by White, J. L.
It’s a little strange, this new, courteous Jessica.
I agreed, and she asked me to let Max know ahead of time, so he would be prepared to play on the equipment by himself for a bit before she joined him. That’s a degree of foresight that’s new, too.
I pull into the space next to her car, and she gets out. She’s died her hair back to her natural color, a light brown, and has styled it so it’s in soft waves down to her shoulders. She’s wearing jeans and a lightweight sweater. She gives me a nervous glance before bending slightly so she can smile and wave at Max through the window.
We get him unloaded and I wander onto the grass in front of the car while the two give one another enthusiastic greetings. They come up to me together, her hand on his shoulder. “How are you, Brett?”
“Fine. You ready to play, Max?”
He nods and we all head deeper into the park toward the playground equipment. “I wanted to bring Montana,” Max says, “but Daddy said no.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Jessica glance at me. She knows about Lizzy, but I haven’t discussed it with her. Nor do I plan to. “Well, maybe we can get you your own dog,” Jessica says.
I look at her sharply. “We can talk about that later.”
“I like Montana,” Max says.
We approach a bench facing the playground and slow. “How about you go play while Daddy and I talk, all right, Max?”
“Then will you push me on the swings?”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
He smiles, as trusting as he’s ever been of her promises. I’m heartened to know she means it this time.
Max runs off and the two of us settle on the bench. “So how are you doing?” I ask. She was just released yesterday, and is living with a friend until she can get a job and place of her own.
“I have an interview Monday.”
I raise my brows. Already? “That’s good. Where at?”
“It’s a little law office downtown. They need a secretary.”
“Do you feel ready for that?”
She nods. “Yes. I’m doing much better.” Her hands are on her lap, and she’s absently playing with her fingertips. A nervous habit. Other than that, she does seem more calm, and more herself, than I’ve seen in years. “Anyway, I’m determined. I’m never doing that to myself again. Or my family.”
The damage is already done, though, I think, but I want to be supportive. “That’s good, Jess.”
She takes a deep breath, and scoots half an inch closer. “I know I let you down, Brett.” Her brown eyes are sincere. I look away to Max. The soft pounding of his feet on the hard plastic as he climbs the steps to the slide echoes across the park. “I let Max down. I let myself down. I’m so sorry.” I nod, not needing to hear any more, but she continues. “You didn’t deserve that. Either of you. I really want to fix things.”
“Well, it seems like you’re on your way.”
“No.” She scoots infinitesimally closer again. “I mean. Really fix things.”
I look at her, not sure if she’s really saying what I think she’s saying. The expression on her face tells me everything I need to know. I know that look. I know what she’s thinking.
She gives me a soft, pleading look. “Do you think you might be willing to give us another chance?”
“Us?” I repeat, not quite believing she’s saying this. “You and me?”
She nods, her eyes genuine and vulnerable.
“We’ve been divorced for two years.”
She nods earnestly. “Which was completely my fault.”
I’m not going to argue with her there.
“I still love you, Brett.” I frown and look away again, watching our son going down the slide. She keeps talking. Keeps saying it all. “I never really stopped loving you. I was just… I don’t know, just so lost.”
She scoots next to me, our legs almost touching, and takes my hand. I stare down at my hand in hers. The wind pushes through, rustling the leaves in the trees. Max’s little feet are stomping as he runs over the plastic bridge of the playset.
“I don’t know if you still love me,” she says, “but I know you still care. Let me earn that love back. Please. For Max’s sake.”
I look sharply at her then. For Max’s sake?
“Please, Brett. Please, I beg you. Give me a chance to put our family back together.”
As I look at the mother of my child, I don’t know what’s right or wrong here. I really don’t. But I do know what my answer has to be.
Chapter 36
Lizzy
There’s been a water main break at the Cottages, and even though it’s a Saturday afternoon, everyone’s down here. Me, my brothers, Rod, and several workers. Okay, not everyone. Brett’s not here. Rod sent him a text when he first heard about it, and so did I, but I know he went to take Max to see his mom, so he may not have been able to get away yet.
There’s not much he can do anyway. A huge stretch of the drive behind the cottages is flooded with water and reaching to the front porches of several different buildings. We got the water turned off and my brothers and I quickly determined a plan to accommodate the few guests who were staying down here. Fortunately, there aren’t too many. Many of the cottages are in some stage of construction by now, and most the guests who had booked prior to our buying these properties ended up switching their reservations to the Resort anyway. To offset the inconvenience of their stay being punctuated with the noise of construction, we had contacted all reservations ahead of time and offered them the choice of a sharp discount on their stay, the option to reschedule, or a free upgrade to a suite at the Resort, along with discounted vouchers to stay at the Cottages within the first two years of the reopening.
The guests who decided to stay here at the Cottages anyway, construction inconveniences aside, are mostly unhappy about this turn of events. We’re comping the rest of their stays, and Connor’s heading out to take the guests to the Resort where he’ll personally oversee the process of either moving them into a suite, of the few we have available, or finding something else for them in town. Our front desk manager is already on site, getting staff ready for the guests’ arrival so they can take care of things quickly.
Having full confidence in Connor’s ability to make sure guests are taken care of and leave our care happy, my priority has been dealing with the damage. The pipe that broke leads from the city main, and is therefore our responsibility to repair. Rod, Rayce, and I walk the affected area, determining just what needs to be done. Some water will soak into the ground, but Rod recommended a crew to come in and drain the rest so we can quickly get to work fixing the pipe.
“My bigger concern is the cause of this break,” I say, scratching at the base of my ponytail. Being a Saturday, none of us are in work clothes. I rushed down here in my jeans and fitted Bon Jovi tee. Rayce is in his workout pants, but still manages to look distinguished as always. “How old are these pipes?”
“Not sure,” Rod says, shaking his head at the implication to my question. “I can find out.”
“If the pipes are old,” I continue, “maybe we need to replace the whole line to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
Rayce groans, reacting I know to how this could potentially blow our margins clear out of the water. “Where’s the line run?”
“Starts there,” Rod says, pointing toward the turn off that leads from the main road to the Cottages. “Goes under this road all the way to the end.” He sweeps his arm down the road and to the far side, where the cottages end.
Shit.
“How much would it cost to replace all that?” Rayce asks.
“I’m not sure. We’ll have to get some quotes. But I say we drain things first and take a look. Replacing the whole thing might not be warranted.”
“All right,” I say, turning and gesturing toward the cottages that have water up to their porches. As I do so, I spy Brett’s car turning off the road and coming down the private drive. My heart flips, just knowing he’s near.
I point in his direction and nod, indicating to the others our historical contractor is now on site, but continue. “What about flood damage?”
“I don’t think that’ll be too bad,” Rod says. “The water didn’t get up very far. No worse than a solid rain.”
I nod and exhale. “Well, there’s that, at least.”
“How soon can we get this drained?” Rayce asks.
“Let me go ahead and give them a call,” Rod says, pulling out his phone. “See what I can set up.”
My eyes sweep over the pond of flood water and exchange looks with Rayce. We both sigh. “Nothing to be done,” he says.
I nod. “Yeah.”
I glance over as Brett parks his car and gets out, taking in the scene with sharp eyes. “Wow,” he says as he comes up to us, eyes on the pond. “You got the water turned off?”
I nod and get him caught up on things. He’s listening and responding, but he looks a little distraught about something, and I don’t think it’s the water break. I wonder how the meeting with Jessica went. He told me before they left my house this morning that there was something she wanted to talk to him about, but he didn’t know what.
I tried not to think too much about what. The water break turned out to be sufficient distraction, but looking at Brett now, my unease is returning.
Rod says, “Hang on,” and lowers his phone. “They can come this evening and start in, or you can let some leech back into the ground and have them drain the rest tomorrow. That’d be a little less, since they charge by the hour, but we might have more mud to contend with if we wait.”
“How long will it take them to drain it?” Rayce asks.
Listening to their conversation about hours tonight versus hours tomorrow, I pull out my phone and check the weather forecast. No rain and reasonable highs given that we’re in the early part of November.
“They can come tomorrow,” I say. “We’ll have mud to deal with anyway.”
Rayce nods in agreement and Rod goes back to his call, setting things up. We spend the next half hour scheduling a couple companies to come assess things and bid out their repairs tomorrow after the water’s drained, texting with Connor as we get word of how things are going with our guests, and in general wrapping things up.
The whole time I notice something else is on Brett’s mind. As soon as we say our goodbyes to Rod and Rayce, he takes me by the hand and leads me between two cottages, toward the boardwalk.
“Can we talk?” he asks.
“Of course,” I say, trying to ignore the sense of foreboding I feel. “How’d your conversation with Jessica go?”
He sighs and shakes his head briefly. “It was… intense.”
We step across the shallow bank of sand and onto the wooden boardwalk, turning right. We’ve had sea fog off and on all day, and some of it is trying to creep back in on the sunshine right now. “What happened?”
He runs his hand through his hair and sighs again. “She asked to come back.”
My legs feel like rubber, and I’m not quite sure how I’m still walking, other than perhaps the grip I have on Brett’s hand. “Come back to you?”
“Yeah. She wants another shot, now that she’s better. She said she wants to put our family back together.”
My mind races through all the times we’ve talked about her, the times it was clear to me how much he loved her before, the panicked tone of voice he had when she called that night and he thought she’d hurt herself, the fact that the only reason it ended between them was because of an unexpected addiction to prescription drugs. Something that could happen to anyone. Something that might be behind her now.
My mind is racing and my heart is racing and I don’t know what to do. Maybe it wasn’t the end for them. Maybe her addiction was like my father’s possible affair: a blip in an otherwise solid marriage. Maybe they’re going to work this out.
Maybe this is over for me.
I’m so panicked, I’m barely breathing. We’ve stopped walking and it’s a good thing because I can’t move. He turns to face me and I want to beg him not to do this to me, not to leave me, but all I can do is sit here silent as fog and wait for him to say whatever he’s going to say.
“I couldn’t believe she asked me that…” He’s giving me this expression I can’t interpret. Incredulity? Regret? What? “And then she started talking about Max and what’s best for Max.”
My heart stops. Oh god, no, no, no. He’d do anything for Max.
“And I thought, what do I deserve?”
A whole family. That’s what he deserves.
“Don’t I deserve something, too?”
I nod, too terrified to even cry. I’m begging on the inside, calm as night on the outside. Frozen.
“I can’t…” he takes an exasperated breath. “I can’t make everyone perfectly happy.”
Everyone… like me? Is he apologizing for breaking up with me?
“But I want what I want. Right or wrong, I do. And what I want is to be with the woman I love.”
Finally, I find my voice. Barely.
“Who is that?” I whisper.
He blinks at me, and furrows his brows. “‘Who is that?’”
Then his eyes go wide and he steps close and cups my face in his hands. “God, Lizzy, it’s you.” Then the tears come, instantly blurring my vision of him. “It’s you,” he says again earnestly. “Oh shit, did you think—? Oh, honey, I’m sorry. Why would you think it wasn’t you?”
“Because Max deserves a whole family,” I say weakly, my mind and body spinning both with relief and with the release of suppressed sorrow at the thought I was going to lose him. “You deserve a whole family, too.”
“Now don’t you start in on that,” he says, gentle, but firm, holding my eyes. “I just got through dealing with one crying woman trying to talk me into that, don’t you do it, too.”
A short laugh escapes me, and the tears escape my eyes, running down to his fingers. “But she’s better now,” I say, as he tenderly wipes away my tears with his thumbs.
“Well, that remains to be seen. It’s early still.”
“Is that why?” A little swoop of panic re-enters my heart. “Because you don’t know yet?”
“Is that why what? Why I said no to her?”
I nod, tears coming again. God, I can’t stop them. “Lizzy, sweetheart. No. Haven’t you been listening? I said no to her, because I’m in love with you. You’re the woman I want. I don’t know if I deserve you or not, but I sure as hell want you.”
“What about Max?”
Still holding my face, he blinks and pulls back slightly. “Are you trying to get rid of me, Ms. Rivers?”
I laugh a bit again. “No, I just… what about it?” I need to know he’s really mine. I need to know that there aren’t any threats to us.
“Max,” he says gently, pulling me into his arms, “deserves a better mom than he’s had. And if all goes well, he’ll have one.”
“But…” I swear, I can’t stop myself. “He deserves a whole family. Right?”
“Who says he won’t have one? Look, what’s in the past is in the past. The fact that his parents are divorced is already a part of his life and that’s not going to change. But why can’t Max have two women who love him?” I smile. “And a dog that loves him.”
I laugh. “That boy does need a dog.”
“And I need you,” he says seriously.
Arms wrapped around his waist, stomachs touching, I look into those lovely blue eyes of his and see what I’ve seen so many times: love. For me. The panic and fear and hurt that has been churning inside me drops away, and a swelling of love rises in its place.
“You’re the one I love,” he says, smiling. “You’re the one I hope I can build a future with. Maybe I’m selfish. But I don’t think so. I think you’re amazing, and that you won’t just be a blessing in my life, but in my son’s as well. That is… if you’ll have us.”
If I’ll have him? I blink at him, realizing those words just put us in
a whole new place. At least, I think they did. “Are you...proposing to me?”
He gives a nervous laugh. “Well… okay, I admit I didn’t realize it was going to come out that way. That’s not a question you have to answer. Besides, while we’re on the topic of what people deserve, you definitely deserve that done the right way. You know, better. The ring and the whole thing.”
He’s making light of it, saving face, and I do laugh. But I’m also surprised at myself. We’ve only been dating for two and a half months, so maybe I should be relieved that he’s letting me off the hook, but I’m not. I’m disappointed.
“But…” he says, holding me snug against him. “I’ll go out on a limb and tell you… I do know that’s what I want. Maybe that seems crazy, but I already know you’re the one for me.”
The tears come to my eyes again, but these are the good kind. “You do?”
He nods. “Mm-hmm. I knew when you told Max it was okay to miss his mom. And when you made us pancakes in the shapes of teddy bears. When you had your family sign a card to your great aunt. When you made me feel I could share anything and everything with you. When you stood by me through all this drama that’s been going on, even though sometimes it was hard on you. I knew when you forgave my mother for… being my mother.” I laugh. “When you brought Montana over in a matching costume. When you called your employee by name. When you spiked that volleyball like you were fucking Kerri Walsh Jennings.”
I laugh again and he smiles, his eyes glittering with love for me.
“I’m not afraid to take a leap with you,” he says slowly, shaking his head. “I haven’t been for a while, and that was the thing that kind of scared me, if that makes sense. I thought I should be more cautious. That I should take more time. But the truth is, I don’t need more time, because each moment with you whispers the same truth: you’re the woman I’ll love for the rest of my life. The woman I’d be insanely lucky to have. The woman who inspires me to be a better person, just so I can be worthy of her. You’re the first woman who’s ever made me feel this way, Lizzy.”