All of You by Jenni Wilder Page B

grief.”
    “I am not,” I said stubbornly.
    “You are too, you miserable liar,” she said
teasingly. “You have a man downstairs that wants you. I think he
can make you happy, and you can make him happy. But you’re not even
giving him a chance. You’d rather be up here crying on my
shoulder.”
    “I don’t WANT to cry on your shoulder, Becca.
I’m just—”
    “You’re terrified. I know,” she said clasping
my hand. “But at least you’re moving forward. That’s always
terrifying. But at least, I think, you’re moving forward with
someone that honestly cares for you.”
    “I hope so, Rebecca.” I stood up and wiped my
cheeks dry. “Or I’m going to be right back crying on your
shoulder.”
    Rebecca laughed and followed me out of my
room. We went downstairs and found Lincoln sitting at the kitchen
island, coloring with Tabitha in one of her coloring books. As soon
as he saw me enter the room, he dropped his crayon and stood
up.
    “Jillian… I’m so sorry, baby,” he said as he
walked over to me and pulled me into his arms. He held me tight for
a moment, and when I didn’t struggle away, he pulled back slightly
to look at my face. He wiped away the tears that had started
falling again with his fingertips. “I hate that I made you cry.” He
looked distressed.
    I reached up and cupped his hand against my
cheek. “Can we go somewhere to talk?”
    Lincoln nodded and entwined our fingers.
“That would be best.”
    He held my hand as we walked to his FJ
Cruiser, and once we were both settled in the vehicle he reached
over and grabbed my hand again as the vehicle pulled away from the
house. We rode in silence for a while, and I replayed in my mind
what had happened at the festival. I thought of how angry he and
Kennedy had sounded toward Mackenzie.
    “What happened to Kennedy and the kids?” I
asked, realizing that if Lincoln was here with me, he wasn’t
helping his sister with the kids like he said he would.
    “They went home.”
    “Oh,” I said as guilt blossomed in my chest.
“I’ll have to apologize to her for ruining their outing.”
    “Hey,” Lincoln said, calling me out of my
pool of guilt. “You didn’t ruin anything, okay? Mackenzie ruined
it. Even if you hadn’t run off, we would have left.”
    “Why?” I asked dumbfounded. We had been
having a lovely day.
    “The press. Before coming up to us, Mackenzie
tipped them off that we were there. They probably wouldn’t have
done anything, but they would have been waiting. Salivating for
some drama,” Lincoln said, disgusted.
    “Oh,” I said. I couldn’t imagine that life.
Having your daily activities monitored by someone just hoping you
screw up big enough to have a story for the evening news? Yuck.
    “Hey, it’s not all bad. They usually don’t
know where we are unless someone tips them off,” Lincoln said. I
think he was trying to ease my growing worry.
    “Where are we going?” I asked when I realized
we had left the city and were now driving on a secluded road that
followed the shore of Lake Michigan.
    “My house,” Lincoln said. I whipped my head
around to look at him. He had taken his eyes off the road and was
looking back at me. “If that’s okay?” he asked with uncertainty.
And I nodded in reply. I didn’t know what I was going to do about
telling him about my past, but I wanted to be with him. He squeezed
my hand again and focused his attention back to the road.
    We drove for a while longer in silence.
Lincoln had made a few more turns on secluded roads surrounded by
trees, and I doubted I’d ever find his place on my own. It wasn’t
quite dark out yet, but I hadn’t seen any landmarks other than the
shoreline, nor had I seen any houses. I had always heard homes
surrounding Lake Michigan were expensive and extravagant, but I had
never been in one.
    When I was in high school, my senior class
voted on what to do for our class trip. I had voted for a trip to a
museum, but inevitably was overruled in favor of a