by Audra North
Ryan grinned. “Had you fallen asleep in a hayloft?”
I shook my head. “In the bed of our neighbor’s old pickup truck, actually. Ted was the one who found me. He didn’t even scold me or anything, just picked me up and let me keep sleeping as he carried me home.”
“Sounds like a good guy.”
“He was.”
“You think his son is as nice as he was?”
I nodded. “Well, I hope so, anyway. I have to admit that he might refuse to sign the extension, but since that won’t be a problem unless I actually do find him, I haven’t spent too much time worrying about it.”
He eyed me for a moment. “Well…look...if it helps, I’d be happy to hire a private investigator for you. I know you said you were saving up for it, but if you only have a couple of months, it might take longer than you have to get the money together. I’m selling the house soon, anyway, so I’m not worried about spending a little bit right now if it means helping you out.”
My heart squeezed at his words. It was a nicer offer than even he probably realized. He’d been having such a hard time making that next step to get the dining room cleaned out and the house put up for sale. We’d talked about it a little, but there was something still holding him back.
Something he wouldn’t tell me.
As much as I hated to admit it, that hurt.
I thought you said there was nothing to forgive.
The thought surprised me, and I barely managed to stammer an answer. “I-I’ll think about it.”
What if there is something? What if Mom was right? What if you love him?
“Are you sure you don’t want me to hire someone today? Might be good to use the time you have.”
Yes.
No.
I nodded. “I’m sure. For today, anyway. But I really will think about it.”
He smiled. “Okay, fair enough.” He gestured to my plate. “Hungry?”
I cocked my head, surprised. “Yeah, actually.” I made myself forget about those too-deep topics of trust, love, and forgiveness. Instead, I picked up my fork. “Let’s eat.”
* * *
Ryan
I liked her so much.
Emery was lying against me on the sofa, where we’d ended up after bursting into my house and having sex on the floor, unable to make it the few feet down the hall to my bedroom. It wasn’t as comfortable as my bed, but right now, I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
“Hey.” Her voice was soft, muffled where her face was resting against my chest.
“Hey.” I ran my hands through her hair, enjoying the way the strands fell heavy from my fingers.
I felt her take a breath against me. Uh oh. I already knew she was about to say something important, just from the way that breath felt.
“How are things going with selling the house?”
I blew out a breath, stirring the hairs at the top of her head. She’d asked me about it a couple times before, but I’d put her off. I hadn’t felt like telling her about what my mom had said, about the deposit box and how fucking afraid I was.
I still didn’t feel like talking about it. If I told Emery everything, if I shared every last bit of myself with her, I would lose my heart to her, and then what? When we went our separate ways at the end of the summer, she’d take every part of me with her.
“They’re not. Going, I mean. I just—I’ve been a little busy.”
Too busy, even though I knew that she knew that I’d had plenty of opportunity to do it. Most of those things merely needed to be given away or put into storage. It wouldn’t take long. A day, at most. The rest of the house was done, even. All of Mom’s furniture was gone, all the paintings wrapped and stacked against the wall in the dining room. But somehow, those last items—the letters she’d written, the photos of her, the shoes and clothes that she’d worn, that I still had memories of her wearing…
I hadn’t been able to. I’d held my breath through every drawer I’d emptied, every letter I’d read, thinking that this would finally be it. That I’d know what she’d been talking about before she’d died, when she barely managed to get out the words I should have told you…things you need to know…you’ll know soon….so sorry.
That was it. That’s all she’d said about whatever it was, and yet nothing had shown up in her things. All that time I’d put it off, and all I’d found that made my skin tighten and my hairs stand on end was that key. The key to a safe deposit box at Mom’s old bank, in an envelope with my name on it.
I couldn’t do it.
Emery’s hand stroked over my chest. “I know it’s hard. But maybe you need to put away the past before you can have a future.”
That was all she said, but it made me feel good. It made me want to do it. For her. I wanted her to be proud of me. We’d spent a month of supposedly casual dating, but it felt like longer. For all that she’d talked about not getting serious, we saw each other at least three times a week. I knew things about her that I hadn’t intended to learn, but now I couldn’t imagine not knowing.
There were the obvious bits of knowledge, like that she’d been born and raised on PEI and she was an only child. Her favorite color was blue and her favorite ice cream flavor was coffee chocolate chip.
But there were also stories attached to those bits of knowledge that were somehow pulling us closer together, like that her school colors were blue and white, and she felt such an intense loyalty to the people she knew and the places that had shaped her that she’d changed her favorite color from green to blue when she arrived at Toronto her freshman year.
She liked coffee chocolate chip ice cream because it was bitter and sweet at the same time, and she loved tasting and feeling and experiencing everything as intensely as possible. She missed having a father she could believe in, and she wanted her mom to be safe and secure, but she was also angry at her mother and just hadn’t realized it yet. There was a terse, two-sentence story around that, but I could tell all the scared, angry, worried volume behind it.
We hadn’t said that we wouldn’t see other people, but neither of us was seeing anyone else. And I knew that neither of us would until this was over.
Fuck.
I wasn’t going to lose my heart to her.
I’d already lost it.
Chapter 10
Emery
“I can’t believe you have to do this all day, every day.” Ryan tucked the sheet under the mattress on the opposite side of the bed. He’d shown up at the resort half an hour ago, ready to take me hiking like we’d agreed, but Martine had called in sick and asked me to take two of her rooms before I left to go hiking.
I had agreed. It had been more than a month now that I’d been working as a maid, and I had learned how to be efficient. This wouldn’t take long, and with Ryan helping, the work was flying by.
I laughed. “You’ve helped me make two beds. Are you seriously already tired?”
Ryan pretended to collapse on the floor. “I don’t think we can go hiking today. I’ve already used up all of my energy.”
I picked up the comforter and began smoothing it out over the bed. “Well, that’s too bad. If you don’t have any energy for hiking, then I guess you really won’t have any energy for the special picnic I have planned. I was planning to eat something exceptionally delicious.”
“Don’t you mean serve?” Ryan’s voice floated up to me from the floor.
I smirked. “No, I meant eat…and lick…and suck. But if you’re too tired…”
Ryan jumped up off the floor. “I might be getting a second wind.”
I threw a pillow at him. “You’re so predictable. Now let’s finish this room so that we can find a private enough spot on our hike for our picnic.”
He helped me dust the furniture and clean the bathroom, chatting as he worked, telling me funny stories about his college life, and all I could think was, I’m falling for him.
He was smart, and funny, and sensitive. I found myself wanting things, not from him, but for him. I
worried about the way he never talked about his mom…the fact that he couldn’t move past her death and clean out his old life once and for all. I didn’t like the way it made me feel shut out. I didn’t like how much I wanted to be a part of his life.
But I was still so scared. What if he let me down? He was bound to do it sooner or later. Everyone did.
Without forgiveness, you lose out on so many opportunities for real love.
Did that mean that I needed to forgive him first, for not sharing himself with me? Or that, like I’d thought all along, I’d find out that there was nothing to forgive?
Did it even matter? I hadn’t come here to find Ryan Miller. I’d come here to find Theodore Chambers.
I was letting myself down enough without inviting someone else to join me.
We finished cleaning, and an hour later, we were at the base of a secluded mountain trail. I laughed when I saw that there was no one else around. Not even another car in the small gravel lot that was more like a wide shoulder at the side of the road. After Ryan had parked his truck, he’d grabbed a blanket out of the back and thrown it into his backpack, along with a few sandwich fixings we’d picked up in town on the way out.
We started up the trail, the only sound the birds in the trees and our boots crunching over the earth.
After a few minutes, Ryan looked over at me. “Hey, so…I found a guy who can look into the whole Chambers thing for you. I know you said you weren’t sure, but we haven’t talked about it since last week, so I thought it might help if I at least found someone reputable, in case you were worried about them scamming you.”
I sighed in frustration and shook my head. “I don’t know. Honestly, it’s more that part of me will feel like such a failure if I hire a PI. And I’ll hate myself for being such an idiot. Like, if I’m just going to get someone else to find this guy, anyway, then I shouldn’t have turned down that internship. I mean, it’s still not like I would have been able to afford it on an intern’s wages, which also makes me feel—” I stopped, thinking that I was starting to sound whiny. “I guess I’m just not sure anymore what I’m doing here.”
Ryan was quiet for a minute, but then he said softly, “Look, I know it’s selfish, but I’m glad you didn’t take that internship.”
I looked over at him to find him smiling at me and I couldn’t help it. I stopped on the path and kissed him.
“Me, too,” I told him when we finally stepped apart and continued along the trail. I was glad. I enjoyed spending time with Ryan, even if it wasn’t what I’d come here to do. As to Theodore Chambers, I was running out of time to find him, that much was certain. A month had gone by since I’d arrived here, and it had been even longer since Ted died. I had maybe six weeks left to figure out where this guy was.
It was time for me to put my trust in someone else.
I swallowed. Took a deep breath. Swallowed again. “Also, I-I would really appreciate it if you’d help me out with the PI.”
There. I did it. I braced myself for an intense feeling of disappointment in myself, but Ryan looked so happy that I’d agreed that his grin alone sort of…took away a lot of the bad stuff. He grabbed my hand. “Great. I’ll set up a meeting so you can get it straightened out.”
“I’ll pay you back, I promise. I’ve got some money saved already.”
“It’s okay. Really. I don’t mind.”
“Yes, but you’re already having to push to get the house up for sale so you can pay for med school—”
“Emery.” His voice was quiet, but intense. “It’s okay. Why can’t you let anyone take care of you?”
I shrugged and looked away. “I don’t really like being dependent.”
“What about your parents? Don’t you depend on them?” Ryan stroked over my knuckles and the gesture made me soften and sigh.
“When my dad was first diagnosed, when he was in his twenties, they thought it was depression. They put him on medication that didn’t work very well, and he became suicidal. I was just a baby, but my mom told me a little bit about it and I think it was one of the worst times in his life.”
Ryan didn’t say anything. Just that soft touch as we walked on. I stared at the trees and focused on his hand in mine.
“He tried to kill himself when I was two years old. They ended up checking him into a psychiatric hospital, where the doctors realized he’d been misdiagnosed. They put him on a new medication and he seemed to get better, but it only lasted a few years. They had to adjust his meds every few years, but he kept getting worse and worse. We didn’t learn until I was twelve that it not only worsens over time, but that sometimes people with bipolar disorder will only pretend to take their medication, like my dad did back then. My mom spent so much time trying to manage him that she never really had enough for me.”
I waved my hand in the air as if to say, But that’s not really important, even though it was. It was a part of what I’d been thinking about for the past month. But I wasn’t talking about that right now.
“When I was fifteen, my dad disappeared for a week. My mom was afraid he’d suffered a depressive episode and killed himself. In fact, he’d had a particularly severe manic episode, bought a ticket to Vegas, gambled like crazy, and came back when he finally realized where he was and what he’d been doing. My mom tried the best she could to keep things balanced, but by then I was pretty much on my own, anyway. He’s been better since then, and with advances in research and new medications, he has actually been pretty stable for a few years. But it was the end of even any hope for a relationship with my dad.”
Ryan’s hand squeezed mine. “I’m sorry, Emery.”
I shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant, but for some reason, that conversation with my mom that had been following me around all summer was still bothering me—especially today.
Love isn’t just about trusting someone. It’s about forgiving mistakes, too.
Why couldn’t I forgive Dad? Hell. Why couldn’t I forgive Mom for continuing to forgive Dad? For missing out on so much of my life?
I gave up my attempt at pretending not to care. “I wish I could forgive him. Both of them. But it’s too late now.”
Ryan was silent for a little bit, and when I looked over at him, I saw that his brow was furrowed and he was frowning. Why was he frowning?
“You okay?” I nudged him with my shoulder, and he shook off his frown, nodding.
“Yeah. I was just thinking. About how time sometimes fools us. Like, we think we should be doing things faster, and if we don’t do it as fast as we’re supposed to, then we think we’ve just lost the chance when in reality it’s just waiting for us to come to our senses.”
Wow. That was definitely about more than just me and my parents. I thought about Ryan’s reluctance to clean out his dining room and sell the house, and about how long it had taken him.
But maybe he was right. Maybe in the end it had taken him just the right amount of time.
Maybe our chance was still waiting.
* * *
Ryan
About halfway up the mountain, we reached a narrow path that led to the bank of a wide stream. I walked behind Emery as we pushed our way through the trees, until the ground cleared out a bit next to the water.
She stopped at the stream. “Want to take a break here?”
It was the first thing either of us had said since she’d told me how things were between her and her parents, and I’d started thinking about my mom, and the house, and I hadn’t really felt like talking after that.
“Sure, this is a great place.” I dropped my backpack on the ground, and she followed suit, then went to pull the blanket from my bag. But instead of spreading it out on the ground, she folded it into a small square and then placed it on the ground right in front of me.
That square wasn’t big enough for both of us to sit on, let alone spread out our admittedly small picnic.
“What are you—?”
She dropped to her knees on the blanket.
“Oh.�
�
Apparently, my confused feelings didn’t extend to my dick, because it was already rising at the mere sight of her kneeling before me. Fuck. I loved it when Emery went down on me. One night a couple of weeks ago, she had sucked and teased me for nearly half an hour, and the torment had been the greatest thing I’d ever felt. Those full pink lips, wet mouth—
Her fingers slipped under my waistband, and I whispered her name as she pulled down my loose basketball shorts, taking my underwear with them. My cock sprang free, already hard and aching for her mouth. Any lingering thoughts about the rest of my life had completely disappeared now, and all I could do was watch and wait in hot, throbbing anticipation.
She stroked her hand down my shaft, pulling the skin taut as she arched up and put her tongue on me, licking slowly, leisurely, from the base to the tip.
Hell yeah.
I murmured in appreciation and slid my fingers into her hair, tugging lightly. I could never resist doing that. It was like an unspoken language that we’d somehow developed over the past month, a command to take more of me, to suck harder, faster.
And she did. She sucked the head of my cock into her mouth, flattening her tongue against the sensitive underside, and my hips rocked forward, trying to slide deeper into her mouth. But she held me firmly in place, stroking my cock up and down in the circle of her fingers as she continued to tease the tip.
Damn, that felt so good.
My grip in her hair tightened, and this time her mouth followed the path of her hand as she slid it all the way down. The wet, warm suction made my eyes roll back in my head, and the way she took all of me was…I didn’t even have words, because fuck. She’d taken all of me, which wasn’t insubstantial, and she was working my dick in and out of her mouth. Each stroke ended on a hard suck and a squeeze of her hand, just the right pressure to make me ache for more but not quite beg.
