“Believe me, no one is ever going to work as hard as I will at making you happy.”
“No, Connor, you don't have do anything other than just be who you are. Be the man I already love. Because no matter what happens between us from here on out, I'll never doubt your love for me again. Not when I'll always know that we're both giving each other everything.”
He kissed her, then, slow and sweet.
“Firefighters call it our good-bye list.”
“Good-bye list?”
“If you knew there was no way out, if the fire was closing in and you were about to go, who would you make your last phone call to?”
“You would want to call the people you love most, tell them one more time.”
“Two years ago, Sam and my mother were at the top of that list.”
“And now?”
“It's you, Ginger. It will always be you.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
ISABEL HAD never felt so wrung out, so utterly depleted. It had seemed as if the day would never end as the fire chief questioned Josh, and then the fire investigator, Andrew standing beside him each time. Protecting her son.
Josh had burned down Poplar Cove. Ginger and Connor had nearly died. Thank God Andrew had been there reminding everyone over and over that it had been an accident. He'd assured her at least a dozen times that nothing was going to happen to Josh, that nothing was going to go on his permanent record, and no charges could possibly be filed by the investigator.
By the time the sun set, Josh was already fast asleep in his room. Andrew was sitting in her kitchen, holding a cup of coffee and she was amazed to find that he looked just right.
Somehow, he fit right into the lakeside world she'd created for herself and her son.
“It's been a hell of a day, hasn't it?”
It was the understatement of the century. All Isabel wanted was to get away from it all for a little while.
“How about we row out to the island?”
She looked back at Josh's room, wondering for a moment if she should stay in the house just in case he woke up, but in truth she knew he was just an excuse not to be alone with Andrew again.
Because she was frightened to death of the depth of her feelings for him. Especially after today.
Andrew grabbed a couple of oversized towels off the porch as they walked out to her dock and climbed into the rowboat. The wooden paddles swooshed through the black water, beneath an equally black sky.
They didn't speak as he rowed, and she could barely see him in the inky darkness, but it calmed her — pleased her — to know that he was right there with her, sitting only a couple of feet away.
Thirty years ago, he'd been the one man she'd wanted in her lifeboat in an emergency.For the first time in three decades, she wondered if it were possible that he could be that man again?
After pulling the boat up on shore, he held out his hand and she let him lead her to their “private” beach, the special place they would sneak off to as teenagers when they wanted to be alone. And as he walked beside her, his hand warm over hers, she expected memories to come, one after the other, all the memories she hadn't wanted to replay.
But instead of retracing their old steps, she realized that they were taking new ones. She would never forget the past, but she could finally see that he hadn't come back to the lake to revisit the past.
They were here together to build a future.
They spread out the towels over the sand and it was the most natural thing in the world for her to lay her head on Andrew's shoulder.
“I'm so sorry you lost your cabin,” she said and as he pulled her in tighter against him, finally safe in his arms, she let herself crumble.
“I almost lost you today. Up on the roof-” She couldn't manage to say anything else, not when the sheer thought of Andrew getting caught in the fire made her sick to her stomach.
He shifted them so that her head was cradled beneath his strong forearm and he was looking down at her. His thumb brushed softly across her cheek as he gently wiped away her tears.
“Don't cry, Izzy. I'm still here. And I'm not going anywhere. I promise.”
“I'll never be able to apologize enough for what my son did. Before he went to sleep he told me he was wrong about you. That you're not a bad guy after all. I hope you can find a way to forgive him one day.”
“Don't get me wrong, it still hasn't exactly set in that Poplar Cove is gone, but I can't help but wonder if maybe it's all for the best.”
“How can it possibly be for the best?”
“Well, for one, it's a new start for me and Connor. Lord knows we both needed it.”
“Ginger too,” Isabel murmured.
And her too, she silently admitted. She hadn't realized until Andrew's return just how stuck she'd been in the past.
“Now Connor and I might get a chance to rebuild the cabin together. Spend a few months working as a team on something that matters to both of us. Maybe Josh could help us, work through some of his guilt with a hammer and saw. Might also be a good way to burn off some of that teenage energy, keep him out of trouble for a while.”
“You're planning to stay?”
And he would actually consider asking her son to work with him after what he'd done?
“I want to, Izzy. More than anything. But I don't want to hurt you again, so if you don't want-”
She put a finger to his lips to stop him. “When my son found us…” Her face grew hot. “Well, when he found us kissing, I behaved badly to you. Just because he couldn't deal with his mother behaving like a normal adult doesn't mean I should have tried to act like it didn't happen.” Her eyes moved to his face, held his gaze. “Because the truth is that I wanted it to happen. I wanted you to kiss me.”
“You did?”
“Yes. I did. More than I've ever wanted anything. But I was torn, because I still wasn't sure I could ever trust you again. Until today, when I saw you with my son, the way you protected Josh, even though he was the one responsible for your loss.”
“He's just a kid who made a mistake. A bad one, but a mistake nonetheless.”
“Watching you with him made me see that I can trust you. I do trust you. Your mistake and his mistake weren't so different, really. Two kids who didn't know what to do with all of their energy. Their passion. I keep thinking about those things I said to you that first day you came by the diner, when I said a real man would have made the best of his situation.”