Saving Forever (The Ever Trilogy: Book 3) (2 page)

“Hey, Carter, hold up.” I stopped, hearing a curious note in my brother’s voice. “It’s less than month until August, and I was just…I know it’s been a rough year for you. And I guess I wanted to know how you’re doing. If you’re…feeling better…about things.”

I knew what he meant. And I knew how hard it was for my brother to come right out and ask me about it. But I didn’t have an answer for him. I just met his gaze, trying for his sake to summon some words. Nothing came. Eventually I just sighed and shook my head, then turned and left.
 

I heard his voice ring out as I closed the door behind me. I turned back, watched him rub his forehead with a knuckle. “It’s been a year, Carter. You gotta get better. We need you here, bro. We need you at a hundred percent.” His voice was resigned, weary, concerned.

I wished I could tell him I was doing my best. I wished I could tell him anything. But I couldn’t. I turned away without answering, hearing his sigh of frustration. I got my tools from my truck, measured the doorframe, made some notations, and then spent the next few hours in my workshop making a new door for Kirk’s office. I ended up having to replace the frame as the well as the door itself, so it was after eight at night before I left the winery.
 

I took the long way home. I parked in my spot at the post office, locked my truck, shouldered my dry-bag, and circled the block on foot. I wasn’t ready to go home. It was quiet, and empty. Lonely. Once I swam home to the island, there’d be nothing to do but kill time until I was tired enough to sleep.
 

So I walked around the block, hoping for a distraction. I was nearly back to the beach when I heard music. It came from one of the cottages facing the beach. That particular cottage had been empty for years. I knew that because I’d thought about buying it when I’d first moved up here and needed somewhere to live that wasn’t the winery. It wasn’t for sale, I’d been told. I ended up finding the island, which was perfect in so many ways.
 

Now there were lights on in the cottage, and the windows were open. The front door was ajar, with only the screen door in place. I slowed my steps as I got closer, and then came to a stop.
 

It was a cello, being played by a consummate professional. I recognized the skill because Britt had been a classical music freak. She’d dragged me to endless concerts, symphonies at the DSO, in San Francisco and Boston and New York. Her favorite was the London Philharmonic, and she’d brought me half a dozen times. I’d never understood it, really. There were no words—nothing concrete I could grasp onto. Just the music, and it never quite captured my imagination. The only time I’d really enjoyed a show was when we’d seen Yo-Yo Ma with…I couldn’t remember which orchestra. I do remember being captivated by the way he’d played the cello. I’d kept wishing the stupid symphony would shut up so I could hear him play by himself.
 

What I was hearing right now sounded like that. A single cello, low notes wavering in the sunset glow. I edged closer to the screen door and peered in.

It was her. The girl from the beach. Facing me, the cello between her knees, her arm sliding back and forth, the bow shifting angles ever so slightly. Her fingers moved in a hypnotic rhythm on the strings, flying with dizzy speed and precision.
 

The music she played was…mournful. Aching. She played a soundtrack of pain and loneliness. Her eyes were closed. I was maybe six feet away from her, but she didn’t see me, didn’t hear me. I watched through the screen door, riveted. God, this close, she was even lovelier than I’d imagined. But the pain on her face…it was heartbreaking. The way she played, the way her expression shifted with each note, growing more and more twisted and near tears, it made my soul hurt for her. Just watching her made me want to throw the screen door open and wrap her up in my arms, making everything okay. I didn’t dare breathe for fear of disrupting her. I knew I was being a creeper, watching her unbeknownst like this, but I couldn’t move away. Not while she continued to play.
 

Jesus, the music. It was thick, almost liquid. I closed my eyes and listened, and I could almost see each note. The low notes, deep and strong and male, were like golden-brown ribbons of dark sunlit gold streaming past me. The middle tones were almost amber, like sap sliding down a pine trunk. The high notes were the color of dust motes caught in the rays of an afternoon sun. The notes and the colors twisted together, shifting, coruscating and tangling, and I saw them together, shades of sorrow melding.

She let the music fade, and I opened my eyes, watching her. She hung her head, the bow tip trailing on the carpet at her right foot. Her shoulders shook, and her loose and tangled hair wavered as she cried. God, I wanted to go to her. Comfort her.
 

But I couldn’t. My feet were frozen and my voice was locked. As I watched, she visibly tensed, muscles straining, and she straightened; her shoulders lifted and her head rose and the quiet tears ceased. Her eyes were still closed, but her cheeks were tear-stained. They needed to be kissed clean, the tears wiped away. Such perfect porcelain shouldn’t be tear-stained.
 

The way she pulled herself together was awe-inspiring. She was clearly fighting demons, and refused to give in. Refused to let them take hold. I pivoted away from the door as she took a deep breath and clutched her bow. I waited, my back to the wall beside the door, and then, with a falter, the strains of the cello began again, slow and sweet, speaking of better times to come.
 

I forced my feet to come uprooted, forced them to carry me past her door. To the beach. Into the water. I tugged my shirt off and stuffed it, along with my keys, phone, and wallet, into the dry bag, cinched it tight on my shoulders. Strode out into the cool, lapping water, kicking the moon-silvered waves until I was chest deep and then dove in. I set a punishing pace. I’d be exhausted by the time I got to my island, but that was what I wanted. I needed the tiredness, the brain-numbing limpness of exhaustion. It kept the memories from coming back. Let me almost sleep without nightmares. Almost.
 

I swam the two and a half miles in record time. I could barely drag myself onto the dock by the time I got there, but my mind was still racing a million miles a second. This time, thank god, it was with thoughts of the girl. The cellist. I kept seeing the sadness in her expression, the loneliness. The pain and the fear.
 

What was it, I wondered, that could bring that kind of searing pain to such a sweet and perfect beauty? I needed to know. But I might never find out if I couldn’t get myself to talk to her.

Or to talk at all.

It had been eleven months since I’d spoken a single word. But for
her
, I might find the courage to simply say hello.

the sculpture
 

I didn’t see her on the beach again for a few days. It’d be a lie to say I wasn’t looking for her on the beach, but that itself was a cop-out, since I knew where she lived. But I couldn’t tell
her
that. If I just showed up at her door, I’d seem like a stalker. Especially since I’d probably just end up standing there, flapping my mouth open and closed like a fish out of water, unable to speak. So I swam from island to shore in the morning and looked for her on the beach, and I swam from shore to island at night and looked for her on the beach. I never went by her house, refusing to let myself go around the block again. There was no point. No matter how much part of me might have liked the way she looked, there was no way I could handle actual interaction with her.
 

I’d never been particularly talkative. I’d always been far more comfortable with a tool in my hand and wood on the table than interacting with people. Britt had found a way through my shyness, but it had taken her months to do so. And even then, when she’d gotten me to ask her out and we’d started dating, I’d never been the kind to just blurt out whatever was in my head. She used to joke that most days she could count the number of words I spoke on the fingers of both hands, and that wasn’t far from the truth.
 

I’d spent a long hot day spent in the workshop, roughing out the basic shape of the bar. Kirk and Max wanted something big and badass and handmade, and that’s what I would deliver. I’d hauled several huge lengths of oak into the shop, what amounted to thirty feet of solid oak. The idea I had was three separate sections making a U-shaped bar, each of the three sections hand-carved from a solid piece of oak. Each side would look different, but it would all tie together somehow. I didn’t have any particular designs in mind, but that was just how I worked. I started with an idea and let the wood tell me what it needed to be. I was days away from any kind of actual design work yet, though. For now, I had to get the giant logs into some kind of shape that I could work with.
 

By the end of the day I was exhausted, covered in sawdust, dripping sweat, and looking forward to a slow and leisurely swim home. I parked my truck, stripped down to the swim shorts I wore under my jeans, stuffed my things in the bag. I was lost in thoughts of the bar, of what I’d have to do the next day, so I wasn’t paying attention to the beach.
 

I nearly tripped over her. She was lying on her back, hands folded on her stomach, huge black sunglasses covering face, wearing a purple one-piece swimsuit. She had a book lying face-down next to her head on the beach blanket and a bottle of water on the other side. I froze as soon as I saw her, my bare foot scuffing, kicking sand onto her blanket and against her thigh.

She tipped up her sunglasses, and her jade gaze pinned me in place. I should apologize. I formed the words in my head, spoke them aloud in my mind.
I’m sorry
. But nothing came out. My mouth opened, but I couldn’t make any sounds emerge. Stupidly, I just stared down at her, blinking, stunned by the vibrant shade of the green of her eyes. She seemed to be waiting, lying there staring up at me, sunglasses on her forehead, a faint frown pinching her brow and pale pink lips.
 

I clenched my fists, shook my head, and trotted into the water, diving in without hesitation. I stayed under as long as I could, kicking hard and pulling at the water, not surfacing until I was past Mr. Simmons’ rarely used Sunfish sailboat, anchored a good hundred feet or more from shore. I cast one brief glance back at the shore, saw her standing at the water’s edge, a hand shading her eyes. Looking for me?

Embarrassment at my caveman behavior shot through me, and I did a few crawl strokes, and then dove back under, gasping a deep breath and kicking beneath the surface until my lungs burned. I surfaced, ventilated, then oriented myself by looking for the arms of the peninsula and the mainland. Then I dove back under. The next time I surfaced, the beach was a faint line behind me and she was out of sight. I was panting and my arms shook, and I had to roll onto my back to catch my breath. I kept kicking, kept moving homeward, thinking of her. Those eyes. What had she been thinking? Her expression hadn’t given anything away, except maybe curiosity. But how could she not be curious? I’d just stood there like a buffoon, after kicking sand on her. That swimsuit. God. It was a one-piece, but it was the kind that hugged tight in all the right places, cut high around her hips and low between her breasts, with little cutouts at her sides.
 

I rolled over to my stomach and kicked into an easy crawl, pushing images of blonde hair and green eyes and fair skin out of my head. By the time I got home, I had to pull myself onto the dock, trembling and weak, and I nearly fell asleep there with the late-evening summer sun warming my skin.
 

I made myself get up and go inside. I showered off the lake water, then went out to my workshop. I didn’t have the energy to work that night, but I made myself go out and look at it. The Sculpture. Her. Britt, in that last moment. I stood in front of it, staring at the lines, at her hands clutched into fists. I’d started there, with her hands. The way she’d held them in front of herself, the way they’d trembled. As if holding on, so desperately. On the sculpture, her face was blank. I couldn’t bear to carve the expression that had been on her face that day. Not yet anyway. I could see it, though. I could feel the chisel scraping the wood shavings away from her eyes, from her mouth. I was nearly done. I had to finish her legs and feet, and then I’d have to start on her face. Maybe once I finished, I’d find the strength to speak again.
 

I left her there--—the carving of Britt. Even with her unfinished face, I could feel her staring up at me. The way she’d stared up at me that night. I turned off the light and closed the door to my shop, drank a beer and watched TV until I felt sleepy enough to go to bed.
 

~ ~ ~ ~

A week later the girl was there, on the beach, just past dawn. This time, she was dressed in running gear, and even from fifty feet off shore I could tell she’d been running hard. She was bent over at the waist, hands on her knees, panting, ponytail hanging down by her face. I made my way slowly up to the beach, kicking the water louder than necessary so she’d know I was there. She heard me, straightened, hands on her hips.
 

Jesus, those hips. I brushed my hair back, stopped ten feet away from her, the water lapping at my calves. She was glistening with sweat, and each deep, gasping breath stretched the white material of her sports bra. I forced my eyes to hers, and again she kept her expression carefully neutral. But I could see the pain in her face. Not physical pain. Something deeper than that. The same pain that had informed the way she’d played the cello that night.
 

I moved past her, waving once, giving her a polite smile this time. It was something. It was communication. Almost.

Once I arrived at the winery, I helped the guys tend to the vines for a few hours, then went into the workshop and finished the rough shapes of the bar pieces. She was on my mind all that day as I worked, the careful neutrality of her expression, as if that vulnerability I’d seen the first time we’d met had been an accident, something she hadn’t meant to let me see. I kept pushing her out of my mind, and she kept working her way back in. As I ran the hand-held planer across the oak, I wondered if she was waiting for me to speak, or did she think I was a mute, or just rude. I wondered what her story was, why she was here, appearing so suddenly. Maybe it was just vacation, a couple weeks in June spent alone on a remote beach.