Chapter 14 #2
“Not at the moment.” She spoke casually, but his question stirred unexpected goose bumps on her arms, or maybe it was just the breeze blowing in off the water. “How about you? Do you have a significant other?”
“No.”
“Why not? You’re a good-looking guy.”
“I work too much. No time to cultivate anything meaningful.” Reid shrugged and raised his gaze to meet hers.
Calista felt a spark of the old intimacy they once shared. They were both single and without romantic commitments. Stop thinking like that. “Ah, the grind. I remember how all-consuming that is.”
“Do you miss it?” he asked.
“Touring? Oh, hell no.” She let out a humorless laugh. “Once in a while, I miss golf itself, but not enough to pick up a club again.”
“Until now.”
“Yeah, well, I never said that I would play in the tournament.”
“But you are staying through the Fourth of July even if you don’t end up playing?” he asked.
“For Athena’s sake, yes.”
“You two are making progress mending fences?”
“Looks that way.”
“I’m glad you’re in a forgiving frame of mind. Bodes well for me.” His gaze was intense and too challenging to hold.
“Why don’t we eat,” she said. “I’m starving.”
“Sure, sure.” He opened the picnic basket. “We’ve got chicken salad sandwiches on buttery croissants because I’m nothing if not a cliché.”
“That’s wonderful. I love chicken salad.”
“I know.” He produced two packages wrapped neatly in wax paper.
“Got potato chips, the ruffly kind you like.” He tossed out two packages of Ruffles.
“Some fresh fruit, because scurvy is so last century, and . . .” He paused for dramatic effect before pulling out a bottle.
“Sparkling cider. I considered wine but decided day drinking might not be the best start to our heart-to-heart.”
“How responsible of you. I’m impressed. The Reid I knew would have brought a six-pack of Mountain Dew, convenience store hot dogs, and called it a day.”
“The Reid you knew was an idiot,” he said, his tone light but his eyes serious. “The current model comes with slightly better judgment and a heaping side of regret for how I ended things when we were teenagers before you turned pro and I went off to college.”
And there it was, the elephant in the cove acknowledged.
“Regret,” she said. “That’s a therapisty way of saying ‘I screwed up,’ isn’t it?”
Reid nodded, his affable grin replaced by a somber expression. “Yeah. I’ve made a lot of mistakes, Cal. Letting you go was the biggest one of all.”
The raw honesty in his voice made Calista really look at him for the first time since they’d set sail.
The years had been kind to Reid. The boyish good looks of his youth had matured into rugged handsomeness.
She glanced away and took a bite of her sandwich to buy time.
The chicken was tangy with tarragon and dill aioli, a soothing counterpoint to the turmoil in her stomach.
He waited while she chewed and swallowed.
“You gonna leave me hanging?” he asked.
She met his gaze and held it. “Why now, Reid? After all these years?”
He toyed with his glass, condensation beading on its surface like tiny glistening doubts. “I recently learned some things that cast our past in a new light.”
Calista narrowed her eyes. “What could you have learned that changes anything?”
Reid couldn’t hold her gaze and instead glanced out across the cove, his profile etched against the backdrop of sky and sea. “Back then . . .” He paused, cleared his throat. “Someone pressured me to break up with you.”
“Who?” She frowned, a sinking feeling in her gut.
He paused and winced. “Someone who had power over me. This person convinced me that breaking things off with you was for the best, although I didn’t understand why at the time.”
“But now you do?” She searched his face, willing him to come clean.
“It’s . . . complicated.” Reid dropped his gaze, and he stared at the rippling water as if searching for the right words beneath its surface. “There were circumstances I didn’t fully understand back then.”
The words hung in the air, heavy with implication. Her pulse quickened, a staccato beat of loss and heartache. “Was it my father?”
He flinched. “Calista . . . I can’t—”
“Just say it, Reid! If it was Benjamin, just admit it!” She pushed aside her half-eaten sandwich, and her appetite vanished.
She shouldn’t have been shocked, but stupidly, she was.
Benjamin hated to see her happy. No wonder he destroyed her relationship with Reid.
Sick to her stomach, she put a hand to her mouth.
Reid rubbed his chin, a habit he used when he was conflicted. “It’s not that simple.”
“Not that simple? What could be simpler than telling the truth? You owe me that much, don’t you? Why can’t you just tell me? What did my father do? Bribe you?”
“I’m sorry,” he apologized again. “I was a kid and in over my head.”
“So you let someone else decide our fate? Why didn’t you trust me enough to tell me the truth?”
Reid ran a hand through his hair, mussing it in a way that tugged at Calista’s heartstrings. “I was young, stupid, and scared. I thought I was protecting you, but I was really just protecting myself. Getting out of our relationship before I got in too deep.”
“And yet you want to make amends with me?” She folded her arms over her chest.
He winced. “I do and I wish I could tell you everything, but it’s not just about us. There are other people involved. Other consequences. I can’t just—”
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“Please, just trust me on this.” His pleading gaze asked her to drop it. “I’m not hiding this to hurt you. Quite the opposite. There are things in motion that you’re better off not knowing, at least for now.”
The sting of tears pricked her eyes, but she blinked them back. “You don’t get to decide what I should know, Reid. Not anymore.”
He sighed, clearly torn. “You’re right, but can you trust me enough to let this play out? I promise, when the time is right, I’ll tell you everything. Just not yet.”
Calista turned her head, unable to look at him any longer. “I don’t know if I can trust you, Reid. Not after the breakup. Not after what you told me at Chevron. Not after the way you hounded me for weeks afterward.”
“I understand.” His pupils narrowed and he pulled a palm down his mouth. “But I’m asking you to try. For old times’ sake, if nothing else.”
“Fine, I forgive you, but don’t think for a second that I’ll forget.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to,” Reid said, relief tinged with regret in his voice. “I’ll make this right, Calista. I swear.”
Unnerved, she glanced at the sky again and saw the fluffy white clouds that sailed them to Mermaid Cove darkening, thickening. The wind picked up, disturbing the once-calm waters of the cove and sending the sandwich and chip wrappers flying across the beach. Reid hopped up to retrieve their litter.
“We should head back,” Reid said, stuffing the wrappers into the picnic basket along with the cider bottle and glasses. “I checked the weather this morning, and there was no rain in the forecast, but it looks like they were wrong.”
Once on board, Reid hurried to raise the anchor and adjust the sails to catch the wind. A few minutes later, the boat lurched as the first oversize wave hit, nearly knocking Calista off her seat. Fat raindrops splattered the deck around them.
“Uh-oh.” Reid maneuvered the sails, attempting to speed up the catamaran, but they couldn’t outrun the storm.
The raindrops quickened, pelting down, obscuring their vision. She shook herself, hair flinging water. “Reid! What can I do to help?”
He fought with the tiller, his jaw set in grim determination. “Just hold on tight! I’ll get us through this!”
Calista gripped the sides of the boat. She felt utterly useless, watching Reid struggle against the elements. Waves crashed over the side, drenching them both.
“I can’t see the shore!” she cried.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I’ve sailed through storms before. We’ll make it.”
But the bad weather intensified. Through the curtains of rain, Calista caught glimpses of jagged rocks looming dangerously close.
“Reid!” She shouted over the storm and gestured. “We’re being pushed toward the rocky shoals!”
He nodded, muscles straining as he battled to keep the catamaran upright. “I’m tacking away. Whatever you do, don’t let go!”