Ever Always

by Diana Gardin

  When he rolled onto his side to face her and brought her hand to his lips, she squeezed his hand in return and then sat up. “We’ve been together for as long as I can remember. It’s always just been me, you, and Hunter…against the world.”

  He nodded, looking up at her. “That’s never going to change.”

  She sighed, thinking about the past few months she’d spent without him. “Isn’t it, though? I feel like the minute you left, everything changed. Taking you out of Duck Creek was like flipping a switch. You seem happy here.”

  “I am happy…and you could be, too. You just need to give it a chance. Maybe you’ll fall in love with it.”

  She knew that wasn’t going to happen. “I fell in love with you, Sam. Before I even knew what love was. We had to fight for every breath, and we made it through to the other side. Now…I don’t know where we go from here.”

  Sam was silent, and she could only imagine the confusion he must be feeling. She just didn’t feel able to clear it up for him. Not at this moment.

  “I’m going to the bathroom,” she said.

  “Okay,” he yawned.

  She stayed in the bathroom a long while with the door shut, staring at her reflection in the mirror. She came to Nelson Island feeling like she had a decision to make. But now that she was here, she realized there wasn’t much of a decision at all.

  Ever hated the beach.

  The following morning, after a breakfast of bagels and coffee, Sam thought a day at the beach was a perfect idea.

  The corners of Hunter’s mouth tugged upward just watching her tiptoe along the sand with a cute grimace on her face. Women shouldn’t be allowed to be that adorable. It just wasn’t a fair fight.

  Sam was trying to convince her that the beach was wonderful and amazing, just like everything else about this town. This morning, he’d announced that after spending the day at the beach, they would be going out to have a drink with his new best friends.

  Hunter could almost feel the tiny pinpricks of pain all of his comments were inadvertently causing in Ever’s heart. Sam would never hurt her on purpose, but Hunter couldn’t fathom why he couldn’t see how this was hurting her. Seeing him happy here was what was going to give her closure, but it still hurt her.

  Sam was a good guy, but intuition about Ever apparently wasn’t his strong point. If it had been, he’d see what he was doing and just agree to come home.

  When Sam grabbed Ever’s hand and towed her off down the beach to talk, she shot Hunter a look of concern that nearly had him gripping Sam’s arm to remove it from Ever’s waist. He didn’t want her to worry. She shouldn’t have to handle this on her own. But as soon as he stood, she frowned and gave him a slight shake of her head.

  She didn’t want him to interfere.

  So he’d sunk back down on his towel and tried not to stare at them walking away.

  Hunter didn’t hate the beach the way Ever did, but he wouldn’t choose to live here. You’d have to get in a boat to go fishing on the ocean, and boats weren’t his thing. It made him uncomfortable looking out at the endless expanse of water and sky for too long—made him feel like he wasn’t anchored down to anything and that he might just float away. His creek back home didn’t give him that feeling, and he missed it just remembering what it felt like to wade in its waters with Ever beside him and a fishing pole in his hands.

  It also felt very strange not to have a majestic view of mountaintops in the distance. He’d never trade that for anything.

  He could tell from the look on Ever’s face so far during the trip that she felt the exact same way, and the thought filled him up with enough pride and hope that he thought he’d be able to stand a few more days of Sam tugging her around like she still belonged solely to him.

  The truth wanted to come pouring out of him every single time Sam opened his mouth, but he wouldn’t do that to Ever. This was a situation she was going to get to control, and when she was ready, if she was ready, he’d help her tell Sam so they could all come out of this without permanent scars.

  Only, a small, insistent voice in the back of his mind tugged on his heart. She hasn’t touched you in a week. And it was only that one time. She may not want you. She may choose him all over again.

  He’d spent the previous night lying on the couch, staring up at the vaulted ceiling. His stomach was clenching and unclenching, and when he glanced at the bedroom door where Sam and Ever slept, a wave of nausea would roll over his body and he’d shudder. He hated thinking about her in there with his brother.

  What had happened to him? She’d been dating his brother for years. He’d watched them together dozens of times. Now he couldn’t stand the thought of Sam touching her.

  He wished he could punch that tiny little voice in the face. Multiple times.

  When the time came that evening to meet Sam’s friends, a guy named Reed met them in the circular driveway to take them to the bar. Hunter and Ever shook Reed’s hand, and Hunter immediately gave him a nickname in his head: Richie Rich. They jumped into Reed’s truck and took off.

  Walking toward the uniquely placed bar, sitting awkwardly atop a pier, Hunter glanced over at Ever’s face and knew they had a problem. Her eyes were narrowed, and her mouth was drawn into a thin, stubborn line. She was either getting ready to blow up or freak out. Either was possible, because she’d been through a lot up to this point.

  “That rickety old place is sitting right on the water!” she exclaimed, planting her feet in the gravel and coming to a stop.

  This wasn’t good. Ever never threw down the gauntlet, but Hunter could see her rearing back and getting ready to stand her ground. He stepped closer to her, ready to reach out and touch her if need be.

  Sam actually chuckled. Hunter’s eyes met the sky. His brother wasn’t taking her seriously. That was a mistake. “It threw me for a loop the first time, too.”

  “I’m not going in there,” she said.

  Richie Rich looked shocked and appalled. “But in there is where the bar is.”

  Hunter clenched his fist. If she didn’t want to go, they wouldn’t go. What the hell was wrong with everyone?

  Reed went ahead inside, shaking his head, and Ever faced off with Sam. She informed him, once again, that she wasn’t going inside. The frustration grew on Sam’s face in the dimly lit parking lot, and the determination grew on Ever’s. He wasn’t sure why she picked this point to take a stand on, but it was clear she didn’t want to back down.

  So he reached out and touched her shoulder. It tensed beneath his fingers, and then she glanced at him. Her muscles relaxed.

  “Let’s just go in and have one drink,” he said softly. “I’ll order you a nice bottle of Bud. Then, if you still feel unsafe, I’ll come back out here with you and wait.”

  Sam’s head was ping-ponging between the two of them like they’d lost their minds. “You don’t have to wait with her. I’m here.”

  Oh, he was here? Was he? Hunter’s blood immediately went from a normal temperature to boiling hot.

  “Fine, one drink,” said Ever quickly. Hunter’s eyes slid toward hers, and she met them briefly before turning on her heel and heading inside. Sam followed.

  Hunter sucked in a lungful of air and blew it out slowly. He allowed himself one more quick breath before following them inside.

  Sam’s new friends were nice enough. Much more down to earth than Hunter had expected, given all the money that was clearly floating around the large table. These people were loaded. Like, money-had-never-been-a-thought-in-their-minds loaded. He couldn’t understand what Sam could possibly have in common with any of them.

  And then he noticed how the strikingly beautiful brunette was keeping him in her sights. And it was like slow motion when he saw Sam’s tendency to keep glancing her way.

  Suddenly, he was very aware of one of the reasons Sam seemed to love Nelson Island so much. He grabbed Ever’s hand under the table and looked at her in the seat next to him.

  Her eyes were also on the br
unette, Aston, and her mouth was falling open farther by the second. Especially when the personal questions about their lives back in Duck Creek started flying around the table.

  Especially when Sam began having a very heated discussion with Aston right in front of them, about how much she wanted him to stay in Nelson Island.

  Ever’s hand was clutching his tighter and tighter under the table, and Hunter couldn’t take it anymore. The tension was so thick he was practically choking. He wanted to get her out of there. He was just about to stand and pull her up along with him when her chair scraped loudly against the wooden planked floor and she pushed back from the table.

  “I need air,” she gasped.

  She ran from the room. Hunter stared openly at Sam, who jumped up, too.

  But if his brother thought he was the one going after Ever, he was sorely mistaken.

  Fourteen

  As her feet pounded against wood, and then gravel as she hit the parking lot, she wondered why she was so upset in the first place.

  She loved Sam. She knew that much was true. There was a huge part of her heart that had belonged to him for so long that she would never want anything for him but happiness.

  But wanting happiness for someone she loved and then seeing it happen without her were two very different things. She was having a hard time reconciling the wants of her heart with the need in her soul. Sam had friends here. And she wasn’t stupid. That girl with dark hair who looked like some sort of Disney princess wanted him, and Sam had looked in her direction more than once tonight. Something was stirring between them.

  She had to let him go, because he could have a life here he never would have had in Duck Creek with her. And this life was his, not hers. She had always, always loved Sam.

  But she had always, always been in love with Hunter.

  She stopped running. She reached both hands up to her face and felt the wetness covering her cheeks a second before the sob burst free from her chest.

  Her knees gave out, and she couldn’t understand why she didn’t hit the rocks beneath her until she heard Hunter’s voice in her ear.

  “I got you,” he said.

  She smiled in spite of the deep, aching sadness that was causing her throat to close up.

  “You keep saying that,” she whispered.

  “I guess I’ll have to, until you believe it,” he said as he cradled her to his chest.

  “Ugh,” she said, looking over his shoulder. “I hate that damn pier.”

  He smiled down at her. “I know you do.”

  He set her gently on her feet but didn’t let go of her. “That was intense in there.”

  His tone was cautious. He was trying to feel her out. He didn’t want to upset her more than she already was, but she knew he deserved an explanation of where her freak-out was coming from.

  “It’s not that I don’t want him to be happy,” she said. “But his friends were asking so many questions. And then there was that girl. Did you see the way he looked at her?”

  Hunter’s eyes closed briefly. “You saw that?”

  “Who didn’t?”

  “Okay,” said Hunter. “That looked bad…”

  “I have absolutely no room to be upset about anything Sam does! I have to let him go before I ruin everything for him…”

  “Stop.” His gentle voice somehow cut through all her crazy. She closed her mouth and looked up at him, his image blurred by her tears.

  “You’re a good person, Ever. So is Sam. You two have been thrust into an impossible situation. But doesn’t this kind of prove what I’ve been saying all along? He was never meant to stay in Duck Creek forever. The life he has out here now is proof of that. And you know what? I’m not sad to see the way he looked at that girl. You know what that means? It means that…if you…I mean, if we…”

  He stopped. She knew where he was going with it. It meant that if she and Hunter decided to be together, Sam would be able to move on without her.

  Oh God, her heart hurt. It felt like someone had reached inside her chest with the intent of squeezing the life out of it. And they were succeeding.

  She knew she was losing it. Her breath was coming in deep gasps, but she still couldn’t seem to suck in enough air to sustain herself. Her knees were made of Jell-O. Her voice…where was her voice? Gone.

  A finger beneath her chin stilled her. Her face was lifted to meet Hunter’s steady stare. She grabbed onto his arms and held on for dear life as their eyes locked.

  “Go,” he whispered.

  His voice released the knot of emotion and loss she felt inside of her. It escaped her like a balloon lifting up, up, up and out into the great big sky. As she stared into his eyes, her breathing slowed and her body became strong enough to stand on her own. Hunter still did that for her. Reminded her that she was strong enough.

  This time, that single word had a different meaning, and as he uttered it she leaned forward to brush her lips against his. The contact made her close her eyes and sigh against his mouth. His grip became tighter around her waist as he pulled her closer, and their bodies melded together as he deepened the kiss with a guttural sound deep inside his chest.

  Hunter’s kiss didn’t have a hint of desperation in it. It had a safe quality that she craved and a heated passion that promised so much more. She wanted the more. She wanted it so badly.

  She never realized she had entered a private world that only the two of them shared until she was snapped out of it by pounding footsteps on the dock. She broke free of Hunter, turned, and glimpsed Sam’s back as he sprinted away from them.

  “Sam!” she screamed. Panic crept in through her toes and rose slowly through her body, rattling her bones and causing her muscles to quiver.

  Not like this.

  She turned to Hunter, and his expression must have mirrored hers exactly. Before three months ago, Hunter was the most laid-back, even-keeled person she knew. He didn’t wear his heart on his sleeve. He didn’t display his emotions for the world to see.

  But as she watched his face, the most tortured expression she’d ever seen crossed it, and he squeezed his eyes shut for a second before he opened them to stare into hers. Then his gaze broke free as he looked to where Sam had retreated.

  A foreign cry she didn’t recognize ripped from her chest as she turned and ran after Sam.

  Hunter knew before Ever did that no amount of words or pleading or begging was going to make his brother listen to them. What he’d just witnessed, no matter what he was feeling for anyone in Nelson Island, no matter how happy he was with his new life here, had completely shattered his heart.

  He glanced over at Ever as the cab driver rolled away and they began walking back to the tack house on the Hopewell property.

  “Ever,” he began.

  “Don’t,” she said in a voice completely devoid of emotion.

  His head snapped back as though she’d slapped him. The last time he’d heard her voice sound like that was after her father died.

  “Don’t do this, Ever,” he pleaded. “Don’t shut me out. Now more than ever, you need to keep me close.”

  She didn’t say a word. Once back at the house, they packed up their things as Sam had requested, got in the truck, and began the long drive back to Virginia’s mountains and their beloved hometown.

  It wasn’t until they were halfway home that Ever finally spoke.

  “I can’t do this anymore, Hunter.”

  No. No, no, no. He had just lost his brother. It wasn’t going to be in vain. He wasn’t about to lose his heart, too.

  “Can’t do what?” he said, trying to keep his voice calm.

  “Can’t do this. Whatever this thing is between us, it’s over. It was wrong then, and it sure as hell is wrong now. Sam will never speak to either of us again. I’ll never be able to look at you without…without…”

  Her voice broke on her last words and he reached across the console for her hand. Once again, just like on the way to South Carolina, she ripped it out of his reac
h.

  “Just take me home, Hunter,” she said quietly, laying her head back on the seat and closing her eyes.

  He’d never been in love before. He guessed he’d always been holding out for Ever, in a way. He knew she belonged to Sam, and he knew they both thought it was forever. But no girl in the entire universe was going to be able to understand him the way she did. No girl would ever compare. So he’d waited until he had the opportunity to completely fall in love with her.

  Now that he had, he had no clue how he was going to be able to just sit back and let her walk out of his life.

  Fifteen

  Three Months Later

  My classes suck. But being in school at a big-ass university is kind of sweet. Hope you’re doing all right.

  He aimed a wry smile at his phone while he read the text Sam had sent him. It had only been a week since the first random text came in from his brother.

  Hunter was just amazed that Sam was speaking to him again.

  He saw him once, two months ago in July, when the sheriff had hauled him into the station and gleefully locked him in a cell. Brandon had gone around town gloating about it, and Hunter was there to see Sam in a matter of hours.

  So was the brunette from Nelson Island.

  The entire story had come out, and by a miracle, or by the smarts of the fancy attorney the brunette bombshell’s father had sent to Duck Creek for Sam, his brother had been cleared.

  So had Ever. She finally told the whole story of what happened. Her old school nurse quickly came forward to corroborate her early injuries. Along with some old hospital records—and what everyone in Duck Creek already knew about her father—it was enough to clear Ever of any wrongdoing.

  But Ever still hadn’t spoken a word to Hunter since that long drive back to Duck Creek.

  He had contemplated texting her so many times. He’d considered calling her phone. Cross had to damn near tie him up in order to stop him from just showing up at her house.

  His heart was in tatters. Ever had pulled the shredded pieces with her when she left him. She’d lost Sam, and so she’d given him up in return. That aching in his chest he felt whenever he was with her before was now a permanent state of being. The pain was nearly unbearable.