Better Not Love Me (13 page)

Chapter 24

Amelia and Nate finished the ride. Her sense of euphoria had not dissipated. More than once she nearly crashed her bike watching him talk. She couldn't help but focus on him, the man who had just made her feel so alive again. She sat in the middle seat of the truck next to him during the drive back to the cabins. Sure, it was a teenager-in-love sort of thing to do, but it felt right, so she did it. He didn't complain, just placed his right hand on her knee. She cherished the simple touch.

As they walked down the dirt road between their two cabins, she felt a pep in her step that had been missing for what seemed like her entire life. She was thrilled and also a little embarrassed at what had happened earlier that afternoon.

That's not the kind of girl I am.

But maybe it was. Maybe it was just what she needed. It sure felt like it, she thought.

For Nate's part, he was a complete gentlemen for the rest of the afternoon. She thought that if he was only in it for a roll in the hay, then he'd tone down the good-guy routine, but thankfully he hadn't.

They walked the dirt road slowly because it postponed their separation. Even after the great day together, it was unspoken but clear that they would be parting ways when they arrived at the cabins. Nate would go about his evening and she would do the same. Lingering on the road, holding hands and talking about inconsequential topics meant more time together before the inevitable divide.

Nate stopped at a tree stump just off the road and pointed out a narrow deer trail. He then sat on the stump and pulled her onto his lap. His strong arms made her feel weightless.

"One summer back when I was a kid, in the pre-dawn mornings, my grandfather would take me out on the grass in the back of the cabin," Nate pointed up toward the area to show Amelia. "He'd set out two lawn chairs for us and we'd sit there until the sun was up completely. Waiting there, being as still as possible, meant that the deer would get comfortable with us and come down the trail so we could watch them. He said we were downwind and they couldn't smell us, so we just watched. Morning after morning he would get me out of bed to watch them eat or just play around in the road here."

"That's a nice memory," she said.

"It should be, yes."

"What do you mean?"

"One morning when I came out, his rifle was resting against my chair. He said that it was time that I became a man. Now, don't get me wrong, I knew how to shoot and I was a good shot too, but just at bottles and paper targets—not living things."

"How old were you?" Amelia asked.

"Probably 11 or 12," Nate replied. "He loaded the rifle and we waited. It wasn't very long before two Whitetail deer ambled down the trail right by where you and I are sitting right now."

"Did you do it? Did you shoot the deer?"

"I didn't want to disappoint my grandfather, but I was afraid. Thinking back now, I'm sure he would have understood if I’d said I didn't want to do it, but that's not how the mind of a kid works. I had to do it, I couldn't run away. I lined up the shot perfectly. The deer was in my sights and if I pulled the trigger, it would have been all over for the deer."

"But you couldn't do it."

"No," Nate said. "As I lined up the shot, with my grandfather whispering in my ear to take it, I lifted the barrel of the gun just a hair and squeezed. The bullet just missed and lodged in the tree that we are sitting on."

Amelia wondered how and why the tree got cut down between the time Nate shot at it and today, but she didn't ask.

"Did he know you missed on purpose?"

"I know he did. It was an easy shot; one that I had made from that distance before. Then he said to me, 'When you've got something lined up—something that you know you want—you shouldn't hesitate. If you leap and you fail, that's OK, but don't wonder what could have been. Be the person who took the shot.'"

"He was talking about much more than hunting, wasn't he?"

"Yes, he was."

"Have you followed your grandfather's advice? Do you hesitate and wonder what could have been? Or do you take the shot?"

"It's taken me this long in life to really understand what he meant. I tend to be cautious and go slow. I'd rather not leap and fail."

"What about us? We kind of leaped today, didn't we?"

"I could argue that we went really, really slow first," he said.

"No way. The only way that this works is if we forget the years before and focus on today and the future. Can you do that?"

He nodded.

"I think that's a good plan and I'm willing to give it a try."

"Good, me too."

Amelia and Nate parted with a kiss. He gently swatted her on the rear as she started down the path to her cabin.

"I hope you won't be too sore tomorrow from that bike ride," he said.

"And other stuff."

"Oh, that too, right," he said, instantly blushing in embarrassment. "Sorry, that's not what I meant."

"Relax, I know what you meant," Amelia said, enjoying his misstep. "And I have no doubt that yes, I will be very sore! No more bikes for this girl for quite a while."

* * *

"Hello?" Amelia called after she entered her cabin. "Anybody home?"

No answer. She was surprised to be alone.

She took the opportunity to go to her bedroom, strip off her sweaty clothes and jump in the shower. She felt confident that her sister wouldn't be sniffing these clothes for evidence of love making as she had days earlier with her yellow dress. She decided she would keep the bike riding side-trip to herself. It really wasn't any of Amy's business anyway and she treasured how such a reckless act of passion had ignited such strong emotions within her. She didn't want that feeling to go away. And she didn't want to share it either.

The hot water streamed down her body washing away the salty remains of the day. It felt good to clean-up, but with the salt and dirt, Nate's scent was erased too. She shampooed and conditioned her hair, rinsed and exited the shower. After drying off and putting on some shorts and a tank top, she wrapped a towel around her hair and set off for the kitchen.

Movement on the deck caught her eye as she crossed the living room. They must be out on the deck, she thought. She continued to the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and went outside.

She nearly dropped the bottle when she saw who was on the deck. Sitting at the picnic table was Susanna and Marcus. No surprise there. But it was the man in between them that really floored her.

"Hi there," Josh said. "We need to talk."

Chapter 25

"Nice place you've got here," Josh said. "You've moved up in the world."

"It's a rental," Amelia replied. She was still in shock at seeing him—her ex-husband—after just making love to another man hours earlier.

"Yeah, but you can afford it," he said.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked, the grit in her question was evident.

"Nothing, that's obviously not why I'm here. Never mind."

"Why are you here?" her tone was overtly agitated and she didn't hide it. Josh had a way of looking right through her and she was worried that he would call her out on her little fling in the forest. But that was ridiculous and none of his business anyway.

"Your son called me, or more accurately a very nice officer at the Coeur d'Alene Police Department called me," he said.

Amelia turned to Marcus and noticed that he again had a puffy black eye. This kid needs to learn to duck, she thought to herself.

"What happened this time?" she asked.

"It was the same as before," Susanna chimed in.

"Would you shut up!" Marcus barked at his sister.

"Enough—both of you," Josh commanded and to Amelia's surprise, they both listened and didn't say another word. They never listened when she said things like that.

Susanna took that has her cue to leave and she did so without saying a word.

"He got into a fight," Josh said on Marcus' behalf. "Apparently not for the first time this summer. Don't you think this is something that you should have told me about Amelia?"

She wanted to scream at him and tell him that questioning her in front of their children was bad parenting, but it wouldn't make a difference. She wanted so badly to tell him to leave and take his opinions with him.

"This is my summer, I'm handling it," she said, thinking of her road trip to Bonners Ferry with Marcus and how they had talked about the future and what made her son happy and sad. She had thought they had made some sort of breakthrough that day—that Marcus would be upbeat and not get into random fist-fights.

"Hold on," she turned to Marcus. "Were you at the park at City Beach?"

He didn't reply, but his sheepish look said enough.

"I told you that you weren't allowed to go there—for this exact reason."

"It's not like you were here to stop me," Marcus lobbed the words at her like a bomb. "You were gone all day with the neighbor and just left us here."

"And what does that have to do with anything?"

It was Josh who replied.

"Well, for starters it mattered when they couldn't reach you, they called me," he said. "Thankfully I know one of the guys on the force, and they just let him and the other kid off with a warning and a ban from the park."

"So, don't worry mom," Marcus said. "I won't be going there anymore."

"Well that's just perfect," she said. "Exactly what I wanted to happen. It's all settled then."

"Yep," Marcus said, pushing back from the table and heading toward the deck's stairs.

"Where do you think you're going?" Josh called after him, but Marcus didn’t reply.

Josh stood to go after him, the anger visible on his face, but Amelia grabbed his hand. She shook her head no.

"Just let him go," she said. "He needs to blow off some steam and that can't happen if you're chasing after him."

"So that's your plan?" Josh retorted.

"No. I don't have a plan. Two minutes ago I didn't know this happened, but I've let Marcus express his feelings these last few weeks and I thought—before right now—that it was actually doing him some good."

He opened his mouth to talk, but she looked at him sternly, as if to say
don't criticize me, you weren't here
. Josh, in his ability to see right through her, seemed to have gotten the message.

"He was having trouble before, even at my place," Josh said after a moment. "It really doesn't have anything to do with you. I didn't mean to imply that it did."

"I know," she replied. "It's just hard not being able to help him."

They were now alone on the deck. It was the first time in years that the two of them had been in the same vicinity without one of the kids there for a kid-exchange because of their child-custody agreement. She looked at his weathered face. He wore a baseball cap for the electric utility he worked for. Dark black Smith and Wesson sunglasses obscured his eyes. His shirt was dirty and he was wearing thick, tan, Carhartt work pants and black boots. He must have gotten the call when he was on duty.

"Take the sunglasses off," she said.

"What? Why?"

She's not sure why she said it out loud. Sure, it was what she was thinking in her head; but the words just blurted out before she could stop herself. Regardless, he complied.

His pale blue eyes were much better to look at than some ballistic safety sunglasses.

"Happy now?"

"Now I can actually see your face," she said.

"We've known each other our entire lives, I think you know what my face looks like."

Then why do I forget sometimes
, she wanted to say, but was afraid to.

"I suppose," she said. "You want a beer?"

She instantly regretted asking, but it was strangely natural to offer him something. Anything.

"It's three in the afternoon on a Tuesday."

"Hey, I'm on vacation. I'm not punching the clock. So, that's a no?"

"OK, you twisted my arm," he said. "And I can't make it back to work now anyway. The shift is over."

"That was easy."

She retrieved two beers from the kitchen and handed him one.

"Come on," she said. "Follow me."

She led him down the stairs to the lawn and out onto the dock. She fought off her natural instinct to tell Josh everything that was happening in her life. Her conversations with Amy. Her budding romance with Nate. Concerns about the kids. It was something she'd always been able to do because Josh was so often there. He was the one, despite everything, who would listen. Consciously holding in her thoughts made her feel pent up inside. Like if she couldn’t talk to Josh, who could she talk to? She held it in and drew on a long-ago memory.

"It's hard to see from this vantage point," she said, "but just over that rise on the edge of the cove you can see the hill in the distance, right?"

"Yes," Josh said, taking a sip of his beer.

"Do you know what that is?"

"Nope. No idea," Josh said laughing. He knew, but wouldn't say.

"Well, let me refresh your memory. Many years ago you decided that we needed to hike Tubbs Hill."

"To be fair, I didn't know it was Tubbs Hill at the time."

"That's because it was one o'clock in the morning and both of us were too drunk to drive or know where we were."

"I thought it might sober us up."

"And it might have, had we not gotten lost five minutes onto the path," she said.

"But if we hadn't gotten lost, we would have never met that nice guy on the beach."

"Nice guy?! He was some random smelly guy with an eye patch!"

"Right, from the Pirates of the Coeur d'Alene," he said, smiling.

They both laughed at the memory of the man they had met next to a small fire on the beach that night many years ago. They'd gotten turned around, but saw the smoke from the fire and followed it down to the beach.

"If he hadn't invited us to his little campsite, who knows where we would have ended up," she said.

Amelia was troubled by how easily she could flash back to better times with Josh and forget all the negative, if only for a moment.

"See, he wasn't so bad."

"Well, he did let us stay by the fire and get warm, but it's not like we kept in touch with him."

"He was a pirate, where would you have found him again?"

"On the open sea, of course."

They laughed again, like old times before kids and marriage and broken promises.

"Can you believe that was over 20 years ago?" she asked.

"Sure doesn't seem like it, does it?"

Amelia suddenly felt very aware of herself. How she was holding her body and how close she was to Josh. When he looked at her she felt vulnerable, like pages of an open book just waiting to be read.

"Ancient history," she said, trying to dismiss the warm feelings that were being generated toward Josh by their walk down memory lane.

"I guess so."

They watched boats cruise past as the waves gently rocked the dock. Amelia sat down, removed her sandals and put her toes in the water. Josh accepted the unspoken invitation and sat next to her.

"What are we going to do about Marcus?" he asked.

Amelia was grateful that Marcus had a father who cared. Despite all the history between them, she didn't doubt that he wanted what was best for his children. Yet, they'd done a fairly uneven job working together to this point.

"I don't think there's a quick fix," she said. "If there was, I would have already done it. He's just going through a rough time right now."

"He's going to be 18 this year," Josh said. "What's going to happen when we're not around to keep him out of trouble?"

"I don't know and we can't know that until it happens."

"I know, but I don't want any more phone calls from the police station."

"Neither do I."

She told Josh about the conversation she had with Marcus and how he was still struggling with Edwin's death and how that may be why he's so angry.

"It's like he can't put into words the emotions he's feeling," she said.

"So he's finding an outlet to express himself, even if that's getting into fights."

"Right, but I thought bringing him here this summer would help," she explained. "I thought we could reconnect. I felt like a terrible parent for being away from the kids so much because of work. Maybe bringing them to the cabin wasn't such a good idea."

"You're joking, right?" he asked.

"No, I wanted this summer to be perfect, but the kids don't want to be here."

"You have no idea how excited they were when they found out they would get to spend the summer with you," he said. "I know you were gone a lot because of work, but they understood why. I talked with them about it, because I wanted them to know how hard you were working and why. You're not making up for lost time with them, you're continuing to be the parent they look up to and aspire to be like. Don't sell yourself short because Marcus is having a tough go of it. That comes with parenting. We aren't perfect, but we're doing our best given the circumstances."

She couldn't help it, tears welled up in her eyes. His words felt great. Like he actually understood her struggles and wanted what was best for her. If anyone should understand her it would be Josh, who had been at or near her side for most of her adult life. As these thoughts danced in her head, she realized she was looking down at her hand resting on the dock, but it wasn't just her hand, it was Josh's too.

When had he placed his hand over hers? Was his touch so familiar that she didn't see it as too forward or inappropriate?

She looked up at him and at his pale blue eyes, shaded by the brim of his dirty work hat. The stubble on his face was just enough. She remembered the feel of it and how the roughness would turn her chin red when they kissed. She unconsciously touched her own chin at the thought, leaving her mouth slightly open to help her breathe and slow the blood pumping faster now through her heart.

Josh turned his head and leaned in, kissing her, the burn from his scruff feeling like a distant memory that had come to life. She kissed him back. Her heart pounded and she felt flush, but her mind didn't drift to memories of Josh, it danced back and forth between Josh and Nate. The familiar contrasted with the new. She couldn't do this, but she couldn't stop either. She didn't want to.

But unlike earlier in the day when she was hidden under a tree with Nate and very much tucked away from the rest of the world, she was now out in the open at the end of the dock where Marcus or Susanna could potentially see them. What would they think if they saw their parents kissing? What if Nate saw? And that sealed it for her. 

She put her hand on Josh's chest and pushed away.

She stood.

"I'm sorry, I can't," was all she managed to say.

As she walked down the dock she looked in the windows of both cabins, worried that she'd been seen kissing Josh. She was relieved to see the windows were clear. This could be forgotten, as it should be.

"Wait," Josh said, calling after her.

"No, I can't," she kept walking.

"Not that. I'm sorry," he said chasing after her. "Marcus isn't the only reason I came here today."

"Why then?"

"Honestly, Marcus is why I came here. I . . . I'm not sure if . . ."

He paused.

"Just say it already, Josh. Why did you really come here?" Amelia was unnerved, but also verbalizing frustration in herself.