by Gwen Hayes
1997
Dartmouth College
Oh my goddess, I’m really here.
It was like a dream, and yet it wasn’t. Heather’s dad had left an hour ago and her roommate wasn’t moving in until tomorrow, so Heather was on her own, exploring the college campus.
I’m really, really here.
She found where her classes would be already and was considering heading back to her dorm—but she was too restless. It was like the whole world opened up and she didn’t know what to do with it first.
Boys were always an option. She’d seen enough cute ones today to feel good about her choice of colleges. The dining hall wasn’t open yet, which was also good because she didn’t need to get a head start on the freshman fifteen she’d heard about. She had a bag full of flyers from all the clubs and social organizations who’d set up informational tables across the campus—she was really excited about those. She felt—grown up—ready to tackle social injustice and environmental concerns with her fellow students. She’d also taken the free condoms and the glow bracelet for the mixer starting at midnight tonight because why the hell not? She’d never been to anything that started at midnight before. That was her curfew at home.
She let the little ping of homesickness ricochet through her heart. Yeah, it was already starting. But that was okay. It was a good kind of pain. Bittersweet. She and her dad had been a pretty tight unit since her mom had died. Other than Camp Firefly Falls in the summers, this would be the longest they’d been apart. She already missed him, but she was ready for something new. And he needed this separation as much as she did. It was past time he lived for himself for a change.
Her mom had gone to Dartmouth. That’s why Heather had chosen it when she was just a kid. But it was a good choice for her, and having a goal of “get into Dartmouth” for her entire high school career had meant she’d worked really hard. Nothing about getting here had been easy except for sending back the acceptance letter.
Her tummy tingled and she looked up, aware that someone was watching her. But who? She straightened her spine and stuck her boobs out a little in case whoever it was also happened to be cute. A breeze picked up, blowing her bangs out of her face, and she saw him.
He was surrounded by his buddies, but his eyes were glued to her. Total prep. Not her type. Not even a little, but he was probably cute. Too far away to really tell.
As soon as she thought the words, he was moving toward her. His friends tried to get his attention, but he ignored them like she had some sort of magnet drawing him closer. One called out, “Michael? Dude, where are you going?”
It was too late to re-gloss, so she licked her lips and hoped for the best. Now would be a really handy time to have a girlfriend with her. She’d never had to do a cold-call on her own before. But this was college, not high school, and she was a woman now.
Sort of.
“Heather? Is it really you?”
He knew her? Did she know him? His friend had called him Michael. She blinked hard and tried to place this gorgeous too well put-together guy with a memory. Any memory.
Lightbulb.
“Michael? Michael from camp?”
Wow, when he smiled at her, flashing a dimple, she was fourteen again. Feeling the butterflies first and then the agonizing ache when he hadn’t come back the next year.
“Do you go here?” he asked. “Of course you do. Dumb question. Why else would you be on the Green today?” He stepped back. “I never thought I’d see you again.”
She pushed the hurt down. They’d been kids. He’d had no idea that she’d pinned so many of her romantic dreams on the summer that he hadn’t come back for.
“Yeah. Weird right?” He looked so grown up. But why wouldn’t he?
“You look…” Michael let his gaze wander down her legs and back up. “Really great. Wait, that sounded bad, didn’t it? Like I’m commenting on your body because your skirt is so short. I mean, it’s not too short. I’m not trying to say anything derogatory about what you’re wearing. It’s just different than how I remember you. You know. From when we were kids.” He wiped his hands on his jeans. Which sort of looked freshly pressed. “And your boots look like you mean business. I should shut up.”
“Probably.” She looked down at her Docs and laughed. “You look different, too.”
“You could at least try to say something embarrassing so that I’m not the only one with my foot in my mouth.” He grinned at her. His jaw was so square now. And his cheekbones could slice a roast. She'd say either of those things if she could speak at all, but her mouth was suddenly dry and her heart was beating too hard in her chest to allow words to form.
She remembered that first kiss. How sweet he’d been. How after she finally got over the heartache of losing him forever, she’d been glad that her first kiss had been so special. She had probably given him a piece of her heart that day. She’d probably never get it back.
She swallowed hard. He had no idea how big her teenage feelings had been. It would be best to keep it that way. “I have to admit, it’s kind of nice to know guys like you can get flustered.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Guys like me?”
His clothes, the faint scent of his cologne, the way he carried himself, and the pack of friends he’d separated himself from told her he ran with the popular, rich kids. The jocks. The ones who didn’t date the theater girls. Which was fine with her because she’d honestly never had much to say about football or whatever it was they talked about.
She changed the subject. “You never came back to camp.”
His eyes flashed with something. Longing? Sadness. “Yeah, my parents…they had other plans for me.”
The awkward silence became, well, awkward. “I think your friends are waiting for you,” she offered by means of a way out for him.
He didn't even look back at them. He was too busy looking at her. “Were you?”
“Was I what?”
Another smile, this one softer. One corner of his mouth tipped up higher than the other. “Waiting for me.”
His words hit a soft spot in her heart that she was sure had stopped bruising a long time ago. She had to stop herself from rubbing her chest. “We were just kids.”
“We aren’t kids now. Do you have a boyfriend?”
“Michael—”
“Look, I know this is crazy. I’m not exactly the kind of guy that believes in fate or anything. But what are the chances that we’d end up here, together? I don’t do crazy or unplanned things. The first thing I did when I got to my dorm was re-read the student guidebook. Just in case I forgot something. But seeing you now, I just…I feel like this was meant to be. You. Me. Here.”
She swallowed hard. Her last boyfriend was in a garage band. The one before that quit high school to be a mediocre sculptor and work at Wendy’s. She didn’t date preppy guys. And she didn’t come all the way to Dartmouth to hook up with a boyfriend on her first day.
And she knew it would be more than a hookup. It could be serious. Real. She wasn’t ready for serious and real. This was insane. They didn’t even know each other.
She licked her lips. “Maybe we can go out this weekend or something. Catch up.”
She needed to think. She couldn’t think when he was looking at her with those intense brown eyes with the gold flecks.
He looked a little disappointed, but he nodded. “Sure. This weekend.”
“I live at Choates. You?”
He laughed. “Same.”
“Seriously?”
He nodded, then he said her name, slow and deliberately. Like a warning. “Heather.”
Her traitorous heart really liked it. “Yeah?”
“I think you should know that I don’t give up. Not on anything. I didn’t get here because of my parents. I didn’t take State every year at Track because I came from money. I sometimes seem awkward, I know, but I fixate on what I want and I don’t give up on it.”
She got a little shiver. A really good shiver. The kind sh
e got when she watched the end of An Officer and a Gentleman on TNT. “Why are you telling me this?”
The way he stared at her, like he was reading her thoughts, also made her shiver. Because some of the thoughts she was having were not rated PG. This new/old Michael was starting to disconcert her in the best possible way.
“Why do you think?” He picked up her hand. “You never answered me. Do you have a boyfriend?”
She should tell him yes. Give herself some breathing room. Maybe he’d still want to be friends and she could ease into whatever this was that was giving her goose bumps on top of her goose bumps.
“No.”
He smiled at her like he’d won, and that pissed her off. She pulled her hand out of his. “And I don’t want one. I didn’t come to Dartmouth to hunt a future husband. I need to be me, figure out what I want on my own for a while.”
“That’s fine. I’ll wait.”
“Wait for what? You haven’t even asked me out.”
“I’ll wait until you’ve figured out what you want. I’m confident that it will be me.”
Oh, this guy had some balls.
Shit, he was probably right.
“Why are you so sure? Of me. Us. Yourself.”
He took her hand again, this time she didn’t pull it back. “Honestly, it was that kiss. Four years ago. I feel like I’ve always known.”
Oh man, she was in trouble. Her head knew it was a losing battle. Her heart and her gut were totally going to win this round.
Chapter 9
2013
Camp Firefly Falls
Michael stretched his legs out along the couch, pressing his back against the worn, overstuffed arm as he got comfortable. Heather's lips twisted in amusement as she watched him settle. She was going to wait for him to answer her question…and he was going to stretch it out because he was having too much fun.
They'd been hashing out their different ideas for almost an hour.
He loved wearing her down. When had they stopped talking like this? Debating for hours until one of them finally admitted—grudgingly—that the other's idea had more merit.
"Don’t look at me like you know you're three arguments away from a celebratory ice cream sundae," she growled, but her eyes flicked to the freezer.
Ah ha. So she had ice cream. The sundae tradition started in their senior year, when they found themselves pitted against each other in a business class competition.
She'd kicked his ass, and instead of yelling at him when he was grouchy about it that night—when they'd gone back to their little apartment just off-campus—she'd made him a chocolate sundae.
Winner gets bragging rights, she'd said. Loser gets whipped cream.
That had been the night he'd decided to propose to her. Because she was more than he'd ever deserved. Because she was gorgeous and smart and funny and kind. Because he loved her with all of his being, and even more so when she trumped him good.
But today, he was the victor. So she'd get the sundae, and if he was really lucky, she'd see that he was trying his damnedest to be for her what she'd been for him all these years.
What she'd been for him. That was it.
"Back to basics," he said slowly. "Back to nature?" Her eyes lit up despite herself. He grinned. "Get back to what really matters."
Her lips parted. He had her. Leaning forward, he snagged his legal pad from her hands and scrawled that across the paper in big, bold letters.
Around the slogan, the rest of what he'd sketched before flared out as if he'd planned it like that. Treetop walks. Ziplining. Overnight camping. Really challenging stuff. Nothing fluffy. And workshops led by national experts.
She'd been right. His first instincts were too slick. Too corporate. But she'd pushed him to find the raw, real edge of the idea. Together, they could work some serious magic.
He leaned back again and held up his sketch pad like it was a PowerPoint presentation at the front of a boardroom.
"Get your team back to what really matters," he said again. His voice was unexpectedly husky as he held her gaze. "Not the first time you've reminded me of that, is it?"
Warmth flooded her gaze as she caught her lower lip between her teeth. Her cheeks turned pink.
He wanted to pull her on top of him and toss the notepads onto the floor, but they needed this. He needed to work through his biases and figure out how he could really help her. She needed to see that he was truly on board.
"Overnight camping, done right, would be a key way to differentiate Camp Firefly Falls in the marketplace," he added. "Lots of places pick one or the other. Rustic or luxurious. We could be both at the same time."
"That sounds expensive."
"The equipment—"
"Not the equipment. The guides. Who's going to lead these excursions? It's gotta be someone who takes the experience to the next level. Who understands that it's not just camping, but really getting…" She trailed off, her eyes bright as she flicked her gaze back and forth between his face and the notepad he still held up. "Back to what matters. Plus they'd have to have all the knowledge and skills, and…"
"Not one person." If he'd learned anything over the last fifteen years, it was how to delegate. "Guides and corporate trainers could work together. Yes, it might be expensive. But it would also be valuable, and we'd charge accordingly."
She nodded slowly. "Build the cost of training into the budget and pass it on."
God, he loved it when she talked numbers. "That one week could cover the cost of those two staff members for an entire month."
"And then we could do a non-profit week as well." Her breath hitched and her chest rose and fell unevenly. "Oh, Michael…"
He dropped the notepad on the floor beside the couch and held out his hand. She took it and scrambled toward him, coming to a stop only when her chest was pressed against his and her face was right in front of him, their noses bumping.
"We'll position ourselves as offering a premium product at a fair price. Excellent value is the way we'll pitch it," he whispered.
"We?"
"You're the camp director," he said with a smile. "And I'm happy to be the handyman for a while. As long as tool-belts do it for you. But at some point, I'm going to want to tackle a bigger project." He kicked the notepad with his foot, even though she couldn't see it. "I want this project. With you. We'd lead it the first year. Us and a backwoods guide, maybe."
"You're talking about this like…you're here."
"I'm here."
"And you're…in? Just like that?"
"Not just like that. My wife served me with divorce papers yesterday. It was a wakeup call."
Her eyes were suspiciously damp. Shit, he didn't want to make her cry. She pressed her lips together, maybe to keep it together.
"Hey," he said softly, shifting their faces so he could kiss her. Her lips parted readily for him and he teased the tip of her tongue with his. Come out and play.
"You wanted to go into town," she panted as she plastered herself against him, her soft parts molding around his hard bits.
"Later."
"We'll run out of daylight for that walk…"
Shit. Fuck it. Surprises were overrated. "I wanted to get on my phone and look up plans for a zipline. Send a few emails to people I've met over the years."
"Oh. That sounds nice." She sucked his lower lip into her mouth and made a humming sound. "Full points for the thought."
"Full points?" He groaned as her hands slid under his t-shirt.
"All the points." She was breathing hard, but the one beer she'd had was a while ago.
They were stone cold sober. They'd talked. They loved each other.
There was no reason to wait.
In fact, there was one very good reason not to wait. He'd told her that he loved her laugh and he loved her ass, but he hadn't said the three most important words that she needed to hear. "I love you, Heather."
She nodded roughly as she kissed along his jaw. He groaned again. God, he wanted her to ke
ep going. Lower, all the way down his chest…But this was too important for her to think it was just sex talking.
"Listen to me," he said roughly, hauling her back up so she could see his face.
So he could see hers. His heart throbbed in his chest.
"I love you. More than anything else in the world. I love you exactly the way you are. Wild and adventurous and impulsive. I loved you around a campfire and in Doc Martens. I loved you, heads down in a stack of books in the library. I loved you so much on our wedding day it hurt inside. I loved you even when we were fighting, and when we stopped talking, and I'm so damn sorry I couldn't show you that. You've never stopped being my heart, even when I shut myself off from you. There's never been anyone else for me. You're my other half. My better half and—"
"Okay," she said, the tears back in her eyes. But she blinked them away as she smiled at him. "Okay. Enough. I know. I love you, too. And even when I hate you, I love you. Even when you make me want to stomp and shout and throw things, you're my other half, too. There's nobody else for me, either."
"There's a bed somewhere here?"
She nodded. "Upstairs. There's a guest suite…"
That was all he needed to hear. He levered them both up and off the couch, laughing as he slipped on the legal pad he'd left on the floor. She led him hand-in-hand through the kitchen and across the dining room to the main lobby. A wide staircase led to the open second floor above. There were other rooms he'd already glimpsed off the balcony, but this time she led him down a hallway she hadn't shown him earlier.
"This suite could be for a senior staff person," she said. "Or a guest that really doesn't want to be in a separate cabin, although I can't imagine why anyone would want that."
He skidded to a stop behind her as she led him into the bright, sunny space.
It was beautiful.
A large king-sized bed covered in a quilt took center stage. A chair sat beyond it, under the wide window. And immediately to his left was a roughed-in bathroom. No tiles yet, but it had the bones to be decidedly luxurious.
She gave him a look that wasn't hard to decipher at all. Doubt and concern warred across her face. Even after his profession of love, she still wasn't sure he'd get her.
