by Lindsey Hart
“You know, you really should lock your front door.” He’d tried that first, ringing the doorbell. When she hadn’t answered, he’d gone for the knob and it turned. Though the door pushed open, he hadn’t gone in. He’d settled on the front step, lost in thought.
Maren sidled up, eyes wide as if she couldn’t really believe that it was him. “It’s a small town,” she said uneasily. “People respect that here. They don’t intrude into other people’s homes.”
“And what about all the people who aren’t from here? The transients passing through. You really should be more careful.”
Maren shrugged dainty shoulders. She had on a yellow blouse and a denim skirt. It was casual and a far cheerier attire than her trip to the lawyer’s office warranted, as through by putting it on, she was trying to bolster her own spirits. Her fiery hair was tied back in a braid that trailed down her back. She was a vision, as she always was and she stole his breath away.
“Yah, well. It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“What does that mean?” He frowned at the lost look that stole into her eyes. He could see her abject misery all over her face and it hit him square in the chest.
“It means that this place isn’t my problem anymore. The new owners can leave their door unlocked if they want.” She shrugged again. “Or they can lock it. I guess that will be up to them.”
He didn’t invite her to sit down beside him, but he certainly didn’t protest either. There was room on the step. She climbed up the bottom two, thin sandals that wrapped around her ankles with braided straps making hardly a whisper of noise as she walked and stepped up.
“The place sold then?”
“Yes. It was only on the market for a few weeks. Some investor bought it. I hope they try and run it as a bed and breakfast and that they don’t tear it down and make some huge looming hotel or something, but I guess none of that is any of my business anymore.”
He nodded, aware of the heat of her body, less than a few inches from his. Her thigh was so close, burning right through his jeans. He was aware of her soft, sweet scent, the dainty perfume of her skin, the natural aura of her delicate femininity. She was so beautiful. So entirely naturally radiant. It cut him to the quick that he had ever said unkind things to her. That he had hurt her. He’d watched her face change after she confessed that she loved him. He’d crushed not only her heart but her soul that day and he knew it.
“Why are you here?” One reddish brow arched. Pale grey eyes burned into his. They were such wells of emotion he couldn’t pick out a single one, a single feeling.
“I came because I needed to know. I needed to ask you something. If I asked, would you tell me the truth?”
“Always.” Her face gave nothing away and her voice never wavered. He knew then, that she had always told him the truth. Always. She’d never lied to him, not that morning, not ever. She just hadn’t told him that it was her.
“I know it was you, Maren. I know it was you that saved me.”
She shook her head, wispy tendrils of hair dancing and swaying to a silent music around her face with the movement. “How?”
“I just… remembered one night. I had this dream and it was so real. When I woke up, I knew it was you. I saw you in it, heard your voice. I knew that all these years I was wrong. I remembered something about Chelsea. That her hair was dry. Just the ends were wet. She couldn’t have swum out all that way and dragged me back and kept it dry.”
“Yah, well… what are you going to do about it now? It’s too late.”
His eyes burned into hers, willing her not to look away. He dared to reach down and take her hand. Her skin was so very soft, but she was cold, chilled, from the inside out, as the sun overhead was already hot. She pulled away with a soft, startled gasp and he let her retreat.
“It’s not too late.”
“It is. I’m leaving. The house is sold. In less than two weeks I won’t be here. It will be like I never existed at all and that’s all there is to it. It doesn’t matter that it was me, not Chelsea, who pulled you out of the water.”
“She didn’t know how to swim did she?”
“No. Not really.”
“She didn’t know CPR either I would wager?”
“No. She didn’t.”
“So, you saved my life that day. How can you say that it doesn’t matter?”
Maren’s head bent and she studied her hands, which she’d clasped in her lap. “I’m not saying that. Of course, your life matters. I’m just staying that it was semantics, who saved you. You fell in love with Chelsea and I could tell she loved you. I wasn’t about to ruin the one chance she had at happiness. Or at least, what I thought was her chance. She was my best friend. I cared about her. I loved her. I haven’t heard from her in years, but I still care. I still love her.”
“And what about what you said the day I left? That you’ve loved me since that day?”
She shrugged again, a delicate lift of even more delicate shoulders. He longed to run his hand over her skin, to memorize the feel of it, to remind his fingertips just how soft and wonderful she was. He longed to put his lips there, between the tiny little indent of her collarbones or shoulder blades, at the base of her neck… anywhere.
“Yah, well, you told me that was a fairy tale.”
“I was being an asshole.”
“No, you weren’t. You were just being honest. Really, it doesn’t matter. We don’t know each other. We haven’t spent more than a couple days together. You can’t love someone just because you saved them from drowning and you thought about them every day after. That doesn’t make up love. It won’t get people through the hard realities of life.”
He waited for the space of a couple hard heartbeats. His was hammering away in his chest. He wondered if hers was beating just as rapidly and as painfully. “So where are you going to go then?”
“I don’t know. That doesn’t matter either.”
“It does. It might. If you don’t have a destination in mind, maybe you would just like to stay.”
“In Monterey? No. I couldn’t bear to see this house belong to someone else, with someone else living inside of it. It would break my heart.”
“Maybe then, maybe you should just stay.”
Her eyes flew to his face and he watched understanding dawn. It was there, clarity, followed by the sharp burst of anger. “It was you!” She jumped up, pointing an accusatory finger at him. “It was you who bought the house! That was your shell corporation.”
“Yes. Maren… whoa. Just sit down and hear me out.” He got to his feet as she edged away, down the porch, towards the front door.
“No! That’s just great. I hope you enjoy it, really I do.”
“Maren…”
“You know, possession isn’t for another twelve days. Technically you don’t own the place yet. If you’ve come here to gloat or whatever you come for, I guess you have it now. Please leave.” Her hand hit the knob and he knew in another second she’d be inside. He stepped forward.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“I’ll call the cops then. You’re trespassing and harassing me.”
“Maren, come here.” He kept advancing. She pressed herself up against the solid wood front door. He knew for a fact it was unlocked and though her hand was on the knob, she never turned it, never let herself inside and slammed the door on his face, never locked him out.
His eyes met hers and she couldn’t look away. He saw the pain there, the pain and the irrational flicker of hope that she was obviously trying so desperately not only to hide but also to tamp down.
He reached her, after another long stride. His arms closed around her, pulling her close. She struggled, but he reached down and tipped her face up. She stilled, her breaths coming in sharp little rasps that echoed his own. She stared up at him, eyes luminous and transparent. She stared up at him with all the trust and love, anger and resistance in the world.
Owen ran his hand along her delicate jawline. Her face was so warm, her
skin so impossibly smooth, like true porcelain. God, he’d thought about her, thought about that night they’d shared, dreamed about touching her once more, kissing her just one more time.
“The thing is, this isn’t just an investment for me. I didn’t buy your bed and breakfast to put strangers in it. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, but I want to run it. I tried to go back to my life. I’ve been trying for the past five years, ever since that day I just about died here, but it was never the same. I blamed Chelsea for the failure of our marriage, but the truth was, I was never in love with her. I thought I was, but I wasn’t. It wasn’t her I was connected to. I rushed into it. I thought she was the one, the one who brought me back to life and because of that, I married her. I thought I could change and that she could change and that we’d be happy for the rest of our lives, that we’d make each other happy, but that could never happen.”
“Why not? Why couldn’t it happen? She did love you. And I know she meant something to you.”
“She did. I tried. I tried so hard. Maybe she did too, but in the end, it didn’t matter. I wasn’t the one for her and she wasn’t the one for me. It was you. All along, it was you.”
“And you what? Want me to stay? What are you even trying to tell me right now, Owen, because I’m pretty confused. It was you who told me that love didn’t matter. That it wasn’t enough. It was you who walked out the door and didn’t want to learn the truth.”
“I know. I was a fool. I was so damn foolish. I’m sorry that I hurt you. If I could go back and change that day and just listen to you, I would. I didn’t know what to do, other than this. I couldn’t come back here and have this conversation with you until I’d done this for you.”
“What? Bought my home?”
“No. Maren, don’t you see? I bought your house to save it for you. I don’t want to be a partner. I don’t want to be an investor. I just want to be with you. I want to see if this could work. I’ve always felt drawn here. It never made sense. I dreamed about that night all the time. I thought it was haunting me, but really, I was just trying to remember. To remember what actually happened. I’ll sign the house back over to you tomorrow. I’ll get the lawyer to draw up the papers again.”
“You could have just done it in the first place.”
He shrugged, and he had to offer a sheepish smile. “Maybe, but this somehow seemed more dramatic. It seemed like if I showed up here and swept you into my arms and told you what I’d done and offered you your house back that you would agree to my crazy proposal and you would tell me that you still loved me, or that you weren’t even fully sure what that meant, but that you wanted to find out.”
“Oh really? You thought it would just all be that simple? A new beginning, just like that?”
He ran his thumb over her jaw and didn’t miss her shiver. Despite her words, she leaned into the touch. She closed her eyes, just for a brief second before her long lashes fluttered open and she was staring at him, her heart there, laid bare for him to see.
“Yes. I hoped that you would give me a second chance. I made a mistake five years ago. I made a mistake when I walked out your door and refused to listen. I don’t want us to spend the rest of our lives paying for it.”
“And if I say no? Would you still sign my house back to me?”
“Of course.” He paused, afraid that she would say no. He waited and still, she said nothing. “Are you going to say no?” He finally prompted. “It’s alright. If you don’t want this, I understand.”
She shook her head and stared up at him. His hand still rested on her jaw. “I’m not saying no. I’ve dreamt about you. I’ve spent years loving you. I’ve followed everything I could find in the news. I wasn’t trying to keep tabs on you, I just wanted to feel close. It was my breath in your lungs that brought you back. I guess that created a connection, at least on my part, that I have always felt. I guess if you can call that love, then I’ve loved you.”
“And do you want to? Do you want to start over? To run this thing together? Do you want me out here, next to you? Or even at a distance? Anything?”
“Yes. Yes, I want you here. I want you in my house. I want you in my bed. I want to do more than just try and see if this would work. I want to make it work. I never expected that you would come back or that this would be my house. I was fully prepared to let it go and to leave. This feels like you’ve saved me. It feels like you brought me back. It feels like your breath in my lungs.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do. I was blind for a very long time. I promise that I will never be so foolish again. I will never let you go, as long as you want to be with me. I will always be here for-”
His words were cut off when she stood on her tiptoes, wrapped her arms around his neck and tugged his face down to hers. Her kiss was burning, searching, and so very full of love and promise.
“Hoo! It looks like someone found out after all!”
They pulled apart, but Maren still remained in his arms. They glanced over at Hettie, who was coming down the sidewalk with a plate of cookies balanced in her hands. Her grin accentuated every single of the many wrinkles on her face but she was absolutely gorgeous. Her happiness and her delight, her love for Maren, and one day, maybe even for him as well, was evident.
“Hettie!” Maren stepped away, breaking his hold. She kept one arm at his waist and opened the other for the woman who was so much like a grandmother to her.
Hettie hustled on down the walk, her short gait surprisingly fast for someone who usually toddled about. They wrapped their arms around her after she set down her cookies on the porch step and joined them.
Together they stood, just for a moment, wrapped up in warm, loving arms. The three of them, a family of sorts. Owen took a deep breath of salty Monterey air. Even though he hadn’t been born there, even though he hadn’t grown up in the bed and breakfast or played in the waters or sat on the front porch, he knew that this was his destiny. He’d been searching his entire life for this and now, at last, he was home.
EPILOGUE
Maren
For as long as she lived, she didn’t think she’d find a sweeter sound than that of her child’s footsteps tracing their way downstairs, into the kitchen.
She smiled at her small daughter. Four-year-old Gabrielle had her mother’s red hair and grey eyes, but everything else about her from the shape of her nose to her chin was her father’s.
“Good morning, sweetheart.” She scooped up the child, who grinned and threw her arms around her mother’s neck.
“Morning mama!”
“How was your sleep?” A sleepy response was whispered in her ear. “Are you ready for some fresh cinnamon buns? I just made them?” She didn’t say that they were for guests or that they really weren’t truly breakfast food. She was rewarded with a huge grin as Gabby glanced over at the kitchen counter.
“I smelled them from upstairs!”
“Best way to wake up isn’t it?”
That grin grew wider, revealing little pearly teeth. “Yup!” Gabby hesitated a second after Maren placed her back down. Her little feet peeked out from the hem of a long purple nightgown. “Can we go to the beach this morning? Grandma Hettie promised to help me look for shells.”
Maren smiled back, heart swelling with love. She wanted her child to spend as much time with Hettie as possible. Hettie absolutely adored Gabby. It reminded her so much of how Hettie had been there for her as a child, a second grandmother. “Of course. We’ll go down right after we finish the cinnamon buns. It’s early yet and we don’t have to serve breakfast for a while. That should give us a few hours.”
“A few hours? Getting into trouble this early in the morning?”
Maren spun around just in time to see Owen striding into the kitchen. He was dressed like he too was ready for the beach, in a pair of khaki shorts and a black t-shirt. His deeply tanned skin spoke to how much time he spent outside.
“We’re always getting into trouble, daddy,” Gabby giggled. “You said that we wou
ldn’t be your girls if we weren’t.”
Owen’s face suffused with love. “I did say that, didn’t I?’
Gabby nodded gravely, but her laughter rang through the kitchen as Owen scooped her up in his arms and threw her over his shoulder. He stepped closer and ducked down, planting a heart-racing kiss on her lips.
“Let me guess, you would like a cinnamon bun, extra butter and one black coffee?”
Owen laughed, the sound filling up the kitchen. Maren loved it. She loved her life, the routine of family, the routine of the bed and breakfast, their guests. She was happy in a way she had never been before. Even when she thought she was happiest, she didn’t know that she was missing a family of her own. Finding out she was pregnant hadn’t exactly been planned right after Owen bought the bed and breakfast for her, but they’d both been overjoyed. Gabby completed their life and their home. She was a beautiful child who loved life wholeheartedly.
“You know me too well.”
“Well then, have a seat at the table and I’ll have it coming right up.”
Owen seated Gabby at the table. She beamed up at her father and started asking him about shells and what lived inside of them and where snails went when they decided they didn’t want to live in their shell any longer. From there the conversation drifted over to why grandma Hettie sometimes wore curlers in her hair out of the house or why she sometimes wore plastic bags over her perms when it was raining. It was a source of endless delight to Gabby, those plastic wrappers that really weren’t bags at all.
Maren walked around on a perpetual cloud of happiness. She’d been that way since Owen first showed up at her doorstep. Though she’d had her doubts and not every day had been easy, her life was wondrous. It was beautiful and incredible and so much more than she ever imagined possible. Her heart overflowed with love, a love that far surpassed anything she ever thought was possible.
She set down two plates with steaming hot cinnamon buns. She returned for her own plate and two cups of coffee before she sat down.
She said nothing as Gabby prattled on and Owen answered the sometimes hilarious questions of their four-year-old daughter the best he could. She glanced out of the window, out at the beach, to the exact spot where she’d once pulled Owen up and breathed life into his lungs.