Chapter 26 Everly
EVERLY
The sky overhead is dark, but something flickers between Grey and me.
It takes on a shape and light of its own.
Giddy excitement builds inside. I never expected to feel sparks of interest in my husband.
Rule number two hundred nineteen of the Marriage of Convenience Club, do not fall for each other.
However, just when I think we have a breakthrough, Grey’s eyes drop to the ground. He shoves his hands into his pockets, suddenly shy.
“Where’d you go?” Did he float back into the clouds?
He scuffs the deck with his boot.
“What are you doing?” Desperation fills the space between the words because I thought we’d made progress. I’m afraid that I’m falling...and if he doesn’t say something soon, it’ll be smack dab on my non-Bruiser-butt.
Grey’s voice is rough when he says, “Everly, if I take my hands out of my pockets, they’ll be all over you. There will be no stopping me.”
My pulse takes flight. Falling? Nope, I’m flying now, at risk of floating away. That wasn’t what I expected to hear. “I’m willing to risk it, Grey.”
The flicker turns to flame when our gazes meet. I give a slight nod as the kissituation sails into my mind.
Grey’s large, rough hands grip my upper arms and he looks at me like he’s been offshore on his Viking ship longer than advisable. My breath catches in my throat, but my heart continues its persistent gallop. I can feel it in my toes.
Grey leans over and kisses my bare shoulder, the length of my neck, and then my jaw, where he pauses. It’s tentative at first, as though he’s dipping his toes into the cool water of the lake. Little pecks, one, two, three. Either that or he’s afraid of what’ll happen if he starts out too strong.
I may be smaller than him, but I’ve proved that I can handle this dangerous gentleman. “Trust me, I won’t break.”
His fresh split wood scent sends my eyes fluttering closed as I experience him with my other senses—smell, touch, taste as his lips land on mine.
I try to find my breath. The world has stopped spinning, time has slowed to a crawl, and it’s just the two of us at the center of it all. I no longer need oxygen. All I need is my husband’s mouth on mine.
My hands find their way to the back of his neck. It’s smooth and warm and welcome as I move yet closer to him. I’m on tiptoe, practically levitating off the ground, and our chests push together.
With this kiss, I want to show him how I feel, because, for all my talk about communication, sometimes words aren’t enough.
His hand cradles the back of my head as we move together.
It’s like we’re making a different kind of list. A we belong together list. Trusting each other is number one. Believing in each other is number two, this kiss is number three. I can’t think about anything beyond that as the kiss deepens.
Grey’s beard is like a soft cushion against my skin, a nest where I can make myself at home. I don’t mind the bristle against my cheek either. I like that he’s a little bit rough against the smooth.
His hands knot into the waves in my hair, drop to my back, and race along my waist. By the way he explores my skin, I imagine he likes what he’s found.
My chest swells as I melt into him. The steady beat of our hearts reminds me that the kiss is real and it goes on and on to the beat of our hearts.
After I surface from the depths of Grey’s embrace, a different kind of sigh escapes him as though he’s enjoying himself, enjoying me, like he, too, can breathe again.
When we pull apart, we drop back onto the bench swing. I nestle under the crook of his arm and the rocking resumes.
The kiss we shared was the answer to the question I didn’t even know to ask. It provided the information I didn’t realize I needed. It’s the solution to a problem that had always been just out of reach.
“Everly, you asked if you should be worried—about me getting angry. No. Not at you. Never at you. I will only ever protect you. From men like Todd. You’re safe here with me. I promise.” His massive arm wraps around me and he gives me a comforting squeeze.
“As I said, you answered my question.”
The clouds disperse. Stars twinkle in the sky. I count them, wishing on each one for another kiss with Grey. But soon I lose track as they light up the sky. I take it as a sign that there’ll be many, many more kisses.
“I don’t know exactly what this means for us,” he says after a while.
“Yeah, I’m supposed to be teaching you etiquette.” I try and fail to keep reality at a distance. I much prefer this happy little island.
“So, I take it that I’m not supposed to kiss my coach.”
“Probably not. I didn’t read the entire employee manual, but I’m guessing it’s forbidden.”
“What happens on Isle Royale stays on Isle Royale,” Grey says.
I giggle.
“But I might want to take it off the island at some point, in which case, there’s one more thing I want to know and you owe me an answer to a question,” he says.
A thread of tension appears in my neck where there had been none.
“Anything else I should know about Todd, aside from him being a world-class jerk?”
My breath turns shallow.
“I’m not asking to pry, but because I want to know what we’re dealing with if he decides to show up.” Grey goes silent.
He’s quiet long enough that when I turn to look at him, his expression is all stone.
Letting out a sigh, he confesses, “Since we’re already married, I don’t want to be the kind of guy you’d want to divorce.”
We let out a joint exhale. For Grey, likely because confessing that came with a pang of vulnerability.
For me, I feel invincible. He said that we’re dealing with Todd together—we.
Having someone in my corner and his comment about being the kind of man I’d want to spend my life with is better than cookie dough.
“So do you want to talk about it?” Grey asks.
My first answer is found in a kiss I plant on his lips, telling him how much he means to me. The second is also on my lips. “Yes.” I’ll tell him anything.
“In addition to my father’s desire to rule the world with his ice and iron scepter,” I say only half-joking, “he set the lofty goal for me to become an Olympic medal-winning figure skater.”
Grey cocks his head. “Seriously? Wow. So you were good.”
I nod. “Up at four a.m. every day but Sunday. That was the one respite, thanks to my mother, who was a woman of faith and believed in a day of rest.”
“Tomorrow is Sunday.”
“How will we get to church?” I ask.
Grey points to the far edge of the property where the reflective tips of a seaplane rock gently in the water. “We fly.”
A shaky finger points at him. “You mean you fly that thing?”
“You can trust me. It’s safe. My father taught me from a young age, and then I became licensed.”
“I’ll have to see your ID, sir,” I say in a mock-official tone.
“Sure thing, Mrs. Adams.” He winks.
“So you fly airplanes.”
“Not commercial, but small prop.” He nods. “And you skate. It was hockey or football for me growing up. Unfortunately, I was lousy with a pair of blades. But when the lake freezes over, maybe you can teach me a thing or two.”
“I bet it’s beautiful up here at Christmastime.” A sneaky, but happy little thought appears like a gift under a tree at that comment. Yes, we got married at the courthouse, but what if we celebrated during the holidays? Then I realize I’m getting way ahead of myself.
“As you were saying...” Grey nudges me.
“Just thinking about weddings,” I sing-song.
“Plural? To Todd?” His tone darkens.
“Dodged that bullet. I’d rather forget about that. Anyway, despite my years of training, competing, and being on a team, at some point, my father decided I was too old to skate anymore. I missed my chance at Olympic fame.”
“You’re younger than me,” Grey says. “I still play football. I don’t necessarily think there’s an age limit on your dreams.”
My lips tip into a smile that conveys how his comment makes me feel hopeful, like someone in my life finally tells the truth.
“While I loved figure skating, the whole gold medal thing was my father’s dream—the Ice King.
Or just an accomplishment he could claim by default.
He cut me off from that and decided to marry me off. The whole thing was out of my hands.”
I glance down at the simple ring Grey slid there and which I’ve never taken off. “Actually, I realize now that I let him have control over my life. I didn’t think I had a choice.”
“But you do. I never want you to feel that way again. This is your life and what you do, who you marry, and what dreams you pursue are all in your hands, Everly. Truly.”
Grey squeezes me close, serving to assure me and give me the courage to go on. I’ve only shared the details about what happened between Todd and me with Heidi, my counselor, doctor, and lawyer.
“Only fourteen days before we were supposed to say our vows, I found out that I had cancer. It was basically stage zero, but as I said, because of a genetic factor, I was at a very high risk of it becoming worse, rapidly. I waited and went for second opinions and tests. I was afraid to tell Todd because he was very superficial about appearances. He wanted me on his arm at events, the daughter of the famous Lefevre metal magnate, to parade me around like a trophy.”
Grey grunts.
I take a deep breath. “It took me five days to fully accept that he’d cheated on me. Five more and I realized he was seriously messed up in the head. Delusional. Paranoid. I guess I didn’t let myself see it sooner. Denial is powerful.”
“Yeah.” Grey snorts.
“He knew I was waiting for marriage, but kept pressuring me and didn’t appreciate that I repeatedly delayed things between us.” As I spoke, I felt disconnected from the past and firmly in the present.
Grey clenches and unclenches his fists as though itching to have a go at Todd’s face. The only reason I didn’t buy a dartboard and stick a photo of his face on it was because I was broke.
“Did you want to have kids?” Grey asks.
“Not with him. That much quickly became clear.”
“But you do want a family?”
My gaze captures his. “We do have a family.”
He laces his fingers with mine and leans back in the chair, at ease. An owl hoots and the moon appears, a bright, glowing crescent.
“I immediately sought a way out, but requiring health insurance, I felt trapped. On my wedding day, all dressed up and ready to go, I overheard one of his groomsmen asking about the sidepiece. They said some lewd things about the woman Todd cheated on me with. I froze. Hid in a storage closet. Couldn’t go through with it.
The sidepiece showed up and paraded down the aisle, objecting to our wedding. I fled.”
Grey’s eyes are milk saucers, moon size. “Seriously?”
“Quite.”
“Things got worse. The police became involved when his behavior escalated with a series of drunk driving stops. His parents suppressed the charges. Money can do that. We’d signed a prenuptial agreement, and as an heiress, I thought it solely protected me.
I didn’t read the fine print. He had access to my finances and everything of mine went to him when I didn’t walk down the aisle. ”
“Everly,” Grey growls, like the only thing keeping him in the chair and not flying to hunt down Todd is my small hand in his.
“Money isn’t everything. But I spent every penny I had and lucked out when the law firm wasn’t a big fan of Todd after he’d been in litigation with one of their other clients over reneging on a business deal.
I was able to break our ties. Then I left Virginia, taking the diagnosis with me.
That’s where you came in. Looking back, you saved my life, Grey. And that’s it. The whole story.”
Grey hugs me. My eyes flutter closed, like telling him the entire truth took my last drops of energy—or perhaps it’s jet lag.
A short time later, I have a vague sense of floating. Only, it’s Grey carrying me to bed and kissing my forehead before quietly padding out of the room.
I dream of flying through the clouds with my Viking, free from the past.
When I wake up, a few yellow and orange flowers fill a clear vase on the bedside table. The scent of buttery malted vanilla drifts from downstairs.
I stretch and gaze out the window at the lake, a new woman. When I hear the chatter and laughter of one booming voice and one small one filtering up here, I remember I’m also a wife and a mother.
As I recall the kisses Grey and I shared on the deck below, I realize I’m also in love.