Real Kind of Love

by Sara Rider

  “I wasted three years of my life watching you come into my bar, wondering what kind of mischief hid behind those beautiful green eyes. Fantasizing about the taste of your lips. Imagining what makes you laugh. What turns you on. What makes you who you are. But nothing I dreamed up compares to the amazing woman you really are. There’s no going back. Not for me. I’m falling for you, Clem, and I don’t want to stop.”

  “I…I don’t want to go back either.” She couldn’t stop her mouth from pulling into a giddy smile—one that matched his ebullient expression.

  “Then there’s one last thing we need to do.”

  “Commemorate this emotional moment with great sex?”

  He laughed. “There’ll be lots of time for that. But right now we need to tell your family the truth about us.”

  “What?” She pushed herself up to a sitting position, breaking his hold, and shook her head. “No.”

  He clasped her shoulders. “We can’t build something real out of a lie. I’ve been there before. All it does is corrode the future.”

  “We can’t.”

  “We have to. They’re going to find out one way or another that I’m not an art dealer and I’ve never been in the reserve, and that I don’t even know what a steampunk festival is. I want to be with you, but I can’t compromise on this. We need to do this right or not at all.”

  She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. How did everything come crashing down so quickly? “No. I’m sorry. I can’t do that.” She felt him recoil from her before she even opened her eyes.

  “I can’t keep pretending to be something I’m not.” Frustration was so palpable in his voice, so raw in his eyes, she could barely stand it. She wanted to reach for him. Tell him she’d do whatever it took to be with him, because she was falling for him so hard, she didn’t even understand gravity anymore.

  But she couldn’t. Not after what her mom told her this morning.

  She sucked in a shaky breath. “My mom is sick.”

  “What?”

  “She had a heart attack three months ago. I just found out this morning.”

  His expression softened. He leaned forward and ran his hands along her upper arms. “Is she alright? Are you?”

  She nodded. “She said it was a small one. But she needs to keep her stress down. How am I supposed to explain that I lied about having a boyfriend? If she finds out about the robbery, she’ll freak out. I can’t risk doing that to her.”

  “We can’t keep lying, either. Your family is important to you. Hell, after this week, they’ve become important to me, too. They’ll find out eventually, and I’m not okay to keep lying. I won’t do that to them. Or to myself. So what do we do?”

  He was right. She’d told so many lies over the week, she couldn’t even remember them all. It seemed so harmless when she knew their fake relationship was going to end. When she believed Jake would never be interested in being with her for real. Before she’d fallen so hard for him, she couldn’t tell up from down. “I don’t know. I…I can’t tell them yet. Maybe not ever. I can’t risk my mom’s health.”

  She knew as soon as she said it that she’d just hit the brakes on any chance of moving forward with Jake. He let go of her arms and packed the food back into the cooler, showing no emotion on his face but she could see the rough scrape of his Adam’s apple against his throat.

  “I’m sorry, Jake.”

  He blew out the tea candles and tucked them into the cooler. “It’s okay. We’ll talk about it later. We should probably get back now.”

  She nodded, hoping to god there would still be something left to talk about.

  21

  Jake had been on autopilot for so long, he’d forgotten what it was like to take an actual risk. More importantly, he’d forgotten how fucking awful it was to have that risk fail. This week with Clem had felt so perfect, so right, he hadn’t even stopped to think about whether she felt the same way. He wasn’t giving up. Not yet, but the short burst of optimism he’d felt earlier was extinguished. He’d lied to Kelly, to his family, to himself for too many years, pretending he could be the man everyone wanted him to be. He couldn’t keep doing that, not even for Clem. All that would do is doom them from the start.

  One way or another, they were going to have to figure it out.

  Clem sat at the front of the boat during their slow ride back, shoulders hunched forward, and fighting a losing battle with the loose strands of hair as the water splashed around them. He wanted to know what thoughts were swirling inside her head, but this wasn’t the time to push her. She would open up to him again when she was ready.

  He steered them back to the dock. The energy in the air changed when they got close, like the creeping feeling of an oncoming storm. Clem’s back straightened with a jolt, and within a few seconds he heard what had caught her attention.

  The panicked sounds of her family calling out for Millie and Ellie.

  He sped up and docked quickly, but Clem had jumped out of the boat before he’d even cut the engine. Clover met them at the edge of the water, holding Poppy on her hip, fear in her eyes.

  “The girls are missing! I don’t know where they went. I turned my back for two minutes and they were gone.” Her breath hitched between every word, barely holding back a sob. “Everyone’s looking for them right now. Grandma Jean and I stayed here in case they come back. We’ve checked every room in the cabins. Under the dock. The cars. We can’t find them anywhere!”

  Clem took Poppy from her sister. “We will find them. It’ll be okay.”

  Tears streamed down Clover’s cheeks. “What if it’s not? There are bears out there. Cougars. What if they get hurt or drown or—”

  “We’re not going to let that happen,” Clem said. “I promise.”

  “I don’t understand why they would run off like this. Where would they go?”

  “The waterfall,” Jake said. The answer came to him to him in a flash, and there wasn’t time to explain. “What color clothes are they wearing?”

  Clover blinked, like she didn’t quite understand the question, then said, “Pink shirts. Yellow shorts. Blue Rain boots.”

  “I’ll find them.”

  He didn’t even wait, just took off at a run, hoping he could remember the way.

  Jake had never run so fast in his life. Adrenaline pumped so hard in his veins, he couldn’t feel the cuts and scrapes from the branches whipping his legs and arms as he moved through the overgrown path. He called out for Millie and Ellie every few minutes, but so far, nothing.

  He reached the waterfall nearly twenty minutes after he left the cabin, less than half the time it took to reach it when he hiked here with Clem a few days ago.

  “Millie? Ellie?” He stepped into the clearing and looked around, heart sinking. They weren’t there. For the first time he felt a genuine thread of fear tighten around his chest. He’d been so sure this is where they’d have gone.

  He glanced around one more time. “Girls? It’s Jake. Can you hear me?”

  The response came so softly, he nearly missed it. But there was no mistaking the sound of that sweet little voice saying his name.

  He raced to the patch of moss-covered boulders near the base of the falls and spotted the two little blond heads hidden behind it. Barely above water. Ellie’s body was fully submerged. Her sister had wrapped her arms behind her, holding her up as water crashed over them.

  They were alive, with color in their cheeks despite the cold water. Their lips were pink, not blue, with no signs of hypothermia or shock. The map they’d stolen from his backpack was floating at the surface beside them. They must have just fallen in because there was no way Millie would be able to hold her sister up for much longer. He didn’t want to think about what would have happened if he hadn’t come back from the island with Clem when they did. “Are you stuck, Ellie? Tell me what hurts.”

  “My foot. I slipped looking for the unicorn treasure.”

  He crouched down beside them and reached under the da
rk water. She didn’t flinch or cry out when he carefully touched her ankle, but her boot was lodged between a rock and a thick branch from a fallen tree. “I’m going to pull your leg and get you out, okay? Millie, I want you to hold on tight to your sister.” The last thing he needed was either one of them slipping further into the icy pool.

  He tugged gently at Ellie’s ankle. Her foot slipped free, losing the rain boot in the process. All the air in his lungs rushed out as he exhaled in relief.

  She wrapped her little arms around his neck. “How did you know I’m Ellie?”

  “You’ve got a tiny little freckle beneath your left eye.”

  “I knew you would figure it out,” she said with all the sweetness she could muster in her tired little voice. “And I knew you would save us.”

  His throat tightened. “I’ve got you. Millie, climb onto my back.”

  With their little arms and legs strung around his neck and waist, he hoisted the girls up. “Time to go home.”

  “Thank you, Uncle Jake.”

  Uncle Jake. The name settled in his gut like an extra hundred pounds as he carried them to the trail.

  “They’re fine,” Clem said around the fingernail she’d been chewing while Clover sat on the edge of the picnic table, head in her hands. Darlene sat next to Clover, rubbing her back. Somehow, their mom had managed to remain calm through the entire ordeal, not showing any signs of distress. Thank god, because worrying about her mom having another heart attack was not going to help anyone. “Jake texted an hour ago to say he’s bringing them back safe and sound. They’ll be here any minute.”

  “I’m not going to calm down until I see them myself. And hug them. And find some sort of permanent leash that prevents them from leaving my side again. Ever.”

  “Stop wallowing in your guilt,” Grandma Jean said. “There’s no way to contain that kind of mischief. They get it from your dad. When he was their age, he stole our car and tried to drive himself to the candy shop. Never even made it out of the driveway before he crashed into an old elm tree. Now someone give me that iPad thingy so I can catch up on my obituaries.”

  “That doesn’t make me feel better,” Clover moaned. “Only a terrible mom loses her kids.”

  “You’re a great mom, and the girls are fine.” Clem held her tongue beyond that, knowing it wouldn’t do any good to add that the twins could probably escape from a military-grade panic room if they really wanted to. The truth was, Clem’s stomach was clenched so tight, she could hardly breathe. The text from Jake saying he’d found the twins felt like a miracle but she wouldn’t be able to relax until she saw her nieces with her own eyes.

  She’d texted everyone the moment she heard from Jake, letting them know the girls were okay. None of them had thought to go to the waterfall, but in retrospect it seemed so obvious. Only Jake had realized that’s where they would’ve gone.

  What would they have done without him?

  The distant sound of shoes crunching on gravel made her head whip toward the driveway like it was on a swivel. Jake emerged from around the side of the cabin with Ellie clinging to his neck and Millie holding his hand.

  All three looked exhausted. There were branches stuck to the twins’ hair, mud caked to their skin, and Ellie was missing a boot. But they were alive. Andrew and Clover rushed over, swooping the girls into their arms. Jake’s eyes met hers and in that moment, she couldn’t remember what they’d argued about this morning. Couldn’t feel anything but sheer gratitude and the overwhelming urge to kiss him.

  She jogged toward him and threw her arms around his neck. “Thank you,” she mumbled into his chest before raising her head to meet his lips. His clothes were damp with sweat and water, but she didn’t care. She just needed to touch him in that moment. He cupped the back of her head and kissed her in a way that made the world around them dissolve.

  “You must be exhausted,” she whispered when their lips finally parted.

  He nodded. “I could do with some water. And a chair. And feet that aren’t covered in blisters.”

  “I can manage the first two. Come on.” She held his hand and led him to one of the lawn chairs next to where her Grandma sat, then hunted down a bottle of water from the cooler on the picnic table.

  “Good job, son,” her dad said to Jake as she popped the lid from the bottle and handed it to him. “Your training in the reserve must have helped you find my granddaughters. I can’t tell you how grateful I am.”

  Jake’s eyes shot to hers, hardened with an unspoken message that pierced her gut. The lies she’d told cropped back up like an invisible wedge between them. She needed to tell the truth. After everything he’d done for this family, Jake deserved the chance to be known for who he really was.

  She sucked in a breath. “Dad, he wasn’t in the reserve.”

  A dozen sets of eyes turned to her, suffocating her with the weight of their expectation.

  Her dad tilted his head forward, gray eyebrows pinching together. He hadn’t looked at her like that since she was eight years old and lied about stealing the ears off Clover’s chocolate Easter bunny. “I don’t understand. Why would you say he was?”

  “To get you off his back about the survival skills thing. I just…” Her voice trailed off, losing steam with each word. “I just wanted to relax this week.”

  “But why wouldn’t you just say so? I didn’t raise you to be a liar.”

  Guilt scraped her throat raw. She didn’t know how to explain that she wasn’t trying to lie, just protect herself. Protect Jake.

  “She’s not a liar,” Grandma Jean said in the fierce voice that only came out in the rare moments she was angry. “He is.”

  “What? No, Jake’s not the one who lied. I am—”

  “Oh, he’s a liar all right. How else do you explain the fact his wedding announcement just came out today?”

  Confusion cemented her feet, leaving her frozen to the spot while the rest of her family rushed over to look at the iPad Grandma Jean was stabbing with her index finger.

  Her mom yanked the device from Grandma Jean’s hands and brought it close to her face. “We are delighted to announce the marriage of Jake Donovan and Kelly Vanderburgh on June sixth.” She looked at Clem, confusion painted onto her face. “How—”

  The iPad crashed to the ground before Darlene could finish her sentence. Her eyes widened and hand flew to her chest—the only warning before she dropped to the ground.

  22

  Clem turned over the recording of Forbidden Sins to the publisher two days ago, and already she had three new contract offers on top of a deal to finish the next two books in the series. A part of her wasn’t surprised. Forbidden Sins was the best work of her life. Over the past week, she’d poured every ounce of her desire, heartache, and hope into the narration, delivering a performance more nuanced and emotive than she knew she could. This was the kind of professional success she’d been dreaming about but it was bittersweet. She’d used up every heart-wrenching memory of her time with Jake for inspiration. How could she replicate that without him?

  She closed her laptop and resigned herself to watching the movie her sisters had picked out.

  “Ooh, this is brilliant. You could use cut-out figures on a string to keep the robbers out the next time you leave the house,” Clover said, holding the bowl of popcorn beneath Clem’s face.

  Chastity leaned across Clem and snatched a handful of popcorn. “No way. She never leaves her house. I vote for the broken glass on the windowsill idea.”

  Clem grabbed the bowl and set it on the new coffee table her sisters had picked out for her. “For the hundredth time, I’m not taking security advice from Home Alone. I have a house alarm now. That’s enough.”

  “How useful is it if you won’t even tell us the code?” Clover whined.

  If Clem had known an alarm would give her some modicum of privacy from her family, she would have invested in one long ago. Then again, she was actually kind of grateful to have her sisters with her right now. Their n
ear constant presence since getting home from Beecham Lake last week had kept her from wallowing in misery. Somehow, they’d managed to drag her out of the house yesterday to go shopping and replace all her furniture. It was easier to give them free reign with her credit card than to muster the energy to pick out new chairs and couches herself. The bright patterns and colors Clover insisted on weren’t something Clem would have chosen, but even she could admit the outcome was beautiful and sophisticated in a way she could never have replicated on her own.

  “Mom said the alarm’s enough to help her sleep at night,” Chastity added. “But I still think you need to hire a 24 hour security guard. A really handsome, beefy one.”

  Clem ignored the last part of her sister’s statement and focused on the warm blanket of relief that settled over her thinking about her mom. The ride from the cabin to the hospital last week had filled her with a fear more bone chilling than the break-in. Even though it turned out to be nothing but a terrible panic attack, the aftermath of the ordeal had left Clem shaken. Ironically, it seemed like the incident had the opposite effect on her mom. She’d been unnervingly calm and reasonable since it happened, as though she’d finally realized that all the meddling and fretting was counterproductive to the one thing that mattered most: seeing her family happy.

  “How long do you think this new Zen-Mom thing is going to last?” Clover asked.

  “I give it two weeks,” Clem said.

  “So pessimistic! I think she’ll last a month,” Clover responded.

  “At least until the next national holiday that requires redecorating the house. One minute with all those unlabeled Rubbermaid boxes in the basement will set her off again,” Chastity said with the kind of finality that left no doubt she was the oldest sister.

  Clem hoped they were all wrong and that her mom really had undergone a personality transplant, but she wasn’t foolish enough to bank on it. Heck, she was pretty sure a big chunk of the reason her mom had been so willing to listen to the doctor was because she thought he happened to look like a young Steve McQueen. But the fact she hadn’t given Clem a single ounce of grief over the whole fiasco with Jake in the week they’d been home was nothing short of miraculous.