by Bella Andre
"Yes, we're a couple again." And if he didn't screw anything up this time around, he prayed things would stay that way. He'd been thinking about Reese all day, and the hours couldn't pass quickly enough until he'd see her again at dinner and find out how her talk with her parents had gone. She'd sent him a text message with no words, just a heart. He'd texted back, but he hadn't heard from her again, so he knew she had to be immersed in painting.
"I'm really happy for you, Trent. You two were always good together. Plus," he added with a grin, "it's better you heading to the altar than me."
"The altar?"
"Sierra and Shelley are so excited about you and Reese that they're practically planning your wedding."
Sierra and Shelley aren't the only ones, Trent thought, even though he knew he shouldn't be letting himself race ahead that fast. Reese was right--they needed to work on building a really strong foundation first.
"Right now," he admitted to his brother, "we're just taking it one day at a time and trying to get things right this time around. But if I have it my way, we'll definitely be moving in the wedding bells direction."
Derek shook his head. "What is it with you and Quinn? Is being married really that great?"
It could have been. If only I hadn't blown it.
But Trent simply eyed Derek's bandage. A few weeks ago he'd gotten a cut on his shoulder and he'd had Didi stitch it up for him, and before that it was his forearm, which Didi had also stitched up. Now Trent couldn't resist saying, "I'm sure Didi is as good with a needle as you say she is. But is that the real reason you're constantly knocking on her door?"
Derek scoffed. "I told you before, I don't have a death wish. Which means Didi's off-limits."
Trent's phone rang. He pulled it from his pocket, hoping it was Reese, and was both disappointed and annoyed when his grandfather's number appeared on his screen.
"Speak of the devil." He mouthed Chandler to Derek, then answered the phone. "Hello."
"Hello, Trent. I'm sorry to bother you on the weekend, but your grandfather has asked that you meet him in his office as soon as possible." Chandler's secretary, Darla, sounded very apologetic.
Respect for his elders was so ingrained in Trent that he felt pressure to accept his grandfather's summons, regardless of the fact that he and his brother weren't done with lunch yet. "Okay. I'm over at Sierra's restaurant. I'll be there in ten minutes."
"Chandler beckons..." Trent pushed away from the table.
"So what? He's out of the business, Trent. It's in our hands now. He doesn't own you. You don't have to jump up and run over there."
"No, but he is our grandfather," Trent reminded him.
"I'm pretty sure that means more to you than it does to him."
Trent didn't want to get into an argument with his brother, so he ignored that comment as he threw a handful of bills on the table. "Will I see you at Shelley's later to finish up those shelves?"
Derek looked out the window at the blue sky. "It's a good day to go windsurfing. But I'll head over afterward."
"Try not to get any more injuries," Trent teased as he headed for the door. "Or maybe you should, since at least then you'd have an excuse to go see Didi again." He hightailed it out of there before Derek could throw his beer mug at him.
At least there was one bright spot to being pulled away from lunch and called to the resort--the brightest, most beautiful woman in the world, who was looking cute as hell with colorful streaks of paint on her arms and clothing as she worked on the mural.
Trent always loved watching Reese paint and seeing just how intimate a process it was for her. Last night when he'd come into her studio, she'd been assessing her work, deep in thought. But now, as her lean arms dragged the paintbrush over the wall with long, smooth arcs over her head, then faster, shorter strokes, before transitioning into longer, slower strokes again, it was as if she wasn't even thinking. She called it being in the zone. Which was exactly how he felt whenever they were together. Like nothing else existed in the world but her...and every move was meant to be.
Trent admired her for a few minutes, debating going inside without interrupting her, but he couldn't stay away.
He walked down the sidewalk toward her, but Reese must have been concentrating too deeply to notice. She didn't turn to greet him, or give any indication that she sensed him near. That didn't surprise him, but what did surprise him was that it stung a little--and that made him realize what she must have felt like while they were in New York, when he could barely see past his work.
He took a step closer, afraid to startle her for fear of ruining her beautiful painting. "Hi, gorgeous," he said softly.
She glanced over her shoulder--her paintbrush still moving--and smiled. "Hi! I didn't expect to see you this afternoon."
"Chandler asked me to drop by his office." He leaned forward and kissed her. "I don't want to interrupt. I just wanted to give you another kiss, and also to find out how your parents reacted when you told them we're together again." He brushed a lock of hair away from her face. "I hope it went okay."
"It went great. My dad wasn't able to be there, but my mom had some really interesting stuff to say. Some of it ended up being about lust, which was..." She made a face, and he laughed. "But she also had so many amazing insights about making love last."
"I'd love to hear what she had to say." Her parents had a great marriage, just like his did. It was too bad neither he nor Reese had asked their parents for advice the first time around. Perhaps that was part of what came with being older and wiser. And having less pride...
"I'm still processing it all, but one thing she said that really resonated was how we shouldn't put pressure on each other to be totally perfect or to live on a rigid schedule. That there has to be room to make changes and adapt to each other's moods and desires and to allow for mistakes and then recover from them. The past few hours, I've been thinking about how right she is. Real life might not always be perfect, but that doesn't mean it can't be amazing."
The last thing he wanted was to screw things up with her again, but had part of his problem been that he set the bar so high for himself that true happiness always felt just out of reach? "Everything your mom said sounds right on the money. It makes me think we should have talked more with our parents before, asked for their advice."
"At least we're asking them to share their wisdom now." She went onto her tippy-toes and gave him a kiss. "I'm so glad you stopped by."
"I am, too. I didn't want to throw you off your groove, though."
"It's exactly the opposite, Trent. Every moment with you is helping me get into my groove. I'm knee-deep in the mural and loving every second of it. I really need to thank your family for giving me this project."
"You'll have a chance at Shelley's grand opening, if you'll come with me."
"Do you think they'll be ready to see you and me together again?"
"Sierra and Shelley sure are," he told her with a grin, though he left off the wedding bells part for now. "And Derek told me at lunch that he's really happy for us and thought we were always great together. But the question isn't whether they're ready."
She trapped her lower lip in her teeth and nodded. "I know it isn't about them. It's about us. I'm scared," she said softly, "but I don't want to hide what I feel. Not from our families, not from myself, and especially not from you."
"We both have our eyes open this time around, and I made you a promise that I'm never going to break." He kissed her again, lingering at her lips long enough that people walking past them couldn't help but stop and stare. And wish they had a love like ours. "I should get upstairs before Chandler calls again. Are we still on for dinner?"
"Yes," she said, dipping the brush into the can again. "Meet me at my place?"
"Six?"
"Perfect."
*
AS TRENT WALKED inside the resort, he worked to prepare himself for the transition from bright and sunny Reese to his dark and stormy grandfather. He exited the elevators o
n his grandfather's floor, cleared his throat, and pulled his shoulders back, slipping into professional mode. As a lawyer, he'd had to do this mental shift at least a thousand times. But it was a much harder transition after seeing Reese, with thoughts of her smile fresh on his mind...and her kiss still tingling on his lips.
Chandler's assistant, Darla, was relatively new, having been hired after she'd moved to the island from North Carolina following a nasty divorce. She was in her late twenties, with a two-year-old son, and from what Trent had heard, she was living with her aunt and uncle, having lost both of her parents a few years earlier.
She looked slightly uneasy as he approached. "Sorry about this, Trent. I know you try to take the weekends off, but he didn't want to wait until Monday."
"No problem, Darla." But as the words left his lips, he realized that it actually was a problem. What if he'd been with Reese when the phone call had come? Would he have raced off to meet Chandler? Heck, he should be out there with her right now, keeping her company while she painted, enjoying watching her work on something she was so passionate about.
"Trent." Chandler's deep voice greeted him. "Have a seat." Wearing a white shirt and striped tie, with his frail shoulders pulled up high beneath his ears, Chandler was dressed as he was every day of the week.
Trent wondered if there was ever a time of day when he let his guard down, and it made him sad to think that his grandfather was always this uptight, or miserable.
"Good afternoon, Grandfather." He smiled at Didi as he sat down, wondering how she managed to stay sane, keeping up with Chandler's gruff demeanor without ever looking tired or disgruntled, especially when her workweek wasn't just Monday through Friday. Chandler was clearly more than a full-time proposition. Only someone as strong as Didi could put up with him.
"It's nice to see you, Didi," he said to her. But as Trent sat before his grandfather on Sunday afternoon, he wondered again what the hell he was doing there. Just because he'd agreed to take over running the resort with his brothers and father didn't mean he'd agreed to give his grandfather his entire life.
"Is the paperwork for the deed transfer complete?" Chandler's eyes never wavered from Trent's. His tone was cold, businesslike.
Wouldn't it be nice, just once, to hear his grandfather ask how he was doing or how he liked running the resort? But that wasn't Chandler's style. Chandler was all business all the time, and it made for tiresome conversations.
"I'm waiting on finalization of one document. I'll make an appointment with the notary and bring it up for signature Tuesday morning before filing it with the county."
Chandler nodded. "Very well," he said in a dismissive tone.
"Is that all you needed?" Trent couldn't keep the disbelief from his voice at his grandfather's gall, calling him in to the resort on a weekend for one question that could have easily been handled over the phone.
When Chandler nodded, Trent nearly opened his mouth to say that they could have accomplished that in a phone call or e-mail rather than a face-to-face meeting. But he'd always gone out of his way to be cool-headed and even-tempered with his grandfather, so instead of laying into him, he turned and headed for the door.
"Is it true that you and that Nicholson girl are seeing each other again?"
Chandler's question stopped Trent in his tracks. He clenched his jaw and reminded himself that Chandler wasn't specifically being rude to Reese. He was rude in general.
"Her name is Reese, and yes, we are seeing each other again."
But Trent was no longer interested in fighting the urge to lay into his grandfather. Work was one thing, but he was way the hell off base if he was going to insult the woman Trent loved.
But before Trent could say another word, Chandler grumbled, "'Bout damn time," leaving Trent too stunned to reply at all before Didi wheeled his grandfather away.
*
BY THE TIME the sun began its slow descent from the sky, casting a grayish hue over the resort, the right side of the mural was beginning to take shape. Deep brown mulch edged a grassy knoll surrounding billowing gardens, which gave way to the aged walls and peaked roof of a bay-side cottage. Reese stood on a ladder painting an umbrella of leaves in shades of green and yellow in the rear of the garden. A few more hours and the trees would be done. She'd been so consumed with the mural that every stroke of the brush felt like it was coming straight from her heart as she poured her love of the island, and in turn, her love for Trent, into her work.
She painted the yellow flowers at the base of the mural, remembering the afternoon of her wedding when Trent had picked the same flower for her. They'd dreamed of one day having a cottage of their own and a gaggle of children who would play in the yard and skip along the beach. She dipped her brush in the paint and moved to deeper shades of green, remembering how Trent had planned to teach their children to sail and play ball, and she had planned to carry on her mother's Sunday-morning breakfast tradition. She'd wanted to teach their children to appreciate art while Trent instilled a joy of reading. But they hadn't stayed together long enough to have a cottage or a family.
Her heart squeezed as she stepped from the ladder and rounded out a flower bed, adding touches of the sun's glare to the leaves. She could practically feel Trent with her now, sharing her memories as she crouched at the base of the mural.
"Reese...this is incredible."
She turned at the sound of Trent's voice, thinking it was in her head, and started at the sight of him. Would she ever get used to how handsome he was or the way hearing his voice made her spirits soar? He'd changed clothes since she'd seen him earlier, and in a pair of linen pants and a white cotton shirt, he had the carefree appeal of the island-loving guy she'd fallen in love with. Tucked in his right arm was a bag from the Hideaway. His smile widened as he looked over the mural.
"I was a little worried that it was too much, with all the different colors and textures. It's not too overwhelming?"
He stepped closer and kissed her. "No. It's passionate and beautiful, and it looks so real we'll have to keep people from walking into the wall thinking it's a garden."
"You're sweet." Both his compliments and his lips.
"I'm honest." He kissed her again, lingering a little longer this time. "I brought dinner. I thought we could have a picnic on the beach."
"A picnic on the beach sounds wonderful, but I'm still totally in the zone right now." She waved to her paints, spread along the ground at her feet. "I just need a little more time to work tonight."
"Of course. Whatever you need. I'll leave this here in case you get hungry, and I'll head over to Shelley's to get a jump on the work I need to do." Trent left the bag on the grass and kissed her before heading for the parking lot.
She immediately turned back to the mural, adding a few extra touches to the flower bed. Even taking that sixty-second break gave her a fresh perspective when she assessed the mural and she suddenly saw a dozen things she wanted to add and a half-dozen other small changes she wanted to make.
She'd just launched into the next phase of the mural, when a breeze swept over the hill from the bay and made her shiver. At last she noticed the darkening of the sky as daylight fell away and evening crept in.
That was when it suddenly hit her: What did I do?
She scrambled along the ground, packing up her supplies and tossing her wet paintbrushes into an empty paint can. She'd clean them after she apologized. Trent had made an effort to be romantic and spend time with her, and she'd chosen to stay and work?
How could she have been so stupid and so rude? Especially after complaining about him brushing her off for work all those years ago.
She tried not to speed up the road toward the old mill, but the idea of hurting Trent the way she'd been hurt burned like acid in her belly.
Five minutes later, Reese threw the car into park and raced up the hill toward Shelley's Cafe. She pushed through the bushes, stumbling as she ran across the front lawn and burst through the front door.
"Trent!"<
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He dropped his tools, his brows furrowed as he opened his arms, and she ran into them.
"What's wrong?"
"I'm sorry! I should have stopped painting. I didn't mean to blow you off."
"Reese, what are you talking about? You found your groove. I completely understand."
She pulled back enough to search his eyes and knew he really did understand. "You don't think I was a jerk? Because I think it was pretty jerky not to gush over an impromptu picnic dinner with the man I love."
"Of course you weren't a jer--" He paused. "Wait. Say that again."
"I think I was a--"
He pulled her in closer. "No. The last part."
Reese thought back to what she'd said. She hadn't realized that she'd said the man I love aloud, but she could see in Trent's eyes that he loved hearing it. Was it too fast? Was she too trusting?
But when she gazed into Trent's eyes, she knew she'd spoken the truth.
"I love you, Trent." It felt freeing--and scary--not just to admit it to herself, but to say it aloud.
"I love you, too, Dandelion. So much." He kissed her softly.
"But--"
He pressed his finger to her lips. "I know we have a ways to go before we're back on solid footing. I know we have lots more steps to take together. But tonight, just knowing we still love each other...it means everything to me, Reese."
Reese twined her arms around his neck. "You're so unfair. Everything you say makes me fall a little harder."
"I don't see the problem." He kissed the tip of her nose. "But I know how important communication is in our relationship, so let me answer your earlier question. You weren't being a jerk. But if you ever are, I won't hesitate to tell you. And I want you to tell me, too." He lifted her into his arms and guided her legs around his waist. "But not in a note. Face-to-face communication from here on out."
She brushed her lips over his. "Face-to-face. Always. And thank you for giving me wiggle room to screw up and then get it right again." Even if Trent didn't feel like she'd messed up as badly as she thought she had, she felt a lot better knowing she'd taken responsibility for the way she'd slighted his offer--and even more secure in their relationship, knowing that they could talk things through. In owning the bad and the good, they were building an even stronger foundation.