They stood there for a minute, the space between them crammed with words they weren’t saying. Finally he had an idea. He reached past her to his keys on a hook. “Know what I usually do when I’m confused?” He held the keys up and gave them a shake.
She took a small breath. “Ride?”
He nodded.
“But your paint,” she said.
“It can wait.”
As they circled the island on his bike, they didn’t speak. Georgie had put her arms around his middle and was holding on tight, resting against his back. Every so often he felt her give a little shudder and wondered if she was crying. But she made no signal for him to stop, and she didn’t crumple against him. He just kept driving, feeling the sun, flying beneath the shadows of the trees, wondering how he could consider leaving this place he’d learned to think of as home and yet knowing all too well that what he wanted and what he got were seldom the same thing. Life kept hitting him on the head with that one. Sometimes he had to grow up and take whatever it was and make it work anyway.
He wondered about Georgie, so close to him on the bike. And yet the distance between them seemed unbreachable—like he was on the peak of one mountain and she was on another, and they could speak to each other across the divide, but until she healed and he figured out what his future held, all they could do was talk. And even that wasn’t safe.
They completed the circuit. Jace drove her to her aunts’ house and kept the motor running but dropped the kickstand. He’d been thinking of what he could say to her to say good-bye.
Go to the culinary school and maybe find more of yourself.
Never let anybody make you change.
I hope you heal, inside and out.
Call me.
They dismounted the bike and removed their helmets. She stowed hers in the seat.
He took both her hands, and she let him. He studied them, frowning, fighting with himself, wishing he was already gone and wishing he never had to leave. He brought her hands up and kissed the backs of her fingers. The scent of her seemed to decide it. He lowered her hands and pulled her to him, wrapping her up and kissing her mouth harder than he’d intended, though he hadn’t intended anything. She wrapped her hands around his shoulders and kissed him back, and he eased a little, pulling her closer. The kiss softened into something he would have a hard time forgetting over the next several weeks.
Jace let go and stepped back, his heart stuck in his throat. He turned, mounted the bike, crammed on his helmet, and growled away, leaving her standing in her driveway, the Sound water shimmering behind. He didn’t go straight back to the duplex. Sometimes he needed to ride just a little more.
* * *
Trying to breathe, Georgie watched after the motorcycle until she could no longer hear it, long after she could no longer see it. Long after her sight had blurred.
Blinking, she turned and walked around the side of the house, letting her feet take her where they would. She walked down the boat ramp and out on the rocks and stopped just short of the water’s lapping edge. She didn’t know how much time had gone by when some level of consciousness stirred enough to hear her own hushed voice repeating, “I’m so broken. I’m so broken. I’m so broken. I’m so—”
She drew in a deep, sharp breath to silence herself. She blinked at the water, drawing her arms close around her in the cooler air, feeling numb. I’m so broken.
“Yes, I know,” she answered, her chest aching.
She looked down at her feet and didn’t think, because thinking would lead to feeling, and feeling hurt too much. Feeling caused a lot of problems. Feeling stunk.
She lifted her gaze, watching the sliding, rhythmic movement of the bay water. She let it soothe her, pull her into a waking trance with its soft sounds, the birds crying in the distance, the lapping noise at her feet.
Suddenly she gasped as something in the distant waves spouted. “A whale,” she whispered. She clasped her hands over her mouth and watched as a dark body rose slowly out of the water and spouted again. It repeated, rolling a large fin up in the air, and then a second whale spouted stronger and higher than the first.
“Two of them.” She wished she knew what kind of whales they were. She automatically turned to search for Jace’s house and wondered if he could see them from the hill or if she should call him—and then her stomach dropped, and she turned back to the whales.
Feeling hurts too much.
She watched for several more minutes until the whales swam beyond her view.
He hadn’t wanted her to think that going to culinary school was his idea. And he’d wanted her to make the decision without him. Did she want to go because Jace was a chef? Did she want to go to please him? Because that wouldn’t matter now. She would go to the school and come back, and he wouldn’t be here.
She remembered how she’d felt about the brochure when she’d finally pulled it toward her in Reuben’s office, and she realized she hadn’t been thinking of Jace at that moment. She’d been thinking of what she could do. What she could be. Could she be?
“In a minute, there is time,” she whispered to the sea. “For decisions and revisions . . .”
She heard soft footsteps on the rocks behind her and turned her head. Faye came, holding one of the big quilts they kept in baskets around the house in case anyone felt chilled. She opened it up and set it around Georgie’s shoulders.
Georgie shuddered as warmth began to seep in. Instead of comforting, though, the warmth seemed to melt all the frozen emotion inside her, and all that feeling started spilling out in tears she couldn’t seem to stop.
Faye put her arms around her. “My dear, what is the matter?”
Georgie sucked in a deep breath. “He’s going back to Neva—da.”
“Oh no,” Faye said.
Georgie nodded, sucking in another breath. “And I’m going to the Cor—hic—don—hic—Bleu . . .” She dissolved into Faye’s arms, who continued to pat her gently on the back, most likely bewildered.
Chapter 21
On the day Jace left for Nevada, Deacon came.
Georgie couldn’t have been more grateful for the distraction. They spent hours talking on the back-porch swing, sharing the food Faye kept bringing out to them. Georgie told him everything. Well, almost everything. She left the details of the kissing to herself. After sharing the things Tru had said the other night, she told Deacon about remembering Ian and the engagement ring, and Shannon Hudson’s call, and then Reuben’s offer to go to culinary school.
She smiled at Deacon’s supportive enthusiasm for that last part. “I’m scared to death.” She had no trouble admitting it.
“That’s good,” Deacon said, grinning.
“Why is that good?”
“Because when you graduate and you’re all chopping onions with one hand behind your back and drizzling beef medallions with béarnaise sauce, you’ll totally appreciate it. You’ll be your own conquering hero.”
“Do you drizzle beef medallions with béarnaise sauce?”
“It sounds right. I watch Food Network, so I’m sort of an expert.”
“I’ll be sure to call you for the really hard homework.”
He leaned back on the swing, lacing his fingers behind his head. “Anytime.”
“Maybe I should start watching Food Network again,” she murmured. “I watched it in the hospital.”
“Wouldn’t be a bad idea.”
Georgie considered getting Tru hooked on a new TV channel, one that didn’t involve a man riding up on a horse and thirty women throwing themselves at his feet.
Deacon watched the sparkling bay. And Georgie thought again that he really couldn’t have picked a better day to show up. “This is an incredible view,” he said.
She nodded. “I saw whales the other day.”
“Awesome.”
“It was. I wish I’d been out there closer. I didn’t even have binoculars.”
“This coming from the girl who was afraid for a little seagull on the wav
es?”
She’d shared that story with him, hoping it didn’t sound crazy, asking him if he thought it was. His answer was no. “A boat is bigger than a seagull,” she said.
“And whales are bigger than boats.” His eyes lit up as he teased her.
“Not all of them.”
He smiled. “True.”
They grew quiet again.
He spoke. “You know, Mom and Dad are pretty worried about you.” He glanced sideways at her and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “They feel like you . . . cut them out of your life.”
A knot of defense tightened itself in her chest. “I had to leave. I had to get away and figure out how to . . . start over.”
He nodded. “Still, they’re worried.”
“I know. I know. But . . . I had to leave, Deacon. There was no moving forward at home. It was all back. They’d say, ‘It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. You’ll be yourself again. It will come back. Everything is going to be okay.’” Georgie frowned at the white, puffy clouds floating in the sky. The dogwood tree, the azaleas, the lilacs were all blooming now. “But it wasn’t okay,” she said. “No matter how hard I tried. And them telling me that over and over was making me feel like I was doing something wrong. Like I was failing.”
“They love you.”
“I know that. They’re doing what they should be doing: worrying, caring, reassuring. Saying, ‘Everything will be okay.’ But I don’t need reassuring. I don’t need to be told that everything being okay means everything goes back to the way it was. Because it won’t. After the—abuse—from Ian—and after the accident and all the physical therapy and psychological mumbo jumbo and putting things in boxes and filling in the gaps of my scrambled memory and carrying blame—yes, blame—for so long, nothing will be the same. And don’t tell me faith and forgiveness will wipe it all away. There’s something missing in that way of thinking. Nothing will ever be the same, and part of me mourns that every night . . . but most of me grabs on to it and defends it to the death because I never, never want anything like that to happen again.”
Her fists clenched on her lap. “Forgiveness is one thing, but trust? We must forgive, yes,” she quoted Shannon Hudson. “But nowhere does it say I have to trust those who hurt me. Love your enemies, but don’t invite them into your house.” She gulped a breath. “Especially when you can’t seem to tell between your enemy . . . and your friend.”
Deacon reached and pulled her in so her head rested on his shoulder.
“I lost myself with Ian,” she said, her voice shaking with emotion. “He pushed me down until there was barely a trace of me.”
“I’m sorry, Georgie,” Deacon said quietly.
“You knew. You knew he wasn’t any good. And I didn’t want to see it.”
Deacon made a dismissive sound.
After a deep, cleansing breath, she felt stronger. She sat up and looked at him. “I’m trying to figure out this new me. And I know this new me will completely consider your judgment.”
He gave her a small smile. “No pressure.”
She sat back and kicked the swing into motion. “None whatsoever.”
They settled into silence.
“Georgie?”
“Yeah?”
“What is it you blame yourself for?”
She didn’t answer right away. She was tired of this question and of looking at it from every angle. Tired of being told it wasn’t her fault. “Sometimes it’s about the accident. But sometimes it’s anger at me, and humiliation; what was wrong with me that I let myself get into a relationship like that?”
He remained quiet for a minute as the swing rocked back and forth. She waited for the lecture.
“Call me crazy,” he began, “but when I think about it, my question is, what was wrong with Ian? That he needed to break someone as trusting and alive as you? All you did was trust someone with your heart.”
She turned to him, taking in his words. He’d just explained the anger she’d been directing at Ian, the anger she’d felt so much guilt over. And the clarification felt good. It felt . . . liberating.
“Ian would have done this to anybody,” Deacon said. “He would have run anybody right into the ground. He probably already had. What makes you so special is . . . you called him on it.” He turned to her.
After a moment, she wiped away a tear. “Thanks, Deacon. You’re the best.”
“You have to say that because I’m your brother.”
She laughed.
The swing continued to sway, and Deacon turned to look at her again. “You know, I don’t think Mom or Dad would have a problem with you not wanting to go through any of that again. As a matter of fact, I’m sure they’d be grateful if you never got close to anyone like the Hudsons ever again. And if that means accepting changes in you, even the way you need to protect yourself, I’m pretty sure they’d be all for getting to know you again.”
Georgie sighed. “I just . . . have to figure out who I am first.”
“Igne natura renovator integra.”
She frowned. “I don’t know that one.”
He leaned toward her. “Through fire, nature is reborn whole. You’re like a phoenix.”
She studied him and decided she liked it. “You’re such a nerd.”
He sat back, unruffled. “You could start including Mom and Dad in that process. I could talk to them. Tell them what you just told me.”
“I don’t—”
“You just said you’d completely consider my judgment from now on.”
She covered her face with her hand, then let it drop. “I did say that, didn’t I?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Okay, I’ll consider it. But, Deacon?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t tell them about Jace. It wasn’t that . . . significant.”
He arched a brow at her, and she felt her face warm up.
“Please?” she asked.
He nodded. “Sure. But I hope this new self of yours realizes that some things can’t be hidden with words. Veritas vo liberabit.”
She knew that one: “The truth will set you free.” She grabbed his pathetic attempt at growing a goatee while on vacation and said, “Barba non facit philosophum.”
“Ouch,” he said.
She smiled.
“A beard does not make one a philosopher.”
But she glanced at him, then out over the water, and thought about what he’d said. Maybe the beard did help a little bit. “Thanks for coming when I needed you.”
He looked at her. “That’s what families do.”
* * *
Jace had ridden twenty hours. Twenty hours from Camano to Boulder City, Nevada. Twenty hours of nothing to do but ride and stop for gas, food, and to let Kit use a patch of ground every so often. And think. He’d done a lot of thinking.
He turned the corner into his parents’ neighborhood—his neighborhood growing up—and the undeniable feeling of coming home set in. He’d been able to hold the feeling off as he’d bypassed town and the diner to get to the old house in the dark. But here he was, where he’d ridden his bicycle and swum at his friends’ houses and snuck his first kiss. He’d come home for Christmas during his freshman year of college and then had missed it during his mission. Then he’d come home again with his plans set in his mind and heart to leave it altogether.
He pulled up in front of the low stucco house lit by the front porch light. A big old catalpa tree shaded a square patch of lawn to almost black. The rest of the yard was neatly paved in crushed sandstone, including the driveway back to the side of the house. His mom’s favorite spiky greens still lined the path to the front door, where an old half barrel overflowed with red geraniums. An occasional bug swooped past the porch light.
He cut the engine on his bike and lowered the kickstand. Chirping crickets filled the quiet left behind. “Just a minute, Kit. Let me tell them we’re here.” Not telling his parents he was bringing a dog with him might have been a mistake, but he didn’t feel
like walking an emotional tightrope with his dad over it. “We work long hours,” his dad had always said. “We can’t give a dog what it needs.” Well, the dog was here. They’d make it work.
He walked to the front door, his boots crunching on the gravel, mixing with the sound of the crickets. He passed the mailbox and noticed the E had fallen off, so it read LOW. He reached down and picked the dirty letter off the ground, brushed it off, and stuck it back on, hoping it stayed in place until he could replace it.
When he reached the front door, he paused. He never knew if he should knock or just go on in. It was late, but the entry light was on inside, and they were expecting him.
He knocked and waited. He peeked through the side window as his mom turned the corner into the small entry hall. He stood back, and she opened the door.
“Jace.” Her grin couldn’t be any wider.
“Hey, Mom.” He bent down to hug her and noticed the cane she was using. “How are you?”
“I’m wonderful.”
He smiled and breathed in her smell, then pulled her to him, pressing his face to her wavy dark hair, barely streaked with gray. He released her, and she motioned him to come farther into the house.
“How was your trip?” she asked.
“Not too bad.” He followed her past the galley kitchen and into the main living room. A drinking glass lay on the floor, its contents darkening the carpet.
“I was so excited when I heard the motorcycle that I knocked over my water,” she said, chuckling at herself. “Good thing it was nearly empty.” She moved to head to the laundry room.
“I’ve got it, Mom. You sit.” He took three strides to the laundry room, really a large closet with bifold doors, and grabbed a towel from a freshly folded pile on the dryer. He worked at the spill while she sank carefully back into her chair with a sigh.
“Where’s Dad?” he asked.
“Oh, he stayed at the diner, tying up some things. You know how he is. Hates to leave anything undone.”
Jace nodded, then threw the towel in a basket on the washer. It occurred to him that it might be better to bring up the dog now instead of later.
“Have a seat, Jace.” She motioned to the sofa next to her easy chair.
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