by Luanne Rice
He kissed her on the cheek, stood back, and waited.
Rumer nodded. Edward's eyes filled with sadness and some last traces of lingering hope. She looked around: There was a red barn filled with black and white cows. Stone walls crisscrossed rolling fields of green. The white house was old and stately, and the flowers blooming in the gardens were descended from flowers his mother had planted. Life here would be a dream for almost any woman.
A woman whose first love hadn't been Zeb May-hew, she thought.
Finally, Edward turned and headed for the kitchen door.
Walking toward Blue, Rumer's heart sank. Were his eyes as bright as before? Was his coat as glossy? She knew how sensitive he was, and she could swear he knew he was losing his home. Without bothering to saddle him, Rumer mounted Blue and rode away.
Riding down the trail to the river, Rumer felt her heartbeat keeping time with Blue's hooves on the rocky ground. She thought of how short life was, of how easily mistakes were made. The message seemed to be everywhere, in the leaves rustling overhead and the river current splashing through reeds growing from the silty banks.
Rumer held Blue's mane, her thoughts racing. Without any prodding, Blue took off in a canter. He tore along the path so that Rumer had to keep her head down, away from the low branches whipping overhead. She couldn't tell where she ended and Blue began. She had had that connection with only one other creature in her life. Zeb.
She thought of Zeb, back at Hubbard's Point, having come such a distance: from California, from the stars, all the way from the far-off past. Cantering along the wide river, she watched the web of sunlight spreading across to Hawthorne's distant shore. She thought of the ties that bind people together, and she knew that there were only two that counted: love, and the magical golden thread that reached all the way from childhood into the future.
Wheeling Blue around, Rumer rode for home.
KNOWING RUMER WOULD be working all day, Zeb had rowed to Wickland Rock Light and back. He returned at dusk, and he found a votive candle burning in the shed where he stored his oars, along with a note: “Come.” Her handwriting was unmistakable.
Salty from rowing, Zeb didn't stop to shower. He cut through Hecate's property, stepping over the wall into his old yard. The contractor had marked the rock ledge for blasting; he had left bundles of shéngles and a load of lumber for construction to begin immediately after Labor Day. The rabbits’ warren smelled of pesticide; the old gardens had been yanked up by the roots, and dying plants and bushes lay piled beside the outdoor stone fireplace.
Zeb's throat constricted as he passed through. He thought of all the years he had stayed away from this place, trying not to care. Yet every important memory, all his strongest emotions, were centered here. He hated seeing his mother's plantings discarded like trash, the small fireplace—built by his father of beach stones, the site of so many family cookouts—marked for demolition.
Zeb glanced over at Rumer's house. She had candles burning in every window.
Although they were past blooming this season, his mother's hybrid lilies were planted somewhere along here. Peering though the darkness, he found the graceful green leaves, now smashed and trampled into a filthy mat. Digging with his bare hands, he felt the tubular roots with his fingers. Planted close together, they were easier to locate than he would have imagined. One, two, three… he retrieved twenty-five lily roots altogether before giving up. They would bloom again next summer—russet, deep gold, and dark red. He carried them into Rumer's yard and, kneeling down, planted them around the opening of the stone tunnel he hoped would become the rabbit's new home.
“What are you doing?” Rumer was standing at the kitchen door.
Zeb looked up, wiping the hair from his eyes with dirty hands. “Brought you some flowers,” he said. “I'm giving my mother's lilies to someone who will appreciate them.”
“Oh, Zeb…” Was that her voice breaking? She was backlit by the kitchen light, her face in shadow. She came forward, and as she crouched down, he could see that she was smiling brightly. Tears glimmered in her eyes. He inched over to give her room to dig, and she pitched right in, getting her hands in the dirt.
Her cotton dress was stretched tightly over her body; Zeb could see how thin she was, and he found it almost unbearably sexy to watch her digging in the earth. Her left wrist was weighed down with a big watch; she kept pushing it up out of her way. She smelled of verbena and lavender—or maybe that was just the heady scent blown by the sea wind off the herb garden.
“The flowers are beautiful, Zeb.”
“Well, they will be when they get around to blooming next summer.”
“You got my note?”
“I did.”
“I waited for you all day,” she said. “Left work.”
“What made you do that?”
“Well, Blue got kicked out of his barn.”
“What?”
“Edward's falling in love with someone new, and he decided it was time to move on. So he asked me to move Blue out…”
“What will you do with him?”
“I'm not sure. I could rebuild the old barn that used to stand near my office—do you remember it?”
“Where Old Pamt lived.”
“Yes,” she said. “That old horse.”
“You used to want to sneak over and ride him,” he said.
“First horse I ever loved,” she said. “And first loves count for a lot.”
“They do,” Zeb said, his heart pounding. “How do you think Blue feels about that?”
“Blue understands,” Rumer said. “He's the best. He's true blue; I've had only one other friend like him in my whole life.”
“Who would that be?” Zeb asked, turning to look at her. Their eyes met; hers were dark blue, flashing in the starlight, the color of a northern cove. Before he could help himself, he'd reached up to stroke her cheek with a dirt-covered hand.
“You,” she whispered. “My true-blue friend… Zeb.”
“Your friend has made so many mistakes,” he whispered. “That he can't forget.”
“Everyone has,” Rumer said, kissing his hand.
“The only mistake you've ever made,” Zeb said, leaning closer to her face, “was caring about me in the first place.”
“You're wrong,” she said. “It's the truest thing in my life. I realized it this morning, after Edward told me I had to move Blue. I came flying back here—I couldn't wait to see you. Everything changes so fast in life, Zeb. I want to grab on to the only thing I know is true…”
Rumer's head was tilted back. Her eyes had looked wild a minute ago, when she'd told him about Blue, but now they filled with peace and comfort and deep, deep understanding. Leaning closer, he brushed the wheat-silver hair from her eyes and kissed her.
The stars came down. All his years of blasting off, flying into space looking for faraway worlds, seemed false: The important stars were right here in the sky over Hubbard's Point. Zeb had wanted this for so long, his whole life. Rumer was the love of his life, and there was no going back. They kissed as if there were only tomorrow, as if all the rest had already been forgiven.
When they stopped, the night was silent except for crickets in the honeysuckle and locusts in the oak trees. Rumer held him so tightly, kneeling in the dirt, and he never wanted her to let go.
“I tracked you from space,” he whispered. “I never stopped… even while I was with Elizabeth. I've watched for you all this time.”
“That whole time while I was here at the Point, while I was taking care of animals… while I was riding Blue, I was missing you.”
On her delicate wrist was an old watch of her father's. Gold with a black leather strap, it had been given to him as a retirement gift from the Black Hall teachers: Zeb remembered seeing it in the newspaper article about Sixtus.
“Your father let you wear this,” he said, brushing the dirt off the band with his hand.
“Yes,” she said steadily. “He wore his chronometer on his trip, to h
elp him navigate.”
“He wanted to leave a part of his heart behind,” Zeb said, looking into her blue eyes. “Because he loves you.”
“I know,” Rumer whispered.
“Well, it's the same with me,” Zeb said, feeling the breeze off the water. “Only instead of leaving a part of myself behind, I was sending it ahead. Straight from my heart, all these years… I was sending it from where I was, up there, down to you. At the speed of light…”
“Thank you,” Rumer said, sliding her hand behind his neck.
“Only I was so far away,” Zeb whispered, kissing her again, “it's taken till now for it to arrive.”
In some deep and unshakable way, Zeb felt as if he had dwelled here his whole life. They helped each other up off the ground, and Zeb led Rumer through her own kitchen door.
Rumer turned on the water, and together she and Zeb washed their hands at the old enameled sink. He had a vague memory of being very young, just up from the beach, sitting on the counter beside Rumer as her mother washed the sand from their feet in this sink. Kissing her now with hot water running over his hands, Zeb felt the blood rush through his body.
They walked through the dining room, past the windows overlooking his old house, shutterless, bereft. Passing through the living room, he clutched at the sight of Elizabeth's photos on the wall, posters advertising her performances in Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Hedda Gabler, and The Wild Duck. Rumer hesitated.
Zeb took her by the shoulders and kissed her again.
“It will always be between us,” she whispered. “The fact that you and my sister were married.”
“We can't change the past,” he said, staring straight into her eyes. “If I could, I would. You're the one, Rue. You always were…”
“But you loved Elizabeth,” she said. “You can't say you didn't.”
Zeb closed his eyes, stroking the back of her head. No, he couldn't say that. Was she asking him to? His love for Elizabeth had been a shooting star: wild, bright, streaking through space, burning itself out fast, dying into nothingness.
“It lasted so short a time,” he whispered into Rumer's ear. “It was real, I can't lie and say it wasn't. It brought me Michael, Rumer. And in a way it kept me connected to you. It was a meteor; you're a star. You're forever, Rue.”
“I know,” she murmured. “Because that's the way I feel about you.”
Holding hands, they went up the stairs. The wainscoting in her house was warm, golden brown in the lamplight. It glowed like a jewel box. The stairs led to a landing, then doubled back to the second floor. Zeb, after all his years living next door, had been up here only a few times. Making it to the forbidden upstairs of the Larkin girls’ house—even, or especially, now—bowled him over with excitement.
Rumer led him into her bedroom. It faced the beach out one window, Zeb's old house out the other. Everything about it was sheer Rumen Although the walls and floor were dark wood, the rest of it was white. The simple wood furniture had been whitewashed, then hand-painted, with brighter white shelves.
A bookcase held schoolbooks and texts, volumes of poetry, novels, and a guide to the stars. Shells, driftwood, and skate and channeled whelk egg cases lay on the bureau top. Several photos of Michael at various ages were stuck into the frame of the mirror. A framed picture of Zeb and Rumer doing their paper route stood on the bedside table.
But the thing that caught Zeb's heart, took his breath away, was her bedstead. Instead of the brass or iron he remembered, she had arranged the white shutters from his old house behind her bed. They looked perfect—as if they had been there forever. The dark walls gleamed through the pine tree cutouts; Zeb looked from them into Rumer's blue eyes.
“You did this?”
She nodded. “I couldn't let the builders just throw them away…. I wasn't sure what to do with them; I wanted them somewhere I'd see them every day.”
“So you made them into a bedstead.”
Rumer smiled. “Watching over my dreams,” she said.
Zeb took her into his arms. She felt so small and soft, but his feelings for her were explosive. Holding himself together, he laid her gently on the double bed as they kissed each other with passion that had been building their whole lives.
A salt breeze came through the open windows, blowing the white cotton curtains. Zeb remembered sitting in his own room, just next door, crazy with desire at the sight of these same curtains. He had imagined them touching Rumer's body, blowing across her bed, and now he was right there.
She slid her hands beneath his T-shirt, pushing it up. Her hands felt smooth on his chest, tracing his skin, making him shake inside.
Very slowly, he began to unbutton her dress. The buttons were mother-of-pearl, iridescent in the moonlight slanting through the side window. They came from shells, from the sea, as much a part of nature as the woman wearing them. With each button, he kissed her skin again and again.
“Zeb,” she whispered, shivering in the breeze.
When his hand brushed the front of her dress, he discovered the gold lighthouse pinned to the collar. He unclasped it gently and laid it very carefully down on the bedside table. As he did, the beam of the lighthouse itself swept across the room. He thought of the ships that had been saved—and the ship that had been lost— while following its light. The question moved him immeasurably; holding Rumer's face between his hands, he thought of how long they had been lost to each other.
“What are you thinking about?” she whispered.
“Home,” he said.
“California?”
He shook his head, brushing the wheaten hair from her eyes. Home: It was nothing so simple as a place. It wasn't a state, a town, or even a house. It wasn't the rabbits’ tunnel or Blue's pasture; it wasn't Los Angeles, or the space station, or Hubbard's Point.
“That's just where I live,” he whispered. “My home is here.”
“At the Point?”
“With you. Wherever you are.”
“But you have to go back.”
“I know,” he said.
“I can't bear to think about it tonight,” she whispered. “Every day that goes by is closer to the time, and we're just beginning…”
“I know, Rue.”
“Shhh, then, Zeb. Don't talk about it now.”
He couldn't have even if he'd wanted to. With all the love flowing between them, there was that one cold fact: He had a lab to run, with too much riding on it for him to back out now. And the idea of Rumer anywhere but here at Hubbard's Point was beyond comprehension.
She moaned slightly, and he slid down beside her in the double bed. The springs creaked beneath their weight; oak branches scratched the roof, and the pine boughs murmured in the sea wind.
Her skin was as incredibly soft as he remembered it. She kissed him on the lips, her mouth hot and passionate. Her fingers traced his backbone as they helped each other out of their clothes.
He had seen her naked as a little girl, but no memory could prepare him for the exquisite beauty of her body. He gasped, kissing her shoulders, her collarbone, her breasts.
Because she was sometimes shy in life, he had expected her to be shy in bed. Perhaps it was her love of nature that made her seem so comfortable and natural. Or maybe it was the fact they had been building up to this their whole lives.
Touching her stomach lightly, he hit a sensitive spot and made her laugh. He laughed too, letting go of the tension. Then their eyes met and held, and the laughter stopped with one flash of the lighthouse beam. They held each other tightly, rocking with the rhythm of the wind and sea. As if they were on a boat, moving gently with the waves, he entered her and felt the most intense heat and wetness he'd ever known.
“Can it really be like this?” she whispered.
“It can, because it's us,” he whispered back.
“I never knew.”
“Me neither.”
He held her close, one hand around her back and the other cupping her face. They kissed withou
t stopping, barely breathing as the waves got bigger and harder, and their boat began to shudder. They were breaking up, hitting the rocks, crashing through a storm, and holding on to each other all the time.
“Don't let me go,” he whispered as she trembled beneath him.
“I couldn't,” she breathed.
She shivered, sighing as he held her more tightly than he had ever held anyone. They were one, they shared a skin, and her heat was his heat. His heart beat so hard, like a rocket thudding in his chest, blasting him off to somewhere he'd never been before.
But there was Rumer with him, guiding him all the way.
“I have you,” she whispered, her hands so gently and firmly on his shoulders. “I love you, Zeb, I've always loved you.”
“Rumer,” he whispered, exploding inside her, shaking as the enormity of his feelings for her came pouring out. “I've always loved you.”
They held each other, rocking for a long time. The words hung in there, true and pure. They merged with the wind, became part of the Hubbard's Point air. Zeb breathed them in, feeling Rumer's body solid and strong against his. He felt as if they were more than together: as if they were one.
“I've always wanted you. Always wanted you to bring me home,” he said, staring into her blue eyes, filled with the conflict of their separate lives. “A reason for me to want to be here on earth.”
“Don't leave, Zeb,” she whispered. “Stay here in Hubbard's Point. Don't go back to California.”
He couldn't speak, thinking of the lab, the projects, all the expectations everyone had for him.
“Come to California with me,” he said, grabbing her hands. “You've looked after this place for so long—your father, Quinn, everyone on the Point. Let me look after you for a change, Rumer. I love you—come with me.”
“I can't. I belong in Hubbard's Point, Zeb. Like Quinn said, it's my place.”
“Be with me, Rue,” he said. “Let that be our place—wherever we are, together…”
But she didn't reply. The sound of waves on the rocks and beach lulled them, and he wondered whether she heard them telling her to stay, not to go.
He bowed his head, letting the emotion flow as she stroked his back for a long time. The lighthouse beam passed back and forth, back and forth; he lost track of the hours. Rumer held him, and they listened to the sounds of the beach. Waves lapped against the sand, stirring him up inside again. He drifted in and out of sleep, but every time he looked at Rumer she was wide awake, her blue eyes open and gazing out the window. He wondered whether she was thinking about what he'd said.
