by Marie Force
“Hey,” she said when she joined him on the beach.
“What’re you doing down here? Don’t you have bridesmaid duties or some such thing?”
“Nope. Hannah didn’t want any of that.”
“Keeping it simple, huh?”
“That was the plan.”
“You look beautiful.”
“Thank you.” Hoping to hide her unreasonable pleasure at the unexpected compliment, Ella bent to pick up a flat, shiny stone and sent it flying over the surface of the water, counting at least twenty skips.
“Wow. That was awesome. Where’d you learn to skip like that?”
“I have seven brothers. You’d be surprised at all the stuff I know how to do.” The moment the words left her mouth, Ella realized there were a number of ways he could interpret them.
Thankfully, other than one rakishly raised brow, he didn’t comment.
“Are you okay?” She hadn’t spoken directly to him since the day of Homer Senior’s funeral, when he’d confessed to how acutely he still felt the pain of his brother’s death.
He looked over at her and then back at the lake as he let another stone go flying. “Truth?”
“Please.”
“I’ve had better days.”
“I’m sure it has to be very difficult for you—and your parents. I know how much it means to Hannah that you’re here.”
“Of course we’re here. We love them and wouldn’t have missed sharing this day with them. But still . . .”
“It hurts.”
“All the goddamned time. Sometimes more than others.”
Ella knew it wasn’t wise, but that didn’t stop her from moving closer to him. It didn’t stop her from putting her arms around him, and it didn’t stop her from wishing she could do something to ease his pain.
For a second, he seemed too startled to react, but then his arms came around her, too.
She looked up at him as he looked down at her. And then he was kissing her, roughly, without finesse or any of the things she would’ve expected from him. But finesse didn’t matter. She was kissing Gavin Guthrie, and her entire world was reduced to the feel of his lips on hers, the press of his tongue in her mouth and the tight clasp of his arms around her.
She curled her hand around the nape of his neck, wanting to keep him anchored to her.
Then he pulled away abruptly, leaving her bereft. “Christ, Ella. I’m sorry. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m so fucked up today. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”
She wanted to tell him not to be sorry, that she’d loved kissing him and wanted to do it again. But all she managed to say was “Wait.”
He turned to her, looking tormented and regretful.
“Don’t be sorry. I’m not.”
“You’re beautiful, Ella.” He stole her breath when he caressed her face. “Inside and out. If I were going to let something like this happen with anyone, you’d be the first one I’d call. But I’ve got nothing to give you, and it wouldn’t be fair. It just wouldn’t be fair.”
Before she could begin to formulate a response, he walked away, heading down the beach. She watched him go, noting the curve of his shoulders, an obvious indication of the pain he carried with him everywhere he went.
He said he had nothing to give her, but he’d just given her the one thing she’d never had where he was concerned—hope.
* * *
Colton was dying inside. All around him, people smiled and laughed and celebrated the beautiful bride and her handsome groom. He was so happy for his sister and her new husband, but inside, he ached.
Lucy was leaving him for good tomorrow, and he had to pretend like everything was fine when he felt like complete and absolute shit. He could tell by watching her as she talked to Charley and Cameron that she felt the same. Her smile was forced and her eyes were puffier than usual after she’d cried herself to sleep the night before.
He’d run out of ways to assure her that everything would be fine. He’d failed to persuade her to give him a chance to show her they could make this work if only she had faith. The effort to pretend that everything was fine when it wasn’t was wearing him out.
Looking to escape the prying eyes of his family, he went into the kitchen to grab a beer.
“Make it two,” his grandfather said.
Colton turned. “Where’d you come from?”
“I followed you.”
“Oh. Okay then.” Colton opened a second bottle of beer and handed it to Elmer. “Fantastic day, huh?”
“One of the best I can ever remember.”
Colton nodded in agreement. “Great job on the ceremony.”
“Glad you liked it.” Elmer took a sip of his beer. “What’s on your mind today, son? You’re not yourself.”
The last thing he wanted to do was introduce his problems into a day that should be trouble free for everyone. “Nothing much.”
“You may as well tell me. You know you want to tell someone.”
Colton laughed at his audaciousness, but he knew it came from a place of pure love. “Lucy and I have decided to break up. I’m bummed out, to say the least.”
“Huh.” Elmer leaned against the counter and thought about what Colton had said. “So that’s it? Over and done with?”
“I guess so. We’re both firmly rooted in our lives in two separate places.”
“Seems to me you’ve been working around that rather well for quite some time now.”
“I thought so, too, but she’s worried about what happens when it stops working.”
“So she’s going with a preemptive strike.”
“Something like that.”
“And how do you feel about it?”
“How do you think I feel? I’ve never felt worse about anything, but what choice do I have if this is what she wants?”
“I don’t believe for one second that this is what she wants. I believe it’s what she’s convinced herself needs to happen.”
“What’s the difference?”
“There’s a huge difference, Colton. Think about it. She wants the same things you do, but she’s convinced it can never happen. So you have to show her it can happen. Do what you do best and draw her a picture. Make a case. Prove to her you’re in it for keeps. You know what you have to do.”
“How do I do that when she’s telling me it’s over?”
“First, you give her a week or two to miss you, and then you go in for the kill.”
“You make it sound so dramatic.”
“You’re fighting for the life you want with the woman you love. If that’s not dramatic, I don’t know what is. You can’t leave anything on the table, my boy.”
Colton’s mind raced as he contemplated what his grandfather had said. “So I let her go tomorrow, and I let her think it’s what I want, too, even though it isn’t?”
“For starters.”
“And then I don’t call her or talk to her in any way for a week, maybe two . . .”
“That’s right. And you use that time very, very productively.”
“What if I do all this, and she still says it’s not what she wants?”
Elmer placed his hand on Colton’s shoulder and looked him square in the eye. “Then at least you’ll know you did everything you could and you’ll respect her wishes. But if I had to guess, I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
“You really think that will work?”
Elmer touched his beer bottle to Colton’s. “I really do.”
“I sure hope you’re right.” The alternative was unimaginable.
* * *
Saying good-bye to Colton the next morning at the airport was the most excruciatingly painful thing Lucy had ever done. In deference to the wedding and the happiness of the day, they hadn’t said a word to anyone yesterday about their decision to end their relationship. Lucy hadn’t even told Cameron.
After two nights of awkward silence between her and Colton, it was almost a relief to finally leave. He hadn’t begg
ed or pleaded with her to change her mind. Rather, he seemed to have accepted her decision, albeit reluctantly. That was for the best, she’d told herself during that second night as she lay awake next to him. Though he’d been right there with her, he’d been a million miles from her.
Gone was the teasing, the laughing, the loving, the talking, the playful bickering, replaced by a pervasive silence that shattered her already broken heart all over again.
When they arrived at the airport, Elmer and Sarah stuck their heads out the back window of the truck, and Lucy reached up to pet and kiss them both.
Almost as if she knew this was really good-bye, Sarah whimpered.
Lucy clung to her composure like a life raft in a stormy sea, determined to get through this without making a scene.
Colton deposited her suitcase and computer bag on the curb. “If you forgot anything, I’ll send it to you.”
“Thanks.” There was so much she wanted to say, but none of it mattered now. She placed a hand on his shoulder and went up on tiptoes to kiss him. “I’m sorry, Colton. I truly am.”
He hugged her—tightly—but he didn’t say anything. And then he let her go, because it was what she’d told him she wanted.
Lucy looped the strap of her computer bag over her shoulder and reached for the handle on her suitcase. She forced a smile for him and then walked away, all the while resisting the urge to look back. She’d made her decision. There was no point in looking back.
Once again feeling like she was wading through hip-deep snow, she went through the motions at security and moved like a zombie through the airport in search of her gate. She held it together on the short flight and in the cab ride home from LaGuardia.
Only when she reached the comfort of her own bed did she finally give in to the tears that had threatened to consume her for two days. She cried until her eyes and chest ached, until there was nothing left but the loneliness she’d inflicted upon herself.
Other than to tend to essential needs, she never moved from her bed for the rest of the night. Hours later she realized she’d been waiting for him to call her. But he didn’t call. He wouldn’t call again. She’d seen to that. It had been the right thing to do, even if it hurt like hell right now. It would only be worse a month or six months or a year from now.
It was for the best. If she just kept telling herself that, soon enough she might actually believe it.
During the next two weeks, she threw herself into work with an almost religious fervor. She worked twelve, fourteen and even sixteen hours a day, stopping only for an occasional meal with her sister and Simone or her dad, all of whom repeatedly expressed concern. But Lucy didn’t want to talk about it—not with her family and not with Cameron, who called several times hoping to talk it out.
Lucy had put her off each time, telling her best friend she wasn’t ready to talk about it. She didn’t tell Cameron she might never be ready to talk about it.
The goal of every day was utter exhaustion so she would fall into bed and drop off the cliff without taking even a minute to dwell on the agonizing pain that made its presence known every minute of every day, no matter how hard she tried to run from it.
Still trying to convince herself it was for the best, she worked late into the night on the second Friday without a weekend with Colton to look forward to. When her eyes gave out on her just after nine, she packed up a bag to bring home to get her through the long weekend that stretched before her.
She locked up the office and set out on foot for home, stopping to pick up takeout. Everything reminded her of him, even the takeout box that stirred memories of a picnic they’d had at Battery Park. In the short time he’d spent with her here, he’d managed to touch almost every aspect of her life. She saw him in her apartment, in her office and at many of her favorite local haunts. She heard his voice and his laughter in her dreams, and a thousand times each day she thought of something she wanted to tell him.
As that second week came to a slow, quiet, painful end, she finally began to question whether living like this was better than living with him any way they could.
That question was weighing heavily on her as she walked the final block home. She was so deeply mired in her own head and unhappy thoughts that she nearly tripped over the large foot on the bottom stair that led to her front door. The near fall finally jarred her out of the contemplation, and she looked up to bitch out the owner of the offending foot.
The words died on her lips when she saw Colton sitting there, beer in hand, smile on his face, as if he had not a care in the world. “Working late, huh?”
For a second, she was too stunned to speak. “What . . . What’re you doing here?”
“I had some business to take care of in the city, so I figured I’d stop by to see how you’re doing.” He took a closer look at her, no doubt seeing the deep, dark purple circles under her eyes, the pale pasty skin, the dull, lifeless hair that had required more energy than she could bother to muster. “How’re you doing, Luce?”
“Great. I’m great. You?”
“Fantastic. Never been better.”
“That’s good.”
“No, wait,” he said after a long awkward pause. “That’s not exactly true. I’m actually terrible. I’m a goddamned mess, and it’s all your fault.”
She couldn’t hear this. She couldn’t go backward. Not when it had taken everything she had to move forward for the last few weeks. “Colton, please don’t—”
“You’ve had your say, Lucy. Now I’m going to have mine.” He got up and headed for the door to her building, using the key she’d given him and apparently forgotten to get back. “Are you coming?”
The part of her that still favored self-preservation wanted to run for its life. But the other part of her, the part that loved this man with her whole heart and soul, had realized the moment she laid eyes on him that there was nowhere she could go to fully escape the power of what she felt for him.
So she went up the stairs and through the door he held for her. She trudged up the two flights of stairs knowing he was behind her, coming with her to say whatever it was he had to say. She stepped into her apartment and sucked in a sharp breath when she saw it was filled with flowers of every imaginable kind.
She turned to him, overwhelmed with questions, but the words escaped her.
He relieved her of the bag she’d carried from the office, took her hand and led her to the sofa. A wrapped box with a bow on top sat on her coffee table. He pointed to it. “Open it.”
Lucy’s hands trembled as she tugged at the satin bow and unwrapped the book that looked like one of the journals he kept on the mountain. “What is this?”
“Look at it.”
She looked first at him and then directed her attention to the book, which was filled with drawings of the two of them—in her apartment in the city, on his mountain, with the dogs, with his family, with her family, at her office, in his bed in the cabin. The drawings were heartfelt and amazingly true to the time they’d already spent together. “This is . . . it’s incredible, Colton. You’re so talented.”
“Keep going.”
She turned the pages until she came to one that was marked Chapter 2. The first page carried a heading that said Life in New York that showed them eating dinner on her sofa while watching TV. On the next page they were in her bed. The story unfolded from there on the streets of New York, at her father’s home, with Simone and Emma at their apartment, on a sidewalk café and at her office.
The heading on the next page said Life in Vermont, and it showed her working at the desk space he’d made available to her in the retail store while he chopped wood outside. He’d included a picture of Sunday dinner at his parents’ home and a scene at the beach at Lake Champlain.
Touched and filled with longing for all the things depicted on the pages, she stopped for a moment to deal with the flood of tears that cascaded down her cheeks.
He took the book from her. “This is my favorite part.” The heading said Chapte
r 3: Colton and Lucy, Life Together. The first picture was one of Colton with her dad. “That was my first order of business in New York. Speaking to your dad.”
Startled to hear that he’d been to her father’s house, Lucy said, “Why?”
“Keep reading.”
The next page included a picture of a wedding and pregnant Lucy and another of Colton grinning widely as he held a baby who had red hair. “Colton . . .”
“We could have all of this, Lucy, every single thing on these pages and so many other things we can’t yet imagine. All you have to do is agree to be with me in any way we see fit. We’re both self-employed and can make up the rules of our own lives. One week here, one week there, one week in the Caribbean on a beach together, two weeks in Vermont, three weeks in New York. Together every day.”
She wanted what he offered so badly she could almost taste it. “You can’t be away from the mountain for that long.”
“Yes, I can. Max is coming on board full time, and my family has decided to buy the place next door that’s been on the market for some time now. We’re going to add to our acreage and hire some more help. I’ll have Max with me to help manage everything. The only time I absolutely have to be there is from January to April. I figure you can come and go as you need to then.”
“What about when you’re here? What would you do?”
He pointed to a picture he’d drawn of a store with two men talking. “The last time I was here, I spoke with the owner of a gourmet shop who’s interested in stocking our syrup in his store. I suspect there are many others who might be convinced to carry our product once they hear about it. That’s what I’ll do while I’m here—sell syrup.”
She ran her hand over the leather-bound book full of drawings. “You’ve thought of everything,” Lucy said, truly wowed by the obvious time and effort he’d put into showing her how their unconventional life together could work.
“Except for one thing—protecting that tender heart of yours.” He knelt before her, took the book from her and placed it on the table. “I’ve loved you from the first time I ever laid eyes on you. I’ll always love you. I’ve missed you more than you could ever know these last two weeks, and I never want to be away from you again. I want you to have the commitment you need to believe that we can really make this work, so I’m asking you, Lucy Mulvaney, to marry me and to live with me in our two places, to make a life with me that works for both of us.” He produced a ring that he held up to her, almost daring her to take everything he offered. “Will you marry me, Lucy?”
