Chapter 1 #2
This made him laugh even harder, and he brought a hand to his eye to wipe away a tear. He sat up in a graceful movement and lifted one knee so he could wrap his arms around it. “Welcome back to Breckenridge. It is uncommonly good to see you again.”
A strange feeling bubbled into my chest at his words—feelings directly associated with being memorable to a very handsome young gentleman and the way his eyes found mine, as if we had a long history together.
Why couldn’t I place him? His cheekbones were high, and his form lithe and wiry but strong.
And his eyes? Surely I’d seen them before.
He raised one eyebrow and quirked his head to the side.
He was expressing questions with his face, and somehow, I could hear them.
And just like that, I knew exactly who he was.
I’d been trying to picture a man, but when I’d left eight years ago, he’d still been a child.
I pointed at him. “You’re that boy, David!”
At the sound of me calling him a boy, he threw his chest back, and with the same athletic movement from before, he swept onto his feet.
The last time I’d been here, I’d been at least three or four inches taller than he, but just like the tree I’d fallen from, the pace of his growth had outmatched my own.
I had to look up to meet his eyes—not far, I was above average in height, and he was under average for a man, but still, it was a strange thing to have our positions so drastically altered.
“No one has called me a boy for at least four years.”
Memories came rushing back. How old had he been?
I might have guessed twelve. He’d been a slight fellow with stick-like arms, but the man in front of me had to be older than twenty if he hadn’t been called a boy for over four years.
My chest warmed at the thought of how well he’d turned out.
It was good to know that for some, life improved with time.
Everything I saw in him now seemed to point to the fact that his path had made a turn for the better.
His clothing, his health, the way he so readily laughed now.
I smiled. Seeing him grown into this man of distinction left me feeling lighter than I had for a long time.
One very strong memory of him came rushing back. I pointed at him again. This was becoming a very bad habit. “You proposed to me!” I sputtered out. He grimaced and ran a hand through his thick hair and then rested it at the back of his neck. “You proposed to me the night before I left.”
He shrugged his shoulders and turned away from me slightly.
I laughed and brushed off my dress. “What would have possessed a twelve-year-old boy to do that? Was it a dare?”
He turned around sharply, and I could imagine that gangly boy better now.
He’d been so shy. He had spent days lurking around me as I’d delivered baskets before I was able to draw him in with interesting rocks and some foolish games we could play while we walked.
Even when he had proposed, he’d had to do it twice because I hadn’t heard him the first time.
“I was nearly fifteen.” He said, straightening his back as though the addition of a few years would have made his proposal any less absurd.
“So you were fourteen?” I sighed in mock relief. “That’s infinitely better than twelve.” I hoped he noticed my sarcasm. I was fairly certain he did. Even when we were younger, once he started talking, we’d had no problems understanding each other.
He shrugged. “I just wanted to be the first one to do it. Of course I knew you wouldn’t accept.”
“Still . . .” I sneaked another glance at him. The last eight years had been very kind to David. “It was rather awkward, wasn’t it?”
“Trust me.” He coughed out a laugh. I’d heard him laugh more in one afternoon than I had for weeks when I’d first met him.
It was like that boy had been some dirty, forgotten egg everyone had given up on hatching, but when it had, he’d emerged as a mighty falcon.
“It was much more awkward for me than it was for you.”
“I can imagine—I had to turn you down.” Without discussing it, we both headed in the direction of the cottage, our feet moving in unison, like two people who walked together every day.
David had known where I lived, but I had never figured out exactly where he’d come from.
He used to show up at random times but often enough that I’d grown to expect him.
We walked several feet in silence, and I was certain he must be reliving those moments of our summer the same as I was. But I wouldn’t look like a falcon to him. Nothing about me had flourished in the past eight years.
He kicked a stone along the path in front of us, and the motion solidified the boy David and this man into one in my mind.
When he turned to look at me, I should have been flustered to be caught staring at him, but this was David.
We’d spent hours together that summer and often in comfortable silence.
I couldn’t help but smile at him. He was so changed, clean-cut and grown, and, yet, somehow the same.
He placed both hands behind his back, but instead of returning my smile, he raised an eyebrow. “So, was I?” he asked.
I blinked. “Were you what?”
“The first man who—”
I cleared my throat loudly. He definitely hadn’t been a man. My grin broadened, and I narrowed one eye to question his wording. He sighed and gave me that expressive half grin that told me he understood my unspoken protest. “The first person to ask you to marry him?”
I laughed softly. “Yes, yes you were. Thank you. I believe I may not have told you at the time, but it was quite flattering.”
He nodded and then got quiet. “And was I the last?”
I thought of Mr. Green, and my stomach twisted. “No.” I shook my head. “You were not.”
“Ah.” He nodded again, and his lips made a hard line. He stopped suddenly, and I turned toward him. With an apologetic look, he lifted a finger for me to wait. “Pardon me for a moment,” he said, then swiftly turned around and walked back the way we’d come.
I stared hard at his retreating form and the question he’d first asked me came into my mind: Are you real?
It had surprised me, but now it made sense.
Seeing David again, in the same places and on the same paths we’d haunted years ago, but with our circumstances and ages so altered, felt as though I’d stepped into another world, one where everything had twisted to the point of becoming unbelievable.
“Mr.—” I stumbled over what to call him as he walked away. Had I ever known his surname? I couldn’t call him David now that he was a grown man.
He waved back at me but didn’t turn around to look. “I left my hat,” he called. His march turned into a jog, his arms pumping while his fur-lined coat trailed out behind him.
My cheeks warmed, and a sneaky bit of pleasure rose in my throat.
My life was currently a disaster, but once upon a time, I’d been proposed to by this man.
His boyhood proposal had been clumsy and mortifying for both of us, but looking at him now, I couldn’t help but wish Mama could see him and know her daughter wasn’t a complete disappointment.