“Do you really have to ask me that? It’s not even about chances anymore after I nearly missed ours. I won’t miss it again.”
“I’m damn glad to hear it.”
“He’s worth it,” I tell Sam. “He’s worth whatever drama or pain or hurt I might have to go through to be with him, and he’s definitely worth me getting a few B’s every now and again.”
At that, Sam laughs. “Straight A’s are definitely overrated!”
“Definitely,” I agree.
Mr. Duncan picks us up at the airport in a rental car. I’m a little surprised when he gets out of it and hugs both of us. He’s all smiles, insists we call him Brian—but I just can’t—and he shares at least half a dozen stories about Tyler in the twenty minutes it takes to get to the hospital. This is definitely not the fairly quiet Mr. Duncan I’d met in Basin Lake, a man I’d actually been a little afraid of.
While the only thing I want is to see Tyler, I can’t help but to be drawn into the stories Mr. Duncan tells us about him, all of them ending with him saying something like, “If I’d only let him play football, he might have enjoyed high school more,” or “I shouldn’t have been so protective because all I did was stifle what he wanted out of life.”
After we get to the hospital and Mr. Duncan parks, Sam puts a hand on his shoulder and says, “I think you did the best you could, and Ty knows that too.”
I’m pretty sure I see a few tears well up in Mr. Duncan’s eyes before we’re all out of the car and he’s anxiously leading us into the hospital.
Because a good number of the fire’s survivors are at this hospital, there’s somewhat of a media circus surrounding it. Mr. Duncan explains that we all have to sign in and get badges in order to go up to the room. And once we get past all of the reporters anxious to talk to survivors and doctors, the floor Tyler is on is fairly quiet, save for the gathered family members who are visiting their loved ones.
I’m not more than a step behind Mr. Duncan, anxious and emotional at even the prospect of seeing Tyler, the man that I love, the man that, for several long excruciating hours, I thought I had lost.
“He’s right in here,” Mr. Duncan says, allowing me to go in front of him.
Through an open, sliding glass door, I see Tyler, sitting up in a hospital bed, his hair nicely combed—probably at the insistence of his mother—wearing a gray sweatshirt, shorts, and looking healthy. I step inside, and he turns and smiles and starts to get out of bed.
I’m not sure how I get to him so quick, but I’m in his arms in a flash, nearly pushing him back down on the bed he’d just gotten up from. I’m crying because I’m happy, because I’m relieved, because I’m in love.
“God, it’s so good to see you,” he says, holding me tight to him, kissing the top of my head as I meld right into his strong frame.
“You too,” I whimper out. “I was so scared. I’m so happy you’re okay.”
“I know… I was lucky, and I’m feeling some of that survivor’s guilt they talk about.”
“Well, yeah, they were your friends, right?” I pull away just enough from him so that I can look up into those deep brown eyes of his, and I’m overcome by how truly happy I am to be with him again.
He nods. “Some really great friends.”
“I’m sorry, but we’ll get through it. I’ll help you. I’ll be here for you, and I mean it.”
“You’ve got school, Claire. I don’t want to—”
I shake my head. “We’ll figure it out, and school can wait. I won’t leave you.”
That brings a huge smile to his face, and then we’re kissing, as innocently as we can because Tyler must be aware his father and Sam are just outside the door.
“I shouldn’t be hogging you,” I tell him after we part, even though all I want to do is pretty much keep myself attached to him.
“Yeah, I’m pretty popular these days,” he jokes, waving Sam and his father in, Mrs. Duncan coming through the door just a few seconds after them.
“Claire! It’s so good to see you!” She runs up to me and gives me the biggest hug I’ve ever gotten from her, and I basically decide then and there that this woman will be my mother-in-law someday.
After an hour or so of everyone talking and visiting and learning more details about the fire, Tyler’s parents and Sam decide to excuse themselves to give Tyler and I some alone time.
“Lay up on the bed with me,” Tyler says, holding my hand and leading me across the room back to his hospital bed.
“Is that allowed?” I ask, not wanting to be told by a nurse or a doctor the beds are for patients only.
“Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t, but I kind of just want to hold you right now. You think you’d be willing to break a rule or two to make that happen?” he asks with an arch of his brow and a look I can’t say no to.
With a smile, I easily follow him, getting onto the bed, half sitting and half reclining. The material of his sweatshirt is soft, his body warm, and the arm wrapped tightly around me comforting.
“Ahhh… this. This is perfect,” he says. “Having you this close is all I’ve thought about through all the sunsets I’ve had to watch without you.”
“And I pushed you away, didn’t I?” I look up at him, at his beautiful face, and wonder how I’d ever had the strength to say goodbye to him.
“I gave you plenty of reasons,” he says, stroking my arm. “And I figured I’d messed up the best thing to happen in my life.”
“No… you didn’t mess it up. And you might as well know that I had plenty of time to think about what you said in your letter about Heath.”
His body tenses, and there’s a flash of worry in his eyes. “And?”
I look up at him, into the deep brown of his irises. “And I understand. You’ll read those same words when you finally get my letter.”
“You sent me a letter?”
“The day of the fire.” A slight chill goes through me, remembering the fear I had for him when I’d slid the letter into the mailbox. But that goes away when I rest my hand on the soft material of his sweatshirt, his firm, warm stomach just beneath, solid and real.
“Oh…”
“I hope you’ll get it, but it’s okay if you don’t because I can tell you all of it in person.”
He pulls me in tighter and kisses my forehead.
“Sam filled in some of the extra blanks for me too, about Laney and his brother—he really cares about you, you know?”
He eases, a soft smile forming on his lips. “Yeah, I know, but it’s still kind of a lot to take in… me going after Heath like that and hanging on to Laney. Are you sure you’re okay with my past?”
“Yes, because it is your past, and I know you’re not proud of it, which means you don’t want to make the same mistake again.”
He runs his hand through my hair. “I promise to be better. I’m not proud of getting in that fight in Spokane either, and—”
“Tyler, we can talk about all of that later, about our expectations for one another going forward, but right now, I kind of want to forget all that and just be with you.”
His body relaxes completely now. “Okay. That’s good with me.”
I lay my head on his chest and push my hand up beneath his sweatshirt, resting it on his firm stomach and touching his scars, tracing them, finding myself strangely thankful for them.
We all have scars in our lives, some of them visible on our bodies, some of them hidden beneath the surface. These scars are part of our story, shaping us into the people we become, sometimes for worse but hopefully also for the better. In my heart, I am scarred by my father’s death, by losing my friend, Margaret, and by the pain I can’t help but to feel for my little sister who I’ll probably worry about for the rest of my life as if she were my child and not my sibling.
Beyond Tyler’s physical scars, there are emotional ones, and I know that they have been added to with the deaths of so many of his friends who made up his firefighting crew. And I know we’ll have to deal with that,
will have to face it together. There will be memorial services and sleepless nights and things that will take me away from a big test or a study session, but I’ll make that sacrifice for Tyler and know that I’ll still forge ahead and follow my dreams.
“I love you with all my heart, Tyler.” I look up at him again, my hand still on his bare skin, my body and soul as committed to him now as it will ever be.
“And I love you with all of mine,” he says, kissing me on my forehead and placing his much larger hand over my smaller one.
Together, we will heal our scars.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
TYLER
Seattle — Four Years Later — An Emerald City Epilogue
I’m sorry it took me so long to write this letter. And I hope all of the stuff I’ve written above didn’t bore you. I guess a lot of my thoughts get tangled up, especially when they’re about you. So, I guess I should be as clear as possible. I miss you, Tyler, about as deeply as you could miss someone. And I love you too, so very much, all of you, even for the things I know you probably didn’t want to have to write in your letter to me. But you explained them perfectly, and I understand. I really, truly do. I’m not sure me wanting us to be apart for a while was the right thing, but it’s giving me time to think and get over my fears, giving us both a chance to take the time to know one another better, so I guess it’s okay. But still, I can’t wait to see you again.
Love you with all my heart,
Claire
I’m sitting in our bedroom, reading the letter Claire had sent me the day of the fire, one that didn’t find its way to me until nearly three months after I’d landed in the hospital. I hadn’t needed the letter to know that she loved me, but it did make me feel better about our relationship, to know that her nearly losing me hadn’t been the only thing drawing her back. Even before the fire, she was still in love with me, as imperfect as I was, and saw a future for us.
I read it sometimes, days like today when Claire and I have a day off together and I’ve slept in well past our morning sex while she’s been up for hours, that drive of hers that will make her an amazing doctor also making it hard for her to sleep in, pretty much ever. So, before I go in search of her, I took that moment to read the letter I keep in my nightstand. I don’t need the reminder of our love because I feel it every day with her, but I can still remember the giant smile I had the first time I’d read it, that feeling that we were still at the beginning of something amazing. No matter how many times I pull it out, unfold it and read her words, I get that same big grin, feel that same sense of promise, that feeling deep within that I’ll love this girl forever and always.
CLAIRE
Four years ago, at a dinner party hosted by my and my sister’s friend, Emma, I’d imagined that, statistically speaking, not all of the couples that were in attendance would make it the long haul. Having now graduated pre-med and having been accepted to med school at the University of Washington, I’ve spent many hours with statistics and an ability to come to realistic conclusions about averages. Not that you need four years of pre-med to determine that people break up. All you have to do is go to your favorite gossip site and see what latest celebrity coupling has split to know that not everyone gets their happily ever after.
But it did come as a surprise to me that everyone that had been together at that dinner party and in fact everyone reasonably close to me had found a way to defy those very odds. Sam and Meg made a connection that has endured while Angela and Stephen will soon be welcoming their first child. Denny and Court are both in residency programs and are married… to each other of course! Emma’s good friend, Jennifer, is engaged to Langston, a couple that I’ve gotten to know more over the years and one Emma likes to take a little credit for reigniting.
It should come as no surprise that Emma and John remain strong. He’s a lawyer, a prosecutor actually, while she has managed to open her own fashion retail store in Fremont, one of my favorite neighborhoods in Seattle. They have a daughter, Pearl, who is as beautiful as the gem she is named after. And my sister is still deeply in love with Evan, the two of them having settled in Spokane for the time being where she teaches first grade while he and a good friend of his run their own small restaurant downtown. They aren’t married yet, but I know an engagement has to be just around the corner—I can feel it. Mom actually beat Paige down the aisle, quietly marrying Clark in a civil ceremony we all attended. Tyler’s parents were there too, and our parental units have become great friends, practically fused at their hips.
Nick and Nina were perhaps the couple I thought least likely to survive. Nick had made good on his nerd status and is working for a startup tech company in Bellevue while Nina’s been working a high end makeup counter at Nordstrom’s. And while I’d witnessed more than one blow up fight between them, they finally seem to have settled, and Nick tells Tyler they are mostly living together in peace and harmony.
And while McKenzie and James had been broken up, had gone through a stage of just being friends, they’d eventually realized what I had over four years ago when they’d gotten into that fight at Basin Lake. When James had swum out as far as he could in response to an argument, McKenzie had been left behind, practically inconsolable. That worry she had for him went beyond the concern for someone who would just be a friend someday—it was the worry you feel for someone you deeply love.
I’d known that worry myself. I’d felt it for Tyler, and it eventually made me realize how much I loved him and how much I didn’t want to be without him, just like it did for McKenzie and James who are back together and as happy as I’d ever seen them.
I want to say the same for Kate, to be able to add her to our happy band of friends and family who’ve found love, but Kate remains the hardened girl she’d become after her diagnosis, and I think love is the last thing on her mind. But there remains a softer side to her, one that I still see, even if she does her best to hide it, and I know she’ll find a way to embrace it again one day.
“What are you thinking about, Mrs. Duncan?” Tyler asks, joining me in the tiny courtyard we have outside of our first floor apartment. It’s only been three months, Tyler having proposed to me after my first year at college and promising we’d marry once I graduated pre-med, a promise he upheld, our closest friends and family with us as we vowed to love one another for as long as we lived on this earth, and beyond too for good measure. Tyler and I were good at defying odds.
“I’m still getting used to that,” I say, scooting over and making room for him on the little outdoor loveseat we picked up at a garage sale.
“You wishing you’d stuck with Kessel?” he asks with a grin, his warm body feeling so right next to mine, me feeling safe and loved with his arm around me.
“I actually really like Duncan,” I say, setting my coffee down on the small side table and turning to look at my gorgeous husband.
“You just like it? I’m a little hurt you don’t love it,” he teases, touching the tip of my nose and then kissing me, long and sweetly.
“I love the man with the last name,” I inform him after our lips have begrudgingly parted, “and I’d love you even if I hated it.”
“Good to know.”
I rest my head on his chest, as I’m prone to do, and we just sit for a while, enjoying the warm, September day, the sounds of birds chirping along with the sounds of the city, cars and horns and construction. We don’t have a lot of moments like this, not with my busy school schedule, which is about to get busier, and Tyler’s job working for the City of Seattle Fire Department, a great position he’d earned after spending three more summers and falls fighting wilderness fires. But we’ve always found time, even in the chaos, to be together.
“You never told me what you were thinking about out here,” he says after we nuzzle for a while.
“I was thinking about the couples we know, how amazing it is that everyone made it. It’s kind of crazy.”
“Ah, yeah. We’re a lucky bunch.”
“Definite
ly. And I was thinking about Margaret the other day, how she and her husband made it until the end, how they went through so much together.”
“That’s us,” Tyler says firmly. “I’ll stick by you no matter what.”
“And me by you.” I touch the caduceus necklace Tyler had given to me, a reminder of my love of medicine and quest to become a doctor. But, for me, it has more importantly come to symbolize the love he and I share.
Saying we’ll be like Margaret and her husband is as good as saying, “I love you,” which we often do. It’s a sentiment that, even if we’re fighting, we remember to embrace. We remember the members of his crew who didn’t make it those years ago, the time they’d no longer have with their families, no more chances to say or practice those important words.
So we say it, and we live it. Because, at the end of it all, love really is the most important thing.
Other Books by Stephanie Vercier
THE BASIN LAKE SERIES
This series may be read in series form or as standalone novels.
Between the Boys - Book 1 - Available Now
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M6W5EHR
Broken by Love - Book 2 - Available Now
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N9D9OLN
Unbroken by Love - Book 4 - Coming Soon!
Acknowledgments
If you enjoyed Between the Girls, please leave a brief review on Amazon or Goodreads. Thank you!
Thank you to my family and friends, especially to Jessica, Tamara and Crystal, who let me bounce ideas for this book off of them and let me go on and on about Tyler and Claire! Thank you to those of you who read these books and who hopefully are enjoying The Basin Lake Series. I truly appreciate your support!
About the Author
Hey, I’m Stephanie Vercier, author of Between the Boys, Broken by Love and now Between the Girls, the third book in The Basin Lake Series. I live in the beautiful Pacific Northwest and love the outdoors almost as much as I do hibernating along with my husband and five cats.
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