6 Rainier Drive

“I realize I’ve been a little cranky lately.”

She smiled and pressed her hand on top of his. To say he’d been “a little cranky” was an understatement of major proportions.

“Everything will be all right,” he said again, “once we find out who did this to us.”

“Will it?” she asked, but apparently Seth didn’t hear her because he didn’t respond.

Justine tilted her head to one side so her cheek could rest against his hand. “You’re already talking about rebuilding,” she murmured.

“Of course. I want to get started as soon as possible. Don’t you?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know anymore.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” He laughed and seemed to assume she was joking. “We’re in the restaurant business. This is how we make our living. Unless we rebuild, we won’t have an income.”

“Yes, but…”

Her husband went still for a moment. “I can’t go back to fishing, Justine.”

Being a professional fisherman was a hard, dangerous life, and they’d agreed that Seth would give it up for good. His father had encouraged him in that decision.

“I wouldn’t want you to fish,” she said, turning so she could slip her arms around his middle. “I’m just not sure I want to be a restaurant owner anymore.”

Seth gripped her shoulders, his fingers digging into her flesh. “You don’t mean that. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“I…I do,” she countered. “At least I think I do. We went into this business with absolutely no knowledge of what we were letting ourselves in for. We were totally naive about what owning a restaurant takes out of you.”

According to statistics, eight out of ten new businesses fail, and restaurants headed the list. The only reason theirs had been successful was the sheer force of their combined efforts—and a degree of luck.

“We made a few mistakes,” Seth said, then added with a wry grin, “okay, we made a lot of mistakes in the beginning, but we learned quickly and we’ve come a long way.”

“We hardly spend any time together, as a family.” This was the one thing that distressed Justine the most.

Seth didn’t agree or disagree with her.

“You were at the restaurant all hours of the day and night, and so was I.” She supposed that now wasn’t a particularly opportune moment to broach her concerns, not while Seth was still so upset.

“I had to be there. You know that.”

“I’m not blaming you for any of this,” Justine told him, gazing into his intensely blue eyes. He was frowning at her and in him she read confusion and pain.

“Are you suggesting I haven’t been a good husband?” he asked.

“No! That isn’t what I meant at all. I love you and you love me. I could never doubt that.” Then, reluctantly, she said, “I’m afraid, Seth.”

“Afraid? Afraid of what?”

“I’m not sure. I had a panic attack last week. I didn’t know what it was at first. I felt like I wasn’t getting enough air and that I was going to pass out.”

Concern darkened his eyes. “When? Why didn’t you mention this earlier?”

“How could I? You’ve been so angry, so restless. I didn’t want to add to your worries.”

He slid his arms around her, drawing her close. “I’m sorry, my love. So sorry.”

“I am, too. About everything.”

He lifted his head. “What do you have to apologize for?”

“Because I don’t think I can go back to the way things were before, with you gone so many hours. With me at the restaurant virtually every day. I don’t want our son spending every night with babysitters. I don’t want to go back to the constant worries over money and meeting payroll. It was always something, wasn’t it?” Once she started listing her concerns, she couldn’t seem to stop. “This was never our plan, remember? I was going to do the books and fill in occasionally, but occasionally became every day. Leif is being raised by strangers and you have less and less time for us.”

Seth frowned at her. “You never said any of this before.”

“That’s because I hardly ever saw you, and when I did, we were usually talking about the restaurant. We wanted to have a second child and kept putting it off.”

“But—”

“We’ve had practically no time to be a family. It doesn’t make sense to have a second baby.” She stared at him. “I know what you’re thinking.”

“I doubt that.”

“You’re thinking that you aren’t about to let all this hard work go to waste. That you didn’t slave away for the last five years to end up with nothing more than a pile of rubble.”

He looked startled, as though her observation had surprised him.

“We both need to decide what’s really important,” she said, nearly choking on her words. “Is working thirteen- and fourteen-hour days worth what it’s doing to us, to our son and to our marriage?”

“Yes,” he stated without question. “You’re exaggerating, Justine. It isn’t all bad.”

“I agree, but for me, the bad outweighs the good. I’m no longer sure the sacrifice is worth it. I love you so much,” she whispered, bringing her hands to his face, blinking back tears. “I want my husband back—the man I married. The man who proved to me I could love and be loved. I want to find what we once shared and I’m so afraid it might be too late.”

Seth crushed her to him then and held her tight. She felt him shudder, and he didn’t speak for a moment.

“I had no idea you felt this way,” he finally said.

“I didn’t know it myself until the fire,” she admitted.

“What do you want?”

“That’s a mystery to me, too,” she said with a shaky laugh. “I guess I want us both to think long and hard before we decide whether or not to rebuild The Lighthouse.”

She could tell from his sudden tension that he’d prefer not to reconsider but to go ahead with his plans to rebuild. Justine swallowed, wondering if anything she’d said had gotten through to him.

“I’m not making any promises,” Seth told her.

“But we can talk?” she asked.

“All right,” her husband agreed. “We can talk.”