Waiting for April

by Jaime Loren

  “Oh yeah? Then why is he letting me go with you a day earlier—by myself?”

  “Let you? Please tell me you didn’t have to ask his permission.”

  Actually, it had taken a lot of persuasion on my part, but there was no way I’d admit that to Scott. “Of course not. He knows nothing would ever happen between you and me.”

  I could never do that to Stell, and I’d rather die than hurt Rowan.

  Duke leaned over and licked Scott’s cheek, but Scott didn’t budge. His eyes were narrowed on the road as we closed in on Henry’s house. Henry stood from his seat on the porch when Big Blue came into view, then shuffled to the stairs.

  I motioned for Duke to get on the floor. “Has Henry taken a turn recently?” He’d seemed fine at dinner two nights ago.

  Scott’s eyes didn’t leave the road. “You know him. He’d never admit to it if he had.”

  And Scott wouldn’t have admitted he was scared of losing him. After losing his parents and younger brother in a car accident four years ago, Henry was the only family he had left.

  I unbuckled my belt and slid closer to place my hand on his shoulder. “I’m sure Henry has many years ahead of him.”

  He reached up and squeezed my hand. “Yeah.”

  Henry’s ear-to-ear smile cheered me up a little as we pulled up outside the house. “Good morning, my fair lady,” he said. “I trust you’ll take good care of my grandson over the break. You won’t let him get into any trouble?”

  I shook my head. “I’ve packed a special stick to beat off the female campers until Stella gets there.”

  I still couldn’t get used to the fact Stella and Scott were hooking up. It seemed … weird. I mean, Stell had been my best friend since moving to Jericho three years ago, and I loved her—but they weren’t right for each other. There didn’t seem to be any connection between them. Then again, maybe it was just a physical thing. The mental image of the two of them being physical slid down my spine like ice, making me shiver, before collapsing like a glacier into the pit of my stomach.

  God knows why. It wasn’t jealousy. I loved Rowan. He’d moved to Jericho just after Stella, and we’d hit it off immediately. There was no one I felt more comfortable around. He was the warmest and funniest guy I’d ever met. I was lucky to have him.

  I definitely wasn’t jealous of Stella. I just didn’t think she was right for Scott.

  Henry laughed as he approached Scott. “Don’t let his movie star looks deceive you, Shortcake. The boy’s a born romantic. He only has eyes for one young lady.” And with that comment, Henry slipped a quick fist into Scott’s stomach.

  Scott doubled over and groaned. “You want to take me on, old man?”

  A wicked smile lit Henry’s face. “I might look like I’m eighty-seven, but I’ve got the heart of a nineteen-year-old too, you know.”

  “You think so, huh? Should we put that to the test?” Scott challenged, straightening up to grab Henry in a loose headlock.

  My hands flew up to my mouth. Henry was frail, and I feared Scott might easily break him in half. But when Scott planted a heartfelt kiss on Henry’s balding head and gently let him go, relief filled my chest. My hands fell to my sides.

  Henry caught a glimpse of me and smiled. “Don’t look so worried, my dear. The boy learned all of his best moves from me.”

  “Oh,” I said, standing taller. “It wasn’t you I was worried about.”

  Henry winked and turned to go inside. “She’s a keeper, this one,” he said to Scott without looking back. “Prettiest young lady I ever did see.”

  Scott nudged me as we followed Henry up the stairs, whispering loud enough for even Henry’s old ears to hear. “And trust me—he’s seen a lot of ladies in his time.”

  I raised my brow. “I take it the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, then.”

  Scott gave an exaggerated gasp and placed his palm on his chest. “Ouch.”

  I smiled. “I’m just telling it like it is.”

  He turned to face me at the top of the stairs, and spread his arms wide as he walked backwards. “Didn’t you hear him? I’m a born romantic.”

  I laughed. “I heard him. Doesn’t mean I subscribed to his newsletter.”

  Scott’s expression softened as he opened the door and bowed. “Milady.”

  I grinned, curtsied, and put on my best southern accent. “Why thank you, Mr. Parker. I do solemnly declare that that is the most romantic thing a man has ever done for me.”

  He straightened up and smirked. “Just get inside, smart ass.”

  I scooted through the doorway, narrowly missing Scott’s boot on said ass.

  *****

  I loved to sit back and watch Scott with Henry, talking and laughing and roughing each other up as if they were old buddies, rather than family. Scott had bought Henry the latest iPad yesterday, and was now teaching him how to use it.

  “You’ve got these games, too.” Scott pointed to the screen. “You just have to touch it gently … Yeah, that’s it. Crosswords, Sudoku—just like in the paper.”

  Henry looked across the table at me, baffled. “Things were a lot simpler in my day.”

  Scott nodded as if he understood perfectly. I guess living in a small village in Zimbabwe with his godparents after his family died had given him an appreciation of the technologies available in modernized, developed countries. Then again, maybe he didn’t care for them much at all. I’d only known him for two years, but I’d never seen him glued to a computer screen—even when working on something for school. Which, when I really thought about it, was kind of annoying considering he usually got better grades than me.

  “Well, I guess I should finish loading the truck,” he said, then headed out the front door.

  I sank back into the dining chair. “I don’t know where he gets his energy from. He’s all about the fishing and the swimming and the bike riding and … ugh. I’m exhausted already.”

  Henry laughed. “Nothing gets a man’s blood pumping more than the thought of pitting himself against the wilderness.”

  I frowned. “It’ll definitely be an interesting week. Rowan gets pissed if he can’t open a can of food. Something tells me he won’t be foraging through the woods for our meals.”

  Henry shrugged. “A few nights under the stars can change a young man. You might even discover a few things about yourself.”

  “Like how many mosquito bites it would take to kill me?”

  Fear flickered in Henry’s eyes, as if he’d taken me seriously. He gave a half-hearted smile. “Make sure you pack lots of repellant.”

  “It’s under control, Henry. Dr. Parker out there has been planning this for a while,” I said, casting my eyes to the door. “I should go and help.”

  “No, I’m sure he’s—”

  “He’s driving the whole way. The least I can do is help him load the truck,” I said, getting up and striding toward the front door before Henry could protest again.

  Duke was lying in the morning sun around the side of the house, chewing on a stick, but Scott was nowhere in sight.

  “Scott?”

  The tarp on Big Blue was thrown back, exposing the bed. In addition to our bags, there were now a couple of extra things loaded up—like Scott’s acoustic guitar and a tackle box.

  A sudden, blinding light flashed across my line of sight. I lifted my hand to shield my eyes, but saw nothing aside from fields of corn and some trees in the far distance. From those trees, birds took flight. Another flash came from that direction. I squinted and took a few steps around Big Blue, focusing on the source of light. A black SUV emerged from behind the trees and headed for the main road, throwing a cloud of dust into the air behind it.

  People were always getting Henry’s driveway confused with the shortcut into town, despite the sign Henry had erected stating this was private property. I watched as the SUV drove out of sight.

  “Hey there, Snoopy.”

  I jumped and spun around. Scott smirked as he walked past and rolled a
football into the truck. I exhaled. “You scared me.”

  “Apologies, milady.”

  I chewed my lip and folded my arms across my chest. “That was a really nice gift you gave Henry.” And by nice, I meant expensive. Scott didn’t have money to throw around on iPads. “I hope you can still afford your textbooks in the fall.”

  He nodded. “I’ll be okay.”

  I jerked my head toward Big Blue. “So … we’ve got tackle, but no rods?”

  “The tackle is just for show. I figured we could break some branches off a tree and whittle them down into spears.” The smile fell from my face, but grew on his. “The rods are in the shed. I’m getting them next.”

  “I’ll come.”

  The shed was big enough to house three cars, but there was only ever one car parked inside. The rest of the space was used for storage. Boxes were piled from floor to ceiling, on benches and on tables. I assumed they held Scott’s family’s possessions, but I’d never had the guts to ask. He never spoke of them, so I figured it was too painful to mention.

  He moved to the back of the shed and I trailed my fingers across the nearest cardboard box, collecting the dust, hoping that one day he would open up to me about his past. I brushed my hands together, and had only taken one step forward when the box fell to the ground and tipped on its side. The tape split open, and a few photo frames and envelopes slid out.

  “Shit.” I crouched down and looked over my shoulder. Scott had disappeared around the corner. After collecting the envelopes and putting them back in the box, I discovered one letter lying on the cement, envelope-free. Despite the obvious crease along its middle, it had fallen open, and I couldn’t help but notice the beautiful handwriting.

  “My dearest Scott,

  The memory of your hands against my bare skin last night left me sleepless—”

  I shook my head, squeezed my eyes closed, and folded the letter back up, wishing I could un-see what I’d just read. Although I had to admit, a little part of me wanted to reopen it and find out who it was from, considering it wasn’t Stella’s handwriting … but I guess it didn’t matter. This was obviously a letter from his past, which didn’t concern Stell, and it certainly wasn’t any of my business. The thought of him doing that to a bunch of different girls, though … it made me feel a bit queasy. Like the more I knew about that side of him, the less I respected him. Which was stupid, I know, because he was nineteen, and ridiculously hot, so obviously he’d had other girlfriends. Girlfriends he’d touched. Girls he’d left sleepless after touching their bare skin …

  Wrinkling my nose, I folded the letter a little rougher than I should’ve.

  Born romantic, my ass.

  A dull ache formed in my chest as I returned the love letter back to the box and reached for the photos.

  They were old photos—probably Henry’s. One showed men in uniform gathered around a military tank. It was strange to me that soldiers could smile and look as if they were enjoying themselves in the middle of a brutal war. Upon closer inspection, I noticed a soldier who looked familiar. The picture quality was poor, but he looked uncannily like—

  Scott’s arm shot over my shoulder to grab the frame from me.

  I stood up so quickly, I almost fell over. “I am so sorry. It just fell. Well, no—that’s not completely true—I just brushed my fingers over it and then—”

  “It’s fine, April,” Scott said, a faint smile turning the edges of his mouth. His blue-green eyes weren’t smiling, though. They usually always smiled. “It was an accident.” He packed the photos away and lifted the box back onto the shelf, then bent over to pick up the fishing rods he’d retrieved. “No harm done.”

  I followed him out to the truck, my mind racing in a hundred different directions. “There was a guy in that photo who looked just like you.”

  He slid the rods into the tray of the truck and pulled the tarp back to cover it. I rubbed my hands together. They always ached when I was anxious.

  “Grandpa fought with his brother in World War II. His brother looked just like me.” He turned to look me in the eye. “He didn’t make it home.”

  My heart weighed heavy, sinking further into my chest. “Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

  “I know. But don’t mention it to him, okay? He doesn’t like to talk about him. It’s bad enough he has to look at me every day.”

  I shook my head. “I won’t. I promise.”

  After a moment of awkward silence, Scott smiled softly and opened my door. “I guess we should get a move on if we want to arrive at the campsite at a decent time.”

  Chapter 3

  (Scott)

  I sang as I drove, trying to keep the mood relaxed. The truth was I was anything but relaxed after seeing April with that photograph of me in her hands—not to mention the box full of memories it’d fallen from sitting just inches away from her. Lying to her had never been easy, but I wasn’t sure what the repercussions would be if she discovered the truth about her past. Her numerous pasts. There had to be a reason she’d never remembered me from her previous lives. Maybe it was fate’s way of protecting her. Perhaps, if all of those memories were forced into her precious mind, it would break.

  I squeezed the steering wheel harder.

  I didn’t want to be the one to tell her she’d never lived to see her eighteenth birthday. That I’ve been alive for over three hundred years straight, yet she’d died nineteen times. She was the love of my life, and I couldn’t even give her something to fight. No medical condition—not yet, anyway. No idea of what shape or form her death would come in this time.

  No way to stop what I couldn’t predict.

  “It’s so pretty here,” she said, glancing over at me.

  I drank in the sight of her—big doe eyes that could convince me to do almost anything she wanted; her lips were always coated in strawberry balm. Soft lips. The desire to taste them made me a little lightheaded. “It is,” I agreed, turning my concentration back to the road.

  The rolling fields were crisp and green from the spring rains, and as we neared our destination, the red and gold maples gave way to eastern white pines. Rock formations peppered the mountains, guiding small waterfalls into rock pools and streams. It was picturesque Maine at its best.

  We were forty minutes west of Millinocket when I turned left onto a dirt road. Fifteen minutes and two gates later we came into a clearing, exposing a two-story log cabin situated just yards from the lake. Confusion narrowed April’s eyes.

  This was the first time she’d ever seen the cabin. My cabin. Our cabin. I’d bought this land before our first and only date in 1949. Back then it’d been nothing more than a pine wilderness on the shore of a beautiful lake. It was the last place we’d been happy together, but there was no way she’d recognize it now, even if she had memories.

  It was easier to tell her I’d rented it, rather than owned it. A “nineteen-year-old” owning such a property would raise too many questions, and she was too quick-witted for me. There was no way I’d be able to think up convincing lies on the spot, and I couldn’t exactly tell her I’d amassed a great wealth through hard work and smart investments over the last three hundred years.

  I hid a nervous smile. “We’re here.”

  Her forehead creased. “Here? Here, here?”

  She hadn’t moved an inch, or even changed the expression on her face by the time I’d opened her door and extended my hand. “Milady.”

  She took it robotically and stepped out, not once taking her eyes off the cabin. “This is where we’re staying?”

  “May I show you to your room?” Without waiting for an answer, I pulled her toward the cabin and unlocked the door.

  She stepped in and tipped her head back to take in all its glory. Her eyes slid over the living room, bordered with bookshelves on both sides, and wandered to the open stone fireplace and hearth against the far wall. I guided her along the walkway that led to the stairs. The second floor opened up into a spacious room on the right.


  “You’re shitting me!” she said, gliding over to the wall of windows to take in the panoramic view of the lake and surrounding pine forest.

  “Do you like it?” I asked, coming to stand beside her.

  The smile on her face was enough of an answer. “You sneaky bastard! You packed tents and everything,” she said, laughing. “I love it. So much. But you have to let me contribute to the cost of renting this place.”

  Placing my hands on her shoulders, I turned her toward the passageway and marched her to the end. “We’ll talk about that later.” I opened the door on the right to reveal her bedroom.

  Her eyes widened. “A king-sized bed?”

  I shoved my hands in the back pockets of my jeans. “You can roll over four times and not even fall off.”

  She laughed again. “I’d probably just roll into Rowan.”

  I swallowed the bile that rose in my throat, and held out my hand. “The bathroom is through this door, but beware—it’s the only thing separating our rooms. We’ll be sharing the shower.”

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “Well not at the same time, obviously,” I added.

  She grinned and tied her hair back, but the grown-out length of what used to be her bangs still tickled her jaw. I remembered a time, long before Rowan, when I was allowed to tuck those shorter locks behind her ear so that I could better see her face.

  I moved over to open the curtains and expose the windows in her room.

  “So, does your room look like this one?” she asked.

  “Actually, mine’s a little smaller.”

  She poked her head into the bathroom, then stepped through the doorway and ran her fingers over the wall of white tiles. “This place is amazing, Scott. And this shower is huge—I’m sure we could both fit in there,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows.

  The thought of Rowan and her in there together—ugh. I quickly pushed the image from my mind. “Right. Well, I’d better get the food inside. Make yourself at home.”

  When I had our bags in our respective rooms, I came downstairs to find April had finished unpacking the food and was now admiring a small, hand-carved horse from the mantel in the living room. As I approached, she placed it back and rubbed her hands together. “So, what are we going to do first?”