by Maisey Yates
Rachel could only give thanks, in that moment, that as difficult as things were with Emma sometimes, they weren’t there. And she didn’t see them being there anytime soon. No, they wouldn’t let it get there.
And she was thankful again for Jacob, and the relationship they’d had. Which would always be a part of who she was. He was part of what had knit her together. An integral thread that made her...her. And he always would be.
She couldn’t have banished him even if she’d wanted to. Not without unraveling herself.
She turned over and moved closer to Adam, her eyes on his mouth. “I’m sorry.” She kissed him, and somehow that kiss opened up something inside of her. Made her chest expand.
She felt something. More than something.
She felt raw and confused. Wounded. On Adam’s behalf, because she considered the man a friend, and knowing he’d been going through so much pain...
“I’m so sorry,” she repeated. “I’m sorry I didn’t know.”
“We never talked about your stuff.”
“Yeah, but you knew what I was going through, and I always felt like you didn’t talk about it out of respect for me. You gave me a place to go where the fact that my husband was dying wasn’t the biggest thing. You were... You were my lighthouse, Adam. You kept me from hitting the rocks. Some nights, knowing that I was going to the diner to talk to you, and to get my cheeseburger, was the only thing that kept me going all day. Knowing that I would have a moment to have a breath. To feel like me. Just me.” Her eyes filled with tears. “It feels awful even to admit that. But I needed it. I needed you look at me the way that you did, not with sympathy, but like a friend. I didn’t have anyone else that could do that for me. And I... What was I for you?”
“The most beautiful damn thing in my day, Rachel.”
He captured her face, rolled her onto her back, his hard body over the top of hers, his muscled chest pressed against her breasts. “I hadn’t been with a woman since my divorce. You were the first one I wanted.”
She reached up and touched his face. “Well, I’m glad to have helped with that...anyway.” He turned his head and kissed her fingertips.
Their eyes met, and she felt...so much. Too much.
It was impossible.
She moved away from him.
“I should go.”
“You can’t stay all night?”
“No,” she said. “I wasn’t even going to do this. In fact, I was going to tell you it was a bad idea. Because it’s too soon.”
“Right,” he said. “I forgot it was too soon for you.”
She groaned. “I really need to cancel my date with Mark.”
“Damn straight,” he said.
“I don’t think you get to have an opinion on that.”
“No?”
“No. This is...us. Just without the counter between us.”
He chuckled, but she didn’t hear a lot of humor in it. “Without the clothes, too.”
“Sure. Anyway, I’m not ready to date.”
“Just ready for this?”
No. She wasn’t ready for this. Whatever it was. And the way that he looked at her with those blue eyes made her feel like she was coming apart at the seams.
“I’m not going out with him,” she said.
“Well, I’m not revising my opinion on that. Good.”
“Thank you,” she said. “For being there for Emma. I understand now a little bit more about why you’re so good with her. I appreciate it. Because you know she doesn’t have...”
Her throat got tight, and all of this was a little bit too close to serious. A little bit too close to what she didn’t want to be in the middle of.
“Yes,” he said quickly. “No problem.”
She slipped out of bed and started hunting for her clothes.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said.
“No, you won’t,” she said. “I’m not going to be hungry for a hamburger tomorrow.”
“Well, I’m going to be hungry for you.”
She stopped, her heart fluttering, her whole body warring with just how much that pleased her even while it unnerved her.
“I might make you starve.”
“I don’t think you will.”
“Why don’t you think I will?”
“Because you’re hungry for me, too.”
“I might have a salad.”
“You don’t like salad.”
“Still. Sometimes I have salad, anyway.”
“Have me instead.”
She got dressed. “I’ll think about it.”
And as she walked out the door, she knew that this was a challenge she’d already lost.
Because try as she might, she was already planning how they would see each other again.
EMMA
Emma was tossing and turning in bed. She couldn’t stop thinking about what her mom had said to her about first love.
She was thinking a lot about Luke, about taking things to the next level with him.
Not just possibly sleeping with him, though she was giving that a lot of thought, but also wanting to share more of her life with him. More of herself.
This, she supposed, was falling in love.
She had been resistant to it. Hadn’t wanted to fall in love with him, even while she had wanted to chase the crush between them, because it had made her feel so good.
But it had become so real, so deep, so fast.
She had never envied her mother’s life. The way that she had fallen in love so young, and had experienced so much loss as a result. And she had certainly not at all envied Anna recently.
But this felt so new and different and like nothing anyone else in the history of the world had ever experienced.
She was aware of reality enough to know that that was silly, and how everyone must feel.
But it didn’t stop her from wanting more.
“What would you do, Lazy Susan?” Emma asked, feeling ridiculous. “Would you sneak out to the lighthouse with a boy? Did you?”
There was no answer. So she picked up her phone.
I’m thinking about you.
There was nothing for a moment, and then three dots appeared at the bottom of the screen indicating that he was typing.
Me, too. Can’t sleep.
You should come here.
She sent the text somewhat recklessly.
To your house?
To the inn. No one will think it’s weird if a car shows up late.
Are you sure?
Yes. I want to show you something.
Okay. Text when I’m there.
Without thinking, Emma got out of bed and put on a thick woolen sweater, then she got a heavy coat out of her closet. She had a giant, old-fashioned flashlight, metal and substantial, just like the ones in all the guest rooms, with a label that said it was property of the Lighthouse Inn.
She kept it on hand in case she wanted to walk up to the lighthouse, which wasn’t an uncommon thing, though she hadn’t done it in a long time.
It was an experience, going up there at night, when all eight lights were on and the lens was rotating.
It had been her favorite place to hang out with her dad.
It was hard to believe that she would be graduating in just a couple of weeks.
And he wouldn’t be there.
Suddenly, the urge to show Luke the lighthouse felt nearly desperate.
Life didn’t wait. That was the thing.
And she’d been playing games. Keeping Luke separate, even if he wasn’t a secret. And she wanted him...
Here.
The Light will always lead you home...
She hadn’t been able to go there since her dad had died. But it was home, and it always would be. The essence of this place that had shape
d who she was.
Life could be scary.
But life was also short, and if she’d learned anything over the last few months it was that. That people could just be gone from your life, and you couldn’t have them back. You couldn’t say what you hadn’t said. You didn’t get a chance to do things over.
Her father had always wanted to do great things with his photography, but he hadn’t had the chance, because he’d gotten sick.
She didn’t have infinite time. She didn’t have infinite chances.
No one did.
But Emma had been given a great and terrible gift, in that she knew just how much truth there was in that.
Her father had had such a limited amount of time.
Emma had no idea how much time she had.
It suddenly felt so short and fleeting, and she wanted to make it all count. Wanted to make it all big.
Her phone buzzed.
Here.
She looked out the window, and saw that her mom’s car wasn’t there.
That was strange.
She’d been out late a bit lately, and Emma didn’t have a clue as to what she was doing. One time, when she hadn’t been around, Anna had said something about a girls night, which had irritated Emma, because if it was a group of the old friends that her mom had hung out with before her dad had gotten sick, then they used to be included in that.
And it made her feel angry that her mom would join a group that excluded Anna.
Though, she supposed her mom needed friends no matter what shape they came in.
And, anyway, it was convenient for Emma.
She went down the hall, and paused at her parents’ bedroom, her heart in her throat. Then she pushed open the door and went in.
She didn’t know what she’d expected to find. A ghost. Pain. But there was nothing but the blandness of an empty bed.
She touched the bracelet on her wrist, and suddenly she understood.
Her dad wasn’t here. This wasn’t a tomb.
He wasn’t contained in the ashes her mom had spread out over the sea.
He was with her.
He was her light. And he would always guide her home.
She didn’t have to fear an empty room, an empty bed, a future that stretched out wide before her with no certainty.
Because he and her mom had made her into someone who could endure, find her way, stand strong.
Losing him was sad. There was no other way to see it.
But having him had been an immense gift.
And it was one she had. She couldn’t lose sight of that in the middle of her grief. Couldn’t lose sight of the gifts because of the loss.
She clattered down the stairs and out the front door, then turned on the flashlight and watched the beam wave wildly as she jogged across the lawn and toward the little parking lot.
Luke was there, leaning against the truck, and her heart jumped.
“Hi,” she said.
“What’s going on?”
“I wanted to show you this. The lighthouse.”
“In the dark?”
She rolled her eyes, even though he couldn’t see. “Silly. That’s the best time to go see a lighthouse.”
“Okay. Fair enough.”
“Follow me,” she said.
She aimed the flashlight on a paved path that led across the outside of the picket fence, moving toward a hill. The path turned to dirt then, became narrow and wound up the side of the rocky hilltop.
Trees were dense on either side of the path, though on the left, if you stepped off you were liable to roll right down the hill and plummet into the sea.
But Emma had been navigating this path for most of her life, and in spite of the dark all around her, she didn’t feel nervous.
“This way,” she said, the trail taking a sharp bend left, and then back right. And then it flattened out, the tower coming into view. There was a small shed, white with a red roof, and the light tower, stark white with a matching red roof, was behind it.
As it turned slowly, the lens up inside the top of the tower glittered like diamonds. The lens looked fractured in the light.
Emma had always been fascinated by it. The way that it transformed in the dark. Each clever cut designed to magnify the brightness of the light in the glass, becoming jewellike in the darkness.
It turned slowly, eight beams rotating along with it, strong and sure. When the light beam would pass over the back, it would illuminate the hillside, catching the trees, the plants, before sweeping back down toward the sea.
“Well,” he said.
“I know. This is actually all public land—anyone is allowed to come up. Anytime. We can’t go in the lighthouse. My family doesn’t own it. It’s run by the Coast Guard. The US Forest Service owns the land the house is on. It’s...confusing. But, anyway...this is where I grew up.”
“A far cry from the trailer park I grew up in,” he said.
“I was lucky,” she said. “I mean... I really was. It’s easy for me to feel sorry for myself now. To feel like I’ve had it tough. But it only hurts that I lost my dad because he was so great. I wanted more time because...” She swallowed hard. “He used to bring me up here. And we used to just look out at the sea. During the daytime we would watch for whales. He would point out the spouts on the horizon, and I would always sit and stare, hoping that I could see just a little bit of them. There are some natural caves just to the left, around the corner behind the rocks. And the sea lions live there, so we’d always see them swimming around in the waves. I knew from the time I was a little girl that the ocean was my life. That it was what I wanted to spend my life studying.”
“But how come you want to go away and study it?”
“Because I want to see more of it. It’s so vast. And I’m tied to this piece here, but... I want more. I want to see it. Study it. Experience it. And I know I’m going to end up back here. Because you’re right. This is my home, and this is where it started. But...”
“You love it so much you need to see more of it. I can understand that.”
“Yeah,” she said.
She walked over to the light tower and looked up, watching the beams as they turned. “Come here,” she said.
She leaned back against the tower, which made her tilt her slightly, her feet out in front of her, and gave her just the perfect view of the light beams moving slowly over the water, with the perfectly clear sky above them, and the scattering of glittering stars.
Luke leaned against the wall next to her, his hands shoved in his pockets.
“Isn’t it amazing?”
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s amazing. I can’t say that I’ve ever really stopped and looked at anything here. It’s just where I was born. I’ve never really loved it. Not like you do.”
“It’s not too late. You’re looking at it now.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I am.”
Except when she looked at him, his face was turned toward her.
Her heart expanded, and the space between them shrank as he leaned in to kiss her. Softly. Slowly.
And she knew that this place would be changed for her forever. Because it would no longer just be the site of those girlish hopes and dreams, but of these extremely adult feelings that Luke created inside of her.
Love. That’s what it was.
Love.
And just like the way she loved the water here, and it created conflict with her desire to go away, he was another thing. Tethering her to this place.
It frightened her.
But she also knew there was nothing she could do but embrace it. Fully and completely.
She was falling in love with him.
And life was short enough that she knew she couldn’t put that off.
If she was given love now, she had to embrace it now.
> All of it.
All of him.
But she wouldn’t tell him, not yet. Not because she was scared, because she wanted this to be about...
Being here. Sharing this.
When the time was right, when it was all about them, when she was ready to... When she was ready to be with him, she would tell him.
For now, she would just let him kiss her here at the lighthouse.
For the first time in a very long time, Emma felt like all the pieces of herself had been crushed together, like she was whole. Fractured and glittering like the lighthouse itself.
29
Is it such a terrible thing to love someone?
—FROM A LETTER WRITTEN BY STAFF SERGEANT RICHARD JOHNSON, FEBRUARY 15, 1945
ANNA
It was a new day. And Anna was feeling bold. She was going down to town to talk to Adam about how well the pies were doing. And she was excited to find out what she could do to make things work even better.
She was in general feeling...good.
The talk with her mother, and the one with Thomas, had done so much to change the way she felt. It wasn’t enough anymore to sit around thinking about the fact that she had changed her life. No, she had taken the first step toward changing her life.
And the rest was all in front of her.
She was figuring out what she wanted. And, depending on what Adam said today, she had another stop in mind.
She pushed open the door to the diner, and the first person she saw was Emma. Waiting tables, her red hair thrown up into a bun.
“Hi,” Anna said, crossing the space and pulling her niece in for a hug.
“Hi,” Emma said.
“You look tired,” Anna said. “Is everything okay?”
“I’m okay. It’s... I’m at work.”
“If you need something please tell me. Emma, I’m on your team. No matter what.”
Emma offered a small smile. “I know. And I’m good.”
“Well, if you ever aren’t good...tell me.”
“Thank you,” Emma said softly.
As they separated, Anna noticed her sister. Sitting at the counter, which was not abnormal. But when Adam came out from the kitchen, the color that mounted in Rachel’s face was indeed abnormal.
