It was Sunday, which meant chances were good Lincoln wouldn’t be working. Sara knew that wasn’t always the case, especially with the weather nice as it was. Sunny days were working days for builders, no matter the day of the week. She had no words planned, nothing was forthcoming as far as what she should say when she saw him, if she saw him. Please be there.

With each step, her apprehension and anticipation built. Sweat began to trickle down her chest and Sara pulled the rubber band from her wrist and knotted her thick hair at the top of her head.

It took over an hour to reach the house in the woods. It loomed before her, Sara’s pulse speeding up as she took in the structure that epitomized all she loved. All I love? She froze, her hand pausing on her damp brow. Her hand slowly lowered to her side and Sara pushed the shock away, deciding now was not the time to think about that.

But as she walked up the steps of the deck and knocked on the door, seeing that drooping Christmas tree in the window, emotions she couldn’t ignore, not this time, slammed into her. Why hadn’t he taken it down yet?

“What are you doing here?”

Sara whirled around, her heartbeat escalating as she took in his unclothed chest. It was bronzed from the sun, muscled from daily physical labor. She knew that chest. Sara had run her fingers over it, smelled it, kissed it, felt it pushed against hers. Her eyes went up, meeting his dark gray ones. Lincoln’s hair was damp with perspiration and winged up around his ears and on the back of his neck, making him appear younger than he was. The black athletic shorts he wore hung low on his hips, showing the toned cords of his lower abdomen. She wanted him. Sara wanted Lincoln to hold her, kiss her, never let her go. Oh God, when had it happened? When had the emotions shifted, turned into more, become love?

“Were you running?”

“Yeah,” was Lincoln’s curt response.

“Why’d you keep the tree?” she blurted.

His eyes shifted down as he slammed a hand on his hip. “I felt sorry for it.” His pose was belligerent, like the set of his jaw.

Sara walked down a step. “You felt sorry for a tree?”

“Yeah. I did. It just…it looked so pitiful and tried so hard to survive and…yeah, I kept it. What do you care?” Lincoln scowled at her.

Another step.

“Why are you here anyway? I thought you needed time, space, whatever.” Lincoln’s words were harsh, but his voice was strained, like he was struggling to stay in control, like he was hurting on the inside and trying to hide it on the outside.

“It reminded you of me, didn’t it?”

“No,” he quickly denied.

“Liar.” She was almost to him.

“It has a much nicer disposition.”

Sara stopped before him, smelling sunlight and sweat, and underneath that, Lincoln. Emotions welled up, threatened to burst through her and expose all she felt.

“Why are you here, Sara?” Lincoln repeated slowly, his eyes locked with hers. There was something in his expression, a vulnerability she’d never seen before. Her heart squeezed.

“I’m leaving.”

He stiffened, his eyes, his face, everything shutting down. “What?”

Sara brushed hair from her face with a trembling hand. “I got a temporary place up north. I’m going to stay there for a month or so, maybe two. The house…” she trailed off, her throat tightening.

“What about the house?”

“I’m going to accept an offer on it tomorrow. I’m getting rid of everything, Lincoln. I’m…” Sara stopped when Lincoln showed her his back. It was taut, sculpted, and shaking. Her fingers yearned to touch him, to trace a pale thin scar on his left shoulder blade, to take the quiver from it.

“You’re leaving,” he said in a dead voice.

“Only for a little while. Just until…until I have things sorted out.” Sara watched his back move with the force of his breaths.

Lincoln turned and glared at her. “What is there to sort out?”

You. I’m scared of what I feel for you. I don’t know how to accept it yet. I’m scared of what you feel for me. The way you look at me; like I’m everything, it scares me. When I look at you, I’m lost in you. I’m trying to find myself and I can’t do that with the distraction of you. You consume everything. But she couldn’t say any of that.

Sara swallowed, glancing down. Her throat was dry. “Me, Lincoln. I need to sort me out.”

“Up north where?”

“I don’t know if—if I should tell you,” she said, looking down at the ground.

“Afraid I’ll follow you? Don’t worry. I won’t.” His words were cold, final, and they hurt.

Sara’s eyes jerked to his and Lincoln looked away from the pain on her face, his expression ashamed. “That was uncalled for.”

“You leaving is uncalled for,” he snapped back. Lincoln closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. “God, I’m saying all the wrong things,” he groaned. Lincoln rubbed a hand on the back of his head. “I feel like we’re going around in a circle, you and I. If you know you don’t feel the same as I do, if you know there’s no chance for us, at least tell me, Sara. You don’t have to escape Boscobel to escape me. I’ve kept my distance, for you. It kills me, but I’ve done it. I’ll leave you alone, if that’s what you want. Is that what you want?” Lincoln’s pain-filled eyes met hers.

It broke. Whatever had been keeping her emotions in check shattered and Sara reached for him, feeling complete, centered, only when she finally held him. Lincoln’s skin was hot and hard against hers, wet with sweat, and when his fingers gripped her waist, digging into her flesh, when the hardness of his body was flush with the softness of hers, Sara was lost again. Or found. Maybe Sara had to be lost in him to find herself.

“I love you, Sara, love you so much,” he murmured into her ear, his hands holding her face steady as Lincoln studied her. “I love you,” he repeated, his words thick with the truth of it.

Sara blinked her eyes and tears slid down her cheeks. She couldn’t say it. She loved him; she loved Lincoln, and Sara couldn’t say it. She’d always loved him; that hadn’t changed, but the way she loved him; that had. So much.

He stepped away, dropping his hands from her. She fought the need to touch him again. Lincoln’s face was blank, his eyes dim. Her heart cried at the devastation in the set of his shoulders, in the way he held his head. Sara wanted to ask him to wait for her, to not give up on her, but that wouldn’t be fair to him.

“Have a nice trip,” he muttered, striding for the house.

No. Don’t leave like this. Don’t let it be like this, Sara.Go to him! Run. Tell him you love him. Tell him! No matter how loudly or passionately her conscience shouted at her, Sara didn’t have the power to do it. She couldn’t. Instead she turned around to begin the long walk to the house that soon would no longer be her home.

17

Sara fiddled with the cellular phone, facing the car. She took a deep breath, staring at the phone number on the phone. It was time to go. Her belongings had been reduced to what was in the car and the rest had been put in a small storage unit until her return. The thought of leaving without telling Lincoln goodbye weighed on her. It felt wrong not to tell him, but she wondered if it was right to tell him. It seemed like that was all she thought about now; what was right and wrong. Was it wrong or right of her to love her husband’s brother? Was it wrong or right of her to want another chance at happiness, though her husband could not? Lincoln felt right; Cole had felt right. What did that say about Sara? Maybe it said absolutely nothing, maybe it didn’t matter, but still, she felt it said something.

She took a deep breath. He was fading from her and that was what was the most unbearable. The exact shade of his eyes eluded her; the certain timbre of his voice when he spoke; his scent; it was all leaving her. Leaving her and filling her with a terrible loss, making a part of her hollow. Sara thought that was what hurt the most; more painful than his absence was the lack of everything that embodied him; kept him alive in her. She didn’t want to forget him, not a single detail of him, and it was already happening.