If We Fly: A What If Novel

by Nina Lane

  “Plans change.” He shrugs and shifts his gaze to the pier. “I don’t regret having started Invicta at all. Back then, I’d never have imagined I’d own a company, much less a successful one.”

  “So you’re going to just keep expanding?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?” He kicks a small rock off the dock and into the water. “The company didn’t get to this level without a shitload of hard work and expansion.”

  “What about that water booster station I heard about? Are you going to expand into the bottled water business?”

  “No. We’re doing research about the station because I want to build a new distillery close to the spring. One of the reasons I bought Spring Hills was for Mischief Whiskey. It’s a non-chilled filtered brand cut with pure spring water from the well. The mineral content and purity of the water is ideal for our products.”

  I glance at him. “So what about the class-action suit?”

  Cole stops suddenly, expelling a breath. “Contrary to what people would have you believe, I’m not throttling the town’s water supply. I have no intention of charging them for it, restricting access, or damaging the environment. I’m also not making concessions to a bunch of people who don’t know the first thing about distilling processes or hydropower plants. They want to hit me with a lawsuit, fine. Won’t be the first time.”

  Hot shame boils up inside me. I turn away, quickening my pace. Behind me, Cole mutters a curse.

  “Josie.”

  “Forget it. It’s none of my business anyway.”

  “I know you’re disappointed.” He grabs my shoulders, turning me to face him. In the dim light, his eyes glitter with hard regret. “You have no idea how much that kills me. But this is who I am. This is my company. I’m damn good at what I do. And I’m not going to change. Not even for you.”

  And why should he?

  The question slithers into my mind, unpleasant and unwanted. We’ve managed to reconcile well, but we’ve made no plans beyond my stay here. I can’t even envision a future together—the owner and CEO of a multimillion dollar liquor company and…me? An artist who’s struggling all over again to find herself? I’m not at all certain our lives would fit together as easily as our bodies do.

  It’s one thing to have our secret little “fling” this summer, to hole up in the cottage and shut out the rest of the world, but the Josie and Cole of ten years ago no longer exists.

  “I’m sorry.” I press my hand to his chest, feeling his heartbeat thump against my palm. “I just hate knowing that people don’t like you.”

  A smile tugs at his mouth. He brushes my hair away from my face. “As long as you like me, I’m good.”

  “I like you.” Too much. In ways that are starting to scare the crap out of me.

  “I like you too, Josie Bird.” He kisses my nose.

  I slip my arm back into his as we approach the pier. Though we’ve made an effort to keep our relationship discreet, I’m not terribly concerned with anyone finding out about us in the touristy pier crowd.

  People wander in and out of restaurants and shops, and the carnival rides spin and whirl with their colorful twinkling lights and happily screaming revelers. We go into McGinty’s, one of our old hangouts.

  Elvis’s “Hound Dog” blares from a jukebox, fishermen and dockworkers sit at the bar, and the smells of fried fish and beer hang in the air. Cole gestures to an empty table by the wall, tugging one of the chairs away from the table for me.

  “I’ll grab us a couple of beers.” He walks to the bar.

  I pull off my jacket and drape it over an empty chair. The back of my neck prickles. I glance over my shoulder at a group of men seated near the jukebox. They’re laughing and talking loudly, and their table is cluttered with beer bottles and plastic baskets of food. One of them is looking at me, a suspicious gleam in his eyes. Turning away, I’m relieved to see Cole returning.

  “Corona okay?” He plants two bottles on the table and sits across from me.

  “Sure. Thanks.”

  We order fried clams and onion rings, both of which make me groan with appreciation. I’d forgotten just how many little things I’ve missed about Castille.

  Forgotten.

  My chest tenses again. I feel like I’m pulling at the loose thread of a mystery. One hard tug and the whole thing could unravel—leaving me with a mess of tangled knots.

  When I first decided to return to Castille, one of my goals was to say goodbye to the past. To look toward the future. And now I’m finally in a good place—enjoying painting the mural, reconciled with both my sister and Cole, part of this community again. I haven’t had a nightmare or a creepy hallucination in days.

  So why don’t I just leave the damned thread alone?

  “News flash.” In an attempt to divert my thoughts, I glance at Cole with a lift of my eyebrows. “Vanessa went out with Nathan Peterson. He had a crush on her in high school and still seemed interested, so I did a bit of matchmaking. Looks like it worked.”

  He reaches for his beer, his mouth tightening slightly. “I meant what I said about him.”

  “But you’re wrong. He’s a good guy. He told me he’d stayed with me after the accident.”

  Cole’s expression closes off. “When did he tell you that?”

  “I went to the Old Mill Bridge yesterday.” My heart bumps against my ribs. “He was passing by and saw me there.”

  He frowns and pushes his half-eaten food away. “And you talked to him?”

  “Despite your warning about him, yes.” Irritation snakes down my spine. “He said he’d assured you he would stay with me, since you couldn’t. So how can you not think he’s decent?”

  “I don’t trust him.” He sits back and twists his neck to the side. “Why did you want to go back there anyway?”

  “Well, people were visiting it on the damned haunted tours.” I dunk an onion ring into a puddle of ketchup, even though I’m no longer hungry. “I wanted to see it again. See if being there would trigger any memories.”

  “You want to remember?” Disbelief edges his voice. “Why? I remember everything, and it’s a whole other level of nightmare.”

  My stomach pitches. I stare at his hand wrapped loosely around the neck of the bottle. His fingers are square and blunt, the back of his left hand marked with a scar that hadn’t been there ten years ago. His sinewed forearms are dusted with dark hair. I love scratching his arms lightly with my fingernails. Love touching every inch of his strong body.

  Lifting my gaze, I catch him watching me, his expression pensive and remote. A strange tension laces his shoulders, like a vibration contained beneath his skin.

  “Do you remember a keychain my dad had?” I drop the onion ring and reach for my napkin. “Teddy made it in woodshop. It was the letter B, painted blue and green.”

  “Yeah, I think so.” He takes a swallow of beer. “Teddy also made you that carved wooden Josie we put on the wall of the apartment.”

  I nod. “But the keychain. My dad’s car keys were attached to it.”

  “And?”

  “I don’t know what happened to it. You would have had it the night of the accident. Didn’t you notice it?”

  “I guess.” He shrugs, lifting his head to meet my gaze steadily. “There was a lot going on that night, obviously. Your dad’s keychain wasn’t my main focus.”

  “I’m asking because I saw the keychain in the photo you have on the bookshelf.” I crumple the napkin in my fist. “The last picture you took of us right before we left the party. How did you get that picture in the first place?”

  “When I got to the hospital, I realized I still had Teddy’s camera in my pocket.” Cole taps his fingers impatiently on the bottle. “I was going to give it to you, but then Vanessa refused to let me see you. And I didn’t know if you’d even want to see me. So I kept it, intending to get it to you at some point. Then the rumors started, and my father was pissed off…everything got so out of control that I forgot about it. I didn’t find it again until a fe
w weeks after I’d gotten to New York. And by then, I knew you didn’t want any contact with me. So I downloaded the memory card contents and sent them to Vanessa. I printed that one out because…well, it was all I had left of you and your family.”

  “Do you remember me giving you my dad’s keys?”

  “I remember kissing you.”

  “And the keychain?”

  “You gave it to me.” He tilts his head back for another swallow of beer.

  I let out a long breath. The constriction in my lungs eases. “We must have gotten it back, right?”

  “Does it matter?” He sets the bottle on the table with a hard thunk. “Yeah, everyone wants to cling to reminders of the people we lost, but ultimately things don’t matter. It’s memories of those people and how we feel about them that matters. Hey.”

  He leans closer, putting his hand on my arm. “I can hear you thinking. It’s really noisy.”

  A smile pulls at my mouth. “There’s a lot going on up there.”

  “I know. And you should—”

  A shadow suddenly falls over our table. We both look up. A burly, bearded man—the one who’d been looking at me earlier—stops beside us.

  My instincts sharpen for reasons I can’t discern. I sense Cole go on alert too, though there’s nothing outwardly intimidating about the man. He studies Cole, his heavy eyebrows drawn together.

  “Colton Danforth?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Fuck you.”

  In a split-second, his fist shoots out and catches Cole square on the jaw, knocking his head back. A scream lodges in my throat. The attacker advances, landing another blow on the side of Cole’s head. Cole grunts, shaking off the blow and shoving his chair back.

  He rises to his full height, a bruise already darkening on his jaw. “Get the fuck away from us.”

  “This is for ruining people’s lives, you scum.” His face reddening, the man plows into him. Both men hit the floor, fists flying. Cole lands a series of punches, one of them hitting the other man’s nose with a sickening crack.

  “Stop it!” Jumping to my feet, I run toward them and try to push the attacker away from Cole. He doesn’t budge. I’m dimly aware that the other patrons have gotten up and are gathering in a half-circle like they’re watching a dog fight, but no one is doing a damn thing to stop it.

  Cole has the advantage of height and muscle, but the other man is downright big and fueled by rage. They struggle, grunting and swearing, both of them landing blows. Finally Cole cracks the guy’s head against the floor, stilling him for an instant.

  He shoves to his feet, panting, his eyes blue fire. Blood trickles at the corner of his mouth and drips from a gash on his forehead.

  I grab the back of a chair. Ice freezes my bones. A haggard face streaked with blood, blue eyes darkened to black…

  “Fucker.” Another man starts toward Cole.

  The image in my head shatters. Outright fear spears through me. Are they ganging up on him?

  “Enough!” Hank McGinty pushes his way through the crowd, his hands up. “Everyone just cool off. Danforth, you’d better leave.”

  Cole yanks his wallet out of his pocket and drops a fistful of bills on the table. He grabs my hand and stalks toward the door. I stumble after him, my heart still racing and my mind clouding over.

  “Are you all right?” I hurry to his side when we step onto the pier.

  He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Fine.”

  “You don’t look fine. Come back to the cottage.”

  “I’m fine.”

  I grab tissues out of my pocket. “Do not be a stubborn asshole again. I’ve got antiseptic and ice at the cottage. God knows you shouldn’t stay here. Those people looked as if they were about to dogpile you.”

  Irritation clenches his jaw, but he takes the tissues and follows me off the pier. I pull the flashlight from my backpack, and we climb the hill to the cottage. Once inside, I make him sit on the bed in the sunroom.

  “I don’t need nursing,” he grumbles, holding his side.

  “Tough shit.” Turning the lamp toward him, I peer at the bruise on his jaw and a long cut along his forehead. I retrieve a first-aid kit from the bathroom and proceed to clean and bandage the cuts.

  “Ow.” He flinches away from the antiseptic pad.

  “Don’t be a baby. Hold still.”

  He glowers at me and sets his jaw. After taking care of his face, I push him back against the pillows and lift his shirt, wincing at the purplish-blue bruise spreading over his right side.

  “You sure pissed him off.” I place an ice pack against the bruise and order him to hold it there. “Did he work for Blue River Water?”

  “Don’t know.” He shifts against the pillows with a grunt. “Probably.”

  “I guess you deserved his anger, then.”

  “Yeah.”

  I glance at him, widening my eyes. “Yeah? You’re not going to defend yourself?”

  He shrugs. “They’re right. I put Blue River out of business. People lost their jobs. What’s to defend?”

  “You did it for a good reason. Why won’t you tell people that?”

  He doesn’t respond, but a sudden fatigue descends over him, making him look ten years older. I put the first-aid kit on the nightstand and climb onto the bed beside him. He lifts his left arm and places it around me. I stroke a hand gently down his chest.

  “You don’t have to do it anymore, you know,” I say slowly. “Pushing people away, hiding behind all your money and power, getting revenge, proving to everyone you’re not your father…it doesn’t do anyone any good. Least of all you.”

  He expels a heavy breath and drags a hand down his face. “Forget it, Josie.”

  “I won’t forget it.” I settle my hand on his thigh. “I have enough of forgetting, remember? There’s a black hole in my memory that still haunts me. Forgetting is the worst thing either of us can do. If you forget the real Cole Danforth, then you might as well forget my parents and Teddy, Eagle Canyon, Choco-Nut. The Ocean Carousel.”

  “I’ll never forget any of that.” He grabs my hips and pulls me closer. “And I’ll never forget how much I loved you.”

  His use of the past tense elicits a sudden unease, though I don’t want to examine it too closely. I slip my hand under his T-shirt and touch the warm, hard ridges of his abdomen.

  “You can still change,” I tell him. “Still show people that Cole Danforth is so much more than the man people thought his father was. You can prove to them how much better you are.”

  Faint tenderness crinkles his eyes. “You want to know why I didn’t want you here?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Because I knew you’d get inside me again.” He studies me, his hair falling over his forehead, his eyes intensely blue. “That you’d be everything good. I knew just being around you would make me want to be better.”

  “Ah.” I tap my fingertips together and arch an eyebrow. “My evil plan is working.”

  His mouth curves. “There’s nothing evil about you, Josie Bird. Only pure good.”

  The cracks inside me disappear, flooding me with peach-colored light. Leaning forward, I press my lips to his. At first, it’s a light gentle kiss, as I’m mindful of his injuries, but then he settles one hand on the back of my neck and pulls me closer. My heartbeat increases. He urges my lips apart, sliding his tongue into my mouth in that slow, delicious way I love so much.

  Before I fall into the warm haze of desire, I ease away from him. “We shouldn’t do this. You’re hurt.”

  His eyebrows snap together in a frown. “I took a couple of pansy-ass punches. I didn’t get hurt.”

  I try not to roll my eyes. “Well, I’m sure a doctor would suggest you don’t overexert yourself right now.”

  “Good thing there’s no doctor in the house, then.”

  With that, he tilts my head up to his and claims my mouth in another kiss. My reservations go up in flames. Part of my mind is still astonished by
how easily any conflict between us can fall away with the onset of passion, but it’s as if our bodies remember how good we always were. He kissed me, and I fell into a swirl of pleasure. He touched me, and I flew into the stars.

  The same thing happens now, except this time every kiss and touch is textured with our shared knowledge of life’s swiftness. I slide my hand back under his T-shirt to his chest, relishing the sensation of his warm smooth muscles.

  Still aware of his bruises, I get to my knees and press kisses across his lower lip. He tangles a hand in my hair. Heat encloses us. We fall into each other as easily as thread slipping through the eye of a needle.

  Chapter 3

  Cole

  * * *

  Ten Years Ago

  * * *

  Josie pressed her soft lips against mine. Her cherry scent enveloped me. She stroked my cheek and drew away. Reluctantly, I lifted my head and opened the front door of the Seagull Inn to usher her onto the front porch.

  Chatter and laughter still drifted from the lingering guests, but the anniversary party was winding down. Benjamin Mays held his wife’s raincoat out for her as she slipped her arms into the sleeves.

  “Wait, I forgot something.” Teddy, holding the bakery box of leftover cake, rushed back into the dining room.

  “Teddy, hurry,” Faith called after him. “We need to be up early tomorrow and it’s twelve-thirty.”

  “Okay, Mom, I just need to get my tiger.”

  “Vanessa, make sure he does his homework.” Faith looped her coat belt and picked up the two bouquets of wildflowers I’d brought her and Josie. “He has a book report due next week for his summer class, and he hasn’t started yet.”

  “He’ll get it done.” Vanessa embraced both of her parents. “Now go have a wonderful trip. Eat croissants, drink wine, gaze at priceless works of art, and don’t worry about anything here. Josie will drop Teddy off at my place tomorrow, and we have a schedule for which one of us will take him to all his various activities.”