But Bailey had been sick the week before we were together and taking prescription antibiotics. She claimed her and Stone hadn’t had sex in a month. She was lonely and sad and none of it was an excuse for what we did, where we ended up or what the future flipped on us.
“I married her,” I remind Vale. “She’s the mother ofmykid.”
Josh. The reason I wouldn’t ever change any of it. Despite my deep remorse over imploding a life-long friendship, severing family ties, and marrying Bailey, I could never ever regret my son.Never.
Josh was an entirely different kind of mess I couldn’t tackle with Vale right now. Not while we were discussing the destruction with Stone.
“And you divorced her because something was never right between the two of you.” Vale glares at me, strong in her conviction, although we’ve never discussed the reason behind my failed marriage. “And you brought Josh here. To Rogue River. To home and family.” Vale points at the floor, like coming back here was some kind of atonement for what I’d done, and not me tucking my tail and hanging my head for the wrong I’d done.
Sterling Falls had been our initial destination, but I couldn’t live in the same town as Stone, as the Sylver family, so I selected the next one over and raised my son here.
“You came back for—” She falters and clamps her mouth shut.
As much as I want to know what else she thinks I came back for, I’m equally afraid of some misplaced misconception she might have about me. I’m not a worthy person.
A crush, she’d admitted the night of the concert.Shehas blinders on, not seeing me for the villain I am in her family’s history.
“I don’t think we should keep doing this.” I stand taller, shocking myself as well as Vale with the sudden decision, even as my stomach pitches and my chest squeezes.
“Don’t say that.” She steps toward me, but I step back, needing to keep some distance before I do something stupid, like pull her to me and beg her to never leave me. Beg for forgiveness I shouldn’t ask from her. Put her in a position where she feels she must choose me or them, and it will never be me. She shouldneverpick me.
“I have to go,” I lie, glancing at the clock on my stove, like I have some pending appointment when I simply need to get out of my house, away from all the memories that cover every corner here. Away from her.
Vale has been like a new roof over an old worn one, once neglected, weathered and battered. She was shelter and protection and a revival I hadn’t known I’d longed for.
But now, I need to move on. Forherown good.
30
[Vale]
He was lying. He was also scared.
But I was pissed.
After another blissed-out lunch break, Cort pushed me away, and at first, I couldn’t leave him behind fast enough.
But by the time I’d returned to work, I’d had time to reflect on what he’d said. The emotion and anguish in his tone. The pain of what he’d donetwenty-plusyears ago and the unforgiving nature of its aftereffects.
Cort’s sudden absence was like a vacancy in my heart. He hadn’t reached out to me after making his bold declaration and I didn’t want to appear like a heartbroken woman, desperately clinging to a fling. However, Cort never felt like something flimsy and fleeting. Maybe he wasn’t forever, but we were more than sex. We had history, and we were maximizing the present.
On Monday, I called in sick. Something I rarely ever do andthen played hooky from life. It had been too long since I’d gone on a hike in the area surrounding Sterling Falls, the namesake of our town, and I longed to be outdoors. I could have been mothering my bees, but I’d spent time checking on the hive over the weekend, and being home wasn’t an option if I wanted to skip out on life for a little while.
Once I reached the forest park, I quickly found the trailhead leading to the falls. A variety of routes existed to reach the glistening destination. An easy walk around the water. A steep climb up the nearby boulders. Or a moderate hike through the trees and along the river’s edge a few feet above the shallow canyon. On one side of the lower river was a notch of space that wasn’t particularly deep but rather tall. A foot path proved that others had frequented the trail to the natural grotto.
I was hopeful that on a Monday morning the space would be vacant, and I could just sit and meditate, and attempt to regroup. Far too much time has passed since I’d done something like this to center myself. Thinking about Cort was not an option. I didn’t want to focus on how angry I was, feeling tossed aside once again by him. I didn’t want to lean into this negative energy swirling in my gut and clawing my heart.
With each step I took, I tried to separate myself from my thoughts, giving my concentration to the sound of falling water and the soft rush over large river rocks. Embracing the whisper of the trees and the speckled sunlight filtering through the canopy over my head. Up the narrow incline, that barely allowed for the width of one person, I hiked among the mystique of nature, anxious for the magical destination. With each placement of my feet, I felt lighter.
Until I round the large rock formation and stumble upon a familiar-looking man.
He’d been standing just inside the open space, his hand widespread and bracing him against a boulder. His head is lowered as if he is praying. I make a quick note of where hestands, as if I am looking from the outside into my past. At the spot where he pressed me face-first toward those boulders and entered me from behind, shielding my body from the possibility of a rogue hiker seeing us, filling me with his lust and momentary desire.
“Cortland?”
At the surprised call of his name, Cort drops his hand and spins to face me. My first inclination is to smile. To express relief in seeing him. To question the strange destiny of stumbling upon him in the place we shared history together.
But the stricken look in his eyes and hard clench of his jaw reminds me that he’d told me he was done.
