“It was close to the Crown,” Claire corrected.
“That’s not a bad thing!” I was so excited when I found the listing for the second floor apartment in an old general store right at one of the Five Corners. When I looked at a map, I had immediate visions of walking down from my place and meeting everyone on Thursdays. “I loved it.”
“No, it’s no good. Might get loud in the summer.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Now this.” Claire ignored me. “I love. Right on Main Street, but down at the quiet end. Look!” She parked and pointed up.
It was a two story red-brick building, plain but solid looking. The street level was taken up by a florist called Best Buds.
But it was the upper level that made my breath catch. “Is that a porch?” I asked. “On the second floor?”
“And your neighbors are the florist and the pet food store,” Claire added smugly. “Much quieter.”
I rolled down my window. After a stray car shushed by, all was quiet except the rustle of the leaves still clinging to the branches above us. And further off was the quiet murmur of the creek. Like a reassuring voice whispering that everything was okay. I was home now.
An old woman walked by on the sidewalk in front of the building, cradling a small white dog dressed in a tartan sweater. I'd seen her before. “I wonder if Mrs. Gaines knows that walking your dog involves actually putting it down?” Livvy mused.
And now I knew who she was.
My heart felt like it was going to burst out of my chest. I was home. “I love it!”
“Wait til you go inside!” Livvy laughed. “You don’t know that yet!”
“I do!” Claire said. “Let’s go in.”
There was a wide drive running between the two buildings that led to a small parking area in the back. A small grassy space, no bigger than a passage stamp, was dotted with white wicker furniture. “Too cold now,” Livvy said. “But in the summer?”
“Who cares about a tiny yard when you have a huge porch?” Claire wanted to know. “Come on!”
We entered from the back, following the sharp left turn up the narrow staircase. “Should be open!” Claire called up to me when I reached it first.
I pushed in to a wide open living room, with gleaming hardwood floors. A kitchenette lined one wall, but the rest of the space could be set up any way I wanted. I spun in a circle. “I feel like a ballerina in here.”
“The porch is off the bedroom,” Claire instructed. “Through there.” Then laughed when I took off running.
“This is so nice!” I breathed, stepping out onto the porch. I was high enough that through a gap in the buildings across the street, I caught the play of light on the rocks that lined the creek bed. I perched at the edge, ignoring Livvy’s panicked gasp, and leaned out. “I can just imagine sitting out here with coffee in the morning.”
"We’ll need to get you some porch furniture.” Livvy had her phone out and looked to be making a list of furnishings for me. I loved her for that. “You could get a rocking chair, or one of those swinging things you could hang from the roof here.”
“No, I want a whole set,” I declared. “A table with two chairs and a swing that we could rock on too.” I looked out. “We’re facing west, right? We could watch the sun set.”
“You planning on having parties?”
I blinked out of my reverie and widened my eyes. Heat was climbing up my face. The way Claire was watching me, I was almost sure she knew who I pictured sitting in the swing next to me.
I blinked and looked away before I started crying. The future. I was looking to the future. “This is it,” I said, nodding. “This is home.”
Chapter Forty-Four
Finn
It was early enough on a Saturday morning that I was trying my best to be quiet. But not quiet enough. Rachel jumped out of bed and caught me putting my boots on.
“Where are you going?” my future sister-in-law asked, a sharp note in her voice.
I sighed. “You don’t have to worry every time I leave, you know.”
“I’ll work on that.” She crossed her arms over her chest.
I stood up. “Actually, do you want to come with me? I’m going out on a coffee run.”
“We have coffee,” she pointed out.
“Yeah, but my friend Dinah doesn’t.”
Rachel’s expression changed immediately. She moved her lips, rubbing them together and then dragging her teeth across the bottom one. “I remember Dinah,” she said, with a far off expression in her eyes. “Want to know the funny thing?”
“What’s that?”
She looked at me. “I never liked her. Can you believe that?”
“Dinah? For real?”
She nodded. “I thought she was selfish.”
“She’s not.”
“Well, yeah!” she exploded, sounding exasperated. “I see that now.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe what she’s doing for them.” She touched my arm. “You either.”
“Dinah said you’re the reason people started,” I told her, hoping to stop the tears that were gathering in her eyes. “That you gave them hope it was possible.”
Rachel swallowed hard. “Have you heard anything about Rebecca?” she asked in a tiny voice.
Her sister. I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Rach.”
She looked away for a moment. Then nodded her head. “Hang on a sec and let me get my shoes. I’m coming with you.”
The Chit Chat Cafe was packed as usual. “Is this place ever not busy?” I wondered aloud. “It’s like 8:30 in the morning.”
“What does Dinah drink?” Rachel asked, leaning up against the counter. “I’m buying it for her.”
“I got it.”
“I said I’m buying,” Rachel snapped, showing the same fire that had driven her to take an overnight bus to New York City to find my brother again. I would always love her for that.
“Fine! She likes espresso,” I laughed, holding up my hands in surrender. “But I’m paying for my own cup, thank you.” I shoved my hands back in my pockets and waited while Rachel put in her order, idly looking around the place. I turned to read the chalkboard sign with the specials on it...
And came face to face with my sister.
“Claire!” I started to smile and immediately stopped when her expression went icy. “You’ve been avoiding me.”
“I’m busy,” she snapped. “And if you’re planning on badgering me into talking with you later, forget it. I have plans.”
Rachel turned and smiled at Claire, then frowned when she saw our stand-off. “I'll be over here,” she said, sliding out of the way.
Claire snorted and turned to put in her order.
“Plans?” I asked. “What are your plans?”
God bless her, Claire was terrible at the silent treatment. “If you must know,” she declared, tossing her hair. “I’m picking up these up before I go help a friend move in to her new place. And then I have a lunch date.”
I blinked and decided to go with the lesser of two evils. “Who’s moving? Sadie?”
She turned to face me completely. “Sky,” she said, tossing the name at me like a grenade.
“Sky’s moving?” My throat felt like it was closing.
“I found her a place right on Main Street, down at the quiet end.” Claire bragged. “She loves it.”
“What about her house?”
She shrugged. “Didn’t want it.”
My brain was spinning. “Where? Where is it?”
Claire blinked and then laughed way too loud. “What, so you can show up and ruin my morning with your half-assed apologies? No thank you.”
“I wasn’t going to -.”
“You know? I was in a good mood too,” she complained. “Here I was looking forward to spending the morning with my friends before letting a hot guy take me out to lunch…”
If she was trying to rile me up, it fucking worked. “What guy?”
She gave me smug smile. “None of yo
ur business.”
"I think I have a right to know."
"Do you? Do you really?"
“Is he at least a good guy?”
"I don't know, Finn.” I couldn't remember the last time Claire had called me by my actual name and not some bratty variation on it. It used to drive me crazy, the nicknames she'd come up with. Doll-Finn was the worst of them.
But now I missed them.
“I'm gonna find out at lunch, though," she went on.
"What's his name?"
"Aloysius Percival Winterbottom the Fourth."
"Claire."
"Fuck off, Finn."
“Claire. Just... Be careful, okay?”
"Oh, you care now?"
"I've always cared."
"You have an odd way of showing it."
"I know. I am well aware. But I'm back now, right?"
“And now that you’re back I’m suddenly not allowed to go on dates any more?”
"It's not that you're not allowed, I just… I want to know, you know, if he's good for you." Even as I spoke, I realize what a hypocrite I was.
Claire lifted her tray of coffees and looked me in the eyes. “You lost any right you might have had to intrude on my love life when you stepped out of my real one. Fuck off, Finn.” Then she nodded at Rachel. “Bye sweetie! We’ll talk later, okay? I’ve got some ideas about bridesmaids' dresses I want to run by you. Lots of wedding planning to do!”
My sister glanced back at me to see if her words had been the gut-punch she wanted them to be. Whatever she saw on my face must have been the effect she was going for, because she nodded and walked out the door.
“Finn,” Rachel said softly. “Nothing has been set in stone yet. We haven’t even set a date.”
I swallowed and nodded. “Okay.”
“She’s just mad.”
“I know.”
“You’re her favorite brother, you know. I think it hit her hardest. But she loves you and she’ll come around.”
I nodded again. My sister’s trust was something I’d still need to win over, but I had to thank her as well. Because, without realizing, she’d given me the path back to Sky.
“Come on,” I said to Rachel. “Let’s get Dinah her coffee real quick, because there’s something I need your help with.”
“What’s that?”
“How good are you at shopping for housewarming gifts?”
Chapter Forty-Five
Sky
I grabbed a tall glass of ice water and headed out onto my porch.
My porch.
It was an unseasonably hot day and I’d spent much it moving boxes and building furniture. It had left me with that floppy, boneless feeling that comes from sweaty exhaustion.
I was aiming to collapse onto the swing that Claire and Livvy had hung for me.
But got distracted by my new view.
I perched on one leg with the other resting on the railing and rested my water glass on my thigh.
And then I just… breathed.
The chaos of moving was over. The chaos of… my life? I couldn’t say that was done, not for certain. There was always the possibility I’d slip into old, bad habits. But for right now, I had a place I could call my own. I had friends willing to clear their Saturday morning just to help me move. I had a family I was just starting to get to know.
For the first time in my life, it was quiet inside of my head. There was nothing to distract me from the moment. It was almost scary. It felt like the universe was pausing to take a breath before speaking to me.
And it said, “Hello?”
I spilled my water right onto my thigh. “Shit!” I yelled jumping up and brushing at my wet crotch. “What the hell?”
“You okay up there, Sky?”
I froze. It wasn’t the universe speaking to me right now, but it was almost as improbable. I leaned way out over the railing. “Finn?” I couldn’t see him. “Where are you?”
“I’m at your door!”
I skidded across the hardwood - I still needed to put a rug down - and thundered down the stairs to the ground level. I threw open the door with a wild, “Hi!”
He was fiddling with the trunk of the car he’d parked in the drive, but when he heard me he straightened up. “Hi,” he said.
Seeing him at my front door like this knocked something loose in my head.
He was dressed in a button down shirt. The sleeves were rolled to his elbows because of the strange heat, exposing the deliciously corded strength of his forearms. In one breath I was knocked backwards in time to our fishing competition and that strange span of time when he was my whole entire world. “You look good,” I said.
He did. The button down was fitted enough to see that he’d put some muscle back onto his range-y frame. His beard was clipped close to his face now and his cheekbones were no longer so sharp and feral.
But his eyes had changed the most. Instead of darting every which way, never resting on any one place for long, he held my gaze like he owned it. But the hazel fire of them hadn’t changed, and it still felt like it was going to burn me if I let him look at me for too long.
“It’s good to see you,” I said, looking down and studying my fingernails.
“My sister let it slip that she found you a place.”
“Yeah?”
“She still thinks she’s giving me the silent treatment.” He was smiling but the pain in his voice was palpable. “But she’s pretty terrible about it.”
“I would imagine.”
“It’s nice.” He let his glance flick up the stairs.
“You want to come in?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No, I was just stopping by.”
“Oh.”
“I wanted to give you housewarming gift.”
“You don’t have to…”
“It’s not much. More of a joke, really. But Claire said you didn’t have much of anything yet, so I figured you needed one.”
He went to the trunk of his car and pulled out a slim box.
I smiled so hard I thought my face would crack. “A DVD player? Thanks, but you have heard of streaming, right? You weren’t living like a hermit for that long.”
“Yeah, but without a DVD player, you wouldn’t be able to watch all these.”
He pulled out another box.
“Cat On a Hot Tin Roof?” I breathed, running my hand over the spines. “A Streetcar Named Desire. Wait, Goonies?”
“My sister in law helped me. She asked me what you liked and I said old movies. I figured these would keep you occupied a while.”
I traced my fingers over the spines. “Have you watched them yet?”
He licked his lips. "I actually bought some of them the day after you left."
"What?"
"I thought... I wanted to... I wanted to continue my 'cultural touchstone education.' Or whatever you called it." He rubbed the back of his neck. "So I went online and made a list of the Top Hundred Most Important Movies."
I gripped the doorframe to keep upright. I had to. My knees were trying to give out. I was going to swoon right to the floor like a Victorian lady. He touched one of the spines and I held my breath. "Is that my copy?"
He held out My Fair Lady. "I watched it seven times."
I didn’t dare hope. “You’re going to watch it the eighth time with me, right?”
“I'd love to.” He leaned in and pressed a kiss to my cheek.
“When? Tonight? Tomorrow?”
“Saturday. After I take you out to dinner.”
“Like a date?”
He nodded.
“Aren’t we sort of past that?”
“No.”
“That’s kind of silly don’t you…?”
“I want to date you, Sky.” He interrupted forcefully. “I want to come to your door with flowers and buy you a steak and all that shit. I want to do things right with you.” He ran his hand through his hair as I held my breath. “Fuck, I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’m doing it. Your Dad...
well... I can’t ask his permission and shit, so I did the next best thing. I think.”
His Secret Heart (Crown Creek) Page 22
