Beautiful Mine (Beautiful Rivers #1) (20 page)

Eventually he stops, and we start talking. For an hour we talk, moving from the floor to sitting on the tables eating chocolate, and it’s much more like the way we used to be between us. We talk a lot about Mom and Dad, and old memories, and what life looks like now without them. We even end things with a hug that lingers awhile.

We agree to make things up to Lizzy right away, and are surprised to find her still in her office instead of at home. She’s sitting behind her desk, and watches us warily as we approach her. We each have one hand behind our backs.

I carefully bring my hand out and put a square of dark chocolate in front of her. “I brought you a piece of chocolate.”

Her wary expression is unchanged as she frowns at the little square, molded with a fleur de lis on top.

Rayce puts his offering in front of her, an oversized pecan turtle that’s one of her favorites. “And
I
brought you a
bigger
piece of chocolate.”

Her expression breaks then and she kind of laughs, looking up at us. We’re both smiling.

“We’re sorry,” I say.

She looks at Rayce, hopeful.

“I’m
really
sorry,” he says, in a tone of voice that gets me right in the chest. There’s still so much raw tenderness about him. Now that he’s cracked open, it may take a while to close him back up again.

His apology must have hit Lizzy in the heart too because she immediately gets up and comes around to give him a hug, starting to cry.

“Don’t cry,” he says, holding her. “I’ll be better, I promise.” She keeps crying and he just holds her tighter. “God, I’m sorry.”

“You just had to one-up me in the apology department, didn’t you?”

He smiles at me and Lizzy laughs, pulling back. “I do want my brothers back,” she says again sternly, wiping her tears away. She said brothers, but she’s only looking at him.

“We’ll be here,” he says. “We promise.”

She looks at me to confirm and I wink at her.

She leans back against her desk and takes a deep breath. “Okay,” she says. Looking calmer now, she looks us both over, taking in the big wet spots all over our clothes. “I would apologize for spraying you, but it was pretty gratifying, actually.”

“Don’t get too comfortable with that,” Rayce says, grinning. “You get one free pass. Anything beyond that is open for paybacks.”

Connor

I told Whitney all about it and she was pretty happy, both because I made things official and because Rayce and I seem to have turned a corner. I’m happy too. But something is wrong. And I can’t figure out what.

Worrying is definitely the cause of my insomnia this time. I slept for something like two hours, then woke up in the middle of the night and haven’t been able to get back to sleep.

Why do I still feel so off? I’ve made my decision, and I do think I want to stay. But something is wrong. Something deep inside me feels all riled up. In a panic almost.

It’s bad enough that I get dressed and go for a walk, unable to be still. There’s normally something soothing about being out in the world when it’s this dark and quiet. But my mind won’t be still. It’s all over the place.

Way back when I told my family I wanted to leave the business and go travel the world, it was Mom who was the first to endorse my decision. I was on my old sailboat, stocking the pantry and still feeling raw from the emotional conversation we’d all had at my parents’ house about it. She found me there, helped me pack in my supplies, and talked at first about other stuff. Normal stuff.

When we were done, and I was feeling calmer, that’s when she decided to talk for real. We were sitting out on the deck, looking out at the sea. My boat was ready to go, but still moored to the dock.

“You have a lot of your dad in you,” she said.

I shrugged. While my siblings weren’t exactly keen on the idea of me leaving, they weren’t mad about it like he was. They didn’t tell me I was making a big mistake, like he did.

“He’ll come around,” Mom said reassuringly. “I think your dad just forgets what it’s like.”

“What do you mean?”

“He was pretty restless when he was younger, too.”

“But he didn’t do anything like this.”

“No. He didn’t. But nearly every weekend was about him getting his adrenaline fix. I think once he has a chance to recover from the bomb you just dropped on all of us, the adventurer in him is going to win out and he’ll respect you for what you’re doing.” I was too upset at the time to believe her, but she’d been right. He eventually accepted my decision and later did, in fact, tell me he respected me for it.

“As for me,” Mom continued, “I think this is what you need to do for now.”

“For now?” I said, still feeling defensive. “Like getting it out of my system?”

“I don’t know. You’ve always been your own person, son. I don’t know if this is something you’ll ever get out of your system. It’s always been in you, even when you were little. But… then again… at some point in your life, you may decide you want more.”

More? More what? What could be better than seeing the world and meeting all the people in it? What could be better than chasing that horizon and turning the next corner? As reassuring as my mom was trying to be, her comment only seemed to reinforce my notion that no one in my family really understood how I felt about this. “I can’t image anything more,” I said.

“Which is why you need to go.”

Now, walking the streets of Swan Pointe in the black hour before pre-dawn, letting my feet take me wherever they want to go, a brisk wind pushing me on, I think back on that conversation with my mom. The fog I’ve been feeling for months gradually starts to clear. Things are coming into focus.

I’m able to back up and see the last several years from a distance: my frustrating time in college, breaking away from my family and the life they wanted for me, finally putting my wandering self in the driver’s seat, my failed attempt to change for Evie, and my perpetual itch that I could never quite seem to scratch. Even upgrading from a small sailboat to a trawler once I could afford it, because sailing the coasts wasn’t enough. I had to be able to cross oceans.

And now Whitney.

And the fact that I’ve been here nine months now.

Aside from the occasional visits, it’s only been family tragedy that’s drawn me back for any length of time: Corrine’s cancer and my parents’ death.

I look at it all from a distance, and things become more and more clear, little by little.

At that moment, I realize just where my feet have taken me. I’m turning off the street and crossing the parking lot that’s next to the marina. The sea wind is rushing up to greet me, like an old friend. I could say I came here accidentally, I suppose. But the thing is, here in Swan Pointe, I know what’s around all these corners. I realize now there must have been a part of me that knew exactly where I was going.

For months I’ve been wanting to say that I will stay. I’ve been
wanting
to make my family the promise I knew they wanted to hear. But I refused. Because I wanted to be sure. I didn’t want to make a promise if I was going to just turn right around and break it.

It was Evie all over again, except worse, because it was my family and they were already wounded. Who in the hell wants to be the asshole to put a knife in the wound?

Not me.

I wanted to stay.

I also wanted to leave.

Both in equal measure.

Then Whitney came along. I didn’t want to walk away from her, and now I’ve made all these promises all over the place.

And now, at the worst possible moment in time, as I stand here at the docks in the middle of the night with the wind whipping around me, every voice in my head falls to silence as I gain the clarity I’ve been wanting this entire time.

Now I know why I didn’t want to tell them I’m staying, even after I decided I would. I know why I’m not happy about Whitney’s promotion. I even know exactly what’s brought me here in the middle of the night.

For the first time in months, I know precisely what I want.

Now that I know, I do what I always do. I act. I head down the dock toward my boat and start to untie the stern line.

Minutes later, I’m gone.

Whitney

A fierce storm has been pounding San Francisco mercilessly all morning, but even the dark skies and rain gusts buffeting my window aren’t enough to dampen my mood. Connor told his family yesterday. He finally made a decision for real and he’s staying. He’s really staying.

I’ve made a decision too. I don’t want to do the long-distance thing anymore. I should’ve been upfront with Connor about how I’m feeling. If it doesn’t feel like too big of a step for him right now, I’d really rather try to find work in Swan Pointe rather than take a promotion here. I don’t expect him to make the “ultimate promise”, as he puts it, but I’m willing to take chances if he is.

I’ll call and talk to him about it after work tonight.

Meanwhile, I’m knee-deep in one of our influxes of paperwork as a new group of refugee orphans enter our program. The reason we have this new group is, as always, gut wrenching.

As much as I’ve loved working with these kids, I do think I need to find something less hands-on. Talking to Connor about things helped me feel better about the possibility of that, and as I’ve considered what it would be like to have a job like Manager of Resettlement, it’s made me realize there are other things I can do that will fit my personality better. Things in Swan Pointe, maybe.

So, all in all, that rain can pound on my window all it wants. I’m in love with Connor and at peace with myself.

What could be better?

Our receptionist sticks her head in my office with a strange look on her face. “Whitney, there’s someone here to see you. A Connor Rivers?”

“Connor Rivers?” I glance at my office phone, expecting to see a red light indicating he’s actually waiting on the line for me, even though she said he’s here and not on the phone. “He’s here?” I ask.

She nods. “In the lobby. He’s dripping wet.”

I pop out of my chair and follow her back to the lobby. I see him by the front doors, standing like he’s too restless to sit, and he is indeed soaking wet. I head straight for him as the receptionist goes back to her desk.

He sees me and breaks out into a smile. I smile too. “What are you doing here?”

He gives me a kiss—we forego what would be a very wet hug—but as we pull back and I get a good look at him, it only adds to my confusion because I’ve never seen this expression on his face before. There’s an intensity and anxiety there I can’t read.

“Are you okay?”

He glances at the receptionist. “Is there somewhere we can talk?”

And in that one moment, Connor did what the storm had failed to do all day. “Sure.” I lead him to the small conference room with a terrible sinking feeling in my gut.

We go in and I shut the door. There’s an oblong table in the middle, surrounded by eight straight-back chairs. One wall is all windows with what’s normally a nice eighteen-story view of the bay. Right now it’s hidden by the dark rain.

Connor doesn’t sit. He takes to pacing a bit, looking at the table, and at me, and out the window, and back at me again. I take in his drenched appearance and ask, “How did you get here?”

“My boat,” he says, waving a hand and still pacing.

“In this weather?!” I ask, looking out at the bay again. It’s twice as ominous-looking to me now.

“Yeah. Not the smartest thing I’ve ever done. Damn near capsized trying to come into the bay.”

“What?!”

“But I’m here,” he says, again waving a dismissive hand and still pacing. “I needed to talk to you. You know, I had to come here and talk to you. I had it all worked out how I wanted to say it, and now it’s all jumbled up.” He’s still pacing, and aside from being terrified about whatever it is he wants to say to me, I’m concerned about the way he’s acting. He almost seems in shock. I think about him being out in this storm all morning, and his statement that he nearly capsized.

“Are you hurt?”

“Huh?” He stops and looks at me.

“Did you hit your head?”

His eyebrows shoot up and he blinks at me. Then he breaks out into a broad grin. Then he starts laughing. Like, really laughing.

“Oh my god,” I say, even more alarmed now and pulling out a chair. “Come sit down.”

But he shakes his head, still laughing, and walks right up to me. He puts his hands on my face, still chilled from being outside, and looks down at me. My hands and forearms are on his damp shirt.
God, he has to be freezing,
I think, but with the way he’s looking at me, all I can do is look back. “I love you,” he says, and as my heart lifts at hearing these words from him he plants a firm kiss on my lips.

Now I’m
really
confused, because something seems wrong but he’s telling me he loves me and I don’t know what to think. I kiss him back, out of fear and joy and love and desperation. I’m spinning.

We finally pull away, and I say, “I love you, too.”

He grins and exhales deeply. “You do?”

I nod. “But you’re scaring me.”

“I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t mean to scare you.” He kisses me again reassuringly. “I just… I just realized, I think I may have made a promise but I don’t know if I can keep it.”

I’m really panicking now. “I didn’t ask you to make a promise to me.”
So please don’t go.

“No, honey, no.” He strokes my cheeks and kissed me again. “Not you. My family. Here, come here.” He sits on the chair and pulls me right into his lap with him.

I curl around him, hugging him and his cold, damp shirt, not caring.

He hugs me back. “God, I’m screwing this all up,” he says softly in my ear. “I don’t remember how I was going to say all this, so I’ll just tell you, okay?” He gently pulls me back so we can look at each other. “Just listen and I’ll try to explain it, all right?”

I nod.

“I told my family I would stay,” he says, “but maybe I shouldn’t have. Because you’ve got this great job and this incredible promotion and maybe you aren’t going to want to leave that later, you know? What if you want to stay here and then I’m stuck down in Swan Pointe?”

He pauses, and I don’t know if he wants an answer or what, but my brain’s trying to work this out. What is he saying?

“So, I… okay, look, I’m not trying to get you to make a promise to me before you’re ready,” he says. “And I had it all worked out how I was going to ask you this, but I forget it all now.” He’s back to looking intense and anxious, like he was out in the lobby. “But do you think there’s any possibility you might be willing to move to Swan Pointe in the future?”

My breath catches in my throat.

“You don’t have to say you will for sure,” he says quickly. “I don’t want to rush you. But if you know for sure you wouldn’t want to give up your job or your city, is it all right if you tell me that now? Because then I’ll know what to tell them and I’d rather they know now. I don’t want to blindside them later. Do you understand?”

No, I don’t.
I don’t understand what he’s saying. “So, if I’m not willing to move there, you’ll go back to wandering?”

“No,” he says, urgently, shaking his head and holding my eyes. “No. If you don’t want to go there, I’d want to come here.”

I blink at him. “You’d come here?”

“Only if you want. God, I’m not trying to pressure you or move too fast. It’s just that I told them I’d stay and if there’s a possibility I could take that back, I want to tell them I made a decision too soon.”

“You’d come here?” I say again, my whole heart and body lifting as it sinks in what he’s saying to me.

“Maybe you don’t know where this is going yet, and that’s okay. I’m not asking you to make promises to me you’re not able to—”

“Yes.”

“Yes?” He blinks at me. “Yes, what?”

“Yes, I’d move to Swan Pointe.”

His face softens, and all the anxiety I saw on his face starts to drain away. He strokes my hair. “You would?”

I nod. “But…”

His hand freezes as he watches me.

“I’m…” I stop, then I decide to say the thing I’ve been afraid of all along. “I don’t want to be that leash tying you down.”

He strokes my hair again and smiles. “You’re not. That’s what I realized. You’re my anchor.”

Part of me relaxes, but another part of me is still nervous. “What’s the difference?”

He smiles gently. “It’s like the difference between good impulsive and bad impulsive,” he says, holding my eyes. “There’s always been this restlessness inside of me. It’s always, always been there.”

“The itch you can’t scratch.”

“Exactly!” he says, lighting up the way he does when he gets to a fork in the road, or talks about his parents’ dream, or—I suddenly realize—looking at me. “I thought that itch was for adventure. But it wasn’t. It was the part of me that wanted
more.
Only I didn’t know what the
more
was, so I kept looking for it over the horizon and around the next corner.” He holds my face in his hands and gives me that tender look of his. “That thing I needed,” he says, “that
more,
it was
you.”

He looks at the smile emerging on my lips and smiles too.

“Every time we’ve been apart, even just after Spain, I’ve felt something tugging on me. But it’s not the world that’s calling to me anymore. It’s you. I didn’t realize what it was until I was standing in the marina this morning, looking at my boat, and wanting to follow that tugging all the way here to
you
. Then I realized that for the first time in my life, I have something on the earth I’m anchored to. But it’s not a place or a job or even my family, even though I do love them and want to stay there. Only if you’re there though. Because you are my anchor now. You’re my home port. And God help you if you decide you don’t want me, because you see how persistent I can be.”

I laugh and put my hands on his face and kiss him again and again. “I
love
how persistent you are,” I say as we both grin at each other. “And impulsive and amazing and, god, I just love you.”

“So you might come to Swan Pointe some day?”

“Connor,” I say, exhaling gently. “I’d come to Swan Pointe tomorrow.”

“You would?” he says softly.

I nod. “I really, really wanted you to tell me not to take the promotion.”

“You did?” he says, grinning and giving me a kiss. “I would have but I didn’t want to be a selfish ass.”

“I don’t want it,” I say, shaking my head and threading my hands into the back of his hair. “I only want you.”