by Toni Blake
“Sounds good,” he said. “And I think I remember the basics.”
She’d wondered if he would allude to that—to the kite they’d made together that final summer, not long before he’d proposed. Her heart sank recalling it, recalling how happy and in love she’d been.
Then he asked, “So how long do you expect this to take?”
She tossed a glance in his direction. “Big plans later?”
He let out a little laugh, which made him even more attractive. “No—I was just curious.”
Good. That he didn’t have plans.
Lord, already she was jealous. Of nothing. Of everything.
Which was why she probably should have let him leave, should have kept pushing him right out of her path and letting her life get back to feeling a little normal again.
And okay, realistically, that might take months, maybe even years. It had the last time. And now sex had reopened that sensitive door. But it would have at least let the long healing process begin.
“We typically spend a couple of afternoons on it,” she explained. “We wrap up by five both days so the locals can get home for dinner, and the kids who are here on vacation can rejoin their families for the evening. And that leaves a day before the kite fly in case anyone’s kite falls apart in the interim or any other big kite emergencies occur.”
Next to her, he nodded pleasantly at her jocular tone—and she almost regretted letting herself be amusing. Because she had to remember to keep some walls up here, and being amusing felt a little too friendly under all the circumstances.
And she wasn’t looking at him—keeping her eyes squarely on the materials, which she now straightened needlessly in order to have something to focus on—but she could still feel him beside her. Maybe it was about her peripheral vision, or maybe he gave off some masculine scent so faint yet potent that she couldn’t quite smell it even as it permeated her senses. Or maybe their chemistry, that invisible connection, was simply so strong that she could feel it even while staring in another direction and trying to pretend he wasn’t there.
“Let’s get going,” she said, sparing him only the briefest of glances before grabbing up three of the kite templates cut from clear plastic, and stepping up onto the bench of the supply table as she pasted on a big smile.
“Attention, kids! We’re gonna get started. Are you guys ready to make some fun kites?”
She was appreciative when at least some of them answered and a few more looked happy to be here.
“Great! I’m Allie, and this is Trent.” She pointed, and he lifted his hand in a wave. “We’re both going to be helping with your kites the next two afternoons, so if you need something, grab one of us. Now, first things first—you each have a big decision to make. What shape do you want your kite to be?”
She held up the three shapes and talked a little about the process, as she just had to Trent.
“Now, we’re gonna divide into groups and get started. Diamond kites—gather over at that table. Triangles, at that one. And upside-down hearts, right here.”
* * *
FOUR HOURS LATER, Allie was pooped from wrangling—in fairness, with Trent’s help—fifteen kids. Seven had chosen the traditionally shaped kite, with five hearts and three triangles. Most of the frames were in place, and while a few kids already had their shape cut out and taped on, most were still in decorating mode at day’s end. Each time she sensed a kid wrapping up that part of the process, she told them what a great job they’d done and excused them for the day—especially since parents and grandparents were waiting patiently inside the library as the five o’clock pickup time approached.
As Allie handed the next to last child—a little boy named Cody from Detroit—off to his mom, she noticed Trent still working with an adorable redheaded girl who couldn’t be older than seven. She stepped up and peeked silently over his shoulder to see the two of them deep in concentration over a white heart-shaped kite, decorated with pink, lavender, and red marker—as well as some sparkly stickers in the same general color scheme.
“How are we doing over here?” she asked softly, not wanting to alarm the two artists at work.
Trent glanced up. “Good. Right, Mimi?”
The adorable freckle-faced little girl lifted her head, beaming.
And Trent explained, “Mimi here kinda got stuck with a white tablecloth because all the other colors were taken—so we’re working to make it extra special. And I think it’s turning out great, don’t you?”
Allie took a closer look to see hearts and flowers and swirls drawn all across the white plastic heart. Not much of the space was left unadorned, and she was being honest when she said, “Don’t tell the other kids, but I think this might turn out to be the prettiest kite of them all.”
She gave a small wink to Trent as she spoke—and only when he smiled up at her, blue eyes twinkling in the late day sun, did her heart do a tiny flip-flop in her chest, making her remember all the weirdness. Which…had maybe started feeling a little less weird as the day passed. They’d done what he’d said—gotten past it enough to help some kids make some kites. She didn’t even regret the wink.
“Tomorrow,” Trent said, “we’re going to put together the best kite tail this island has ever seen. Aren’t we?” He looked to Mimi.
Again, big smile, big nod. Then Mimi pointed to the space between the two of them on the picnic table bench—where a bright, colorful pile of fabric strips lay.
Trent glanced up at Allie, his expression just a tad guilty, just a tad mischievous. “Since Mimi got last pick of tablecloths, I figured it would be okay if we cheated a little and let her have first pick of tail ribbons.”
Allie’s heart warmed watching him with the little girl. And that playful look in his eyes reignited a certain fire within her. She remembered that fun, sweet, sexy side of him. And now she knew it was still there.
“Well, that seems totally fair to me,” Allie said. “And not like cheating at all.” Again, she winked at him. Unplanned. It just came out. Since when was she such a winker? She hoped it didn’t seem like flirtation. She wondered if it was flirtation? The thought made her bite her lip, take a step back.
“I…think your dad is waiting right over there, Mimi,” Allie said, pointing. Mimi’s father, clearly the source of her red locks, waved over at the little girl.
“Tell you what,” Trent said. “You’ve been working awfully hard. You go ahead, and I’ll get your kite and our special tail ribbons put in a safe place for tomorrow—okay?”
Mimi grinned, said, “Okay,” and then, without warning, wrapped both her little arms around Trent and gave him the biggest hug a child so small could manage. “Thank you for helping me with my kite. I think it’s the best, too! And I don’t even mind anymore that it’s white.”
Clearly caught off guard, Trent hugged the cute little girl in return, telling her, “I had fun helping you make it. And tomorrow we’ll get it finished up and ready to fly.”
With a last smile, Mimi departed, disappearing around the building hand in hand with her dad.
And Allie wondered what would happen now, now that they were alone again, now that she wasn’t feeling quite so angry at him or quite so awkward with him—and so it seemed like both a blessing and a curse when Dahlia rounded the corner, wearing a smile as vibrant as the colors in her skirt below. “How’d it go? Was kids’ kites day one a big success?”
Allie smiled back. “As always. Fifteen kites well underway. Fifteen happy kids—even if that Thompson boy seems to be picking up his father’s surliness. But despite not being able to make a Transformers-themed kite for him, I think by the end of the day he was happy with his.”
“He is kind of an entitled snot,” Dahlia agreed, “so however did you manage to appease him?”
Allie pointed to her partner in crime. “Trent drew something that everyone agreed looked sort of like a Tra
nsformer—even though I can’t confirm it since I’m not up on that particular brand of pop culture.”
Dahlia made a show of silent applause in Trent’s direction. “I knew you were the right man for the job.”
He merely shrugged. “Hidden talent.”
The older woman raised her eyebrows. “I wonder what other secret skills you possess.”
He stayed lighthearted, saying, “Can’t tell you—it would ruin the fun, take away the element of surprise.”
“Well, maybe you’ll share them with Allie,” Dahlia suggestively put out there—and Allie wanted to murder her. Slowly. Painfully.
“I would if she wanted me to,” Trent replied, remaining playful and good-natured, clearly just trying to keep things from going back to awkward.
But Allie still felt embarrassed. To have Dahlia splash their drama out onto the library lawn—right when they’d spent the whole afternoon successfully avoiding it. She knew Dahlia meant well, but maybe her friend was forgetting all the reasons their relationship shouldn’t be stirred up again—any more than it already had been anyway. They led entirely different lives. And the past was still murky and unresolved. And even if she was learning to be civil with him, old wounds still ran deep.
So she tried to sound equally as jovial as she said, “And on that note, I have a knitting shop to run. So thank you for the help, Trent, and I’ll see you tomorrow. And, Dahlia, I’ll leave you to tidy up here.” Despite seldom having winked at anyone in her life before today that she could recall, now she did it again, in her older friend’s direction, saying silently even if cheerfully: This is your punishment for putting me on the spot.
* * *
TWO EVENINGS LATER, Allie sat on a small boulder outside the East Bend Lighthouse, knees drawn up, arms wrapped around them, peering out over the point in the distance where Lakes Michigan and Huron met beneath the majestic Mackinac Bridge. The sun remained high—darkness came blessedly late in summer—but the warmest part of the day had passed, so she’d grabbed a sweater on the way out, knowing a chill would soon permeate the air.
Though she saw the lighthouse every day from her windows, she seldom came here, made it a destination. When she’d bought the house, the view had felt almost therapeutic in a backward sort of way, and indeed over time the place had mostly quit being about him, becoming nothing more than a bucolic view from her kitchen window. But every now and then—even before that rainy afternoon last week—the very sight of the lighthouse made her think of him and wonder what had happened to tear them apart.
They’d finished helping the kids with their kites yesterday, and Mimi’s had truly turned out to be perhaps the prettiest Allie had ever seen in all her years of volunteering for the project. The little girl had beamed with joy. And watching Trent with her had continued to squeeze Allie’s heart.
We’d have had a child by now. Maybe more than one.
Oh sheesh, don’t go there.
But if you didn’t want to go there, what are you doing here, at the lighthouse?
“Closing rescheduled yet?” she’d asked him late yesterday as the kids trickled away, one by one, colorful kites in hand.
“No, but the real estate agent says any day now. And it’ll have to be soon or not at all—I’m due back in the office on Monday.” Today was only Wednesday, but he’d been here the better part of a week already, so surely the holdups would resolve themselves—and maybe they already had, today.
They’d parted ways yesterday with him saying, “Maybe I’ll drop by your place before I leave—just to say bye.”
“Or the shop,” she’d suggested. “That’s where I am most of the time. The day of the storm was a rare day off for me.” An exaggeration, but she’d not wanted the temptation of him back at her house—the shop would be better, the goodbye more appropriate. She had no idea if he’d meant say bye or say bye with sex, but she wasn’t taking any chances.
Part of her remained angry with herself for having let that happen. Because it thickened and deepened her emotions toward him so very much, creating a clawing need inside her for more.
But if she was honest with herself, another part of her wouldn’t have traded that time, that intimacy with him, for anything. Because she’d been aching for that for ten years. And then, suddenly, as if by magic—she’d opened the door one day and, poof, gotten to have him again.
Maybe that was why she’d come here. To honor what she’d shared with him. Then and now. Because now she knew—at least sort of—what had torn them apart. Assumptions and misunderstandings, with a few lies piled on top to make them all seem real.
And indeed, she had started letting go of much of her anger over the past. And perhaps she’d come here to reflect on that, reflect on the love of their youth and the peace she was beginning to make with him now. Even if the past couple of days made going back to being without him again painfully difficult.
It was nice, though, to simply not be so mad at him anymore. And to know he hadn’t just casually left her behind because she’d meant nothing to him. That hardly repaired the damage that had been done—it had altered her life forever—but it was a balm over all those old wounds.
“Is this rock taken?”
She looked up. Think of the devil. Trent stood peering down on her, carrying a bottle of wine in one hand and a plastic cup in the other, looking as handsome as ever, and reminding her once more that this wasn’t over quite yet.
CHAPTER EIGHT
HE MOTIONED WITH the bottle to the wide vacant spot beside her on the boulder. What else could she say but, “Have a seat.” She tried to smile, but the invitation felt forced at worst, wistful at best. As usual when she saw him this week, her heart beat too hard and her skin rippled just from his nearness.
You knew he was going to say goodbye before he left, so why are you this deeply affected?
Because I expected it to be at the shop—not here, where I thought I was alone. Again, so much for solitude.
The boulder was wide enough for two, but only barely, and a scant inch or so separated them after he sat down. She pointed to the bottle of Pinot Grigio in his fist. “Is that celebratory—as in hooray, the closing happened? Or conciliatory—as in yuck, I’m still here?”
“Neither, really,” he said with a slight shrug. “Just thought it seemed like a nice night for a quiet walk and some wine.”
“A walk that led you here,” she dared to venture. The island perimeter road lay just on the other side of the lighthouse—tourists on their bicycles pedaled past all day every day in summer—so it wasn’t an unlikely place to be. But randomly meeting up at the spot where he’d once proposed marriage to her seemed…well, not so random.
Rather than reply to that, however, he twisted the screw top lid off the wine, poured some in the cup, and instead asked, “Your dad still run the lighthouses?”
She nodded. “For over thirty years now.” All the island’s beacons for sailors had been her playgrounds growing up.
Trent peered out over the water, letting out a sigh. “That sounds nice, that kind of simple existence.” Then he switched his gaze to her. “But I guess that’s what draws most people here. The simplicity of the place. Sometimes I think people who end up in places like this are the ones who have it all figured out.”
“Have all what figured out?”
He took a sip of the white wine. “What’s important in life.” Then passed the cup to her. Their fingers touched as she took it.
“Or they’re like me,” she offered, sipping. “Born and raised here. I’ve never known any other kind of existence.”
“Know what I did today?”
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Since I didn’t have any kites to make with any little kids, I walked over to the bicycle livery and helped Jacob out. Just tuned up some bikes while we talked. It was nice—relaxing. And simple. Just like making the kites.�
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She smiled. “I remember how much you always enjoyed working on bikes.”
He gave a nod. “Always took my mind off tedious problems and made me feel like I was doing something productive. Helping the kids the last couple days brought back that feeling. And you know, I liked finding out the kite fly still happens here. That there’s a place where people still take the time to make a kite, just for the fun of it.” It brought a small smile to his handsome face.
And without weighing it, she asked, “Do you remember our kite?”
Their gazes met. “Of course I do. Only kite I ever made before a couple days ago.”
She smiled at the sweet memories it brought back—they’d constructed the heart-shaped kite together in her parents’ backyard, laughing, kissing as they crafted it. She took another drink and passed the cup back to him.
“What are you smiling about?” he asked, grinning softly himself.
She’d only swallowed a few sips of the wine, but on an empty stomach it already had her feeling…honest. “I was remembering how much fun we had that day. And that you said, ‘I must really love you to put my name on a pink kite.’”
His crystal blue gaze shone on her. “I did really love you.”
The words nearly stole her breath—but she tried not to let the response show even as she said, “It was…a special summer.”
He gave a solemn nod. “Best of my life,” he softly replied. They’d been together for several summers, but that last one, when they were both twenty-one, had been the most magical, the time that had cemented their love, made it feel like forever love. He lightened the moment, though, by saying, “I still think we should’ve won.”