The Years Between Us

by Stephanie Vercier

  “Yeah, I do,” he says, his voice low and urging, his cock already hard up against me.

  “That settles it then,” I say just before my lips meet his.

  I’d gone and used the shower in my guest room after our latest round. I loved being with Luke, but I wanted a few minutes to myself before our hike. Besides that, I was sore and didn’t want to risk being naked around him again and ending up back in his bed. I’d gone from being a virgin who had absolutely no sex to a girl that was having sex multiple times a day with a very well endowed man. Maybe I’d need a break, or maybe it would be better to just keep it up. With Danielle away as much as she is, that seems pretty plausible.

  I choose a sports bra, tank top, running shorts and running shoes for our hike. I don’t have good hiking boots, so I figure this will have to do until I can buy something better in town. Luke is waiting for me in the downstairs kitchen. He’s made oatmeal, some thick slabs of sourdough toast along with two big bowlfuls of seasonal berries along with two tall glasses of orange juice. We’re both pretty hungry, and we don’t waste any time digging in and feeding our hunger. We work together to clean up, and then we’re outside, a beautiful summer day, the sun shining through a nearly cloudless sky, enough trees around us for shade, but plenty of spots we can find to bask in the sun if we want to.

  “I bought this property as a kind of retreat,” Luke tells me as we start along what appears to be a well-worn path through a forest of Douglas Firs and Ponderosa Pines. “There’s so much activity in Seattle, so much intensity, and sometimes it feels like a pressure cooker ready to blow. Out here, it’s just peaceful.”

  “Was your plan always to build this house, to live here full time?” I ask, wondering if he’d meant this for some kind of weekend getaway and not a place to actually live. He’d have still been married to Isabelle, and Danielle would have been on the verge of her teen years, old enough to have friends in Seattle she might not have wanted to say goodbye to.

  He laughs softly. “Yeah, but the initial plan was for something much simpler. It just morphed into something a lot bigger. We’d planned to put a pool and a tennis court in too, but by the time I was going to get around to it, Isabelle had left.”

  There’s a solemnity to the way he says that, and it makes me wonder how invested he remains in her, if he wishes he could have her back, that they could live out their days together in the house they built.

  “Have you ever wanted to get rid of it… the house, I mean?”

  He pauses before saying, “Once or twice. It’s a big, isolated house. When Dani went off to college, I seriously considered it, but I’m just not ready for the city again.”

  “That’s understandable, but I kind of like it.”

  “The city?”

  “Uh, huh. I mean, there are times I don’t, but it just feels so alive, like there’s always something going on. And I love the skyline at night, all of the twinkling lights, especially how the clouds come so low during heavy rains so that the top halves of all the buildings just kind of disappear into a mist.”

  “There’s a beauty to it, especially the way you just described it,” he says. “You think you could ever leave that for good?”

  “Sure. I love Pullman too. Big cities and small towns both have their charms, and I think I could live in either one.”

  He takes my hand and pulls me through a thicket of trees until we come into a small meadow where the break in the forest continues all the way until the earth slants down a hillside.

  “You think you could get used to a view like this?” he asks me, still holding onto my hand.

  “It’s beautiful. I don’t imagine you ever get sick of it.”

  “No… not really. And while I can just picture the way you described Seattle at night, I’ve got to take you out to just this spot on a clear night where the stars go on forever. I’ve found a lot of peace out here, but I can’t deny that it would be better if I could share it with someone.”

  He looks at me with such conviction that I almost feel like he might drop down on one knee and propose to me. But as much of a whirlwind we’ve been sucked up into, it’s still too early for that.

  “I have to finish school,” I tell him.

  “Of course. I’d never keep you from that. But after? Do you think you could live out here… with me?”

  I smile and inwardly beam at the idea that this gorgeous man would want me to live with him and become an even larger part of his life. “I think I could live anywhere with you,” I say, then need to catch my breath before adding, “as long as it’s not in the middle of a desert or the northernmost shore of Alaska.”

  He taps his chin as if considering. “Actually, I’d been thinking about Greenland… or maybe Antarctica.”

  I punch him softly on the shoulder, loving how he can excite and relax me in the same moment. “Then you’ll be going alone, buddy.”

  “No, we couldn’t have that,” he says, grabbing my hips and pulling me close. “I think you just might be stuck with me, Claudia Cartwright.”

  The kiss is gentle and loving, and we’re pulled into one another as we so often find ourselves. It’s not until I hear the faint ringing of his phone that I’m pulled out of what has become our own little world.

  He sighs. “I need to check… it’s a habit, in case it’s Dani.”

  “Of course.” I step away from him, remembering how every time Danielle would call her dad back at school, he would always answer. She never once had to leave a message. The same could not be said for my parents who were often in court or in meetings or might have been too busy arguing with one another to hear the phone ring. Sometimes it seemed silly for them to expect me to keep in touch with them every single day when we so seldom would actually speak.

  “Hello? Yes, this is he…” he answers, turning away from me and focusing on whomever is on the other line. “That’s right, but I thought things had been going well... and you’re sure about that? That’s what she specifically said?” He waits, then sighs when he gets some kind of confirmation. “Yes… yes, I’ll be on my way. About an hour an a half… yes, thank you.”

  And then he drops his phone to his side, stuffs it back into his pocket, turns to me and offers an apologetic smile. “There’s been a bit of a blow up with a project I’ve been working on, and I need to drive into Seattle to put out some fires.” He puts his hands on my upper arms. “I’ll need to leave right away. I can take you into town on my way out if you’d like or you’re of course free to use the Tesla.”

  My thoughts jolt back to Emily and what she’d told me about Isabelle, and I’m suspicious of who the call was really from, if it was actually about work or instead about her. Part of me thinks I have the right to know, the other being aware I’ve known Luke for less than a month and that maybe he’s allowed to have a few secrets as long as they don’t stay that way forever.

  “Okay, maybe you could drop me off at the library?” I really don’t like driving that car. “I could use something fresh to read.”

  He grins. “Of course. I like a girl that reads.” He also seems relieved that I go along with his official story about this being about work and not asking to accompany him to Seattle.

  On our way back to the house, Luke promises we’ll do this again, that we’ll have another month and hopefully more if we can talk my parents into letting me stay until right before school starts back up.

  We both take quick showers and change, he into a dress shirt and trousers, me into some cotton leggings and a long blouse. I grab my sweater before we go, figuring they might have the air conditioning blasting at the library.

  He risks kissing me in his truck before he drops me off at Echo Ridge’s library, and he waits until I’m inside, having promised to pick me back up this evening. I wave goodbye, stopping myself from wondering what he’s really going to Seattle for and instead allowing myself to get excited at the prospect of getting lost inside a really good book.

  Chapter Twenty

  LUKEr />
  I hated to lie to Claudia, though I tried to tell myself it was more like scooting around the truth. It wasn’t so strange to compare Isabelle to a project, one that had been in progress for quite some time. And just when I thought she was getting better, I got the urgent call from Dr. Franklin.

  Parking outside the hospital, I have to take a few minutes to steel myself before facing my ex-wife. It had never been as hard as it seems to be now, when there is another woman in my life who I see a future with, one whose radiance is contagious and who I believe truly loves me, might even love me six months or a year from now when she gets over the excitement of first love, of her first time.

  It’s not the kind of relationship I’d ever imagined having, hadn’t ever looked at anyone that young the way I look at Claudia. And as I finally open my door and climb out of my truck, I realize how invested I am and how much it would hurt to lose her. There is still my daughter and Claudia’s parents that will need to be told and will have to accept us in some way, and I wouldn’t be shocked if there was somewhat of a backlash in town. Emily and Rhonda will surely think I’d robbed the cradle, and maybe even some of my business associates would shake their heads to think I’d take up with a girl still in college.

  But I could deal with all of those things, and I had to believe anyone who loved me or Claudia would find a way to understand. But what I can’t even begin to control is what Isabelle will think or what she’ll do or how Claudia might deal with the amount of attention I must still give to my ex-wife. I hope she can understand that I’m all she really has, how her own parents had to write her off for their own sanity and how her current husband might have just as well been saying his vows into thin air. He certainly didn’t mean them when he said them to Isabelle, especially the part about in sickness and in health. So it’s left to me to protect her because I once loved her as a husband loves a wife and because she’s Dani’s mother, and I want her to be the strongest she can be for if and when our daughter might need her again.

  “Hello, Mr. Preston.” The woman, Leticia, sits at the front desk right outside the locked unit. “How was the drive in?”

  “Not bad,” I tell her, signing the log they require all visitors to fill out. “Of course it turned gray as soon as I crossed over the pass. Lots of blue sky on the eastern side of the mountains.”

  “Gray is all it’s been for the last two days,” she says, getting up to unlock the door. “But tomorrow we get sun. Too bad I’ll be working.”

  “Try to enjoy some of it at least,” I tell her before I step into the unit. I walk down a long hallway before stopping at the nursing station inside and asking for Dr. Franklin.

  “You made it in good time,” Dr. Franklin says, slipping out from the back room behind the station and wiping his mouth with a napkin. He’s tall and skinny, and I’ve guessed he’s probably about the same age as me.

  “I hope I didn’t interrupt your lunch.” The poor guy looks like he never has much of a chance to eat.

  “No… no.” He waves that insinuation away. “It was just a donut. I only hope I didn’t interrupt something on your end. I know this situation can be difficult.”

  “It’s fine,” I say, certainly wishing I were still out on that hike with Claudia. But I’m here now, so there’s no sense in being upset about it.

  He pushes through the swinging half door at the nursing station and waves me toward him to follow. “If it gets to the point where it’s no longer fine, I hope you’ll say something. You won’t do your ex-wife any good if her sickness pulls you down as well.”

  “I don’t see what choice I have,” I tell him as we walk side by side toward Isabelle’s room. “She doesn’t have anybody else.”

  “Yes, the situation with her current husband is rather unfortunate, but she does have your daughter. I wonder if it might—”

  “No. Dani doesn’t need to see her mother like this, not now.”

  “Very well.” We stop outside of Isabelle’s room, close to another smaller nursing station toward the end of the hospital unit. I’m about to head in when Dr. Franklin puts his hand on my shoulder. “Her wrists have been bandaged up, but the actual cuts are pretty superficial. It’s her face that’s going to look worse for wear.”

  I nod in understanding. When he’d called earlier today, he’d told me she harmed herself and had to be brought down to the ER. He said it wasn’t pretty.

  “Isabelle, you have a visitor,” Dr. Franklin says, the first to walk in. Gray light from outside casts a sort of shadow in the private room.

  I’m right behind him, finding her sitting on the edge of her bed. Her blue eyes are vacant, surrounded by bruising, a nasty looking black eye and a large bandage covering what I’m told is a gash on her forehead, her long, blonde hair pulled back from her face.

  “Hey, you gave me a scare there, Izzy,” I tell her, sitting beside her slight frame and using the name I used to call her when we were still together.

  Her eyes brighten when she sees me before they fall right back down to the floor.

  “Luke is here to help you,” Dr. Franklin says in a calm, supportive voice as he slides into a chair and gets as close as he can to her. “I know you don’t want to tell us why you hurt yourself, but could you tell him? I think he’d understand.”

  She looks back up to me and picks at the gauze wrapped around her wrists. “I remembered what happened to Brandon,” she says softly. “I remember that night. It was all my fault.”

  I tense when she says the name, when she speaks of the accident she’d forgotten all over again. It’s been so long ago now, but it still hurts when it’s brought up like this. And I can only imagine the pain Isabelle feels every time she remembers it like it’s the first time.

  “Brandon has been gone a long time.” I put my hand on hers to stop her from continuing to pick at the gauze. “He wouldn’t want you to be so sad about his passing.”

  He was always smiling.

  “He was just a boy,” she says, a look of horror crossing over her face. “And I killed him! I did it!” She pushes my hand away and starts to rip at the gauze again before moving up to her forehead and trying to pull the bandage away.

  “You didn’t mean it,” I tell her with a forcefully loud voice while I grab her arms and settle them on her lap. “There is nothing you or I can do to bring him back, but you can live a good life now, Izzy. Can you do that for Brandon?”

  God, I can still picture him, the last time I saw him, like it was yesterday.

  “But how can I?” she cries. “When I killed him?”

  “You’ve paid the price for that,” Dr. Franklin tells her in a soft, comforting voice.

  She snaps her head to him and calms. “I was punished?”

  “Yes, you were,” Dr. Franklin says, briefly eyeing me, silently letting me know he won’t be reminding her of the particulars of her punishment while she’s in her current state, the probation, alcohol treatment and victim impact groups she’d had to attend, not to mention the repetitive punishment in remembering her role in his death. “But you continue to want to punish yourself over and over again, dissociating from his death and then returning to it, the wounds fresh again, the pain deep, a chance to continue hurting without ever resolving your true feelings. We have to find a way to end the cycle. It’s why Luke is here.”

  I’m here. I’m present. But there are days I question if that’s doing any good for her, if it’s doing any good for anyone at all.

  She looks up at me and smiles, the kind of smile I can remember her giving me in those early years. “Why did I ever leave you?” she asks me, lifting her hand and stroking my hair just behind my ear, the gauze around her wrist loose and hanging.

  “I don’t know, Izzy. I’m not the guy you really loved.”

  She’s asked me this same question before, and I try not to get caught in the emotion of it. The first time she’d said it, I had. It had been just a year after the divorce, and she was sitting in this very hospital, on this very psychiat
ric unit, asking the same question. I’d wanted to tell her it wasn’t too late, that we could try again, but I knew she wouldn’t give me that chance, and I’m not sure my heart was really in it anyway.

  “But he’s not here,” she says, her hand slipping away from me. “I don’t know where he is.” She turns to Dr. Franklin. “Do you know? Do you know where the hell my husband is at?”

  “Let’s focus,” Dr. Franklin tells her. “Just focus.”

  I sigh and feel my thoughts drift away from the mini-breakdown Isabelle is having in front of me and of Dr. Franklin’s attempts to stop it. For just a moment, those thoughts return to Brandon, and I feel a small smile forming on my lips.

  Brandon.

  Our boy, our son.

  My boy.

  My pride in him was endless.

  But now he is gone, from this life at least.

  Gone.

  In that one, sad thought, I hear the voices again, Isabelle and Dr. Franklin, in the here and now. There will be no reprieve, no simple fix. I sigh, knowing this will end up being a very long day.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  CLAUDIA

  I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed snuggling up with a good book until hours had passed and I’d nearly finished a dark romance between a hired killer and the one woman he can’t put a bullet into. I don’t have a library card, but as long as I don’t leave the cute, cozy library in downtown Echo Ridge, it’s not an issue.

  While reading, I’d lift my head and notice people I’d seen around town, a couple who had been in to The Nut Monger several times, a waitress from the diner and a guy who had tried to flirt with me and Danielle when we’d stopped at a gas station a week ago. The fact that I knew these people, by sight at least, brings it home how small this town is and how I’m beginning to fold into the fabric of it, how I’m starting to feel at home, even if not everyone here has been as nice as I’d have liked.