Summer Romance Boxset - Weightless, Revelry, On the Way to You

by Steiner, Kandi

  With each new story she told, I wondered if she was a brilliant liar or just crazy—both would have impressed me.

  “So who’s this?” I asked, picking up a dusty old photo from the box.

  “Ah, that’s Luis. We spent a few months together in New York City.” She bit back a smile, her eyes glowing as she stared at the dusty photo I held in my hand. Luis was tall and dark, his curly hair falling over his ears a bit as he leaned against the rails of a fire escape with red brick lining the wall behind him. “He was peculiar, that one. Born and raised in Colombia, but he embraced the American culture as soon as his feet hit state soil on his sixteenth birthday. He barely had an accent, and I think I had more interest in Hispanic culture than he did.” She chuckled. “He was actually quite the hippy. We were together the day John Lennon died, made love for hours and then wept into a bottle of gin.”

  I ran the pad of my thumb over the photo, placing it back into the box with the others before pulling the only one where Momma Von was in the frame, too. “And this?”

  She smiled. “That’s my Beau.”

  “Vietnam soldier?”

  She nodded, taking the photo from my hands. “I have loved many men in my life, but only Beau ever had my whole heart.”

  “What happened?”

  “He loved me more than he loved himself.” She caught my eyes with a gleam and a small smile, but a short shake of her head. “I know what you’re thinking. How could that possibly be a bad thing, right? But when you love someone, truly love someone, you’ll do anything in your power to see them live their happiest life. After the war, Beau was depressed—so much so that he feared for my own sanity to be around him. So one night after hours spent in the sheets of a hostel in Berlin, he left.”

  I reached for her arm, giving it a tight squeeze as she shrugged, but her eyes welled.

  “He didn’t even have to leave a note. I already knew. I think I knew when he took me to bed that evening. He told me with every kiss, every touch. And I knew there was no arguing. He loved me, and for that reason, he couldn’t be with me.”

  For a moment I just held her arm, and she held the photograph, and we both let go of what we thought love would be.

  “I loved Keith,” I said before I realized it. “My ex. We were together for ten years, married for seven. I, um...” I hated the word I had to say to her. It always felt like acid in my throat. “I’m recently divorced.”

  Her eyes found mine then and she smiled sympathetically. I think she knew before I even said anything, judging by her lack of surprise, but her comforting smile let me feel like I could keep talking.

  “I grew up always thinking that was enough. Love is all you need and all that, you know? He loved me, too.” I swallowed. “But I loved him differently.”

  “How so?”

  I traced my fingers along the lid of her hat box, my eyes on the photo of her only love as I thought of mine. “He loved the idea of what we could be, of what I could be for him if only I changed. He said he wanted me to design clothes if that was my dream but made me feel guilty when I spent time working on that dream instead of with him. He said he loved my independent nature, my passion, but he would keep score of when I failed as a wife—when I didn’t cook or when I traveled for work. He said I only cared about myself, that I didn’t love him the right way.”

  I shook my head, still staring at Beau, mostly because it was easier than meeting her eyes.

  “It wasn’t always like that of course, but once those words were spoken the first time, they were repeated like a mantra. I wondered what had changed about my love, about me, that made him feel like I wasn’t enough. And for a while I tried to change, to be the woman who would make him happy. But one day I realized that every time I gave him what he wanted, I lost a piece of myself.” I shrugged. “I left before I lost the last one.”

  “And how did you love him, before he asked for more?” She placed the photo of Beau back in the box and closed the lid, shelving it in the trunk at the foot of her bed once more.

  When she turned to me, I realized I’d never had to put into words why I felt I loved Keith differently, or how.

  “Honestly?” I shook my head. “I don’t remember. I know I always wanted the best for him. I wanted to heal him, to help him push through the trials that go hand in hand with dental school and help him reach his full potential. We leaned on our love in some of the hardest times of our lives. It was almost as if when everything was okay, that’s when our love failed. And I can’t really remember what my love for him was like before he told me it wasn’t enough. All I know is I still want nothing more than for him to be happy, no matter what that means. But he only wants me happy if my happiness is with him.”

  She smiled, the crow’s feet at the edge of her eyes crinkling. “And so an empath loved a narcissist. The more you loved to make him feel whole, the more power he had.”

  I crossed my arms over my stomach with a lift of my shoulders and a slight smile. “Who knows.” My eyes were on the trunk filled with her memories. “Did you ever see Beau again?”

  “Never,” she answered. “But I feel him.”

  The sun was setting by the time we made our way back onto the porch, and I took the seat next to her, watching the last of the light fade from the mountain tips. The temperature was dropping steadily, spring’s chilly fingers still holding on for dear life as summer crept slowly in. I grabbed the wool blanket draped over the arm of my chair and wrapped it around my shoulders.

  “So why was Anderson left off the tour you gave me yesterday?” I asked after a while.

  Momma Von adjusted the cushion in her rocking chair before folding her hands in her lap. “Anderson is... different. He likes to keep to himself. Honestly, other than me and old man Ron, he doesn’t really spend time with many people.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she said with a shrug. “Why do some people love to dance on bars while others would rather read a book at home alone? It’s just what he prefers, I suppose.”

  I chewed the inside of my lip as I processed. “Did he grow up here?” She nodded. “And he’s always been like that?”

  This time Momma Von sighed. “I wouldn’t say that. I could tell you stories about Anderson that you’d probably be hard pressed to believe now.”

  “Oh? What kind of stories?”

  She smiled, reaching over to pat my knee. “Another time. I’m a little tired tonight.”

  I wanted to ask for more, but it was clear that was as much of Anderson as she was willing to discuss. Maybe she was still thinking about Beau, or maybe the stories weren’t hers to tell, but still I wondered about him. And perhaps that was what bothered me most—I had said no more than thirty words to this man and he no more than ten to me, yet he’d piqued my curiosity. I was annoyed with him for being so broody almost as much as I was with myself for liking it.

  I sat with Momma Von in comfortable silence for a while longer before heading back to the cabin to make dinner. When my plate was cleared, I pulled out my sketch book and stared at the blank pages. My fingers played with the charcoal pencil, twirling it between them, but nothing made them move for the paper. Nothing had, not in months, not since the night I left.

  My phone rang at ten on the dot, and I closed my sketchbook with an exasperated sigh, taking the ringing phone upstairs with me and climbing into bed. Rev hadn’t come home, and so I laid completely alone for the first time in my life.

  And I felt every second of it.

  TIME

  ˈtīm

  Noun

  A nonspatial continuum that is measured in terms of events which succeed one another from past through present to future

  I was being stupid.

  This was now the fourth time I’d walked past Wren’s cabin. I told myself it was because I left a tool at home, or I forgot to turn the coffee pot off, or I left my door unlocked. But really I just wanted to see her, even if it was just a glance through the front window, and as much as
that pissed me off, it was true.

  It’d been almost a week since I’d made her blush on Momma Von’s porch, and somehow I was still acutely aware of her presence. Her cabin was four away from mine, but it was right next door to the Morrisons’, and I’d been there every day working. The shed had been done since Monday, but I’d conveniently found other projects to work on, other work that “needed” to be done.

  Stupid.

  I huffed, finally annoyed enough with myself to make my way up her drive. When I reached the top of her stairs, knuckles ready to rap on the open door frame, I stopped short.

  Wren stood in her kitchen, hands on her hips, hair tied up, just staring at her cabinets. She was dressed in overalls, the hem of the shorts rolled up, the denim ripped for fashion rather than from actually working in them. She left one strap of them unhooked, revealing the simple white tank top she wore underneath, and she had a screwdriver in one hand.

  I didn’t know whether to be scared or impressed.

  I knocked twice, jolting her from her daze. She fumbled a bit when she saw me, but a smile spread slow and wide on her lips. She wore a full face of makeup, complete with bright red lipstick, and her long lashes brushed her cheeks as she looked up at me.

  “Hi,” she squeaked, dropping the screwdriver to the counter and reaching up for her hair like she wanted to fix it but settled for brushing a few fallen pieces behind her ears instead. “Uh, it’s nice to see you again. Glad I’m actually wearing clothes this time.” She chuckled.

  “Wanted to make sure your foot’s okay,” I said, not returning her laugh, because apparently that function was broken.

  She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth and I dropped my eyes to her foot, which was still bandaged.

  “Oh, that,” she said, waving me off. “I’m fine. Thank you.”

  I met her eyes again, and the silence stretched between us. So I nodded and turned to leave.

  “Hey, can I ask you something?”

  I paused, cocking one brow in response in the door frame.

  She’d picked up the screwdriver again and wrung her hands around it, nodding to the cabinet she’d been staring at when I walked in. “The hinge on that door broke the other day, and I just fixed it, only it’s the first time I’ve fixed anything in my entire life and, well, I’ve heard this is kind of your thing. Would you mind just taking a look at it to make sure I didn’t completely screw it up?”

  I glanced at the cabinet she was referring to, knowing it was the right one only by the two different-colored hinges. The top one was gold and worn, where the bottom one was silver and shiny, like it had just been purchased. My brow rose farther. “How’d you fix it?”

  “Bought a hinge repair kit over at the hardware store in Gold Bar and watched a YouTube video.”

  My eyes must have given away my concern, because she grinned and offered a small shrug.

  “What? It’s how I learned how to make a fire in that thing, too.” She hitched a thumb over her shoulder at the wood-burning stove behind her.

  My eyes stayed there for a moment before finding hers again, and then I crossed the kitchen and opened the cabinet, inspecting it.

  Surprisingly, the bottom hinge held strong. I jiggled the door, opening and closing it, pulling on the handle and attempting to break it free. It was sturdy, and I was impressed. I stepped back, crossing my arms over my chest before turning to face her again.

  “Looks okay to me.”

  “Really?” She bounced with the question, breezing past me to inspect the door herself. “I really did it?”

  “You really did it.”

  Her grin widened and she opened and closed the cabinet over and over while I stood behind her. “I am a bad ass.”

  She kept on, humming to herself as she admired her handiwork, but my eyes were skating the rest of her cabin. The board on the back porch was still broken, but there were bags from the hardware store leaning against the back door, along with wood panels that were pretty close to the deep red shade of the one that had broken. The latch on her stove was broken, too, which meant she was probably burning through more firewood than she needed to.

  At that thought, I glanced outside at the pile of firewood on the side of the garage. It was low, and when I thought of her slight frame trying to chop more from the larger pieces Abdiel stored under the back porch, I almost laughed.

  More hardware bags still littered the counter, holding a plethora of tools, light bulbs, rope, and wires. I had no idea what other projects she had planned, but the fact that she was watching YouTube videos to figure out what to do made me cringe.

  She glanced back over her shoulder at me, goofy grin still in place, but I was still taking in the state of the cabin. “I can help you fix this place up, if you want.”

  “Oh.” She spun, propping a hip against the counter and folding her arms over her middle. “No, no it’s okay. Look at me, I’m Mrs. Fix-It now. I think I can do it.”

  Wren smiled, bright white teeth framed by full red lips. I chose that exact moment to realize the white tank top she wore was very tight, and I had no idea what the hell I was doing here.

  So, I left.

  “Okay. Be careful on that foot.”

  And before I could find another reason to stay, I was out of her cabin, down the porch stairs, and walking down the drive. I rounded it at the end to make my way back to my cabin, shaking my head the entire way. She didn’t need my help, and I was stupid to even offer it in the first place. What did I expect? I didn’t know anything about her, and I knew everything about me.

  So she was attractive. I’d seen plenty of attractive women in my life, both before and after Dani’s death. It didn’t change the fact that everything good inside me had died along with my cousin more than six years ago.

  I had nothing to give Wren, but still I was stuck.

  Because no two days had been the same since I met her.

  My Aunt Rose was born and raised in Gold Bar. She lived in the same cabin that my grandparents did, even after they passed, even after my mom left and didn’t take me with her. But after Dani died, Aunt Rose left Gold Bar for the first time in her life, and she hadn’t been back since.

  She would never say it, but she blamed me for Dani’s death, too. It didn’t stop her from checking in on me every now and then, short phone calls with a flat voice that served no other purpose other than to confirm I still had a pulse. Later that day when I was at old man Ron’s, she called me and it was over in three minutes.

  Ron didn’t say anything when I returned to the garage, tossed my old flip phone into my toolbox, and went right back to cleaning the battery terminals.

  A lot of people misunderstood Ron, saying he was an old, grumpy man with a bad attitude. But I knew better. Ron was smart, and unlike so many people who talked but never said anything of merit, every word that left his mouth had a purpose. He was the closest thing I’d ever had to a father, and since his wife and unborn child had been killed in a car accident while he was serving in his third tour, I was the closest thing he’d ever had to a son. We never talked about that, about what the other meant to us, but we both knew.

  “Almost seven years,” he said from under the truck. My hand froze over the battery for a split second, but then autopilot kicked back on, and I nodded.

  “Yep.”

  Ron crawled out, wincing a little as he used the bumper to help him stand. “You going to see her?”

  My eyes didn’t leave my hands, but I nodded again.

  He pulled the old rag from his back pocket and wiped his hands on it, watching me work for a minute before tucking it back in place. “Let me know if you want any company.”

  Ron didn’t wait for me to respond, just walked inside the house and gave me unspoken permission to quit for the day. And so I did, but my head was heavy with thoughts of Dani as I walked back to my cabin, and I veered off toward Momma Von’s without making the conscious choice to do so.

  “Hey, grease monkey,” she greeted from wher
e she sat on the porch. I plopped down in the seat next to her, the mountains already shaded as the sun disappeared for the night. “Want a beer?”

  I shook my head, and because she knew I didn’t want to talk, she filled me in on her day.

  Where Ron and I had an understanding in silence, Momma Von was always there when I needed to talk. Sometimes I only said a few words, and sometimes I talked for hours. She was about the only person I still talked to like that, but it was because she knew—she knew Aunt Rose, she knew Dani, she knew me, she knew the past and the present and why I would never be the same man I was in one in the other.

  I wanted to tell her Aunt Rose called, that I was feeling some sort of way about the anniversary of Dani’s death, but I wasn’t there yet. So I listened to her tell me about her day working in her garden and helping Yvette with Benjamin. I was staring out at the mountains, eyes adjusting to the darkness, half-listening and half-thinking about my own shit when she said Wren’s name.

  “Poor girl didn’t know what to do with that baby in her arms,” Momma Von said with a chuckle. “She was holding him out at arm’s length, his legs dangling and diaper sagging. I’ve never seen a pair of eyes so big before, thought they were going to pop out of her head before Yvette got back with the changing bag.”

  “What’s her story, anyway?” I asked, aiming for nonchalant, landing somewhere right around desperate for information.

  “She’s a sweet girl, staying out here for the summer. I think she’s a little lost, trying to find out who she is and how she fits in the world.”

  “Mm,” I said in response.

  Momma Von had her eyes on me, a smile playing at the edges of her mouth.

  “She’s not running from a crazy ex or something, is she? That’s the last thing we need out here, some lunatic showing up and then we all have to get involved.”

  “I don’t think that’s my story to tell,” she answered with a cluck of her tongue. “But maybe you could ask her.”

  I just shrugged, but more questions burned their way to the surface. Where was she from? What did she want to find out here? Did she really have a crazy ex? Shit, did she have a boyfriend?