Stay With Me (34 page)

Standing at the railing like most of the other passengers, I tunneled into my windbreaker a little more as the wind bit into me. I didn’t mind. It wasn’t just a chilling wind. It was crisp, revitalizing. Refreshing. I breathed in deep. Perhaps this had been a good idea after all.

I scanned the shore to see if I could see Nick, and before long, my eyes landed on a familiar figure. We locked eyes for a moment—he was so damned familiar to me. The dark-haired man standing beside him, hands protectively curled on the handles of Nick’s wheelchair? Not so much. My gaze darted between the two figures as the ferry groaned into port, and I was glad I would have at least until the slow-moving ferry docked to examine them at will (most likely ninety-eight days, the way the ship was moving). I wasn’t surprised he was tall—so was I—but everything else about him seemed the antithesis of me.

His muscles seemed to come from cutting wood instead of a gym, and he wore his flannel so comfortably I knew it was a usual look for him, if not a favorite. And he had a beard. My hand stroked over the smooth bottom half of my face. Hmph. Apparently Nick was now into the Paul Bunyan type. I couldn’t help the half smile that crept over my face as I looked at Nick again. The tips of his blond hair curled at his ears and lay against his jacket—a heavy blue thing that looked like it could withstand a windstorm.

I pointed at my jacket and pantomimed a shiver. Then shook my fist. I saw his middle finger flip up, and suddenly we were both grinning. The second my boots hit the dock, we were hugging, Finn running in crazy circles around our feet. I pulled back after realizing our hug had lasted indecently long, but Peyton was only smiling at us indulgently.

I swatted Nick on the shoulder. “It’s fucking freezing here!”

“Please. You’re lucky you beat the frost.”

“Lucky I brought my long johns.”

He shook his head. “A Florida jacket isn’t gonna do it, Mac. Between Peyton and I, I’m sure we can rustle you up some outerwear.”

I looked Peyton up and down. “Hrmm, I think it’s on you, Nick. Unless Peyton’s coat comes with some muscle pads to fill it out.”

Peyton’s belly laugh was as burly as the rest of him. “Good to see you, Mackenzie. You’re just like Nick said you’d be.”

I raised my eyebrows, but Nick only smiled, scratching the wildly sniffing Finn’s floppy ears.

“I couldn’t wait for you to get to the inn,” he said as Peyton tossed my duffle over his shoulder like it weighed nothing at all. “I connived and tricked him into letting me meet you at the dock.”

The walk up to the van was long and hazardous, and I soon realized why it had taken conniving to get Peyton to push Nick all that way. I was having a hard enough time walking, much less pushing another person. Finn spent most of it running ahead and then back down with a confused look on his face, as if to ask “
What
is taking so long?” On the way up, Peyton and Nick entertained me with stories of the guests and the inn, interrupting and complementing each other at the same time. And despite my initial balk at Peyton carrying my bag, by the time we crested the hill, I was beyond grateful.

When we reached the van, Peyton helped Nick into the vehicle with practiced ease. Nick curled his hand in Peyton’s hair and kissed him before he shut the door, and I turned away. I wasn’t jealous of the man, but that moment… that moment stole the wind from my lungs. Replaced it with water. It was that secret, special moment couples share that only takes a second—a shared dance that only they know the moves to. A sudden longing for Jordan was expected but still surprising for its strength. I hadn’t known all the steps to our dance yet. But I’d wanted to. I didn’t know why my eyes suddenly pricked with tears, but I swiped at them, hard. I would not spend this vacation thinking about Jordan.

The five-minute drive from the dock to the inn was uneventful, and despite myself I grew excited as the lush, green scenery flew by. When the Sugar Valley Inn finally broke free of the landscape, I goggled, feasting on the sight of the sprawling two-story house nestled in the mountains. Sugar Valley Inn was exactly what I thought it would be—gorgeous views, a home-style, natural-stone-covered house that blended into the landscape, an
actual
picket fence, and meticulously manicured lawns.

“God,” I breathed, stepping out of the car. My boots crunched on the gravel drive. “Nick, this is beautiful.”

“Surrounded by 200 acres of majestic mountains,” he declared proudly. “Meadows. Ponds. It’s like being part of nature.”

“Amazing.”

“I knew you’d like it,” he said smugly. “So I done good?”

“You done spent a crap load of my money, paying for this trip,” I said, giving him a halfhearted swat. “But yea. You done real good.”

“I told you; you’re not paying us,” he said, wheeling into the beautifully decorated lobby. He waved to two of the guests exiting and pointed a finger at me. “You and Jordan are our guests.” His brow crinkled. “Speaking of….”

“I
am
paying you,” I said, not wanting him to start in on me about Jordan. Somehow, I knew he would make it my fault. It was, but that was beyond the point. “I already arranged it with Peyton. Paid two days ago.” I stuck out my tongue. “So there.”

His incredulous gaze swung to Peyton. “You took his money? I
told
you—”

“Now, babe.” Peyton’s voice was neutral. “He wouldn’t take no for an answer—”

“I told you how he is,” he hissed as I poked around the lobby, snagging an apple and several brochures for activities I probably wouldn’t do. “You can’t give him the opportunity to negotiate. You just do it and tell him later.”

“Funny. That’s exactly what he said about you,” Peyton said, and I could hear the laughter in his voice.

I plucked my duffle from his shoulder and decided to leave him to Nick’s outrage.

“I’m going to see if the upstairs matches the beauty down here, or if there’s flowered wallpaper and antiques to contend with,” I said.

I waved at Peyton. I didn’t know him yet, but I could recognize a how-could-you-desert-me look anywhere. Better him face Nick’s wrath than me explain where Jordan was.

Upstairs didn’t disappoint—big, comfy beds and crackling, warm fireplaces, with the same spectacular view of the mountains. Immediately, I could tell that Peyton had put me in a room better than the one I paid for. The top floor of the home was split into two gigantic rooms, and my key fit one of the gigantic wooden doors.

There was a bowl of red apples, acorns, and nuts on the dresser, which I passed before dumping my luggage next to the huge bed. The whole effect was comfy and cozy, and I hardly blamed Finn for snuggling down next to the fireplace. Well, first he shook his long, wet fur everywhere, spraying me, and
then
he snuggled down next to the fireplace.

I put my hand on the wall, feeling the rich wood paneling that went all the way to the pitched ceiling, which had three skylights that flooded the room with light. I prowled the room like any curious guest, and when I was done, I wasn’t sure which impressed me more—the Victorian king-size or the deluxe whirlpool tub.

There was a perfunctory knock at my door, and I called out, “Come in.”

Nick rolled in, balancing yet another goodie basket on his lap and a map in his teeth. I rescued the map and goodie basket and set them on the side table.

“What’s all this?”

“Guest amenities,” he said, smiling. “I want you to be comfortable.”

“At this point, if I was any more comfortable, I’d be dead.”

“We deliver breakfast in the morning,” he informed me. “I would tell you all about our menu, with the finest of seasonal and locally sourced foods, but I know where your heart is. Peyton makes a killer blueberry cheesecake french toast.”

I simply stared at him. “You had me at deliver.”

He laughed and swatted me. “I guess your order is in.”

“With bacon,” I said slyly, testing my luck.

“With bacon,” he parroted back.

“And coffee.”

“Vermont-roasted, dark.”

“Mmm.” I shouldn’t be this excited for breakfast. “That covers tomorrow, but what about today? I feel like I could eat a bear. Or at the very least an elk.”

Nick looked amused. “Sorry, no big game served here. Only the occasional venison when Peyton gets his way. I did prepare some lunch, but I wanted you to get settled first.”

I used my foot to move my duffle closer to the dresser. One inch. “Settled.”

He grinned. “Come on. We can eat in the kitchen and catch up.”

My evading lasted until we were ensconced in a comfy kitchen nook, our plates loaded up with heavy chicken salad sandwiches with crisp lettuce and plenty of juicy vine-ripe tomato. Peyton dropped off tall, sweating glasses of iced tea and dropped a kiss on Nick’s forehead. “I’ll be out back.”

“Don’t be late for dinner.”

“Where’s he going?” I asked as he strode toward what I assumed was a door to the back.

“Out to chop wood. We’re expecting more cold weather in the next few days. We’re trying to be prepared.” Nick followed Peyton’s tall body all the way to the door with his eyes, and he didn’t blink until the door swung shut. When Nick looked back my way, he colored at my amusement and shrugged. “What?”

“Don’t worry. I love to watch my man walk away too.”

He dug into his sandwich. “Speaking of which, where is this Jordan you’ve been going on and on about?”

“We didn’t….” It was harder to say the words than I thought. “We didn’t work out.”

Nick’s eyes went wide. “You
didn’t
.”

“Now, why does it always have to be
my
fault?” I asked, forgetting for a moment that this time it absolutely was.

“Well, was it?”

“Well. Yeah, I did dump him but—”

“I knew it!” Nick shook his head, mumbling around his food. “I knew you would screw it up before it had a chance to succeed.”

“Very nice,” I growled, biting into my own sandwich. “But this time, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Jordan and I didn’t work out because he is having a little trouble letting go of his ex-fiancée, who is now pregnant. And being gay, even if he won’t admit it.”

“That’s a lot of change at once,” Nick said, nodding understandingly. I had a feeling his understanding was for Jordan and not me, which he soon confirmed. “Babies are a big deal. What a wonderful addition to your life, though.”

“Well.” My brow furrowed. I guess that was one way to look at it.

“And as for being gay, you and I both know it’s hard enough to fall in love without it changing everything you believed about yourself, all at the same time.”

“Well. Yeah, I’d imagine….”

“Not to mention the sexual changes at that. Looking at everyone differently, yourself differently, wondering if everything you ever knew was a lie or just half the truth of who you were. Are his parents very supportive?”

“I don’t exactly know… if he told them,” I trailed off, picking at my napkin.

“Well, at least he had you to confide in.”

“Hmm.” I thought back to all the times he tried to talk about this new “lifestyle,” as he called it. How angry I would get and usually shut it down. It had just seemed like the more he analyzed the new things happening to him, the more I was afraid he would see that I was a mistake. That he didn’t
like
where the new things were taking him. That he wanted things to go back to the way they were. “I didn’t really—”

“Jesus.” Nick shook his head. “You are truly determined to be alone forever.”

“Not fair,” I said angrily. “I may have not been the perfect confidant for him, but he did lie to me.” And I explained in detail exactly how he had lied. Nick could not have been less sympathetic.

“Good to know you’re judge, jury, and executioner.”

“You don’t understand.”

“I understand, Mackenzie. I understand you better than your brother, better than your father ever did. I was there when your dad told you the truth about your mom, remember? And I saw you change into someone who was so afraid of losing everyone that you pushed them away first. The more Jordan analyzed the relationship, the more confident you became that he would find out what a mistake it was and leave you. So you left first.”

I looked at him, feeling raw and exposed. My eyes burned a little, and I was glad no one else was there to see me like this. The faint
chop, chop, chop
was soothing, as Peyton chopped wood methodically.

When Nick spoke again, his voice was barely a whisper over the classical music piping in over the sound system. “And how do you feel now?”

“I… hurt.”

I realized that my sentence-making ability had broken down completely, but it described my insides perfectly. I hurt, and there was no fancying that up. Deep down to my chest, where it seemed to seep into the bone and settle there, cold and weary. I had thought I’d made a clean break before things got messy. But irrespective of how long we’d known each other, I was already in too deep. There was no clean break.

I buried my head in my hands. “I
hurt
.”

He grabbed me into a hug, face in hands and all—really just wrapped his arms around me so tight I was afraid my bones would crack. “See, Mac, that’s why getting out before anyone can hurt you doesn’t work. You hurt anyway.”

“Well, I was right, wasn’t I?” I cried out. “He accepted it with little more than a ‘see ya’ in return.”

“I’m sorry,” Nick said, over and over into my hair. “I’m sorry.”

I was too. Sorry I had ever loved. Sorry I had ever lost. Sorrier still when Finn made off with the rest of my chicken sandwich, plucked delicately off my plate while I cried in Nick’s arms.

“Shoo!” Nick said, waving his hands, and Finn took off with his treasure to parts unknown. “I’ll make you something else.”

I shook my head.

“You want to take a nap?” He rubbed my hair soothingly. “Or are you up for a tour? Take your mind off things.”

I nodded. “I’ll take that tour.”

“I’
M
NOT
doing it.” I glared up at Nick.