Maybe it was because he was Tony and I was Cady and he was not wrong.
There was something.
Whatever the reason that made me do it, I opened my mouth, his tongue slid gently inside and it happened.
I tasted him.
He tasted of beer and old trucks and dark nights and bright days and holding hands and playful teases and crooked grins and shining eyes and man and musk and sex and a million, billion other things that made Tony that I hadn’t yet discovered, and I couldn’t have stopped my tongue from touching his in my need, my hunger, my yearning to have more.
To have it all.
My fingers tightened on his wrists not to push him away but to hold him right there, and he felt it. Making a rough noise in my mouth, he slanted his head, took the kiss deeper and gave me more.
And with his kiss, he filled me. He warmed me. My breasts swelled, my nipples hardened, my toes curled, my skin tingled, between my legs thrummed, my heart beat wild in my chest, and it wasn’t all about sex.
It was about that moment. Me being fully present in that moment. The only one of its kind we’d ever have.
Our first kiss. Our beginning. The beginning of us which was the beginning of everything.
He broke the kiss and I made an involuntary mew at the loss of his tongue, his taste, that moment, but he kept his lips where they were, light and beautiful.
My eyes fluttered open and his were so close, our noses resting along each other’s, our eyelashes actually brushed.
And I looked into his eyes and I knew what he knew I knew. I knew what I got but I still didn’t understand, even after that kiss.
I knew I would walk to the ends of the earth with Tony Wilson. I’d jump off a cliff holding his hand. I’d cut for him. I’d bleed for him.
And I suspected one day I’d probably be willing to die for him.
But after that kiss, this didn’t scare me.
With him right there, nothing else mattered, nothing else even existed.
This was simply where I was supposed to be.
No matter what.
He blinked and our lashes brushed again, bringing my focus to his gaze that was not boring into mine, not burning, but resting there, holding mine because there was nothing in the world I’d want more than to look into his eyes, and I saw right then he felt the same way.
“There’s something,” he whispered.
Yes.
There was something.
And that something felt like everything.
“Promise, Cady,” he continued whispering. “Stick with me, no matter what.”
There was no other answer to give him than the one I gave.
“I promise, Tony.”
Something flickered in his eyes that was uneasy when I said his name, but before it could make me feel the same, the pads of his fingers dug into my scalp, his mouth took mine, his tongue slid inside and I was all in.
No matter what.
He Didn’t
Present day . . .
“OKAY . . . OKAY . . . OKAY . . . HOLY CAH-RAP, that’s way more beautiful than the pictures.”
There was nothing I could do but smile as I drove Kath up to the lighthouse.
It was August. The sun was shining. Fluffy white clouds dotted the bright blue sky. My pristine white fence ringed the sloping green grass with the intermittent gray rocks poking through along my property. And the outbuildings had all been painted so their dazzling white and glossy black trim matched the perfection of the lighthouse with only their warm red roofs being disparate.
Months ago, after the altercation with Coert and after Kath had calmed me down, we’d made a plan.
I had bookings in inns and B&Bs and I had a mission.
Restore the lighthouse. Live there, if not happily ever after, then contentedly ever after.
Coert had been out of my life for a very long time and frankly, the time he’d been in it had not been long (it had just been eventful).
He wanted me to avoid him?
That I could do.
What I wasn’t going to do was let him break me.
Not again.
So I honored my bookings and I watched the roofs go on and the windows go in and the studio begin to be transformed.
I did this finally enjoying Magdalene.
I went shopping in town and at what I learned were new shops at the jetty. I found a shack on the wharf that made such good coffee I went back and learned the man in the shadowed interior also made excellent seafood omelets. I had lunch at the Lobster Market in town. I had dinner at a place that was recommended by a cashier at Wayfarer’s that was a town over called Breeze Point. I got salads or sandwiches on more than one occasion at Weatherby’s Diner.
I also went on a whale watching tour (we didn’t see any whales but I was loaded and I lived in Maine, I could try again a hundred times until I saw one).
I went down to Portland to explore. I went up to Bar Harbor because I heard it was beautiful and artsy, and it was, so I bought a bunch of stuff for the lighthouse, the studio and the apartment over the garage.
I went to Augusta to meet Paige and decide all things interior decorating.
I even went down to Boston, because in all the traveling I’d done with Patrick, we’d never been there and I’d always wanted to see Old Ironsides and eat real clam chowder. Not to mention walk the Freedom Trail, see the Old North Church, go to Lexington and Concord and be where the shot was fired that was heard round the world. And as sad as it would be, I wanted to visit Salem and soak in that history. I had even more reason to go in order to hit Harvard, take selfies and send them to Verity and Dex in aid of Dex harassing his sister.
But once my bookings ran out, even though I saw Coert nowhere (thank God), I turned tail and ran home, giving myself the excuse I needed to get my stuff because I’d be able to move in at least to the studio in just weeks, and Mike said we were going car shopping in Denver or he was flying out to Maine to help me find a vehicle, no ifs, ands or buts.
The real reason was that I needed the family to prop me up, help heal the wounds Coert had reopened and prepare to settle in, because I couldn’t act like a tourist on a daily basis (actually I could, I just didn’t want to, it was exhausting).
And now the time was right to come back. I didn’t have to stay at the inn or find anywhere else because the studio was done. They’d begun work on the lighthouse so in a few weeks I could move in, move in and they would finish with the apartment over the garage after I was in my real new home.
Kath had come with me, citing that she just could not wait to see it all, but I knew she did it to make sure I was all good there before she’d be leaving and not seeing me for months.
Walt had shared that Paige had “set the place.” He’d also mailed me a remote to the gate so right then, as I drove up the lane, I hit the button on the remote on the visor of my new Jaguar SUV and watched the gate start to swing open.
“Oh my God, Cady, this place is perfection,” Kath breathed.
She was right.
This I could do, I thought as we rolled in when the gates opened.
This beauty that Patrick gave me. Verity (and then Dex) coming up some weekends. The family out for Christmas. Spring breaks. Summer holidays.
And when they weren’t around, I could help at the Historical Society.
I could volunteer at an animal shelter.
I could garden.
I could cook.
I could read.
I was forty-one years old and had forty years (I hoped) ahead of me of, essentially, retirement where I could just sit back, enjoy “the kids” and do whatever pleased me.
Most people would kill for that opportunity.
So Coert was in town, and Kath wanted me to go up north to visit my brother when she was here so she could be close when he treated me like dirt.
I’d lived through worse.
Much worse.
My mother had frozen to death, for God’s sake.
And I’d had to watch Patrick waste away.
If Coert wanted me to avoid him, fine. This wouldn’t be hard. It was a small town but my lighthouse was miles away.
It would be fine.
It would all be fine.
Because I had that.
I stopped in front of the garage and Kath and I got out. I saw her head was tilted back, her attention focused on the beauty of the lighthouse.
I looked to the left, beyond the garage to where the studio was.
There was nothing happening there. No men walking in or out. The activity was at the lighthouse.