Stones Unturned (Meade Lake Series Book 2)

by Taylor Danae Colbert

  He thrusts in and out, my back sliding up and down on the door. The combination of his intoxicating scent, the early morning glow around us, the quiet, sparkling water in the distance, brings me to the brink quickly.

  “Harder, Derrick,” I groan, kissing and biting his shoulder. “Harder.”

  He groans as he picks up the pace, holding me steady while he moves faster, deeper. I scream out when he reaches down with his other hand to massage my clit, and then I’m there. Right on the edge and then over it. He comes just after I do, growling my name as his head drops to mine. Finally, he steps back and lets me slide down, pulling my face into his for another kiss. When we pull apart, he stares down at me, his eyes moving back and forth between mine. His thumbs stroke my cheeks, his fingers twining through my hair. With every glance, I feel a piece of my past chipping away, floating into the air, losing some of its meaning. Every second that passes in his grasp, I know that where I come from doesn’t matter so much. The girl I used to be was missing something. And the longer I let myself get lost in his golden-brown eyes, the more I realize that I might be finding it here. And it’s equal parts beautiful and terrifying. Before, I had the blueprint for what my life would look like. Only, I wasn’t the one laying any of the foundation.

  Here, I’m starting with the paper and pencil in my own hand.

  I kind of like that.

  My heart is broken over the exchange with my mother last night. Over the idea of never really seeing my father again.

  But when I look at Derrick, I think it can get better.

  I think I can heal here.

  A smile flashes over his lips again.

  “What are you doin’ to me, girl?” he asks. I smile back and shrug.

  “I think the same thing you’re doing to me,” I tell him.

  We go back into the house and clean up some then go downstairs and make some coffee.

  “I need to swing by Mama’s and help set up the arbor for the wedding,” he says. “You wanna come?”

  “Sure,” I say, putting my mug in the sink and rinsing it out. I pause for a moment. “Do you think she’ll...do you think they’ll be able to...tell?”

  “Tell what? That I’ve had you twice in the last twelve hours?”

  I bite my lip and nod.

  “Yeah. That.” He thinks for a minute then laughs.

  “Honestly, yeah,” he says. “Just don’t look anyone in the eye,” he jokes.

  When we get to Alma’s, there are a few cars in the driveway, and there’s some buzzing going on around back. In the backyard, Teddy is taking directions from Camille on where to set up tables and chairs. Mila, Luna, and Jules are on either side of the aisle they’ve set up down the center of Alma’s yard, placing flowers a few feet apart to line it. Ryder is sitting at a table by himself, his eyes pointed toward the trees.

  “Hey, y’all,” Derrick calls out as we walk around. Everyone gives us a quick “hi” then seems to do a double-take when they realize we’re arriving together. I clear my throat nervously, but Derrick just nudges me and keeps walking toward Ryder.

  “What are you doin’?” he asks him when we get closer.

  “Nothing. Can’t ya see? I’m sitting here like a fucking invalid,” Ryder says, his voice gruff and cold. Derrick pulls a chair up and sets it directly in front of Ryder, spinning it around and sitting on it backwards.

  “Look here, ya ass,” he says, and even though I know he can’t see him clearly, Ryder’s eyes land right on him. “Two days from now, you’re going to have the best day of your life. And that woman over there is about to have hers, too. You know what you need to see? Her. And Annabelle. And guess what? You already do. I know you know their faces like the back of your own damn hand. You know how beautiful she’s gonna be without having to see her. And all she will see on that day is you. The flowers and the fucking chairs and centerpieces? Let her have that. You know I got you. It’ll be just what she wants. And if you remember what that day means, it’ll be just what you want, too. She’s not marrying you for your eyes, you jackass. She’s marrying you because, for some reason, she loves you.”

  A slow smile spreads across Ryder’s face, and he reaches out to punch Derrick playfully in the arm.

  “Good thing you’re such a fucking giant,” Ryder says, “or I might not have landed that punch.” Derrick laughs, and Ryder’s face grows more serious. “Thank you, man.”

  Derrick puts his hand on his shoulder then turns back toward the ladies to take some direction. I look after him, and Ryder does, too.

  “You know when I lost my sight, he rebuilt our entire dock?” he asks. I turn to him.

  “What?”

  “He built a railing from the house to the water so that I can get down there safely on my

  own. Sometimes, this shit,” he says, motioning to his eyes, “can make ya feel less than human. Being able to get to the boat on my own gave me a little of that back.”

  I turn back to Derrick, watching him play around with Luna and Mila and Jules while also lifting entire tables with ease and moving them to their appointed spots.

  “They don’t make friends like him anymore,” he says. “Shit. They don’t make family like him anymore. Stick around for him, would ya?” he asks with a playful tone, but I can feel a little weight behind his words. I’m not sure how to respond, so I put my hand on his shoulder.

  “I’m really happy for you, Ryder,” I tell him, diverting. “You and Mila seem like you were created to find each other.”

  He smiles as he turns toward the direction of her laugh, closing his eyes as he basks in it.

  “She’s my north star, that woman. Everything makes sense when I turn toward her.” I look at Derrick again, our eyes meeting from across the lawn. He winks at me, and I wink in return.

  I think I know what you mean, Ryder.

  I walk up the lawn and into the house to find Alma and say hello, but when I find her, she’s frantically moving from pot to pot at the stove then turning around to chop onions on the island behind her. She has a towel thrown over her shoulder, and there’s flour on her chin.

  “Alma?” I ask. “My goodness, you’re busy in here. Can I help?”

  Her eyes flick up to me, and she freezes for a moment. She takes the towel off her shoulder and puts it down.

  “Hey, baby,” she says. “I heard you had a visitor last night.” My eyes widen.

  Oh, God. She knows. She can tell. She knows her son did dirty, dirty things to me not even an hour ago. She can tell.

  “I, uh…”

  “I heard your mother was in town.”

  Oh, shit. I almost completely forgot for a brief moment that I had seen my mother. That I had basically forced her to leave. That I excommunicated myself.

  “Yeah, she did,” I tell her.

  “And how did that go?” Alma asks, her eyes like saucers.

  “I told her...I told her to leave,” I say, grabbing onto my arm with my other hand. “She didn’t...she didn’t even want to hear about Haven. She didn’t even blink when I told her May died. I don’t...I don’t understand…”

  My voice trails off as the pain of last night sets in. Derrick had been a good distraction, but I remember now. I remember the finality of what happened last night. Alma drops her head and shakes it once.

  “Haven saw her,” she says, her voice low. My eyes widen, my breath quickening.

  “Wha...what?”

  “I guess when she was leaving town last night, she stopped at the cafe beforehand. She looked right at her; they made eye contact. But she didn’t say one word to Haven. Didn’t even stay to get her coffee. She just...she just left.”

  I swallow what feels like a knife in my throat.

  “Where is she?” I ask. Alma nods her head down the hallway.

  “Hasn’t come out of her room all day. I think she’s pretty torn up about it. She really needs someone, but I just...I’m up to my elbows in this. I’ve got seventy-five people coming here in two days for this wedding, and I�
��m nowhere near ready.”

  I think for a minute. I might be the last person Haven wants to talk to right now. Especially when it deals with our mother. But I also might be her only choice.

  “Do you...do you think I can try to talk to her?” I ask. Alma thinks for a moment and nods.

  “Yeah, honey. Go ahead.”

  I walk down the hallway and follow Alma’s directions, knocking on the last door on the left.

  “Yeah?” Haven’s quiet, cracking voice answers, and I push on the wood gently.

  “Hey,” I say. She’s perched on a chair in the corner of the room, looking out of her window. She turns to me.

  “Hey,” she says. There’s a long, awkward pause.

  “You wanna get out of here?” I ask her. She narrows her eyes at me, skeptical. She looks out the window again at everyone laughing, getting ready for a celebration, and I know she doesn’t feel much like celebrating. Finally, she turns to me and nods.

  She gives me her keys, and I decide to make our first stop the snow cone shop Derrick took me to on the day of Gran May’s funeral. We sit in silence for most of the time, watching boats fly by, kayakers navigating their wakes, docks bobbing in the distance.

  “So,” I finally say, “heard you saw her.” She shakes the last bit of the snow cone into her mouth then folds the trash up and sets it down. She looks out over the water.

  “Yep,” she says. I nod.

  “I’m sorry,” I tell her. There’s another long silence, and I struggle with what to say. This is my time to shine as the big sister, but I know I have no idea what she’s going through.

  “What was she...what was she like?” she asks. She doesn’t look at me, just reaches out to tug on a blade of grass in front of her. I think for a minute.

  “Honestly?” I ask. She nods. “For a while there, she really was the best mom. When I was young, she was my everything. We’d have girls’ nights. She’d do our hair the same, and we’d watch movies. We’d wear matching pajamas, and she’d always let me fall asleep in her bed when my dad was on trips.”

  She nods slowly.

  “But then I got older, and I realized how...broken she really is,” I go on. She turns to me. “My dad…he has total control of everything she does, ya know? How she spends money. Who she socializes with. Everything.”

  I think for a moment, clasping my hands together between my knees.

  “When I was a teenager, I promised myself I’d never be like that. Never take orders. Flash forward a few years, and here I am, preparing to do just that.”

  She raises her eyebrows, and I remember the conversation I had with my mom just last night.

  “Er–I mean, I was. But then I found this place. I found you all. And I don’t think I want to take orders anymore,” I tell her. Her eyes narrow again, and she nods slowly, and I can see a hint of a smile on the corner of her lips.

  She chuckles softly.

  “What?” I ask.

  “I always told myself she was this hideous beast,” Haven says. “Gran May didn’t have recent pictures of her or anything, so I just had to make her up in my head. What I thought she’d look like now. I always told myself she had warts all over her face. But it turns out, she’s beautiful.”

  I swallow. This is my moment. The moment to let Haven know that someone, some family, does choose her.

  “I told her to leave,” I tell her. Her eyes widen into saucers, and her lips part slightly.

  “You did?” she asks. I nod.

  “Yeah. I told her to get off my porch.” Haven stares at me for a second then bursts into

  a fit of laughter.

  “Boss move,” she says, giving me knuckles. I laugh with her, bumping my fist to hers.

  “Do you wanna come back to the house, hang out for a bit?”

  She turns to me and gives me another half-smile.

  “Yeah,” she says. “I’d like that.”

  21

  I made a giant bowl of popcorn, and Haven and I are lying on the couch, watching reruns of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, both of us mouthing most of the lines word-for-word. After another hour or two, the coffee table is loaded with snack wrappers and empty soda cans, and we’re both lounging back, nursing our snack hangovers.

  “So, what’s the actual deal with you and Derrick?” she asks me, and I almost choke on a kernel of popcorn. I wasn’t ready for that forward of a question.

  “I, um…” I freeze. Derrick and I haven’t even really talked about it. Although, I feel like, after last night, it was pretty clear how I was feeling.

  “You like him, huh?” she asks, popping another piece in her mouth as she watches TV. I smirk.

  “Yeah,” I tell her. It doesn’t feel scary to tell her, for some reason. It feels...safe. “He’s pretty great.” She looks at me and nods.

  “Just be careful, okay?” I cock my head. “He doesn’t date much, and if he does, it’s not usually for long. He’s just...got some issues. Just be straight with him, cool?”

  I nod and grab another fistful of popcorn.

  “What about you?” I ask her. “Are you dating anyone?”

  “There was this guy back at school for a few months, but we haven’t talked much since May died. I’ve been kinda in a weird place, I guess.”

  I nod.

  “Makes sense,” I say. “But you like school?”

  “Yeah, I do. I’m good at it, ya know? I enjoy studying. I enjoy asking the questions. I just want to get my degree and get back here. Pick up where May left off—or, I guess, wherever you leave off, if you plan to stay.”

  She says it casually, but I know she’s looking for some sort of response. I smile.

  “Every day I spend here, it gets harder and harder to remember what I loved so much about my life before Meade Lake.”

  She turns to me slowly, one of her dark eyebrows lifting up. I go on.

  “After last night, I just...don’t know what there is for me to go back to, besides a bunch of bullshit. More lies and plastering on fake faces. Taking over a company I have no business running. A life I have no real say in.” I sigh and look up at her. “I guess what I’m saying is, I think I want to stay here.”

  She doesn’t say anything, but her eyes are big and round.

  “But this is your house, too. And I don’t want that to change. I know we still have things to learn about each other, but if you want to come back to your house, I will happily find somewhere else to stay in the meantime.”

  There’s a long pause, and I swallow nervously.

  “Our house,” she says. “And I’d like to move back in. But you don’t need to move out.”

  We smile at each other, and I feel this swelling in my heart. Like the missing pieces of my explosion of a life are sorting themselves out. Like all I needed was time here in this magical place to figure out who I actually am.

  I wake up the next morning with a bag of chips next to me, and Haven is passed out on the other end of the couch with a water bottle still in hand. We stayed up all night talking, telling stories about our upbringing, laughing about first kisses, talking about our friends. I told her about Charlotte and how she is a piece of my soul. Emma, and how I wasn’t sure how much longer our “friendship” would last. I told her about the first time I laid eyes on Derrick at the bar.

  She told me about her friends in town and how there weren’t a ton of kids her age in Meade Lake growing up. Derrick and Ryder and the girls were all a lot older than her, but they always let her tag along whenever Alma and May got together.

  As we sit up, hazily squinting in the morning light, we seem to remember at the same time what today is.

  “Shit,” Haven says, fiddling with her phone to check the time. “I gotta get back to Alma’s. I’m supposed to be a hostess.” I check the time, too, jumping up to change. Shit. We overslept. By a lot.

  “Let me go grab a dress, and I’ll take you back. I’ll help set up and get dressed there. That is, if you think that’ll be okay?”

  “Sou
nds good.”

  I’m back downstairs in a hot second with a strapless sundress and some strappy sandals in hand, and we’re on our way back to Alma’s.

  The place is a madhouse, at least ten cars already in the driveway, despite the fact that the wedding isn’t for another few hours. Teddy’s kids are running everywhere with Annabelle trailing behind. Luna and Jules are around back, tying the last of the ribbons on the backs of the chairs, and Alma is at the arbor, fastening some floral arrangements to either side of it. Then I see him with a hammer, nailing a stake into the ground on the side of a tent. Muscles pulling tight on his gray t-shirt, he pauses to wipe his brow when he sees me, and his face breaks into a smile.

  I sigh to myself as I take in the sight of him, and I can feel myself completely and utterly falling.

  Terrifying.

  He winks before bending back down to nail in another stake. I say hi to Jules and Luna and grab a handful of ribbon to help. I help Alma set all the place settings out and make sure that the centerpieces are all perfectly placed. On each one sits a photo of Mila and Ryder, and as I get to a few tables, I see that some of them are old. Teenage versions of Mila and Ryder stare back at me, their smiles so genuine, so pure, so elated. Like they knew then that something big was happening for them.

  I look across the lawn again at Derrick, smiling in his direction. Like I know something big is happening for us.

  Another hour or so passes, and Luna and Jules leave to go get ready. Pretty much everything is done, and as the band is setting up, I realize that everyone else is scattering to get ready, too.

  “What you doin’?” I hear him ask, and I smile before I even turn to him.

  “Just figuring I should probably go get ready. I have a date tonight. I wanna look good,” I say. He grins as he wraps an arm around my waist and pulls me in for a quick kiss. There’s no one around, but it doesn’t much seem like he’d care if there were. And that feels kind of good.