by Lyn Denison
It was quite a while before they drew slightly apart.
“Can you ever begin to forgive me?” Bailey asked thickly.
“I never thought I’d be able to. I told myself I couldn’t all those years,” Fliss said, swallowing hard. “Then you came back and it was as though you’d never left. I kept telling myself it had all been over between us eight years ago, that when you left any feelings I had for you had died.” Fliss reached out and ran her fingertip lightly, slowly, over the smooth curve of Bailey’s cheek, settled on the softness of her lips. “But one look at you and the ember that I’d kept in my heart flared back to life. I couldn’t have put that flame out if I’d wanted to. I tried so hard to tell myself I wanted to. But how could I? You’ve always been part of me and I love you too much.”
Bailey held her close again. “I love you, too, and I know I don’t deserve you, Fliss. It’s my fault we’ve wasted so many years.”
“No, you can’t say that,” Fliss said gently. “We don’t know, well, maybe eight years ago, the time wasn’t right for us.” She looked into Bailey’s eyes again and saw an answering, well-remembered fire burning there.
“Right now, all I want to do is kiss you again,” Bailey said. “And I want to make love to you so badly I—” She shook her head slightly. “But I want everything, all this, now, to be right for you, too, Fliss.”
“It is. It’s never felt more right. We love each other. Here. Now. That’s all that matters.”
Bailey’s hand cupped Fliss’s face. “But the world outside this house, it’s still there. It hasn’t changed all that much. And I don’t want to sneak about, to live a lie, pretending you don’t mean, that you aren’t, the world to me.” She moistened her lips with her tongue tip. “I’m going to cut back at work. Just do special projects. But I know there’ll be things said about us—awful, hurtful things. I don’t know how you feel about that now.”
Fliss gave a faint smile. “You mean about being unmasked as the famous Bailey Macrae’s lesbian lover?”
Bailey gave a soft laugh. “Something like that.”
“It was never a problem for me back then.” Fliss frowned. “Not when we were together. But somehow, later, everyone led me to believe it was. And I think I even started to believe it myself.”
“So everyone knows you’re a lesbian?”
“Not exactly. Not until lately, until you came back. When you left I felt I had to keep it a secret, not so much because I was gay but because I knew you didn’t want it known. And I, well, I couldn’t bear to talk to anyone about the loss I felt, about losing you.” Fliss frowned. “Not even to my mother.”
“Your mother loved you, Fliss. And she was really worried about you,” Bailey put in.
“But she shouldn’t have interfered the way she did.”
“Maybe not. But she did it for the right reasons.” She looked at Fliss. “She never forbade me to take you with me. She just pointed out how young you were and how almost sheltered your life had been, growing up here on the island. And she was worried about how difficult and how dangerous it was not to conform. I knew what she was saying was true so the seeds had already been planted. I let them grow.”
“My father said they both regretted what they’d done. Mum for talking to you, warning you off, and Dad for agreeing with her. He said he wasn’t able to accept that I was a lesbian back then.”
“And now?” Bailey asked gently.
“I don’t know that he’s happy about it but he said it was my life and I had to live it the way I wanted to. He, um, might be going to have a talk to you. About your intentions.”
Bailey feigned horror. “Thanks for warning me.” She held Fliss’s gaze. “My intentions are definitely honorable. They always were. You do know that, don’t you, Fliss? It was just—I guess I was trying to do what was best for everyone.”
“I know. And Mayla told me Mum was sorry, too.”
“Mayla?” Bailey asked in surprise. “Mayla knew?”
“She told me last night Mum had talked to her about you and I before Mum died. Mum swore her to secrecy.” Fliss shook her head. “Poor Mayla. She’d had to carry confidences from everyone involved. One day, after Mayla had returned to live on the island, I was particularly down. Mayla was there and sympathetic, so I told her. Not about you specifically but about being a lesbian.” Fliss smiled. “She saved my sanity I think. She told me she was a lesbian too and she took me with her to a club over on the mainland. A lesbian club. It was wonderful. It made me feel less of a freak. And it validated how I felt about you.”
“You never met anyone, at this club, I mean—anyone special?” Bailey finished quickly.
“As if?” Fliss laughed gently. “You were pretty serious competition and the hardest act to follow. There was never anyone who even came remotely close to you.”
Bailey drew an unsteady breath, dropped her gaze. “And I don’t feel I come remotely close to deserving you.”
“Don’t.” Fliss reached out, put her finger under Bailey’s chin, lifted her head until she could look into the deep blue of her eyes. “I love you,” she said simply. “I have from the moment I saw you out on the headland.”
“I felt the same. But I was also absolutely terrified on a couple of levels. Firstly, you were so young, and secondly, I’d never felt so attracted to anyone before. I’d virtually spent my whole life not getting involved with anyone because I was scared people would find out about me. And yet one look at you and I knew staying away from you was going to be the biggest challenge of my life.”
“So why didn’t you? Stay away from me, I mean?” Fliss asked, and Bailey ran her fingertip lightly along the line of Fliss’s jaw, gently touching her lips.
“Because I knew I’d found the other part of me. The best part of me.” She held Fliss’s gaze for long, meaningful moments, and then her lips curved upwards in a quick smile and she laughed softly. “Although I must say when you tackled me that first morning it did feel as though the world had landed on top of me.” She sobered. “When I looked up at you I knew for sure that it had.”
“Me, too. After that morning I felt I knew just how forever felt. And that’s what I thought I’d lost. What we’d both lost.” Fliss swallowed. “So, shall we agree forever was just temporarily misplaced?” Fliss asked as lightly as she could.
Bailey nodded. “This time I’ll be holding on to it for dear life,” she said sincerely. “Because I know my life means nothing without you. I love you so much.”
“I love you, too, Bailey. And it’s what I want this time. Forever, I mean.”
“Forever,” Bailey repeated, and it was a solemn vow. “You’ve got it, my love.” She put her soft lips on Fliss’s. “Forever.”
Publications from Bella Books, Inc.
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