by Toni Blake
“I heard something that might interest you,” he said by way of greeting.
They both leaned against opposite sides of the wide door frame. “What’s that?” she asked.
“Brace yourself. Trent Fordham is here. On the island.”
She swallowed back emotion, and said, “Thanks, but I already knew.”
Her longtime friend’s eyebrows shot up. “You’ve seen him?”
She tried to shrug it off. “You could say that.”
Now he leaned forward slightly. “Allie,” he said, almost scoldingly, “tell me.”
She didn’t particularly want to talk about it, so she planned to keep it short. “He showed up at my place yesterday during the storm. Bike chain broke and I was the nearest house. It was quite a surprise to both of us, needless to say.”
“And…?”
She again tried to swallow the thickness gathering in her throat, a result of the intense memories from yesterday afternoon. “And when the rain ended, Jacob sent someone up with a cart for the bike.”
Josh’s brow narrowed. “That’s not the and I was after. What did you say to him? What did he say to you?” Josh, of course, knew every detail of the heartbreak she’d endured when they were younger.
She still didn’t want to talk about this, but he was being a caring friend, and even if her conversation with Trent hadn’t really turned out to be the main event, it had stayed on her mind along with the sex. “Actually, it was all kind of confusing. Somehow he blamed me.” She went on to explain why, adding, “It’s not like you and I are hugging all the time, so I have no idea what he or his mother saw.”
Josh tilted his head, clearly trying to think back. “Ya know, I think maybe we did hug the day we opened for business. Right over there, in fact.” He pointed to a spot next to a curlicue wrought iron light pole currently flanked by two pastel bicycles. “We were both pretty pumped that it was actually happening.”
“Hmm.” She still possessed no firm memory of it, but if Josh did, good enough. “Even so, a hug and some overheard comments without context are hardly reasons to silently break an engagement and go away forever.”
“Agreed,” Josh said.
“And seriously, it was one hug. I’m pretty sure we were not ‘hanging all over each other,’ ever.”
He nodded, then tossed a troubled look her way. “Okay, if you won’t say it, I will—even if it means speaking ill of the dead.” She’d filled him in on that, too. “His mom was a snobby bitch. She tolerated you, but she never wanted him to get serious with you.”
Allie scrunched up her mouth, still feeling a little sad about that even if she’d always suspected the same and pretty much had it confirmed yesterday.
“No matter how you slice it,” she concluded, “he shouldn’t have just left without a word, and I can’t forgive him for that. But it was just…so strange to find out we have such different memories and versions of what happened.”
“We all see things through our own individual lens, I guess,” Josh observed with a slight raise of his eyebrows. “But yeah, it’s weird when you think you had the same experience as somebody else, and then find out you didn’t.” He took a sip of his coffee. “So do you feel better or worse after seeing him?”
Allie peered up into a deep summery blue sky dotted with fluffy white clouds, trying to find an answer for that. Finally, she said, “I’m not really sure. In some ways, I wish he’d never come back, wish I didn’t know how he looks now and what it’s like to be with him. But on the other hand, I—”
“What it’s like to be with him?” Josh repeated, drawing back slightly. “Allie, you didn’t…?”
Josh had gotten that from “what it’s like to be with him?” She hadn’t even meant it in that way. But there was no hiding the heat filling her cheeks, or the fact that she was suddenly staring down at her purple flip-flops, unable to look her friend in the eye.
“Oh my God, you did,” Josh said. “What the hell, Allie?”
She forced herself to meet his gaze, feeling the need to defend herself. “It wasn’t exactly a decision—more just a thing that happened. One minute I was helping him get his wet shirt off to put it in the dryer, and the next—”
“News flash,” Josh interrupted her. “Taking somebody’s clothes off can lead to sex.”
Allie looked around. No one seemed to have heard him, but still she cautioned, “Keep it down.”
He glanced around then, too—after which he lowered his voice to a loud whisper. “I can’t believe this guy knocks on your door after ten years of heartache and you end up in bed with him. Or wherever.” He stopped, shook his head. “Don’t tell me—I don’t want to know.”
She sighed. When he put it like that, it made her sound pretty foolish. Like a pushover. A doormat. All those terms used to describe a woman who lets a man take advantage of her. “I can’t believe it either,” she told him. “Like I said, I didn’t mean for it to happen—but I guess the one thing he and I still have is chemistry.”
“How did you leave things?” Josh asked.
She thought back to the moment she’d asked Trent to go. “It was awkward. Because I made it that way. Because I knew it was a mistake and I just wanted to put it behind me.”
Just then, one of Josh’s employees—a young guy named Matt—called to him from across the wide, flat front porch the two businesses shared. “Getting busy in here—need a hand.”
Making a move to go, her friend then stopped to ask, “Are you okay?”
“Sure,” she lied. “I’m a big girl.” With a fragile heart. “I’ll be fine.” Maybe. I hope.
His expression told her he saw everything she wasn’t saying, but respected her enough to pretend he believed her and headed into the coffee shop.
After asking Trent to leave, Allie had scurried up and into the rest of her clothes, grabbed his from the dryer, and left him in the bedroom to change. Then she’d called the bicycle livery, asking them to send a wagon to help get the bike back to town so he wouldn’t have to walk it the whole way. She’d been on the phone when he’d exited the bedroom, dressed in still-not-quite-dry clothes, and upon hanging up, she rushed out the front door to inspect the injured bike, as if she had great interest in it—because she’d simply refused to let there be another awkward moment that turned emotional.
Which instead accidentally created many connected awkward moments—since she’d quite obviously shifted into avoidance mode. But at least she hadn’t gotten teary or clingy or done anything crazy like ask him to stay. She’d remained out in the dampness with him, fiddling with the broken chain as if she were suddenly some kind of bike whisperer, until a skinny teenager came rolling up on a big three-wheeled bicycle pulling a flat wagon behind.
Looking wholly disoriented, Trent had said to her, “Well, I guess this is…it?” Clearly, he’d wanted a more private moment.
But she was having none of that. “Good luck with the closing, and take care.”
“You, too, Allie,” he’d told her, his eyes locked on her tight. After which he’d given her a little hug that she’d felt far too much.
And then he was gone—and it was better that way. Because it had hit her hard when the rain stopped—a compulsion toward self-preservation. Every minute spent with him put her more at risk emotionally.
She’d gone through the rest of the day and evening in a haze. It had been knitting bee night at the Nook and she’d called in sick, getting a couple of her employees to handle it. She’d just needed to isolate herself a little. Classic Allie move when it came to dealing with emotion—she’d just wanted to hide herself away in her secluded little house.
As she’d lain in bed last night, certain indisputable facts struck home: sex with him was still amazing, and yesterday’s sex had been the best thing she’d felt in ten long, lonely years. She’d been with a few other men—trying to feel something, tryin
g to live a normal life and move on from him—but every time she’d been intimate with someone else, it had turned out to be regrettable, holding a meaninglessness that had corroded her soul a little. And touching Trent after so long should have seemed strange, foreign, difficult—but instead it had only felt familiar, easy, and…horribly right.
“Good morning, sunshine!”
She flinched, drawn from the reverie by Dahlia Delaney, her older friend who owned the eponymously named waterfront café down the street. Wearing tiny round John Lennon sunglasses with purple lenses and a long tie-dyed skirt, Dahlia carried a handful of flyers. For a silver-haired woman in her sixties, she gave off a youthfulness that Allie admired and hoped to emulate someday.
“What’s up, Dahlia?” Allie greeted her, attempting a pleasant expression—then glanced to the flyers, waiting to hear what they were for.
Instead Dahlia said, “You look like you were somewhere else, up in the clouds.”
Allie shook it off with a fake smile. “Mind drifting, that’s all.”
“To any ex-fiancé in particular?”
Allie’s jaw dropped.
“I was going to tell you he was in town, but I think you already know.” The older woman winked. She’d been on Summer Island as long as Allie could remember, and she knew the general history of Allie and Trent’s relationship. “Have you talked to him?”
Okay, she was going to keep this even briefer—and thus give less away—than she had with Josh. “Yes. It was terribly awkward and…”
“And there are still old feelings in the mix?”
Darn it—she was as transparent as the big glass shop window behind her. “Yes,” she admitted reluctantly.
“Did you get any answers? About the past?”
“Yes and no. He remembers things differently than I do. And I’m glad he’s only here a short time.” That was enough to say. She only hoped she wouldn’t be forced to have this same conversation with every person on the island when they found out Trent was here. Good thing he was leaving so soon. She pointed toward the papers in Dahlia’s hand, ready to change the subject. “What are those?”
The other woman smiled. “It’s almost time for the Fourth of July Kite Fly.”
Allie tipped her head back in recognition. Hard to believe June had already raced by. The annual event was part of the all-day Fourth of July island festivities—a picnic and fireworks at Lakeview Park, just up the street, and the kite fly at the southeastern tip of the island on the wide flat lawn of the Algonquian Hotel. Anyone could fly any kite at the event, but prizes were given for the best hand-crafted ones.
“You and Josh are helping me out with the kids again this year, right?” The town provided materials for children under ten to construct kites and Dahlia spearheaded the project each year.
“Yep, and I’ll confirm with Josh later, but I know it’s on his calendar.” For the past several Julys, they had both joined her for the crafting part of the event. And while Allie always enjoyed the activity, right now it sounded even better than usual—the perfect distraction from everything else on her mind.
“Great! Here’s a flyer for your window, and another for your bulletin board. See you both tomorrow at noon!” And with that Dahlia was off, colorful handouts in tow.
Tomorrow at noon. By which time Trent would be long gone.
He was probably at the closing right now and would catch the ferry back later today. So he was as good as gone already.
Allie bit her lower lip, telling herself that was okay. For the best. What they had was long since over. And yesterday had just been…well, she couldn’t call it closure. It had felt more like opening a long-festering wound and rubbing some salt in it. Delicious salt. But still salt.
Stepping out onto Harbor Street, she stood back and took a long look at the business she’d built here. The pale yellow building sported cottage-green trim and fun wooden lettering ending with a wooden silhouette of a ball of yarn stuck through with knitting needles after the k in Nook. Ten years ago, it had seemed like an odd idea to many—a yarn and knitting shop in the tourist district of a tiny summer vacation island. But fortunately, people who loved yarn crafts did them all year long, and despite the island’s name, knitted goods came in handy here far more often than they did not. Now the shop was an island institution, as successful as any other business on the bustling street, and as she’d told Trent, a gathering place.
It was true that she’d made the decision without consulting him back then. It was true that in her youthful exuberance, she hadn’t really taken the time to think about how it would affect the future of their relationship.
But if she was brutally honest with herself…well, maybe she’d thought it would make him stay, allow them both to stay.
She was a lifer here, born and raised, and the truth was that she’d never really wanted to leave. In prison, the word lifer had a negative connotation, but on Summer Island a lifer was someone hardy, strong, satisfied with a simple life, and not afraid of weathering storms; it was a term that commanded a certain respect. She knew nothing about living on the mainland—she’d never driven a car or been in a traffic jam; she’d scarcely ever even shopped at a mall or a sizable grocery store.
And so maybe she’d thought starting a business here would give her a good reason to talk him into staying.
And maybe that hadn’t been fair to him at all.
But then, had Trent ever asked her if she wanted to leave, or how she felt about that? She couldn’t remember.
He’d been going off to law school and there’d simply been an assumption that they would live together somewhere on the mainland since, as he’d pointed out, Summer Island wasn’t exactly a hotbed of legal needs.
Maybe she’d acted excited about moving when she’d really only been excited about life with him. Being in love, she recalled, was a bit like a drug—and she’d have probably agreed to follow him to the moon if he’d asked. Though she couldn’t quite recall the details of all that, either. Time did have a way of stealing memories.
But what counted was—maybe he hadn’t been any fairer to her in that respect than she’d been to him.
No matter how she sorted through it in her mind, she could only conclude that the whole breakup had been just as messy and uncertain as yesterday’s discussion had made it seem.
However, none of that really mattered anymore since, by the time the sun set over Lake Michigan tonight, Trent Fordham would be out of her life for good—again.
CHAPTER SIX
TWO DAYS AFTER arriving on the island, Trent sat on the back patio of the Summerbrook Inn at the far west end of Harbor Street, nestled by woods on two sides and Lake Michigan across the street in front. He found the sounds of the trickling stream behind the big yellow Victorian peaceful—making it a good place to think, relax. Not too many trickling streams in downtown Chicago.
He’d been on his way to the closing yesterday when his parents’ real estate agent, Linda Weatherby, had called to tell him the buyer’s loan paperwork had been delayed. “By a day or two. I’m so sorry—I know you’re here especially for this. Can you stay a little longer?”
He’d been understandably annoyed, but it wouldn’t have made any sense to leave, so he’d stayed. He’d taken the full week off work anyway, so he wasn’t really in a rush.
The only real problem was that now it felt a little unnerving to be here. Like he could run into Allie anywhere, anytime—and like she didn’t want that. So he’d kept a pretty low profile, spending time at the inn, catching up on some reading, and he’d borrowed another bike from the livery—on the house this time, under the circumstances—and taken a leisurely ride on the narrow, paved road that circled the island. All with no Allie sightings, for better or worse.
He’d also ridden back up to the summerhouse on East Overlook now that it wasn’t raining. The traditional island house loomed large, almost com
manding, full of dormers and turrets, and even boasted a swimming pool—wasteful in his opinion because it could be used only a few weeks of the year. Despite the pool being heated, he’d generally found the temps in the water uncomfortable and saw it as one more Fordham status symbol. His parents hadn’t been bad people—they’d just valued different things than he did.
He’d walked the manicured grounds, taking in the expansive views. He’d relived some memories—good and bad. And he’d felt how very young he’d been here and wished he’d possessed more maturity at the time. Maybe he wouldn’t have been as easily steered by his parents, or so eager to live up to their expectations.
When the inn’s back door opened, he looked up to see the proprietor, Meg Sloan, exit with a glass of pink lemonade in her hand. He hadn’t requested it, but she brought it to him anyway—a perfect hostess.
“How does it feel to be back on the island?” she asked with a smile. “Everything the way you remember it?”
“Almost exactly,” he replied, recalling that same thought from his ferry ride.
Of course, time hadn’t stood still or anything—and at least one thing had changed. Allie had grown up. Same as him. She’d been pretty as a girl, innocent and fresh, full of sunshine. Now she was a woman—with a woman’s curves, a woman’s way of moving in bed, a woman’s wiser, older eyes. And a clearly bruised, trampled-on heart. And he had the awful feeling that he’d been the one to trample on it.
Funny how your view of something could change in a heartbeat—funny how everything you thought was real was…well, maybe different than you’d seen it.
One more thing that hadn’t changed? Their chemistry. Everything inside him had rumbled with desire from the moment he’d laid eyes on her—or, more accurately, the moment he’d pushed past the shock of it. He’d never meant to reach out and grab her arm—it had been pure, unadulterated instinct. And then—damn, he’d been swept back to a heaven he hadn’t experienced since leaving this island at twenty-one. It had been complete, all-consuming pleasure.