Chapter 10
Sawyer
Yuletide is a big deal in Skagway.
The month-long celebration kicks off on the Friday after Thanksgiving with a Christmas tree lighting downtown, and every weekend from then until Christmas, there are parties, wine tastings, special craft classes, sales at local stores, fundraisers, visits with Santa, holiday-themed movies at various spots around town, a Gingerbread house contest, and finally, Christmas caroling and church services on Christmas Eve.
Wuthering Heights is one of the many Yuletide offerings in Skagway and slated for tonight, the second Friday in December. Afterward, everyone in the cast, crew, and audience will head over to the Annual Yuletide Ball at the Happy Endings Saloon.
I’m excited for tonight. I’m ready.
Despite missing the last half hour of our dress rehearsal on Wednesday night, if Ivy and I can focus and remember all the hard work we put into preparing for the show, we will wow the good folks of Skagway. I hope so anyway. I feel like she needs a win right now…the last two days have been rough on my girl.
Ivy slept fitfully the night I stayed over at the Caswell’s place. It was like she had a fever of the heart or mind; her body wasn’t sick, but her heart was in such pain, her mind had trouble assimilating the damage. She woke up a couple of times in the night, crying for her mother and father, and I did my best to soothe her back to sleep.
On Thursday mid-morning, when she finally dragged herself out of bed, she was tired and crabby. We made hot cocoa, popped popcorn, and watched Christmas movies on the Hallmark channel for most of the day, which seemed to cheer her up a little.
When she texted me this morning on her way to work, she seemed more like herself. She asked if I could pick her up on the way to the theater for tonight’s performance, and I said I would.
I’m still worried for her—the things her father said and did have cut her to the core—but she told me last night that her independence was worth the pain. If buckling under her father’s expectations and pressure and marrying someone who didn’t love her was the price of his approval, she said she didn’t need it.
But telling your only child that she’s dead to you?
Whew.
That’s not something you can get over quickly, even if it is the price of your freedom.
All I can do is what I have been doing—be there for her, give her time, and love her all the while. I have a much easier job than she does.
When I park in front of the Caswell’s house on Friday evening, Ivy leaves from the kitchen and jumps into my truck.
“You ready, Heathcliff?” she asks.
I lean over to kiss her quickly. “You’re in a better mood!”
“I’m getting there,” she says, fastening her seatbelt. “The show must go on and all that. I can’t lie in bed and cry for the rest of my life just because my father hates me.”
“He doesn’t hate you,” I say, backing out of the driveway. I don’t say this for his sake, but for hers. “He’s just mad. Give him some time. You take some time, too. Reach out in a couple of months. See if he’s thawing.”
“Honestly, I don’t know if I’ll be thawed by then.”
“Then wait a few more months after that. You’re family. People can surprise you.”
“Well, I’m not shedding any more tears over it. It sucked. It hurt. But it is what it is. I went back through everything I said… how I held my ground…how I started building boundaries and demanding the respect I deserve. Honestly, I think I handled myself really well. I don’t regret anything, you know? I’m sad he’s so angry with me and disappointed in my choices. But you can’t change other people,” she says. “The only person over whom you have agency is yourself. That’s what Aunt P. says, and she’s right.”
“Mrs. C. was always a favorite of mine.”
“She’s told you a million times to call her Priscilla.”
“No, ma’am.” I pull into a parking space near the theater and cut the engine, turning to grin at my love. “Can’t do it. Sorry. She’ll always be Mrs. C. to me.”
“You’re adorable,” she tells me, unbuckling her belt and sliding closer to me. “How about we tongue fuck for a few minutes before we blow the roof off this theater, huh?”
“What an awesome idea,” I say, pulling her into my arms.
***
The show is good.
It’s so good , in fact, that by the final act, during Heathcliff’s death scene, I hear soft sniffling and crying in the audience.
“Do take some food, Mr. Heathcliff,” entreats Vera as Ellen, offering me a bowl of soup. “You’ve eaten naught in three days.”
“Away with you, Ellen!” I bellow.
I’m lying in a bed, dressed in a similar nightgown to the one Catherine dies in. McKenna has just put talcum powder in my hair backstage to make it look gray.
“Nourishment and rest, sir,” insists Ellen. “You need only look at yourself in a glass to see how you require both. Your cheeks are hollow and your eyes bloodshot, like a person starving with hunger and going blind with loss of sleep.”
“I cannot eat or rest,” I tell her. “I am but an arm’s length from the shore. And once there, my soul’s bliss will kill my body.”
“Bliss?” asks Ellen, flustered and confused. “What bliss?”
“When I die,” I tell her, “no minister need come, nor need anything be said over me. I tell you I have nearly attained my heaven, and that of others is altogether unvalued and uncoveted by me.”
“ Your heaven? But, sir…there is only one,” she whispers. “Your words frighten me.”
In the corner of the room, Ivy, dressed in her white nightgown with bare feet, has been hiding behind a bureau. She slips out, standing like an angel in a blue spotlight. She is an angel. My angel.
“She comes for me,” I murmur to Ellen. “She is here.”
“Who is here?” Ellen looks to the corner where Heathcliff’s eyes are fixed, but sees nothing.
“Catherine,” I say weakly, reaching out my hand.
“I will go for the doctor!” Ellen cries, hurrying from the room.
Catherine walks slowly to my bedside, her smile growing as she comes near. When she is an arm’s length away, she reaches out her hand.
“Are you ready, my love?” she asks. “My heart. My very soul. My…Heathcliff. Come with me now.”
I toss aside the bed sheets and blanket, swing my legs over the bed and stand up. Aaron widens the blue spotlight a little so that Catherine and I can share it.
“Is it time?” I ask her, pulling her into my arms. “Have I reached heaven? My heaven?”
“ Our heaven,” she says, leaning up on tiptoes to kiss me.
“ Our heaven,” I say, smiling down at her.
Hand in hand, we walk slowly off the stage together.
A moment later, Ellen rushes into the room. She clasps her hands together, standing quietly at the bedside, then pulls the covers up over the pillow, kneels down and weeps.
The stage goes dark.
I stand beside Ivy in the shadows of stage right, squeezing her hand nervously. Aren’t they all supposed to clap now? It’s so quiet. I don’t hear a peep from the audience. Are they going to clap, or was it the worst—
“Bravo!” yells someone in the darkness.
The stage lights come back up as the entire theater goes bonkers.
Clapping, amid shouts of, “Wonderful!” and “Way to go!”, the entire town of Skagway is on their feet when Ivy and I return to the stage to take our bows. We raise our joined hands over our heads and grin at each other.
I love you , she mouths to me.
I love you, too.
And then—for the heck of it and despite all of Bruce’s warnings—I pull Ivy Caswell back into my arms, in front of the entire town, and kiss her like crazy.
You know what?
Bruce was wrong.
The crowd…goes…wild.
( Again .)
***
An hour later, Ivy’s sitting on my lap in a dark corner of the Happy Endings Saloon.
The Yuletide Ball is in full swing, we have been congratulated for our performances about twenty times and are surrounded by friends and family.
In front of us are a bunch of empty and partially-filled beer glasses, and sharing our table are: Tanner and McKenna, Parker, Reeve, Wyatt, Layla, Neena and Aaron.
“Whose turn is it?” asks Tanner, gesturing to the empty pitcher.
“Mine,” says Parker. “Reeve, come with me?”
Reeve has been looking like a storm cloud all night, and that’s a fact. As she leaves, I nudge Aaron, who’s sitting beside me.
“You sure know how to put my little sister in a foul mood.”
Aaron’s slightly older than me, a little taller than me, just as built, quieter than most, and the very, very sharp thorn in Reeve’s side for reasons I’ve yet to learn. That said, I’ve grown fond of Aaron while we worked on the play together. He’s a good guy, and I know Joe’s a fan of Aaron’s, too. I’d love to know what happened between him and Reeve.
“Your sister is a—”
“Careful,” says Tanner.
“—challenge,” finishes Aaron, furrowing his brows at Tanner. “I’d never say something bad about her.” He runs a hand through his springy black curls, his expression frustrated. “She’s challenging. Likely because she’s so dang bright.”
“Sorry,” says Tanner. “It’s just that I’m her big brother. I’m protective.”
“You’re drunk,” says McKenna. “Come and dance with your wife and leave poor Aaron alone.”
As they leave, Wyatt turns to Layla.
“Can I spin you around the floor?” he asks.
“I thought you’d never ask,” she says, taking his hand.
“God, I love his accent,” says Neena, staring at the dance floor—or, more accurately, at her sister’s boyfriend—with longing. She sighs, the soft sound ending on a whimper. “I gotta go to the bathroom.” “I’ll come with you,” says Ivy, hopping off my lap.
She and Neena have become friends over the last few months, and I’m happy to see Ivy making connections in Skagway. More connections means it’ll be harder for her to leave. At least, I hope so. She kisses me on the lips, then follows Neena to the ladies room.
“It’s just you and me,” I say to Aaron. I lean forward, folding my hands on the table. “Come on. Spill it. What’s the deal with you and Reeve? Maybe I can help.”
Aaron takes a deep breath and lets it go slow. When he looks up at me, his dark brown eyes are guarded. “Reeve Stewart is the brightest kid I ever met.”
“She’s smart, for sure.”
“Got a bright future ahead of her.”
“I hope so.”
“A kid like that’ll go far,” he says.
Now, that’s the second time in two minutes I’ve clocked Aaron calling Reeve a “kid,” and if she’s clocked him doing it even once, I’m surprised she didn’t, well , clock him.
“Why do you keep calling her a ‘kid?’ Reeve was nineteen in October.”
“Nineteen is a baby,” says Aaron.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-three.”
“Four years isn’t that big a deal,” I say. I glance at Reeve, who’s standing beside Parker at the bar, waiting for the pitcher to be filled. “Does she know you think of her as a kid?”
“Of course,” he says.
Well, well, well. I bet she just loves that. I think I’ve figured out why Reeve is perpetually furious with Aaron.
“Aaron, are you into Reeve?”
“Absolutely not,” he says, his eyes flaring with indignation. “I’d never —”
“I’ve caught you staring at her.”
He crosses his arms over his chest, trying to stonewall me.
“Aaron!” I say. “It’s okay if you ask her out. She’s over eighteen.”
“When I first met Reeve, she was still in high school. Not to mention, she’s the Sheriff’s littlest sister-in-law. Hands off is for the best, you know?”
“So, you like her, but you won’t make a move on her because she’s Joe’s sister-in-law, and you think of her as a kid.”
“In a nutshell.” Aaron glances in her direction, then forces himself to look away quickly. “Plus, I heard she’s leaving for college in January.”
“That’s true,” I say. “In Anchorage.”
“So what’s the point? She’s a kid. She’s the boss’s little sister. And she’s leaving. I’d have to be a total and complete masochist to ask her out.”
Good point , I think. But then again, we do crazy things in the name of love, don’t we?
Neena and Ivy come back to the table. While Ivy sits down in the empty seat beside me, Neena taps Aaron on the shoulder.
“Hey, Aaron. Um. How ’bout a dance?”
Aaron looks at Neena over his shoulder and smiles politely. “Okay.”
As they head to the dance floor, Ivy watches them with interest.
“What just happened?”
“Well, apparently, Neena’s in love with Wyatt.”
“What? Her sister and Wyatt practically have a common law marriage. They’ve been together for years.”
“Yep. And all three live together, which seems like a recipe for disaster,” says Ivy. “I told her she should get her own place, but money’s tight with her daughter in daycare. She’s saving, but it’s going to take a while. Anyway, I said that maybe it would help if she found someone else, you know? Wyatt’s taken. She needs to move on.”
“Move on to…Aaron?”
“Why not?” asks Ivy. “He’s super nice. And cute. And he’s half Sun’aq like Neena and Layla, so they have that in common.”
“Neena’s older than Aaron. And she has a kid.”
“Not that much older. Besides, Moms need love, too.”
Parker and Reeve return to the table, and Reeve’s eyes immediately land on Aaron’s empty seat before zipping to the dance floor. When she sees him dancing with Neena, her face falls.
“ She asked him,” I whisper to her gently.
“Shut up, Sawyer,” she snaps at me. “I couldn’t care less.”
Yeah, right .
“Hey,” says Ivy, nudging my knee, oblivious to my sister’s drama and her part in it. “Any chance you’re almost ready to get out of here?”
“With you? Absolutely.”
“Then, let’s go.” She smiles at me. “I have something to show you.”
***
Ivy
We leave the Happy Endings, zipping up our parkas and pulling on our mittens.
“Where are we headed?” asks Sawyer. “How about to my truck and then back to my place?”
“Nope,” I say. “Come on.”
I lead him down 4 th Avenue to Broadway and tug his hand to go right when we get to the hardware store, which has festive lights roped around its picture windows. We pass a dozen gift shops, galleries, and jewelry stores that are closed for the season. At 2 nd Avenue, we turn left, away from the Purple Parsnip, and toward the White Pass & Yukon Route train station that bustles with tourists all summer long.
“Where in the world are we going?” he asks again.
“It’s a surprise,” I say. “You’ll see!”
On the corner of 2 nd and Spring, we stop in front of the Brena Building, and I reach into my pocket for my new keyring.
“You ready?” I ask him, holding up my keys.
“I’m ready to find out what the heck we’re doing here,” he says, looking up at the new, three-story building that houses a gift shop and gem boutique at street level.
“Come on,” I say, unlocking the outside door.
Once inside the small lobby, I stomp my boots on a mat, and he does the same. Then, I lead the way to the wooden stairs.
“Second floor,” I say, grinning at him as I take the stairs two at a time.
“What’s up here?” he asks from behind me.
“Come on!”
We get to the second-floor landing and turn down a carpeted hallway to a door marked 203. I use my second key to open the door, grab Sawyer’s hand and pull him inside. The room we enter is dark, though some ambient light filters in from the streetlights below.
It smells new , I think, loving the new paint on the walls, the new varnish on the floor, the new-life-for-Ivy smell of my brand-new apartment.
I reach behind Sawyer and flick a switch, which turns on a light in the kitchen. Looking up at him, I watch him survey the space—a kitchen, which includes a counter with two stools, an alcove area that will be my living room someday, and another small area to our right that I will furnish with a dining room table and chairs.
Finally, he looks down at me, a question in his expression, his lips wobbling with the promise of a smile, and his eyes sparkling.
“It’s mine,” I tell him, barely able to keep the excitement from my voice. “I signed a two-year lease.”
“It’s yours?” he asks, that smile cracking his face in half.
“Yep! I’m staying,” I tell him. “I’m staying in Skagway.”
He stares back at me, quiet and inscrutable, and suddenly, I feel a little shy. It’s a big deal to uproot my whole life and begin again from scratch in Skagway. I have family here, of course, and my job at city hall will go full-time with benefits in January, so it makes sense to choose to move here.
But Sawyer and I never talked about my staying, and I hope he’s okay with it. When I was planning to move to Juneau with Clark, I had a formal commitment in place and an engagement ring on my finger. What Sawyer and I have is so much deeper, but it’s much less defined.
He doesn’t say anything, just lifts his eyes to my apartment again, scanning the room, and avoiding me. A kind of terrible, seeping disappointment starts building inside of me: this isn’t exactly the response I’d hoped for. I’m about to suggest we go back downstairs when I see him reach up and swipe at his cheek. That’s when I notice that his jaw is tight. He blinks his eyes over and over again.
Oh my god. He’s not upset that I’m staying, I realize, tenderness flooding my heart. He’s so happy about it, he’s speechless.
“Hey,” I say, flattening my hands on his chest. “Is this okay with you? Me, moving here?”
With a soft growl, he pulls me into his arms, crushing me against his chest.
“Okay?” he asks gruffly. “This is so much better than okay, I…I don’t know how…”
I lean my head back and reach up to cradle his jaw in my hands. His eyes are bright and shiny with unshed tears as I lean up on tiptoes and press my lips to his. He leans into the kiss for a second, deepening it as he spins us around, so my back is against the door. Then he tears his lips from mine, looking down at my face.
“You’re staying.”
I lick my lips, staring at his, wanting them back. “Mm-hm.”
“You signed a two-year lease?”
I nod, skimming my eyes to his. “Yeah.”
“This…” he says, gulping softly. “Us…”
“We don’t have to define it—”
“I want to define it,” he says, his eyes afire. “We belong to each other. I want you, Ivy. I only want you.”
It’s my turn to have burning eyes. “I only want you, Sawyer.”
“And…and…I want to stay over here a few nights a week and for you to come stay at my place whenever you want…and when the summer gets busy, we’ll still find time for each other, and—”
“I want all of that, too.” I giggle, reaching up to wipe away happy tears.
“And when it’s time,” he says, lowering his voice, “when we’re ready…I want you to be my wife, Ivy Caswell. I want to marry you in the Presbyterian church and have our reception at the Parsnip. I want our kids to have your red hair and my blue eyes. I want them to love the old campground up in Dyea with my family and have slumber parties at your aunt and uncle’s house with their older cousins. I want you forever, Ivy. You and me. Forever.”
Every word he says touches my heart, and beyond wanting or longing, deep in my soul where only true things are allowed, I know it’s safe to believe in the sort of forever that Sawyer Stewart is offering me. Moreover, I cannot imagine a day when I don’t want it anymore.
“Huh,” I mumble, trying my best to look disappointed.
His eyes go wide. “What?”
“Well…I don’t want that, Sawyer.”
“Wait. You don’t?”
His whole body tenses, and for a second, I almost feel bad.
“No,” I say softly, shaking my head back and forth. “Red hair is a nightmare. I’d prefer our kids to have your blond hair and my green eyes.”
His mouth drops open, and he throws back his head to laugh. It’s a joyful sound. The best— the very best —sound.
“Oh, you little stinker!” he cries, lifting me up and throwing me over his shoulder caveman-style as I cackle with glee. “Where’s the bedroom in this place anyway?”
“Through the door over there!” I say, even though I can’t see a thing.
He marches through the bedroom door and pauses in the dark room.
“Um…”
“It’s an air mattress!” I say, thumping him on the back. “I only signed the lease on Thursday. The bed’s coming from Amazon in three weeks!”
“So, you got us an air mattress?”
“Let me down,” I demand. When he does, I look up at him. “Yes. I got us an air mattress.”
“From the hardware store?” he asks, barely able to conceal more laughter.
“It’s the only place in town that sells them,” I tell him. The air mattress sits by itself in the middle of the room, with a fitted sheet I stole from Aunt P.’s linen closet and a blanket I bought with the bed. Looking at it—the starkness of it on the floor of an otherwise empty room—makes me grimace. “I knew we’d want to christen the place, and I preferred not to do it on the hard wooden floor.”
“So you got us an air mattress,” he says from behind me, his voice tinged with equal parts humor and love.
I turn around to look at him, putting my hands on my hips. “Yes, I did! And if you don’t like it—”
“I love it,” he growls, kissing me again.
We grab frantically at each other’s clothes, shrugging out of parkas, toeing out of boots, unbuttoning shirts and button-flys, pulling T-shirts over our heads, and finally, whisking underwear over our hips to the floor. We stand across from each other in the darkness, suddenly still after a flurry of activity.
“I’d propose to you tonight if you’d accept,” he says. “I know what I want.”
My breath catches. My heart swells.
“Don’t,” I say, taking a step toward him. Every breath he takes makes the wiry little hairs on his chest tickle my erect nipples. “Not yet.” I reach for his hands at his sides and clasp them, adjusting our fingers, braiding them together. Naked, and bathed in moonlight, we stand face to face. “I love you, Sawyer. I want for us to be together.” I pause before continuing. “But I’d love a little more time. Not to find someone else. There is no one else, and there never will be. But I think I just want to be Ivy-Caswell-who-loves-Sawyer-Stewart for a little while before I’m officially Ivy Stewart.” His fingers tighten around mine. “Is that okay?”
“Yeah,” he says, blowing out a breath before grinning at me. “Ivy Stewart. That’ll be amazing, right?”
“Totally amazing,” I murmur, letting go of his hands and placing my hands on his shoulders.
Holding his eyes, I skim my hands down his arms to his waist. Placing my hands on his hips, I bend my knees and kneel down in front of him.
“Ivy,” he breathes.
“Shhhh,” I murmur, reaching for his erection, then covering the tip with my lips.
I take him into my mouth, laving my tongue around his tip, while my hand holds his shaft. His fingers plunge into my hair, but he doesn’t push me or force me. He toys with the red strands in a way that makes goose bumps rise up on my arms as I fist his cock and suck on its head.
He groans softly, like he’s in pain.
“S-Sweetheart,” he murmurs, lowering his hands from my hair to my cheeks. “Lie down.”
Looking up at him, my lips slick with pre-cum, I lie back on the makeshift bed, adjusting until my body is in the middle of the mattress. He joins me, kneeling over me, catching my eyes with his.
“Do you have any idea how much I love you?” he asks me.
“If it’s even half of what I feel for you,” I say, “our children’s children will feel it.”
He leans his head toward the crux of my thighs.
“I want to taste you.”
As his mouth covers my clit, I gasp, throwing my head back and closing my eyes. My pelvis lifts, desperately trying to get closer to the heaven of his tongue. His tongue licks the bud to a point, and I cry out in pleasure, scratching and scraping at Sawyer’s back, dying to feel him, thick and full, inside of me. And as if we speak an unspoken language, he covers my body with his, draws away from me, then plunges forward, impaling me completely.
“I love you!” I cry, trying to see him clearly as my vision blurs from tears.
Stroking me rhythmically, from the inside out, he leans forward, close to my ear. “You are all I want, Ivy. Forever.”
We. Let. Go.
He is on top of me, over me, inside of me, thrusting with such deep, tender movements, my body contracts at the same time as my heart, both plundered, both found, both convulsing with the sort of love that lasts forever.
In a tangle of limbs and love and pleasure, we hold each other until we are still…and then we sleep.
***
The next morning, since we are already in downtown Skagway, he walks me back to my aunt and uncle’s house.
Hand in hand, dressed in jeans and parkas, scarves and mittens, he muses:
“We’re together. But…what are you? ‘Girlfriend’ sounds ridiculous. But ‘fiancée’ isn’t right yet.”
“I’m just yours,” I say. “But, yeah. Girlfriend. For anyone who needs a label.”
“My girlfriend,” he says, trying out the words. “I like it. I like it a lot.”
“Me, too.”
“For years, I wished you were my girlfriend. And now you are. My sixteen-year-old self is rejoicing somewhere in time.”
I smile at his exuberance. “So is mine.”
“The play’s over. You work a nine to five, while my job doesn’t really start up again until April or May.”
“You still do work on the cabins and campground, right?”
“It’s too cold right now. Too much snow. We do some interior maintenance, but I’ve got a lot of time on my hands, Ivy Caswell.”
“Then you should make dinner every night,” I half joke.
“And have it waiting at your place when you get home from work?” he asks. “My pleasure.”
“My furniture will come at some point. I’ll need help moving it in.”
“Yep. Yep. You got me, Joe, and Tanner on the job. My dad, too. And I’ll make Quinn come, if we need him. I don’t want you to lift a finger. You go get margaritas with McKenna and leave the rest to me.”
“I like this girlfriend gig,” I say, reaching for his mittened hand. “You know, it turns out I like small-town politics, too. At UAF, I concentrated on national politics, but it always felt far away. Conceptual, not actual. I love it here. I love fixing the bulletin boards and reading the town statutes and calling someone out on not having the right permits. Heck, Sawyer…I might run for mayor someday!”
“Holy cow!” he says, grinning at me. “I’d be the first man of Skagway! I’d love to hold that over Tanner and Hunter’s heads!”
He makes me laugh. And I love him ten times more for supporting me instead of trying to control or use me. He’s the best man I’ve ever known, and he’s all mine.
“No matter what,” I say, “we’ll be together.”
Sawyer stops walking, making me face him.
“It was always you and me,” he says softly.
He’s right. It was.
“Forever.”
He kisses me before we continue our walk down Broadway, to my uncle’s house, to forever and beyond.
THE END