Yours Since Yesterday

by Jennifer Bernard

  He looked out at the boardwalk. Ethan had struck up a conversation with Trixie Tran, who was walking her dog along the boardwalk. Most people around here had Huskies or retrievers or other rugged dogs who could handle the winters. Trixie always liked to stand out, so she had the world’s biggest unkempt Newfie. She herself was tiny, so the contrast between the two of them always made people laugh.

  Padric kept leafing through the letters, keeping a wary eye on Ethan and Trixie’s conversation. When they waved goodbye—had they exchanged numbers?—and Ethan headed his way, he quickly closed up the box.

  “Making friends already?” he asked Ethan as his friend reached the car.

  “It’s all part of the job. Gotta know the locals.” He winked at Padric. “Trixie filled me in on some of the local legends. Is it true that strange things happen around Lost Souls Wilderness?”

  Padric thought of his and Zoe’s doomed hiking trips. “Completely true. Visitors aren’t immune, so be warned.” He closed the door of the Subaru and tucked the shoebox under one arm. Come on, we’re going to walk from here.”

  Ethan snorted as they strode down the boardwalk. “I’m a hard-boiled detective. Ain’t nothing strange to me. I’ve seen it all. I’ve solved most of it.”

  “Yeah? Then maybe you can figure out what happened to the tribe that wandered into the Zertuche Glacier and was never seen again.”

  “Of course I can. What happened was that it didn’t happen. They died of smallpox or got lost at sea or moved to Springfield, Illinois. They didn’t wander into a glacier. What does that even mean?”

  “Okay. What about the fact that the storms blow up out of nowhere? The forecast will call for a calm day, or a light squall, and before you know it, you’re fighting gale-force winds and hoping you don’t get swept out to sea. As so many have been.” He pointed out the mournful statue of a mariner gazing out to sea, which they happened to be passing at that moment.

  “Is that why they call it Lost Harbor?”

  “Legend has it that the first explorers drew the map wrong, so when people came back trying to find the beautiful harbor they’d described, it was nowhere to be found. They thought the original explorers had either lost their minds or deliberately thrown them off course to keep the discovery to themselves.”

  “Kind of a Brigadoon type thing? Or a Shangri-La?”

  “Sort of. Without the tropical paradise part. Or the fountain of youth part.”

  Ethan hauled in a long breath of air. “This air is so pure, maybe it is a fountain of youth. Especially compared to my native land. West Covina,” he explained with a grin.

  They reached the end of the boardwalk, where the Eagle’s Nest perched in all its out-of-place elegance.

  Ethan whistled. “These are my digs?”

  “Yup. Might as well live it up while you guard me from baking-soda-wielding villains. The auction is in two days, so until then you’re off the clock. You could do a fishing charter, take a trip across the bay for a hike, or just hang out in the Jacuzzi.” He smoothly segued to the Jacuzzi when he realized he’d put his foot in it with the hiking reference. Ethan James probably wouldn’t want to tax his leg with a rugged trip into the alpine.

  “You’re a good guy, Padric. No matter what they say online.” Ethan headed for the entrance, which was adorned by a carving of a bald eagle landing on a nest. “Need some more time to read all those love letters from Zoe?”

  “How did—”

  “It’s my job. But don’t worry. It’s also my job to keep your secrets. So where can I find the police station? I need to talk to this adorably named Officer Badger.”

  “If you call her adorable, she might shoot you.”

  “Noted.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Zoe felt as restless as a cat while she waited for some word from Padric about her letters. She kept dropping things, like a tin of sardines and an entire package of unbleached flour. The twins were laughing too hard at the sight of her entire body covered in flour to be any help with the cleanup.

  When she finally finished, she realized she’d gotten several messages from Padric.

  A broken heart emoji. A teardrop emoji. And then—I’m dying for you to get here. You’re taking forever. I keep reading your letters and now I feel trapped in yesterday. Time should be moving faster.

  Trapped in yesterday. Trust Padric to put that feeling into words. It described how she’d felt when he left. Her heart had never quite moved on at the pace of life. A piece of it had stayed behind, as if preserved in honey.

  Honey made her think of Padric’s kiss, of course, and she raced through the remainder of her day. Then she drove home to check on her mother, very aware of the absence of the shoebox she’d left in the backseat. She found Mama at the stove, of all places, stirring a pot of red bean soup. Her mother looked more alert and healthy than she had in some time.

  “How are you feeling, Mama? You look good.” Zoe kissed her on the cheek. Was this the right time to deliver the news about Padric?

  “I feel marvelous. Just marvelous. I could dance a jig.”

  Zoe answered her own question with a ‘no.’ She didn’t want to ruin her mother’s rare happy day with a mention of the name Jeffers.

  “Wow, what sparked all this joy?”

  “I really couldn’t say. A friend brought me some wild strawberries. Maybe that did it.”

  “Who brought you strawberries?”

  “Oh, I can’t remember.” Her mother poked at the soup vaguely. “She comes by now and then.”

  Zoe frowned, trying to imagine which of her mother’s friends visited that frequently. As far as she knew, visits were few and far between in the summer. Everyone got so busy.

  “Layla,” her mother said abruptly. “She brought the strawberries.”

  “Well, that was nice of her. How’s her summer going?”

  “She has a new neighbor.”

  Zoe waited, but her mother had nothing more to add to that topic, and instead launched into a rant about her TV not working right. It took over two hours for Zoe to eat some soup with her mom, fix the TV (the channel had gotten switched, launching her mother into a no-man’s land of strange networks), and get her to take her medicine.

  Finally she was able to free herself and run down the driveway to her car. With her heart revving faster than her engine, she raced all the way across town and down the boardwalk to Padric’s hotel.

  It was nearly dark by now, and a quarter moon left a path of glitter across the waves, a carpet of gold stretching toward the mountains. Even though the night would be brief at this time in late summer, it would be gloriously clear.

  Padric greeted her with a deep kiss, then told her he had a surprise for her. Then he led her to the balcony. Enclosed in glass, with upper vents to let out the steam, it held a round cedar hot tub, filled with bubbling water deep enough to stand in.

  Next to it sat a bowl of wild strawberries and the bottle of champagne they kept forgetting about.

  “Did you pick these at—”

  “Yup. The lake where the swans nest. Best strawberries in Lost Harbor…”

  “…because of all that swan poop.” They said that last line together and laughed.

  “I wonder if that’s actually true, or just something your mom used to say,” Zoe mused as she popped one into her mouth. The burst of tart, juicy flavor nearly brought tears to her eyes. She thought of her mother’s strawberries, and the mystery friend who’d brought them.

  “No idea. My mother knew a lot about the local plants and wildlife, though.” He ripped off his shirt and tossed it aside. “Last one in pops the champagne.”

  Once naked and immersed in the deep hot tub, with a flute of champagne in hand, Zoe felt as if she was floating over the ocean in a bubble. The low lights didn’t interfere with the view of Lost Souls Wilderness, lit by the remains of the sunset and the valiant quarter moon.

  Best of all, right across from her, his feet tangled with hers, sat Padric. The underwater
light created a play of shadows and shine across his muscled chest. His eyes glowed a mysterious blue.

  “Thanks for letting me read your letters,” he said gravely. “I got the impression you never intended that to happen.”

  “I didn’t,” she confessed. “I never would have called you so many names if I’d actually planned to send them.”

  He laughed. “I didn’t mind the names. But I hate that I missed so much of your life. Lots of shit went down that I had no clue about. And then you stopped writing. Why?”

  “Because I got engaged. The funny thing is,” she hesitated, then shrugged, figuring she might as well spill everything, “I’d already started seeing Bjorn when I wrote the last letters. But I never mentioned him because it felt like cheating. How ridiculous is that? It wasn’t cheating and you were never going to read it anyway.” She laughed, but Padric didn’t.

  “When you wrote them, you felt as if you were communicating with me. You didn’t want to talk about him. I get it. Anyway, it really means a lot to me that you decided to share them. You could have burned them years ago.”

  “I thought about it. I also thought about making an art project out of them. Decoupage made from old-school love-hate letters. I even came up with a title. ‘Yours Since Yesterday.’ But I couldn’t bear to cut them up.”

  She moved her hands through the water and watched the ripples lap against his chest. “Okay, your turn. What’s the surprise you mentioned? I mean, besides the champagne and wild strawberries.”

  He reached behind him for an iPod, which he set onto a speaker deck. “It’s time for the musical miseducation of Zoe Bellini. I finally got that playlist together.”

  He pressed play and his voice sang out from the iPod. “When the lion falls, when the porpoise drowns, that’s the time when you’ll come around.” Even she had heard this song. It was probably his most famous.

  “I actually know this one,” she told him, flicking water at his chest. “So maybe I’m already educated.”

  “No, you don’t. Not really. This song,” he pressed pause, “is about you.”

  “When the lion falls? How is that about me?”

  “Because you’re a lionheart. Until it all fell apart. The porpoise refers to me. Remember how I always loved watching the porpoises when I was supposed to be fishing?”

  “Of course. But what does it mean?”

  “It means that I always thought I’d see you again, but I knew it would be a long time. Maybe not until we were both dead.”

  “Well, that’s a little bleak. The tune isn’t sad, though. It’s kind of…jaunty.”

  “Yes. Intentionally. I had hope, so why not? Also, the contrast appealed to me, this tragic scenario with an upbeat melody.”

  “Twisted. But I like it. I like it even more now that I understand it.” She listened for a while, letting the melody wind its way around her heart. Padric had written this beautiful song with her in mind. The thought was nearly overwhelming.

  The song came to an end, but it seemed to still echo in the steam hovering over the hot tub.

  He scrolled ahead to another song and hummed along. “We’ll go to the forest and bear their sins. Brighter than blood, deeper than skin. That’s about you, too.”

  “It is?” Her eyes widened as she listened to the words. “I get the forest part. What sins?”

  “Their sins. That we paid for.”

  The haunting melody paired with his husky singing voice brought tears to her eyes.

  Her throat tightened and she struggled for words. “That’s…really beautiful.”

  “Thanks, but that’s not why I’m walking you through these. It’s so you can see how important you were to me, even after I left. All my first songs were about you, or missing you, or trying to come to terms with our situation. I never stopped feeling things for you.”

  His eyes burned into hers through the shimmering steam.

  “Back then, I didn’t have the words for what I felt. I couldn’t label it. But now that I’m with you again, I know what it is.”

  Her heart stopped. She couldn’t have said another word if her life depended on it.

  “It’s love. I love you, Zoe. I’ve always loved you. I did when we were kids, and I did when we were apart. And I do now.”

  Her throat closed up entirely and goose bumps ran wild across her skin. It felt like an out-of-body experience, as if her soul had taken flight and hovered overhead.

  “I do too,” she whispered. “I love you, too.”

  They gazes held for a moment that could have lasted a few seconds, or hours, she didn’t know. Before she entirely grasped how it happened, they were floating together in the middle of the Jacuzzi. pool. Every bit of their bodies twined together—her leg curled around his, his hand spread between her shoulder blades, supporting her in the swirling water. The steam murmured in their ears, telling tales of wild hopes and impossible dreams.

  Could it really be this easy? Just two people loving each other? No disaster striking them apart?

  His hands wandered down past her hips to cup her ass. Holding her steady, he nudged his hips between her thighs. She followed his lead and brought her legs around him, her skin sliding smoothly against his. She hooked her ankles around his rear and felt his erection nestle against the soft triangle between her legs.

  The warm water made her so languid that everything felt effortless. Her body opened for his like a night-blooming flower. He slid inside with a deep sigh that seemed to come right from his core. She pressed her breasts against his front, seeking closeness and friction, the abrasion of his chest hair against her nipples.

  He caught onto her need and lowered his head to tongue the swiftly swelling peaks. She arched her back to give him all the access he needed. That move also tilted her hips and brought the thick head of his penis even deeper inside.

  He groaned against her nipples. Ah God. To see his thick brown hair against her chest, his broad shoulders straining, tendons taut, gave her such fierce satisfaction. At a basic, primal level he was hers and she was his.

  A slow surge of arousal rose like the tide inside her. It felt like a genuine force of nature, like something governed by the moon instead of her desire for him. As if somehow, on that trail in Lost Souls Wilderness, they’d become part of something bigger than themselves. Destiny? Fate? The strange miracle of timing?

  Whatever it was, she didn’t care. Maybe it was nothing but her imagination. The only thing that mattered now was the pleasure he was sparking in her core with each thrust.

  “Zoe,” he murmured, hands on her ass, in complete command of her body. He moved inside her, filling her with his rock-hard shaft, surrounding her with heat. “Beautiful Zoe. My heart and soul. It’s all you. Always was.”

  She tilted her head back and looked up at the first shine of stars overhead. She didn’t have any more words, just a joyful moan of completion as the two of them lit up the sky.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “We should make plans,” Padric said after they’d torn themselves away from the Jacuzzi and dried each other off. He’d taken his time patting every droplet of moisture from Zoe’s lush body while she stood on the balcony naked, arms and legs askew.

  Of course that process got him turned on again, and he’d dragged her over to the bed and spread her out like a starfish. He’d pushed her legs open and fastened his mouth to her sex., lapping at her pulsing clit and slick folds until she’d screamed his name.

  And that was better than any concert with thousands shouting out his name.

  Or at least just as good, but in a sexier way.

  “Plans?” she said vaguely, still dazed from the way he’d fucked her senseless. She’d tucked a blanket around herself as the warmth from the Jacuzzi faded away. Her dark hair spilled against the pillow and her eyes glowed with hazy contentment. She looked like a pictorial illustration of the word “afterglow.”

  “We’re together now. We know that much. I love you, you love me. That equals ‘together,’
right?”

  Her striking dark eyebrows drew together. Those eyebrows always gave her away, always had. “For now. Yes.”

  “For now? We love each other. That’s not a ‘for now’ kind of situation. This isn’t some kind of hit-and-run, one-and-done thing.”

  “Obviously not. We’re way past ‘one.’” Smiling wryly, she rolled onto her side and stroked a finger down his arm. “We can talk about plans, but this is all so fast.”

  “You call fifteen years fast?”

  “You know what I mean. You just got back and here we are.” She swept a hand to indicate the two of them twined together. “I have no complaint about that, by the way.”

  “Good to know,” he said dryly.

  She dropped a kiss on his shoulder, her hair tickling his skin.

  He tried again. “Maybe it happened fast because it started a long time ago. We just hit pause for a while.”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. I get nervous when things fall into place too quickly. I start bracing for disaster.”

  “Maybe you should brace for bliss, instead.”

  She laughed at that. “Sounds like a line from a song.”

  “Think about it, Zoe. With me, you’d have complete freedom. You could travel the world. Remember how we used to make lists of the top ten places we wanted to visit, and we’d change the order all the time? You could go to all of them. For as long as you want. As many times as you want. We can go anywhere and do anything. I’m a star, baby. That’s what it’s like when you’re a star.”

  She shot him a look. “I think I just threw up a little.”

  He laughed. “See? I need you around to keep me honest.”

  “I’m glad to see I’ll have something to do,” she said wryly. “I thought I would be keeping you well-fucked.”

  “That too. See? It’s a win-win.” He brushed her hair away from her face. “It’s not all about me, in case that’s what you’re thinking. You can do your art anywhere, right?”

  She didn’t answer. Why wasn’t she jumping all over this idea? The freedom to travel, time to work on her art projects, lots of time in bed with him. Surely they could work something out with her mother.