Searching For Love – the Bradens & Montgomerys (Pleasant Hill – Oak Falls)

by Melissa Foster

  He glanced at the blanket beneath the tree, on which he’d set a loaf of French bread, a box of saltines, and a bottle of wine from Hilltop Vineyards. It was exactly what they’d had the first night Carly had ever gotten drunk. They’d stolen the bottle from his parents’ stash. He’d thought it was romantic to re-create that night, but now his gut clenched with worry. What if the reminders of what they’d had didn’t conjure the same warm feelings for her as they did for him? What if they reminded her of losing Tory and of his leaving?

  He caught movement out of his peripheral vision, and his heart nearly stopped. There she was, walking across the grass like an angel illuminated by the setting sun. She slowed, looking over at the blanket, and stopped about ten feet away. Zev held his breath, sure she was going to turn and leave. He’d give anything to get her to stay long enough to talk, to just let him explain himself.

  She looked from the blanket to the ground between them. Her hair curtained her face as she shook her head.

  He lowered his eyes for a second, trying to calm his nerves, but it was a futile effort. “Just hear me out,” he pleaded.

  “Really, Zevy? Is that Hilltop wine?” She lifted her face, a half smile curving her lips.

  Relief swept through him. “Stolen from Beau and Char’s wine cellar.”

  “Zinfandel?” she asked nervously.

  “Is there any other kind?”

  When he stepped forward, she met him halfway and said, “You’re playing dirty.” Thankfully she sounded amused, not angry.

  He turned his palm up and said, “Cards on the table, Carls. We’re really good at playing dirty.”

  She laughed softly again, balm to his fractured heart, and said, “I’m surprised you didn’t bring Bandit. Did Beau forget to warn you about Bandit stealing and hiding things when he’s left alone?”

  “I’ve experienced his thievery. I had to use a flimsy hand towel with lace on the edges and a pink heart sewn into it to dry off after my shower this morning. I know Beau and Bandit are a pack, but I’m not used to having a sidekick. I think it’s worth the risk of him stealing something tonight. I wanted to be able to give you my full attention.”

  He reached for her hand, but she shook her head and said, “Five-foot rule.”

  “Right, sorry.” He waved to the blanket. “Sit and drink, or walk and talk?”

  She looked around them. He’d wanted to find someplace neutral, open, where she wouldn’t feel like he was pushing her to kiss him again…or do more. He’d thought about meeting her at the park down the street from her shop, but that didn’t feel neutral enough. Serenity Park was halfway between the inn and Divine Intervention.

  “Walk and talk,” she said. “Bring the bottle.”

  He grabbed the bottle and said, “It’s probably better if we walk. There are more bushes for you to puke in near the water.”

  “Ha ha,” she said sarcastically. “I was thirteen, and I wanted to impress you. It was the first time I’d ever drank alcohol.”

  “You impressed me all right, all over my sneakers.”

  That soft laugh escaped again, and he took that as a good sign. As they walked toward the lake, he said, “We’ve shared a lot of firsts, haven’t we?”

  “Yeah.”

  “First girlfriend/boyfriend,” he said, hoping to keep things light for just a little while before he said what he’d come to say. “First kiss. It was a good one, remember?”

  “I remember being really nervous, and then the second our lips touched, like magic, all my worries fell away.”

  “It’s still magic,” he said, bringing her eyes to his. She quickly looked away, but not before he saw longing and sadness in her eyes. Too much too soon. They needed to talk about that sadness, but he knew it might be the end of their night, and he wasn’t ready for that. He scrambled for something else to say, but between his nerves and that look, he couldn’t think straight, so he said, “What do you remember most about our first kiss?”

  “The way I felt like I was floating on air until you slipped your tongue into my mouth, which totally freaked me out.”

  He laughed, relieved by her levity. “Come on. You had to expect it. You had been asking me when I was going to kiss you for a week.”

  “Yeah, but it was still invasive, and thrilling, in a nerve-racking way. I’m sure you could tell I got flustered.”

  “Why do you think I put my hand on the back of your head? I wasn’t about to let you get away. Nick taught me that trick.”

  Her jaw dropped. “You talked to Nick about kissing me? Do you have any idea how embarrassing that is?”

  “Do you know how embarrassing it was to have to go to him in the first place for pointers? I figured I had one shot with you, and I wasn’t about to blow it. God, I was so nervous.”

  “I could tell you were,” she said softly.

  “You could not.”

  “I could tell a lot of things that night. Like how you pulled your T-shirt down to hide your hard-on.”

  “I think I need a drink for this.” He opened the wine and took a swig, then handed her the bottle. “You were my first grope, you know. You were so soft and perfect. I was sure you’d been put on this earth just to make me happy.”

  “And you were so hard. I remember thinking it had to hurt.”

  They both laughed.

  She took a drink and said, “We sure fumbled through our firsts.”

  “We might have fumbled at the beginning, but we got the hang of things. I know we were just kids, but I’ve never experienced anything even close to what we had.”

  Her eyes looked troubled again as she tipped the bottle up to her lips. She was quiet for a minute, and then she said, “I remember how you looked at me after our first kiss. It was the same way you looked at me after the first time we had sex, like I was your earth, sun, moon, stars, and sea all in one.”

  “You were, Carls.” You still are. “You turned my world upside down every day from the moment we first started hanging out together until the day I left.” He wondered if the regret in his voice was as loud in her ears as it was in his. They walked in silence along the edge of the lake for a few minutes. Zev wrestled with bringing up the reasons why he’d left. But he wasn’t ready to give up this happier place yet. It felt good to be with Carly, to see her smile and hear her voice as they relived happy memories. “Remember when we decided we should be more than friends?”

  “You mean when you asked me to be your girlfriend in a note that you taped to my bedroom window?”

  “Yes.” Another nervous night.

  After sneaking out together, they’d said good night through that window. And after their last kiss, when she’d closed the window, they’d used their breath to fog it up and wrote messages as fast as they could before the fog faded. They’d become so adept at writing backward, they could do it as quickly as they wrote forward. They’d said good night by that window hundreds of times, and every time was as heart-wrenching as the last. The hours between good night and school the next morning seemed to go on forever. But now he knew what forever really felt like.

  “I still have that note,” she admitted. “And all the others.”

  His gut twisted. Had she kept the note he’d taped to her window the morning he’d left town? He bit the bullet and said, “I wasn’t sure you’d show up tonight, but I’m glad you did. I’m sorry for the way I left, Carly. It wasn’t fair, and I’ve always regretted it.”

  She stopped walking, turning her beautiful, troubled eyes on him. Her breathing quickened, and she said, “That was really messed up.”

  She clenched her mouth shut like she was holding back, and it made him feel even worse because they’d always said what they’d felt, and he deserved whatever she was trying not to say. “I know, and I’m sorry, Carls.”

  “You broke my heart.” Heart came out cracked and shaky, her lower lip trembling. “No,” she panted out, her voice escalating. “You did worse than that. You fucking destroyed me,” she seethed, every word hitting
him like a knife to the chest. “I lost my best friend when Tory died, and then you abandoned me! You were my life for six years, Zev. Six years. I couldn’t imagine a day without you, and then suddenly there I was, completely and utterly alone. I didn’t know how to live in a world without you and Tory in it. I could barely get out of bed. I thought I’d die from grief. How could you do that to me?” Tears spilled from her eyes as she shouted, her words fast and venomous. “Do you have any idea what that was like? You never even explained why or gave me a chance to go with you. You said you had to leave, and then you were gone. Who does that?”

  “Someone who was fucked up,” he snapped, angrier at himself than she could ever be, deserving of her every accusation. Struggling to rein in his anger, he gritted out, “Tory was like a sister to me, too. Her death messed me up on so many levels, I didn’t know how to climb out of the darkness that had consumed me. It was me who dragged Beau out to the party that night. I was the one who got him too drunk to drive, and when we found out about Tory, he dropped to his knees.” His gut seized with the memory. He paced as the long-held hurt tumbled out. “He just fucking collapsed. The guy I idolized, the brother who could take on the world, just fucking lost it. Then you—the girl I loved, the person I lived for—you were so broken, and I felt like that was on me, too. I was so mad at myself, so full of grief, I became a hateful, angry monster overnight. I couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t see anything but devastation around me, and yeah, I know Tory’s death wasn’t my fault, or Beau’s fault. We didn’t cause the accident, and who the hell knows what would have happened if Beau had picked her up from the airport that night. We might have lost them both. But she was the love of his life, and in the blink of an eye she was gone.” His hands fisted and he closed the distance between them, needing her to hear the rest of his confession. “All I could think about from that second on was who I’d be and how I’d survive if I lost you, and I couldn’t fucking handle it.”

  “But you walked out on me!” she yelled as tears streaked her cheeks. “You made sure you lost me.”

  “I had to,” he said through clenched teeth, sadness and anger pounding inside him. “Goddamn it, Carly, don’t you see? I was so fucking scared, and I hated myself so much, I would have destroyed us. That carefree kid was gone. Every time I looked at you, all I could think about was losing you the way Beau had lost Tory, and I knew that if he couldn’t survive it, there was no way I could. You were my other half, the fucking blood that pumped through my veins.” Carly’s shoulders shook with sobs, but Zev couldn’t stop the truth from finally coming out. “We wouldn’t have survived Tory’s death as a couple because I couldn’t look at you without hearing a fucking voice in my head telling me that I could lose you at any second. I couldn’t stop hearing it. I was filled with rage and fear and I knew you’d hate who I’d become. I hated myself, Carly. I would’ve ruined you, and I couldn’t have lived with that.”

  She dropped the wine bottle to the grass and shoved at his chest, pushing him away, then stalking forward and hollering in his face. “So you left to save yourself, and to hell with what it did to me?”

  “No,” he said vehemently. “I thought you’d be better off without me.”

  “Oh, right.” She scoffed through her tears. “Like I could ever be better off without the guy I’d loved my whole life?” She shoved him again, seething. “I waited for you to come back! I stared out my bedroom window night after night, sure you’d be back for me.”

  His chest was so tight, he could only choke out, “Carly…”

  “You said Beau collapsed? Well, guess what? So did I, on your parents’ front lawn. I ran to your house the next day, hoping and praying I could change your mind, but you were gone. You left me behind,” she choked out.

  “I had to, bab—”

  “Don’t!” She shook her head, tears flooding her cheeks. “You always asked what I needed. Always!” Sobs stole her voice, and he reached for her again, but she jerked back and said, “But not that night. You just walked away like I meant nothing to you.”

  “I walked away because you meant everything to me!” He didn’t mean to yell, but her pain, and her venom-laced words, cut him to his core. He ground out a curse, trying to reel in his emotions, but it was like trying to stop a tsunami. “I didn’t ask you because I thought I knew what you needed, and that was for me to leave. Do you think it was easy for me to walk away from you? The only person I wanted to be with? To leave my home? My family? It was the hardest thing I’d ever done. I’ve thought about you every second of every damn day of my life. When I close my eyes, I see your face. When I see a blonde on the street, my heart fucking beats faster with unstoppable desperation to see you, which is followed by the debilitating reality of knowing I should keep my distance. I physically ached at the sight of you in Mexico. I knew I’d made a mistake by leaving, and I thought maybe we could find our way back into each other’s lives. But by then you were done with me.” He lowered his voice as the crushing pain of waking up alone returned. He lifted his eyes to hers and said, “At least I had the guts to say goodbye.”

  She turned away, shaking her head and swiping at her eyes, her voice cracking as she said, “I couldn’t take a chance that you’d leave me first.”

  “I wouldn’t have,” he confessed, but he had no idea if she’d heard him. He walked around her, giving her no choice but to look at him. She lifted her tear-streaked face, looking deflated, like she had nothing left to give. “I get it, Carly. You were in survival mode. That’s why I didn’t go after you. I knew I was selfish when I broke up with you and left home, and I’ve regretted it every day of my life. I was a broken, stupid kid who loved you too much to understand how to deal with it. I am sorry, Carly. I’m so fucking sorry for the way I hurt you, the way I hurt everyone. I don’t blame you for wanting to hurt me back.”

  “It was stupid of me to leave. I was still so in love with you, I cried the entire plane ride home the next day, and then…” She turned away again, and Zev moved with her.

  “And then what? Talk to me, Carls. Let’s just get it all out, right here, right now.” He cradled her face in both hands and wiped her tears with the pads of his thumbs. How was it possible to look so sad and so beautiful at once? He didn’t let go of her face; he couldn’t. He might never get another chance to hold it. “I thought I was doing the right thing by not going after you in Mexico. I didn’t want to make it any harder for you.”

  “I wish you had come after me.” More tears streamed down her cheeks, wetting his hands. “I needed you,” she said shakily. “I needed you so badly.”

  He pulled her into his arms, holding her as she cried. “I’m so damn sorry. I didn’t know. I took off, angry and hurt and blaming myself all over again. I didn’t mean to hurt you by not coming after you.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said a little sharply.

  He drew back, gazing deeply into her eyes. He saw her walls going up again and said, “It does matter, Carly. Everything that has ever happened between us matters. It’s shaped who we are and how we feel. I’ve lived a hundred years in the last decade, every minute wishing I could go back in time and start over. I should have walked out of that bar in Mexico and never looked back. I should have let you live your life without any further pain. But I couldn’t. I loved you too much.”

  She tilted her head, a small smile on her lips despite her tears. “I wanted that night with you. So much had happened in the time since you’d left Pleasant Hill. I finally felt like I could breathe again, and then I saw you and my heart beat like it only ever had when we were together. No one else has ever made me feel that way, and I’d almost forgotten the difference between merely surviving and really living. If Tory’s death taught me one thing, it was the importance of spending time with the people I love. I wanted you that night, but in the predawn hours, I thought about how you’d never come back for me after Tory died, and all that old pain swamped me again. I thought hurting you would give me closure. But it only made me
sadder. And then…” She swallowed hard and lowered her eyes.

  “And then what, Carls?”

  CARLY HAD IMAGINED having this conversation with Zev so many times, but even after all these years, she was terrified. She lifted her eyes, but not her face, looking at him from behind her hair—hiding from the truth that had once torn her apart as badly as when Zev had left Pleasant Hill. She inhaled a shaky breath, mustering all of her courage, and said, “Then I found out I was pregnant.”

  The air rushed from Zev’s lungs. “Preg…pregnant?”

  She nodded. “I found out six weeks after we were together in Mexico.”

  “You have a kid? We have a kid?” Confusion rose in his eyes. “How can I not know this? Does my family know? I don’t…I don’t understand.”

  She shook her head. “We don’t, Zev. I miscarried a few weeks after I found out.”

  “Oh, shit, babe…” Tears glistened in his eyes. He looked as wrecked as she felt, and she’d had a decade to get over the pain. He pulled her into his arms and said, “You should have had someone track me down. I would have come back to be with you.”

  His heart slammed against her cheek. “I hated the way I left you in Mexico and the way you left after Tory died. I was so confused. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t tell anyone.”

  He drew back, gazing into her eyes, and said, “Jesus. I should have been more careful. I always got so carried away with you.”

  “Don’t do that. It was both of our faults. I never blamed you.”

  “Then why didn’t you tell me?”

  “At first I didn’t know if I should even tell you I was pregnant, because I didn’t want you to come back for a child if you didn’t want me.”