by Melissa West
She reached for the tiny slip of paper on her kitchen counter, Zac’s number written in perfectly legible ink. She should call him. She wanted to call him, but right now her brain could only handle the one complication, and until she fixed things with Nick, she couldn’t do or think about anything else.
And what sucked the most was that in less than an hour she would be forced to see both of them. Assuming Nick showed, but what if he didn’t?
As if on cue, her cell buzzed in her hand. She hadn’t even realized she’d picked it up, but instead of Nick’s name flashing across the screen, it was her mom.
“Hey, Mama,” she said, answering.
“Your sister tells me that you gave her money. Again.”
Becca walked around the island in her kitchen and opened the cabinet beside her refrigerator. She reached for her bottle of multivitamins, grabbed two; then, before shutting the cabinet, she eyed the bottle of mood positive. It was a vitamin B supervitamin, or maybe it had some voodoo to it, but regardless it worked, and clearly if Becca hoped to handle this conversation she would need an extra vitamin. Or twelve. Or maybe she should skip the vitamins and go straight for the hard stuff.
Chocolate.
“I had no choice, Mama. Ty lost his job again and the kids wanted cereal and she had no milk. What was I supposed to do?”
Her mother sighed into the phone. “She’s never going to learn to walk if you keep carrying her.”
Becca shook her head, though her mother couldn’t see her, and slipped on her flip-flops to get ready to leave. Her mother loved to voice opinions from Florida, but if she were in Triple Run, she’d do the very same thing as Becca. They were too much alike, Becca her mother made over, which was maybe why her mother called her so often to give her grief. She’d spent years doing the very same thing for her own sister—bailing her out of bad marriage after bad marriage, and still Aunt Lydia hadn’t learned a thing. Reagan would be the same way, yet Becca couldn’t say no.
“She’s family, Mama. I can’t turn her away. And neither would you.”
“Maybe not, but I’d make her work a little harder for it. You cave every time.”
Becca grabbed her bag and walked out the door, not bothering to lock up. If a burglar wanted to steal her ancient TV, then so be it. Maybe he could figure out how to get it to switch channels. Presently, she had two options—a cooking show or the news, and Becca hated cooking.
“That’s because she brings the kids with her every single time. I won’t say no to them.”
“She’s going to bankrupt you.”
Finally the weather was starting to feel like fall, a bit of a breeze in the air, and it reminded Becca of the first time Nick had arrived in her backyard. He’d gotten lost chasing after Trip, but he wouldn’t admit it, so instead he acted like he was there to see her. Becca didn’t really know him, but at eight years old, it thrilled her all the same for a boy to be there for her. So she asked him to come play dolls with her and he blanched and asked if they could play tag instead.
That was the start of Becca chasing Nick Hamilton. She’d never caught him then and she suspected she never would now.
“Sorry, Mama. Can we talk about this later? I’m heading out.”
She could almost hear her mother’s grin. “A date?”
Becca laughed. “I wish. But a man left me his number earlier this week at the diner.”
“What does he do?”
“I don’t know, Mama. Stuff.”
“Hmmm . . .”
“I know what that sound means.”
“Well. So what if I want the best for my little girl? You know who I think you should be with.”
And Becca did. The very same man Becca wanted to be with, but all her and her mother’s hope wouldn’t make Nick Hamilton want her back.
“All right, talk later?” Becca needed off the call fast before the conversation headed any farther south.
“Okay, honey. Love you.”
“Love you, too, Mama.”
Becca hung up and took her time driving out to Crestler’s Key for the dive lesson. Her thoughts turned inward and she wondered if her life was enough for her. She had money, owned her house, had a stable job. Surely those things equaled happiness, yet she couldn’t remember feeling this miserable. Maybe it was time for a change, and not just repainting her house or buying distressed jeans instead of the dark ones she preferred.
Maybe it was time she left Triple Run.
The thought sliced straight through her heart, hanging over her like a dark cloud the whole ride over. Before long she reached Crestler’s Key Elementary and parked, telling herself she didn’t have to make that decision today. Her nerves twisted into minipretzels as she thought about the confrontations she was about to face. Deep breath, she told herself. They’re just boys. It’s simple.
Only they weren’t boys and nothing about this was simple.
Resigned to stop being such a chicken, she closed the door to her Highlander and headed into the school, ignoring everything around her for fear that if she spotted an exit she would be far too tempted to take it.
Like always, the halls were empty and eerily quiet, so different from what they sounded like during the school week. Becca imagined walking down halls like these with her son or daughter, a smile on her face, tears in her eyes as she prepared to drop the boy or girl off for the first day of kindergarten. But would that ever happen for her?
No, not if she stayed hung up on Nick and not if she stayed in Triple Run.
You don’t have to decide today.
The classroom neared and her heart kicked up. Breathe, Becca. Breathe. She closed her eyes and pushed through the door.
“Becca, hey there,” Zac said. “Glad you’re back for day two.”
Becca smiled up at him, thankful that he wasn’t making it awkward that she hadn’t called him yet. “Thanks. I’m excited.” Her gaze cut over to the class and landed square on Nick in the front row.
“Bec.”
“Nick.”
Torn over how to talk to him after their last conversation, she took the seat beside him and reached for her phone, as though she’d just gotten a call, then stuffed it back into her bag when she realized no one called her except her mother, who she’d already spoken to, and Nick, who apparently wasn’t talking to her. Or maybe she wasn’t speaking to him.
They fell into silence, the rest of the class chatting away, and Becca couldn’t take it anymore. “Why aren’t you talking to me?”
Nick glanced around. “Me?”
“No, the janitor outside mopping the floor. Yes, you.”
“I’m not not talking to you. I thought you were upset with me.”
“I am.”
“You are or you were?”
Before Becca could reply, Zac took to the front of the class to start the lesson.
“Today we’re taking a field trip to Southern Dive to try on equipment. So let’s pack up. It’s walking distance.”
They started outside and Nick reached for Becca to stop her just as Zac stepped up beside them.
“So, I have to ask. Did you get my note?”
Becca grinned. “I did.”
“Ah. So not interested?”
“It’s not that. I just had a busy week.”
Zac bit his lip and peered over at her. “All right. No pressure. But the offer’s open whenever you’d like to take it.”
“Thanks.”
Zac disappeared up the sidewalk and into Southern Dive, and Nick reached for Becca to hold her back. “What was that about?”
She fidgeted with the zipper on her bag. “Nothing, really. He just gave me his number.”
“Of course he did.”
Anger surged through Becca. “See that? What is that? Why do you care?”
“I don’t care. I just don’t know why you didn’t tell me.”
Becca balled her hands into fists. “You’re one to talk. You don’t speak to me all week. And you kept your doctor girlfriend from me.”
“Again with that. What the hell are you talking about?”
“Don’t even deny it. First Kate and Alex all talking about you need to tell me and she’s the one. And then Trip and Emery joke that only one woman has your attention these days. And then the trustees talk about your attention being on her.”
Nick broke into laughter, and Becca thought she might scream.
“It isn’t funny.”
“No, you’re right, it’s freaking hilarious. You’re ridiculous, you know that? Absolutely ridiculous.”
“Because I don’t want to be the last person to hear you’re with someone now?”
Nick threw up his hands in frustration. “I’m not with someone now.”
“Then what—”
“They’re talking about you!”
Becca jerked back. “What?”
“They’re all talking about you. When the hell would I have time to meet a woman, let alone a girlfriend? I spend every waking moment that I’m not at the office with you. They’re talking about you.”
“But you said . . .”
“I know what I said. I lied.”
Nick stared at his best friend, wishing he could read her mind. Her expression was blank, giving nothing away, and he thought maybe he’d just made the worst decision of his life. And all because he was too jealous to control his emotions and his stupid mouth.
“I’m sorry, I . . .”
“I don’t know what that means. Like are you saying . . .” Becca trailed off, because apparently neither of them could speak clearly now.
“I . . .” But before Nick could finish his thought, Zac popped out of Southern Dive’s doorway.
“You two coming in? We need to select your equipment so we can plan to practice in the water next Saturday.” His eyes drifted between the two of them before holding on Becca, and Nick felt his pulse picking up speed again, jealousy taking over, which was ridiculous. He’d never been the jealous sort, even with Britt, yet the idea of another man’s hands on Becca sent his head into crazy territory.
Becca eyed Nick. “Yeah, we’re coming right now.”
They stepped inside Southern Dive, and if not for the tension between him and Becca, he would have been in heaven. The shop had everything one could imagine related to diving.
Stained-wood walls and wide hardwood floors gave the place a rustic feel. Large brand signs hung against the back wall, mixed with enlarged photos of dives the Littleton brothers had been on over the years. Some were of class dives, but others were just them, exploring some abandoned shipwreck or on an exotic underwater adventure.
The class had already spread out through the shop, some trying on BCDs, others masks, still others the various types of wet suits. And Becca was right there with them, each piece of equipment seeming to take longer than the last, and before long Nick wondered if Becca was intentionally dragging it out so she wouldn’t have to talk to him.
Finally, when she’d tried on no less than twenty different wet suits, he tossed up his hands, unable to handle the tension any longer. “Look, Bec, I’m going to head out.”
“But you haven’t selected anything.”
“I already have all these things, and I . . . I just can’t stay here anymore, doing this.”
“I know it’s a little boring choosing equipment, but—”
“Not that. This; you and me. Whatever this weirdness is between us. We need to talk about it.”
Becca refused to look at him. “I don’t . . . it . . .” Her eyes finally met his. “I can’t right now.”
Nick stared at her wide brown eyes, her mouth set into a frown, the class around them, half of them staring, and he’d had enough.
“I have to go.”
“Don’t leave.”
He took in her face, the quick glance to Zac, and knew he’d made a terrible mistake. “I’ll see you around, Bec.”
Part of him wanted her to follow after him, to tell him that she felt the same way, but another part of him wanted to avoid the topic so they could pretend it had never come up.
Telling himself that for now they needed space to think, he hopped into his car with the sole purpose of driving until he knew what to do. Though he feared revelation would never come. This wasn’t some complex project to which deep thought and planning would reveal answers. Feelings weren’t so easy to process, especially when those feelings shouldn’t exist in the first place.
It shouldn’t have surprised Nick that he ended up on the long, winding road that led into the heart of Hamilton Stables. Though he spent more time at his apartment in Lexington, he still viewed the farm as his home. He might be at odds with his brothers, but they were still family, and maybe the only people in the world who could talk him off the ledge.
Because what Nick really wanted to do was go wait at Becca’s house until she came home, force her to talk, to answer the question plaguing him—Do you want me as badly as I want you? But he feared he wouldn’t find a friend who’d always thought about him the way he’d thought of her, just an awkward silence in place of an answer. A sad look and an “I’m sorry” and Nick would lose her.
God, why the hell had he confessed his feelings?
So what if his brothers and the town thought he had feelings for her; that didn’t mean anything, or at least it didn’t have to. He could have denied it, made up something else, tucked away his desires for a safer time. But in that moment, her beautiful face before him, those soulful eyes of hers trained on him, he couldn’t hide his reaction. Now he might have ruined the only friendship he had left.
“Long time no see,” Mama V said as he parked beside the main barn.
As usual, the grounds were impeccable, all green and vibrant. The woods surrounding the farm full and beautiful. The white fencing had been painted recently and the main offices and barns renovated for the upcoming tour season. As Nick took in all the beauty of the farm where he was raised, he found himself wondering why he didn’t join the farm instead of Industries. Why he didn’t find a place here with his brothers instead of going out on his own with Industries? His father could have hired someone to run Industries when he retired, he could have promoted someone; there were a thousand options available.
Instead, Nick dove headfirst into Industries, when on the farm he would have been free of the stress of corporate life. Every day he could have stepped outside to fresh air and visited the horses, breathed a little.
But no, he chose the other path before him, never stopping to think whether he actually wanted to be a corporate man.
He thought of his high school dream of being a pro angler, how close he’d been, and then the decision to go to Northwestern, his father’s idea; a degree could only help him.
He’d met Britt his sophomore year and was immediately captivated by her. She was earthy in a worn book kind of way, an English lit major, with aspirations to seek her MFA and become a distinguished literary novelist/professor. And she was well on her way when tragedy struck.
She went in for her annual women’s checkup, and that was how they first found the lump in her breast. At first, no one was overly worried. She was healthy; tired but healthy. And then her blood work came back before she’d had the chance to get in for her CT scan, and suddenly everything was urgent.
The CT showed stage III breast cancer. She had more tumors hiding within her breasts that weren’t so easily detected by a breast exam. She was referred to an oncologist and her first surgery was scheduled, and they were hopeful. God, they were hopeful.
But then chemo and radiation, and more chemo and radiation, only to go back in to find the cancer still there, living despite all the chemicals they threw at it.
Nick would never forget the look on her doctor’s face when she told Britt they’d done all they could do. He was holding her when she took her last breath, and still to this day, he would wake sometimes and feel like he was back there, holding her, knowing any second would be his last with her and desperate to hold on just a few seconds longer.
But now, so many years later, he wondered not if he’d ever loved her, because he knew he had, but if she was ever the right wife for him—the true love of his life. Though the thought made him feel sick to his core, he couldn’t deny the validity of the question.
She’d never fished with him, never taken a picture of him after a giant catch, and there was no way she ever would have done something as radical as learning to scuba dive.
Britt was the very opposite of Becca, and yet at the time she’d seemed like the perfect match for him. She was Ivy League, from a solid family, had Southern roots in Alabama, with her mother’s grandparents. And Nick’s mother adored her immediately, though it was hard not to. Britt was polite to a fault, forever smiling, never loud or inappropriate. But that also meant she was never wild, never free-spirited, never adventurous. Which was fine. One didn’t have to be adventurous, but the problem was—Nick was.
At heart, at root, in his joints and bones and muscles, he craved T-shirts rather than pressed button downs, wet suits rather than business suits. It surprised him to think about it, but his years of diving with his brothers out in the Gulf, in Fiji, hundreds of different dives, had been some of the best memories of his life.
But there was a woman who thrived on those same things, who may never be athletic but craved the wind against her face all the same. How had he not seen that before?
Nick had a perfect match and she’d been there all along. From the awkward little girl to the sassy teen to a woman who put her life on hold to take care of her grandmother. He had a match and her name was Becca Stark.
“Honey, are you all right?”
Nick glanced past Mama V to the main barn, then the training ring nearby. “Is Trip around?”
“He’s at the track.”
“Alex?”
“Visiting Trifecta Farms to pick up that new stallion.”
“Dammit.” Nick released a breath. “What now?”
“Why don’t you come inside for a beat?” Mama V said, motioning to her house on the farm, where she kept her kitchen running and open for the farm’s staff.
