by Sara Arden
“It really is beautiful here, Crys. I can see why you’d want to stay.” Tears pricked her eyes again. “That was the best of times coming here with Mom, being out on the water and daydreaming about moving here. We’d all get jobs at one of the shows in Branson and we’d live on a little houseboat...eat fish every night that we’d caught. It was our dream.”
She’d spoken as if Crys could hear her.
Gina leaned against the rail and sighed again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
REED THOUGHT ABOUT everything he’d heard about Jack McConnell. He’d been the hero who’d done good, even though he’d come home a mess. Reed was nothing like a former navy SEAL. He’d never done anything so noble, but maybe there was a place for him in Glory, after all.
Maybe he didn’t need to be the rich bastard on the hill, maybe he could just be a guy who was good with numbers who had a family in some small, charming midwestern town. He could have everything he wanted.
He was enough.
Reed had wanted that, to know he was enough, to really feel it. But he’d been afraid of it, too, because it meant that if he failed, if he didn’t live up to his word, it wasn’t anyone’s fault but his own. It gave him control over his life, over his destiny.
There was a part of him that was content to hide behind his faults, to chalk up any failures to his bad blood, bad childhood, his past mistakes.
But none of that had dominion over him, he realized. He had dominion over himself.
That was a terrifying prospect.
Going forward, he’d rise or fall on his own—though he supposed it had always been that way, rising or falling on his own merits. But he’d used his stumbling blocks like a security blanket and the time for that was done.
His first instinct was to share this discovery with Gina, but he knew it wasn’t the right time.
She was still reeling.
He was still reeling for that matter.
But now he had hope.
Maybe that was what he’d been lacking before. That was the secret alchemy that really would make everything okay.
* * *
GINA HAD BEEN having nightmares since they’d gotten back. She woke up screaming if she wasn’t in Reed’s bed.
The first night back, Amanda Jane had come running into her room, terrified that something bad was happening to her. She never remembered what her nightmares were about when she woke up, but Gina could hazard a guess. Fear of abandonment, helplessness—both things that were the innermost ring of hell to her.
After a week back, she couldn’t take it anymore.
She found herself padding barefooted, after everyone had gone to bed, to Reed’s room.
She knocked lightly and he opened the door wearing nothing but those soft lounge pants she liked so much. Gina tried not to lick her lips, or think about the passion between them.
It seemed as if it had been a onetime thing. Since they’d been back, it was almost as if it had never happened. She was tired of chasing him and had determined not to, but she was tired of being afraid to go to sleep.
“Another nightmare?” he asked.
“Yeah.” She nodded. It had to be the anxiety of her new situation. All the fears she’d choked down, giving him all of this control. It was strange that he was the one she’d turned to when he was part of the problem.
“Come here.” He tugged her toward the bed. “Just stay with me. You don’t have to sleep alone.”
She crawled into the bed, grateful for his invitation.
He pulled her close and suddenly, everything that could be right with the world was.
“Do you remember what they’re about?”
“No.” She was still shaking.
“It’s not really a surprise that you’re having nightmares with all the upheaval in your life in these last months. All the stress you were under before? What surprises me is that you haven’t popped like a tick.”
She laughed at the description. “So this is really okay? You don’t mind?”
“Having you in my bed every night, Gina? No. How could I mind?”
His words warmed her, even though she didn’t want them to. She wanted to be an island, a rock; she didn’t want to need him or need his touch. Especially when he could take it away so easily. “I don’t want to be here if you don’t want me here.”
“I want you here.”
She curled against him. “I love how you smell.”
He stroked her back gently. “You keep nuzzling like that, you’re going to get more than a nap,” he teased.
She looked up at him. “I always want you, Reed.”
His hand stilled. “I don’t want to push you.”
She wet her lips. “I don’t know what we’re doing here, but I’m okay with it. I’m more than okay with it. This is where I want to be whether I’m sleeping or...other things.”
“Other things, huh?” he teased and pulled her closer.
She slipped her hand up over his back. “Be quiet. Since you’re teasing me, I’m going to sleep.”
“Good. You probably need it. There’s time for ‘other things’ later.”
“How is it so easy for you?”
“Easy? Sweetheart, it’s hard. Very. Very. Hard.”
“Is it, really?” She let her hand trail down to his hip and when he didn’t stop her, she cupped him. “I see that you are telling the truth.”
“You don’t have to do that if you just want to be close.”
“I want both. After all this time, I don’t know how you could doubt that.”
“I guess I still have a problem believing that you really want me.”
Even though his confession stabbed at her heart, it warmed it, too. He was confiding in her, trusting her.
“I just never want you to feel like you owe me anything. And I want you to trust me. I want to trust you.”
She wanted to reassure him. “I’m here for you. Because I have feelings for you. Because I need you, but because you’re you. Not because of anything you have. I’ll remind you as many times as you need to hear it.”
“How about you make this an every-night thing?” he asked quietly.
Warmth bloomed. “Yes.”
She turned over, nestled herself against him. “How do you think Amanda Jane is doing?”
“I think she’s doing as well as anyone could expect. She’s had a lot of upheaval, as well. I was going to ask if you wanted to take her to Glory Days this weekend.”
“Ugh. Anyone I knew in high school that matters to me I still talk to.” Glory Days was an alumni festival that consisted of a carnival, fund-raising efforts for the high school, and a class reunion for all the different class years.
“She might like it, though. The carnival part. The funnel cake.”
“The seeing people judging us...”
“Hey, I didn’t even finish high school here. I’m not really concerned about what they think about me. I just want Amanda Jane to have some fun.”
“Frogfest didn’t kill me, so I don’t guess Glory Days will, either.”
“That’s my girl.”
She was tempted to ask if she really was his girl. She wanted to be, but him inviting her to spend all of her nights with him was victory enough.
“Did you ever go to Glory Days when we were kids?”
“Once or twice,” he said.
“I did. I’d go and watch from the sidelines. I’d pretend like someday, I’d come back to Glory and I’d go to Glory Days in a white coat that had Dr. Gina Townsend stitched on the pocket and somehow, that would make everything shiny. It would whitewash my life so it was just like that coat.”
“And now?”
“And now, I don’t think it needs to be whitewashed. It is what it is.”
&nbs
p; That felt good to say, but even better because she believed it to be true.
“I went back to Whispering Woods before we left for the Ozarks.” His fingers made lazy whorls on her skin.
“Really? And what did you find there? Skeletons and closets?” She never wanted to see that place again. She couldn’t fathom why he’d go back.
“I found my future.”
“I think you need to explain that one to me.”
“I was so worried about not looking back that I forgot to look forward.”
That resonated with her. “I think I understand what you mean. We wouldn’t be who we are now without who we were.”
“Neither of us has anything to be ashamed of.” He lay silently, but she could feel that he had more to say. “I saw a couple of kids hanging out on top of a double-wide, pointing out shapes in the clouds. You remember we used to do that?”
“I remember we used to spend a lot of time on the roofs of yours and mine.” Some of those times were the memories she wanted to keep.
“It reminded me to keep hoping, keep dreaming.”
“Did you forget?” she teased.
“Yeah, I think I might have. I’d been so buttoned-down trying to secure that good life that I forgot to live it. I don’t want to do that anymore. I don’t want to teach Amanda Jane to do that. I think I was afraid that if I let myself go, if I gave myself permission for anything, that part of me would take it as permission for everything and I’d fall.”
“You’re not going to fall,” she reassured him, and when she said it, she believed it. There was no doubt in her voice, or her mind.
“See, that’s just it. I know that now.”
“I’m glad.”
“What about you, Gina?”
“What do you mean?”
“What’s your happy?”
This, right here. That was what she wanted to say. “Medical school. Knowing that Amanda Jane is safe. This is going to sound horrible, but knowing that Crys can’t be hurt anymore.”
“I don’t think that’s horrible.”
She exhaled and it was as if the weight on her shoulders that had been holding her down left her body with it.
“So we’re going to Glory Days?”
“Why not?”
“Oh, I can think of plenty of reasons why not.” She snorted.
“You already agreed. Stop trying to get out of it.”
“Fine.” She shifted around, trying to get comfortable again. “Let it be noted I’m only going for Amanda Jane.”
“Not for me?”
“Nope.” She grinned, liking how easy this play was coming between them. It was as though they’d always been together.
But then that bothered her. It was as if it was too easy.
For a moment, she considered slapping herself. Nothing about this had been easy and just because they had a few things that happened to go smoothly, Gina was suddenly daring the universe to throw some rough road in her path. It was almost as though if it wasn’t rough, she didn’t know how to process it.
Her stupid brain wondered if maybe that was why he wanted her. She fit so easily into the world he was forced to inhabit. Amanda Jane already loved her and Gina had confessed she loved him.
No, no. He’d told her that he loved her.
But did he really?
There was a lot to be said for the ease of things. When they’d started this journey he’d talked about all the ways he’d protected himself from gold diggers. That he didn’t date, didn’t have one-night stands, didn’t do anything that could endanger himself financially. Maybe there was a reason he was so caught up on only being wanted for his money—because that was what occupied the most real estate in his mind. His cash.
She’d already signed an agreement and he knew what he had to pay up front.
But that would make her little better than a whore.
He’d never treat her that way.
That little voice in her head, the one that said she wasn’t good enough, that she had to try harder, be more, it kept repeating all of these things back to her and for some reason, no matter how thin the argument, it seemed to sound better than all of her logic and reason.
Because she’d known from the beginning that she could be a doctor or she could have Reed Hollingsworth. She didn’t get both. That’s not how it played out for girls like her.
“Hey, did you fall asleep on me?”
She didn’t respond. She couldn’t. Just let him think she was asleep and then she wouldn’t be tempted to ask him stupid questions—but she’d spend the night wondering about stupid answers.
He shifted behind her and settled, holding her close.
“You’re just so easy to love, Gina.”
Rather than take from that that he loved her, all she heard was the easy part and it played into her fears about being ready-made—like a ramen-noodle family unit that fit all the things he wanted.
It was cheap and it was easy.
She tried to reassure herself that it was nothing of the sort—but what they had? Maybe it wasn’t the traditional definition of easy, but with what they were used to? Yeah.
Gina replayed every interaction over and over again, looking for all of the times when she was sure she’d just been easy.
She thought about every time he’d tried to turn her down for sex and she’d been convinced that he was just trying to look out for her, but maybe he didn’t want her at all, that stupid, ugly little voice said.
Why she gave it any time in her headspace she’d never know. No, she did know. She let it stay because it pushed her harder, made her keep trying, made her do more and mostly kept its promises.
If you work harder, you’ll get better grades.
If you get better grades, you’ll get scholarships.
If you get scholarships, you can go to med school.
If you’re quiet enough, it won’t wake Mama.
If you’re good enough, she won’t get sicker...
That was where it had lied. But it had come through on all the others.
So when it told her she wasn’t pretty enough, wasn’t smart enough, just wasn’t enough, she tended to listen because it was right nine out of ten times and Gina didn’t think she was special enough to be that one percent, to be that exception on more than one thing.
It was the thing that told her med school or Reed Hollingsworth.
Too bad he was so easy to love, too.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
GLORY DAYS WAS LOUD, bright and completely obnoxious. At least to Gina’s way of thinking. That was probably because she hadn’t wanted to come. But Amanda Jane was immediately intrigued by all of the lights—especially the lights on the Octopus, the spinning ride that had, contrary to its name, more than eight arms that swung the cars around.
The day dawned cloudy and soft, with the promise of rain. But that didn’t stop the revelers.
Gina was relieved to see a friendly face when she spotted Emma in the crowd. Amanda Jane saw her at the same time and pointed her out.
Emma waved and made her way over.
With Grayson.
Gina couldn’t help but be the tiniest bit ornery. “So, no kissing booth this time?”
Emma narrowed her eyes. “You shut up.”
Grayson laughed.
“You, too,” Emma added.
“If I want to kiss a woman, I don’t need a kissing booth,” Gray offered.
“Who asked you?” Emma grumbled and blushed.
He arched a brow. “Me. I asked me because I’m thinking about kissing you.”
Amanda Jane giggled and faux-whispered, “You should.”
Gina decided she liked watching their banter. It was like watching a tennis match with razor blade
s, but she was sure if either of them were to actually be cut, the other would feel...somewhat bad.
Gray had a fire that Emma had been missing in her life. So she was glad to see some spark.
Amanda Jane turned to Gina. “Octopus. Octopus.”
“I’ll take her, if you want to talk to Emma,” Gray offered.
Amanda Jane looked up at him. “I think they’re going to talk about you.”
“I think so, too.” Gray winked at Emma and Emma rolled her eyes.
“Is it okay to go?” Amanda Jane asked.
“Sure.” When they were out of earshot, Gina turned on Emma. “You can’t tell me there’s nothing there.”
“There’s not. He’s just a flirt. I don’t take him seriously.” But the stain on her cheeks said otherwise.
“That kiss at Frogfest—”
“Let the Frogfest kiss die a good death. Really. It’s over, done with. Neither of us was that impressed.” She shook her head. “Maybe we should even give it a Viking funeral. Light it on fire and send it out to sea. And never mention it again.”
“Why are we here again?” Gina sighed.
“Glory Days, of course,” Emma teased.
“Reed thought this would be good for Amanda Jane, to focus on something else besides all the craziness.”
“How did the trip go?” Emma asked.
“Oh, you know. It went.” The shoe was most definitely on the other foot now. She didn’t want to talk about her feelings. The last weeks had already been so crazy, she didn’t want to analyze it to death.
“And?”
“And what?” Gina fidgeted with her hands.
“Sexy times?”
She blushed. “Maybe. But I still don’t know what we’re doing. I wonder if he wants me just because it’s easy.”
Emma shot her a look.
“I know, I know, nothing with us has really been easy. But as far as things go on our road? What we have now is easy.”
“Why would he shortchange himself like that? That doesn’t make any sense. I think you should talk to him.”
“I don’t want to. Things are...good. They’ve finally settled. I don’t want to rock the apple cart.” Gina bit her lip.
