“Someone missing you?”
I snort. “Not likely. I should visit Heidi before I leave, though.”
“Before you leave,” Grey echoes, reminding me of when we first met and he was all clouds, rain showers, and ghosts. “How about you stay? I don’t want anyone else in my life leaving.”
This is the cue to ask Grey about the football season, but I’m not as brave as I was at Mrs. Nelson’s house. Instead, I say, “Tell me more about Bran.”
His voice cracks a few times, but for the next hour, Grey tells me stories of growing up with Bran, when he enlisted in the military, and how he was a hero. Their brotherhood, the pranks the boys would pull. Grey’s family, which I want to be part of, roots me back to life in the Upper Peninsula.
He grips the back of his neck. “After losing Bran, I devoted one hundred percent of my energy to football. It was the only way I could deal.”
“And now?”
His mouth opens and closes. “I don’t know. I haven’t thought about what’s next.”
And without meaning to, at last, we arrive at the destination we’ve both been avoiding. “...Aside from puttering around in your garden and cooking.”
He shifts as though the conversation about the past and future makes him uncomfortable.
Doubt smudges the perfect landscape of our future that I’d drawn in my mind. “I don’t want to think about it either. But the first two rules of Marriage Club stand.”
Grey’s phone rings and the wordHammerslides across the screen. “He sent me some footage to watch. I should get that.”
A cookbook with a shiny spine that caught my attention earlier brings me to my feet. I decide to learn a new recipe each week. I run my finger along the grilling cookbooks, Italian cuisine, camping cookbooks, and others with recipes that specialize in foods that go in bowls, wraps, and juices. I settle on breakfast and bookmark a recipe. Then, since it’s a rainy afternoon, I search for a good mystery. I reach the end of the lowest shelf, where a slim leather book is wedged next to a bicycle repair manual.
I pull it out and part the pages to discover it’s a photo album. I’m nosy, but I know that I shouldn’t pry. However, a familiar face stares back at me from a picture of a beardless Grey and a woman who must’ve spent a lot of time in the sun and even more at a hairstylist getting her hair bleached.
I hardly believe my eyes, but as I flip through, I recognize the woman on Grey’s arm, the one holding a newborn, the one from my wedding day.
She’s a princess all right.
My stomach knots. I don’t know what to do with this information because it’s no longer funny. It’s galaxies-colliding crazy.
Grey’s voice rumbles in the other room. A whisper in my head says to go directly to him and tell him what I discovered, but I remain glued to the spot as I study the vaguely familiar face. However, it’s more the woman’s voice that echoes in my head like a bad dream. Behind Grey and Princess stands someone else, someone I didn’t recognize until now. He looks a lot like Grey and I’ve seen him before as well. Not long ago, in fact.
An icy cold feeling pours through me. It’s like I plunged into the lake and a heavy pressure pushes against my chest. I’ve made a lot of bad decisions in my life and bringing this to the surface will likely turn into one of them. I’m too close to the situation not to get burned.
However, I grab my cell phone and send a text because I’m done being threatened. The tables have turned.
Just as I presssendon the text, Grey’s heavy footfalls approach. I shove the photo album under the couch cushion.
“I forgot to tell you, I didn’t get around to fixing the kayak oar.”
I nod as if through a fog.
He continues, “The one that accidentally got stuck between two rocks the last time we were out.”
I’m frozen, locked in what I just learned.
Grey claps his hands together. “When Sonny wakes up, I was thinking of going for a row, but maybe a hike instead since the rain let up, and I think there are a few wild blueberries left on the bushes over by the cove. He’d like that.”
When I don’t answer, Grey adds, “Buttercup, you okay? You look like you saw a ghost.”
“Something like that,” I mumble. “But I’m fine. Going out on the lake sounds perfect.”
“I suggested a hike.”
“Oh, right.” I get up on shaky legs and leave my phone on the counter. I’m probably just overthinking this, but how can we move forward when it turns out there is so much in our past that we share?
