7. Chapter Seven
Chapter Seven
Forrest
She goes quiet on the ride back.
It’s not the easy quiet we've built over three weeks of mornings working together in comfortable silence.
This quiet is different, tight around the edges, like she's having an argument with herself.
She's wrapped in the blanket with her knees pulled up, watching the dark water slide past, and every mile closer to the launch I feel her drifting further out of reach.
I could tell her what I think she wants to hear. That it’s no big deal that we’ve slept together. That we’ll keep it easy, keep it light, keep it just for the summer.
Just for the summer… I’m really starting to hate those words.
But I can’t lie to Aileen. It hasn't been casual for me since her motor flooded the first morning in that cove. I want her to stay in Mercury Ridge, with me, for the rest of our lives. But if all I get is the summer, I'll take it. And I’ll make sure it’s a summer she never forgets.
I tie off at the launch and step out first, then hold out my hand. She takes it, but the second her feet hit the dock she pulls away, wrapping the blanket tighter around herself.
"I should go," she says. "I have to get up early for sampling tomorrow."
"Aileen."
She stops, but she doesn't turn around.
"Please don’t pretend like tonight didn’t happen," I say. "I can take a lot, but not that."
She turns then. The dock lights catch her face and her eyes are bright. Too bright.
"It happened," she says. "And it was wonderful. But in five weeks this survey ends, and I get in that truck and I drive to a lake in Minnesota, because that's the job, that's the life, and I don't know how to—" Her voice cracks. "I don't know how to be with someone and not completely lose myself.”
I close the distance between us and take her cold hands in mine.
“I’d never let you lose yourself," I say. "I want you exactly as you are.”
“But I’m leaving—”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”
She shakes her head. “I’m scared, Forrest.”
"So am I," I admit. "I'm terrified that once you leave, I’ll spend every day searching the faces in every boat I see, hoping it’s you coming back to me.”
She takes a ragged breath. “But if we end things now, we can just move on with our lives and—”
I bark a laugh. “Maybe you can, Doc. But I’m already a goner. You’re it for me. And I’ll keep you as long as I can, even if it’s just for the summer.”
She exhales, long and shaky, and some of the tension goes out of her shoulders. “You want to keep me?”
“Yes. For as long as you’ll let me. But not at the expense of your hopes and dreams. If you want to keep traveling from lake to lake, okay. Let me come with you.”
She gasps. “But you love Mercury Ridge.”
I nod. “I do.”
“Then why…?”
“I love you more.”
Her mouth falls into a pretty little O. “You love me?”
“Of course, I do. In my wildest dreams I never imagined I’d meet a woman who’s so beautiful, so smart, and willing to spend all day fishing with me, too. You’re the perfect woman.”
She laughs, and then her face turns serious. “I could stay in Mercury Ridge.”
I go so still my heart forgets to beat. “Wh-what do you mean?”
"I’ve been offered a permanent district transfer. I’d monitor Lake Mercury and three other lakes in the state, year-round. I could accept it. I think I want to. I’d love the work, and Mercury Ridge is beautiful.”
“I know you’d be happy here. But I also know I can be happy wherever I am, if I’m with you. So, if you accept the job, accept it because you really want it.”
She rises up on her toes and kisses me, right there on the dock under the lights, and I wrap her up in my arms and hold on the way I've wanted to since that very first morning.
Behind us, I hear a truck horn honk twice and Ace hollers out the window, “Way to go, Forrest!”
Everybody knows everybody in Mercury Ridge. By breakfast, everybody's going to know this too.
And I couldn't be happier about it.