Chapter 14 #2
Those words sent a rush of something through me that I determinedly ignored. She spun around and gathered her hair, waiting for me to take it in my hands.
I worked my way down her long, soft tresses.
It was thicker even than it looked, and the colour – impossible to pin down; auburn, but with flashes of gold in the light – shone in the sun that leaked through the fabric above us.
I tried to be quick about it, but I found myself caught up in the motion, the repetition, the feeling of her head bobbing slightly as I braided.
I was mesmerised by the way, like she’d said it would, the hair started to braid itself from the bottom.
When I flipped it through, I went through and adjusted a few bumps so it looked nicer.
Something in me didn’t want to be done – wanted to undo the whole thing and start from scratch – but I swallowed that feeling and stepped away.
As she turned around and pulled it over her shoulder to admire it, my mouth going dry as she ran her pale fingers over it, I realised she easily could have done that herself. It was plenty long enough. But, no, she’d let me do it. She knew exactly what she was doing.
What was she doing?
She looked up at me and grinned. “See? You’re a natural.”
I nodded, aware that we were still standing just inches apart, but I didn’t feel the heat around me anymore. The only heat was in the eye contact we held, Chloe’s expression curious and kind. I could only guess what my own face looked like – I’d lost all self-awareness.
Then another flat-capped man walked up and said hello, and I was shaken out of my reverie – or whatever that had been – to sell some mead.
* * *
As the festival wound to a close and the crowd thinned, I ran the numbers in my head.
We’d not quite sold out, but we’d made more than I’d forecasted, having to tap into the reserve stock, and it was all thanks to Chloe.
Just like when she’d figured out the soap labels, it was her ability to think on her feet that had saved the day.
I was beginning to accept that Jen had been right when she’d seen something in Chloe the first time they met.
That her ideas were good, and the farm was better for having her around.
I just wished my own first impression hadn’t been bad enough to have convinced me otherwise.
“Thank you,” I said to Chloe as we were packing up the van, and she was shocked enough to stop what she was doing and turn her whole body toward me.
“For what?”
“All of this,” I said, waving my hand over the table. “We would have sold next to nothing if not for your ideas.”
She shrugged, but her eyes were wide with surprise. Was kindness from me really that rare? I supposed it was. I’d have to work on that.
“Thanks, I guess,” she said, her gaze locked on her feet now.
I shook my head. “No guessing about it. You saved the day.”
A smile spread across her face. “Now who’s being dramatic?”
I laughed. “Fine, well, you at least made us enough to call today a success.”
“We make a good team,” Chloe said, then turned back around to the crate she’d been loading.
“So I keep hearing,” I muttered, then got back to work myself.
It didn’t take us long to pack up, and by the time we were ready, the music headliners – a locally famous folk trio – had started on stage.
People were dancing and laughing in the crowd, grilled cheese sandwiches and slices of pizza from the food trucks in their hands.
A few people even had bottles they’d bought from us, or cans of local beer and cider from other vendors.
“We should join them,” Chloe said from behind me, and I jumped slightly at the sound of her voice so close again. A shiver ran up my spine.
“Should we?”
She picked up a couple of bottles from one of the crates and held one out to me. “What do you say?” she asked, finally looking up to meet my gaze from under her long lashes. “Have a bit of fun with me?”
Her eyes sparkled with mischief and hope in the golden evening light, and I thought about saying yes.
It could be fun, after all. Harmless, right?
We could have some drinks, maybe get something hot and cheesy to eat, and dance together to the music.
Maybe we’d bump into one another as we shuffled our feet around in the grass, or maybe the mead would make us bolder, and we’d—
But, no, that wasn’t an option. Chloe might not have been the enemy, but she couldn’t be that, either. She was a part of Gwenynen now, for better or for worse, and I needed to tread carefully. No matter how much I still felt the ghost of her fingertips on the nape of my neck.
“It’s a long drive back,” I said instead, and I tried not to take it back when I saw her smile drop ever-so-slightly. She pulled it back up quickly and shrugged her shoulders, but I could see that it was an act.
I’d disappointed her. Shit.
We finished packing in silence, loaded the last box, and drove back toward hers with the windows down, the wind whipping our braids in our faces, but neither of us took ours out.
* * *
“You have to be rage-baiting me right now.”
Jack stifled a laugh behind his fist as Morgan sized up to him. “I’m sorry, babe, but I’m not gonna push Teddy into the water.”
“You did it to me!” She yelled, standing on tiptoe in a feeble attempt to even the playing field. She wasn’t short, but Jack was so tall that, even with her standing on a root, he still stood inches above her.
“And me!” Amy added from where she and Chloe lounged by the water.
It was the hottest day yet this year, and I was grateful Chloe had insisted we do this, if only because the water looked especially refreshing right now.
Was I a bit worried about my to-do list at the farm?
Sure. But I wasn’t mad at a day in the sun.
And neither was Willow, who stood in the river behind me, still as a statue as she watched for fish in the current.
“What did I miss?” I asked, looking between Jack and Morgan.
“His rule,” Morgan said, jabbing a finger into his chest for emphasis, “is that he tips newbies out of their kayaks in the middle of the river so that they learn how to get back in.”
“But she’s not a newbie,” Jack said.
“I’m not,” I agreed. “I’ve been kayaking since I was five. My dad is a certified raft guide on the Merced River.”
“Oh, shit, I loved the Merced,” Jack said, turning to me, leaving Morgan seething behind him. “Cranberry Gulch was epic.”
“I never got to do that one,” I admitted. “But the section in Yosemite with The Terminator? I got to do that one a few years ago. You should try it out if you’re ever over there.”
“Maybe I will,” Jack said, turning to Morgan, a huge smile on his face. “We should absolutely go to Yosemite.”
“Sure,” Morgan said, the ire melting out of her at Jack’s excitement.
She went to join Amy and Chloe on the picnic blanket in the shade, and I followed Jack toward the put-in where the kayaks were beached.
I spared a look over my shoulder at Chloe, definitely not to admire the way her porcelain legs stretched out over the gingham fabric, the purple of her bikini bottoms riding up over her curvy hip.
As if she sensed where my attention had gone, Willow ran over to Chloe, shaking the wetness off her only once she was close enough to get the girls with her spray. They all squealed, and I gave Willow an extra good scritch as I petted her.
“You good with her?” I asked Chloe for the dozenth time, pointing to Willow, who was leaning against my shins.
“As I’ve said a million times now, yes,” Chloe said, still wiping the water droplets off herself. I noticed dark spots where they had landed on her bikini. “Now, go.”
Once we were out on the water, Jack and I headed upstream.
I was a bit turned around, with the Wye’s many bends and turns, but I was pretty sure upstream would take us back toward the town where they all lived.
Trees dotted the banks, but the surrounding area was open farmland.
The sun was steady, verging on scalding, and I was glad I’d put sunblock on since I was already down to my swimsuit top.
My knees poked out from under my board shorts, and I wondered if I should have slathered them, too.
Jack and I chatted for half an hour or so about where else he’d been, which turned out to be almost everywhere – Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, several regions in Africa, South America, all over the States…
“Is there anywhere you haven’t been?”
He squinted into the sun, thinking. “Scandinavia, Canada except the big cities, Northern Africa…”
“Imagine it taking less time to name the places you haven’t been than the places you have.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, I was lucky to get to do it. But I’d rather have those memories with Morgan. We’re trying our best to make up for lost time – she hadn’t travelled much before we got together – but we have to be selective. I can’t just work from anywhere these days like I did back then.”
“What did you do before?” I asked, aware that I was prying, but I hadn’t talked like this with anyone I didn’t already know in a long time. Anyone but Chloe, that was.
“My ex was a travel influencer, so I worked for her.”
I nodded, understanding. “So all the travel memories are with her.”
“Exactly.”
We both went quiet as we rounded a narrow bend where the banks closed in on either side; the water moved more swiftly, so we dug deep with each stroke to get past it.
It wasn’t the same as Jack’s situation, but I thought anyway about how long it had taken me to stop associating everything with my mom after she’d died; how long before Gwenynen had stopped feeling like a shrine to her.
Even when Jen had tried her best to move us forward, it had been years before I’d stopped feeling her loss so acutely everywhere I looked.
I doubted I’d ever feel whole without her.
I knew it wasn’t the same, but, still, I understood what he meant.