by Emma Accola
Words failed me, so I nodded.
“Sylvie told me that, you know, how you were afraid.”
“Did she?” My voice was cold. Even though she was his sister, I couldn’t help but resent how well the beautiful redhead had seen into me. “What does she base that on?”
“She said that the one thing you could count on to keep you and me together was Harry Spice, and that without him, you would be afraid I’d leave. She asked me to tell you that you don’t have to worry about falling in love because—and these are her words—‘pretty girl can fly.’”
I could imagine Sylvie saying that and tried to scoff. “What does she know about love?”
“She knows herself.”
Oddly Tamra had said that same thing, that she knew herself. The day after the news reported Harry Spice’s arrest, she had come out of hiding. Having my dear friend back in my life had left me quivering with relief and gratitude. Tamra told me how she had been hoarding cash for months because her intuition told her to save herself once Harry Spice got out of jail.
Micah slid out of the pool and sat on the edge, dangling his feet in the water, completely unconcerned about his nudity. “I drove all the way out here to bring you back.”
“You wasted a trip.”
“What do you need?” Micah shot back.
“For one thing, you could stop giving me the third degree,” I said, irritated.
“No. You don’t get to brush me off like that. I’m making it one of my twenty questions. Shall I clarify?”
“Yes,” I said, hating that I snapped.
His eyes darkened. “Forget Harry Spice. Forget it’s me who’s asking. Without your constant English professor editing, just tell me what you want, need, miss, and love.”
“That’s four questions.”
“Stop it. Just stop it. Answer the questions.”
I took a deep breath and began. “I want a man in my life who lets me feel on the inside the way you did when we spent that day at the vineyard, the way you could touch me from across the room. I need you to be the person I think you are and to be that way for the rest of my life. I miss the way I used to be able to trust myself and my perceptions. And I love you.”
The words were out in the air like neon hummingbirds and I couldn’t claw them back. I pushed away from the side of the pool and swam underwater to the bottom. My body felt as weightless as a dream, unburdened of its secrets, light. Down in the twinkling mottled bottom of the pool, I wouldn’t see Micah if he decided to walk away. Here I held my breath like I had been doing since Harry Spice had come into my life. Suddenly I felt Micah’s strong arm around my waist. He swam me to the surface and pressed me against the side of the pool. I gasped for air.
“What are your priorities now?” he whispered into my dripping hair.
My eyes burned. I hoped that my tears were mixed with the pool water so Micah wouldn’t notice. “I want to understand what I’m feeling. I want to finish my year as an English professor so that I know who I am without my family or a winery. I want my biggest priority to be my relationship with you.”
Micah moved away slightly. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
“Hearing it isn’t enough,” I whispered.
“What do you need from me?”
My hands rested on his shoulders. “Can we start over?”
For a second a shadow of anxiety darkened his face. “Are you asking for something new?”
“I guess I am.” I pulled myself out of the pool. “I want us to date. We’ve never gone to the movies or had long heart-to-heart telephone calls. We haven’t taken a trip to Hawaii or drunk too much vodka or bought each other presents that we only pretended to like. I haven’t slept in one of your tee shirts or eaten your last little tub of yogurt or used one of your razors to shave my legs. We don’t even have a song.”
Micah smiled. “We have a wine. And we can take care of the rest of it when we go on break at the end of fall semester.”
“I want to start from the beginning.”
Micah held out his hand to me. “Hi. My name is Micah and I’m going to be very important to the rest of your life.”
I smiled as I took his hand. “That would sound much better if you had your clothes on.”
He laughed and pulled me into the water. The ash was gone.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Emma Accola was born and raised in the upper Mississippi River valley and currently lives in northern California with her family.
She grew up riding horses and reading science fiction and romance novels. These days she never misses a new Star Trek movie.