Chapter 21
There is a man on my doorstep.
He has shaggy brown hair and a beard that trails down to his chest. Gauged earrings. Tattoos down both arms, which are bare despite the fact it’s cold today.
He smells oddly salty. I sniff…
What is that?
The ocean.
He smells like the ocean. And, weirdest of all, he’s carrying a book.
If he was here to rob me, he wouldn’t be toting this book, would he? Unless he plans to whack me over the head with it.
I regret opening the door to him. He’s clearly lost his way.
“You looking for downtown Windsor or something?” I ask because he hasn’t said a word yet.
“Nope.”
“So, what’s up?”
He cranes his neck to look around me—which really irks me. What is his deal?
The dogs must be somewhere back there, given that my sister hasn’t loaded them into her car yet. Why aren’t they barking?
That Zoey is great at barking. I’ve heard that bark echo off these walls many, many times. Apparently, the dogs are good at barking when it suits them, but they’re not great at security.
This guy is a stranger, but they must be too busy with Kate to care.
He strokes his long beard. “Big place you got here.”
What, is he trying to case the place, for some crew of burglars he runs with? Bold move, showing up all weird and quiet like this.
Maybe he’s going to try to sell a service, like landscaping. He looks like he’d be at home pushing a mower or trimming trees.
“Hey, man, I’m sort of busy. Family in town,” I tell him.
He grunts.
I’m getting majorly impatient.
Kate arrived this morning. It’s only Saturday, so she’s here a couple of days before I expected her. And though I assumed that meant she’d pack the dogs up and be on her way, it’s now early afternoon, and she’s shown no signs of leaving.
In fact, the opposite is true.
She’s shown signs that she wants to stay. For a long time… maybe even months.
We’ve been talking in the kitchen. Apparently, she lost her job because of her trip to Alaska. She’s afraid she won’t be able to keep up with rent on her apartment, back in Long Island. I have extra rooms. It seems to make sense…
The man with the shaggy hair keeps looking behind me into my entryway.
I’m about to tell him to quit scoping out my home when all of a sudden, his face transforms. The worry lines ease away. He grins, exposing a chipped tooth.
“Kate?” he says.
“Sawyer?” Her voice floats past me from somewhere deep in the house. Her footsteps echo across the walls. One of the dogs barks, but it’s not a warning woof. It’s a happy woof.
I can’t believe I know that, but I do.
The next thing I know, Zoey’s piling into the guy with the shaggy hair. The pale fur of her tail tickles my legs. I step back. Mr. Brown barges in, his slobbery teddy in his mouth.
The guy—Sawyer?—crouches down and accepts the teddy. Then he burrows his head into the frenzy of fur and wagging tails. “Hey, guys… I’ve missed you two.”
When he stands up, his eyes shine with tears. “And I missed you.”
He’s talking to my sister. He takes another step and wraps his arms around her. “I went to your hotel room. You were gone.”
They hold each other tight, like they’re lost at sea, and the connection is their only hope.
I watch my sister’s fingers curl against his back, digging into his worn, sleeveless shirt. “Sawyer…” She’s crying now, too.
“I figured since the dogs were here, you might be, too,” he says. He’s a low talker, one of those people you have to strain to hear. Especially me, with my poor hearing.
“You’re not here to order French toast, are you?” Kate asks.
Her question confuses me, but her body language is as clear as day. And he’s holding her so close, so tight, that his message is unmistakable, too. They love each other. I’m no romantic, but I can see it all like it’s painted on a big banner over their heads.
“You caught me by surprise,” he says. “I was coming off of three weeks on the ocean. Could barely think straight. I’m sorry if?—”
“You’re here,” she says. “You don’t have to be sorry.”
“You think we’ll have a girl or a boy?” he asks. “Either way, they’re gonna learn to fish. I brought a book—I already read the first few chapters. What to Expect When You’re Expecting.”
She cries harder as she accepts the book from him, leafs through a few pages, then tugs him in close again.
I’m pretty sure they’ve forgotten I’m here.
The dogs haven’t, though. Zoey breaks away from the love-fest to sidle up to me. Her brown eyes gaze up at me, and she wags her tail side to side. ‘See?’ she seems to say. ‘He’s not so bad, after all.’
Gwen warned me not to judge Sawyer before meeting him. And yet, I did. I heard about how he lived out of his van, traveled so much, and didn’t have a regular, full-time, year-round job. Even his looks set me on edge just now. He’s not a conventional-looking guy.
However, the way my sister’s holding onto him like he’s her safety says it all. She loves him. He loves her, too. I respect that. Kate’s being so vulnerable and kind; she almost seems like a different person to me right now, not the argumentative sister I’ve brawled with so many times. It’s nice to see her soft side.
So, when they part, I stick my hand out to him. “Hey, sorry if I was rude just now.”
He takes my hand, and we shake. It feels too formal, so before the handshake ends, I pull him in for a hug.
After all, he’s pretty much family now. I have a feeling he and Kate will tie the knot one day soon.
“Good to meet you,” I tell him as we hug. “I’ve been hearing about you for years. It’s great to finally put a face with the name.”
“Same,” he says.
Kate wipes tears from her eyes.
I know she and Sawyer have a lot to talk about, so I reach for my coat. “I’m gonna head out. You guys catch up. The house is yours; make yourselves at home. Kate, you know where the guest room is. You guys can stay as long as you need.”
We chat for another minute about the area. Sawyer’s never been to Windsor before.
When I step out into the brisk air, Kate follows and closes the door behind her. “Told you he’s amazing,” she says.
“I’m happy for you guys.”
“Yeah, I’m happy, too. Really happy. Hey, when you see that Gwen Temple, can you tell her thank you, from me? It’s because of her I put my heart on the line. Without her advice, I’d never have been brave enough to tell Sawyer my real feelings.”
I swallow hard and look out at the trees.
She furrows her brow. “What?”
I jam my hands in my pockets. My chest feels heavy; my stomach’s in a knot. “I had to let her go, actually.”
She swats my arm—hard. There’s the Kate I know.
“You did what? She was the best! Super nice, super authentic. She took time to listen, and that is rare. Why did you fire her?”
“Turns out, she was two-timing my company. Working for me, but feeding information about my launches to a rival operation over in Riley.”
“Uh uh,” Kate shakes her head. The blue streak in her hair flicks side to side, her nose ring glitters in the sun. “No way, dude. She wouldn’t do that. She was a cool chick. Real big heart. I could tell. You know how sometimes you talk to a person, and you just know? Some people are fakes, but not her.”
“Look, I wish that was the case. I thought so, too. She fooled us.”
“I don’t buy it. There has to be something else going on. What’s her side of the story?”
I shrug, still with my hands in the pocket of my coat.
That earns me another hit, this time a punch to the arm. “You don’t know? You mean, you haven’t talked to her?”
“Look… it’s complicated.”
“That’s more of a reason to talk to her. If it’s complicated, you could be missing something.”
“My lawyer advised me to keep my distance. I already screwed up, and my lawyer thinks the best thing to do right now, to avoid a huge mess down the line, is to cut off contact. That way, I can’t screw it up anymore.”
“What do you mean, you screwed up?” She narrows her eyes. “Wait… Oh, I get it. You had a thing with her?”
I nod.
Her arm-punch this time is harder. “You jerk!”
“What?”
“You fooled around with her and then fired her?”
“It’s not like that, Kate.”
“It so is.”
“No, it’s not. Would you hear me out?”
“This better be good.” She folds her arms across her chest and glares.
“Look… it’s not as bad as it sounds. I didn’t mean for it to get so out of control. We started spending time together, and we clicked. We could talk about anything.”
“She’s like that.”
“Plus, we had chemistry. I thought maybe there was really something to it. But?—”
I fight off the ache in my chest and look out across the yard. In the distance, I can see the round tower of Mini Windsor Castle poke up above the treetops. “See?” I bark, annoyed at the pain inside me. “This is why I don’t get involved with women. This exact scenario.”
“What, getting hurt?”
“Or me hurting them. It sucked, firing her. But I had to because of what she was up to.”
“I told you, that’s got to be wrong.”
Kate sounds so sure of herself. For the first time, I question Brian Campbell’s work. Then, some of the ache in my chest is replaced by hope.
It feels much better to doubt Brian than to doubt Gwen.
“Whoa. Okay, yeah. I see what you mean,” I mumble while still deep in thought.
Kate reaches out. For a second, I think she’s going to punch me again. Then I realize she’s reaching her arms around me to hug me.
We’re on a whole new level, Kate and me. That feels good, too.
She squeezes me. “C’mere, you big lug. I can see you’re wrecked about this. But you know what? I think you’ll figure it out. You do dumb things, but at the end of the day, you get it right. Also, thanks for being so nice to Sawyer in there.”
“No problem. I meant it, about the house. Stay for a while.”
She lets me go and raises her brows. “Really?”
“Really. It’d be good to have you around.”
Her smile is genuine. “Wow. Thanks.”
When she disappears into the house, I pace over to my Land Cruiser. The hope that stirred in my chest now feels like a growing fire. I stare out across the treetops for a minute, thinking. Puffy white clouds drift across the sky. The round tower is a pale gray in this mid-morning sunlight. The day started off cold, with a real bite in the air, but it’s warming up fast.
I was quick to accept Briand Campbell’s accusation of Gwen. Too quick.
Why?
It was almost like he was giving me an excuse to get out of what was happening with her. Maybe my fear of love was at the root of it all.
I saw my parents’ divorce.
I saw their arguments, their tears.
I saw what happened to Mia and me the minute we tied the knot. We fell apart.
Brian gave me an excuse to give up on Gwen. I was falling in love with her, and the minute I was given an excuse to bail, I did.
I bailed. I ran. I hid.
I haven’t even tried to contact her. That’s another thing—my willingness to fire her without looking her in the eye and explaining myself.
If I really, really believed—in the depths of my soul and in my heart—that she was behind the theft, I’d make that accusation straight to her, nothing held back.
And yet, I didn’t.
I snatched up my lawyer’s advice and took the coward’s way out. I had Elizabeth Rixon fire her…
I took this whole thing about spying and theft, and I ran with it. I was so relieved to have a reason to walk away from Gwen.
But I’m not a coward.
My feelings for her are so deep, they terrify me. Maybe that’s exactly how I know they’re real.
I love Gwen.
I have to talk to her.
Kate is right—there has to be more to the story. I have to hear Gwen’s side of things.
I dial her cell, but it goes to voicemail. So, I start up my car. I’ll go to her house. I have to find her. I have to talk to her.
Watching my sister and Sawyer was a very powerful reminder of what’s important. I lost sight of that because of my fear. I let legalities get in the way. Now I know: what’s important to me right now is finding Gwen.
I speed to her house, but it’s empty. When I try calling her again, it goes straight to voicemail. Is she out of cell range? Is her phone battery dead? Or… is she ignoring me?
Next, I try the dog park on the east side of town. She doesn’t have a dog, but I know she loves the trails and the pond.
She’s not there, either. I park in the dirt lot and wrack my brain for my next move.
When my cell rings, my heart leaps up into my throat. Is it her?
The console tells me it’s Jordan. I answer on Bluetooth. “Yo. What’s up?”
“Hey, I just stopped by your place. Kate says you left to get together with Gwen?”
“Trying. If I can find her.”
“I can help you there. I just saw her. I was over in Riley with Leo. We went for a run in this park called Sunset Ridge Park. I think it’s the town’s dog park, a couple of miles past the ice rink, on the left. At least she was pulling in when we were leaving. If you hurry, you might catch her there.”
He doesn’t have to tell me to hurry.
I’m already speeding that way.