Chapter Sixteen
B rooke blew her nose, took one last look in the Saltwater Winery mirror, fluffed her hair, and walked back into the tasting room. Nate sat straight and tall at the bar, waiting. “How bad is it out there?” she asked, trying to make her voice sound normal.
“I had to go around some downed trees, and water is still accumulating on the roads. I wouldn’t expect many guests today.”
“Does it seem like it’s getting worse?”
“It’ll be pounding this area all day.”
The real question was, why did he choose to visit on a day like this? She almost asked him, but instead said, “I should text Jessa.” She found her phone by the register and sent a quick note.
“Noelle told me you came by the mansion,” he said. “You’re looking for an apartment?”
Was he here on business? Was he desperate to rent that room? Brooke nodded. “You remember at camp how they used to tell us not to yuck someone else’s yum? Well, my folks are yucking my yum. If I stay with them much longer I will lose my mind.”
He watched her thoughtfully. She felt uncomfortably seen. “How long have you been living with your folks?” he asked.
“A couple of weeks.” It seemed hardly long enough to be exasperated, unless your parents were Trig and Cornelia.
The interior door swung open and Jessa walked in. “It’s getting bad out there—” She stopped. “Nate?”
“Hey, Jessa,” he said. Like a gentleman, he stood and walked over to her, his hand extended.
“I am not shaking your hand, Nathan Daugherty,” she said, moving in for a tight hug. “I can’t believe you’re here! Picked quite the day, didn’t you?”
Jessa did a double-take when she saw Brooke. Her nose red, her mascara gone. “Brookie! Are you okay?”
“Yep.” She nodded. “I’m just a weirdo.”
Jessa looked back and forth between the two of them. “Is there anything I can help y’all with?”
Nate smiled warmly.
“Can you inhabit my body for a while?” Brooke said. “Help me pretend to be a normal person?”
Jessa chuckled. “He always did bring out the cheesecake in you.”
Cheesecake? Brooke frowned at her.
“Something about him has always turned you sweet and mushy.” She smiled knowingly at her friend.
Sweet. Brooke perked up at the word. There was something about Nate that made Brooke feel like the best, most authentic version of herself.
“That might be the nicest thing anyone has ever said about me,” Nate said.
Just how pleased was he? Brooke couldn’t tell. But it didn’t seem to be the I have something over you or the I know I have the powe r, or I’m going to use this to my advantage kind of pleased. It wasn’t the kind of pleased she was used to. “Mushy sounds like an overripe banana.”
“But cheesecake is much more romantic,” Jessa said. “Okay, y’all. I just came in here to tell Brooke that I’m closing up shop. No reason for us to be here today. I’ll put a notice on the website, and you put the sign on the door. ’Kay?”
If only Brooke had a key, she and Nate could stay here together after Jessa left. Jessa pulled a ring of keys from her pocket and handed them to her like she’d just read her best friend’s mind. “Turn out the lights and lock the doors up tight.” She grinned. “I’ll tend to the chickens and the goats. Don’t let any of the cats inside. They’ve got shelter out back. Now, y’all take some time to catch up.” She moved toward the door she’d just come from. “Hope to see you again soon, Nate!”
Somehow, the steady thrumming of the rain made the silence feel louder after Jessa left.
Brooke hoped Nate would speak first, but instead, he seemed perfectly comfortable in the awkwardness. It was almost like he was in some sort of dream state—calm, with the tiniest hint of a smile on his face. It had been an odd sort of déjà vu having all three of them alone in a room after so many years apart. “Can I pour you some wine?” Brooke asked.
“I’d like that.”
“Since you came for the scuppernong, we’ll start there.” She had a bottle of Ocean Harvest Reserve chilling in the mini fridge. “I don’t usually drink on the job, but since we’re closed now, I figure it’s okay.” The cork came out easily. She set out two wineglasses and poured, then slid one in front of him, lifting hers for a toast. “Cheers.”
“To—” he began. “To getting caught up.”
Maybe he really was here for her instead of looking for a renter. “To getting caught up,” she repeated, lightly clinking his glass and taking a small sip. He still didn’t try to make conversation.
“I can’t believe you’re in Charleston now,” she said.
He nodded, fixed on her like everything she said was amusing. Like it didn’t matter what came out of her mouth, as long as it was directed at him.
“And you’re back home,” he said. “With a new hairstyle.”
“The real me.” She attempted a giggle but was afraid that he hated her brown hair. Weren’t men supposed to prefer blondes?
“I like it,” he said. “You’re more beautiful than ever.”
The relief made her feel physically lighter. He had to have noticed that she was thinner now, her breasts filled out, her nose sharper. Apparently, he approved. “I don’t know how much you know,” she began. She had to tell him, there was no way around it. “But I dated Gates Lancaster for a while.”
“I know,” he said, sucking a healthy dose of wine into his mouth.
How? “We just broke up. That’s why I’m looking for a place to live.”
Finally, he took his eyes off her. They wandered around the room like he was seeing it for the first time. She wanted to ask him if he was dating anyone, but she didn’t want to appear forward. Knowing full well that she was drinking it too fast, she took a large swig of the cold wine. It was calming her nerves, so she didn’t care.
A flash of white cracked through the room, and the interior lights flickered and cut off with a thunderous clap. It had become so gray and ominous outside that there was little light coming through the window. Brooke audibly gasped.
“It’s okay,” Nate said in his always-calm voice. “The power will come back on.”
“I’m coming over to sit with you,” she said, feeling her way around the bar. He was only a silhouette now, but when she moved toward him, the smell was familiar. Not musky, not outdoorsy, just warm and somehow deeply known to her.
Yet she didn’t know him. She used to know the kid version of him. Just like she’d changed, he surely had too. She found the chair next to him and sat. He moved his whole body toward her, his knee making contact with her thigh.
“Can I tell you something?” she blurted out. It was easier to talk to him in the dark, even though she was starting to be able to see him better now that her eyes were adjusting. “Someone stole the duck. The one with your phone number.”
His spine straightened, and she felt his thigh stiffen.
“You never told me where you lived,” she spoke fast, finally stating what she’d been dying to say for years. “And I couldn’t find you on social media. I tried so many times.” No matter what happened next, at least now she wasn’t forced to live her whole life wondering if Nate thought she’d ghosted him. “When the duck was gone, I went out searching for you. I thought I was gonna die in those woods and got in a little trouble for it too.” She chuckled. “I was a full-on missing person for almost twenty-four hours.” The trouble that had felt life-ending at the time was nothing now.
Her eyes had adjusted to the dark enough to see him clearly. When his eyes met hers again, they were red-rimmed. “You couldn’t find me.” His deep voice echoed in the room. “I was afraid of that.”
They sat in silence, the world outside blustering and blowing against their little bubble.
“Was it real, Nate?” she asked, heart pounding as fast as the rain. “Or were we just stupid teenagers?”
“It was real,” he said with grave seriousness. “Very, very real.”
Brooke needed Nate to know that not a day went by that she wasn’t thinking of some other way to find him. “I only had your name. I didn’t have anything else to go on.”
“It’s my fault,” he said.
She could barely see him, but she felt every movement, sensed every shift.
“I figured you’d be better off without me. My life was a mess.” He breathed in sharply. “Camp was an escape from reality for me. I forgot for a while who I was, and then when I was kicked out, I remembered.”
“Who you were? The Nate I knew was the kindest, bravest—”
“No, Brooke. He was a broken little kid. He’s still broken.” She could see the shimmer of his teeth—a sad smile in the darkness. “My people were unsafe.”
“You mean your family?”
“I didn’t have a family. Not really. Unless you count my uncle. All he did was give me a roof over my head—sometimes—and a world of hurt.”
“I knew it had to be bad. But you never said anything.”
“He’s dead now. Overdose.”
“Oh.” She let that sink in. She’d wondered about his childhood since the first day she saw him. “What happened to your parents?”
“Are you sure you want to hear this now?”
“Please,” she said.
He took a deep breath. “I don’t like talking about it.”
She reached over and gently took his hand.
“I was nine. My dad had just gotten his private pilot’s license. He took my mama for a ride in a seaplane for their fifteenth wedding anniversary. They were headed to our property—the one that’s now Camp Dogwood. He’d even hired a chef to come out and cook them dinner.” With a flash and a whir, the lights began to flicker back on. Neither of them acknowledged it.
Brooke’s heart stopped. He hadn’t been lying. His family really had owned Camp Dogwood.
“The power company had just strung some electrical lines on the island across the way. I’m told that when he went to land, he flew straight into them. They crashed into the water. No one knows if they were electrocuted or if they drowned.” His face was now brightly lit, and it felt rude, like his deepest pain was suddenly under a spotlight. Brooke wished she could snap her fingers and turn the lights back off.
“I wish you had told me. We were right there where it happened the whole time.”
“I learned not to talk about it.”
“Is that why you went to camp?”
He nodded. “At first. I wanted to be as close to them as possible.”
She hesitated to ask but needed to know. “Are they still in the lake?”
“No, they were recovered. Granddad was still around then, and we had a funeral. They’re buried out in the Summerville cemetery.”
“Is that where you grew up?” She’d asked the question so many times, and he’d never answered.
“Nearby” was all he gave her.
She decided not to press. “So, how did you end up with your uncle?”
“I was placed with my mom’s side of the family since Granddad was so old and my dad’s folks lived in a retirement place in Florida. My uncle was the only sibling, and everybody thought I’d be better off staying in a familiar environment.” Nate spoke with no emotion, like he was telling a story about someone else. He stood and reached for the bottle of wine. “He used to be a decent guy. But enough about that. It’s depressing.” He poured some of the golden liquid into her empty glass and then filled his own.
“I’m so happy to know more about you,” Brooke said, her heart both dismayed for him and somehow gratified. “I want to know it all.”
The wineglass stopped at his lips, and he set it down before taking a sip. “The truth is, I probably shouldn’t be here,” he whispered.
“Why?” The conversation was beginning to feel like the storm outside, turbulent and unpredictable. She braced herself to hear that he was married or had a girlfriend.
“I’m moving,” he said. “I started a new business venture, and I just bought a place out in Atlanta.”
“When?” She felt like everything hung on his answer. How much time did they have left together?
“Next week.”
Even though the lights were back on, her world just went dark. But that was presumptuous of her. It’s not like they could pick up where they left off all those years ago. They were different people now. They’d been kids back then. And all of these years later, she’d just gotten out of a relationship, and he—well, she didn’t know anything about his love life. But she’d just found him, and now he was leaving.
“I think we both had to give up on each other years ago,” he said. “But today, I knew it wouldn’t be crowded here, and I knew you were out looking for a place to live alone, and I just figured—I mean, I just really wanted to talk to you.”
She wanted to say that she never gave up on him. But that wasn’t the truth. If she’d thought she could find him, she may not have stayed with Gates so long.
“Did you find someone else?” she asked. “Are you happy?” Maybe there was a woman in Atlanta.
“I tried.” He pressed his lips together, then said, “None of them stuck.”
The emotions from when she first saw him welled up again. She wanted to laugh or cry or both. But she forced it all down, holding her breath. She didn’t dare speak.
“I figured you were happy with Gates,” he said.
“How did you know about him?” she squeaked.
“It wasn’t hard to find you both online.” He paused. “He seemed good to you. He was a better choice.”
“You’re on social media?”
“With a fake name. First to make sure you were okay and then to keep up with my Florida grandparents. I never post. I like to consider myself a consumer rather than a purveyor of information.” He chuckled.
“You mean a stalker.” She laughed. All those years, and he was just a fake name away. “What’s your online name?”
“Duck Hunter.”
“I am so stupid,” she said.
“You’re the furthest thing from it.” He paused. “You know, I overheard people yelling your name that day after I left camp. I knew you’d gone to look for me. I waited for you under the creek bridge.”
“The bridge? I thought you went off in the other direction. When we said goodbye, you turned that way.”
At the same time, they both said, “I should’ve known.”
Brooke remembered everything with stark clarity. “So all that time I was moving as fast as I could into the woods, I was actually running away from you.” The air in the room was still and humid. The rain had stopped, like one band of storms had passed, and another would soon be coming up behind it. The calm would be brief, and then the full strength would hit again. “It was all the details,” she said. “The tiniest things could have kept us together, but instead, the tiniest things kept us apart.”
He looked like he wanted to say something but held himself back.
“What?” she asked.
The sky opened again and the rain pounded the roof with renewed fury, the wind blowing harder against the windows and doors. Nate Daugherty, now in his midtwenties, looked her dead in the eyes. He shook his head sadly, and the lights went dark once again. She couldn’t see it, but she felt his hand on her arm, and as it moved to her back, she leaned into him. He pulled her into a hug like he was protecting her from the outside world, like he’d missed her, and like high school Nate was still alive and well inside of adult Nate. Brooke wanted to savor every sensation, every bit of closeness, and commit it to memory forever.