Chapter Twenty-Five
N ate and Brooke drove right back to the Warter mansion where they started. The broken net on Cornelia’s vegetable garden was already tied together with twine. One night wide open on the island would surely mean no more heirloom tomatoes in the morning. If the raccoons didn’t get them, the deer certainly would. The sun hadn’t finished setting and the moon was already rising full, so there was enough light for a brief walk. They didn’t have to say anything, they both just headed in the opposite direction of the front door into the yard where the mermaid-hair moss hung in tendrils from the old oaks, toward the round iron bench that hugged the middle-most tree.
“I told you I don’t have a girlfriend,” Nate began with a whisper, “but that wasn’t the whole truth.”
Brooke’s heart sank, and she nearly tripped. He grabbed her by the arm and led her along. “So, you were with her in Atlanta?”
“Yes.” He said it like he didn’t want the trees to hear.
Why could they never get the timing right? Was her whole life going to be a series of missed opportunities? She swallowed the disappointment and jealousy burning in her throat. “I understand,” she said as sweetly as she could. “I hope we can still be friends.” She meant it.
They got to the bench, and Brooke sat first. Nate sat strangely close to her, his thigh pressed up against hers. She almost scooted away. The surface area of her side where his touched hers felt like hot coals, but she stayed where she was.
“No,” he said. “We can’t be friends.”
It was worse than she thought.
“I mean, we can’t be just friends,” he said, taking her hand. “I will always need more.”
Was he saying—
“I don’t want to scare you, but I have to tell you,” he said, turning his whole body to face her. “As soon as I saw a future with you, it changed everything. I know it’s early, and I suppose it’s the risk-taking part of me, but I refuse to lose you again. I know you just got out of a long relationship, and I’m sure you’re not ready for another one, but it has been too many years without you. I can’t let anything come between us again.”
Was she even sitting on the bench? She felt like she was floating above it, blowing in the wind like the moss, dizzy and subsisting on warm air.
“I went to Atlanta, and I canceled escrow on the home I was buying. I’ll have to make a lot of trips and hire someone to oversee my business there, but it’s doable. And I explained the situation to the girl I’d been seeing.”
Brooke fell back to earth with a thud. That was a lot to process. Had she just unwittingly upset all of his future plans? Was that okay? Did she deserve for someone to change so many things in their life for her? What if she disappointed him? What if she wasn’t who he thought she was? She must have looked horrified.
“This is my choice, okay?” he said. “One I made without you. I, alone, am responsible for it. You don’t owe me anything.”
Her hopes and fears puddled together, threatening to run down her cheeks. She remembered her mother’s words: marry the man who loves you more . Marriage or not, this time, it was the one man she truly wanted. The one she’d dreamed about for years. What if she was the one who loved him more? Was that a recipe for disaster? “Is she okay?” Brooke squeaked, trying her best to hold her voice steady. She was so incredibly happy, but she couldn’t forget that someone else just had their heart broken.
“We hadn’t been dating long,” he said, the tension between them rising. “She’ll be fine.”
“You told her about me?”
“I did.”
“Oh, God.” He was slowly invading her personal space, his face closer to hers than it’d been since they were teenagers. She had to look away. “I feel terrible. I need to apologize to her.”
He put a hand on her cheek, and she brought her eyes to meet his. “It’s me, Brooke. Not you. Never your fault. I figured no one would ever make me feel like you do, so I settled for someone I liked—someone I got along with. But once you were back in my life, I knew I couldn’t do it. Not to her, and not to myself. She wouldn’t have been happy with me long-term. She deserves someone who adores her.”
“It’s weird, isn’t it?” Brooke had to look away. Her heart was pounding out of her chest and she wasn’t sure she could survive it. She spouted whatever came to mind first. “The whole finding a partner thing. How are you supposed to know when it’s right? If you’ve never had the feeling we have, you might think that marriage, or long-term partnership, is about choosing someone you can tolerate. But it’s so much more. Gates was settling for me just as much as I was settling for him.” He was still looking directly at her, and she found the bravery to bring her eyes back to his. “With you, my heart feels safe.”
“It is,” he said. He took both of her hands in his, still intent on her face. “What are you saying?”
“I tried to get on with my life, but I always, always missed you. I felt like I was supposed to be the witness to your future, all of it, good or bad, and that was stolen away. I haven’t been the same since.”
“So”—his smile was heart-meltingly hopeful—“you want to give us a try?”
She used the back of her hand to wipe the tears from her face, and nodded.
That was all he needed. His right hand moved to tuck a stray piece of hair behind her ear, the fresh, new hair that still held some old memories but was always adding new ones. As his hand slid to the back of her head, he leaned in, and she joined him, breathless, their lips touching gently, finally. They stayed there, unmoving, their lips pressed together. There was urgency, passion, a thousand different emotions, but there was also time. They pulled apart, then immediately came back together. There would never be enough kisses to catch up. It was kiss after kiss after kiss—nothing raw, nothing pressuring, just the closest form of gratitude, tenderness, adoration, and so much perfect bliss that she wanted to sing with the cicadas and wind around him like a honeysuckle vine.
She decided, with her lips pressed up against his, that she would grow her hair out. She would never lose this memory. Just like she would never lose him again.
Nate took her hand and she rested her head on his shoulder like she had on their very first movie date at camp. They sat in silence. She was consumed with everything she’d just said, marveling that she’d had the chance to say it. They sat with the burgeoning night noises and their own thoughts until the sun disappeared into the darkness, the house lights came on, and the bullfrogs joined in the buzzing chorus. “Banana pudding?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am. We’ve been carrying these sandwiches around so long we probably ought to eat them too.”
The walk to the house was short, and they went straight to the kitchen. With thanks to Fred, they ate like they’d just finished a marathon and been served their favorite celebratory meal. They were giddy and laughing at every funny and unfunny thing the other said, when Trig came walking in holding an empty glass of whiskey.
“Do you remember Nate?” Brooke asked.
“Of course. He was almost my son.” The statement felt inappropriate, like it lessened or belittled Nate. But Trig wasn’t done. “So, what became of you? How’d you survive?” His words were slurred.
“How’d I survive my childhood?” Nate clarified.
Trig grunted.
“Well, I had a rough time after I got kicked out of camp.”
Trig waited for more. Brooke did too. She’d always wondered what happened to him after that terrible day. “Losing the only person I felt a connection with at that time, plus the only place where I felt like I had roots, set me back.”
“Are you talking about my daughter?” Trig asked, and Brooke was glad he wasn’t holding a rifle this time.
Nate nodded, and Trig’s eyes went briefly to Brooke.
“Camp reminded me of who I used to be,” Nate said, “and then I was a loser again. Just like that.”
Brooke was shocked at how transparent Nate was being. There was no shame, just a matter-of-fact answer to her father’s question.
“Then my asshole uncle died. I thought all he had was debt, but when I was cleaning out the trailer, I found some things in an up-high cabinet.”
Trig listened like he couldn’t decide whether to love him or kick him out of his house. Brooke knew full well that her father had always wanted a son, but she also knew that, in recent years, he’d had his heart set on Gates.
“What did you find?” She so badly wanted Nate to have something that belonged to his parents. Something that his uncle hadn’t hawked or thrown out.
“My grandfather’s stamp collection. I’m pretty sure my uncle knew it had value, but he had no idea how to sell it, so it sat there in a bunch of shoeboxes along with some old family photos. I’m lucky they weren’t used as fire starters. I contacted the philatelic society and had the stamps appraised, then I kept a few as a memento of my grandfather and sold the rest. Anyway, it was enough to give me a start.”
Both Brooke and Trig were silent.
“It’s what I used to go to college—community college first, and then University of South Carolina. Those stamps kept me alive, got me an education, and helped me launch my business.”
Brooke was astounded. Stamps? Thank God.
“And what is your business?” Trig finally asked.
“I buy historical properties that are at risk of demolition, and I renovate them. Sometimes to rent, sometimes to sell.”
“And you make a good living?”
Was her dad onto something? He was asking in a way that felt more than just curious. It was like he was vetting him.
“Yes, sir.”
“Isn’t Family Feud on?” Brooke hoped to redirect her father’s inquisition. “Where’s Cornelia?”
“She and Nana left me with the dishes and ran off to the cottage to watch some no-good reality show.” He was clearly displeased. “It’s gonna rot their brains into nothing. I’m afraid that if your mother keeps watching that garbage, she’s gonna get ideas in her head and stop cooking me dinner.” He stood from the table and left the room, mumbling, “I need more whiskey.”
“Sorry about that,” Brooke said once Trig was out of earshot. They both got up from the table and moved to the kitchen island where Brooke grabbed two bananas and started peeling.
“I loved it,” Nate said. “He cares.”
“Sometimes he does, I guess.” She placed the bananas on a cutting board and handed him a knife. “Slices,” she said. “Small ones.”
He got to work immediately while she found a large white ceramic bowl.
“I never knew stamps were valuable.”
“Some are,” he said. “It was like a miracle finding those, and the photos. It was everything I wanted and needed. And it was my senior year. Perfect timing.”
Brooke pulled the heavy cream from the refrigerator and added it to the bowl. “You were completely alone your senior year while I was over here hating my folks and picking out colors for my new dorm room.”
“Which were…”
“Pink and white.” She went to the pantry and picked out vanilla bean paste, gelatin, and sugar. “But there was a splash of black on my throw pillows to match my framed print of Audrey Hepburn in sunglasses.”
He chuckled. “Perfect.”
“I thought so.” She laughed, measuring each ingredient with her heart.
She replayed the evening’s events in her head, as she whisked as fast as she could. It was comfortable having Nate in her childhood kitchen, chatting and jumping in to help where he could. It felt like they were an old married couple, like there had never been a gap of nearly a decade in their relationship. “I hope our duck is doing okay,” she said.
“He’ll be fine. One night in a cage for a lifetime in the wild.” Nate had such an agreeable way about him. “If Nana is having you run the place, will you be living in the lighthouse?”
She stopped whisking. Would that bother him? “Is it okay with you?”
He pulled her into a hug and spoke softly in her ear. “There’s no one I would rather have living in that lighthouse. Except for maybe both of us. Someday.”
She kissed him sweetly on the lips. “Then we’ll just have to see how this goes, won’t we?”