The Time in Between Read online

  We hit the second floor, which was one big room with one somewhat big window, another smaller fireplace and that was it. There was nothing else. Not a powder room. Nothing. Though there was an old, steel desk that whoever owned it surely bought it not actually wanting it.

  Up we went to the third story and that was where things got interesting.

  It was cut in half. There were two windows in what could only be the bedroom area (if the decaying mattresses and headboard where anything to go by), but these windows were half windows in a strange shape that looked like a shell and oddly set in the floor. Another window just like that in a dire bathroom that was rather small, no walk-in closet, no large bath big enough for two set in a platform. But the half circle space could be made pretty, and useful, should someone have the imagination to do it.

  The bedroom part also had another, even smaller fireplace that, even in the current state of wreck of that room, was quaint.

  After that, we walked up to the fourth floor.

  And the instant I cleared it, I stopped dead.

  Windows the entire circumference gave a panoramic view so stunning, it seemed like a miracle. Sea, cliffs, green forest and the picture-perfection of Magdalene were available to view unencumbered, and I knew that because I’d sorted myself enough to make a slow turn.

  “This always gets ’em,” the realtor murmured. “Can forget the mess downstairs the second you see this. Problem is, you gotta walk back downstairs to get out.”

  I didn’t care about the other three stories.

  I didn’t care that I knew down to my soul Patrick was wrong, this was a fool’s errand, coming out here to repair relationships that were irreparable, and live out the rest of my book of life.

  There was one thing that room, that view, proved Patrick right about.

  I was meant to be in Maine.

  I was meant to be right there.

  If I was meant to have no beauty in my life but the love of Patrick and his family, I was still meant to have this.

  Because Patrick could give it to me.

  And I knew in that second he was smiling down at me, happy as a danged clam and smug as heck, knowing he was right.

  “The studio has a veranda so you got outside space if you’re that kinda person who likes hanging outside,” the agent carried on. “But I figure this is all the outside space anyone would need. Tell you, more than one showing, I thought it’d be worth the headache to put this place to rights just to have my morning cup of coffee sitting right up here and I wouldn’t care I gotta climb three sets of stairs to get here.”

  He was not wrong about that.

  And just then, I decided to have coffee up there every morning for the rest of my life.

  “Whenever that notion overwhelms me, my wife disabuses me of it,” he said.

  I couldn’t imagine.

  She must never have been up there.

  “’Cross the way, that’s Lavender House,” he stated.

  I looked “’cross the way” as he was indicating, this being across the sun twinkling off the gentle waves rolling into the cove, to see a beautiful, rambling old home set back off a cliff. It was not nearly as magnificent as the lighthouse, but then again, I was standing where I was standing, so I’d think that.

  “Almost as old as this place and just as pretty in its own way,” the realtor declared. “That’s private property too and always has been, like the lighthouse. And beyond that, that house you see that looks like it’s floating on the cliff, that’s Cliff Blue.”

  I trained my eyes where he instructed and saw a breathtaking home the likes I’d never seen before. It was the modern yin to Lavender House’s yang, but even modern, it seemed somehow to fit perfectly where it was, like it had always been there.

  “Prentice Cameron built that,” the agent said. “And if you don’t know who he is, Google him. Town council is choosy about what new plans they’ll approve to be built on coastal land. Think they all drowned in their own drool when Cameron came in to design and build that. It’s modern but pretty as a picture. Perfect.”

  After saying that, he turned from his perusal of the landscape to me with an expression on his face that captured my attention, all of it, as he continued speaking.

  “And I’ll just say, even in the state this is in, doing it with pride, this triumvirate of properties is what Magdalene is second most proud of, outside keeping the town as it should be. But they’re all private properties and the folks in town, they’re just as protective of them and their inhabitants as the owners, I figure. So, since this is open space and easily visible, not couched in trees like Lavender House, or in a private neighborhood like Cliff Blue, you might have your lookie-loos. But if anyone asks a citizen of Magdalene, all of us will do what we can to maintain your privacy.”

  “That’s good to know,” I said softly.

  He looked me up and down, turned his gaze through the expanse then gave his serious expression back to me.

  “Been doing this job a long time. I can see when a buyer is interested and I can see when they’re interested in something that they know is gonna be a heck of a project, but that doesn’t matter to them because they’ve fallen in love. And I see that last is happening with you. So I gave you full disclosure, now I’ll give you full honesty.”

  “That would . . .” I hesitated because I wasn’t sure my last wasn’t a lie, “be appreciated.”

  He didn’t hesitate.

  “See, this is a lot of work and you got it in you to restore it, great. But there are buildings, land. Take an entire day even with a riding mower, probably, just to mow the lawn. And the townsfolk’d lose their minds, you mow over the tulips that coat the place come full-on spring. No one knows how those tulips got here, but Google ‘Magdalene Lighthouse’ and that’s pretty much all the pictures you’ll see.”

  God, I couldn’t wait to see that and I was going to Google it the minute I got back to the inn.

  “But you’re a slip of a thing, apparently on your own, and this is gonna be a lot for you.”

  He lifted his hand and shook it at me even as he shook his head and kept speaking.

  “I’m not being sexist. Like I said, I’m being honest. But more, it seems close to town, and it is, ish, you go the direct coastal path into town, which is just over two miles of walking. But by the roads, since it goes inland then eastward, it’s over five miles to get out here and there isn’t anything built within the first two, primarily because of that light and the horn I told you about. But also because Magdalene likes this view unencumbered, so a lot of that is parkland so it’d stay just that way. That means this is a lot more secluded than it looks from town.”

  This was not a deterrent.

  This could be, in future, if things went awry (and they were probably going to go awry), a boon.

  I’d need to be secluded, separate, reclusive.

  But regardless, I was one of those people who could be good on my own. I hadn’t had a lot of that in recent years, what with Patrick and his family, but when I had it, I could enjoy it.

  And if I had this lighthouse all to myself, I had a feeling I could learn to love it.

  “So, just to say, you should consider all that when you consider buying this,” he advised. “But I’ll also say I know you’re from Denver. And I know New Englanders are considered unfriendly by folks out west. We’re not. We’re just different. We like what we know and who we know. We depend on tourists but, being honest, they can sometimes be a pain in the backside. But you move here, you’ll be one of us. Simple as that. And to prove that’s true, if you don’t have someone who’s coming here with you to help you take this on, then I’ll be the first to share I’m happy to look after the old girl when you’re away. You just call on me. And if I can’t, I’ll help you find someone who can. We in Magdalene been looking out for this lighthouse for years. But if she comes with you, we’ll look out for you too.”

  I stood there, immobile, and stared at him.

  And I did this
suddenly needing to cry.

  He didn’t know me. He didn’t know my past. He didn’t know how stupid I’d been.

  So unbelievably stupid.

  He didn’t know.

  So he couldn’t judge.

  Maybe this could be a new chapter.

  Maybe Patrick knew exactly what he was doing in a variety of ways.

  I fought back the tears as he concluded, “And that’s not a gambit to get you to buy. You can’t know I’m telling you the truth until you put me to the test. But just to say, feel free to do that. You’ll learn soon enough.”

  I tore my eyes from him and blinked at the landscape, taking in a deep breath through my nose, recalling his name.

  Robert.

  Robert Colley.

  “You wanna see the outbuildings now or you wanna go up and look at the lens?” he asked.

  I wanted to look at the lens.

  Then I wanted to go look at the outbuildings.

  But I didn’t say either.

  I looked again to him.

  “I’ll be needing the name of a good contractor.”

  His eyes lit as he studied me and one side of his lips quirked.

  “You’ll need to be looking at the outbuildings, gal,” he advised gently.

  “Yes, you’re right,” I told him. “But I’ll also be needing the name of a good contractor.”

  He continued to study me and he did this until I smiled at him.

  And when I did, the half lip quirk disappeared and Robert Colley smiled back.

  Goals

  Eighteen years earlier . . .

  I SAW HIM THE MINUTE he walked into the backyard.

  He caught my eye because he was seriously good-looking.

  But I kept watching, not only because of that, but because I liked the way he walked and I couldn’t say why.

  He was tall, kinda big but not huge, though the way he moved was lumbering. Like he was at a crowded party or club or concert and he was shouldering through the bodies to make his way to where he was going, even though he wasn’t.

  It was cool and it was strangely hot, like no one could get in his way no matter what way he was making.

  And it communicated he was going to get there and nothing was going to stop him.

  But where he was going right then was to Maria’s boyfriend, my good friend, Lonnie.

  Maria and Lonnie had been dating since high school and she and I had been best friends since grade school, so we’d been a pack for a long time.

  Partners in crime, mostly.

  We’d been pretty much inseparable since meeting, that was before Lonnie . . . and recently. And that attachment was because, for Maria, her mom and dad didn’t give a crap, they were so busy fighting each other, they had no time for her.

  For me, it was because my parents gave too much of a crap and had a lot of time to tell me what they thought of me, even though what they thought wasn’t much.

  I liked the idea that tall, dark-haired guy with his cool way of moving was a friend of Lonnie’s.

  That meant I might get an introduction.

  I watched from where I sat in my folding lawn chair as Lonnie greeted him with an arm slap from one hand, a shake with the other and a huge smile, indicating he was happy to see him.

  That was good.

  Lonnie liked him.

  Lonnie liked and was liked by just about everyone. This was because he was a great guy, up for anything, there when you needed him.

  But the arm slap, hand shake and smile said he liked this guy more than most.

  So I watched, thinking it was kinda weird that the guy somewhat smiled in return, but in a way it wasn’t exactly a smile, and shook back.

  But there was definitely something not right in that smile.

  Lonnie was happy to see him.

  This guy, however . . .

  “Total drool-worthy,” Maria muttered as she threw herself in a lawn chair next to mine, spilling some of the beer in her not-quite-as-full-now plastic cup.

  It wasn’t easy, but I pulled my gaze from the guy knowing exactly what she was talking about even before I saw her attention trained on her guy and that guy.

  She’d never say it around Lonnie. Hell, around Lonnie she took pains not to give any indication she knew the other sex existed outside Lonnie (and she’d learned to do this in an extreme way), but around me, she’d look.

  Not touch. Not talk, unless it was approved by Lonnie.

  But look.

  “Do you know him?” I asked.

  “Yup,” she answered, moving her eyes from the guy, I knew just in case Lonnie looked over and caught her staring, even if it was in his direction too, he’d know.

  And he wouldn’t like what he knew.

  “Came over the other day. Name’s Tony. He’s buds with Lars,” she told me.

  That sent a shiver trilling up my back.

  Lonnie had introduced us to Lars a few months ago.

  I didn’t like Lars.

  Lars gave me the creeps.

  I looked back at the guy with Lonnie thinking it was disappointing that he was buds with Lars.

  “Girl, you need a refill,” Maria told me, and I looked away from him, not only thinking it was disappointing Tony was buds with Lars, but the fact this was more disappointing because I even liked the way he stood.

  He was paying attention, and a lot of it, to whatever Lonnie was saying. His intensity, the alert way he carried himself was awesome.

  Crazy awesome.

  But maybe understandable since he was friends with Lars, and I was suspecting Lars wasn’t that good of a guy and the people he knew had to be alert for a variety of reasons.

  I saw my plastic cup was mostly the dregs, backwash of beer not being my favorite thing.

  Still.

  “I drove here,” I told Maria.

  “So?” she asked.

  I lifted my gaze to her but then turned it almost immediately away.

  I loved her. Loved her. She was fun and she was funny. She was loyal as all hell. She was crazy and wild and I felt free around her. Free to be who I was (not who my parents expected me to be). Free to act how I wanted (not how my parents demanded I act). Free to do whatever I damn well wanted to do (which was not what my parents wanted me to do).

  We’d had a lot of good times. She’d taken my back in a lot of bad times.

  But sometimes, little things like that, like her thinking it was totally okay to get a buzz on then drive yourself home, bugged me.

  She’d do it without blinking.

  Lonnie’d do it, and he’d be high too and not give a crap.

  But I kinda wanted to get home in one piece and not take anyone out along the way.

  Maria had a way with peer pressure though, even if we were now twenty-three, so I knew how to play the game.

  That was get up, get a beer and then sip at it or ignore it altogether, “spill” some in the grass, nurse it for an hour, and that way do my own thing without having to put up with her pushing.

  Which meant I hefted myself out of the chair to head to the keg.

  “Grab a coupla Jell-O shots while you’re at it,” she called as I moved away.

  The real reason she wanted me to go get a beer.

  But shit.

  Jell-O shots were harder to put off.

  My only choice was to take half an hour (at least) to get back to her. Another skill I’d honed in over a decade of friendship with Maria.

  I hit the keg, poured out the dregs of my cup in the grass beside it and grabbed the nozzle.

  I was just finishing pumping some into my cup when I heard a deep voice say, “I’ll take that after you.”

  I raised my eyes and looked into hazel ones that, since the second my eyes hit his I arrested, I realized were more of a light brown with some green to make them so interesting, I couldn’t move or speak.

  “Hey,” he said.

  I stared.

  “Hey,” he said more urgently and leaned into me.

  Whe
n he did, it felt like a spasm hit my body, originating somewhere very private and snaking up my spine, the back of my neck and all over my scalp.

  I felt his fingers brush mine, vaguely felt the spigot pulled away and heard him murmur, “Wastin’ beer.”

  I jerked my head down, saw my over-full cup, beer having flooded over my fingers that I didn’t even feel, then I jerked my head up to see him examining me.

  He didn’t do it long before he turned to the table next to the keg that had a variety of detritus—spent cups, spent bottles, spent cans, an overflowing ashtray, a huge red bong—and he nabbed a cup from an upside down stack of fresh ones.

  I didn’t have it in me to say anything before my beer sloshed all over my fingers again. This time because, all of a sudden, Lonnie had an arm tight around my neck and he was yanking me forcefully into his body, back (mine) to front (his).

  “See you met my girl,” he declared.

  I wanted to scream.

  I hated when Lonnie did this. It totally meant I never got asked out.

  But this time?

  I hated it.

  “Or, my other girl,” Lonnie clarified as the guy named Tony gave us his attention.

  One of his brows went up in a way that was a shade too fascinating.

  Then he asked, “You a threesome?” And I suddenly found nothing fascinating and further could think of nothing but the flames that I felt hit my cheeks.

  Tony looked at them, and the instant he did, miraculously I wasn’t thinking about the fact I had to be very obviously blushing and how completely embarrassing that was.

  This was because his expression changed. In a there-and-gone I nevertheless caught, there was a hint of surprise and a definite softening of his features that was so beautiful, words had not been invented to describe its beauty.

  “I wish, Cady’s a prude,” Lonnie shared jovially.

  In a contradiction that I no longer found surprising, although Lonnie went ballistic if Maria even looked at another guy, Lonnie openly flirted . . . with me.

  Only me.

  It was a friends thing, teasing and sometimes sweet.

  But even if I was used to it, I thought it was weird.

  And I wasn’t a prude. It was just, if Lonnie was around, he made it impossible for me to find any action.