When she realized how far the gallop had carried her, she looped back around, pulling Taj back to a trot that she posted, rising out of the saddle on every other stride.
“She’s such a beautiful animal.” Kristine smiled when they met back up. “I’m so glad that you…” Her eyes scrunched up to pinch away more tears.
“I know. Me too. She’s done a lot for me. Got me thinking about life again.”
“Sorry about…”
“No. Don’t apologize. Death is a part of life. I saw enough of it in the coast guard, and I thought that by retiring, I’d be able to keep my failing relationship alive. I spent too long tiptoeing around the edges of our breakup trying to delay the inevitable. My partner and I broke up a few months ago after eight years. I finally learned that even if it’s harder, facing tough stuff straight on is more productive.”
“That takes a lot of strength,” Kristine said. “Strength I’m sure you have.”
Robyn thought to argue that she was only physically strong, but something in Kristine’s level gaze forced her to reconsider before she spoke. Kristine saw something more in Robyn. The affirmation made her throat constrict, but she accepted Kristine’s assessment, nodding her thanks because she could not trust her voice.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Kristine keeps giving me these looks. What’s with her today?” Grace asked, joining Gloria in the kitchen. She had excused herself from the living room to get crackers and cheese, yet she stood leaning against the counter with nothing in her hands.
“What’s with me?” Kristine said, following her into the kitchen. “How would you look if your wife’s ex-girlfriend was in there holding your baby and looking like she’s Rumpelstiltskin here to collect on some old promise.” She turned to Gloria. “Tell me that you didn’t promise her your first-born daughter.”
Gloria stepped across the kitchen and slid her arms around Kristine. “You know I’d never do such a thing.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Grace said, waving her hands, catching up with the couple. “Megan’s your ex? I’ve been seeing her for weeks. How can you not have told me!”
“I didn’t put it together. Gloria always called her Meg.”
“How long did you two date?”
“A couple of years,” Gloria admitted sheepishly.
“Years!”
“I always knew it wasn’t serious. She wasn’t quite as clear on that.”
“Clingon,” Kristine coughed into her hand.
“Hey, what if I liked her?” Grace snapped.
Kristine’s eyes widened. “Do you?”
Grace slumped onto a barstool. “She’s okay company, but she’s quick to jealousy.”
“Very possessive,” Gloria agreed.
“Is she always so bossy?” Grace asked.
“Always,” Gloria said. “Everything has to be her way unless she sees it’s a deal breaker. Then she’ll backpedal and pretend like she doesn’t care.”
“What was your deal breaker?”
“I wasn’t the marrying kind,” Gloria answered.
“Hey,” Kristine yelped. “Have you forgotten I’m right here?”
“Of course you changed my ways, honey.”
“I can’t believe this. You two are the ones responsible for her. Can’t you do something?” Kristine looked at the two of them, guiltily rooted where they stood.
“We really shouldn’t leave her out there alone,” Gloria said, still not moving.
“I’m not going out there,” Kristine said firmly. “She still looks at me like I’m a thief. You go. You’re the one with the most experience.”
“You say that like she’s a rabid bear,” Gloria said.
“Precisely! Here’s your chance to save the day again.”
“You so owe me,” Gloria huffed, ignoring her wife’s radiant smile as she trudged toward the living room.
“Happy to make it up to you,” Kristine said, running her hand over Gloria’s ass as she passed, earning her a smack.
“You’re not scared to send her back out there alone? The way she looked at me once she got her hands on Eliza…” Grace said, shivering.
“She’ll be okay. What about you?”
“Time to be upfront about how I don’t see a U-Haul in our future.”
“Blame it on me if you like. She already hates me.”
“Aren’t you coming back?” Grace asked, paused at the doorway.
“Are you kidding? Somebody’s got to get the snacks and food.”
“Coward.” Grace returned to the living room, relieved to see the baby back in Gloria’s arms.
“Think we’ve got a stinky,” Gloria said, standing to leave the room as soon as Grace entered.
Grace wished she could follow, her thoughts on how painful the rest of the evening was bound to be now that she knew Gloria and Megan’s history.
Megan took Grace’s hand as she sat down, threading their fingers together.
“I’m sorry,” Grace offered, aware that Megan had to be feeling awkward too.
She shrugged. “Small town. You didn’t know.” She looked away from Grace. “Do you…Would it be too terribly strange to bail? I thought it would be okay, but I don’t think I can sit through a whole dinner.”
Relief washed over Grace. She squeezed Megan’s hand. “I’m sure they’ll understand.”
“I’ll just wait in the car.”
Megan ducked out the door without waiting for an answer. Grace turned to see Kristine standing with a bowl in each hand. “Chips and salsa?”
“We’re going to go. The baby’s still here. Gloria’s either changing her diaper or hiding out in the bedroom. Tell her I’m sorry?”
“Forget about it. You just have to promise to come back soon with a report.”
“PowerPoint?” Grace jested, delaying her departure.
“Gloria insists on it.” Kristine set down her snacks and crossed the room to give Grace a quick hug. “Good luck.”
“Thanks. Hope your evening isn’t ruined.”
“On the contrary. I see an early bedtime and some penance sex on the menu now.”
“So didn’t need to hear that,” Grace called as she shut the door and jogged to her car.
She slipped into the driver’s side and found Megan sobbing in the passenger seat. She glanced back at the house feeling stuck. Tentatively, she reached across the console and rubbed Megan’s shoulders.
“I’m so sorry,” Megan sobbed, her face buried in her hands. “I just couldn’t sit through a whole night seeing the two of them and their family. It’s all I ever wanted. She’s all I ever wanted.”
She sobbed again, sending Grace looking for a tissue. All she could find were crumpled napkins. She offered these to Megan who took them and blew her nose and mopped her face. “She’s my white whale, you know?”
“White whale?”
“The one that gets away and keeps messing with your head.”
“Never was a big fan of Moby Dick,” Grace said, emphasizing dick in an attempt at humor. The look Megan flashed sobered her. “Sorry. That was uncalled for.”
“No. I’m sorry. I thought…You’re so beautiful, so successful. I really thought that we had a chance, but I can see that I have a lot more work to do with my therapist.”
Grace bit her lip, trying to absorb the quick shift the evening had taken. Of course she was relieved to be off the hook when it came to the breakup. But she hardly thought it was appropriate to simply drive Megan home and leave her in such a state, even if she was slightly stung by being dumped when Megan didn’t even know her well enough to realize what she’d be missing. “Do you need anything? Ice cream?”
Megan wiped her face again, sniffing. Finally, she nodded. “That would be nice.”
Grace stopped at the store, leaving Megan to a new round of tears. She went inside to find Megan’s request: mint chip. For a moment, she thought about grabbing two tubs but realized that was excessive.
She walked Megan to the door, holding her
while she continued to cry, thankful that she accepted only the ice cream and not the offer to sit with her for a while. Back in her car, Grace rested her head on the steering wheel. With nowhere to go but her own empty house, she realized how missing dinner disappointed her even more than Meg’s dumping her did. She found herself thinking about the meal Robyn had made for them and the dinner invitation she had declined the other night. If not for Robyn’s stubbornness, she would very much have liked to spend an evening in her company.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Gloria and Kristine had been right, Grace decided, strolling along the road at Patrick’s Point State Park. She needed to get out and explore the Northcoast instead of running off to San Francisco every weekend. After finding such a treasure at the poetry read, she had bought a book of local hikes and selected one to try each weekend.
The dark forested area opened to a small meadow that afforded a view of cliffs to the north and the pounding ocean below. She stood at a fork. In addition to the road splitting for drivers, walking trails twisted off in multiple directions. With no particular destination in mind, she turned left, thinking it looked like the most direct way to view the ocean. The hair on the back of her neck prickled, so she turned. It wasn’t a sound that put her on guard but a feeling, like she was being watched. Her eyes traveled up and found Robyn standing atop a rock formation adjacent to the meadow, her hands buried in the pockets of a peacoat. Her stance and expression made her look like the captain of a ship. Nothing but trouble could come from being interested in someone so aloof and cold, Grace mused.
She’d taken to thinking of Robyn as The Sourpuss after she had been so easily dismissed following that first music session with Jen. Robyn had been nowhere in sight the other times she’d been to the studio. At first it was just her cello and Jen’s violin, but quickly two more, a violin teacher from the school in Blue Lake and a violist Jen played with in the Community Orchestra. Think about that, she told herself. Focus on the good energy to be found instead of the sour landlady.
Turning on her heel, she continued out to the Rim Trail, enjoying the way it ducked deep into the dark coverage of the trees and then wove out to the very edge of the cliff where she could watch the waves crash against the rocky shore far below. On the coast, the sun quickly warmed her, but as soon as the path dipped back into the forest, she shivered, the temperature shift as notable as the frostiness she felt whenever she’d encountered Robyn. Arcata was small enough that their paths crossed a few times a week. She recalled passing Robyn on the footbridge to campus just the other day. She didn’t expect Robyn to stop and talk to her but the pursed lips and curt nod surprisingly dampened her spirits.
The next time she emerged from the trees, she saw a massive rock off the coast to the north. A trail snaked from the cliff down to water level and back up again to the almost island. She could continue along the path, but she had no idea whether the trail was going to take her back to the road and main gate. She’d learned that she needed to turn around before she felt tired. More than once, she’d walked much further than where her halfway point should have been. The rock face intrigued her, so she decided to retrace her steps on the Rim Trail and make the interesting outcropping her last destination before heading back to her car.
By the time she made it back to the trail that stair-cased down the cliff, another figure was out on the rock itself. Grace frowned, recognizing Robyn once again. She almost turned to the road but steeled herself instead. There was no reason for Robyn to make her feel unwelcome. Even in the full sun, hiking down to water level and then out over the ocean, the salty air had more of a bite. Grace zipped her coat and shoved her hands deep in the pockets.
She stood on a patio of flat stones catching her breath, marveling at someone’s handiwork that made her feel like she was standing on a castle turret. Though there was only one trail out to the rock, and she had not passed Robyn, she didn’t find her immediately. Once Grace reached the rock wall, she spotted her on a plateau further up the rock. She faced the ocean, still and alone. For an instant, Grace welcomed the opportunity to study her before she became aware of Grace’s presence. Grace wondered what she was thinking, face turned to the sea with her eyes tightly closed. But then Robyn must have felt her presence because she turned her head and found Grace.
The faraway look vanished, replaced by the familiar guardedness. Despite the prickly shift in Robyn’s demeanor, Grace felt Robyn’s eyes quickly skim over her. She felt betrayed by her body as it warmed at the attention. Everything about Robyn’s stance told Grace to keep her distance, yet her body declared how very much it would like to step into the obvious strength of those arms. Instinctively, she knew how her smaller frame would mesh with Robyn’s. She pulled her hands from her pockets and crossed them over her chest, feeling the need to protect herself.
Robyn’s gaze fell away, and it struck Grace that the expression she was having trouble defining was one of loss and sadness. She’d never seen Robyn as anything but capable and composed—not vulnerable. It frustrated her that the woman took up any of her brain space, that she could not simply accept that Robyn didn’t want anything to do with her. The remoteness made her more interested, not less.
People usually like me, Grace insisted internally. It made her good at her job. She could pull people out and make them feel comfortable. Why that didn’t work on Robyn stymied her. She was dogged though, another quality that suited her for the workplace and made her decide to stand at the rock wall until Robyn descended. Minutes passed, and though she kept her eyes on the ocean, she could feel Robyn’s gaze shift to her every so often when she checked to see if her escape route had cleared.
Grace’s feet started to get cold, and she zipped her coat up to her chin to ward off the biting wind coming off the ocean. She didn’t care if she froze. Robyn was going to have to walk by her.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Kiss
Grace wasn’t budging. Robyn wasn’t dressed to stand out on Wedding Rock for the entire afternoon, and the longer she stayed exposed to the relentless wind, the more obvious it became that she did not want to walk by Grace who seemed to be strong-arming her into a social encounter. She pushed her hands deeper in her pockets, wishing she’d never set foot on the rock.
It was foolish to have returned, searching for some sort of validation that her relationship with Barb had meant something. She didn’t want the relationship anymore, but the fact that Barb had moved on so completely wounded her. Robyn wanted an answer to what those years had meant to Barb. Anything? Did she think about the vows they had exchanged on this rock, in private, five years ago?
Just as she had fingered the stone with Kiss on it that morning, remembering the kiss that had sealed their commitment, she fingered the now-pocketed ring she had worn for so many years. She had closed her eyes, trying to remember Barb’s lips on her own. When she opened them, she was startled to find that Grace had joined her on the rock. Before she’d appeared, Robyn had been thinking of tossing the ring into the ocean, but now she’d have to explain such a gesture. Her fingers moving over it, she remembered the feeling of Barb’s hands on hers, slipping the ring on, claiming her.
Those words they had spoken to each other on this rock had felt like forever, but those promises had blown away, leaving her bereft. What did it mean when you gave your all to a relationship for years and then were left with nothing? What did the ring mean anymore, loose in her pocket?
She frowned at where nostalgia had gotten her, trapped on the exposed point of the rock without any warmth of the past to comfort her. No answers, only the annoyance of Grace parked in her path. She willed herself not to look at the way Grace’s stretchy hiking pants hugged her curves. Standing there with the wind doing its best to free her wavy red hair from its ponytail, Grace could have been a model for the catalog of expensive athletic clothes from which she’d no doubt purchased the pants. She eyed her watch, annoyed by the turn of her thoughts. She had to leave if she hoped to get to the bar
n and feed Taj in the window of time the mare expected.
If not for the horse and her sense of responsibility, she would have stood there until it grew dark, but thinking about Taj waiting for her forced her into action. She took a deep breath and descended the stairs.
“Hi again,” Grace said.
“Hey,” Robyn answered, avoiding eye contact. She held her breath as she passed, her senses alerted by Grace’s stiff posture, so she wasn’t surprised when Grace turned and followed her.
“What’s your deal?”
“Excuse me?” Robyn said, though she’d heard Grace’s words.
“Even without the friends we have in common, this is a small town. We keep seeing each other, and whenever we do, I can’t help but feel like I’m invading your space.”
Robyn hadn’t expected this and took another step away. She didn’t owe Grace an explanation, did she? So they had friends in common. It didn’t mean they had to like each other. She forced herself not to look at Grace, already feeling the effect of her presence like standing dangerously close to a fire.
“I’m a private person,” she offered, taking another step back.
“People like me,” Grace pushed.
“I’m sure you’re a very nice person,” Robyn replied, flummoxed by her statement. She tried to look away but couldn’t. Before her, Grace stood taller and squared her shoulders. Robyn could see that her trying to slide away from the issue ignited a fury in Grace that heightened her beauty. Grace’s keen hazel eyes bored into her and wisps of her hair floated on the breeze, making her look like a sea seductress about to cast a spell.
“You’re attracted to me,” Grace said with utter certainty.
Robyn knew she gave Grace her answer when she quickly averted her gaze because Grace’s posture immediately relaxed. She cocked her hip, studying Robyn, a smile playing at her lips, not smug, but somehow satisfied. Robyn had nowhere to hide.
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