What's Left Behind (26 page)

Rob zipped the water back in his pack and took her hand. He swung their hands between them, and they walked along the hard-packed sand. Roaring ocean, bright moonlight, and the right guy. All she needed was a dip in the Spirit Pond-fed Morse River and the guts to find her voice.

“Ex finally put the house on the market,” Rob said, beating her to it.

“Really?”

“Yup, looks like I won’t have to live in my office forever.”

“Time to look for something more
permanent?
” Abby’s mouth tingled, same as years ago when she’d readied herself to slide into the Eye of the Storm.

“Could be,” Rob said, as vague as Tessa’s ever-present shrugs. Clearly Rob’s ex was having trouble letting go of Rob. Was Rob having trouble letting go of his ex? Were both Tessa and Rob stringing Abby along? Reining her in so they could cut her loose?

At least she and Tessa had made their wishes clear to each other. Nothing more for Abby to do but wait and, like any good parent, hope and pray the child would do the right thing.

That was the hardest part.

Up ahead, their destination shimmered and snaked its way to the Atlantic Ocean. She shivered at the thought of baring herself and submerging.

She’d taken him this far, she might as well go all the way. She owed him that much.

She owed herself.

If they were going to have any sort of future, she had to chance telling him the truth. If she wanted him to understand she wanted a future, she had to tell him.

“I, um, spent some time with Charlie yesterday.”

Half a second passed, enough time for waves to rush the shore. Enough time for Abby’s blood to rush through her veins and crash through her ears.

“Oh-kay,” Rob said, but his tone begged to differ. His pace slowed, and his stomach muscles tensed beneath her fingers.

“He asked me to marry him.”

Rob stopped walking, and turned from her embrace. “If this is your idea of letting me down easy, it’s going to be a really looong walk b—”

“I’m not going to marry him,” Abby said, but Rob didn’t budge. “I mean, I can’t marry Charlie. He only asked me because of the baby, and because Luke always wanted us together. What child doesn’t want their parents together?”

“Can’t argue with that.”

Abby rolled her lips in between her teeth, glanced at the moon, and mentally kicked herself. They were supposed to swim first and then talk about how they felt about each other. She wasn’t supposed to dig into his soft places and draw blood.

Rob lengthened his stride and doubled his pace, putting quick distance between them. “Hey,” she said. “Hey! I don’t love Charlie!”

No, she loved Rob, the guy running away from her. Story of her life. She jogged through the color-softening moonlight, feeling like the sandpipers that chased the Seawall Beach tides dawn to dusk. The silly birds would scurry toward the ebbing current, and then turn on a dime and hurry away from the approaching swell.

Didn’t they ever get sick and tired of the game? Didn’t all the back-and-forth with no progress make them want to scream?

Abby sprinted up behind Rob and socked him in the arm.

“Ow!” he said, a chuckle in his voice.

So she punched him a second time.

“Okay, that one actually hurt.” He rubbed his arm, slowed his pace.

“What do you care if I marry Charlie? You’re the one who wants to just see what happens. You want us to continue dating, and then what? If I adopt Luke’s baby, you’re going to disappear from my life?” A dark current swelled in Abby’s belly. This wasn’t how she’d envisioned their conversation playing out, but she couldn’t stop herself, as if she were a deep-water wave, gathering energy and refusing to break. She deepened her voice. “Uh, sorry, lady, been there, done that, so through with the kid thing.”

The Morse River beckoned. At low tide, the waters were as gentle as a tidal pool. At high tide, more dangerous than the ocean into which it flowed. Her stomach tensed around the realization she hadn’t consulted the tide charts before embarking on this mission. Adrenaline rushed in with the clear understanding she couldn’t care less about the potential for disaster.

Rob eyed her, should-I-stay-or-should-I-go all over his face. “Abby—”

“You’re going to leave me for doing the right thing, because it doesn’t fit in with your life plan?” she said. “Well, I have news for you. Life is hard! You can do everything right, live your life for your son. Then one day while you’re paying the bills, the phone rings, and a stranger is telling you he’s gone, and there’s nothing you can do about it. And none of it makes any sense! Day after day, it continues to
not make sense
. And you’re left all alone with your anger. But there’s nothing you can do about it, because the one person you really want to haul off and yell at is dead!”

Abby’s hands shook. Her fingers clasped the thin cotton of her sundress, digging into her chest. Her bottom lip hammered with the aftershock of her words.

They’d stopped walking. When had they stopped? Rob stared at her, a still presence, as though he were part of the beach itself, raised from the sand. His mouth worked around something unspoken, and he kept swallowing. He rubbed her arms with either hand, the tips of his fingers raising goose flesh.

She was sweating, her dress clinging to her body, but her teeth chattered. “What am I doing here?” Not here on Seawall Beach, but here on Earth. “Why am I alive while Luke—?”

Rob’s mouth pressed against hers, swallowing her hurt. She whimpered, and he kissed her harder, pulling an ache through her center. Tears swelled in her throat and leaked down the sides of her face, an endless stream.

“Don’t cry.” He kissed her cheek to ebb the flow, his face distorted and blurry.

The sand and the sea were all she’d ever known, her home base, touchstone, and guiding light wrapped up in a blue satin bow. After Luke had died, nothing felt quite the same, the beauty brushing the surface, but not sinking into her soul. She’d look past the sparkling sands with warm glints of glitter and see a landscape of crushed shells. The glorious waves went from comforting to repetitive. And the once-magical sky? The place she sought her son.

“I need this world to feel like home again,” she said, not caring if she sounded crazy, hoping against hope Rob would understand.

He brushed her hair from her face, and the swallow-sound came through his voice. “Tell me how I can help you. Tell me what you need,” he said, his tone reminiscent of the day they’d first discussed the labyrinth project and his eagerness to get to the center of what she really wanted.

The day she’d begun the sure, steady fall for Rob Campbell.

Today, she needed to wash clean. She needed to return to the sea. She needed to go home.

“Close your eyes,” she said. Rob flicked his gaze to the river, and a twinge at the corner of his mouth told her, yes, he understood.

Still smiling, Rob covered his eyes. She swiped the tears from her cheeks and slid the spaghetti straps from her shoulders, pushed the fabric past her hips. Stepped from her sundress, like a hermit crab vacating its outgrown shell. Abby had heard local lure about skinny dipping in the Morse River, even passed along the suggestion to the guests at Briar Rose. Yet, she’d warned Luke not to try it.

Probably making the notion all the more attractive.

She set her bra and underwear on her dress. “I’m swimming across, so as soon as you hear me splash the water, you can join me. I promise not to peek.”

His grin widened, a flash of white. “I’m not at all concerned.”

Low tide, and the river barely moved. She waded through the squishy, sucking sand that had reminded her and Luke of lightning quicksand from
The Princess Bride.
When the river hit her waist, she dove below the surface. A splash. A split second of panic. And then total sensory overload. The cold water numbed her skin, boxed her ears. Salt water clogged her sinuses, and she stared into the watery darkness. Nothing but life beating in her throat, and the exertion of her arms pulling her upward, upward, until she broke through to the surface and swam for the opposite shore.

She gulped the air, called to the dark figure standing waist-deep in water. “Woo-hoo! Dunk in, the water’s fine!”

“Where are you?” A seed of panic rode on his voice, threatened to grow. She’d never heard him sound that way before.

Abby splashed the water before her, counting on her movement, the reflection of moonlight. “Swim toward my voice. I’ll meet you in the middle. Marco!” she called, instantly regretting her choice of a game where, after each shout-out, you were supposed to change your location to evade a closed-eyed pursuer. The game had caused her five-year-old son to melt down in swim class, after the closed-eyed kids had challenged the mothers and lost.

Hours later, Luke had refused to sleep alone, convinced if he shut his eyes, Abby would slip away from him.

Abby hadn’t thought of that day in years. Now, the memory felt as close as the salt water that buoyed her. The way Luke’s tears had molded the lashes on each of his eyes into three dark-blond spikes. The way his eyes had glistened, huge blue caricatures. Against the peach-soft curve of his cheek, the way his tears had tasted like the ocean.

Abby licked the salt from her lips.

“Polo!” Rob called.

Abby swam the rescue stroke, head up so she couldn’t miss him. “Marco!”

Rob approached, his head and torso cutting through the water, kicking up a blue-black wake.

Then, a few feet away, he surface dove. The water barely rippled in his place, making Abby wonder whether she’d dreamed him. Whether he was nothing more than a figment of her seawater imagination. The same imagination, sending her pulse into overdrive. Her—

A sharp tug on her leg. Abby yelped, and Rob’s head and shoulders sliced to the surface. “Shark attack!” Rob said, breathless.

She swam closer and came to standing in shoulder-deep water. When she touched his smile, he kissed her fingertips. Her mouth found his, and she closed her eyes. Pulled his lower lip into her mouth, nibbled. Let the gentle tides sway them ever so slightly. When she opened her eyes, he brushed his lips against the edge of her ear and she shivered. “Let’s warm up,” he said, his voice thick. “I’ll get a towel, and then leave one for you. Eyes closed, of course,” he said, without an ounce of sarcasm.

If Rob had been any other man, Abby would’ve thought he was joking. If he’d been any other man, she wouldn’t have trusted him.

They swam, two parallel rescue crawls, until they approached the shore. Abby kneeled in the water and covered her eyes, probably grinning wider than Rob had when she’d insisted upon the same move. She couldn’t help but imagine his bare white bottom walking along the beach. Considering how nice he looked in jeans—

The sound of Rob unzipping his pack. And then, a moment later: “You can open your eyes!”

Rob stood on the shore, hands over his eyes, same wide white grin from earlier. The striped towel tied around his waist reached to his calves and showed off his sculpted-from-yardwork chest, as though he were posing for a calendar featuring hot landscape architects. Pretty much the last thing on Earth Rob would consider doing. Off to the side, Abby’s backseat emergency blanket covered the sand, and a second striped towel sat at its near edge.

If Rob had been any other man, Abby would’ve thought her imagination had gotten the best of her, conjuring the gentleman of her dreams.

Abby climbed from the river, her skin comfortable in the warm air. She unfurled the towel, secured it at the chest, and lowered herself to the blanket. A giggle rose from her center. “You can open your eyes now.”
Honey.
She’d nearly called him
honey.

“Oh!” Rob sat beside her, bumping her hip. His pale eyes glowed from beneath dark, wet lashes, and an easy smile played on his lips. Ribbons of clouds laced the moon. Its reflection sketched a curved white path across the waves.

When Rob wrapped his arm around her, she laid her head on his damp shoulder. Exactly the way she’d imagined this scene. She sighed, the ocean having aptly cooled her head and mood. All the beauty seeped into her soul, stirring energized contentment. There was no other place she’d rather be. Just like the old days. A few moments to soak in the atmosphere, and then she and Rob would have a real conversation about her adopting Luke’s baby. What it would mean to her life. What it could mean for him, if he wanted a future with her.

Rob kissed the top of her head, and his words, light as a sigh, ruffled her hair. “I love you, Abby.”

Abby made a sound at the back of her throat, a sharp
ha
of shock rushing out of her. “What?” she said, although she’d heard him. Clear as the clang of a bell buoy piercing the night, she’d heard every word.

But what did love, Rob’s love, mean?

The only other man who’d ever declared his love for her was Charlie. And love, Charlie’s love, hadn’t convinced him to stay.

Abby lifted her head. A trace of surprise stiffened Rob’s features, as though love had blindsided him and he wasn’t sure what to do with it. Because he was scared, unsure, or unsure of his love’s meaning?

Then Rob swallowed and blinked, and a broad smile shone through his eyes. He nodded, as if he’d just had a conversation with himself and come to an agreement. He caressed the wet curl lying at her shoulder and licked his lips. “You’re a beautiful person, Abby. And, yeah, I love you.”

She wanted to take him to task and ask him what he meant by that. Did love mean he couldn’t live without her? That he’d change his life for her, rewrite expectations for his over-forty years? Or was love simply an expression of appreciation for a woman he could take or leave?

She could live without Rob Campbell, but, heaven help her, she didn’t want to. And she’d be damned if she went to her grave not telling him the way she felt.

Rob tilted his head, brushed tears off her cheek with his knuckles. “Baby—”

“I love you, too,” she blurted out in a
ha
of surprise, same as when she’d been at the receiving end of the declaration. She held his face between her hands. “I love you,” she repeated, and she kissed his smiling lips, swallowed down all of his sweetness. Let herself feel the beauty of Rob’s love, the beauty of this life, fully and deeply, with no expectations for a future.