One Last Summer

by Jo Noelle

  Chapter 15

  Jenna Brennan

  Cole and I meet on the back porch. “Whose cottage shall we see first?” He flips a coin, and I call, “Heads.” When he removes his hand, it reveals that my streak continues.

  His eyebrows pinch together and he laughs. “How is that even possible? We’ve used different coins. You’ve flipped. I’ve flipped. Whatever. You always win.”

  “Oh, do you want to call heads now?”

  “Yes, I’d like to think I’m not completely unlucky.”

  I take the quarter and toss it in the air as Cole calls heads. My palm covers the cool metal longer than usual as I consider that this is a new game, one we’ve never played before because now we’re on the same side. And not just that he calls heads—everything has changed. Who I am. Who he is to me. Who I am when I’m with him.

  When I remove my hand to reveal an eagle with its wings spread wide, Cole drops to his knees, laughing. “You completely defy the laws of probability. If Walter had flipped a coin at the beginning of this contest, I wouldn’t have stood a chance.”

  “I still won. We’ll see my cottage first.” I step out, and Cole closes the back door behind us. We walk arm in arm to Apple Blossom. The smell of dirt and sea and pines floats on the calm morning air. This is home. Win or lose, I’m not leaving.

  When we reach Apple Blossom and tour the rooms, I watch Cole’s face as he takes in each detail. “Seeing this cottage change from the aged building it used to be, to the wreck the robbery left, to the transformation I see now shows that you have natural, genuine talent for this.”

  I squeeze his hand. “Thanks.” I’m proud of these rooms, from the floral curtains and throw pillows to the thickly padded chairs covered with gray ticking above delicate turned legs. The rooms are comfortable with warm gold and rich blue.

  “This is amazing. We won’t have another cottage like it.” As we finish the tour and lock the door, he says, “It’s like a bed and breakfast.” His arm hugs my shoulder. “Great job.”

  Although the cottages aren’t that far apart, we can’t see Willow until we walk around Blackberry Cottage and break through the trees. Flickers of light shine in all the windows.

  I give Cole a sidelong glance. “I see the paper is finally off the glass.”

  He just says, “You’ll see.” But the smile on his face tells me he’s excited about this. No matter how bad it is, I have to find a few positive things to say. When I walk up the two steps, he doesn’t follow, but still holding my hand, he tugs me to a stop. “I want you to look around by yourself. I’ll be here when you finish.”

  He’s being so mysterious. In fact, he has been about this whole project—even to the point of papering all the windows so I couldn’t peek, and yes, I snuck over more one late night to do just that.

  He kisses my hand. Then instead of opening the door, he pulls me close. He holds my hand to his chest and leans his cheek against my forehead. It’s almost a silent slow dance with his other arm around me. The morning air, blowing in from over the canal and through the trees, mixes with the smell of his body wash, making me satisfied to stay in this moment with him.

  No matter how today turns out, I hope we’ll have these moments for the rest of our lives.

  He releases me and kisses my cheek, then opens the door and steps back.

  The flickering lights of battery-operated votives are clustered around the room as I step across the threshold and shut the door. Nothing—not one piece of furniture is from the shopping trip Cole and I made to Seattle. I’m not complaining, but he totally set me up. I chuckle to myself and stand in the center of the front room, turning in a full circle.

  Where there had been dark paneled walls, there are now beautifully white washed walls. The furniture is thickly padded with floral patterns on a dark green background. The top of the sofa sways in an elegant swoop, and the chairs have curling ironwork below the seat, matching the glass coffee table.

  When I enter the bedroom, I gasp softly. I get it. The chalk-painted furniture, the lace-covered pillows, the vanity with a framed oval mirror all scream shabby chic. It’s so beautiful. Someone else read my mind and created all this. It’s like climbing inside my dream house.

  He decorated this cabin for me. It’s in my favorite style and in my favorite colors. The muted gray, tan, and cream give a comfortable base to every room, then accent pieces pop with color, blue and green like the water in our canal.

  I walk down the hallway, with floor-to-ceiling glass walls Cole built to attach the old shed to the cottage. It’s wide enough for a table and chairs to be placed in the middle, and there’s plenty of room to walk around them. Pendant lights have been repurposed to hold little cages of silk wildflowers above the table. To one side, guests can watch Hood Canal, and through the other windows, they can watch the wildlife toward Olympic National Forest.

  Continuing my tour, I notice that Cole’s photography decorates many of the walls, but they’re all of places I love or memories we’ve had together.

  The picture above the sofa is of my favorite trail we often hiked through a cool, damp tunnel of dense trees surrounding us. There are photos of Hood Canal taken from our picnic table, some with churning gray water and white caps during a storm, others with bright blue skies overhead. A shiny carpet of black-gray oysters litters the beach in another photo. The kayaks stacked on racks, boulders along the water’s edge, rain while looking out my bedroom window, and the apple orchard, in full bloom, that’s just down the road are all saved in print.

  Cole didn’t just decorate this home for me. I get a sense that he’s reminding me we’ve been building our lives together for years. There isn’t a single picture of a person, but every picture is of us.

  A warm glow passes through my heart. The memories are like a life preserver.

  Cole is sitting on the steps when I make it back to the front porch. More votives have been set up, lining a path from the porch to the beach. I reach for his hands and pull them around me. My heart hammers in my chest, not from a desire to run, but the beat of excitement to create a life with Cole, knowing we’re right together.

  I whisper, “Thank you. It’s beautiful.” I lean away as far as his arms will allow. “I was so prepared to hide that hated it. But you tricked me.”

  Cole throws his head back and laughs. “You’re welcome, and I had to.” He gazes into my eyes and my heart flips in response. Then his hand cups my chin while his thumb grazes over my cheek.

  I’m trapped, willingly, in the sensation, and lean my head into his palm. One of his arms surrounds my shoulders and the other curls around my waist, tightening the hug, and I rise to my toes. He captures my lips with a slight taste of chocolate still on his tongue, his lips soft against mine, but increasing with need. I know deep in my soul that he’s mine and I’m his. When his teeth tease my lip, my arms reach farther around his back and pull us closer together.

  I had tried to deny my feelings for Cole, the feelings that now roar through me with his touch. I’d even stayed away, hoping we would go our separate ways and never have to be exposed to love and the rejection that goes with it. But I’d been so wrong. I had turned away the happiness and complete joy we could have been sharing for years.

  Cole seems to groan with effort as he breaks the kiss and loosens his embrace. But before he can move, I whisper across his lips, “I love you, Cole.”

  His smile lightens his whole face just before he leans down for another kiss, then presses quick kisses down my neck between his words. “I love you, Jenna.” He takes my hand and leads me down the lighted path toward Hood Canal.

  Willow has always been my favorite cabin. It’s the oldest one, and also the closet to the water. The beach is narrow here, and the sound of the water lapping on the rocks is soothing. A bench is set up near the water’s edge. When I sit, Cole kneels in front of me, unshed tears dimming my view in the pale morning light.

  I swipe my fingers quickly over my eyes before Cole speaks. “Je
nna, I adore you.” His own eyes are wet, but his words are earnest. “I love everything about you—that you’re playful and competitive, you’re ambitious and strong, you’re beautiful and tender. I knew that whatever mess happened in my life was just because it was the winter. Then summer would come and so would you, and I would feel whole again. I want to make my home with you. I want to be a family with you. Jenna, will you marry me?”

  I slip out of the chair to kneel in front of him, kissing his lips, his cheeks, his lips again. He pulls me across his chest, his kiss taking my breath away. For several minutes, I’m lost in him.

  “You haven’t answered. I hate to stop what we’re doing, but …”

  “Yes. Yes, I’ll marry you. Soon.”

  Cole pulls a ring from his shirt pocket, and I gasp. The gold ring has a large diamond in the center and a halo of diamonds circling around it. It fits my style perfectly.

  “Walter gave this to me, thinking one day I’d have a reason to use it.” Aunt Belle’s vintage ring slides onto my finger, the diamonds reflecting the first rays of the morning sun. “If you want to pick out your own, we can go to Seattle tomorrow and—”

  “No. I want this. I want us to have the kind of love they had.” As I finish the words, Cole kisses the ring now on my hand and whispers, “Forever.”

  The sound of the golf cart crunching over the path toward us breaks our moment, and Walter pulls up as we stand. “Well, are you two ready for me to judge the cottages?”

  After a silent moment, Cole reaches into his pant pocket and pulls out a silver coin, flips it into the air, then slaps it onto the back of his hand. Neither of us call it in the air, and I cover his hand with mine, the diamond winking up at us. “We both win.”

  Walter’s gaze travels from our faces to my new ring. “About dang time.”