“God,” he murmurs again. “Lily, I love you so much.” His eyes are dark with emotion and something else, something uncertain and vulnerable. I can’t help the flutters in my stomach or the way my lips curve into a smile.
“I love you too. Always have.”
“I never stopped,” he says, voice low. “Not once, not ever, not since I first saw you.”
“When we were kids?”
He nods. “I just didn’t know it right away. All I saw was a girl with hair like fire and knobby knees, challenging me to rise to her level.”
I put a hand on his chest. His heart beats fast and strong beneath my palm. “I loved you too, from the start. Even if you were terribly grumpy.”
“Not with you.”
“Especially with me,” I say, smiling. “But I learned how to make you laugh eventually.”
“You did. God, Lily, no more car accidents.” He rests his forehead against mine. “My heart can’t take it.”
“No more,” I agree. For a long time, all we do is breathe together, our bodies intertwined. His arm is strong beneath my head. My own fear and adrenaline subside, here in his arms, where nothing can harm me.
“How was sailing with my brothers?”
He shakes his head, but there’s amusement in his voice. “You want to talk about that?”
“Yes.” I slip my fingers inside the hem of his T-shirt and stroke the hot skin beneath. “They didn’t scare you off?”
He brushes my hair back and leans in to kiss me. I respond in kind, both of us drawing reassurance from one another. “No. They never will. Lily, I’ll never leave you again.”
“I know,” I murmur, warmth spreading through my chest. I finally believe him. “I spoke to my father today. About what he told you after our car crash, years ago.”
“You did?”
“Yes.”
“Lily, I never meant for that to drive a wedge between you two.”
I shake my head and rise up on my elbow, fighting tiredness so heavy it makes me dizzy. This is important—and some of my old anger resurfaces.
“He had no right to,” I say. “Absolutely no right. You had just been hurt yourself, and I…” I shake my head. There will be more time to talk about this. “I told him to butt out of our lives.”
Hayden runs a callused thumb over my cheek, and the look in his eyes nearly tears me apart. God, I love him so much.
“My brave girl,” he murmurs.
“And none of it matters, anyway. My family… Your family… we’ll figure it out,” I say fiercely.
“Of course it matters,” he says. “It just doesn’t change anything between us. And baby, your dad did talk to me, but it was no excuse for me leaving like that.”
“You were a boy. And you were scared… it’s perfectly understandable. I had forgiven you even before I found out about Dad’s interference.”
Hayden lies back on the bed, his hand playing thoughtfully in my hair. “I didn’t think I was good enough,” he says softly. “But it’s no excuse for leaving.”
“But you are! You always have been.”
Hayden grins, and it’s the first true smile I’ve seen from him in what feels like forever. “I’m not, but it’s okay. I’ve stopped trying to be noble. I’ll be here, loving you, for as long as you let me.”
I kiss him, and he groans into my mouth, tucking me into the curve of his body. His lips are soft and gentle against mine. I want to keep going, but he breaks it off, smiling against my ear.
“No more,” he murmurs.
“No more what?”
“Excitement. There has been entirely too much of that these past few days.”
I chuckle against his ear, so glad to have him here, to be close to him, to be able to run my hand through his thick hair. There’s nothing like the warmth of his skin against mine and the faint scent of his soap.
“I agree.” Tiredness threatens to undo me, pulling at my eyelids. I stifle a giant yawn. Hayden pulls me closer and I rest my head against the crook of his neck. His chest rises and falls strongly under my arm, an anchor in all the chaos.
“Tomorrow,” I murmur, “we should talk to your uncle.”
“About what?”
“Us. It’s not fair that he’s the only one who doesn’t know.”
Hayden’s chuckle is a soft whisper against my hair. “Oh, he knows, baby. He’s known forever.”
32
Hayden
Ralph Cole is buried in August, under the hot midday sun, in a quiet service attended only by close friends and family.
I’d debated for a long time if I should go or not. It didn’t feel right to attend an event to honor his life—not when I knew there’d been so little honor in it. There had been nothing but hatred in my heart for him for so long.
But as it turns out, going to his funeral didn’t have to mean I forgave him. It was Lily who told me that.
“Just because you go doesn’t mean you condone what he did,” she’d said, her tone matter of fact, one day when we were painting her new gallery. “It can be for you to say goodbye. To close that chapter of your life. Maybe to ensure you have no regrets later on. It only means what you want it to mean, Hayden. He’s gone. You do what you need to do—for you.”
She was right.
And now I’m standing at the back of a small church, a tie chafing around my neck, with Lily next to me. Gary didn’t want to come.
The framed picture on his coffin looks like a stranger. The image is nearly twenty years old, my father healthy and smiling with the wind in his ink-black hair. Lily had smiled immediately when she saw it, and I know why. I can see the resemblance myself.
But for the first time in many years, it doesn’t scare me. I might be my father’s son, but I’m also my mother’s, and Gary’s. My father doesn’t define me—not entirely, at least.
There are only a few other people in the church, and none I recognize. It’s not surprising. Dad’s lifestyle wasn’t exactly conducive to long-lasting friendships.
I feel hollow when the priest concludes the service. It was short and to the point, much like Dad had been. In part, I feel relief, like a vice has loosened around my heart. Like I’ve put down a burden I’ve been carrying for a very, very long time.
Lily slips her hand into mine. “Do you want to stay?” she murmurs. “For the reception?”
I look around at the handful of people in black gathering their things. “No. I don’t want to make small talk about him.”
“All right.” There’s no judgement in her gentle tone. “I think the people here know who you are, regardless.”
“They do?”
She shoots me a soft smile. “I’ve seen a few of them glance at you, yes. Your hair, Hay… it’s pretty clear who you are.”
I reach up and run a hand through it self-consciously. I’ve let it grow. I guess I resemble the old man more than I thought.
“Well, they can guess all they want,” I murmur.
We’re out of the church and halfway to the parking lot when a voice stops us in our tracks.
“Wait!”
A girl runs toward us. Her dark hair goes down past her shoulders and unusual, wide eyes stare at us. She can’t be more than eighteen.
She just looks at me.
“Hello,” I say finally. “Can I help you?”
She nods once, a jerky movement, but when she opens her mouth to speak, no words come out.
Lily offers her a kind smile. “My name is Lily,” she says. “This is Hayden. Were you also at the service for Ralph Cole?”
The girl nods again. “Yes. Yes, I was… You’re Hayden Cole?”
“I am.” An unspeakable emotion comes over me, looking at her. At the familiar set of her cheekbones and the faint curve of her mouth. It takes effort, but I manage to soften my face into an expression I hope looks welcoming. “And who are you?”
She swallows. “Stephanie Cole. You’re my half-brother, I think?”
The ground goes a bit unsteady
under my feet.
“Stephanie…” I repeat. I’ve never heard of her. Not once. Not through Gary, not through Dad’s sporadic texts. “How old are you?”
“Sixteen.”
“I’ve never heard of you.”
She flinches, as if I’ve said something harsh. “Well, I mostly grew up with my mother. I didn’t have much contact with… with our father.”
“Good.”
“He mentioned you,” she says, and there’s hope in her eyes. “He talked about you a lot.”
“He did?”
“Yes, he was very proud. You’re in the Navy?”
I give a slow nod. “I was.”
“Yeah… well. Yes.” She shrugs, and she’s looking at me expectantly.
Damn. I’m fucking this up royally—I can feel it. This needs to be handled with more tact than I’ve ever used before. Lily’s gaze feels heavy. She believes in me.
“Stephanie, is your mother here?”
“Yes. She’s back at the church.”
“Would you two like to come with us to dinner? We could talk.”
The smile on Stephanie’s face makes some distant, painful part of my heart ache. It’s tentative, a bit shy, and filled with a lot of fragile hope.
A sister. I have a sister.
“Yes,” she says. “I’d love that. Let me just go get her.”
“We’ll be here,” I say.
Lily and I watch as Stephanie runs back to get her mom. Lily’s hand tightens around mine, and I grip it back, grateful for the support.
“My father had other children,” I say.
It’s not a surprise, really, when I think about it. But it never struck me to look for them. I never even thought to ask.
Lily’s eyes are wet. The incredulity in them mirrors my own exactly. “Hayden…”
“I know. This is…”
“A blessing,” she finishes. “Family always is.”
* * *
The weeks pass quickly after that.
Stephanie comes to Paradise Shores a few times, getting ice cream with Lily and me. She’s shy, but I learn more about her history, and tentatively share some of my own. It’s not going to be an easy process, but we’re both willing to take it slow. Talking with her mother had been the hardest—someone who had seen the monster my dad could be and had escaped. Someone my mother should have been. But it’s the good kind of difficult. The one that means wounds from the past are healing, that I’m getting stronger.
Lily decides to work part-time at Harris Properties and devotes a lot of time to her gallery. I’m there most evenings too, hammering and painting and distracting her.
It’s great.
We spend the nights together. Either at her oceanside cottage or at my house on Elm Street, but so far, I haven’t slept a night without her by my side in weeks. I hope I never have to again.
She tells me to come to the gallery one afternoon, after having barred me entry for days. It’s almost done, she’d said—and I want you to be surprised.
I’m excited when I knock on the gallery door. It’s freshly painted and put back on with new hinges. Gary helped me with that, sanding the old door down in the garage at my house.
Lily opens the door with a wide grin. It’s the same smile I’m used to from childhood—the wide, beaming one, without restraints or pretension. Her auburn hair is up in a bun and she’s wearing paint-stained overalls.
She’s hung all the art. The walls are filled with photographs, with paintings—there are even a few sculptures. The sound of soft music wafts from the hidden surround system.
“Lily, this is gorgeous.”
“You think?”
“Yes.” I’ve seen the art she’s been working on, the pieces she’s sourced from others—but seeing it all come together? It’s a love letter to both art and the ocean. Each piece is different, but the story they tell… it’s beautiful.
“This one… I haven’t seen this one before,” I say, stopping in front of a painting of a beach. The sky is tumultuous, a mixture of reds and purples. Two children are walking along the shore.
“I just finished it,” Lily says, coming to stand next to me. “What do you think?”
I lean in closer. There’s something about the children… they’re only silhouettes, but they’re familiar. The girl is walking in front. Even though she’s stuck in a painting, her body is portrayed with motion in mind, energy evident in her stride. She’s reaching back, her hand clasped tightly around the boy’s.
He has shaggy hair. His shoulders are slumped slightly, but he’s turned toward her, letting her drag him across the beach.
“It’s us.”
“Yes. From ages ago.”
The sky is darker on his side of the painting. She’s pulling him toward the light, toward the sky with a gorgeous sunset.
With a start, I realize it’s not actually a sunset. It’s a sunrise.
“It’s beautiful,” I say, wrapping my arm around her. “You in the lead, and me following?”
“I couldn’t take too much creative license,” she says, and there’s laughter in her voice.
“Mhm.” I bend down and press a kiss to her lips. She’s too much, this woman. “Well, it’s true. My heart and my soul are yours. They were, even back then.”
Lily gives a little moan and turns to me completely, wrapping her arms around my neck. She feels like an extension of me—the two of us one person. My strength and my courage, my conscience and my sanity. In the months since I returned, I’ve learned the true meaning of a relationship. Of being partners—lifting each other up. Of being good enough together.
“I love you.”
“I love you too,” I say. “And I love this painting. Is it for sale?”
Lily shakes her head. “I was planning on putting it up for sale, but now, I don’t know. It doesn’t feel right.”
“You should sell it,” I tell her. “Definitely.”
Her eyes dim. “All right. If you think so, maybe I should.”
“I do. I already know of a buyer, actually.”
“You do?”
“Yes. He’s a big fan of your work.” I wrap my arms around her waist, walking her backwards. It’s no effort at all to press kisses against her cheek, her neck, her skin warm under my mouth. “He’s very interested.”
Her laughter rings out in my ear. “Is he?”
“Yes. Very, very.”
“Good, because as it happens, he might be my favorite fan.”
“He’ll be happy to hear that.”
Lily kisses me, long and deep, before she breaks into laughter again. “If it makes you this happy, I’ll paint you over and over again.”
“You make me happy,” I say. “Just you.”
Her hand stills on my cheek. Her green eyes glitter with love and trust, and my chest feels so full of emotion that it might burst.
“My handsome rogue,” she whispers.
“Very handsome,” I agree, bending to whisper in her ear. “I’m still waiting for you to hire me as your nude model, you know.”
Lily grins. “I’m not done with your gentleman portrait yet, the one with the hounds at your feet.”
I chuckle at the mention of that old joke. “Something for my mantlepiece?”
“Yes, or you can hang it in your office.”
“Mmm.” I run my hands down her back, finding the soft curve of her spine. She feels amazing in my arms—always has—like she belongs here. It’s still hard to believe we spent so many years apart, when I’m close to her like this. And I know I’ll spend the rest of my life making sure we’re apart as little as possible. “Move in with me.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Into my house, or me into yours, or we sell it all and buy something else. I don’t care, I just never want to say goodbye to you.”
“I like the sound of that. A place just for us.” She presses a soft kiss to my lips, the feeling like home. “People will say it’s too fast.”
“People?” I know exac
tly who she’s talking about. But her parents haven’t said a negative word about us, not since Lily told them. I think they know they risk losing their daughter forever if they do.
“Yes, people. But they’d be wrong. I’ve loved you since I was ten years old, Hayden Cole.”
I bow my forehead to hers, closing my eyes. Her words never fail to stop me in my tracks completely. “There’s something else I’m going to ask you one of these days,” I say. “I’m trying not to move too fast in that regard, though.”
Lily’s breath catches in her throat, and I hear her swallow. “That’s interesting.”
“Yes.”
“Hypothetically,” she murmurs, “I think you’d get a positive response, if the question is what I’m thinking it might be.”
“That’s interesting,” I echo, smiling at her. “Expect it when you least expect it, that’s all I’m saying, Lils.”
“You’re good at keeping me on the edge of my seat, aren’t you?”
“Always,” I say, kissing her softly, holding the first and last girl I’ve ever loved in my arms.
* * *
A few months later…
Michael Marchand is quiet next to me on the large porch. The ocean is calm in the distance, the sun beginning its slow descent. It’s late fall, and the air is cold. We’re heading for winter.
I asked him out here for a reason, and judging by his silence, I wonder if he suspects. But he always was difficult to read.
“Well, Cole? What did you want to discuss?”
“I’ve been back for months now,” I say. “Lily and I live together, and I’m going to ask her to marry me.”
Michael looks at me. There’s more gray in his hair, and I’m two inches taller, but he’s still able to look down his nose at me. It used to bother me once—intimidate me at the same time as it raised my hackles.
It doesn’t anymore.
“Are you asking for my permission?”
“No. I respect Lily and her opinion far too much for that. I don’t need your permission.” I face him fully. “I would, however, appreciate your blessing. We both know it would mean a lot to her.”
Rogue: A Paradise Shores Novel Page 24
