Until Autumn Falls

by Elana Johnson

  He paused several inches from her, unwilling to make a fool of himself again. “After you.” He gestured for her to go first down the hall. She hesitated for one, two, three heartbeats, kept her eyes on his though she turned her body, and finally went.

  His gaze dropped to her collarbone, the one she always kept covered. As she turned, he caught sight of an angry, pink scar the scarf slipped over. He paused, his mind racing.

  Mysteries swam in his head. She’d shown up out of nowhere a couple of summers ago. She kept to herself. Took a long time to make friends. Didn’t want to talk about herself or her family in Miami.

  In the back of his mind, Tripp had known something had driven her from her hometown. He’d known it was strange to wear turtlenecks year-round and tie scarves on as necklaces. Heck, he’d even seen her wear a men’s tie with a T-shirt before.

  He wanted to know everything about Hilary Finnegan—including where that scar had come from and how he could make sure she never got hurt again.

  His boots echoed on the tile as he finally got himself to move down the hall. The strength of his feelings made his limbs feel hollow, and he paused outside the door, the lingering scent of her fruity perfume further clouding his senses.

  Tripp entered his office and sat behind his desk. “So, tell me about Andrea.”

  Chapter Four

  Hilary felt completely out of place in Tripp’s office. Not because it was sparsely decorated, or because it smelled like sweat and sawdust, or because everything was beige or khaki-colored.

  No, she felt out of place because she’d rather be sitting across from him in a dimly lit restaurant, with low music playing in the background and champagne on the table between them.

  She didn’t want to talk about Andrea. She didn’t want Tripp to go out with Andrea, though Hilary didn’t think a relationship between the two of them would last longer than a few dates. The fact that he’d be dating someone else at all ate at her, clawed a hole right through her gut, caused unrest to swirl through her blood.

  Somehow her mouth formed words about Andrea. Red hair. Green eyes. Graduated from cosmetology school. The basics. She lived with her mother, as the older woman needed quite a bit of physical care and by being able to set her own hours in the nail salon, Andrea could provide that care.

  “And you live in their guest home,” Tripp said once Hilary had run out of things to say.

  “Right.” She crossed her legs and leaned into her knee. “So, what should I tell her about you?”

  He leaned away from her. “You know about me.”

  “Do I?”

  He glanced up at her, probably because of the flirtatious tone of her voice. She tamed it back into nonchalance as she said, “Okay, let me try. You like fishing. You know how to build anything out of wood, even your own fishing boat. Your parents live in Seattle and you don’t go visit them, but your sister lives here and you eat dinner with her and your cousins every weekend.” She cleared her throat as a powerful need for a family, a place to belong, almost consumed her. “You’re real good with your hands.” Her face heated as she thought about where she’d like him to touch her.

  She leaned away too. “Okay, I think I’ve got the basics.”

  Tripp regarded her in that stoic way he had. “I graduated with a dual degree in business management and construction management. Tell her that.”

  Hilary cocked her head, impressed. “I didn’t know that.”

  “There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”

  Hilary almost blurted out that she’d like to know everything about him. She bit back the words just in the nick of time, instead saying, “If it doesn’t work out with Andrea, I know a woman who runs her own cleaning business.”

  When he didn’t respond with anything more than his intense stare, she wiped her hands on her shorts. “Well, I guess—”

  “What makes you think I want to go out with every available woman in Redwood Bay?”

  A thread of humiliation pulled through her. “I—I don’t know. You were out with that woman who sells jewelry.”

  “So what?”

  “So—”

  “And that ended badly, as you saw. And maybe I don’t want to repeat that embarrassment.”

  “Who says you will?”

  “You just did.”

  “I did not.”

  “You said if it doesn’t work out with Andrea, like you already know it won’t.”

  Flustered, Hilary stood to give herself an advantage over him. “Okay, look. You give Andrea a chance, and…and….”

  Tripp cocked one eyebrow and folded his arms. She wished he wouldn’t. His bulging muscles distracted her, scattered her thoughts.

  “And you come fishing with me until you land your entire day’s catch.” He stood too, matching her fire with his own.

  She appreciated that he kept his gaze even with hers. The fact that his eyes didn’t stray to her scarf made her heart trip over itself. The need to adjust the fabric, make sure the scar was covered, rose to intense proportions. She’d felt this way when she’d first left Florida. Anxious. Exposed. Afraid.

  She tried to swallow and couldn’t.

  “Hilary?” He came around the desk and grazed his fingertips along her elbow, down to her wrist. “Is that a deal?”

  A buzz emanated along her skin where he’d touched her. She wasn’t entirely sure what she was agreeing to when she nodded. She just knew she had to get out of that office, away from Tripp’s intoxicating scent and powerful presence, before she said or did something she’d later regret.

  * * * *

  In the safety of her car, she drove down the coast, the musky, woodsy scent of Tripp’s skin still teasing her nose. She rolled down the window to chase it away. The wind blasted through the opening, and Hilary realized how fast she was driving. Easing up on the accelerator, she slowed her car and her pulse. With clarity came realization. She’d just agreed to go fishing with Tripp. Fishing with Tripp at two o’clock in the morning. No wonder the man went to bed by seven.

  Her fingers released and tightened on the steering wheel, first in frustration at having made the deal. Second in anticipation of having Tripp’s hands on hers, showing her how to set the line, cast, reel in her catch.

  The sign for Redwood National Park came into view, and Hilary eased her car around the corner. Up ahead, a short line of cars waited to enter the park. It was free, and Hilary had taken to coming here whenever she needed to escape her life. Though she wasn’t outdoorsy, there was no better place to think than in a grove of towering redwoods. Somehow they channeled her jumbled thoughts into the sky, where she didn’t have to hold them anymore.

  The woman in the booth asked if she needed a map, and Hilary waved her hand no. She wasn’t planning to hike. She could park in an empty campground spot and walk back through the trees. After a slow couple of miles to the campground, she pulled into a spot near the back of the loop.

  She just needed half an hour. Half an hour to figure out how she’d gone from being stood up one evening to agreeing to go fishing with another man the next.

  Her feet crunched over undergrowth as she headed toward a fallen tree. She climbed up on it and sat, her legs dangling over the huge trunk. She wasn’t sure that playing matchmaker for Tripp Thurgood—especially when she wanted to match him with herself—was a good idea.

  She tugged self-consciously at the ends of her scarf, the urge to rip it off and toss it into the wind almost all-consuming. The traffic from the coastal highway couldn’t be heard at the campground, and she thought briefly of sleeping in her car that night.

  Why, she wasn’t sure. She didn’t have anything to be ashamed about. No one to hide from. At the same time, if she continued down this path with Tripp—the one where she went fishing with him in the dead of night—he’d need some answers. Answers about her family. Answers about her scarf obsession. Answers about her life.

  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath of the earthy air. Maybe it was time for her to star
t speaking the answers. A tremor of fear ran through her at the very thought of showing someone her scars. And not just someone.

  Tripp.

  Hilary shivered as she thought of him lightly tracing his callused fingertips along the long, thin wounds. Would her skin turn hot or would it break into gooseflesh? She opened her eyes, a bit warmer just from thinking so hard about Tripp.

  “Best to keep it friendly,” she told herself sternly, almost hearing the forest surrounding her repeating the words back to her. As she slid off the log and headed back to her car, she knew why she hadn’t set herself up with Tripp, why she’d wanted to put Andrea between them.

  She wasn’t ready to let someone all the way in. Sure, she had Polly and Lucy, and Lucy knew the most out of anyone in Hilary’s life. But even she had never seen the physical scars on Hilary’s chest, neck, and shoulder.

  Her right hand reached for them automatically, and she ran her fingers almost lovingly over the marks, the ridges and bumps as familiar to her now as if she’d been born with them. For the first several months after she’d woken up, she’d feared she’d never get used to them. That every time she saw them staring back at her in the mirror, she’d tear up and let her anger consume her.

  But time had worked its magic, and she could look at herself now and accept the woman looking back at her. Still didn’t mean she wanted to tell someone about Dante, the abuse she’d suffered, the failed engagement, and then the attempted escape that had ended with her unconscious and bleeding.

  She paused as she entered the clearing where normal families or couples would set up their tent. “Leave it here,” she whispered, something her mother used to do. She worked a demanding job in an elderly care facility, and she always hesitated just outside their door, plucking her worries and cares from her job and leaving them outside in the hallway.

  Hilary wished she could shed her skin and regrow a fresh, blemish-free layer as easily. But she couldn’t. So she inhaled and exhaled, letting her fears about fishing with Tripp fall from her shoulders.

  Unburdened, she drove back to Redwood Bay. She passed the turnoff for the lighthouse, the grocery store, the hardware store, and the library. City Hall came into view, and just beyond that, Lucy’s diner. Her building marked the official beginning of downtown, and Hilary crawled down the street due to the heavy traffic.

  Summerfest was in full swing, and Hilary made a snap decision as she thought about the ice cream she’d eaten the previous evening. After driving around the block a couple of times—and narrowly avoiding one of the ponies out giving rides to children—she found a parking spot behind the row of shops that housed Polly’s floristry.

  She couldn’t seem to get away from the Thurgoods, no matter how hard she tried, because Polly came out the back door while Hilary still sat in her car. Their eyes met, and Polly’s face lit up with recognition.

  Hilary got out of the car. “Hey, Pols.” She gave her friend a quick hug.

  “What are you doing here?” Polly checked for something in her purse.

  “I came to get some fried ice cream. Want to join me?”

  Polly’s wide eyes locked onto Hilary’s. “Fried ice cream? What happened.” She didn’t even phrase the last two words as a question, a fact which grated against Hilary’s nerves.

  “Nothing happened.” Certainly nothing she could tell Polly. “I just had it last night, and it was so good, I wanted some more.”

  “This is your second fried ice cream in as many days?” Polly leaned her head back and groaned. “Oh, this is a bad problem.” She stepped toward the park. “Tell me about it on the way. I could use something fried about now.”

  “What happened with you?” Hilary had become an expert at deflecting personal questions over the past two years. It was easy, really. Most people didn’t mind talking about themselves, and if she kept them in the spotlight, she could fade into the background.

  “The usual.” Polly stepped around a child who was walking backward.

  “I thought we were over Easton.”

  Polly huffed and waved her hand dismissively. “We are. Totally. He’s not the problem.”

  “Then who is?”

  “No one,” Polly said. “And that’s the problem.” She stopped suddenly as if someone had encased her feet in ice. “Maybe I should be more like Tripp. He doesn’t seem to care if he finds someone to marry.”

  Hilary’s hearing sharpened. A dog barked in the distance. The birds called from the treetops. The roar of the roller coaster almost deafened her. “He doesn’t?”

  “Doesn’t seem to.” Polly looked absolutely miserable. “And he’s not moping around, eating fried ice cream.”

  The image of him twirling that unopened beer bottle stole into Hilary’s mind. Maybe he wasn’t moping around eating too many sweets. But he definitely had a demon or two in his past, and his method of banishing it could be just as destructive as sugar.

  She glanced at Polly, working through the idea of asking her more about her brother. The ice cream vendor came into view, and Hilary stuffed the questions about Tripp to the soles of her feet. She’d never asked much about him, and she couldn’t start now. Someone as perceptive as Polly would notice. She’d suspect something. Maybe even try to set them up.

  Maybe it’s not a bad idea….

  Giving herself a little shake, Hilary managed to push Tripp from her mind long enough to order the ice cream and eat it with Polly. She didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as she had the previous evening. As she made her way home a few minutes later, she lamented the way the treat hadn’t seemed nearly as sweet when she didn’t have Tripp at her side.

  Chapter Five

  Tripp wore a scowl the size of the moon as he headed up the steps of the house in front of Hilary’s. He managed to smooth his frustration away before Andrea opened the door. Her auburn hair had been pulled back on the sides, and her green eyes smiled with her lips as she said hello.

  “Nice to meet you,” he said, but the words sounded a bit like a bark. He couldn’t help glancing over his shoulder as he followed Andrea down the sidewalk to his truck. But he couldn’t see Hilary’s bungalow, and that only added to his sour mood.

  He barely remembered to open the passenger door for Andrea, and by the time he settled himself behind the wheel, he couldn’t think of a single thing to say to her. Thankfully, she asked him, “So you grew up here?”

  He didn’t think he could get away with a grunt as a response, so he said, “Yes. You?” But he knew she hadn’t. If she had, he’d have been in school with her. Even though Redwood Bay housed about ten thousand people, it only had one high school and Andrea wasn’t that much younger than him.

  “I grew up in Sacramento,” she said. “When my father passed away, I moved here with my mother.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Tripp murmured, taking a turn that would lead them down to the beach, down to Sophie’s stand. He needed to see a friendly face, and Andrea didn’t seem like the type who would mind eating tacos on the beach for Sunday lunch.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “It’s been six years.” She sighed as she glanced out the window. “Sometimes it feels longer than that, and sometimes shorter.”

  “Were you close to your dad?” He flicked her a look out of the corner of his eye. He couldn’t see much, turned into the window as she was.

  “Yes.” She gave a light laugh that didn’t lift the mood. “I’m an only child.”

  “Ah, so you were spoiled.” Tripp added a chuckle to his statement so she would know he was kidding.

  “Maybe a little.” She grinned at him, and a stab of guilt punched through Tripp. Going out with her certainly wasn’t fair. She was nice, possessed beauty in her face and kindness in her soul. But she was not Hilary Finnegan, and right now, Tripp couldn’t think about anyone else.

  He still couldn’t believe Hilary had agreed to his deal. He thought he’d never get her out on his trawler, and he reminded himself to be nice, be charming, be attentive so Andrea would report back to H
ilary that he’d been nothing but an amazing date.

  “So, pets?” he asked as he parked.

  “Are we going to the Sandy Tortilla?”

  “Yeah.” He swung toward her. “Is that okay?”

  Andrea’s grin was infectious, and Tripp almost got up the gumption to return it. Almost. “I love this place.”

  “I’m glad.” Tripp let her link her hand in his elbow as they maneuvered through the sand to the taco stand. A teenage girl stood in the window taking orders, with his cousin behind her putting meals together faster than lightning could strike.

  Well, Tripp thought as he stepped forward to order. At least this day won’t be a complete loss.

  After all, anytime he could eat something Sophie made, he counted that as a win.

  * * * *

  Two hours and all of his patience later, Tripp dropped Andrea off at home. She lingered in the cab, but so did he. He was not walking her to the door. He knew what happened on front porches—even in broad daylight—and he just couldn’t.

  She finally gave him a shy smile and headed up the sidewalk. He barely waited until the front door closed before pulling around the house to the guest house behind the pool. He had his seatbelt unbuckled and the ignition off before he realized what he was doing. He couldn’t go in there now, not right after dropping off another woman.

  He started the truck again, desperation racing through him. He needed to leave. Get out of there before Hilary saw him. Or worse, before Andrea did. What would that look like? Him dropping her off in one moment and heading into another woman’s house the next?

  Tripp ground his teeth together as he drove. He arrived home with a couple of hours to spare before he needed to get to bed, and the thought of a bag of popcorn and a baseball game brightening his mood.