by Wendy Webb
“Or forget there even is beauty around them,” I said, remembering how gray the world had looked for the past few years. “I’m guilty of that myself.”
“Aren’t we all at one time or another?”
We gazed at each other, and I lost myself in the beauty of his face. The perfection of creation, right in front of me. His face was angelic and devilish all at once with his sly grin, dancing eyes, his strong nose and mouth, blindingly white perfect teeth, and chiseled jawline. He was staring at me just as intently.
“I’m appreciating the beauty around me right now,” he said, echoing my thoughts.
I lifted my hand to my cheek, trying to stop the blush. I couldn’t remember the last time a man had told me I was beautiful.
After we finished our first beer, he popped out back to get us some tacos with all the fixings and a decadent plate of nachos with guacamole and salsa.
“If I could eat only one thing for the rest of my life, it would be nachos,” I said, peeling a cheese-laden chip off the mound.
“For me, it’s my grandma’s broccoli casserole,” he said. “Gooey, cheesy comfort food.”
We sat there for a long while, nibbling on our Tex-Mex, getting to know each other, talking about everything and nothing. Politics, town gossip, favorite movies, and fun trips we’d taken.
He asked me all about my life and childhood, which I freely told him—growing up by the creek in the suburbs, my grandma living with us, and everything else there was to tell about my background and then some.
“So, what’s your story?” I asked him.
“There’s not much to tell,” he said, taking a bite of a chip. “Pretty ordinary stuff. You’re more interesting than me.”
“Oh, I doubt that.” I grinned at him. “Where did you grow up?”
“Here and there,” he said, looking down at his plate. “Lots of places.”
I took a sip of my beer and eyed him over the rim. “Like where? You said California back on the beach, right?”
He fidgeted in his chair. “I don’t love talking about my past,” he said. “It’s not what defines me.”
I was going to say “Okay” and leave it at that. But it wasn’t.
“I think a person’s past, good or bad, idyllic or horrific, shapes who they are,” I said. “But I don’t believe it defines them.”
He held my gaze for a long minute. “My first memory is of finding a gun in my living room and shooting my father in the chest when I was four years old. So that gives you a little taste of it.”
I had no words to respond. I simply locked eyes with him and reached over to take his hand. How could I possibly relate to that? My childhood had been written in a storybook, decidedly not Grimm’s. Nothing bad ever happened to anybody I knew—literally. No family members or neighbors died when I was a kid. Nobody went bankrupt. Nobody lost their home. Nobody even lost their job. No children went missing. No kids in school got seriously sick; no family members, either.
Everyone in my neighborhood liked and supported each other. No neighbor dramas. No bad apples on the block. We kids ran wild without any thought of danger, playing Star Light, Moon Light on summer nights, hiding in the dark until our friends found us, without any fear of strangers. My parents were blissfully happy and created a happy life for us, made even more so by my grandma. I came home from school every day to her running to the door with open arms, so happy to see me. There were always warm cookies, fresh out of the oven.
All in all, I had had a pretty good run up until the past few years. Gratitude seeped into my heart for the first time in a long time.
And here, this lovely man sitting across the table from me in this strange hippie bar had started his life with a nightmare. God only knew how it had gone for him after that. The look on his face shredded my heart. I could clearly see that four-year-old little boy in his eyes.
“Oh, Dominic.”
He smiled sadly. “I know. It’s kind of a conversation stopper. My story doesn’t improve much after that, either. It’s why I don’t really talk about my past.”
“Did he—”
Dominic shook his head. “It went through his shoulder and out. He survived. The cantankerous old bastard is still kicking.”
“May I ask why a loaded gun was where a four-year-old could find it? Was your dad a cop?”
He sighed. “Hardly. Do you really want to know?”
“Of course I do. That doesn’t mean you have to tell me.”
He winced. “I was hoping to keep it all to myself until you knew me better,” he said. “Or, you know, forever.”
All at once, a sense of protectiveness washed over me. Clearly his past was a source of pain for him. I didn’t need to know anything. Jason had told me Wharton was full of busybodies. I was determined to not be one of them.
“How about those Twins?” I grinned. “They’re having one hell of a year so far. People are saying they just might make it all the way to the World Series.”
His face softened in a way I hadn’t seen before. “Thank you,” he said. He gazed into his bubbling beer glass for a few moments, and then he looked up at me and said, “There was love and happiness in my childhood, though. A lot of it was a nightmare. But I lived with my grandmother for many of my growing-up years.”
“She loved you.”
His eyes were brimming with tears. “‘To the moon and back’ is what she always used to say.”
“And she made broccoli casserole.”
“The best in the world.”
“Is she still with us?” I said, leaning in.
He shook his head. “She’s with me all the time. But she crossed the bridge a few years ago.”
Just then, the band took the stage with the clatter of setup for their guitars, a violin, banjo, bass fiddle, and drums. The singer’s microphone looked like it could have been from the 1930s—a silver square on a stand—and the guitar he threaded over his shoulder seemed to match the era. When they started playing, a mixture of bluegrass and country, everyone quieted down to listen. Several people took to the dance floor, some in groups, others in pairs, one hippie dude swaying this way and that by himself.
Dominic pushed himself to his feet and took my hand, and before I knew it, we were two-stepping to the music, with him twirling me every so often and pulling me back in close. A sort of hazy reality set in.
The fairy lights and candles, the music from another era, the strangely familiar face of this man so close to mine. It was as though we were taken out of the river of time for a moment, like people in old folktales who stumble onto a fairy ring on a crisp autumn evening and dance the night away with them, not realizing they’re dancing through years, decades, even centuries.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
All was dark when we got back to LuAnn’s. It was after ten o’clock, and the restaurant was closed and clean, ready for the breakfast crowd. Dominic led me through the dining room to the doorway, and we crept upstairs quietly, not wanting to wake anyone.
In the hallway, we saw light coming from under Jason and Gil’s door. They were still up. The rest of the house was quiet. I glanced into the alcove. All dark. I hadn’t told Dominic about what I had experienced two nights earlier. And didn’t want to think about it myself.
We reached his door and passed it. “I’ll walk you to yours.” He smiled down at me.
At my door, just down the hallway, my heart was thumping in my chest. I was so out of practice with dating—was that what we were doing?—I wasn’t sure what came next. Invite him in? Or was it too soon? Was it wise at all? Should I play hard to get? I had no idea what to do.
He took the key from my hand and opened the door before turning on the light and scanning the room. My curtains were billowing in the cool breeze. All was just as I had left it.
“Looks like you’re set,” he said.
We were standing close to each other, and although our arms and legs had been intertwined in the water, and we had danced together all night long at Jimmy’s, this
felt different. I wasn’t sure whether to touch him or not, but every cell in my body wanted to.
“I had such a good time today,” I said to him. “Thank you.”
“Me, too,” he said, his voice low.
He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close, and I lifted my face toward his. He pressed his cheek to mine, and I could smell his scent—musky, spicy, comforting. I melted into him. And then, his lips were on mine, and I could feel the force of the kiss coursing throughout my entire body.
My heart was pounding in my chest as I navigated my first kiss with a new man in more than two decades. He pulled back, his arms still wrapped around me. I wanted nothing but for him to get closer.
“I’ve been wanting to do this all day,” he said. “Longer than that, if you want to know the truth.”
“Me, too,” I whispered. My whole body was vibrating on the inside.
He slid a hand into my hair near the nape of my neck and took a handful of it, his eyes studying my face.
“Brynn, Brynn, Brynn,” he said, his voice seeming to get an octave lower. “I’m going to leave it just like this. For now.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
“Coffee on the deck in the morning?”
“I’ll be there.”
He pulled me back into him and smiled slightly, his eyes holding mine, before kissing me again. And then he turned on that movie-star smile, and winked.
“See you tomorrow. Sleep tight, now.” And he shut the door behind him.
As I locked it and turned back to my darkened room, it seemed so much emptier than it had just a moment before. It was as though his presence filled up not just my room, but me, too.
The next morning, the first thing I was aware of, even before my eyes fluttered open, was the smell of the rain. I lay there for a moment, enjoying the fresh scent of water and grass and earth and lake. A chill wafted through the air in my room, making me want to curl down farther under my comforter and sleep the day away. A low growl of thunder rolled through the sky. I stretched and breathed it all in and out, in and out.
A knock at my door broke my meditation. I slipped out of bed, pulled my robe around me, and opened the door to find Dominic standing there with his French press and a mug.
“No coffee on the deck today. I thought I’d bring it to you instead.”
“Wow, room service!” I smiled at him, running a hand through my hair, hoping it didn’t look too much of a fright. I gave silent thanks that I was wearing my soft new pajamas, at least, rather than the old, ratty T-shirts I usually slept in. “What a nice way to start the day.”
I opened the door wider and invited him in. I was about to close it behind him when he said, “We had better leave it open. We don’t want to become the talk of Wharton too soon.”
I had a feeling we already were, but I couldn’t have cared less. I grabbed my mug and half-and-half, and we sat in the two chairs on either side of the small table by the window, the rain making hypnotic music as it fell.
As we listened to the storm outside, I wondered again about the storm he had undoubtedly endured growing up.
I didn’t know much about him, not really. Still. There was something timeless about the feeling that hung in the air between us. In one sense, I didn’t know him at all, and yet in another, I knew everything.
I smiled at him, a wholly unfamiliar feeling of contentment welling up inside of me. Even after just a short time, I was growing accustomed to starting my day with him.
“I had a good time yesterday,” I said, taking a sip of coffee and catching his eye over the brim of my mug.
He smiled. “Yes, indeed. I think we’re going to have more of those. I hope we do, anyway.”
“We talked a lot about me,” I said slowly. “And, I know you don’t want to talk about your past, so I’m not going to ask. But what about the present? I don’t even know what you do for a living.”
He smiled that big smile. “A little of this. A little of that.”
I raised my eyebrows at him. “Is that so? It sounds vaguely criminal. Tell me you’re not a serial killer on the lam.”
He chuckled. “No, no, no, no,” he said. “Nothing like that. Let’s just say I help people who are in transition.”
More evasive answers. I was going to press on this time, though. I was falling for this man, too quickly—more like “tripped and falling”—and I needed to know more about what I was letting into my life, or it was going to be one awkward summer of running into him in the hallway. And with Kate’s news that her husband had looked at him after a suspicious death . . .
“Like, a grief counselor? Or a hospice worker? Rehab sponsor?”
“Well, definitely not a rehab sponsor.” He chuckled. “But, yeah, sometimes it’s grief, sometimes it’s hospice, but sometimes it’s people who need to put their lives back on track after they’ve paid the price of falling. I have resources when they find they’re completely out of them.”
“People who are getting out of prison, you mean?”
He nodded. “Yeah. It’s all that rolled into one. I have all different types of clients that I help. My overarching belief is that life is too short. Way too short, Brynn. You have no idea.” He stopped for a moment. “That was insensitive. Yes, you do. You know it better, and fresher, than most right now.”
I nodded, willing the tears to stay where they were.
“When people come to me, they’re at their lowest point. If I can help them get back on the path toward a happy life, I do that. If I can’t, I help with that, too.”
It still wasn’t clear to me—how did people find him? Was he a counselor affiliated with some group? Did he have his own foundation?—but I sensed this was a man who wasn’t going to easily share anything. I could almost see his shield going up.
“So, what are you doing in Wharton for the whole summer?” I asked. “I know, I know, everyone asks it. But—are you on a sabbatical, like me?”
“I’m here to meet you, Brynn.”
His smile was broad and warm, but a chill shot through me. We sat, staring at each other for a moment.
“What—”
He laughed then, breaking the spell. “Okay, that was the worst pickup line in history.”
I put down my coffee cup and saw my hands were shaking. He saw it, too. “You don’t know what was running through my mind!” I said finally. “What you’re describing, what you do for people. I’m in that exact kind of transition right now. I was thinking someone called you. Or hired you. Or—”
He put his hand up to stop me. “I keep putting my foot in it this morning,” he said. “Wow, I am one insensitive bastard.”
I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”
“Okay. I was just trying to be romantic and seductive with that stupid line, not thinking of everything you’ve told me about your recent life.”
I managed a smile. “Don’t worry about it. It just hit a little close to home. I’m not your client, am I?”
He grinned. “Hey, I don’t go around kissing my clients, lady. Or swimming across invisible barriers with them.”
That brought a genuine smile to my face, and I chuckled.
“The truth is, I’m here for much the same reason you are,” he said, pouring the last of the coffee into our two mugs. “When you do what I do, it takes it out of you. I get sort of, I guess you’d say depleted. I don’t have a wife or family to restore me, obviously, and sometimes I need to detach and exhale for a while. Smell the fresh air. Recognize the beauty around me. Immerse myself in the garden of earthly delights where we live. Eat some pasta. I need to rejuvenate so I can give back to others.”
“I totally get that,” I said.
Just then, a loud boom of thunder pierced the quiet between us, and a sizzle of lightning crackled through the sky. Rain poured in sheets, the wind taking it sideways down the street.
“I love a good storm,” Dominic said.
“Me, too. Sort of puts a damper on another beach day, though.”
> “True, that. Kayaking would be a similar bummer.”
He smiled at me, and, as the rain poured down and thunder shook the house, a memory of another rainy night bubbled along the edges of my mind. At least, it felt like a memory. But it couldn’t have been.
I was with a man I knew was Dominic. The two of us burst out of the door of a brick building into an alleyway. He was holding my hand, and we were running, both of us laughing and looking back over our shoulders. He pushed me into a doorway to get out of the rain—we were soaked to the skin—and he kissed me as the rain pounded down around us and lightning sizzled through the sky.
“The death of a good speakeasy,” he said, his voice low in my ear. “It’s always so sad.”
“They nearly caught us all,” I said. “How did you know they were coming?”
“A gentleman’s intuition,” he said, an impish grin on his face.
Dominic’s voice—in the here and now—brought me out of my imagination. “Brynn?”
I took a sip of coffee. My hands were shaking.
“Where did you go?” Dominic asked. “You zoned out for a minute.”
I ran a hand through my hair. “I’m really not sure,” I said.
He grinned at me then. The same impish grin.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Just then, Jason poked his head into my room. “Hi, kids!” he said, looking from me to Dominic and back again.
I held my cup aloft. “We were just having coffee.”
“I’ll bet you were,” Jason said. “You missed happy hour yesterday. Everyone was wondering what became of you.”
Dominic laughed. “And there it is.”
I laughed, too, but felt the blush rising in my cheeks. “We went over to the island for the day,” I said.
“Oh!” Jason said, elongating the word so it contained many syllables. “Did you, now? I see, I see, I see. I can’t wait to tell Gil.”