by Amy Vastine
They weren’t supposed to talk about the wedding, but it always found its way into their conversations these days.
“I’m sorry,” he said. Sorry he kept moving forward with his life. Sorry he wasn’t enough for her to be in love with. Sorry things were inevitably going to change, like Lily had said.
They finished eating their lunch in silence. It meant something that she acknowledged that he cared about her like no one else. He had to admit that she did let him in more than she let anyone else. Did he love Nadia enough to risk losing that?
“You want to go exploring before we head back to the cabin?” he asked, getting to his feet. He held out his hand to help her up. She took it and let him pull her to her feet.
“Let’s go check out that bridge,” she said. The view was spectacular from the bridge. The mountain range seemed to stretch on forever in both directions. “This is totally an Insta-worthy picture.” She pulled out her phone and got a couple of photos of the scenery. She flipped the camera and put her arm around him. “Smile,” she said before taking a selfie.
“You want me to take a picture of you on this bridge from over there?” Blake pointed to the shoreline.
“Yes, please. It’s a cool bridge. I need a shot of the whole thing. Fiona will love it.”
“I’m on it.” He crossed the bridge and followed the edge of the pond until he was directly in front of it. “She’s really going to love you in that hat.”
“She’s going to want one. Or three.”
“Definitely three,” he said with a laugh. Fiona was the free spirit of the family, the youngest, who saw everything through rose-colored glasses.
Amanda posed with one hand on her hip and the other on his hat. “We gotta get the boots in the photo.” She hopped up on the railing and his heart skipped a beat.
“Jeez, be careful, Harrison.”
“I’m fine,” she said. Sitting on the railing, she brought one foot up and rested her elbow on her bended knee.
She was gorgeous. More breathtaking than anything else in the picture. He zoomed in on her. How wild it was that she didn’t think she was the pretty one.
“You got it?” she asked. She dropped her leg and tried to readjust her position, but she lost her balance and went tumbling backward and straight into the water below.
Blake covered his mouth with his hand to cover up his laughter. She was going to be so mad. He put her phone in his pocket and started walking back around toward one end of the bridge, waiting for her to pop up furious and soaking wet.
Only when she resurfaced, she screamed out in pain, not frustration. The sound caused his heart to race faster than that horse he’d ridden earlier in the week. Without thinking twice, he ran into the pond and dived in after her.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
COUGHING UP WATER was uncomfortable. Cutting her shoulder open on the rocks below the surface of the water under the bridge had been painful. Riding on an ATV being driven like it was a race car by a very panicked best friend was nauseating.
“Can you slow down? I think I’m going to be sick.”
Blake slammed on the brake and Amanda lurched forward. Without a seat belt, she was lucky she didn’t fly out of the passenger seat. She only had one hand to brace herself. The T-shirt in her right hand was wet with pond water and a lot of blood. Blake had stripped down and given it to her to stop the bleeding.
“Sorry. What do you need? What can I do? I feel like we have to keep going. We need to get you to a doctor.” He sounded frantic, which wasn’t helping her calm her own nerves. She didn’t have the ability to take care of him and herself at the moment, and for once she was going to put herself first.
“I need you to get us back to the guest lodge but not at lightning speed.” Her teeth were chattering. She was freezing, another reason the high-speed racing wasn’t helping. The rush of cold air sent shivers through her body. The picnic blanket that Blake had wrapped around her was just as wet as her clothes at this point.
“Right. I’m sorry. I’ll be more careful. I wish you had been more careful.” His voice was shaky. Maybe it was because he had to be just as frozen as she was. All he had on were his jeans and sweatshirt, both of which were soaking wet. “Please keep pressure on that wound. Okay?”
She held the shirt to her shoulder and he started driving again. This time, he managed to move at a more reasonable speed. When they got to the lodge, Amanda’s whole arm was throbbing. Ethan happened to be standing outside, talking with some guests.
“Can someone help us?” Blake said, quickly getting his attention.
Before she knew it, Amanda was in Ethan’s truck and headed to the hospital. Blake sat in the back with her and held tight to her free hand. He didn’t let go until she was placed on a gurney and wheeled into a room in the ER.
Seven stitches and one dose of painkillers later, Amanda was feeling much better. They’d had her change out of her wet clothes and into a hospital gown. Blake had been given some surgical scrubs.
“It’s not fair that you got pants and I didn’t,” she joked, trying to ease some of the tension.
“Ethan said he would tell Lily to stop at the cabin and grab you a change of clothes. If my phone wasn’t waterlogged, I would call her to find out how long she’ll be. What is taking her so long?” He stepped out of the room to scan the hall. “You made it. Did you get her some dry clothes?”
“Yes. And I fed and let out Clancy. How’s our patient?” Lily walked into the room with a small duffel bag. “What were you doing out there? How did you fall in the water?”
“I blame social media,” Amanda replied. “Thank you for the clothes.” She gratefully took the bag.
“Let me see your scar,” Lily said, trying to sneak a peek.
Amanda pulled the gown over her wound. “It’s all bandaged up. You can’t see it.”
“Is it bad? How big is it?”
Amanda showed her approximately how long the scar was with her fingers.
“Can she go home?” Lily asked Blake. “Do they need to do anything else?”
“They were finishing up her paperwork and we were waiting on you with some clothes.”
“Okay.” Lily smiled. “Let’s get you out of here.”
Amanda shooed them out of the room so she could change into her dry clothes. The nurse gave her the final instructions for how to care for her stitches and they released her.
“I can’t believe you broke my sister, Blake,” Lily teased when they got in her car.
Blake was still too wound up to take it as playful. “I didn’t break her. It’s this town. She never once got so much as a scratch in San Diego and she’s been in the ocean hundreds of times.”
“Please don’t feel bad. It was an accident, you guys. It could have happened anywhere.”
The two of them were quiet the rest of the ride. All Amanda wanted to do was climb in her bed and take a nap. She wanted to get under the covers, be warm and not think about anything for a couple of hours. Clancy was happy to see her and followed her into the bedroom.
“Do you need anything?” Lily asked.
“Just my bed.” Amanda kicked off her shoes and pulled back the covers. Her bed was calling her. She climbed in and lay down on her belly since the wound was on the back of her shoulder.
“Okay. I’ll see you for dinner?”
Amanda’s stomach roiled at the thought of food. “Maybe.”
“We’re supposed to go dress shopping tomorrow. Are you going to make it or should I reschedule? I would say I could text you pictures, but Blake’s phone and your phone both drowned.”
Amanda didn’t want to throw a wrench in any of the plans. “Hopefully, I’ll feel better tomorrow. Don’t change anything yet.”
“The nurse suggested we stick our phones in rice,” Blake said. “Do you think we can get some dry rice from the lodge?”
<
br /> “I’ll get you some. I’ll leave you my phone while I do that because you need to call all of our sisters and Rudy and let them know you’re okay.”
“You called Dad?”
“If you don’t think that Big E would have found out about this by the end of the day, you underestimate our grandfather. Do you know how Rudy would have felt if Big E found out about your accident before he did?”
Dad would have been devastated. She would text her sisters and call her father. “You’re right. That was a good call.”
Lily handed her phone over to Amanda and gave her the passcode. “You can use it, too, Blake. I’m sure your fiancée is going to be bothered when she can’t get ahold of you.”
“Thanks.”
Lily left and Blake lay next to Amanda on the bed. She was under the covers and he was on top. Clancy climbed up and curled into a ball by their feet.
“Why don’t you call Nadia first and let her know she’ll have to call the cabin’s phone until we either fix your phone or buy you a new one.” She held out Lily’s phone, but he didn’t take it. “What?”
“Honestly, I don’t know her number,” he confessed.
“You don’t know your fiancée’s phone number?”
“She gave me her number, I put it in my phone, and I never had to learn it. No one knows anyone’s number anymore. We all tell our phones to call whoever.”
He wasn’t totally wrong. Phones made it easy to not bog down your brain with numbers. It wasn’t like when they were in middle school. “You know whose number I still have memorized?”
“Who?”
“Besides my parents’ number, I could call your parents, Joanie Simpson’s parents and the pet hospital. I have all those numbers pointlessly stored in my long-term memory.”
Blake chuckled, softly shaking the bed. “I could totally call both of our parents. And you.”
“You have my cell phone memorized?”
He tapped his finger against his temple. “I have every number you’ve ever had memorized.” It gave her a warm and fuzzy feeling to know that he knew all of her numbers and not Nadia’s. Or maybe it was her pain medication. It was becoming hard to tell. Her eyelids were heavy.
“I have your number memorized, too,” she admitted as her eyes fluttered closed.
“You have to call your dad,” he reminded her. Amanda groaned. “You still have to call him.”
She refused to open her eyes. “Fine. Call him and put it on speaker.”
A moment later, the call was going through. “How’s your sister?”
“I’m fine, Dad.” Amanda knew that wouldn’t be good enough for him.
“Amanda. Thank goodness. You gave me quite a scare.”
“That makes two of us,” Blake chimed in.
Amanda opened one eye to glare at Blake.
“Blake, is that you?”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Harrison.”
“Thank you for pulling her out of the water and getting her to the hospital, son. You saved her life.”
Amanda closed her eyes again. She hadn’t been close to dying, but it was nice to have Blake take care of her.
“How many stitches did she get?” Elias Blackwell could be heard saying in the background. It was unsurprising that he was butting in.
“Seven,” Amanda answered.
“She got seven,” her dad relayed to him.
“Dorothy and I can’t figure out how she could fall into that pond and cut herself up. It’s a pond, for goodness’ sake! Did she decide to jump in for some reason?”
“Well, Dad, I’m going to let you go. I need to rest in a dark room with complete silence.” She didn’t want to answer any of Mr. Blackwell’s questions.
“Okay, sweetheart. I will call you later. Perhaps when we can have a little privacy.”
“Privacy? We live in an RV. There is no such thing as privacy. If I have to listen to your snore at night, I also get to listen to your conversation with my granddaughter.”
“I’ll call you, Dad. My phone didn’t survive my accident. I have to get a new one. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
She ended the call and noticed Blake staring back at her. His expression was soft and his gaze was intense. She wanted to look away but couldn’t.
“I love how none of the stuff that’s happened has changed the way you feel about your dad. I’m sure that means the world to him. I’ve always admired the way your dad was there for you and your sisters. I can’t imagine having five daughters. Don’t get me wrong, I want a daughter or two, but five would be rough. I need at least one son to go surfing with.”
It was a shame that those painkillers she took didn’t work on her heart. It felt like he had taken a hammer and pounded it with reckless abandon. What she wouldn’t give to be able to dream about future children. To imagine teaching them to do the things she loved. Being there for them when they needed her. Being.
She closed her eyes before the tears welled up and he noticed something was wrong.
“You know that you could teach a daughter to surf. You better teach your daughters to surf.”
Blake tucked her hair behind her ear and kept his hand on her cheek. “Of course I’ll teach my girls to surf. I’m an expert teacher. I taught you, didn’t I?”
Amanda loved the water. She loved the ocean. When she had seen Blake surf for the first time, there had been nothing she wanted to do more than learn how to do that. It had looked fun and terrifying, but she had known that if Blake showed her how to do it, it wouldn’t be scary at all.
She’d been wrong. It had been terrible. Wipeout after wipeout. She’d swallowed more salt water than a fish that day. But through it all, Blake had been there patiently coaching and encouraging her not to give up. With his help, she’d managed to stay on her feet and ride out one wave. It had been nothing short of a miracle.
He was going to be an amazing dad. His heart and soul were so good and pure she couldn’t imagine him not having a family who would adore him as much as he would love them.
The tears forced their way out even with her eyes closed. She buried her face into the pillow.
“Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
The worst part of this was that she needed him. She needed someone’s shoulder to cry on, and the only one that would do was his. Yet this was the one thing she couldn’t tell him because things would never be the same.
She faced away from him and wiped her eyes even though they had no intention of stopping. “My shoulder hurts.”
“I’m so sorry.” He sounded pained. “It’s too early to take more pain pills. What can I do? Maybe I should get you some ice?”
“I need to sleep. I’m tired and I don’t want to feel anything for a little bit.” Lately, she wished she could not feel anything ever again.
Blake gently rubbed her back. “Okay, sleep. I’ll be right out there. I’m going to be checking on you every couple hours, okay?”
“You don’t have to do that. I don’t want you to worry yourself all night.”
“You telling me not to worry won’t stop it from happening. I’m not taking any chances with you, Harrison.” He placed a soft kiss on her good shoulder before leaving her alone to get some rest.
Blake was a man of his word. He watched out for her all evening and through the night. When morning came, Amanda opened her eyes and there he was, out like a light on the pillow next to hers. With him asleep, she could really look at him. He was beautiful for a guy. His skin was always sun kissed but soft, thanks to his very complicated, multistep skin-care routine. She liked to tease him that he was higher maintenance than all of her sisters combined.
Amanda carefully ran her fingertips down his cheek. He made her heart feel too big for her chest. Yesterday, before she hurt herself, he had accused her of not letting him love her or, at the very least, m
aking it difficult to love her. What she couldn’t tell him was that if she didn’t love him so much, she would selfishly try to keep him for herself. It was because she loved him that she had to put up those so-called roadblocks. Blake deserved to have everything he wanted. What he wanted the most she couldn’t give him.
His eyes fluttered open and a tired smile lifted that soft cheek. “Good morning. How are you feeling?”
“Meds are still working.” She had woken up once in the night in some terrible pain, but right now the only thing that hurt was her heart. “Did you ever get our phones to work?”
He rolled over on his back and stretched his arms above his head. “No luck last night. I can go check to see if being in the rice overnight helped.”
“Nadia is probably worried sick.”
“She won’t freak out because of one night. We will have to buy new phones today if we can’t get ours to work. I can’t fall off the face of the earth two days in a row.”
“You have your laptop here. You could email her,” Amanda suggested. If Nadia loved him as much as Amanda did, she deserved to know he was okay.
He sat up. “Good idea, Harrison. You are the smartest.” Blake went to check the phones. “Looks like we’re going shopping,” he said, holding up two phones with black screens.
“I’m sorry you ruined your phone because of me.”
“Phones can be replaced.” He tossed her phone on the bed. “Best friends cannot,” he said with a wink.
Best friends cannot. When Blake got married, she could lose him. She could lose this him. The one who slept over to make sure she didn’t die after an accident. The one who did not judge her for wanting to go to the bakery for the third day in a row to eat doughnuts. The best friend who could never be replaced by anyone else. His absence would simply be a gaping hole in her life moving forward.
He couldn’t marry Nadia. She hadn’t been in their lives long enough for Amanda to know that she was the right person. If Amanda was going to lose her best friend, it had to be to the most deserving woman out there.
