by Olivia Miles
“I always forget how quiet it can be here,” Gemma said, looking out onto what she could make of the water.
Leo was beside her, on the porch steps, his beer growing warm beside him. “It’s a lot different than city life, I suppose,” he said.
“In so many ways,” she said, sighing. “I always wanted to live in a big city, you know.” She gave a little laugh. It seemed strange in a way, like a different person, a person who saw the world differently, who didn’t yet have enough experience to form a true opinion. “I wanted to be in the action. To be around people. Funny then, that lately, I’ve spent so much time alone.”
“I don’t mind it much,” Leo said. “Being alone.”
She frowned. There was still so much about himself that he wasn’t willing to share, but she’d learned something new tonight.
“You never mentioned you were a lawyer,” she said. It was a strange piece of information to withhold, and she couldn’t help but wonder what else she didn’t know about him.
He shrugged. “Didn’t seem to matter much. That’s all behind me.”
“What kind of law did you practice?”
“State prosecutor,” he said, and Gemma raised her eyebrows.
“I’m impressed!”
He gave a good-natured laugh. “You shouldn’t be. It was just a job, but…I enjoyed it.”
“So why’d you give it all up then?” she asked.
He was quiet for a long time. “I told you about my mom, and the garden.”
She nodded. Smiled fondly. “It reminded me of my Gran. She taught us that sort of thing, too.”
“And she learned from her father. From Edward.” His own smile was sad. “My mother died a few years ago. My dad was gone long before her.”
Gemma didn’t quite know what to say. “I’m sorry,” she said. It was obvious that they had been close.
He shook his head. “At the time I was working, and I was getting ready to propose to my girlfriend. And then…”
Then. That word said so much, didn’t it? Everything could be going along fine, and then…
“My brother and I argued about the ranch and what to do with it,” Leo said.
“Sounds like me and Ellie,” Gemma said, feeling her stomach tighten.
“I got that distinct impression tonight,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “Take it from me. These kinds of arguments can have lasting consequences.”
She didn’t like the ominous warning. It tapped into her greatest fears. What would happen to her relationship with Ellie if she pushed the issue? But to not push it made no sense either. Ellie needed a push; she always had. She needed guidance, and structure, and someone to ease her in the right direction.
She grew silent, thinking of the art studio, and Ellie’s paintings, and everything she had created for herself all on her own.
Maybe she was wrong. Maybe Ellie was all right, all on her own.
Maybe, she was being selfish.
She swallowed hard, not liking that thought.
“I assume that your brother won the argument,” she said, pushing away the thoughts of her own situation. “Seeing as you’re here.”
“He won. But only because he had support in the matter.” He shot her a look. “My own girlfriend sided with him. The truth of the matter was that she didn’t want to live on the ranch. She liked the other side of me, the buttoned-up side. When I found out…Well, I had to end it. Returned the ring to the store the very next day.”
She set a hand on his arm, and he didn’t move away. “That couldn’t have been easy.”
“It wasn’t,” he said. “I thought life was good. I had a family, a career, the family ranch…and then, well, it just seemed like there was nothing left for me there anymore. My brother wanted to take the ranch in a commercial direction. But to me…that was my home.”
“So you came here,” she surmised.
He nodded, keeping his eyes high, up at the sky. “Seemed like the only place that made sense. My grandfather is here, and he’s getting on in years, and even though I never came here with my mother, I can sense her here. And the work is good for me.”
He said it as an afterthought, and she eyed him for a minute, not entirely convinced.
“It’s important to have roots,” he said. “And the island has been good to me. No bad memories here.”
None at all, Gemma thought, sighing as she looked up at the old Victorian house behind her.
“Do you miss it?” she asked. “The ranch?”
“No sense in looking back,” he said gruffly.
“Easier said than done.” She glanced at him, deciding she was willing to share more, too. “I was supposed to be getting married next month.”
He looked at her with interest. “Now that couldn’t have been easy.”
“It wasn’t,” she said. “Especially when he got engaged to someone else shortly after calling things off. But coming here…I feel better. I feel almost…hopeful.”
Their eyes met, and for a moment she almost had the sense that he was going to lean in, felt the brush of his arm against hers, saw the slight parting of his lips.
Just as quickly, it was over.
He cleared his throat. Looked up at the sky.
“You can see the entire Milky Way from here,” he said.
“My Gran used to show us the constellations,” she said, looking up. She could still remember gathering with her sisters, in their pajamas, on the front porch, Ellie always the most eager, and the most curious, so easily dazzled by nature when so many others took it for granted.
Maybe, like she’d taken this place for granted.
“I’m glad we met, Leo,” she said, slanting him a glance.
He nodded. “Me too. And I’m sorry for what that guy did to you. You deserve better, you know.” He gave her a long look. “You’ll find it.”
She frowned slightly at his wording. Here, she’d stared to think that she had maybe found it. With him.
“Do you think you’ll ever want to share your life with someone?” she asked even though she wasn’t so sure that she should be asking, or even if she should want to know. She felt a connection, one that she hadn’t sought out or even hoped to find, but it was there, within her reach, and this time, she didn’t want it to slip away.
“Nope,” he said simply, and even though the word was small, the implication was huge.
She stared out into the distance, trying to process what he had just said, knowing that she had no reason to feel the disappointment in her chest that she did, but it was there all the same. The door had been shut. The intention was made clear.
“Look, it’s nothing personal,” he said, giving her a little shove with his elbow.
She didn’t smile. “So you’re giving me the whole it’s not you, it’s me speech?”
He winced. “Well, when you put it that way…”
She stood up and brushed the seat of her dress, even though she was fairly sure that Hope had swept the patio until every last cobweb or grain of sand was gone. “Forget it. You don’t owe me an explanation.”
“It sounds like I do,” he said, looking up at her. He tapped the spot where she had just been, showing no signs of moving. “Sit, please.”
It was tempting, but she knew that there was no choice. She had flashbacks of Sean doing the same thing, pulling her back, trying to let her down gently, trying to convince her that she was better off this way, that it hadn’t been working, and that in time she’d see that too, when she was ready.
But what she and Leo had…that did work. It was uncomplicated. And easy. And natural. And fun. There was no pressure. No arguments. No expectation.
“Why shut down the possibility of something wonderful?” she asked.
“Why set yourself up for disappointment?” he countered. When she didn’t respond right away, he stood. “You’ve been there, Gemma. You know how it feels to be let down, and betrayed. We’re a lot alike in that department.”
“No,” she said, shaking her.
“That’s where we’re different. When I first came here, I was coming to escape, and run away, it’s true. But now, being here, being with you, it’s made me realize that there are second chances. If we want them. We can punish ourselves, or shut ourselves off, turn our backs on what we love and who we are and what we want, or we can try again. And…I’d like to try again, because to not even try…” She shook her head. “I can’t give up on myself like that. And I don’t think you should either.”
Leo looked at her sadly, and she knew that there was no sense in trying to change his mind.
Finally, with a heavy heart, she stepped back. “Good night, Leo.”
Or maybe, it was good-bye.
She waited to see if he would say something, stop her, but he just stood there, at the base of the steps, looking like a man who had lost everything. And maybe he had.
The door closed behind her, and she walked into the house, expecting to find it dark, and just as quiet on the inside as it had been on the outside. She planned to go to her room, go to bed, maybe even pack her bags, board the ferry tomorrow. It didn’t matter where she went. If she was in Chicago or if she was seven hours away on Evening Island.
She couldn’t run from her troubles. She couldn’t run from the pain in her heart.
Her hand was on the banister, her sandals slipped off into the pile of others that Ellie kept in a wicker basket and which Hope kept trying to line neatly, by pair, in vain, when she saw the glow of a light from the kitchen. She sighed, thinking that she should be an adult and turn it off for the night, even though what she really wanted to do was crawl under the covers and have a good cry.
She walked to the back of the house, seeing that it wasn’t the kitchen light that was on at all, but rather, the old lamps that were set up in the backyard so that people wouldn’t trip coming in from the outdoor shower. She opened the screen door, calling softly, “Hello?”
“Over here,” a voice whispered back. Ellie. “On the hammock.”
Despite the heaviness in her heart, Gemma smiled and stumbled through the cool grass barefoot until she found the hammock, tied between two old trees, whose branches extended high above the roof of this massive house.
She crawled on, settled in so she was facing Ellie, even if she could only make out shadows of her sister’s face in the dim light.
“I’m sorry about Simon,” she said, reaching out to squeeze her sister’s hand.
Ellie was quiet for a long time. “Where’s Leo?” she eventually asked, tossing her half of the old wool blanket that they used on evening bonfires at the beach.
“Gone,” Gemma said flatly, as simply as Leo had answered the question she needed to ask.
Ellie nodded her head, no further explanation needed. They stared up, into the night sky, at the very stars they used to wish upon as young girls, back when they still felt full of hope and possibility, back when they were still bonded by childhood struggles and daily routine, not just the ownership of an old, run-down house.
Only they were bonded by more than that, Gemma thought. And it would seem that between the three of them, lasting love only did belong in fiction.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Ellie
It was early when Ellie arrived at the studio, but unlike the last couple of weeks, her heart didn’t speed up as she passed through town, and she no longer viewed the hours that stretched ahead as being filled with possibility. It was another day on the island, same as always. She’d make some coffee. Some of the guys off the docks would come in to start their week off right. They’d chat about the weather, the choppiness of the water, and then they’d go on their way. She’d call around to the shops to see how her weekend sales had gone, and if any new inventory was needed. And then…
And then this was where things got lonely.
Before she could let her mood get the better of her, she started a fresh pot of coffee to brew and turned a sign on the door that led directly to the docks, letting all the regulars know that she was open. The coffee had only finished brewing when Edward came through the door, holding up his thermos.
“Happy to see you back in business,” he said with a grin.
“I was never out of business,” she said, filling his mug. He dropped a few bucks in her change jar, even though it wasn’t necessary really.
“Well, you haven’t been making your coffee these last couple days,” Edward said, giving her a wink. “Made me drag myself all the way to Cottage Coffeehouse.”
“Which is only around the corner.” She laughed. “And they have the best coffee in town.”
He gave her a wry look as he helped himself to the container of milk she kept in the mini-fridge. “Well, they don’t have the best conversation.”
She grinned. “Aw, Edward. You’re too kind.”
“Just being honest,” he said gruffly, looking her square in the eye, and something in her melted a little. He was one of the fixtures of the island, the kind of local stock that made this place what it was, and she’d known him since she was a little girl.
The warmth in her heart lasted long after he’d taken his leave, after she’d promised to be here bright and early tomorrow, with muffins this time, and he promised to bring her some fresh catch to share with her sisters. This prompted them to share a good laugh about Hope that day last week, and Ellie was still chuckling about it when she was settled at her easel, only this time she didn’t stay in her back room. She pulled her workspace into the brightly lit studio. The sun was reflecting off the water, and she wanted to capture the harbor before the light changed.
She was just sketching a few of the boats when the door opened. She expected to see Edward, back for a refill, but it wasn’t one of the fishermen coming in off the docks.
It was Simon.
She frowned. She couldn’t help herself, and he held up a hand before she could protest.
Still, she did. “Shouldn’t you be with your fiancée?” she asked. She picked up her paintbrush, went back to the boats, but she was angry and her hand was shaking, damn it, and he’d messed up her morning. She wasn’t going to let him mess up her painting too.
“You’re mad,” he said.
She flashed him with a look. “Gee, you think?”
“I’m sorry if you thought I was leading you on,” he said. “That was never my intention.”
“And just what was your intention?” she asked, but it was all so obvious now, so horribly, painfully obvious. She saw what she wanted to see even when real life was staring her in the face.
Simon had moved on. And she was still right here.
“I guess I wanted it to be like old times,” he said. “Like how we left off.”
She raised an eyebrow. “We left off with you saying that you’d be back next summer. And ten summers later, here you are. And here I am.”
“And it was a surprise to see you, Ellie. A good surprise,” he said.
She nodded sadly. She understood, even if she didn’t really want to. “This island has a way of making you forget about the rest of the world.”
“You knew I was engaged, Ellie. I never kept that from you.”
True. He hadn’t. She sighed, and this time she set her paintbrush down for good. “You didn’t seem happily engaged,” she said, looking him square in the eye. There. She’d said it.
He didn’t argue with her. Instead he ran a hand over his face, looked at her with tired eyes. “I came to say that I was sorry for not giving you a heads-up that she would be at the party. She took the afternoon ferry in, she surprised me, and I told her I had this party, and well…”
And it had taken him until Wednesday to offer an apology. Not that she’d been waiting around for one. The apology she wanted was never coming. The apology for not returning all those years ago. And for breaking her heart.
“You’re engaged, so it made sense that she came. That’s what couples do. They spend time together. They go to parties together.” Not that she would know. She hadn’t had a boyfriend since Simon. Hadn�
�t wanted to, really. Then she only wanted to focus on her painting, to throw herself into her art, and then, she was busy taking care of Gran.
But now, all of that felt different. She’d had a taste of love, even if it was unrequited. And now, now she couldn’t bear the thought of never finding it again.
“I should have tried to reach you first,” he finished.
She nodded. “Yes. You should have.”
“She liked you,” he said, raising his eyebrows, and to that Ellie gave a snort.
“And you? Do you still like me, Simon? All these weeks, all that time we spent together. That day…” She pulled in a breath when she thought of how close he’d come to kissing her, right here in this studio. Or maybe, she had almost kissed him. “I guess I misread things.”
Simon thrust his hands in his pockets and nodded slowly. For a moment, she thought she’d overstepped, that he was agreeing with her. She’d been a fool. She’d tried to steal another woman’s fiancé right out from under her. But then Simon looked at her, and she knew. She wasn’t crazy.
“You were right when you said that I didn’t seem happy. I….I wasn’t. Erin and I got engaged and then everything seemed to change, overnight. She didn’t want to spend the whole summer on the island, and I didn’t want to keep rushing back and forth to Philly. We were arguing. A lot. And then there you were.”
She gulped, and willed herself not to cry, because as much as she wanted to hear this, as much as she hoped that he cared, she also knew that it didn’t matter. He’d made his choice. And she wasn’t it.
“You know I always cared about you, El.”
She turned from him, facing her painting, but all she saw was a blur of lines and colors. “Please.”
He set a hand on her shoulder and then, perhaps thinking the better of it, pulled it back. “What we had was special. This island will always remind me of that time. But I don’t live here anymore. And I can’t take this place with me.”
