"Think she's cold?"

A pair of faded jeans hung too lose from her thin frame. A black T-shirt clung to her sweaty torso. She wore work gloves and a red beanie too. The still unfamiliar blond hair hung in a low pony tail over her right shoulder.

"I doubt it, but she shouldn't be doing that. Her shoulder isn't ready."

Tom chuckled. "There's a six-foot stack of chopped wood out there that says otherwise."

"You should tell her to come inside."

"Me?"

Luke sipped his coffee. "Yes. She won't take it well coming from me."

"Bad?"

"Not good. I don't know how to talk to her or what to say. I'm so d.a.m.n afraid she's going to leave."

"She should talk to my son. I hear he's a brilliant psychiatrist."

"Some days I think I'm the one who needs a psychiatrist."

"Why don't you?"

"I'm not ready to think about me yet. I need to know that she's going to be okay."

Tom put his hand on Luke's shoulder. "Maybe she needs you to be okay first."

Luke didn't respond. He knew there was truth to his dad's words. His fear held him back from being okay.

"I'll drag her skinny a.s.s inside."

"Thanks, Dad."

"I'm not going to have an excuse to duck out on laundry this weekend if you chop all that wood."

Jessica dropped the ax and wiped her brow, smearing dirt along her forehead. "Sorry. I feel out of shape and Dr. Eat and Don't Exercise won't let me do anything because of a few little injuries that are just fine."

"Felicity coddled him too much." Tom leaned against the shed and blew at the steam spiraling from his coffee mug.

"How did he react?"

He studied her. "When you died?"

Jessica nodded.

"He was devastated. We all were. We'd been drowning in the fear of losing Lake and the news of you was like this G.o.dd.a.m.n freight train that came out of nowhere, barreling through what was already a s.h.i.tload of wreckage. Luke was numb for months. He just existed-barely. Then Lake came out of her coma and we had to relive everything again with her: the wedding, her accident, Ben's death, her leg, your parents, and you. I know people say that G.o.d won't give you more than you can handle, but I think He did. I'm still not sure my boy is okay. He's scared right now. I see it in his eyes, like any day he could break."

"Scared of what?"

"You."

Chapter Forty-Three.

Luke suggested leaving a day early. Jessica didn't argue. The harder she tried to hold it together in front of his family, the more she felt herself falling apart. The events of the previous month taught her one thing: death came in the unsuspecting arms of silence. Luke didn't speak on the drive home. Even small talk seemed to be too much.

"I'll take Jones for a walk." Luke set their bags on the floor.

"Want company?"

His three-second delay said everything. It was the truth before the lie.

"Sure. If you want to."

Jessica picked up her bag. "Maybe I'll just unpack."

"Okay."

She took her bag to the guest room. The slam of the front door was another stab to her heart. Luke didn't slam doors. He controlled everything.

After sitting on the edge of her bed, staring at her bag on the floor for almost thirty minutes, she decided not to unpack. Maybe she'd outstayed her welcome.

On her way to the kitchen to get a drink-a real drink-she noticed Luke's bag on the floor. Leaving things on the floor was also something he didn't do. What had happened to her Luke?

She grabbed his bag and took it to his room. Tossing it at the end of the bed, she stood there taking in everything that felt so familiar. Why did that familiarity, that comfort, hurt so much? Moving toward the closet like sneaking up on the enemy, she opened the cracked door and the light came on.

"Oh my G.o.d," she whispered.

All of her clothes were exactly where they'd been when she left-when she died.

Jessica died.

Jillian lived.

She loved another.

And Luke never let go.

"I lied."

Jessica closed her eyes at the defeat in his voice behind her.

"When I told you I'd move on and love again if you died ... I lied."

"Luke," she whispered.

"I don't expect anything."

She turned. Every word he said intensified the pain and flared her anger. "Jesus, Luke ... I put on a wedding dress, I went to the church, I didn't have cold feet, I didn't even have to think. Being with you was as easy and necessary as breathing."

"I don't know what you want me to say or do or-"

"I want you to expect everything and say anything."

Tension pulled at his brow as he shook his head. "I can't."

"We need to talk about AJ."

"I can't." He swallowed, jaw firm, gaze set on the floor between them.

"That picture-"

"Don't." He continued to shake his head as his expression hardened. "I can't."

With a blink, her tears broke free. Irene wanted to destroy everything dear to Sunny and Knox. She wanted to destroy Jessica. She did. The moment she showed that picture to Luke, she took everything.

They stood a chance if all he had was the idea, the verbal confession that she had loved AJ. But that image would be in his mind forever, eating at him-at them-like a slow death.

"Tell me how you feel."

"I can't." His voice cracked. "It would end us."

"There is no us! You haven't touched me since I asked you to in the hospital. You're miserable and so am I. It can't get any worse. If we can't save us, then at least save yourself. If you don't say what you're feeling, it will kill you. I can take it. I'm so much stronger than you think I am."

He said nothing.

"Five minutes."

Luke looked up.

"I'll give you five minutes to say everything. Don't think ... just say it. For once don't protect me. Give me the part of you that hurts the most. And then we'll never mention any of it again. But what's happened between us feels worse than any death, and we both need closure."

She lost him, but even more than that ... he lost himself in her. Luke wouldn't acknowledge her at all. That hurt the most.

"Fine," she whispered. "Don't tell me, but please tell someone. Then get rid of my stuff and choose to live because you're not ... not like this." She walked past him to the bedroom door. Love wasn't enough ... not for Mickey and Sunny, and not for Jessica and Luke.

"I haven't had my five minutes yet."

Jessica stopped breathing. She didn't recognize the icy voice behind her. It held no love, only a year of anger that would cut her to the bone.

Turning, she held her head up in spite of her tears. She would die from his words before she'd let him live with the pain of harboring them. Fisting her hands, she imagined them taped and ready for Jude's unforgiving jabs. The difference was she wouldn't fight back. Luke was about to knock her out without even touching her.

"You destroyed us when you died without giving me a choice. Knox said I could have come with you. I know you did it for my family, but that's just it. You made the choice. I know how f.u.c.king selfish it sounds, but I would have chosen us. I would have left, even with Lake in a coma."

Jessica blinked.

Words cut.

Emotions bled as tears.

He knocked her down. She got back up.

"That picture is branded into my memory, and I want to physically cut it out of my brain. Another man touched you. Another man loved you. Another man made you feel and love and it wasn't me. You let him have you, and it should have been me. I never knew him, yet I hate everything about him including the part of your heart that he took to his grave. I can never have that. And I'm selfish because I want everything."

Jessica bit her quivering lip until she tasted blood.

"I hate the color of your hair. I hate the name Jillian Knight. I f.u.c.king hate the whole G.o.dd.a.m.n state of Nebraska." His voice escalated. Each word cut deeper as he let go of the rawest, deepest, most painful emotions. He stepped toward her.

"Is that what you want to hear? That loving you has turned me into a selfish b.a.s.t.a.r.d." He blinked and just like that ... his own emotions bled down his face.

"I hate myself for feeling this way. I hate myself for wanting to rip off your clothes and f.u.c.k you until I can no longer see that photo, until you can no longer remember his touch, until I've reclaimed every part of you right down to your soul." He stepped closer, as close as he could get without touching her. "In my head I know what you did was selfless and amazing and ... the most beautiful gift to him. And the rational part of me is so d.a.m.n proud of you for finding the part of you that I've seen all along."

She swallowed hard, refusing to shy away, no matter how hard he punched.

"But with you, my feelings don't come from my head, they come from my heart. My love for you is selfish because I don't think you need it anymore. I've been walking around here on pins and needles, so afraid that you're still grieving him, missing him, needing him. I'm so afraid my touch will scare you away. But I'm So. f.u.c.king. Selfish. Because it doesn't matter whether you need my love anymore ..."

He released a sob and so did she.

"Because I need to love you." Drawing in a ragged breath, he shrugged. "It's all I know," he whispered.

Knocked out.

Luke reached into her chest, pulled out her heart, and said, "If I can't have it, no one can have it."

She wanted to tell him that her love for AJ was real. She wanted to tell him that she regretted nothing. She wanted to tell him that fate took her away from him because AJ needed her more, if only for a mere breath in time. But she didn't because it didn't matter. AJ died ... and so did Jillian Knight.

"Time's up," she whispered.

Five minutes. He killed her in five minutes.

Defeat pulled his gaze to the floor. "I don't know what you want me to do."

Jessica took his hand and placed it over her heart. "Touch me."

His eyes locked to hers. "Jess-"

She kissed him. Time was up.

It was the longest five minutes of her life. It was the most painful five minutes of her life. Like all the other odds in her life, she survived and they would never talk about it again. Jessica died to be with AJ ... but she lived to be with Luke.