“I borrowed it.” I tucked my feet close as he laid a muddy oar beside them. “But I was going to bring it back.”
He went to the far end of the boat, twisting it to and fro until it loosened at last. “You borrowed a boat in your pajamas and took it out at night when you don’t know how to swim?”
“That was more Lady Victoria Jordan’s fault than mine. From my book.”
As he began pulling the boat to shore, I told him all about her rebellion, her long white gown, and the wicked charms of Lord Devereaux.
“Why is she so against marriage?” he asked. “And what makes Lord Devereaux’s charms wicked as opposed to being, you know, charming?”
He’d actually been listening to me, something my mother had never done. My love for him grew tenfold in that moment. “She’s fiercely independent. And he’s wicked because he doesn’t want to settle down.”
He raised a brow. “So they want the exact same thing, but it only makes him wicked?”
I was about to explain that Lord Devereaux was also a rake, which was apparently both the best and the worst thing a man could be during that historical period, but we’d already reached the dock. It had gone too fast, this time with him, and I’d wasted all of it telling him about a book when I’d meant to tell him about me.
I wanted him to know that I’d won an art contest, that today was my birthday, that my mother was beautiful and if he could just wait a couple of years, I probably would be too. But I didn’t know how to get it all out, so I stood in silence while he dragged the boat back under my aunt’s deck.
“I’m not going to tell anyone,” he said when he returned, “but you’ve got to promise me you won’t go out on the lake again until you’ve learned to swim.”
When I nodded, he gave me one last grin. “In that case, Lady Victoria, I bid you good night.”
We’d speak a few more times after that—me sneaking out of the house whenever my aunt was gone and making enough noise for him to hear me—but four years’ difference was a big deal back then. I was always a child, and he was always nearly grown.
Everything Ruth had went to me—her way, I think, of apologizing for all those years she spent keeping my father’s secret—and in the end that money helped me pay for college, but I wonder what might have happened if Caleb and I had had the chance to get to know each other as teens, as young adults. If Ruth hadn’t died and if his mom hadn’t sold their house, might something have happened between us? Could we have become the thing I dreamed of as a kid?
Because it still feels like I lost something I was meant to keep.
“Mommy, who’s that guy?” Sophie asks, interrupting my reverie. She is pointing at the dock, where that boy I was meant to keep is climbing off a much nicer boat than ours. He’s in shorts and a t-shirt today, and I stare against my will at his sharp jaw, his hard calves, those corded biceps bigger than my thighs.
I can’t fault the childhood version of me for being tongue-tied the night we met—a whole lot of fully grown women would be tongue-tied faced with that.
He sets down the big hunk of metal he’s carrying when we pull up and holds out his hand for the rope to help us dock, though it’s clear his assistance is being provided reluctantly.
“Sophie and Henry,” I say, lifting them each from the boat, “this is our neighbor, Mr. Lowell.”
Henry, normally reticent, steps forward and picks up a piece of the metal thing Caleb laid on the dock.
“Henry, stop,” I scold, climbing the ladder after them. He ignores me, grabbing a second piece and fitting it to the first.
“How did you know they went together?” Caleb asks Henry. There’s curiosity, not irritation, in his voice, as if he’s speaking to another adult.
Henry doesn’t answer, but a glimmer of something like a smile passes over his face, and I feel that familiar tightness in my throat, pinching behind my eyes. I want so much for him I could burst with it, and I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to give him anything at all.
“Do you have kids?” Sophie demands. I’m sure none of this is countering Caleb’s disdain for children.
A muscle flexes in his jaw. “No.”
“Do you have a girlfriend?” she barrels on. “My daddy has a girlfriend. Her name is Whitney and she’s still in college. That’s why we live here now.”
Oh, God.
“Who told you that?” I croak, the blood draining from my face.