked at me in three hours of driving.”

He grins. “Oh, I wanted to look, but every time I looked at you I started thinking things. Had to stop myself. Try to keep myself out of trouble.”

I crinkle my nose. “Didn’t work, though, did it?”

His smile grows larger, happier, and for a moment I wonder why, then I realize I said that in my throaty, flirty way.

His eyes hold mine, lushly hazel. “No, it didn’t. Not looking at you didn’t stop a darn thing. I thought things anyway. And I haven’t stop thinking about you since.”

I laugh, adjusting in my seat as I shake my head.

We drive for a while not talking again, but it feels comfortable, almost like neither of us wants to dare disturb it, and I go back to staring at the beach and the houses.

Houses.

My dad’s.

A jolt rockets through my body.

We’re in Malibu.

We should have turned off long ago.

Racing pulse and frantic breaths.

My fingers tightly grip the armrest and I rapidly scan the fast-changing view through the windshield.

“Jacob, what are you doing? Where are we going?”

“Krystal, calm down, babe—”

“Don’t tell me to calm down. I don’t know where I am. We’re not even in Malibu anymore. We’ve missed the turn for the doctor’s. We’re not going there, are we? What are you doing? Stop the car. Stop it now.”

“Shush, Krystal. I’ll stop. I’ll explain. Don’t get upset, sweetheart. You’re with me. I’m your husband. It’s OK.”

I’m with, Jacob, I tell myself, but my breaths come in frantic spurts anyway. His hand reaches out for me but whatever he sees on my face stops it, hovering above me not touching.

“Look. Look, babe. I’m pulling off on the side of the road. Whatever you want is what we do. You’re in control of what you do, Krystal. You always have been with me. Watch. I’m parking.”

The second the car stops, I open the door and ease myself out before Jacob can get to me.

Falling back against the car, I try to stop my racing heart. It’s a panic attack, Krystal. You’re behaving ridiculously. You’re with your husband. There’s nothing to fear. But the world spins anyway.

“Breathe, babe. It’s OK.”

He reaches for me and I twist away.

“Oh fuck,” he whispers and his fingers clutch his forehead. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. This is not how I thought this would go. I wouldn’t have done it if I did. This is not what I wanted. Not for you to panic because you don’t know where I’m going. Goddamn it, I didn’t think, babe. I got lost in the drive and being alone with you…”

His voice trails off and I lock my eyes on him.

Oh God—he looks like I’m tearing him apart.

Like my agony is his agony, and he feels it even more than me. Oh jeez, I don’t want this. I need to stop this now for him.

I suck in air.

I push it out.

I count in my head.

Slowly my body becomes less agitated and his words play in my head, less frightening and with more clarity.

I stare at the dirt. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you in the car. I can’t control the attacks. They’re not about you, Jacob. You know that. Can you explain what it is we’re doing?”

He brushes at his face.

There are tears on his cheeks.

He shakes his head, clutching his hair even more fiercely as if to hold himself together. “It doesn’t matter, babe. Bad idea. We’ll go back to Pacific Palisades.”

I study him for a moment, unsure what’s happening or even what I want to do. “What idea?”

He takes in a deep breath, then looks at me. “I just wanted to take you somewhere we could be alone together as we work through this. Like it used to be. Just you and me. I see how hard it is for you having your family around all the time. How much you struggle and hurt. I can see how hard it is”—the lump in his throat bobs—“being with me. I thought it might be easier for you somewhere quieter and with less people.”

Quieter?

Less people?

“Where, Jacob? Where were you taking me?”

He makes a croak, a mix of self-jeering laughter and tears. “Orcas Island. I thought maybe time with Jane might help you…since I can’t.”

My heart stills.

Oh God.

Those hazel eyes meet mine, pleading and filling me with anguish. “I’m just trying to find a way back to you, babe.”

My lids tightly close—
I’m trying to find a way back to me, Jacob
—and when I open my eyes again he’s waiting, staring of at the ocean like a guy who doesn’t know what to do.

“You’re taking me to Orcas Island with you? That’s what happening here?”

He shakes his head. “No, where we go is up to you. Your decision. If you get in the car; your decision. What we do; your decision. We do only what you want when you want to. I thought on Orcas it would be like it was for us before. You in control of every aspect of your life again, sweetheart. And me, there for you, and waiting for you to love me.”

Two days later, I lean over the rail on the ferry, watching the dark, choppy water of the Georgia Strait disappearing beneath the boat. The sun is bright, the soft blue sky dappled with fluffy white colds, and the air is cold as the small San Juan Island, which is to be temporary home according to Jacob, comes into view.

Temporary home?

Strange, but I’m not sure

Stranger, I’m not panicking.

Back in Malibu, I climbed into the car and left California with Jacob, without a call to my family or even a clear idea in my head of what we were doing. Only that we were leaving and somehow he thought it would help me—
no, us.

Emotion lodges painfully in my throat. I’d been so self-absorbed in my own misery that, until that moment with Jacob on the side of the road, I’d failed to realize what happened to me happened to both of us and he was suffering, too.

Seeing his hurt gave me the strength to get back into the car and leave with him. And then the strangest thing happened—I’m not exactly sure why—the farther up the coast we got on the 101 freeway the less my insides jumped and my thoughts churned.

I stared at the ocean and the small, serene cities on the central coast we whizzed by—the air fresher, the roads less crowded, what people we saw strangers—and enveloped in the gentle presence of a man I’d nearly forgotten how it felt to love, I could breathe again.

We stayed two nights in hotel rooms to make the long drive from Pacific Palisades to the Puget Sound easier for me.

The first night, when Jacob grabbed our suitcases and I’d realized he’d packed for me, I felt a twinge of that upward panic. For a moment I doubted him saying whatever we did would be my choice because, hell, he had packed, booked rooms, called Jane, gotten things ready, and seemed darn determined about this.

But I worked through the mini attack rather quickly, and the days on the road were the most restful I’d passed in months.

True, we didn’t share a bed. Double rooms with two queen beds, and without my asking, Jacob had stretched out each night on the one across from me.

I was surprised it didn’t hurt for him to choose on his own to keep distance from me, but I’d slept, deep, untroubled, dreamless sleep.

An island becomes clearer on the horizon. It’s lovely, but it doesn’t look like much. If there’s a city there, I can’t see it. I wonder if that’s the island we’re going to.

“You doing all right, babe?”

I turn my head to find Jacob holding out a Styrofoam cup of coffee for me. Taking it, I clutch it in my palms to heat my hands.

“I’m good. I’ve never been in the Puget Sound before. It feels so remote here.”

Laughing, he leans with his back against the rail, facing me. “I love it here. The feeling of isolation, even if it is only an illusion. It’s a short hop east to Vancouver and short hop south to Seattle.”

I take a sip of my coffee. “What’s Olga Village like?”

He smiles, amused. “Pretty much how it looks at the ferry landing.”

I crinkle my nose. “And Jane knows we’re coming, that you’re bringing me?”

He arches a brow. “Of course she does. Why do you say it that way?”

My head tilts. “Ah—because your sister doesn’t like me.”

“Wrong. Jane doesn’t know you. She’s going to love you the second she meets you.”

I focus on my coffee and the changing landscape, instead of following up on that one.

Love me, huh?

In three years she’s never called me first. I reach out but she doesn’t return the gesture, and at best, Jane only tolerated me whenever we spoke. And now Jacob is dropping on her doorstep with me—crippled, fucked up, emotionally damaged me.

This ought to be a winner of a first introduction to Jacob’s sister. I start to laugh, infused with a sensation I could nearly term ‘carefree.’ I’m not sure where it’s coming from—this illogical blend of
giddy, well, fuck it
—except after e
verything
what’s the point in getting worked up over Jane?

Jacob’s watching gaze brightens. “Why are you laughing?”

I lift my chin. “I don’t know. I don’t care. I’m just going with it.”

The color in his eyes deepens. “Laugh all you want. It’s nice to hear you laugh again.”

A forgotten sensation moves through my flesh out of nowhere, an awareness of him and an awareness of me. New, remembered, glorious and frightening all at once.

Horns blare and I look away from Jacob, realizing we’re reducing speed and about to dock.

“Is this our stop?”

“This is it,” he says, smiling. “Do you want to stay here or go back to the car?”

I study the empty streets and the few structures there. Not even a village, like a charming rest stop and nothing more.

“We can go back to the car if you want to.”

I grab my crutches and follow him to the stairs. He carries me down to the level with the parked vehicles, and then I plant and swing my way to our car.

“How’s your leg?” he asks, opening the door for me and waiting for me to lean and hand him my crutches.

“Good.” I make a face. “It’s my arms and shoulders that are sore.”

He lifts me up to the passenger seat and buckles me in. I can tell he’s thinking something and debating whether to say it.

He steps back and closes my door.

After over an hour of narrow, tree-lined roads that pretend to be a highway, through lush vegetation only sparsely dotted by homes, he turns down an even narrower road that heads toward the beach.

A small community lies ahead.

“Olga Village?”

He laughs. “I told you, one-mule town.
Village
doesn’t quite pass the smell test for honesty in vacation promotion.”

“People vacation here?”

“Oh yeah. It’s crowded in the summer. The San Juan Islands are very popular. Especially with people from Seattle.”

I shrug. “I never heard of them before you.”

He smiles. “That’s probably because it’s like the poor man in Washington’s Tahiti.”

It’s nice to hear him joke.

I crinkle my nose. “I haven’t been there either.”

“No?” He sounds surprised.

“No. Always dancing. Never traveling. But the rest of the family have been pretty much everywhere. Even Mom who hates to leave the beach.”

His lips twist into a smile I can’t easily define. “It’s funny that I should love you so much and know so little about you before me.”

My heart turns over. “You know everything about me.”

His gaze locks with mine again. “Not yet. But I plan to.”

My pulse kicks up, even knowing what I’m seeing in his face is wistfulness and regret. A click, click, click makes me look away from him. The red arrow is flashing in the dash.

We’re turning into a driveway.

I stare through the windshield as we go down a bumpy gravel road through un-landscaped acres and stop in front of a small wood house, painted a bright yellow, with a white rail porch tinkling with chimes.

A quaint, charming storybook cottage cheerfully decorated with beach themes. Large white wicker furniture, a double swing, chimes made of shells, and a door sign with curling numbers and starfish painted on it.

Not what I expected given it’s where Jane lives. A house that seems more like Jacob than her. Friendly and quiet. She always seemed so morose and unfriendly.

Jacob lifts me from the car and is retrieving my crutches when I hear, “Hey, bro. You made it,” on a loud, sweetly feminine, excited voice.

I turn as Jane rushes down the steps and into Jacob’s arms. They hug each other, and watching them makes my insides melt and me feel good that I pushed myself to do this. He’s missed his sister, and hasn’t seen her in too long because of me.

“You look good, Jane.” Jacob’s smile is enormous.

She shakes her face in front of her brother’s. “I am good. I’ve told you that. You just don’t believe me. Maybe next time you won’t wait four years to check out for yourself how I’m doing.”

He narrows his eyes at her, but his expression is playful. “Had to get one in, in the first two minutes, didn’t you?”

Laughing, she shrugs. “I don’t want you to wait four years to visit again.” She looks around the yard and her smiling hazel eyes settle on me. She hurries toward me as I hobble around the car. “You must be Krystal.”

“I’m really glad to finally meet you, Jane.”

We stare at each other, smiling, and while the tension between us isn’t unnoticed, I wouldn’t call it awful either. More like unsure of each other, not friends, but not enemies, and I wonder if that’s a result of her or me—or maybe having both gone through that one thing we have in common other than Jacob.

“You must be tried from traveling all day,” she says abruptly. “Why don’t I show you where you’ll be staying?” As she gestures me to the door, she looks at her brother. “Grab the bags, Jacob. I’m going to get Krystal settled in.”

* * *

“Jacob”

I hear a soft click and turn my head to see Jane moving from the bedroom to the living room. I sit up on the couch and check my watch. 11:30 p.m. They’ve been talking quietly behind closed doors for four hours. I couldn’t hear a word, though I wanted to, but maybe it’s better that I didn’t.

I study my sister’s face—she gives the term
poker face
an all new definition. “Everything OK?”