Herons Landing

by JoAnn Ross

  Good times. And one of the few occasions he ever remembered his workaholic father loosening up and enjoying time with his family. The memories, even now, left him smiling as he drove past Port Angeles and around the top corner of the state down the coast highway. They were approaching Lake Crescent, where Teddy Roosevelt’s cousin Franklin, then president, had hosted a political dinner in the lodge dining room before staying the night in one of the cabins. Many had called the lake the most beautiful in America. Although he admittedly hadn’t seen them all, John couldn’t argue the point.

  The sky, which had been darkening again all during his drive, suddenly opened up. The thudding of the heavy rain on the windshield woke Sarah up. “Where are we?” She glanced through the sheeting rain. “Lake Crescent isn’t on the way to my house.”

  “No. But it’s on the way to my family’s vacation coast house,” he said mildly, waiting for the explosion. Wanting to avoid an argument, he’d been hoping she’d stay asleep until they reached the house.

  “You’re kidnapping me?”

  “Not exactly.”

  She folded her arms and turned toward him. “What would you call it?”

  He’d thought about that and hadn’t exactly come up with a good answer. “Honeymoon Harbor is a fishbowl. You and me being seen together would cause the gossip line to overload. I wanted us to have some private time to talk before we had to reenter the real world.”

  “Did you ever think of asking me if I wanted that?”

  “I considered it.”

  “And?”

  “And I decided on the spur of the moment, when you fell asleep, not to, because you might still be mad at me and say no.”

  “I was getting a little less angry. Until I woke up and found myself kidnapped. Did you bother to tell my parents?”

  “No. Because you said they weren’t expecting you until they saw you. So I figured a couple days wouldn’t matter one way or another.”

  “What about your parents?”

  “Mike told them I’d be home in a couple days.”

  “You could turn around now and we’d both be home tonight. The way I’d intended to when I got on that ferry.”

  “We’ve come this far now,” he said. “We might as well keep going.”

  “It’s kidnapping,” she insisted yet again.

  “Did I mention that brides in Nepal go to live with their husbands’ people?” he asked.

  “No, and what does that clunky non sequitur have to do with this situation?”

  “Although it happens less often, many of those brides used to be kidnapped.”

  “That’s tragic and wrong.”

  “True. It’s also customary. At least it was. Only sons can inherit the family farms, but if there’s no bride for him to marry, it was viewed as a practical way of keeping the population growing and the agriculture going.”

  “Neither of our families owns a farm, we’re not in Nepal and I want to go home. Now.”

  “How about a compromise?” he suggested. “We’ll spend the night at the coast house. Then, if you want, I’ll take you back in the morning.”

  “Give me one reason I should spend the night with you.”

  “I told you. We have to talk.”

  “I’m not going to sleep with you,” she said.

  “The place has three bedrooms. Don’t worry, you’re safe.”

  She shook her head and turned away again, her eyes on the screen of trees that were getting bigger and more moss-covered as they neared the rain forest. For the next few minutes the only sound was the swishing of the wipers, the rain pounding on the roof and windshield, and the wind blowing in from the coast. It looked as if they were in for a storm. Worrying about trees falling on them almost had John second-guessing his admittedly impulsive plan. Almost being the definitive word.

  They were approaching a switchback when a logging truck, coming from the other direction, cut the corner, causing John to jerk the wheel to dodge what could be a deadly collision.

  “Good driving,” she said mildly, as if she hadn’t come close to being roadkill.

  Adding insult to near injury, the log truck driver laid on his air horn, as if John had been the one in the wrong, the long, loud bleat shattering the mountain stillness.

  “Thanks. Growing up driving on these roads probably kept me from having several heart attacks whenever I had to ride in a bus or car in the Himalayas.”

  “Funny how life changes,” she murmured. “I never would have imagined you there.”

  “And I wouldn’t have expected you to jump your straight-line track and head off to Japan.”

  “I guess we didn’t know each other as well as we’d thought.”

  “Or more, maybe we didn’t know ourselves as well as we’d thought.” His time in Nepal had certainly taught him more about himself than he could have imagined. John wondered if being thrown out of her comfort zone had done the same for her. And if so, what that meant for them.

  She fell quiet again, whether returning to giving him the silent treatment or thinking about his words, John wasn’t sure. But whichever, as long as she wasn’t insisting he return to Honeymoon Harbor, he figured he stood a chance.

  * * *

  IT WAS DUSK, too late for sunlight, too early for stars, as he turned off onto the private road leading to the house. The wind-driven rain slanted hard against the windshield as he continued into the widening well of deep purple. Her brief nap had left her feeling less like a zombie, but the weather was setting her nerves on edge. Especially since, having spent a forbidden weekend here (after telling her parents she was going to Lake Quinault with her best friend’s family), she knew they were approaching a spot where a creek crossed the gravel road. That late-summer evening, before she and John had gone their separate ways to college, the creek hadn’t been very deep. This time of year, with the spring snowmelt coming off the mountains and no room to make a U-turn on the narrow, tree-lined road, she feared they could end up being washed away. Or at the very least, spending the night in the car.

  “Dad had a bridge built over the creek a few years ago. While I was at UW and you were back east,” John said, proving yet again his seeming ability to read her mind. “The snowmelt’s been increasing more each year, making the creek run faster and breach its banks.”

  “That’s good to know,” she said. “Not about the snowmelt, especially if it’s coming from the glaciers, but that there’s a bridge.”

  “I’d never risk putting you in danger, Sarah.”

  She should’ve known that. There’d been a time when she’d never had a single doubt. But after he’d dumped her, she’d wondered if she’d ever truly known him at all. Then there were other moments, like when they were eating the fish and chips in the car and he’d been telling her about Nepal, or standing on the deck of the ferry, when it had almost felt like they’d been transported back into the past. When love had made even the forbidden sweet.

  The house was on the edge of a cliff, built far enough back that erosion wouldn’t cause it to fall into the sea, as tended to happen now and again as the mighty Pacific—which had been so ill named, since there was nothing peaceful about it—warred with the land. The towering sea stacks offshore, many with trees still growing atop from when they’d been part of the mainland, were proof that wind and water would always eventually win.

  Two stories with a widow’s walk around the top, the house had originally been built for a whaling captain. When she’d last been here, the cedar siding had been stained brown, making it nearly impossible to see among the towering Douglas firs. Now it was a bluish silver, like the sea at twilight.

  “I like the color.”

  “I do, too, though it seems a little strange, having been brown all my life.”

  “It looks more peaceful,” she said. “More welcoming.”

  He shot her a look. �
�You didn’t find it welcoming last time you were here?”

  She was grateful for the deepening shadows that hopefully hid the color rising in her cheeks at the memory of how they’d spent that stolen weekend. “It was such a long time ago,” she said. “It’s hard to remember.”

  “Funny.” He used a fob on his key chain to open the door of the garage, which, unfortunately, wasn’t attached to the house. Which meant they were going to have to run through the rain. “I remember everything.”

  His face, heavily shadowed in gathering darkness, appeared almost dangerous. Which was merely her overactive imagination stimulated by the storm. He may have broken her heart, but until that wretched moment he’d been the most warmhearted man she’d ever known. Surely he hadn’t changed that much in two years?

  “I’m afraid you’re going to have to get wet,” he said.

  “I grew up here and spent a year in England. I don’t melt.”

  “Nevertheless.” He reached into the back seat, grabbed his backpack and handed her a deep blue Gore-Tex hooded jacket. “This came in handy during the rainy season.”

  She slipped into it. It smelled of wood smoke and, she imagined, rain, and as impossible as it probably was, like him. “Thank you,” she said as she slipped it on.

  The snug elastic at the wrists reminded her of that day, in this very house, where he’d used her bra to loosely tie her wrists to the iron headboard, and although the idea had shocked her, she’d also found the forbiddenness of the act thrilling.

  She dashed through the rain, John following with her carry-on and his backpack. Although his jacket had kept her dry to the waist, her shoes were soaked and her skirt was plastered to her wet legs.

  “Why don’t you go upstairs and take a hot shower and put on some dry clothes while I run back out and get your big suitcase?”

  “You needn’t bother. I have everything I need in here.” She’d learned to travel with necessities after waiting three days for her luggage from Sea-Tac to show up at Heathrow. She drank in the sight of him, soaked to the skin, his wet jeans clinging to his thighs and legs, outlining a body part she shouldn’t even be thinking about, let alone wanting to feel inside her again.

  “Okay. You can sleep in my folks’ room and use their master bathroom.”

  “What about you?”

  “I already showered this morning, so I’ll just change.” He waggled his eyebrows in a cartoonishly suggestive way. “Unless you’d like to share.”

  “I think I’ll pass.”

  “Your call,” he said easily. “I’ll meet you back down here.”

  He insisted on taking her carry-on up the stairs to the second floor, which boasted an amazing view across the seagrass, the beach and the water to the horizon, where clouds far darker and more ominous than the ones currently hovering over the house were building up.

  As she entered the bathroom, another memory flashed through her mind. As many times as they’d been together, despite having spent an entire stolen night in bed with him, Sarah had been embarrassed about getting naked in the shower with John the next morning. Until he’d lathered up the pine-scented soap that would always remind her of him, spread the bubbles all over her in a way that had every atom in her body screaming for release, then, with just a wicked flick of his tongue, sent her flying.

  Despite his having broken her heart, John Mannion was like an addiction. One she’d thought she kicked.

  She’d been so, so wrong.

  Sarah had handed her young and tender heart to him somewhere back in elementary school. It had been so easy, so natural, that she couldn’t even pinpoint the day or year. It was as though she’d always loved him. As he’d professed to have loved her. Until he didn’t.

  She would let him have his say, since with the Pacific Coast storm building up on the horizon, she couldn’t insist he take her back to Honeymoon Harbor tonight. Then, after hearing him out, she was going to move on with her life. Something that’d be more difficult if she followed the voice that had been whispering in her ear the past few months. A voice that would, once again, take her off her carefully planned path into unfamiliar territory.

  Did life have to always be so fraught with decisions? Sarah wondered as she stood beneath the shower and reveled in the feel of the hot water streaming over her, washing away the chill and travel grime. Why couldn’t it be easier?

  Slamming a mental door on a too-vivid memory of John’s hands and mouth on her body beneath the water, she dragged her thoughts to her grandmother. And great-grandmother, and all the generations before them, to those first immigrants who’d arrived in America from the shores of Loch Lomond in the 1800s.

  Back in their homeland they’d literally been harpers, an important enough position to be given free landholdings on great Scottish estates. Although her parents had never said it directly, she knew they were counting on her to raise their status. While Americans might not hand out free land to people in the arts, becoming an English professor was a huge jump upward for the family. Sarah knew she’d been offered an opportunity of a lifetime.

  So why was she so conflicted?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  GOING CRAZY THINKING of Sarah across the hall, standing beneath the shower he remembered sharing with her all too well, John quickly changed into dry clothes, then went downstairs and started fires in both the great room and kitchen fireplaces. Although having a fireplace in the kitchen might seem like a design luxury these days, back when the house was built, before electricity had reached the coast, it had been used for heat and cooking.

  He was about to check the fridge when she came downstairs, dressed in an oversize fog-gray, black and white color-blocked sweater that fell to midthigh, and a pair of charcoal-gray leggings with slouchy black socks. Her shoes were surprising neon-pink high-top Reeboks with multicolor-striped laces.

  “Nice kicks,” he said.

  She glanced down at her feet. “Thanks. They were admittedly a little wild for Japan, where people tend to dress more minimalistic, like New Englanders. But I bought them on sale while living in Oxford and didn’t want to spend the money to replace them.”

  It had always been about money with her. She’d waited tables at the Big Dipper after school and weekends and worked on the line at the cannery in the summers. Even during college she’d held down two jobs, which made it even more difficult for John and her to get together, with him in Washington State and her all the way across the country in Massachusetts.

  “I’m glad you didn’t,” he said. “They’re hot.”

  She laughed. “Which is proof you’ve been too long without a woman.”

  “Over two years,” he responded to what he knew she’d meant as a joke to deflect the compliment he’d paid her. “Not that I’m counting or anything.”

  “Oh. Well.” He could see her doing the math in her head. Wondering if their night in Boston could’ve been his last with any woman. Which it had been, but he’d thought he’d ease into that revelation. “I’ll have to admit they always make me feel as if I should be doing aerobics,” she said.

  John fought against imagining her in a leotard. Oh, yeah. It had been way too long if that could turn him on.

  “You’d probably be good at it after all those years taking ballet from Madame Nikolayev.” He’d always thought she looked like a fairy in her little white shoes and tutus. He remembered her in sixth grade, when she’d been a snowflake in a very shortened version of The Nutcracker. Watching her twirl across that shined-to-a-gloss stage of the Olympic Theater, a spotlight highlighting her glittery white costume and brilliant hair, which had escaped the tidy bun at the back of her head, he’d felt as if he’d fallen off a cliff. A few years later, he’d realized it’d been the first unfolding of boyish lust, but it was also that moment, as their eyes met before she’d danced off the stage, that he’d fallen in love.

  “A lot of girls wanted to
be Laurie Partridge back then. I dreamed of joining the New York City Ballet and becoming a prima ballerina, dancing with Baryshnikov.”

  “You’ve always had big dreams.”

  “That was a nice one while it lasted.” Her smile was reminiscent, and, John thought, a little bittersweet. “I loved the costumes. I always felt like a princess.”

  “You looked like one, too. Especially in that snowflake costume.”

  She looked at him in surprise. “You remember that?”

  “I told you. I remember everything.”

  She colored a bit at that, but didn’t respond to his implied reminder of their last night together. “Well, unfortunately, as Madame pointed out, once I passed five foot four in seventh grade, I’d grown too tall for any company to ever take me.”

  She’d cried, he remembered. He’d been out on the trail, recklessly looking for a bear that had been reported raiding garbage cans, when he’d found her sitting on a rock on the bank of the lake, sobbing into a tattered Kleenex. It was the first time he’d touched her; he’d put his arm around her and she’d turned her face against his chest, soaking his T-shirt with her tears.

  Afterward, they’d watched a great blue heron dive into the lake, then fly back to its nest at Herons Landing with a rainbow trout for its chicks. Then he’d walked her home, separating two houses down so her parents wouldn’t spot them. Because although they’d always tolerated their childhood friendship, lately, for some reason he hadn’t been able to figure out, they’d openly disliked their daughter being with him.

  By his sophomore year of high school, he realized that they were worried that he might be the guy to ruin their miracle princess’s life.

  She hadn’t taken time to put on makeup or dry her hair, which now tumbled in wet coppery curls over her shoulders. Not that she needed makeup. Her skin, the color of top cream, was as smooth as a newborn baby’s.

  He opened the fridge. “We’re in luck,” he said. “Mike left halibut, steaks and potatoes. With wine. And Boston cream pie for dessert.”