Last Kiss

by Luanne Rice

  “The totally very wrong tree,” Stevie said.

  Stevie didn’t speak, just sat there gazing into Sheridan’s eyes. In the silence, Sheridan felt their long friendship. She saw the fine lines in Stevie’s face, the strands of gray in her hair, and she thought of how different it must be to be having a first baby now instead of when Sheridan had Charlie. She saw the relaxation of tension in Stevie’s being, the ease that had come over her since falling in love with Jack, becoming like a stepmother to Nell.

  “Aside from the fact he’s so wrong about Charlie and Nell, how was it having Gavin at the house?”

  “It was…” Sheridan said. She trailed off, because she didn’t know how to answer. She thought of the stress of sitting there with a man she had once loved so much, the strange betrayal of him being unable to change his nature for her. She thought of the wrong direction he was taking, thinking of her son as being so cavalier with Nell’s heart. And then she thought of his kiss, and the thoughts pulverized into nothing.

  “Like that, huh?” Stevie asked.

  “Pretty much.”

  “I guess it’s never smooth sailing. Jack…well, he disappeared for a while last night. He’s had a lot on his mind lately, and after dinner he went to think things over. It was hot, and I couldn’t sleep without him here…”

  “Is everything okay with you two?” Sheridan asked.

  “Yes,” Stevie said, nodding. “It’s great. Only Jack won’t believe that. He’s stuck on the marriage thing.”

  “Ah.”

  “Anyway, I went to look for him. I knew he’d be somewhere on the beach.”

  “Did you find him?”

  “Yes,” Stevie said. “I met him as he was coming back from Little Beach. He’d built a fire.”

  “That was him?” Sheridan asked. “I saw it, thought it was kids…”

  “Nope. It was Jack.”

  “Pretty romantic gesture,” Sheridan said.

  “Speaking of romantic gestures, you should have seen Gavin last night. Jack and I walked along the water, and looked out to his boat. He was standing on deck, staring right up at your window, as if all he wanted to do was go up the hill to you. We could see it in his body—he was just holding himself back.”

  “How can you know that?”

  “Because he was thinking the same thing at dinner last night…the way he sat there right next to you, looking so protective. He’s in love with you. Sheridan, he always has been.”

  Sheridan stood and walked to one of the west-facing windows. She looked down at the beach, gazed across the bay at the Squire Toby. The sun was hitting the white hull, making it gleam. She peered at the deck, trying to see if Gavin was there, but it was too far away.

  “And in spite of what I just said about it never being smooth sailing,” Stevie said, “I think you’re in love with him, too.”

  “Nothing has ever really worked between us. How could I be crazy enough to fall in love with him again?”

  “How crazy would you have to be to get struck by lightning?” Stevie asked, laughing.

  “It’s not the same thing,” Sheridan said. “I have no power over what lightning does.”

  “Well, waves then. How crazy would you have to be to ride a long, unpredictable, possibly rough wave?”

  “That’s nature,” Sheridan said, starting to laugh as well. “That’s not falling in love with someone you know is wrong for you.”

  “Can you work with me on this?” Stevie asked. “Don’t you get what I’m saying? You and Gavin have known each other forever. You grew up together, you fell in love young, made a ton of mistakes, then went your separate ways. But what’s meant to be is meant to be. It’s the power of nature—you can’t stop or change it.”

  “You mean like you and Jack?”

  “Yes,” Stevie said. “Like us. We all grew up together here at Hubbard’s Point, and you know what they say…people fall in love here. The air is an aphrodisiac.”

  Sheridan smiled at her friend. It was true, that people said that. “Well, if you’re so in love with him—and it’s obvious you are—then why aren’t you two getting married?”

  That made Stevie stop. She gave Sheridan a smile, picked up her paintbrush again, stared at her canvas. Sheridan watched her other hand go to her pregnant belly and rest there.

  “I’m sorry,” Sheridan said.

  “Oh, that’s okay. We all have our sore subjects,” Stevie said. “Interesting that for us, you and me, they so deeply involve men. You know what I wish?”

  Sheridan shook her head.

  “That I could just wipe the slate clean. Go back in time and just be with Jack. Skip right over the others. Don’t you wish that for you and Gavin?”

  Still standing at the window, Sheridan looked down at the beach. Did she wish that? She shivered, to think of kissing him last night, and she wondered how different everything would be if she’d had a lifetime of that. But she wouldn’t have had Charlie—he had come from Randy. Just as Nell was Jack’s daughter with Emma; if Jack had been with Stevie all this time, Nell wouldn’t have been born.

  “Scratch what I just said,” Stevie said, hand still on her belly. She’d obviously been thinking the same things.

  Sheridan kissed Stevie, glanced at the painting—so beautiful and tender—of the three baby robins about to fly.

  “Looks like us,” Sheridan heard herself say.

  “What do you mean?” Stevie asked.

  “We’re all about to fly,” Sheridan said. “Everyone who’s ever been born, at every moment. Trying to fly…Always stepping off the branch into something new. Feels like such a long way down…”

  “That’s a song, Sheridan,” Stevie said sternly, giving her a hug. “Now go home and write it.”

  STEVIE STOOD AT HER EASEL getting lost in work, just as she’d always done. She’d never found anything to both take her mind off her problems and help her solve them like painting. And not just physically applying paint to canvas, but all the preparation that went into it: coming up with the right subject, making sketches, letting her imagination follow the threads of what would become her next children’s book, going to the lumberyard and buying wood, stretching the canvas, applying gesso, starting to paint.

  She spent the late afternoon working on the baby robins, already starting to think about her next book, The Big Bang, listening to notes drift through the privet hedge from Sheridan’s house. Had Sheridan actually listened to her, gone home to work on a song about trying to fly? If so, Stevie would be first in line to buy the CD. She really needed some lessons in getting brave enough to spread her wings and take the leap.

  Jack had left for London. After she’d met him on the beach last night, she’d smelled the smoke. He told her he’d built a fire to keep himself warm—the implication being that she was making him cold. Then he said something about just needing a chance to think, to commune with the stars—a most un-Jack thing to say.

  Jack was an architect. He was about precision, meticulousness, exactitude. He specialized in bridges, spanning rivers, currents, and roadways. He worked with concrete and steel—not spells and ablutions.

  “Why did you need to commune with the stars?” she’d asked, stunned.

  He’d just stared at her—as if he had no idea of who she was, of why she had to ask that question. He’d said very little after that. They’d walked along the water’s edge, gazing out at Gavin’s boat. This morning he’d packed in silence, then kissed her and left for the airport.

  Stevie heard the door open downstairs. She listened for Nell, heard nothing. What did Nell think of Gavin’s theory about Charlie? Stevie couldn’t imagine she could feel happy about it, and wanted to talk to her about it.

  “Nell, I’m up here!” she called.

  A moment later, she heard a heavy tread on the stairs—a man, definitely. She tensed up, but then Jack stepped into her studio.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked. “Why aren’t you at the airport?”

  “I’m not goi
ng,” he said, dropping his bag on the floor. He stood in front of her, dressed for his trip. He was one of the most sought-after bridge architects in the world. He wore a dark suit and blue silk tie, he was the most elegant man Stevie knew, but when she looked into his eyes she saw the young man she’d always loved, the boy she’d met right here at Hubbard’s Point.

  “Why aren’t you going?” she asked.

  “Because I have to talk to you.” He grabbed her hand, gently pulled her away from the easel, led her to the loveseat where she’d been sitting with Sheridan just an hour earlier. Pushing the hair out of her face, he stared into her eyes. “What are we doing?” he asked.

  “We’re living life,” she said, catching hold of his hand. “We’re having a baby.”

  “We’re wasting time,” he said, his voice hard.

  “Jack, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Stevie said. “You’re supposed to be meeting the Lord Mayor tomorrow, right? He wants you to build the newest London Bridge, and you’re here worrying about us wasting time?”

  “You know what I’m talking about,” he said.

  “No, I really don’t.”

  “Aren’t you paying attention?”

  “Of course I am, Jack.”

  “Last night, going to dinner at Sheridan’s…then seeing Gavin afterwards, just sitting on his boat, staring up at the light in her window. Seeing him like that…”

  “She was over here earlier,” Stevie said. “I told her, he’s in love with her.”

  “Gavin’s not the only one who’s in love,” Jack said.

  “I’m in love with you, too,” she whispered.

  Stevie felt butterflies in her chest. Jack’s eyes glittered. She’d almost fooled herself into thinking he was happy with things the way they were. They had so much to be blissful for; she held his hand, trying to reassure him of how much they had.

  She knew he thought she was being contrary, being unconventional for its own sake. But couldn’t he understand how afraid she was? She’d been married three times, and each of them had ended in divorce. Why did the piece of paper matter so much to him when she felt so much more secure without it?

  “Stevie,” he said, leaning forward.

  “Jack, please…don’t.”

  “Explain it to me.”

  “I have,” she said. “Again and again. You don’t understand…I love you so much, but I don’t do marriage well.”

  “You’ve never been married to me.”

  That was true, and she knew it. She stared into his beautiful blue eyes and knew she never wanted to look into anyone else’s, knew she never wanted to be with anyone else, knew she wanted to grow old with him.

  “You’re having my baby,” he said. “We’re a family. I want you to be my wife, and I want you to be Nell’s stepmother. You’ve been that to her all these years, but I want to make it official….”

  “‘Official,’” she said. “What does that matter?”

  “It matters, okay? Stevie, you think you’re being nonconformist, is that it? Miss Artist? I’m telling you, I love you and I want to marry you.”

  “Jack, I can’t just see the world the way you want me to!”

  He stood up, eyes blazing. “I’m the one wearing the suit, and you’re the one wearing a paint smock, but you know what? You’re conventional.”

  Stevie reacted as if he’d slapped her. “What are you talking about?”

  “You’re walking the straight and narrow here. Sticking to the path you’ve set for yourself. So what if you’ve made some mistakes—you think I haven’t? If that happens, we’ll get through it together.”

  “We don’t need a ring to prove anything!” Stevie said.

  “Maybe I do,” Jack said. “Have you ever thought of that?”

  She stared at him, the butterflies-in-the-chest feeling getting stronger.

  “I told you,” he said. “Last night really affected me. Being at Sheridan’s house, looking up and down the table, missing Charlie. My friend lost her son; my daughter lost her boyfriend. Stevie, life is really short. Don’t you get that?”

  “Of course I do,” she said, shocked by his tone.

  “Didn’t you hear what Agatha said, about dreams?”

  “That was for Sheridan’s benefit!” Stevie said. “Sheridan and Gavin, giving them a little push…”

  “Maybe they’re not the ones who need it!”

  “I live with you, Jack! I’m having your child. We don’t need a push!”

  “Here’s what I’m going to do,” he said, standing in front of her, taking her hand. “I’m going to ask you one more time. And that’ll be it.”

  “Are you giving me an ultimatum?” she asked. “If I don’t say yes, it’s going to be over?”

  “Do you really think that’s what I mean?” he asked. “It can never be over. I love you forever, Stevie. I’m just getting really tired of proposing. I was halfway to JFK when I realized I had to come back here and ask you…”

  “You could have waited till you got back.”

  His blue eyes filled with tears. It took a few seconds before he could speak again. “But what if something happened? To me, to the plane? God forbid, to you. Everything feels so fragile and precious, Stevie. When I die, I want to die as your husband. Please, don’t make me go to London without knowing that’s going to happen….”

  Stevie held his hand, looking into his eyes. She thought of Sheridan here just an hour ago, of the grief she’d suffered this year. She heard music coming through the trees, and knew it was a new song, about learning to fly.

  She glanced down at her easel, at the young robins poised and ready to spread their wings. Her chest was full of butterflies now—they were flying around, bumping into her ribs—and she wasn’t at all sure she wasn’t about to pass out.

  “Stevie Moore,” Jack said, his eyes still wet but his tone so strong, “will you marry me?”

  At first she couldn’t speak. She opened her mouth and tried, but the words were stuck. Outside the window, a sea breeze blew through the trees. Only when she looked down toward the beach, she saw the flag absolutely still—not a bit of wind was blowing. Yet up here, on the hill, right in front of Stevie’s cottage, the leaves rustled.

  She stared right at Jack, and the butterflies were gone.

  “Stevie?” Jack asked.

  She felt herself nod. She knew—she had always known, and now she knew something else, too: it was time.

  “Yes,” she whispered, looking up into the face of the man she’d always loved. “Yes, Jack, I will…I’ll marry you.”

  NELL HAD CHASED the young man through the cemetery, over the wall, and halfway up the hill before she’d tripped on a root and lost him. She’d finished scrambling up the hillside and run through the beach roads calling after him, feeling like a maniac, scaring everyone she saw. She’d even run into Mr. Belanger, who’d heard her and stopped her to say she was wrong—he’d seen the same young man, made the same mistake, thought it was Charlie Rosslare.

  “But it wasn’t,” Mr. Belanger said, sounding sad. “He said I’d made a mistake. And I told him he had a double.”

  Nell had thanked him, but she refused to believe she was wrong. She’d seen Charlie with her own two eyes. And even though Mr. Belanger had been in charge of the beach, and the lifeguards, while Charlie had worked there, he didn’t know him the way Nell had. So she walked back to the grave to wait. Surely Charlie had seen her, had heard her calling, and regardless of what had made him run from her, he would come back.

  She lay down on the grass to think. Her mind raced, running over the events of the last couple of days. The strangeness had started out on Gavin’s boat, looking at that website for the band Cumberland. She’d looked through the pictures—mostly fan-type photos of the band, but also some shots of the crowd. That’s when she’d first seen Charlie.

  The image had been hazy. She’d squinted and stared, unable to believe her eyes. She’d told herself she had to be wrong. Gavin’s computer screen w
as scratched; also, it was coated with that thin film of salt, those little white crystals that seemed to get on everything around the water. She’d leaned closer, looking more carefully at the photo, and, like Mr. Belanger, had thought she was wrong.

  Like him, she’d thought Charlie had a double. Or maybe an identical twin, separated at birth. One far-fetched explanation after another had flooded her mind. The date, December 21, had been so clearly labeled, and she remembered being with him that night. But labels could be wrong, websites full of mistakes.

  Gavin had been sensitive, prying into whether Charlie might have lied, whether he could have been seeing someone else. Nell had nearly snapped his head off. But lying here now, knowing she’d just seen Charlie…what else could she think? They’d buried his body, though—she had to be going crazy. Could a mistake have been made? Could that boy who’d died by the river been someone else, while Charlie was still alive?

  No, she told herself. No, Charlie would never do that to her, to them. Never, never. There was another explanation. Just as she knew, deep in her heart, that Charlie had not been in Nashville that night.

  That night, the December before he’d died, he’d been with Nell right here at Hubbard’s Point. They’d built a fire and snuggled together in the falling snow. It had been the most romantic winter solstice any couple had ever had, and she’d never forget it. So one thing was definite—the person in the picture was one hundred percent not Charlie Rosslare.

  The person who’d been here at his grave, however—that was Charlie. Nell was exhausted from seeing him and chasing him. Her eyelids were heavy, and her body felt so tired. She was eighteen years old, and she wanted Charlie.

  She wanted her love.

  She thought of Agatha’s toast about dreams coming true. She wanted to close her eyes and be with Charlie. It seemed impossible to imagine the days and nights she’d spent without him so far; the concept of eternity was too terrible to accept. And now she didn’t have to—because he was back.

  She pressed her cheek into the ground at the foot of his headstone. Birds sang in the trees, and shade from the robins’ white pine fell across the hill. Nell and Stevie had saved those baby robins, delivered the nest and eggs back to their mother.