He’d been about to say it. Or something close to it. I knew it.
Or at least I thought I knew it.
The way he’d been looking at me, the way he’d been fighting with his words, I thought Matt had been about to tell me something I’d waited years to hear from him. I mean, sure, he’d said them to me that first night on the island, but he’d been playing Jacob at the time, and I knew that had been the only reason he’d said them. He’d been saying them as Jacob, not as Matt.
Little did Matt know Jacob had never said those three words to me with half as much meaning as Matt had while faking them and pretending to be someone else.
Of course that would be the time Jacob would show up and essentially ruin the moment. He’d done that a lot, especially early on, when I’d first moved into the house with my mom. Whenever Matt and I would go play foosball together, or whenever we’d decide to watch a movie, or whatever the two of us had tried to do alone, Jacob always seemed to intervene.
I hadn’t thought much of it as a kid, assuming that as twins, the two of them were inseparable and where one was, the other wanted to be. It wasn’t that though. It was because Jacob had thought from the very beginning that he had some claim to me, just as I was finally starting to realize he still thought he did. Although the claim had matured into ownership.
He was the one who’d asked me to marry him, and I was the one who’d agreed. But that didn’t equate to ownership. At least, I hoped that wasn’t how marriage worked. It wasn’t like I’d had many shining examples of marriage in my own life.
I didn’t want to be owned. I didn’t want to be someone’s possession they could take off the shelf and put back whenever they wanted.
It was odd how one day could change a person’s whole perspective on their life; I felt like I’d just awoken from some dream I’d been living for years.
“Please, baby, don’t run off like that again. I was worried about you.” Jacob was still leading the way down the trail I’d taken to get out here, but I could tell he was waiting for me to take his hand as I had hundreds of times before.
Not this time.
It was exhausting to be the only one who reached for the other when it didn’t have to do with sex. Taxing to be the one who gave and gave until they felt run dry.
“I needed to think,” was all I said.
“About what?” When Jacob glanced back at my face, he sighed. “Never mind. Dumb question.”
He kept moving, checking over his shoulder every few steps to make sure I was there. It was like he was afraid I was going to run away or disappear again. I wasn’t used to Jacob being so attentive and, well, acting like he gave a shit.
“Did you have enough time to get everything worked out?” he asked as the trail opened up to the beach.
My eyes stayed forward, his locked on me. “No. It’s difficult to work things out when I don’t have your side of the story as to what happened the day of the wedding.”
Jacob’s jaw moved, like it had locked up and he had to work it loose. “Well, that’s what I thought we’d spend today getting out in the open. The wedding day.” He sniffed, his eyes flashing. “The wedding night.” He rolled his neck a few times. “And everything after. We’ve both got some explaining to do.”
I nodded as we headed down the beach, keeping a step behind him. The wind was stronger out here, the storm clouds more daunting. I couldn’t understand why no one besides us was on the beach though. It was beautiful. Everyone came to the beach for the blue sky and calm water, but the scene right now was just as, if not more, beautiful. A person just had to look a little closer to find the beauty in the midst of the storm.
“I booked the two of us a day at the hotel’s spa. I thought it would be the perfect way to talk and figure things out between us.” Jacob checked his watch. “I found you just in time. I made our appointment for ten.”
I wanted to remind him that he hadn’t found me—Matt had. But I knew that wouldn’t be helpful to any of us.
“No, not the spa.” My voice sounded strong, which made me feel even stronger.
Jacob’s head turned toward me. “You love the spa. It’s the perfect kind of day to spend at the spa.”
“No, you love the spa. And I loved you and part of that was going and doing the things you loved.” I couldn’t believe I had finally said that. Words I’d practiced in my head but had never had the courage to bring to life.
“What do you mean? Of course you love the spa. We go all the time.”
From the look on his face, he was truly surprised. He hadn’t had a clue, and that shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Jacob had always been so focused on himself and his wants, there wasn’t much left over to notice anyone else’s wants.
“No, I don’t like having strangers touch me. I don’t like the music or the smells or walking around in big bathrobes all day with other people.” I started to walk faster, getting ahead of him as the hotel came into view. “I’m not having this conversation with you at a spa. Thank you for trying, but no, I’m not in the mood to get into an argument in front of a bunch of strange people in what’s supposed to be a serene place.”
“Who says we’re going to get in an argument?” Jacob almost had to jog to keep up with my pace.
“Experience. The topic. The possible explanations.” My eyebrow lifted at him. “Take your pick.”
“Fine, I’ll cancel the spa.” He pulled out his phone. “Did you have something else in mind?” His tipped smile settled into place as his eyes ran down me.
My dress was a rumpled, dirty mess, and I felt like the rest of me kept with that theme. Jacob was looking at me like there wasn’t a flaw on me though. Not a single one. That was one of the things he’d always done well—made me feel special when he looked at me like that. It might have only been for a moment, and they might have come few and far between, but for however long it was, I knew I meant something to him.
“Maybe one of our rooms?” he suggested.
“Jacob, please don’t make me regret my decision to leave with you.”
“Regret your decision to leave Matt for me?” His voice wobbled once.
“Regret my decision to leave with you to have this discussion.”
My response didn’t seem to appease him, but his jealousy where Matt was concerned ran deep. He could catch me merely making eye contact with his twin brother and go off. I didn’t want to think about what would happen when I told him what had happened between us. Way, way more than making eye contact.
“Shit, Cora. I’m an asshole.” He rubbed his forehead as we wound up the path toward the hotel. “I’m sorry about last night—I’m sorry about suggesting that again right now. I should have realized you’d need some space and not been so forceful. I was just so relieved to see you. So desperate to be close to you.”
“There are more ways to be close to a person than sex.”
A few heads turned as we came in the lobby, probably because I looked like I’d just played a game of tag with the storm. Jacob ground his jaw when he noticed, then he slid out of his jacket and tucked it over my shoulders. He quickly led me back toward the elevators, his hands just barely curved around my shoulders.
“What did you have in mind? I’m game for anything. Just please, give me a chance to work this out?” He spun me around before touching the up button, waiting.
“I want to go on a hike. There’s a good one farther inland that passes by an old sugar plantation. I was planning on doing it when we came down here, and here we are.” I shrugged, waiting.
“A hike? In this weather?” Jacob blinked.
“The weather isn’t that bad. Some rain and wind. I’ve hiked in worse.”
“A hike?” Jacob repeated, like it wasn’t computing.
“I like to hike.”
“Since when?”
I shifted. Jacob had never accompanied me on any of the hikes I’d gone on. I’d asked plenty of times at first, but had gotten to a point where I didn’t ask anymore because I already knew his answer. “Since I was thirteen and went on my first hike in the Everglades.”
“And you went on this first hike that started your lifelong love affair with the hobby with whom?”
He knew. From the darkness bleeding into his eyes, I knew he knew.
“Matt took me,” I said, trying to keep all emotion out of my voice. God knew it wasn’t easy, not with everything happening between Matt and me. Not with everything I thought he had been about to say to me out there.
“Of course he did.” Jacob bit back whatever he was going to say right after that. Instead, he took a few slow breaths then hit the up button again. “Why don’t you go get changed for this hike? I’ll wait here and see if I can find a cab to drive us.”
When the elevator door chimed open behind me, I barely noticed. Had Jacob just gone along with my hike suggestion? Without so much as a few rounds of debate? Had he just suggested he wait here so I could have my space instead of being an opportunist and coming to my room with me? Hoping for a little time delay between wardrobe changes?
When he lifted his brows, waving toward the open doors, I guessed I had my answer.
“I’ll be right here,” he said, backing up to lean into the wall.
When the doors closed behind me, a million things fired in my mind. Some about Jacob. Some about Matt. Some even about me and deciding what I felt for these two men in my life. Who did I think I loved? And who did I really?
I didn’t take long to change, exchanging my dress for a pair of shorts, a tee, and some hiking boots that Matt had gotten me a few years ago when I’d told him I wanted to hike part of the Pacific Crest. I’d never gotten around to it because it was across the country and even a part of it was a serious time commitment, but every time I tied the boots on, I thought about that vision. The possibility of turning a dream into a reality.
Ten minutes later, the elevator doors opened on the first floor to reveal Jacob in the exact spot I’d left him. There wasn’t a drink in his hand that hadn’t been there before, already half gone. His eyes weren’t wandering the scene like they were trained to do. He was staring at the elevator like he hadn’t blinked since I’d left.
“I like it. Rugged chic.” Jacob motioned at me in my hiking digs, pushing off the wall like he was about to pull me into his arms. He stopped at the last minute, as though he knew I wouldn’t welcome it.
“You might want to change too,” I suggested when I realized he was wearing a nice pair of shoes and light slacks. “The trail isn’t crazy extreme, but it’s not an easy one either. Plus, it will probably be muddy and stuff could have fallen onto the trail from the wind.”
Jacob glanced out the bank of windows at the entrance. “Yeah, there’s this thing known as a tropical storm swirling around us. Maybe not the ideal conditions to be hiking.”
I waved it off, zipping up my rain jacket just in case. If nothing else, it would cut the wind. “It’s not bad.” He fell into step beside me as I moved toward the exit. “Sure you don’t want to change?”
His head shook. “I’ll be fine. A little dirt won’t kill me.”
There was a cab waiting for us out front, so after we crawled inside, I told the driver what trail to head to and we took off. I couldn’t help staring out the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of Matt. I was eager to get this conversation with Jacob over with for more reasons than just getting answers and deciding where to go from there. I was eager to get it over with so I could get back to Matt. Get back to whatever it had been he was about to say to me.
Because I was pretty sure I knew. Because I was pretty sure I felt the same way, even now, after what had happened over the past few days. Three days. It felt like years instead of days.
Jacob pulled my buckle across my lap when I didn’t move to fasten it. Then he reached for my hand slowly, like he was giving me time to pull it away if I didn’t want him to hold it. I kept it where it was, letting his hand fold around mine.
“When I found out what happened . . . when I realized what I’d done . . .” He paused, staring out the front windshield. “I wasn’t sure if I’d ever see you again.”
I twisted in my seat to face him. What the hell? It was as good a time as any to clear the air and finally get some answers. “What did you do?”
He blinked, looking as if he were somewhere else.
“Jacob—”
He motioned at the quiet cab driver, like he was hanging on our every word. Which he really wasn’t. Even if he was, I didn’t care at this point. I didn’t care who heard, just so long as I finally knew why the man I was supposed to marry three days ago didn’t show up to the wedding.
“I don’t remember.” He swallowed, looking like he was choking on an apple. “I don’t have a goddamn clue what happened that night or that next day. All I remember was being out with the guys one minute, and the next I was stumbling through Dad’s front door, trying to figure out what the hell just happened.”
My head turned so it was facing him. “You don’t remember? Nothing?”
He looked me in the eye as he said, “Nothing more than what I just told you.”
“You mean to tell me that you lost track of a whole twenty-four-hour period? That it’s all a blank?” I paused, lifting my eyebrow. “You don’t have a single memory of that whole day?”
One of his shoulders shrugged. “I wish I did. I really wish I did, because I can tell it’s eating you up. Hell, it’s eating me up. I missed my own wedding for Christ’s sake.” He blew out a breath and slammed his head back against the headrest. “But if I told you anything else, it would be a lie, and I don’t want to lie to you anymore, Cora. Not now that we’re married.”
The word hit me hard. “We’re not married. Because you didn’t show up.”
“Yeah, but we would be. We should be.” His fingers tightened around mine as the cab slowed when we pulled into the parking lot for the trailhead. “We kind of are, since Matt had my back and stepped in to do what he did. I know you’re pissed at him about that—I am a little too—but he did it for me. He did it for us. Because he knows we’re meant to be together. He knows that.”
Everything about his words, everything on his face, led a person to the impression that he believed with his whole heart what he’d just said. But when he looked away, trying to hide his glare out the window as his hand tightened around mine, I knew the truth. He didn’t believe those words any more than I did. At least not completely.
“Does everyone know what happened?” I swallowed, thinking about the rumors that would be flying when I got back to Miami. Rumors had always seemed to follow me wherever I went, from the time I moved into the Adams’ place with my mom. Most of them had been untrue, but not all of them.
Jacob’s head shook as he paid the driver, leaving him a nice tip. “No, when I showed up and Dad and I started to put the pieces together, he told me not to tell anyone. He basically had me swear on my life not to tell anyone, then to get my ass down here and fix my mistake.” He slid out of the cab, holding his hand out for me to take as I came out. “No one knows. No one knew it was Matt. Dad’s going to talk to his attorney so we can figure out all of the legal headaches that might be involved, but we’ll get this straightened out. It might mean you and I need to have a private ceremony of our own to make it official, but you have my word that I’ll fix my mistake and make this right.”
My head was nodding, but it was more in recognition of what he was saying than in agreement. When I went to slide my daypack onto my back, Jacob took it.
“Here, I’ve got it.” He adjusted the straps to fit him, clasping the chest strap over his button-down shirt.
Before the cab drove off, Jacob requested he be back in an hour to pick us up like he had a clue how long this hike would take. I stood there observing the man I’d spent ten years of my life committed to. He looked totally different than he had last night—half-drunk, half-crazy, and ready to take on the whole world blindfolded if need be. Today he looked like he’d gotten a full night’s rest, his clothes were clean and ironed, his eyes were bright, and his mood was almost carefree. This was the Jacob I remembered as a child.
This was the person I’d fallen in love with—instead of the one I’d been reminding myself I loved lately.
“You lead, I’ll follow.” Jacob motioned at the trailhead, waiting for me.
I started up the trail at a solid pace, feeling like I needed to burn out the emotions and adrenaline I’d stored up. My legs were on fire when he tapped my arm with a bottle of water.
“Drink. I don’t need you getting dehydrated on me.” He was breathing a little harder than normal, but not much. Jacob might not have been into hiking, but he stayed fit.
“Are you going to wipe my brow next?” I smiled back at him, taking the water to have a few sips.
“If you want me to.” His eyes met mine for a moment as we wound up the trail. “Whatever you want, all you have to do is ask.”
My head turned to focus on the trail. “I’d like to have the truth. The real reason you missed our wedding.”
“I already told you—”
“You remember something,” I interrupted. “I’ve seen you drink a whole fifth of scotch and walk a straight line like it was nothing. You might have been drinking that night—a lot—but you remember something.” I took a breath. “I want to know what that something is.”
“Cora—”
“No.” My head shook. “Just the truth. That’s all. That’s all I want from you right now. I don’t want anything else until I have that.”
“Anything else I told you wouldn’t be the truth though, baby. Don’t you get it? I can’t tell you anything but what I remember about that night, and there’s nothing I can recall.” There was the slightest edge in his voice. I was questioning him—pushing him—and he didn’t like it. “What about just the truth from you? That’s all I want too. Matt won’t say anything—he told me to ask you. And you won’t say anything because you’re too busy accusing me of something you think I did that I can’t remember.”
My pace was picking up as the trail grew steeper. My heart was hammering, my lungs straining, my legs burning, but I couldn’t slow down. I couldn’t stop. I was finally moving forward, and I knew I couldn’t stop for fear of never being able to restart again.
“You already know what happened.” I glanced over my shoulder; he’d fallen back a few steps but was still following. Jacob’s chest was moving fast now too. “You didn’t show up. Matt made an impulsive decision, put on your tux, and was the one waiting for me when I walked down that aisle. We said our vows”—I left out the kissing part. Jacob already knew it and hearing me say it would only set him off—“we went to the reception, then St. Thomas. And then the next day, I found out what had happened. That’s the truth.”
I kept moving, knowing that wasn’t the whole truth. Jacob wasn’t naïve enough to believe it was either. He knew something else had happened—he just didn’t know to what degree.
“The next morning. You didn’t find out that Matt was Matt until the next morning.” He let those words simmer in the air. “That means you spent your first night of your honeymoon, as man and wife, doing what? Watching reruns and ordering room service? Holding hands and reading to each other?” Jacob paused, the sarcasm in his voice palpable. “Fucking like a couple of animals until the sun rose?”
My feet broke to a stop. Slowly, I turned around to face him. He didn’t stop moving up the trail until he was right in front of me. His eyes met mine and I made sure to look straight in them. “You want to talk to me like that, you’ll just have to wait for your precious answers.”
My voice was calm, but everything beyond that wasn’t. He knew. He could see it in my face or had read it on Matt’s or had figured it all out on his own. Jacob knew Matt and I had been together the way any couple would on their wedding night. He knew. Now he just needed to hear me confirm it.
“I’d been drinking. One minute I was awake, and then I woke up the next morning. I don’t remember. Sorry.” As I fed his words back to him, his jaw ground together, but he stayed quiet. “To tell you anything else would be a lie.”
Turning around, I attacked the rest of the trail. I knew I couldn’t not tell Jacob, but for right now, this would have to do. I wasn’t ready to tell him the truth, and from the anger I could imagine dammed up inside him, he wasn’t ready to hear it either.
This wasn’t the right time. Out here in the middle of some isolated trail, no witnesses, no where to go besides up or down was not the ideal spot for someone to tell their jealous-to-the-extreme fiancé they’d just slept with his brother. Multiple times. And that it had been the best sex of my life—not that I was planning on mentioning that, but still, it was the truth.
My shoulder lifted as I moved. “I just can’t remember,” I repeated, wondering if he believed those words as much as I had.
“Don’t play games with me.” His feet scrambled up the trail after me. “Don’t lie to me.”
When my head whipped back to glare at him, I found him right behind me again. So close his feet were falling into my footprints as soon as I stepped away. “Kind of ironic, isn’t it? You accusing me of lying? You accusing me of playing games?”
“What does that mean?”
“You know what that means.”
The sky was a swirl of grey, but the wind was just a breeze back here. I couldn’t tell if that was because we were sheltered from the storm or if the storm was dying, but it made me hopeful that we’d weather it.
“Enlighten me.” Jacob’s hand found my wrist, pulling on it to stop me.
My eyes narrowed into slits at him before dropping to where his hand was tied around my wrist. “Let me go.”
“Not until you tell me what happened.” With his other hand, he found my waist and twisted me around.
My blood felt like lava right then—molten and scorching. “Take your hands off me. Now.” I gave him a moment to do so. He didn’t. “You want answers, this is the guaranteed way to never get them.” I tried to shake his hand off of my waist, but it felt plastered to me. His fingers roped around my wrist felt the same. “Jacob, I’m serious. Take your damn hands off of me.”
“Why? You like Matt’s on you better?”
My free hand twitched at my side, coming so close to slapping him I could feel the tingle in my palm from the imaginary strike. “Let. Go.”
His head shook, his eyes trained on mine. “No.”
I pulled against him, but he was as serious about not letting go as his hold was. “Let me go, Jacob.”
His fingers only tightened, making my wrist hurt enough I could feel my pulse throbbing in it. “Never.”
I could see from the look in his eyes he was talking about something other than just our present situation, but I was not in an understanding mood right then. Since words were getting me nowhere, I pulled against him. It didn’t get me far. Using every scrap of strength in my body, I twisted and pulled against him, somehow managing to get free of his hold all at once.
All of my momentum sent me flying backward though, staggering a few steps until the heel of my boot caught on something.
Jacob tried to grab my hand to catch me as I fell—I didn’t miss the look that cast over his face as I flew back—but he couldn’t get to me. I had just enough time to try to twist around to break my fall, just getting one hand beneath me when my body crashed into the ground.
A breath rushed out of my lungs from the impact, my body feeling like I’d just collided with a slab of cement instead of compacted earth.
“Cora! Shit! Are you okay?” Jacob slid onto his knees beside where I’d fallen on the trail, his face worried as he scanned my body like he was looking for signs of blood or bones puncturing through the skin.
It had been a hard fall, but not that bad of one.
“I’m fine.” My eyes squeezed closed as I started sitting up, my head throbbing from the movement. It wasn’t until I’d sat up that I felt one side of my face was hot and wet. When my hand touched my temple, where the pain was resonating from, my fingers came away glazed with blood.
“Your head.” Jacob’s throat moved. “It’s bleeding.” His voice was the very embodiment of calm, but his eyes were as uneasy as I’d ever seen them.
“Yeah, I just figured that out,” I said, realizing the blood was winding down my face and dripping onto my tank. Great time and place to get a head injury.
“I need to get you to the hospital.” Jacob had already taken off my daypack and was unbuttoning his dress shirt. He pulled out of it one arm at a time.
My head shook as I touched at my temple again. Head lacerations bled like crazy. “No, get me to Matt. I don’t want to go to a hospital for a few stitches.” I guessed it would only take a few, instead of the fifty it seemed from all of the blood flowing from it. “He can take care of me. Just take me back to Matt.”
I hadn’t realized what I’d said, or how I’d said it, until I looked at Jacob.
“Please? He travels everywhere with the requisite doctor stuff for exactly this kind of thing. I’d rather have him stitch me up than someone I don’t know after waiting who knows how long in an emergency room.”
Jacob didn’t say anything, but he nodded. “If that’s what you want, I’ll get you back to Matt.”
The note of resignation in his voice confused me. I’d expected more anger, but instead I’d found almost the opposite. I’d expected a fight instead of a surrender.
“Don’t.” My head shook as he gripped the arm of his shirt. “It’s your favorite shirt. I’ve got a bandana in my bag we can use and some gauze in the first aid kit.”
Jacob didn’t say anything. He just ripped off the sleeve of his shirt. “Yeah, and you’re my favorite person. Hell with the shirt.”
As he pressed it to my head, I sat still, watching him from the corner of my eye. He looked so worried, like I was droplets away from bleeding out or something. So guilty, like this was his fault.
“It’s not your fault, Jacob. I tripped. It’s okay—I’ll be fine.”
He didn’t say anything; he just stayed crouched beside me, pressing his shirtsleeve to my temple like he could do it all day without getting tired.
“I need to get you back down to the trailhead,” he said, his voice sounding far off. “Can you hold this against your head okay?” He gently lifted my hand and folded it over the shirtsleeve. He was waiting for my answer.
“Think I can muster up the strength somehow.” I managed a smile, but he didn’t see it. He was too busy snapping up my pack and scooping me into his arms. “What are you doing?”
“Getting you down the trail.” His arms curled around me, feeling as strong as they did careful, right before he hoisted me up from the ground.
“Jacob, put me down.”
“Not happening.” He was already moving down the trail, every step as sure as the one before.
“It’s my head that’s the problem. My legs are working just fine.” I lifted my eyebrows at him, but his focus was aimed on the trail he was moving down especially fast, given he was carrying a grown adult.
“I’m getting you down this thing. In one piece.” His hands formed deeper into me. “We can argue about it the whole way down if you want, but I’m not putting you down.”
I sighed. “Jacob.”
“Not letting go.” He glanced at me like he was challenging me to keep pushing him. “But please feel free to keep voicing your protests. You know I like it when you get all bossy on me.”
I fought my smile. “I have a serious head wound and you’re making jokes?”
He kept his eyes on the trail, but I didn’t miss the amusement that washed into them. “Oh, yeah, sure. Now that I’m making jokes, it’s a serious head wound. Back there when you were making your plea to walk down on your own, it was a microscopic scratch.”
I shook my head, giving a loud enough sigh that he knew I wasn’t happy about our present situation, but I was resigned to it. He just grinned at me, like we were playing one of the games we used to play as kids.
We didn’t say anything else the rest of the trek down. I hadn’t realized how far we’d made it or how long we’d been out, but when the parking lot came into view, the cab was just pulling back in.
“Thank god,” Jacob breathed when he saw it.
“Not excited about the idea of schlepping me all the way back to the hotel?” I asked, checking his face for signs of strain. There were none.
“If it meant getting to hold on to you, I’d carry you through the rest of our lives.” As soon as he looked down at me, he glanced away. “But I’d rather get you into a vehicle that can travel thirty miles per hour, or forty-five if I promise a really great tip.”
The cab driver saw us coming and already had the back door open when we emerged from the trailhead. When he noticed my head, his eyes went round.
“Hospital?” he guessed, already rushing around to the driver seat.
From the way the guy was moving, I guessed it looked like my skull had been split open.
Jacob bit his cheek, waiting for me to answer as he set me down and guided me into the backseat.
“Back to the hotel please,” I told the driver.
Jacob didn’t say anything; he just pulled his phone out as he slid into the seat beside me. “Give him a call so he’s waiting for us when we get there.” His eyes stayed forward as I took the phone, punching in Matt’s number.
It rang.
It kept ringing.
Then it went to voicemail.
“He didn’t answer. I’ll leave a message,” I whispered, but Jacob slid the phone from my hand.
“Call him on yours.”
“But I just tried. He’s not answering.”
He shifted in his seat as he handed me my daypack. “But he’ll answer yours.”
Pulling my phone out of the bag, I gave him a doubtful look as I hit the two button Matt’s number was saved under.
“My number still in the number one spot?” Jacob was peering at my phone.
“Of course it is,” I said as I lifted the phone to my ear.
“Matt’s number two?”
I shrugged, wondering why I needed to answer that when he’d just watched me hit two.
“Does that order still extend beyond your speed-dial line-up?” he asked, lifting his head so it was aligned with mine.
I was saved having to answer that loaded question when the phone started to ring. It didn’t have a chance to ring twice before the other end clicked.
“Cora?”
I didn’t know why, but hearing Matt’s voice made me kind of sink into the seat. It made me feel like no matter what was going on, everything was going to be all right in the end. Actually, he’d always made me feel that way. From the first week I’d moved into their house and accidentally broken a vase and he’d helped me clean it up, telling me it would be okay, to right now, years later, when I’d just smashed my head—and possibly my heart—and was calling him for help. Later, I’d found out he’d taken the blame for breaking the vase and been grounded for a week. I’d begged him to tell the truth, but he’d stood firm. So I’d sneaked him dinner every night that week, since grounding in the Adams’ house meant going to bed without dinner.
“Cora?” This time his voice was strained.
Beside me, Jacob nudged me, his gaze aimed out the front window.
“Matt, I fell. I think I need stitches—”
“What? Wait. Where are you?” In the background, I heard noise, like he was rushing around.
“I was hiking. I only need a few stitches, I think, and didn’t want to go to the hospital if you wouldn’t mind—”
“Of course I don’t mind. Where are you? I’ll meet you there.” More rustling around, followed by what sounded like a door slamming.
“We’re on our way back to the hotel. Could you meet us back at my hotel room?”
“You’re with Jacob?” It went quiet in the background, then Matt’s voice changed. “He was with you when you were hiking? When you fell?”
My eyes shifted toward Jacob. I wasn’t sure if he could hear what Matt was saying, and his expression gave nothing away. “Yeah, he was with me.”
A few beats of silence. “Cora . . .” He exhaled. “Did he—”
“Matt, please. Just meet us back at the hotel. We’ll probably be there in another ten minutes.”
On the other end, he was silent. I knew Matt so well I knew exactly what he was thinking. Now wasn’t the time to try to convince him I’d fallen all on my own.
“I’ll be there,” he said at last, but the line didn’t go dead.
It never did when we were on the phone together—he always waited for me to cut the connection. I wasn’t sure why, but I’d tested it out a few years ago. I’d called to check on him when he first started working at the hospital he was at now. He was working all of the time, sleeping more often at the hospital than at his condo, and I’d been worried about him overdoing it. I caught him one night just as he was getting off a shift and crawling into his bed at home. After chatting for a few minutes, we said good-bye, then I waited. The line didn’t go dead, just like it didn’t now.
I’d watched the clock on my stove for two minutes, and just when I was sure he’d fallen asleep with the phone still tucked to his ear, I said, “Good night, Matt.” His response came right after. “Night, Cora.” I hung up after that, guessing he’d never be the first.
This time was the same.
After stuffing my phone into my pocket, I chanced a look at Jacob. He was silent beside me, unmoving.
“Hey, I’m okay.” I moved the shirtsleeve away from my temple so he could see the bleeding was slowing. “A few stitches and a shower and I’ll be good as new.”
“No.” He had to work his jaw loose. “This is my fault.”
I sat forward in my seat, trying to get him to look at me. He wouldn’t. “I tripped on my own merit. What do you think is your fault?”
His head turned away from mine. “Everything.”
After that, the rest of the ride back was quiet. My head wasn’t bleeding nearly as much, but it was throbbing. I wanted to grab the bottle of pain reliever I kept in my backpack for exactly this kind of thing, but the mood in the cab was so somber, I was afraid to move.
When the driver pulled up to the hotel entrance, I let out a sigh, feeling like I’d just survived some kind of challenge. Jacob helped me out and paid the driver, looking like he wanted to carry me inside and through the lobby, but I stopped that by bouncing up the stairs on my own.
The few people inside the lobby gaped at me as I came in. I probably looked like I’d just been an extra in some new slasher movie. Checking out the panel of windows facing the ocean, I noticed the waves looked the same size as they had earlier today. The wind even looked like it had slowed down some.
“Any update on the storm?” I asked the woman at the reception desk.
She smiled and tried not to stare at me like I was a freak show. “It’s going to miss us. Looks like we’ll just get a bit of wind and a lot of rain probably.”
Jacob was waiting beside me, an impatient look on his face, but he wasn’t pulling on me to keep going.
“That’s good news.”
“Isn’t that the way it goes? You plan for the worst, hope for the best, and land somewhere in between.” The woman cleared her throat, looking away when her eyes shifted to where I still had Jacob’s shirtsleeve pressed to my head. “Can I call an ambulance for you, ma’am? Maybe give you directions to the nearest hospital?”
Beside me, Jacob sighed.
I shook my head. “Thanks, but I’ve got a doctor waiting for me upstairs. He’ll take care of me.”
The woman nodded as I started toward the elevators, while Jacob stepped in front of me so he could punch the up button. A door was just opening when I approached.
The ride up to my room was just as quiet as the one in the cab here. Although that might have had more to do with both of us knowing Matt was waiting for us a few floors away.
As soon as the doors opened, I practically lunged out into the hall.
Jacob moved up behind me a moment later. “In a hurry?”
I didn’t answer that, because I had no good answer to give him. I was in a hurry, and it wasn’t to get my head sewn up either.
Matt was already here, leaning into the door of my room, his eyes trained on the elevator like he’d known it was about to open. He wasn’t in my room, thank god. He had a key—I’d given him one—but he’d been smart enough not to use it, probably knowing what I did. Jacob would lose it if he found Matt in my room, room key in hand.
Matt started to smile when he saw me. That smile faded when he took a good look at me. Shoving off the door, he moved down the hall a few steps to meet us. “I thought you said you needed a few stitches, not a few hundred and a possible blood transfusion.” Matt’s messenger bag—which he kept the standard-fare doctor kit in—was slung over his shoulder, and he was already digging through it.
“It’s a head wound. They bleed like crazy. You’re a doctor—why do I need to tell you this?” I put on my best unconcerned face as Jacob and I moved down the hall, but I had plenty of things to be concerned about. The gash on my head ranked low on that list.
Jacob slid closer to me with every step we took, until our shoulders were brushing by the time we stopped in front of my room. Matt had barely acknowledged Jacob until now. Then Matt covered my hand with his and slowly pulled aside the shirtsleeve to see the extent of the damage.
His face didn’t give a thing away—but he was trained not to show any emotion when a patient’s guts were spilling out on the floor at his feet. He didn’t show any emotion until his fingers gently touched the area around the cut and I winced from the rush of pain that came with it.
Matt’s jaw locked up, his eyes darkening before they swiveled toward Jacob. Before the two of them could work that out, fists first, I hurried to pull the room key from my pack and kick the door open the moment the green lights flashed.
“What happened?” Matt snapped at Jacob.
It was me who answered him though. “I fell.”
Jacob echoed my response as we all moved inside the room. “She fell.”
Matt slid his bag off and set it on the desk, already flipping on lights and starting to grab towels from the bathroom. “Yeah, I got that terribly informative answer on the phone earlier. How about the details? Now that it looks like you fell off of a cliff.”
I headed into the bathroom as Matt glared at Jacob like this was all his fault. Though I expected a response, Jacob didn’t say anything to defend himself. Instead, he stayed quiet, falling into one of the chairs tucked into the corner.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Matt asked me when I started to close the bathroom door.
“Taking a quick shower to rinse the blood and dirt off.”
“I don’t think so. You need to get your head stitched up before your brains start falling out.” Matt moved toward the bathroom like he was going to physically sit me down in that chair by the desk if I didn’t do it myself.
So I hurried to close the door, knowing there was no way he’d open that door once I’d closed it. Knowing there was no way Jacob would let him either.
I didn’t want to leave those two alone for long, so I hurried through the shower as quickly as possible. Only a few minutes later, I emerged from the steam-filled bathroom with a towel twisted around my hair and wearing a swimsuit cover-up I’d had hanging in the bathroom.
The brothers looked like they’d spent a few years in some foreign prison though. Their expressions were hardened, their eyes blank, every muscle in their body looking trigger-pin ready for action.
“Wow. This isn’t a funeral, boys. Just a few stitches and a little loss of blood.”
Matt huffed over my “little” word choice. When Matt’s face, which had been trained on the ground, lifted, his eyes met mine, which were aimed on him. Not Jacob. Him. The corner of his mouth twitched, but he tamed his smile. Probably a good idea since Jacob was watching him, his hands braced around the chair’s armrests like he was capable of ripping them off.
Suddenly, Matt’s face changed, his gaze sweeping a bit lower. Pushing off the desk, he grabbed one of the towels from his collection and started toward me. Jacob rose from his chair but stayed where he was.
Matt shook out the towel, blocking me from Jacob’s view, then draped the towel over my shoulder. Subtly, his gaze lowered to the spot on my chest just above the barrier of my cover-up where a slightly bruised red mark was showing. The same mark he’d given me here in my hotel room, when I’d known exactly who he was when I put my hands on him.
“Wouldn’t want you ruining another piece of clothing,” he said in a normal voice, shooting me a wink as he tucked the towel down a little lower.
Behind him, I could make out Jacob starting to pace, moving closer with every turn. He didn’t like Matt being so close to me. He didn’t like Matt talking to me or touching me or being the only one who could help me in this instance.
When Matt tucked the towel back from my temple a bit more, his jaw set as he inspected my cut again. “Take a seat. That’s going to require more than a couple stitches, but I’ll go as quickly as I can.” He pulled the desk chair out for me then adjusted the table lamp so it was aimed in my direction. “Here, take a few of these.”
He shook a few pain relievers into my hand and handed me a bottle of water after I’d tossed them into my mouth. Jacob came around beside us, still pacing as he watched the scene like he was helpless.
Matt didn’t seem to notice Jacob as he pulled things out of his messenger bag, his hands moving with the kind of speed and precision only a surgeon’s would, I guessed. I had a flash of what those hands felt like on me, and my body instantly reacted to it. I had to shift in my seat and look away from Matt and his hands to keep from blushing in front of both of them.
“How did you fall?” Matt asked, rolling up his sleeves as he started for the bathroom to wash his hands. His gaze cut to Jacob when neither of us said anything right away.
“I fell backward. My heel caught on a rock or a root or something,” I said, waiting for him to come back, hoping he’d believe it was as simple as that. From the look on his face when came out of the bathroom, he didn’t.
Matt’s hand gently tipped my head back against the chair, turning it so my cut was facing him. Jacob rolled his head a few times, popping his neck.
“You make a habit of hiking backward?” Matt’s brow carved into his forehead as he cleaned the cut. Every time I cringed from the sting, he winced with me.
“Sometimes. When I’m feeling crazy.”
“Are you going to tell me what really went down, or leave me to fill in the blanks?”
I wasn’t sure if he was talking because he really wanted to know that badly or as a way to distract me from what he was doing, especially now that he was starting to numb the area around my gash. Needles and I weren’t exactly simpatico, as Matt had figured out years ago when I’d come back from my eleven-year-old doctor appointment feeling like a pincushion and looking like I’d just been through hell. Ever since, he’d come with me to all of my doctor appointments that involved needles, from blood draws to my annual flu vaccine. He found some new way to distract me each time, either by running some funny video on his phone or making faces at me.
As my silence stretched into the next minute, Matt glanced at Jacob, waiting for an answer.
Jacob lifted his chin. “I don’t know. Are either of you going to eventually tell me what ‘really went down’ on this island before I got here, or is swept under the rug going to be the way of all of it?”
“Not the time, Jacob. Not the right damn time.” Matt’s head turned back toward me, the skin between his brows deepening as he finished numbing my temple. To his credit, I barely felt a thing after the first initial poke.
“I don’t know. We’re all three here, not going anywhere too soon. Seems like the right damn time to me.” When Jacob looked over Matt’s shoulder to see what was happening, his forehead creased, remorse filling his face before he had a chance to turn away. “You two had separate rooms, right?”
Matt’s teeth ground together, his mouth staying shut as he disposed of the needle and gathered what he needed to sew me up.
“That’s right,” I answered, figuring this was about as basic of a question as I could expect from Jacob on this topic.
Jacob rolled his head again. “Yeah, except I checked with the front desk and this room wasn’t checked out until the second night.” He turned so he was angled toward me. “So that means you must have both shared the cabin.”
“The first night we did.” Matt came into the conversation then, his voice as even as I’d ever heard it. His eyes flickered to mine once, something in them telling me it would be okay. It might have been foolhardy and naïve, but I believed him. Somehow, Matt found a way to make everything okay. “It was late. I took the couch.”
Jacob nodded, his gaze wandering from Matt to me, like we somehow had every answer he was looking for. “Was this before or after Cora knew you were you?”
“What the hell does that matter?” Matt’s head turned over his shoulder, a lethal expression forming.
Jacob lifted his shoulder as he backed into the wall behind him. “Because it does. Say you guys got it on but Cora thought you were me—she’s not to blame. I can forgive her for wanting to have sex with her husband on their wedding night.” His nostrils flared as he sucked in a breath. “But I will kill you, Matt, if you put your hands on her like that. I will end you if you fucked her when she thought she was with me.”
The corners of Matt’s eyes creased as he set the first stitch. Again, I barely felt a thing—even when he was doing something painful, it was impossible for Matt to hurt me.
“So you’d prefer the possibility that we made love knowing exactly who the other was?” Matt asked.
Jacob shoved off the wall, his eyes blazing. “Tell me. Look me in the eyes and tell me. I’m tired of you messing with me. Smirking in my face. Strutting around like you screwed my girl.”
Matt was taking slow, purposeful breaths. That was the only indication he gave that Jacob was getting to him. The whole time, his hands never wavered, his gaze intent, his whole façade focused.
“I’m a little busy stitching up your girl.” He didn’t pull his tone as he continued. “That ‘looking you in the eye and telling you what either did or didn’t happen’ thing is going to have to wait.”
“Fine. Don’t look me in the eye. Just tell me.” Jacob had managed to wrestle himself back against the wall, but his body was twitching from what I guessed was adrenaline and emotion.
“You’re making an awful lot of assumptions. Throwing around a lot of accusations at the person you say you love most in the world.” Matt kept working, not blinking as he fixed me.
“I don’t say I love her most in the world. I do love her most in the world.”
“Of course you do. You make that clear every single day. Like the day you didn’t make it to your wedding. And the day after that, when you showed up and accused her of screwing me behind your back. You don’t have to convince me of your profound love for Cora. Consider me sufficiently convinced.”
My breath caught in my chest as I looked at Matt. He was too focused on my temple to meet my stare, but I wasn’t sure what he would have read in my eyes if he had. Part of me felt like I was telling him to stop, another felt like I was telling him to keep going—to never stop.
Jacob’s hands were curling into fists, releasing, then forming again a moment later. “Keep talking and I’m not going to need you to tell me what happened. I’m going to figure it out all on my own.”
“Seems like you think you’ve already got all the answers.”
“Enough.” My voice projected through the room louder than I’d intended. “Both of you.” This time when I glanced at him, Matt’s eyes met mine for a beat. “This male bravado crap isn’t helping anything.” Jacob stuck his arm out toward Matt like he was to blame, but I kept going. “Jacob, I’ll answer all of your questions that I can. What I can’t remember, I can’t help you with. Kind of like you can’t help me with what you don’t remember.”
Jacob was the first to look away, his jaw straining through his skin.
“We’ve all been through a hell of a few days, and maybe we all just need a little time to figure out what happened and what comes next.” I didn’t realize my hand was moving toward Matt until I felt it brush his shirt.
Jacob didn’t see it, but Matt didn’t miss it. He leaned in a little closer, until my hand connected with his body hidden beneath his shirt. My fingers curved into his stomach before falling back into my lap. Jacob couldn’t see, but that didn’t mean it was right for me to be touching his brother with him ten feet away.
“I’m with Cora,” Matt said, blowing at a chunk of hair that had fallen over his forehead.
“Big surprise there,” Jacob muttered.
“Need a little help?” I smiled when Matt blew another hard breath, only to result in another chunk of hair falling into his face.
“Please. This is why those head wraps are so convenient in surgery. Wouldn’t want to accidently sever an artery trying to get hair out of my eye.”
When my smile went higher, Jacob’s shoulders tensed. Taming it as best as I could, I lifted my hand to slide Matt’s hair back into place. The whole time I was touching him, Jacob looked like he was fighting every instinct inside him to stay where he was, while Matt looked like he was heeding every instinct inside him by staying where he was—facing me, his back exposed to his enemy.
“Better?” I asked.
One corner of his mouth lifted. “Better.”
Another minute passed, this one in silence. From the feel of it, Matt was almost done. I wasn’t sure if I was happy about that or not, because what came next? Where did the three of us go from here? We were all stuffed into this small hotel room, but what would happen when the last stitch was sewed into place? Would Matt go? Would he stay? Would we talk, or would we need to think?
Either way, I knew I’d be leaving this island in a few days. I just wasn’t sure who I’d be leaving with. Or if I’d be leaving all alone.
“Why did you fall?” Matt asked, shattering the silence.
When I shifted in my seat, Jacob stepped in. “We were talking.”
“About what?” From the flash in Matt’s eye, he already knew.
“I was asking her about you two,” Jacob answered. “Since neither one of you are volunteering too much information and I need to know. I have a right to know.”
Matt’s eyes darkened, his shoulders tense. “She fell because you were having a fight?”
“I fell because I tripped,” I interjected, hoping Matt would hear the plea in my voice that was asking him to let it go and move on.
“I didn’t push her. I’ve never laid a hand on her like that.” Jacob pushed off the wall, his arm flying between him and me like the idea was absurd. When Matt stayed quiet, refusing to accept what had just been said, Jacob’s face went red. “How dare you. You think I’d put my hands on Cora? That I could hurt her like that?”
His footsteps sounded like thunder rolling in the distance as he moved toward us, but Matt never once looked over his shoulder. I wondered if he was banking on the assumption that Jacob wouldn’t charge when I was close by, or maybe Matt just didn’t care if he got blindsided by his brother.
“You’ve hurt her in every other way, right?” Matt paused just long enough for that to charge the still air. “But if you did, if you did physically hurt her, that ending favor will be returned, brother.”
Matt must have been finished with my stitches because his hands lowered at his sides, the skin between his brows deepening as he inspected my temple. It was eerie how calm he was, how in control of his emotions and body he could be when his twin had never looked so close to losing his grip. With the way Jacob was looking, and the way I knew Matt was feeling, I knew the moment Matt stepped away from me, Jacob would charge.
“He hasn’t,” I said, looking at Matt as he started to rise. “He didn’t. I wouldn’t be with him if he had. That’s not the type of person I want to spend my life with.”
I’d been so focused on saying the right thing to calm them both down just enough to keep a fight from ensuing, I didn’t realize what I’d actually said.
Or how it would be taken.
Matt’s eyes narrowed as he started putting everything back in his bag. He wouldn’t look at me. “You wouldn’t be with him,” he said slowly, repeating my words. “That’s not the type of person you want to spend your life with.”
His hands braced against the desk after he’d packed up the last of his things. A sharp exhale popped out of his mouth as he shook his head. When he did finally look at me, it wasn’t the same Matt I’d spent the past few days with. It was someone else. A shell of that person.
“Thanks for the reminder. I needed it. I’ll leave you two alone.” He threw his bag across his shoulder, leaving the bottle of pain relievers on the desk in front of me.
As he started for the door, his name was rising from my throat.
Jacob stepped in front of him. “I need to know.” Jacob didn’t look as wild as before, but he still looked dangerous.
Matt’s entire back went rigid. “You want to know what happened?” I didn’t recognize his voice. From the look on Jacob’s face, neither did he. “I stepped in and took care of her for you. Again. And just like always, I do all the work and you reap the damn reward.” Matt’s arm thrust back at where I was still sitting in the chair, stitched up and frozen in place.
I was waiting for him to look at me. I was waiting for him to notice the look in my eyes. The one that would tell him everything he needed to know. The truth I was starting to accept had been a part of me for years, but one I’d chosen to keep hidden from view.
“What are you talking about?” Jacob crossed his arms, stepping in front of Matt again when he tried to go around him. “When have you ever done that?”
Matt was quiet, staring at Jacob like they were having a silent conversation. Growing up with them, I knew that, as twins, they were well-versed with those silent conversations.
“You know when,” Matt said, his voice just barely trembling. “You know it. And I know it. And Cora’s about to find out if you keep pushing me. You’re losing points, so you might want to hang on to the few you still have. Now get out of my way.” Matt shoved Jacob aside, hard enough he stumbled back into the wall. “I’m tired of you standing in my way.”