Chapter 37
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Hayden
I bring Penny with me. She doesn’t love being out in the woods very much, but she hasn’t loved the general vibe of my mother’s house lately, either.
I can’t blame her, and I decide she’d rather be out in the woods with me than alone in her bed again.
Thanks to past me hoping a trip to the river might happen—or maybe I’d simply surrendered to a moment of nostalgia-induced weakness—I already have ice cream in the freezer.
I toss two of the small tubs in one of Colleen’s insulated shopping bags, along with one of the frozen doggy treats I picked up for Penny.
I pass on the idea of dragging my old bike out of the garage, though.
For one thing, it doesn’t have a basket for Penny, which I’m sure she would hate anyway.
And also, the last time I rode that bike was the last time I’d ridden any bike at all.
I don’t even like the stationary kind at the gym in my building, choosing instead to spend my workout time on a treadmill.
I drive instead, parking behind the closed post office because the lot is closest to the path I need to take.
I don’t see Cara’s car anywhere, so she either walked or she hasn’t arrived yet.
After clipping Penny’s leash to her harness, I grab the bag from the backseat and head down the path into the woods.
I’m not sure where Cara parked, but as I get close to our spot, I catch a glimpse of her through the trees. She’s sitting on our rock and my pulse quickens with each step I take.
I’m tempted to stop and lean against a tree for a moment to get myself under control, but Penny’s already spotted her. Rather than giving me a look that conveys her annoyance at dealing with woods and other people, she starts straining against the harness, eager to get to Cara.
Not in a million years did I imagine Penelope Louise being so excited to see a human who isn’t me.
“Penny!” Cara’s just as excited as my dog, and she doesn’t even look at me as Penny climbs into her lap, licks her hand a few times, and then curls into a ball.
“I brought the ice cream,” I say, trying not to sound like I’m sulking because Cara likes my dog more than me. I’m not sure I succeed because she laughs when she finally looks up at me.
“Sorry, and hello. But you must be used to being sidelined while people love on this sweet face.”
“Not really,” I tell her as I climb onto the flat-topped boulder. “I wasn’t kidding when I said she doesn’t like anybody but me.”
“And me,” Cara says as she scratches the sweet spot under Penny’s chin. The dog stretches her neck, asking for more, while giving me a smug look I try to ignore.
Sitting on this rock with the river gurgling past, it’s harder to ignore the memories of that summer flooding my mind. I rub the tattoo on my chest through my shirt for a few seconds, as if I can make the ache go away.
Cara and I shared our first kiss on this rock—the first of many.
How naive I’d been in high school, daring to believe that the intense feelings Cara and I had for each other would be strong enough to withstand our parents’ objections.
I thought we’d wear them down until they gave us their blessings, and then we’d get married and raise our kids in Sumac Falls.
I’d daydreamed about our future so much, my grades had actually dipped.
But I’d underestimated just how dirty Marcus Gamble was willing to play when it came to keeping his daughter away from a Reilly boy.
“You look like you’re having a worse day than I did,” Cara says, jerking my attention back to the present.
“Just a lot on my mind, I guess. Are things getting worse with Gin or did you just need a break?”
She shrugs one shoulder. “Mostly I just wanted a break, I guess. But my great-aunt Tess told her she was going to disown us and even though that means exactly nothing except me not getting ten dollars in a birthday card every year, it upset my mother.”
“Tess. That’s short for Tennessee, right?” he asks, remembering our conversation about the women in her family being named after states. She nods. “So just lie and tell your Aunt Tennessee that Penny’s full name is Pennsylvania. She’ll think it was fate.”
I’m rewarded with her laughter, which never fails to send warmth flooding through my body. It also makes me aware of a fundamental truth—if I could hear Cara laugh every day for the rest of my life, I’d consider myself rich beyond my wildest dreams.
I don’t want her to see that emotion on my face, though, so I busy myself opening the insulated bag. I set Penny’s frozen treat on the rock between us, open so she can lick at it. Then I hand Cara a small carton and a spoon before opening my own.
“I needed this,” she says after savoring the first spoonful. Almost as much as I savored the way she closed her eyes and made a delicious little moaning sound.
“I know it’s been hard, but we’re almost there.”
She pauses with her spoon in her mouth to give me a look. “We’re almost to the wedding part. We still have to go through the selling the house part and the getting divorced without Gin suing you to get her house back part.”
The urge to remind Cara that her mother doesn’t have the resources to defeat me in a legal battle is strong, but it’s smarter to deescalate. “It’ll be worth it. Think about down the road, when you can do something you love.”
“I am doing what I love, actually. I like Sumac Falls and I would never give up Pampered Pets. It’s the only thing that’s really mine.”
“It’s just the house, then? That you would change, I mean.”
“It’s not even so much the house.” She stares into her tub of ice cream for a few seconds, stabbing at a chocolate chip with the tip of her spoon.
“I love that old house, actually. Generations of Gambles have lived there, so my family history is basically baked into the bones of it. But it costs a lot to maintain and by the time I was born, that battle was already being lost. I’m tired of living every single day knowing we’re one household disaster away from not being able to fix the furnace or the roof or pay the tax bill. ”
I know from researching the property that the tax bill on the Gamble house isn’t insubstantial.
While the house might be in a state of disrepair, it covers a lot of square feet and it sits on a large plot of private land.
The homeowner’s insurance is probably no joke, either, because they base it on replacement cost and rebuilding a house like that with current construction costs is painful for even me to imagine.
But I don’t want to talk about the property anymore.
It’s one thing to take the house away from Gin. As far as I’m concerned, she deserves to lose it. But it’ll be harder to sleep at night knowing Cara actually loves the house, and it’s only the financial aspect she wants to get away from.
“What would you do if the house and money weren’t an issue?” I ask, wanting to remind myself I’ll actually be doing her a favor by taking the house off her hands.
She sighs, her face softening as her lips curve into a dreamy smile.
“I’d want enough land to move Pampered Pets to a standalone business rather than it being in a Main Street storefront.
And I’d fence the outdoor spaces and also foster shelter animals to help get them ready for their forever homes. ”
When we were young, sitting in this same spot, she loved to talk about how—when she was an adult and moved out—she was going to adopt a bunch of cats and dogs. She’d always loved animals, but could never have a pet.
“I’m going to make sure you get to do that,” I tell her, and even though she shakes her head, a wistful smile curves her mouth.
“Did Aaron tell you we ran into each other at the market today?”
“He called me on his way home. Said after years of pretending you and Gin were invisible, he didn’t know what to do.”
“Same,” she says. “Your niece and nephew are adorable, by the way. Listening to AJ’s excitement about kindergarten was worth the stress of that dinner.”
My brother’s kids give us something neutral to talk about while we eat our ice cream, and it’s easy for me. I love talking about them, and Cara seems to get a kick out of my favorite stories.
But too soon, the ice cream is gone and I know she’s going to tell me it’s time to go any minute. As much as I hate to bring up the subject when we’re both so relaxed, the clock is ticking.
“Have you written your vows yet?” When she freezes in the act of stowing the debris from our ice cream binge in the bag, except for a widening of her eyes, I sigh. “You didn’t read the entire email, did you?”
“I thought I did. In my defense, you send a lot of emails, and you pack a lot of information into them. I think I’d remember that, though.” She sends a fierce scowl in my direction. “What’s wrong with the standard vows?”
“Don’t you think it’s more romantic to write our own?”
Cara’s quiet for a long time, staring at the rushing water while absentmindedly stroking Penny’s back. “I don’t think I can do that, Hayden.”
“I could write something for you. Stuff about my chiseled jaw and—”
“No.” She turns to look me in the eye. “It’s going to be hard enough to stand up in front of everybody and make vows we don’t mean.
But at least if they’re the standard, generic ones it’ll…
I don’t know. It’ll feel like a movie or something.
Less personal, and maybe less fraudulent feeling. It’s hard to explain.”
“I get it.” And I do. I’ve been so focused on convincing our friends and family we’re madly in love, I haven’t considered how it was going to feel to have Cara look me in the eye and recite wedding vows. I think she’s right that stock vows will be slightly less painful.
She stands, signaling an end to our interlude in the woods. Penny looks expectantly at me, and I can see that she’s done here, too. Both of them are obviously waiting for me to stand up, so I push myself to my feet.
“Tomorrow morning, I’m heading to Boston. I have to grab a few things, and also get Penny settled with her sitter. We probably won’t see each other again until the ceremony.”
Cara blinks a few times, and then laughs. It isn’t her usual laugh, but one that sounds panicky and disbelieving. “We’re really doing this?”
“We’re really doing this.” I don’t want her to start spiraling into second thoughts, so a subject change is in order. “Should we practice the ‘you may kiss the bride’ part before we go?”
If the way her gaze drops to my mouth and stays there is any indication, she’s considering it and my body tightens with anticipation. I’m doomed to disappointment, though, because she slowly shakes her head.
“I’m not kissing you on this rock, Hayden, because the last time I did, it was real. At least for me, anyway. And even though it’s painful, I want to keep those memories separate.”
“It was real,” I say in a low voice. But I don’t want to wander down that particular Memory Lane any further, either, because it ends with me telling her what really happened that night.
Or it ends with her angry with me all over again because I won’t have a good reason. Either way, I don’t want that.
“I walked, so I guess we’re leaving in separate directions,” she says, obviously not wanting to look any further into the past than I do.
I pick up my dog, intending to carry her until we’re back on the path. “So I’ll see you Saturday, then.”
Cara manages a smile, maybe because I’m holding Penny, which puts her at the perfect height for more scratches under her chin. “I’ll be the one everybody’s staring at.”
There’s nothing I can say to lessen her anxiety about that, so I just smile as she gives Penny a final head rub before walking away. I watch her for a few seconds, and then force myself to head back toward my car. The next time I see Cara, we’ll leave together as a married couple.
And the next time I kiss her, she’ll be my wife.