She clapped her phone shut and was unable to stop shaking in the aftermath of her admission. She now wished she had waited until she had hit home before she had made the call. At home, she would have at least had the leftover vodka in her freezer to settle her nerves.
It was useless trying to pedal in the state she was in, and so she walked her bike into the trail that cut into the field alongside her cottage. Every second her phone didn’t ring drove her a little madder. She pulled it out three times and checked it, just to make sure it was on and that she had a signal.
Just as she had left her bike on the grass and jabbed her key into the lock, the digital marimba chimed. She nearly dropped the phone trying to get to it.
“Where are you?” was his greeting. “I’m at the hotel. You’re not out back, you’re not at the bar. It’s four o’clock, where are you?”
At the news of his proximity, delight flooded her. Elated giggles popped out of the back of her throat like bubbles. “I quit this morning. I don’t work there anymore.”
“What? Why did--”
“I’m at the cottage. Come here. Come here now.”
“I’m in the parking lot. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
She stood on the deck and twisted her fingers together as she paced, too excited to even sit down to wait for him. Every car that went along the main road was a traitor for not being Noah’s.
Ten minutes was too long. Ten minutes stretched for an hour, a day, for a week.
And then there it was, that green rocket that had knocked her on her ass, kicking up red dust as it tore down the road, driven by the man who had knocked her off her orbit.
As soon as he had set the brake, he was out of the car. Rory bounced down the bottom step.
She was off the ground in an instant, crushed in his arms with his mouth hard against hers. This kiss blew every other kiss out of the water. It didn’t just say
mine,
it said
mine forever.
It lasted until they couldn’t breathe and Noah’s grip began to falter. Smiling against her mouth, he let her drop to her feet. She wasn’t done with him yet. She took a deep breath, stood on her toes, and pulled him close once more.
“Wait, wait,” he gurgled against her mouth and pressed his forehead against hers. Though breaking the kiss, he didn’t break apart from her. He held her just as close. “What happened? What’s different from yesterday?”
“Nothing,” she said in a rush of air. She couldn’t wipe the grin off her face. “Nothing, and everything. It’s just … I didn’t really know how much I needed you until you were gone. Oh God, it’s more than that, though. It’s--it’s
everything
. I’m so scared of this and so unsure, but I know there’s you. There’s you in this with me.” She tilted her head and cupped the back of his head, but as he leaned closer she pulled back. “Why are you here?”
“I …” he raised his brows and opened his mouth, then gave a helpless laugh. “I seriously have no idea. I got up this morning with the intentions of going apartment hunting, and decided I had to come back and wait. I probably would have gone home tomorrow, come back the next day, and just keep doing the same thing as long as I could, or at least until I knew you were gone. Then, I don’t know.”
She slipped her hands down his arms and took his hands. “Come inside. I need to be closed in with you. I need to look at you for a long time. I need to just forget yesterday ever happened.”
“I can think of a few ways to help you out with that.”
Rory stepped onto the veranda and glanced back at him. “Perv.”
He scooped her up the moment she was over the threshold, and as she wrapped her arms around his neck she felt her fear slipping away.
Epilogue
Labor Day weekend had finally arrived, and Rory had to compensate for the urge to speed home from work by turning up the radio.
It was an old song, something she had danced to in her bedroom when she was ten years old, and as the green vistas around her finally gave way to the blue bar of the ocean beyond she felt the frustration of the week sliding from her shoulders.
It was the last big weekend. The four cottages were booked, and then things died down to a trickle--two nights here, two nights there. While it would have been preferable to have no openings until they closed down for the year, she knew that Noah was eager to start construction on the adjacent property, and she was looking forward to having a bit of privacy.
Even after four years, the rugged road leading down to the house still seemed to her like there should be nothing at the end but a tent and an outdoor kitchen. Having this house jut out of the greenery still gave her a bit of a start, but then the feeling of home settled in.
After the wedding, Rory had mused whether their new home would feel like a place to crash for the summer months, as it had felt like since they’d moved from their apartment in Halifax. As the red two-story house that looked over the bay stood proud before them, welcoming Mr. and Mrs. Hyland, Rory had felt it for the first time. She’d squeezed Noah’s hand and she knew she was home.
Home. Thank God.
She parked behind his truck and glanced around for signs of her husband. Instead, as she climbed out of the car and collected her bags, her grandfather called down to her from the deck.
“Over in number five.”
“You think he needs help?”
Cecil snorted. “He’s got all the help he needs.”
If her grandfather was there, she wondered what sort of state she’d find Noah in. More often than not she’d arrived home from work to find him in the same uniform as her grandfather, who had become their part time maintenance man and a mentor to the mechanically inept Noah. By the time she drove up at six o’clock, the two of them could be found covered in sawdust, mortar, dirt, paint, or whatever else they had gotten themselves into that day. In early days, Noah had been on his way to a full beard until she’d complained, and now the worst case scenario was a bit of scruff.
The last cottage, the newest cottage, had the best view, and was set away from the rest of the rentals. It had been the honeymoon suite, a writer’s retreat, and everything in between. She kicked off her heels and followed the gravel path, only to be met with a rousing greeting from her grandfather’s new pup, Tug. Owl’s successor had twice the energy that Owl had when he was a pup, and about half the sense. He ran happily towards Rory and did his best to trip her up before trotting alongside of her.
It still gave Rory a good chuckle when she walked in on Noah cleaning rooms. She always thought back to that day at the bar after he’d completed his first trial in housekeeping. Now he claimed that cleaning rooms after their guests checked out was his favorite job, because it was the easiest.
He faced away from her, bent over the edge of the bed to tuck in the sheet. She leaned on the doorjamb a moment, arms folded across her chest and content to watch him work for a moment.
Tug, having completed a thorough inspection of the rest of the cottage, brushed past her and leapt at Noah’s back.
“Get off, Tug! Go outside and--Jesus! You scared the pants off of me.”
Rory chuckled as he placed his hand over his heart. “I ran into Pa out on the deck. What’s broken?”
“Nothing,” Noah straightened up and hitched a full laundry basket onto his hip. He shuffled around the bed and gave her a kiss on the forehead. “He’s staying the night to man the fort for us.”
“So this means you’re taking the night off?”
“I’m taking the night off. We’re going to the old cottage so you can get me drunk and take advantage of me.”
“Like I need to get you drunk to take advantage of you. Are you sure tonight is the right night to do it? Beginning of the long weekend and all?”
“All of our guests are checked in, all of them over forty and unlikely to require a stern talking to.” He threw his other arm over her shoulders and pulled her close. “As soon as the folks checking into number five show up, we’re on the road.”
Part of her wanted to say no. It had been a long week. Students were back in town and as a result, her commute to the government office where she worked had been a little more congested, and on the way home there had been the holiday weekend crowd to contend with. Sitting on the deck with her husband, a cold beer and an endless sky of stars would suit her just fine.
Their last guest didn’t show up until eight o’clock. It was getting dark as they drove east. Rory slipped out of her sandals and wriggled her toes, then slipped her hand as he reached for her.
“Should we stop into see Mom and Dad on the way?”
She shook her head. “Tomorrow, maybe. Right now I just want to sit and enjoy the quiet.”
“You sound like an old woman.”
“I’ve been up since six o’clock. I feel like an old woman.” She turned the radio on, then slid across the seat to cuddle against his shoulder. “Do you ever think of how weird this is? I know you have the cottages, but you’re basically a househusband, when you think about it.”
He laughed. “Definitely not where I had pictured myself. At least we can afford to do this.”
“Hmmm.” She closed her eyes and tried to remember what it was like for them after they first returned. While Noah finished his studies, Rory had worked as a temp in Halifax. Once they headed back to the island, she managed to get a position covering maternity leave at the University. A year later, she’d gotten her job with the city.
The idea of ever being able to pay back Vincent Hyland seemed impossible. They struggled that first year and tried to hide it, but his father knew.
Whether their being poor had provided Vincent Hyland the motivation, or whether he had been chewing on the idea ever since it became clear that Noah had little desire to take over The White Tip, he’d sold the cottages back to Noah for next to nothing and then sold The White Tip altogether. The hotel was now a part of a national chain, and with the changes they made, even her sister had handed in her resignation and gone to work at another fine dining restaurant in the area.
Now Rory had the life that she wanted. Albeit it was a little different than the one that she imagined, but it was still hers, and she shared it with a man who meant the most to her in the world.
After an hour’s drive, they reached the road to the cottage, and Rory narrowed her eyes at him.
“Why is the outside light on?”
“None of your business, that’s why.”
They drew closer, and when she spotted the yellow and black dome of the tent she shook her head and smiled. “You’re making me leave my warm pillow top mattress to sleep on the ground? I should give you hell for this.”
“But you won’t.” He stopped the truck and popped out. Even before her feet touched the ground, Noah was on the porch, bent over next to the door and fumbling with a cord.
Moments later the tent lit up with the fairy lights he had draped around it. “There. Now when we close the tent flap to keep the bugs out you can still see the stars.”
“Oh,
Noah
.”
Rory followed him across to the lawn. It was perfect. Though they’d bought a bigger tent ages ago, this one was the same that had been pegged to the ground the first night he took her to the place they now called home. This was the one they’d actually spent their wedding night in, even though they had their own big bed in the house.
As she neared, her heart nearly burst out of her chest to see all of the little romantic improvements he’d made. A bucket rested on a table just beyond the tent flap with a bottle of champagne. She bent down and peered inside. There were no sleeping bags inside the tent. A duvet was pulled back from the air mattress and the surface was littered with rose petals.
She couldn’t have loved him more at that moment, and told him so before pulling him into the tent. Shorts and shirt were quickly discarded, and Rory purred once Noah reached for her.
“These are a little naughty.” His voice was thick as he ran his hand over the exposed curve of her ass. At the last moment after her shower, Rory had slipped into a salacious emerald bra and thong set she’d had tucked into the back of her closet for weeks. She’d been saving this for an occasion just like this one.
She crawled slowly on her hands and knees, giving him an eyeful of the green, and as she turned the shadow of her husband’s breadth took up the tent opening.
He knelt on the threshold and yanked his T-shirt over his head. “I still can’t believe I get to sleep next to that body for the rest of my life.”
“I won’t always look like this,” she said as she turned over, and propped up on her elbows as she watched him quickly disrobe.
“It won’t matter.” Down to his boxers, deliciously tented in front, Noah went on his hands and knees. His happy smile turned into a wicked grin as he knelt over her lower half. “As long as you look at me like that until the end of time.”
“Like what?” she whispered, and shuddered as he bowed his head and brushed his lips across her belly.
“Like I’m the only man in the whole damn world and you want me all to yourself.”
“That’s because you are, and I do.”
She chewed on her lip to keep the laughter from fizzing over as he dropped hot kisses around her belly-button. There had been moments like this before, when she had been so giddy to be skin to skin and closed in with him: that day he’d come back to her when she called, their first night in the apartment, the first big snow storm that year when both of their classes were canceled and they’d just stayed in bed, and the August night when he’d asked her to marry him. They’d all made her weak with loving him, but this was even better.
Mine forever.
With a rumbling growl, Noah descended over her abdomen and lower. The heat of his mouth bled through the silk as he sucked her. She lifted her head long enough to watch him peel the thong off, but gave herself over to
him as he draped her legs over his shoulder and began to lap her.
Rory knew he watched her, but she kept her eyes to the artificial sky he had created. The lights over her head winked in and out of focus. She writhed, moving against his mouth in tune with the swipe of his tongue, murmuring his name over and over as pleasure rippled out in rings from her clit. She cupped his head and her fingers twitched in the overgrown thickness.