“I don’t think I ever really loved Keira,” she stated, her eyes going wide at that realization.
CHAPTER 8
“How did that happen?” Kellan asked herself as she sat all the way up and clasped her hands over her folded legs.
“How did what happen?”
“Like a week ago, I was driving here to mend my broken heart. I’d just watched the woman I love fall in love with someone else. I couldn’t stand to see them in the same room. Now, I’m wondering if I ever actually loved her at all.”
“You know how sometimes one day we feel a certain way about something and we never think that feeling will go away. Then another day, we wake up, and it’s like the feeling is gone?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t think we ever stop to acknowledge those moments.” Reese positioned her hand at the small of Kellan’s back but didn’t touch her. “I mean, at some point we stop feeling broken-hearted over someone, or we start feeling love for a new person, but we don’t stop to acknowledge that this was the moment it happened. At least, most people don’t do that until later. It would be after you say ‘I love you’ to someone and you’re talking about it that you look back and think of the moment when they did this or said that; that was when you knew.”
“I don’t have that with Keira,” Kellan stated without turning to Reese. “I’ve had that before with other girlfriends, but I didn’t have that with Keira.”
“Then, why did you think you loved her?” she asked as her hand neared Kellan’s back, but when Kellan shifted forward a little to get more comfortable, Reese dropped her hand back onto the blanket and felt a little foolish for wanting to reach out and touch her.
“I was lonely. God, I was lonely,” she answered and turned her head back to Reese. “We met at a friend’s wedding. I was in the bridal party. She’d planned the event. Keira owned the room.” She laughed out. “Keira Worthy owns the rooms she walks into. It’s what makes her so good at her job. We started talking after they cut the cake. I’d had a few glasses of wine and several shots with the bridal party. My inhibitions were definitely lower than usual. When the party ended, she invited me back to her place.”
“I see.” Reese toyed with the loose strings on the edge of the blanket in an attempt to distract herself from the thought of someone else having sex with Kellan.
“I guess I can understand her starting up with me and then ending things, now that I have some separation from it. She’d suffered the loss of a friend, and I think we were both lonely and sought solace in our friendship.”
“But you were never in love with her?” Reese asked.
“I thought this place would help me clear through the fog. I think it did.” Kellan turned and gave her a small smile. “Or maybe it was just talking to you.”
“Me?” Reese sat up to join her.
“I can’t talk to my other friends like this. Keira’s friends kind of became my friends. I’m not that close to my siblings. They don’t really like to hear about this part of my life. We’ve never been a family that shares this stuff. They’re career minded, and single. I don’t know if they’re ever going to settle down. Meanwhile, I’ve had exactly two long-term relationships. Neither of those lasted more than nine months. I’ve been single the rest of the time. I’d spent so much time focusing on my own career that I hadn’t dedicated any of it to try to find someone to share my life with.”
“So, you didn’t date anyone after Keira?”
“No. I didn’t have the time to find anyone, or the interest either, I guess.”
“But Morgan struck your fancy?”
Kellan didn’t respond. She turned away from the water and faced Reese while leaning back on her hands again. Reese watched her move before she leaned forward a little more, but kept her hands wrapped tightly around her legs and clasped together.
“Are you worried about me liking Morgan or about Morgan liking me?” Kellan asked and shrugged at the same time.
“How direct of you.” Reese laughed and scooted forward on the blanket so that she could position herself closer to Kellan but at her own side. “I don’t want to be with Morgan. It is still strange, like I’ve said before, to see her with someone else, but I don’t harbor any jealousy or want to be with her myself.”
“So, it’s about me liking her then?”
“Do you?” Reese lifted an eyebrow.
“She’s nice,” Kellan answered. “I didn’t spend all that much time with her yesterday. She was technically working.”
“Right.” Reese looked at a tree to her left as one of the browning leaves zig-zagged its way through the air and fell to the ground.
“She seems to want to hang out with me though.”
“No, she wants to go out with you. There’s a difference.”
“Do you?” Kellan asked.
Reese met her eyes and saw there was a bit of vulnerability there.
“Yes,” she admitted, and Kellan smiled. “But we shouldn’t,” she added and watched the smile disappear.
“Because I’m leaving,” Kellan stated.
“Right,” she agreed. “It doesn’t make sense to start something.”
“Can we start a friendship?” Kellan leaned forward, and when she did, their faces were a mere few inches apart.
“Friendship?” Reese instinctively licked her lips while at the same time staring at Kellan’s perfect pair. She lifted her eyes to meet Kellan’s blue ones. “Friendship,” she repeated with some difficulty.
“So, we’re friends?” Kellan asked and licked her own lips.
“Yeah.” Reese tried to look away from the woman in front of her, but she couldn’t. “No,” she then said louder than she’d meant to.
“No?” Kellan pulled back to check.
“No, this is stupid. We’re not fourteen.” Reese shook her head. “I like you. You like me. Let’s go out.” She met Kellan’s eyes again.
Kellan nearly toppled over in laughter but landed safely on her back next to Reese on their blanket. Reese tried not to take offense to that reaction and turned to see Kellan staring back up at her with those damn eyes and a shy smile on her face. She moved slowly, to give Kellan a chance to stop her. She placed her hand on the other side of Kellan’s body, hovering over her but giving her plenty of space. When Kellan didn’t stop her or push her away, she leaned down and met Kellan’s nose with the tip of her own. She pressed her forehead to Kellan’s, awaiting silent permission. Kellan’s hand moved to her hip. Reese took that to mean that she wanted this. Then, her phone rang.
“I know it’s not mine,” Kellan stated.
“Shit,” Reese shouted. She lifted herself up to reach into her pocket for her phone. “It’s Rem. Sorry.” She stood up and answered. “You have shitty timing.”
“You have a doctor’s appointment,” Remy replied.
“No, I don’t.”
“It’s the video chat with that specialist from Stanford. The doc set it up. She emailed both of us this morning.”
“She did? Wait… Did I agree to chat with some specialist?”
“No. But I told the doc you’d do this for your sister who loves you,” Remy replied.
“Rem, I’m busy right now. Can’t she do it some other time?”
“She’s a world-renowned specialist that is doing this as a favor. She has like twenty minutes she can give us. Time starts in fifteen minutes.”
“Fine, but you owe me.”
“I owe you? This is for you,” Remy retorted.
“I know. I know. I’m sorry. I’ll be there.” She lowered her head and shook it. “You know I hate dealing with this stuff.”
“Maybe this specialist can help.”
“Maybe,” she replied doubtfully and hung up the phone. “I’m sorry. I have to go,” she told Kellan.
“Is everything okay?” Kellan stood.
“I have an appointment that I didn’t know about. Remy was reminding me.”
“With a specialist?”
“It’s a check-up thing,” s
he lied.
“From the accident? Or infection? I don’t know what to call it.” Kellan smiled awkwardly and then bent over to pick up the blanket.
“I’m fine. I just have to tell them that. Listen, I meant what I said before. I do want to go out with you. But maybe it is best if we don’t.”
“No, you don’t get to do that again.” Kellan stood with the blanket under her arms and the pack she’d brought but hadn’t unpacked slung over her shoulder. “You can’t say you want to go out and then take it back, Reese.”
“Kellan, things are complicated, and–”
“And I’ll pick you up tomorrow after work,” Kellan interrupted.
“What?” She laughed.
“We’re going out tomorrow night. You and I are going out on a date tomorrow night.” Kellan pointed between the two of them. “And if it doesn’t work – it doesn’t work. But at least we’ll know. Now, I’ll drive you back to your car,” she said.
CHAPTER 9
“Rem, it’s not something I want to discuss.”
“It’s an idea, Reese. Why are you so opposed to reading what she sent?” Remy asked.
They sat in the small faculty room Reese often ate lunch in while the kids were napping. Remy joined her when she could. Today, the two shared Bucky’s, which was the best burger place in town.
“I’m not opposed to reading what she sent. I am opposed to talking about it all the time, Rem. I swear, our relationship these days is all about this. Forgive me, but I’d like to spend time with my sister not talking about what’s wrong with me.”
“Nothing’s wrong with you, Reese.”
“Of course, there is. And I know you’ve been dealing with this just as long as I have; that it was a major focus of our lives growing up. I’m sorry for that. But I spent months trying to recover from that damn ankle. I’m starting to live my life again, Rem. I don’t want every conversation you and I have to be about this. This won’t go away, but it doesn’t have to dominate my life or your life anymore. I can be careful.”
“You’re right. It won’t go away, but it might be helped. She said there had been positive results from her study, Reese. What if you could have positive results too?”
“It’s still in an experimental phase. There have been negative results, too. Did you not hear that part?”
Her phone buzzed. She smiled as she looked down to see who the text might be from.
“What’s that?” Remy asked.
“Nothing,” she replied with disappointment when she noticed it was a text from Stacy.
“You seemed really excited there for a second, and then not so much. Looking to hear from a certain woman?” She wiggled her eyebrows at her sister.
“What are you talking about?”
“Kellan Cobb, of course.” Remy tossed a ketchup packet in Reese’s direction. “You hung out with her yesterday but didn’t say a word about it when you got home. That can only mean one thing. When you go on crappy dates, you tell me all about them. When you go on great ones, you say nothing, but you kind of float around like you’re on literal cloud nine.”
“I do not.” Reese tossed the ketchup packet back.
“Oh, you do, too.” Remy laughed.
“We just talked.”
“And?”
“And nothing. We talked.”
“And the wedding will be?”
“Right after you marry Ryan,” Reese replied.
“Low blow.” Remy pointed at her.
“The man obviously loves you, since he puts up with your bullshit.”
“He does love me. I love him. I just don’t want to get married. He keeps thinking I’ll change my mind. We haven’t even been together all that long.”
“Is it a problem?”
“What? No, he’s fine. He did ask me to move in with him, though.”
“You should, Rem.”
“I live with you.”
“I’m fine now.”
“Says the woman who tried to ignore the meeting with the specialist.”
“You can still pester me about doctor’s appointments when you’re living with your boyfriend.”
“I guess.” Remy bit into her burger.
◆◆◆
Reese waited outside the school building as she waved off the last of the parents picking up their children for the day. She closed her arms over her body, watching a car drive off with one of her preschoolers.
“Are you cold?” Kellan asked as she pulled up in her Jeep.
“What?” Reese looked down and uncrossed her arms. “Oh, no.”
Kellan parked her car and climbed out, making her way over to where Reese was standing on the curb.
“How many times did you think about canceling on me?” she asked.
“Four,” Reese replied honestly, offering an apologetic smile.
“But you didn’t?”
“Didn’t have your number.” Reese shrugged.
“That’s the only reason?” Kellan stood a few feet in front of her.
“No, not the only reason.”
“So, we’re still going? If you don’t want to go, you can say so. I’ll take the hint.”
“The problem isn’t that I don’t want to go, Kellan,” Reese started. “The problem is that I do.” She reached forward and took Kellan’s hand in her own, holding it between their bodies. “It’s a bad idea to start something when you’re leaving.”
“Why don’t we just see what happens today?” Kellan proposed. “Maybe we’ll have a terrible time. Maybe we’ll realize we’d be better off as friends.”
“What if we discover we want more than just friendship?”
“One step at a time,” Kellan suggested.
“Deal.” Reese tried to resist the urge to go back inside, grab her car keys, and head home to put Kellan Cobb, the tourist she found herself very interested in, out of her mind.
“I planned something. It might be something that makes you mad at me, but I decided to take the risk because it’s something I’d like to do with you.”
“What is it?”
“I want you to take my island virginity,” she offered with a wide and somewhat cocky smile.
◆◆◆
“Before you freak out, let me explain.” Kellan stood on the lakeshore next to a canoe.
“Kellan, I told you–”
“You told me it was more psychological than physical. I will do all the paddling,” she interjected. “You can supervise.” She smiled at Reese, who stared at the canoe and then looked over to her left where she spotted Fannette Island. It seemed so far away. “I brought food and some other things, too. I thought we could row over there. You could show me around.”
“It’s too late,” she replied and glanced at her watch. “It’s after four. The sun will be setting in about an hour. We shouldn’t head back in the dark.”
“It’s not illegal though. I looked into it.” She bent down and pulled out a lantern. “I came prepared. I rented this thing for the night. I included first aid supplies, jackets, and my sleeping bag in my pack just in case.”
“Were you a Girl Scout?” Reese laughed at her but took a step toward the wide canoe to discover that Kellan had indeed come prepared. “Is that a box of granola bars? How long do you think we’ll be gone?”
“As long as we want. But it was just easier to throw the box in than take them all out,” she explained. “So, what do you say?”
“If I say no, will you hate me?”
“No, if you honestly don’t want to go out there and explore with me, or you’re really not physically ready for it; just say so. We can hang out here with everything I brought, or we can throw it all in the car and head to an early dinner.”
Reese bit her upper lip as she glanced at the island, then back at the canoe, and lastly, at Kellan, who seemed so hopeful in that moment.
“Okay.”
“Okay, what?” Kellan lifted both eyebrows.
“If the canoe can hold both of us and all that crap you brou
ght, we can go.”
“Hey, you two.” Morgan approached from a trail off to their right along with six other people.
“Oh, hey,” Kellan offered an awkward greeting. “What are you doing here?” She looked around as if expecting more people to magically appear.
“Hey, Mo,” Reese greeted her ex. “Cascade falls?”
“Yup,” Morgan replied. “Just getting back with my second group of the day. Hey, Kellan.” She looked over at Kellan and pulled her water bottle out of her pack to take a drink. “What are you two doing?” She looked down at the canoe loaded with supplies.
“Just hanging out,” Kellan answered.
Reese looked at her and ran a hand through her hair before glancing over to Morgan again, deciding to embrace the awkwardness instead of avoiding it.
“We’re–”
“McBride Outfitters,” Morgan interrupted. “Rental?” She glanced back at Reese.
Reese glanced in the direction of the canoe. On the side, there was a label with the logo of McBride Outfitters.
“I rented it, yeah,” Kellan replied.
“I know. From me,” Morgan stated. “That’s my parents’ store. Well, mine more than theirs these days, since I run the business along with the tours most days.”
“Oh, I didn’t know. McBride?” Kellan asked.
“Burns Outfitters would make people think of forest fires,” Reese answered for Morgan. “So they named it after Morgan’s mother’s maiden name.”
“Yup.” Morgan slid her water bottle back into its pocket and turned around to see her group standing at the edge of the trail, conversing and drinking from their own bottles. “I should get going. I have to get them back.”
“Morgan–”
“No, you two have fun. I’m going to go,” Morgan interrupted Reese and headed back to the trail where she gathered her group and walked back to the parking lot.
“Shit,” Kellan said once Morgan had the group safely in a van and was pulling out of the parking lot. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see the logo. I rented this from two guys that have the shack over there.” She pointed to where Reese knew there was an outpost for McBride Outfitters along the shore of the lake.
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