The Years Between Us

by Stephanie Vercier

  “He and Emily, huh?” There is an amused quality to the way he says that.

  “That’s what she told me. Maybe she was feeling guilty and needed to get it out.”

  “I’m not sure how much guilt Emily feels about anything.”

  “Enough to be truthful with me,” I say. “Maybe she actually felt bad about telling David about us.”

  “Yeah, well… too little, too late. If we’d been able to tell Dani, then maybe…” He gets quiet again.

  “She’ll come back to you,” I assure him. “She just needs time.”

  “I hope you’re right,” he says, strain returning to his voice.

  “I am. I know I am.”

  I burrow into him. I can’t take away his sadness about Danielle, but I can at least make sure he knows I’m here and that I’m not going anywhere.

  In return, he holds me tighter before we slowly drift off to sleep.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  CLAUDIA

  August

  Being cognizant of Brandon added a significant weight to my pregnancy. Luke had once lost a child, a child he loved and would have done anything for, just as he’s done for Danielle, putting aside his own happiness in trying to keep her mother healthy and alive. But Danielle is still gone, not doing much more than checking in from time to time. While Luke knows she’s at least safe, what he doesn’t know is whether or not she forgives him… forgives us.

  “What do you think about seeing our little bean jumping around like that?” Luke asks me after he helps me out of the passenger side of his truck and we start walking toward the house.

  “It made it real,” I tell him of our first ultrasound appointment, the print out of our tiny baby tucked safely in my purse. “By March, I’m going to have an actual baby, part you… part me. It’s hard to believe.”

  And it really is. I hadn’t expected to face motherhood until I was closer to thirty.

  He slips an arm around me before we get to the front door. “I can’t wait to meet him or her. Hopefully they’ll have all of your features.”

  I laugh. “Oh, because you’re so awful to look at.”

  “Because the world should be so lucky to see more than one of you running around.”

  “I could say the same for you,” I tell him as he opens up the front door and we head back into his massive house.

  He laughs. “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.” Luke heads to the kitchen and starts pulling things out of the refrigerator. He’s been doing a lot of cooking for me since I’d gotten pregnant, wanting me to eat right, making sure I’m well fed.

  But I nudge in and start helping. I don’t like being waited on, and ever since I lost my job at The Nut Monger, I’ve been more restless, and you can only read so many books, even really good ones about hit men falling in love, before you want to jump out of your skin. So, I help him with the lunch we’ll both eat, making sure to add some gingersnaps to the side and pour a glass of ice water with lemon in it, two things that have really helped me with my morning sickness that still comes from time to time regardless of what I do.

  “What would you say to doing a quick hike through the property?” he asks once we’ve finished up lunch.

  “I thought you had work?”

  To spend more time with me, he’s been staying up until all hours for his work projects, and I don’t feel like he’s getting enough sleep. He’d gone above and beyond for Isabelle for so very long, and I don’t want him to get in the habit of doing the same for me.

  “I can do that later.”

  “This is a partnership, remember?” I’ve told him many times that I want a relationship, eventually maybe a marriage, that is fifty/fifty, that isn’t one of us dong all the heavy lifting.

  “Let me pamper you a little. You are carrying our child, Claudia.”

  “Fine… we’ll go for the hike as long as you don’t stay up half the night. Deal?”

  “I’ll try to keep that promise,” he says.

  While he goes to change into his hiking boots, shorts and a T-shirt, I head up to the guest room where I still keep a lot of my clothes. Even though I spend every night with him in his room, there are times I come up to Danielle’s suite to take a long, hot bath, have a quick nap or just to do some reading on my own. It’s not that I’m trying to escape from Luke, but this house and most everything in it belongs to him, and there are times I feel slightly more like my independent self here.

  I’d brought my purse with me, and after I change into shorts, a tank and some hiking boots Luke bought for me, I take the printed ultrasound out and look at the small outline of our growing child. Right now, it’s not much, but in time it will be a baby, a child I’m still not entirely sure I’m ready for. I want so desperately to finish college and to have a career I can be proud of, be able to teach this new little boy or girl how important it is to follow your dreams.

  “You’re going to have to let your mommy have a life,” I say to the print-out as much as I say it to my stomach. “Hopefully you won’t have any deep-seated issues with my going to college while you’re jumping around in my belly. Maybe you’ll even learn a few things and come out a prodigy.”

  I laugh at myself, shaking my head and tuck the ultrasound between some well-loved books on the nightstand in this room where some of my books and clothes remain, things I brought to Echo Ridge from the life I had before meeting Luke. And maybe that’s why I keep the evidence of our new little life here, that even though he or she is as much Luke’s, the baby is growing inside of only me. In the back of my mind, I know that nothing is set in stone. I do have faith in Luke, but so many things could still happen. There are my parents and Danielle to consider as well as the fact that Luke still has a strong connection to his ex-wife. It’s a connection he assures me is lessening, but it has yet to disappear.

  So, there is still a possibility I could be left on my own, a slim one I think, but still there, still something that worries me from time to time. It’s why I have to be strong, for myself as much as for my baby. If things go wrong, I’ll need to remember that.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  LUKE

  I’d been planning this since the day I’d found out Claudia was pregnant, but if not for the cool breeze rustling through the trees and the evergreen canopy that shades us, I wouldn’t have brought her out on the trail at the tail end of a hot summer, would have found another way to do this. I think back to the day she told me about the baby, even then knowing I wanted this child, knowing how much I wanted Claudia.

  “You need some water?” I offer her one of the big bottles I’d brought along.

  “I’m fine,” she says, barely breaking a sweat.

  “You sure?” I can’t help but dote.

  “Yes, I’m sure.” There is a smile in her blue eyes as much as there is one on her lips. “You have to stop worrying about me so much. I’m fine… the baby’s fine… we’re all fine.”

  “Hey, I’m allowed to worry about you guys,” I say, taking her hand, “but I’ll back off. Just let me know if you need anything.”

  “I will, Luke, and I do love you for caring.”

  What I feel for her goes beyond caring. There’s a love there that burrows so deep that sometimes it frightens me. And of course I worry—I’ve been worrying about Isabelle, about our fractured family, for so many years that it’s a tough habit to break. But Claudia is so different from Isabelle. She wants to give back just as much as she gets, wants to show her strength and independence.

  “You aren’t feeling sick at all, are you?” I ask as we begin walking again. “Sorry,” I tack on immediately, shaking my head. “I’m going to have to force myself to stop asking.”

  Instead of getting annoyed, she laughs. “The medication the doctor prescribed is helping my morning sickness some,” she says, “along with the gingersnaps and the lemon water. And if it will make you feel better, you can get me into the shower and then put me to bed as soon as we get back.”

  “I’d like
that,” I tell her, imagining that being a nice way to punctuate our day as long as things go as planned beforehand.

  We stop a couple of times, once before we cross a creek that is still flowing heavily from all of the snow that had fallen last winter and has been melting over the summer. And then we spot maybe half a dozen deer through the trees, nibbling on wildflowers in a small clearing. Things like this, a connection to the outdoors, are part of the reason I’d chosen to move out here in the first place. Part of it had also been to try to get over Brandon’s death, to return to nature and peace, but also to try to keep Isabelle away from Gabe and allow her—and us—to heal. Of course that last part hadn’t worked, not at all.

  But I’m looking into the future now, and I take Claudia’s hand and help her up a couple of boulders that are like naturally formed steps. Once we’re over them, the trees clear into a meadow full of late summer wildflowers, and the mountains that surround Echo Ridge come into view all at once.

  “Wow… it’s beautiful,” she says, her eyes full of wonder as she looks around at the landscape that is seen more fully from here than from anywhere I’ve shown her before, even the sloping meadow closer to home.

  “Keep looking,” I tell her, then pull the small box out of my pack and get down on one knee the way I’d planned, taking the ring out and holding it up to her. “You can turn around now,” I say.

  When she does, her eyes light just the way I’d hoped, just the way I’d imagined.

  “Luke.” She says my name before drawing her slender fingers up to her lips, her eyes beginning to well with emotion.

  “Claudia Cartwright,” I begin, struggling to keep myself together. “You came into my life when I wasn’t expecting it. In fact, I’d never imagined finding someone like you let alone having you just show up at my house, dancing around in your underwear and lip synching to really bad music.”

  She laughs, a tear escaping one eye.

  “I had a hard time staying away from you, even though I tried my damndest—I really did try, but I didn’t last long. I wasn’t sure being with you was the right thing, for you or for the people in our lives, but now I know that it is. It’s the only thing, the only way for us to move forward, to be together. I want nothing more right now than for you to be my wife, for you to know that when you have our baby that I’ll be by your side and that I’ll love you forever. But you have to want it too, and I hope to god that you do. So, Claudia Cartwright, will you marry me?”

  She doesn’t waste a second, nodding furiously and wiping away tears. “I will… I’ll marry you, Luke Prescott.”

  With relief, I slide the ring onto her finger, a perfect fit. Then I stand and pull her close to me, nothing as right as when she’s in my arms. “I know it’s a cliché to say it, but you’ve just made me the happiest guy on earth.”

  “Then I’ll be cliché too,” she says, still laughing and crying at once, “because you’ve made me the happiest woman.”

  And all I can hope is that I’ll keep making her happy and that she’ll stay with me forever.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  CLAUDIA

  I’ve been officially engaged to Luke for two weeks, and I still haven’t come down off of that high. I only wear the ring at the house, taking it off when I’m in town with him or on my own. It’s not because we aren’t proud or that we’re somehow ashamed. It’s because there are still people we don’t fully trust in this town, people who could be capable of making things harder for us out of jealousy or anger or just plain dislike.

  And right now we need things to be smooth sailing for a while. School will be starting up again soon, and I’ve been working on getting my parents to allow me to transfer to Central in Ellensburg, which is only about an hour from Echo Ridge—WSU is four times that. Both of my parents believe Central is an inferior school. Then again, if they’d had their way, I’d have gone Ivy League like both of them did. But I hadn’t wanted any part of that. Becoming an educator didn’t require going to Harvard or Yale on the complete opposite end of the country.

  “I don’t know why you insist on pushing further and further to the bottom of the barrel,” Mom said last weekend when Luke had driven me home to Seattle.

  He’d shaken hands with my father while my mother insisted on kissing him on both sides of his cheek. On the drive over the pass, Luke had wanted to just tell them the truth about our relationship and get it over with, but I’d insisted I wasn’t ready and to trust me that it wouldn’t go well. So I knew it was difficult for him to stand there with my parents when they had no clue he and I were engaged.

  “Central is closer to home,” I’d countered with her. “And it’s not bottom of the barrel. I’ll get just as good an education.”

  “But all those hicks.” She got a look on her face as if she’d just been presented with a plate of worms to eat. “I can’t guarantee we’ll be visiting you in Ellensburg. It’s not exactly what I’d call a destination.”

  I’d looked through to the living room where Luke had been sitting and talking to my father, glad he didn’t have to hear my mother show her obvious disgust with anything she deemed unworthy of our class. I also found myself wishing we could have been sitting side by side, holding hands, my ring on display and the baby we were having embraced by my family. As it was, I’d worn a loose peasant top to hide the tiny bump my belly had become.

  After Luke had left with a promise to pick me up the next day, I’d eventually talked my parents into allowing me to go to Central. They’d been incredibly disappointed, even angry, but I’d disappointed and angered them before. When I’d come home after that summer of modeling when I was fourteen, crying my eyes out and telling my mother I never wanted to have to do something like that again, she’d rolled her eyes at me and told me I better toughen up if I didn’t want the world to chew me up and spit me out.

  “What are you in the mood for, dinner wise?” Luke asks, having come down from his office while I’ve been working on some transfer paperwork on my laptop on the back deck. He’s now leaning over my shoulder, his arms wrapped around me.

  “I could make a salad if you wanted to do the potatoes?”

  “That it?”

  “Umm… I am kind of craving something pickled, like pickled peppers, maybe some pickled onions?”

  He laughs. “Okay, pickled peppers and onions. I’ll put that on the list. Anything else?”

  “No, I think that’s it.”

  “Okay, well, I’m going to run into town and grab that and a few other things. I might grill tonight. You want to come or stay here?”

  “I wish I could go with you, but I’ve really got to finish this stuff so I’ll be all set with Central—deadlines looming you know?” Of course I wish I could go with him, but just this once I need to hunker down.

  “I’ll miss you,” he says, kissing me on my cheek. “I won’t be long.”

  I turn and kiss him back, kiss him on the lips, then smile when we pull away, an easy smile that comes just in looking into his eyes.

  “I love you,” he tells me before heading back in.

  “I love you too,” I say.

  I get back to the task at hand and momentarily wonder if it wouldn’t be easier to just stay here in Echo Ridge through the duration of my pregnancy. That’s what Luke had wanted, had said maybe I could take a bunch of online classes, but I’d countered that it was important for me to be in class, to interact with people and to be able to prove to my parents that I could do this. They would find out about the pregnancy eventually, and I wanted them to see that I could do it all for fear they’d make things very hard if they thought I was throwing my life away for Luke.

  What he and I had settled on was a house he’d already purchased outright in Ellensburg. We’d live together there, me going to school and him working as long as he had his hardware and an internet connection. We’d head back to Echo Ridge on weekends and during holiday breaks, and eventually we’d tell my parents, get married, and live our lives together without fear
of being torn apart.

  That was the plan at least, but both of us knew that plans didn’t always work out the way you wanted them to. But we had hope this one would.

  I’m just finishing up registering for classes when I hear a car door closing. I assume it’s Luke before hearing another door shut. It’s probably just him grabbing groceries out of the passenger seat, but it does give me pause. And when I turn toward the French doors to the deck and see two figures entering the house, I’m taken by surprise.

  Danielle.

  It’s been well over a month since I’d seen her and Carlos, and Luke had been so worried, still beating himself up over the strained relationship with his daughter and wondering if there were things he could have done to make things better between them.

  I’m already up on my feet and heading toward the doors when she sees me, her mouth open in laughter and suddenly cutting off, a look of anger in her eyes. I steel myself, take a deep breath and head in, knowing that part of being with Luke means having to face uncomfortable situations just like this one.

  “Hey, Claudia.” Carlos is the first to speak, one hand in his pocket, the other up in a brief wave to me while Danielle barely looks at me, hanging onto Carlos’ arm as if doing that will somehow erase me from the room.

  “Hi, Carlos.” I walk toward them, wishing Danielle and I still had the same relationship we did when we’d left WSU at the beginning of the summer. We’d been friends, and now it feels more like we’re enemies. “I didn’t know you guys were coming back.”

  “Oh… are you the woman of the house now?” Danielle sneers. “I didn’t realize we needed to check in with you about coming back to my house.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way,” I say, disappointed at how quickly this is going off the rails. “It’s just that Luke… well, your dad… he’ll be so happy to see you again.”