The Beautiful Now

by M. Leighton

  “Is it yours?”

  “Kinda. I raised this one’s father.” His eyes shift to mine.

  Then it clicks.

  “Stanley!”

  Dane grins a half-grin and nods. “Yep. He met him a gorgeous girl and they had babies about a year ago. Two of them stayed around here. This is one of them.”

  “Who’s Stanley?”

  “He was kind of like my pet when I was growing up. My dad wouldn’t let me have a dog, which is what I wanted, so I found Stanley the turtle living down here by the river and I brought him mushrooms every day.”

  Images as vivid as lightning in the sky flash through my mind, images of Dane and me walking this very path one summer day so many years ago. I can picture his eyes and his shaggy hair, the way his face looked when he talked about that turtle, the sadness that overtook it when he talked about a day when Stanley might leave. Sunshine and green trees and a happiness I didn’t think I’d find in Shepherd’s Mill. All because of a boy.

  This boy.

  This man.

  “What’s this one’s name?” Celina is still trying to coax it to come back out of its shell, much like her father is trying to coax her out of hers.

  “Nothing yet. What would be a good name for her?”

  “Sarabella.” Her reply is instant, and I have no idea where it came from.

  Dane smiles. “Pretty name for a pretty turtle. Sarabella it is.” He pauses and I wonder what he’s waiting for. Then I realize it’s assurance. Or maybe courage. “You wanna help me keep ’em fed?”

  Celina jumps on the chance. “Sure!”

  They chat about how best to achieve this as I listen and watch. Until Celina, Dane was the love of my life. When my child was born, I knew I’d never love anything more. And having the two of them together? It’s like heart overload. I can’t ever remember feeling so full. So complete.

  And like such a liar.

  When we get back to the house, some two hours later, I see Momma standing on the porch. When she spots us, I see her shoulders sag like she might be relieved, but that only lasts for a second. I watch her gaze flicker from me to Celina to Dane and back to me again. Then I watch her eyes narrow, her mouth pucker slightly, and her posture stiffen. She glares at me for a few seconds then turns on her heel and marches right back into the house.

  I do my best to ignore her and enjoy these last minutes with Dane and Celina, but her disapproval is there niggling at the back of my mind like a burr caught under my saddle.

  Chapter 27

  It’s been a week since Dane took Celina and me down to the river. Each day he’s shown up by early afternoon, quite possibly to avoid my mother (smart man), and each day we’ve done something together. All three of us.

  One day he brought Carolina barbecue sandwiches with fries and cole slaw for lunch. Both Celina and I loved that.

  “We are all about the fast, faster, and fastest food in our house, aren’t we, C?”

  Celina nodded vigorously since her mouth was full and she couldn’t answer.

  “You don’t cook much, huh?”

  “Uh, no. I leave that to Momma. I order out and I’m damn good at it.”

  Again, Celina nodded, her head bobbing quickly.

  “I grill. I cook everything on a grill. Even pizza.”

  “What?” That my daughter muttered around her mouthful, her astonishment was so great.

  “You’ve never lived until you’ve had grilled pizza. I’ll make it for y’all sometime.”

  I think both Celina and I had our mental pencils poised over our mental calendars, ready to jump at the chance to be with him again.

  One day he took us to the new barn, a fancy thing he had erected after Alton died. He kept all the big equipment in there. He took Celina out on one of the tractors and let her drive it around a smaller empty field closer to the river.

  One day he helped her with her algebra. Dane James, in addition to being beautiful and successful and kind and the man of my dreams, is also smart. Like really smart.

  One day he drove us into town for midday ice cream. He presented it like it was a thing.

  “You know, midday ice cream. Everybody does it.”

  “Not everybody.”

  Dane slid a look over to me, one dark brow lifted, and said, “Something else I’m more than happy to teach you then.”

  The way he said teach you… I almost melted on the spot.

  The three of us piled into his truck and he drove us to Dove’s Ice Cream Shop. We went in and ordered, me a coconut almond chocolate swirl, Dane and Celina mint chocolate chip with cherries and whipped cream.

  “You like that, too?” It was Celina who asked when Dane ordered last.

  “It’s my favorite.”

  Her smile was the most luminous thing I’d ever seen.

  His almost matched.

  We took our cones to a table out on the sidewalk to enjoy them in the sun. We laughed and slurped and tried to bump each other’s elbows and smear each other’s faces like three juvenile delinquents skipping school in the spring.

  It was the perfect afternoon until a catty purr interrupted our fun.

  “Well, well, well, if it isn’t the town misfits.”

  Lauren was walking by with Cassie and a man I recognized as an older Taylor Kraus. I could tell by the superior look on his face that he hadn’t changed one iota.

  Dane wasn’t the least bit ruffled by her remark. “Sure is.”

  “Dane, you really should be more careful about your reputation. We all love Brinkley, but she didn’t come back under the best circumstances.”

  Her eyes slid pointedly toward Celina and my hackles prickled. I started to stand. I had every intention of slapping the spit right out of her mouth. I didn’t care that she was my boss.

  Dane’s hand to my arm stopped me. “Lauren, don’t you think it’s time to grow up?”

  He said it with a smile, much more than I could muster.

  “Come on, babe. She’s just an employee,” Taylor said, tugging her arm. “No point in wasting your time on either of them. There never was.”

  Lauren gave Dane one last lingering look, smirked at me, and let Taylor lead her away. Cassie followed right on her heels, refusing to glance in our direction.

  A couple of minutes after they’d walked away, it was Celina who broke the silence. “What a bitch!”

  I looked at Dane, Dane looked at me, and we both looked at Celina, then burst into laughter.

  “That’s my girl,” I said, leaning over to give her a loud kiss on her cheek.

  Dane lifted a hand for a high five and his daughter was more than happy to oblige.

  The day ended on a good note, even if Lauren did her best to ensure otherwise.

  I noticed on one of the couple of days when Dane didn’t show up that Celina kept coming downstairs. She’d wander through the rooms like she didn’t know what to do with herself, even though she had schoolwork to do.

  I didn’t say anything.

  I knew how she felt.

  He didn’t show up today and she did the same thing. It reminded me how dangerous it would be to let her get close to Dane, only to have him rebuff her. Not telling him she is his daughter is becoming increasingly risky. And the prospect of doing it is becoming increasingly unsavory to me.

  As I lie in bed, staring at the ceiling from my childhood, working out problems from my adulthood, I think about Dane and our strange lifelong relationship, and I think of Celina and what I hope her experience with him will be. At this point, that’s all I have, though—hopes. I have no assurances, just the confidence I had in the boy I used to know.

  For a second, I wish I were a girl again. Back then, my biggest worries were fitting in with my peers and wanting a boy I shouldn’t want. They seemed huge at the time, insurmountable, but compared with the problems I have now, they were silly. Petty. Inconsequential.

  My child has a life-threatening disease, her treatment will be brutal no matter what she chooses, and the respon
sibility to see her through it and finance it all rests squarely on my shoulders.

  And Dane…he has a child that he doesn’t know exists. At least not in that capacity. I have to tell him at some point. And then I have to weather the fallout.

  Seems like these issues are a bit weightier than the social concerns of my teen years.

  I hear the first tick come at twenty minutes after twelve. I smile. It still strikes me as funny that, at thirty-two years old, Dane and I are still sneaking around. As always, though, the nighttime is ours. It’s a special place where we work things out. We always have. And I guess we still are. We’re figuring out who we are again. As friends, and maybe even as more than friends.

  I get up and walk to the window. Sure enough, Dane James is standing below it, looking up, hefting another small rock to throw.

  I lift the glass. “Dane James.” My heart feels light as we play this age-old game. It’s comforting somehow.

  “Can you come down?”

  I don’t say of course, even though that’s what I’m thinking.

  “On my way.”

  I slip on some shorts and my flip-flops and head downstairs, the routine wonderfully familiar. Even many of the sensations are the same as they were when I was a girl—excitement, exhilaration, anticipation, attraction, optimism. Everything is just different at night. That’s something that hasn’t changed at all.

  When I step outside, he’s there. He reaches for my hand. I’m more than happy to wrap my fingers around his when he does.

  We walk in silence to the rock. I don’t have to ask where we’re going. I know. This is as much a part of who we are, together, as it is part of an old routine. The rock is a part of our history, our love, our very souls, it seems.

  When we reach it, he jumps up first.

  As always.

  Then he helps me up.

  As always.

  He sits first and I follow suit. Right away, he says, “Tell me the best moment of your life, besides the birth of Celina, that happened while you were gone.”

  I laugh. “What?”

  “I’ve missed fifteen years of your life. If you don’t fill me in, I’ll never know.”

  He wants to know.

  He wants to know about my life, my past. He wants to know me again.

  Hope and optimism surge through me.

  “Wow! Don’t start with the easy stuff or anything.”

  He sends a cock-eyed grin my way. “When have we ever been easy?”

  I seesaw my head. “Good point.” I take breath and really think. “Most of my best moments surround Celina, but if I have to take her out of the equation, I suppose it would be graduating from college. I felt so accomplished, like I’d done something no one else thought I could, or would help me to do. I did it all by myself.”

  “You went to college?”

  “I did.” I can’t keep the pride from my voice. “I waited tables for a while when Celina was little. That makes for a hard life. I knew it wouldn’t get any better unless I did something about it, so when she went to kindergarten, I went back to school. I applied for financial aid at the community college. Got a ton of it, of course, because we were dirt poor. I took two classes during the mornings and worked the afternoons while Celina was at school and then at the after school program. Took me four years to get an associates degree in accounting, but I did it. After that, I got a job doing books under a CPA. The pay was a lot better and I could work from home at night after Celina went to bed. That opened up my days so I could go back to school full-time when she did. I graduated and became a CPA, and that’s when things really changed for us.”

  “So what about her dad?”

  I frown. “I thought we were doing fun questions.”

  “Oh, did I say that? I must’ve missed that part.”

  I laugh. “What about you?”

  He barely has to think about it. “The day my house was finished.”

  “You had the house built?”

  “I did. I’ll show you sometime. Maybe you and Celina can come over and behold my incredible grill skill.”

  “She’d love that.”

  I don’t add that I would, too.

  “I built on some land I bought on the other side of the river. When I found out about Alton and the shares and what he’d done, and when I made up my mind to try to get control of the company, I bought that parcel with the intention of expanding one day, of having wheat on both sides of the river and being bigger than Alton ever was. In a way, seeing that house take shape was like watching my dream take shape. How corny is that?” He laughs a bit sheepishly at the end.

  “That’s not corny at all. I think it’s great. You’ve done so much with your life here. Against all odds. Everyone in town was betting against you.” My mind rolls back in time. “When I was a girl, I couldn’t understand why no one else could see how wonderful you were. I’m glad they finally did.”

  “Nothing’s changed. I just have money now. I have what they value. I’ve always had what I value.”

  I rest my chin on my deltoid as I stare over at him, so glorious in the moonlight. “You have. You’re as solid and stable and comfortable with who you are as this rock.” I slap the boulder beneath me for emphasis.

  “I don’t know about that. For a while after you left, I was pretty bitter. I was torn. I was torn between turning myself into one of them, because in some sort of weird way I felt like I’d be worthy of you if you ever came back, and being a hellion just to piss them all off. I think I probably ended up falling somewhere in the middle.”

  “You never had to be anything other than Dane James to be worthy of me, worthy to me. I loved you just like you were.”

  He’s doing the same thing I am—watching me over his arm. For a while neither of us says anything, but something is happening in the silence. Something is growing. Or maybe regrowing. And the heat of it is increasing with every second that passes.

  And it’s hot. So very hot.

  “Tell me about your house.”

  “It’s nothing fancy, but I like it. It’s split log exterior with a modern interior. Four bed, three bath. Got a great backyard. Lots of grass. I always wanted grass growing up. You know, instead of that gravel lot the barn sat on.”

  A pang shoots through my heart. He didn’t even have grass. Something as simple as grass to play in. It makes me want to bring Alton back just so I can kill him.

  “That’s a big house to live in by yourself. Never a woman to help you fill it?”

  Even as I ask, I’m starting to hold my breath. I’ve wanted to know, but not. I know it will bother me, but I need to know.

  “Not to live there, no.”

  “So you never married?”

  “Nope. You?”

  “Nope.”

  Dane shifts so that his legs are stretched out in front of him and he leans back. “There is something you should probably know, though.”

  My guts twist in dread. “What’s that?”

  “I, uh, I dated Lauren for a while.”

  “I know. I was still here when that was going on.”

  “After that.”

  “Oh,” is my deadpan response. “For how long?”

  “We dated after high school. A few years ago, for a while.”

  “A while?”

  “Yeah. About four years.”

  My belly does an unpleasant flop. “Oh. Wow. That must’ve been fairly serious then.”

  “I thought she’d changed, but you know Lauren.”

  “Yeah. I know Lauren. I can’t believe she married Taylor.”

  “Yeah, that was doomed from the beginning.”

  “Why?”

  “She was still in love with me. That’s what started her drinking. I think she realized she made a mistake in marrying him to try to get back at me.”

  I think back to the early morning cocktail she had. “That’s a shame. So you…you don’t love her anymore?”

  “God, no! I never did. I tried. I thought we could both be
different people, but we just weren’t. I’ll never be one of them. She’ll never be anything but one of them.”

  I have to admit that it makes me very uncomfortable to learn of this. I really wish he hadn’t told me, honestly. But considering what all he has to forgive me for, it’d be the epitome of hypocrisy for me to balk over this.

  But it still stings.

  “If she hadn’t married Taylor, you don’t think you’d have gotten back together?”

  “No. I was done. My heart was never in it. I know it’s a dick thing to do—dating someone you know you’ll never be able to love the way they need—but I was good to her. She just wasn’t for me. Plain and simple.”

  “Why’s that?”

  He pauses to look over at me. “She just wasn’t you.”

  God, I hate how happy it makes me to hear that. I try to keep the joy out of my voice when I mutter a soft, “Oh.”

  “I was never as interested in her as I was you. I think…I think I dated her partly to get back at you, because I knew how much you’d hate it. I’m still pissed at myself for that, too.”

  “We’ve all done things we aren’t proud of.” I win the gold medal in that event.

  “I just hate it for her that she ended up with Taylor. He cheats on her with anything in a skirt. He’s the same asshole he was in school.”

  I feel my lip curl. “Sounds like it.”

  After a couple of minutes, Dane laughs. “He’s lucky I didn’t drive to his house and beat his ass that night I picked you up.”

  I smile just thinking about how wonderful it felt that Dane wanted to protect me. “It only would’ve made things worse for you, but part of me would’ve loved to have seen you do it.”

  “I wouldn’t have cared. I’d have done anything for you.”

  Dane watches me with dark eyes and a serious expression. The way he’s staring at me… Air stops flowing into my lungs. My voice is breathless when I admit, “I know. Because I’d have done anything for you, too.”

  And I would have.

  Anything.

  In fact, I left in the wee hours of the morning, moved away all by myself, and birthed and raised a child on my own just to save him.