Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Bailey
We agreed we wouldn’t spend the night together, and that’s not what we’re doing.
Not really, anyway. Lying here under the stars, bodies naked, just a soft old blanket on top of us for cover, with the sounds of the wild animals and the birds, the trees whispering in the gentle breeze, the babbling of the creek beyond our feet, the smell of the earth and the forest, we’re not spending the night together.
We’re just … existing, in nature, worshipping at its altar.
And we are.
I realise, as I lie close to his side, that this is new for me. I push up a little, so I can press my chin to his chest. It’s warm and his muscles bunch beneath me.
‘I’ve never done this before,’ I say, moving one hand to tease his arm, drawing invisible circles over his bicep.
He glances down at me, and his angular face is so perfect, so handsome, so completely familiar, that I close my eyes, as if I can somehow lock it away in my mind forever, just like this.
No hurt, no heartbreak—that’s not our path.
We were never destined to be more than a brief fling, a time of togetherness that leaves no space for hurt or anything worse, and that’s somehow so perfect.
Because I can’t imagine how I could reconcile that: having Beau be someone that hurt me.
‘Done what?’
‘Just lay still, under the stars.’
‘You’re kidding?’
I shake my head a little and he makes a growling sound of surprise. ‘You must have led a deprived childhood.’
‘I led an urban childhood,’ I smile. ‘This, out here, is something else.’
‘As kids, we’d do this all the time. Tear out the back door, throw a blanket down, stare up at the stars until we almost fell asleep.’ He breathes in, so his chest shifts beneath my chin. ‘Don’t you feel it, Bailey?’
‘Feel what?’
His grin shows he’s joking, but there’s something deeper in his tone, a kind of reverence. ‘Magic.’
The thing is, I do feel that. Out here the magic almost makes me believe I could do or be anything, anything I want.
And it tells me that maybe what I want isn’t what I’m working toward.
Washington and political journalism feel a really long way from this, and this is just about the happiest I can remember being.
Just Beau, me and a blanket of shiny stars.
The thought has me shifting a little. The moment is perfect, seductively so, but I can’t let it drag me away from my life, my goals, the reality I have been building for so many years.
‘I really should be getting back,’ I say, reluctance in my tone despite the panic that’s setting in. ‘I don’t want them to lock me out.’
‘I know where they keep the spare key,’ Beau says. But he’s moving anyway, loosening the blanket, standing gloriously naked as he folds it up, before reaching for his clothes and starting to get dressed. After ripping his shirt over his head, he pauses to stare out, across the water.
‘It’s really gonna be something,’ he murmurs, eyes sweeping the forest. ‘I’m going to use the wood from the trees, make it like a big, old log cabin, with huge windows looking out both ways—one side on the creek, the other on the forest in the back.
I’ve got it all up here.’ He taps the side of his head.
‘Whenever I’m missing this place, I think about it,’ he says, voice a little deep, almost like he’s embarrassed to admit it to me—that he misses home.
I move slower than he did, reaching for my underwear and pulling it on before standing, then stepping to his side and wrapping my arm around his waist, curving my body perfectly against his. I try not to notice how well we fit together.
‘Tell me something, Bailey.’ He turns slowly and latches his hands in the small of my back.
A sensation creeps along my spine, a sense of foreboding, of worry. A feeling that he’s peeling back layers I don’t want exposed.
‘Yeah?’ But my voice is hesitant, showing my uncertainty.
He tugs his hands gently, as if to reassure me, but I stay alert, because I’ve learned to protect myself.
‘What did you see in him?’
Kirk. His name breathes through the trees, an incantation of the past, an evoking of a time I would much rather forget. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘I’m just curious.’
‘Why?’ My journalistic—and feminine—instincts tell me there’s more going on here than he’s admitting to.
‘I’m just wondering what you were like before him. Were you someone who fell in love easy? Were you looking for some guy to come into your life and sweep you off your feet?’
I pull a face. ‘Hardly.’
His grin tugs at my heartstrings, but it slips almost immediately.
‘So he must have been pretty special?’
‘I thought he was,’ I admit, surprising myself with the honesty. ‘I thought he was a really great guy. And we had a lot in common.’
His expression shifts to one of scepticism. ‘You think that’s important, for a relationship?’
A red flag waves inside my mind. ‘It almost sounds like you’re angling for something more here, cowboy,’ I say cautiously.
He squeezes around my waist again. His expression is difficult to interpret but his voice shows certainty.
‘Nothing’s changed for me, Bailey, and it’s not likely to.
I’m not interested in putting down roots now, and probably not ever.
I’m just curious about what kind of man could make you open your heart. ’
I know he doesn’t mean to hurt me with those words, but he does.
He makes it sound like I’m cold and distant, when the truth is that with Beau I’ve been more like myself than I knew possible.
I thought Kirk’s betrayal had killed so much of this for me, had completely destroyed this side of my personality.
But night by night, kiss by kiss, Beau’s brought something back to life inside me.
It doesn’t matter that our thing is destined to be short-lived, I think I’ll probably always be changed by what we’ve done together, by how he’s made me feel.
By the fact he’s helped me trust all over again—to believe there are men out there who are good and decent, who say what they think and would never hurt a woman.
Without even meeting the man, Beau’s fixed what Kirk broke.
How can I not kind of love him for that?
Not love-love. Just … love. I frown, tying myself in knots with the distinction.
‘Before Kirk, I was less cautious,’ I say slowly.
‘I mean, my parents were happy, despite Dad’s travel, my expectations were always that I’d have that too.
Kirk was handsome, intelligent, smart, well-read.
We could sit and talk for hours, about politics, the world, anything.
’ I don’t know if I’m imagining it, but it almost feels like Beau stiffens, his arms more like steel than the soft embrace of a moment earlier.
‘But that’s true for a lot of people,’ I say, my frown deepening.
‘I thought it was special, but it’s not.
Put two people together who have a basic interest in life, a curiosity about why things are the way they are, and you have a conversation.
It was all surface level. At least for him. ’
‘But not for you.’
‘No.’ I ignore the aching in my chest, familiar and permanent.
It doesn’t matter that I’ve moved on, Kirk will always represent heartbreak to me, no matter what.
‘I did open myself up to him.’ I hear the tone in my voice, the melancholy resentment, and hate Kirk for doing this to me.
For still having the power to reach through time and break me.
I try forcing a smile but my lips won’t cooperate; I’m sure I just come off looking ghoulish.
‘I thought I was falling in love, while he was enjoying the deception, the thrill of not getting caught.’
Beau definitely stiffens now. ‘You really think that’s what it was for him?’
‘He’s an arrogant piece of shit,’ I mutter. ‘I’m sure it was a big part of it. I mean, he says otherwise, but I think that’s partly because he wanted it to keep going, even once I knew the truth.’
Beau runs his hand over my spine, like he can’t bring himself not to touch me. ‘I hope one day you’re able to really let him go.’
‘I have let him go.’
‘No,’ he says gently, like he’s talking to a bull, taming it with his words. ‘You wish you had, but he’s still up here,’ he points to the side of my head. ‘And in here.’ He places his hand over my heart. ‘He shouldn’t be, but he is.’
‘You’re wrong.’ I move my hand to his. ‘The lessons he taught me are a part of who I am, and probably always will be, but he’s gone. He’s no one to me now.’
Beau makes a noise, like he wants to believe me. I don’t ask myself why he cares so much.
‘He hurt you,’ Beau says gruffly. ‘But he doesn’t deserve to keep on hurting you. And you deserve so much more than him.’
‘I know,’ I say, my smile wistful. Because of Beau, I’ve started to think that maybe, just maybe, one day I’ll accept that, and let myself go again. One day I might just let myself fall, and vanquish Kirk’s grip on me forever. If I meet someone just like Beau, anyway.
‘He’s not like he seems, you know,’ Beth says over a cup of coffee the next morning.
The sunlight cuts across the wide well-worn floorboards so they bask in gold, and a sweet puppy with boot-like fur for paws makes a deep exhalation.
Beth leans down and pats his stomach distractedly, like she doesn’t realise she’s doing it.
Beau is somewhere around, but I haven’t seen him yet. I got an Uber out here—I’m as surprised as anyone that this town has such a thing, but apparently a few of the newcomers decided to give it a go, and it’s stuck.
‘In what way?’ I ask, knowing that I’m straying close to unprofessional territory, because I’m probing Beth for two reasons. Oh, I need to interview his family for the article, but I’d be lying if I pretended there wasn’t also a healthy amount of personal curiosity at play.
‘All that swagger,’ she says, with an affectionate roll of her eyes. ‘He’s a lot sweeter than he seems.’