Daring the Wild Sparks (7 page)

CHAPTER 6

“Hadley, come here.” Bethany Chackmore holds her arms out and I run up the rest of the lengthy flight of stairs to her porch stoop. Her chocolate lab, Cupcake, is also there to greet me. I drop my bags and hug Bethany, burying my face in her long, strawberry blonde hair, crying yet again.

After a few minutes, I gather my things and she ushers me into her cream-colored, two-story house. There is a one-car garage on each side of the stairs going up to the front door, and the two second-floor bedrooms at the front of the house each have their own balcony. More notably, the living room on the other side of the house has a door leading out to her expansive back deck overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.

Bethany’s backyard is the beach. Fenwick Island is a small town, so she said there isn’t a whole lot of tourist traffic behind her house because of that and because of the brush and unkempt grass dotting the beach. It’s also a somewhat rocky section with huge brown boulders sticking up out of the water. I absolutely love it here. It’s my favorite place to visit.

“Where are Cody and Cooper?” I ask of her veterinarian husband and their four-year-old son.

“Cooper is at Grandma’s. Cody will be back in a bit. We were going to have a pre-Easter Eve bonfire.” She nods to her right. “Tomorrow night will be with some of the neighbors. Tonight, it’s just us.”

I cover my mouth. “I don’t mean to intrude. As a matter of fact, I’ll stay at a hotel.”

She rolls her eyes. “Hadley, don’t be silly. You can just turn your head if we start kissing.” She giggles, which makes me follow. “Just kidding. You can leave then.”

I laugh again. “Oh, Bethany. I’ve missed you so much.”

“I did, too, Hadley.” Bethany picks up my suitcase and I try to take it from her. She swings it out of my reach and walks over to the staircase leading upstairs. “So, tell me what happened.”

I clutch my two small bags and purse and follow her up. “I was stupid, as usual.” I look around, surveying the windows in Bethany’s house—large ones, small ones and sliding glass doors. It is so bright in here.

“What do you mean?”

“I brought up a subject that is forbidden and should never be spoken of.”

She says over her shoulder, “I guess you’re not talking about your pancakes.”

“Skank!” I pretend to be horrified, but can’t hold the pretense for long before I laugh.

She tries again, “Marriage?”

“That’s the biggie, but no.”

She walks us down the hall, turning a corner and stopping at the first door on the left. “A baby?”

“Yes.”

“He obviously didn’t like the idea?”

“That’s a catastrophic understatement.”

She walks through the door and puts my suitcase on a chair in the spacious, medium blue guest room. “Oh, no. When did you talk about it? After you got to his mom’s?”

“Yeah.” I take in the room. “Why is this room so dark and the rest of the house like an airport lit up at night?” I laugh.

“Cody likes to sometimes sleep in here when he has a migraine. Darkness helps, so we put the sunblock shades up with the dark blue curtains in here. I can open them up for you.”

“No!” I giggle at my own enthusiasm. “Actually, I like it dark.”

She grins. “Cool. Just be careful because when it gets darker outside, it gets super dark in here. I don’t want you to trip over anything. This is the one bedroom that doesn’t have a cathedral ceiling, so it’s not as hard to keep dark since the windows are smaller.”

“Okay. Thanks for the heads up because you know I’d sue.”

She laughs and smacks my arm. “Slut!” She giggles some more before resuming. “Well, maybe Finn was just tired and didn’t want to talk about having a baby.”

I emphatically shake my head. “No. Definitely not tired at the time.”

Her eyebrows shoot up. “Oh?”

I grimace. “I asked him right before we were going to…”

Her mouth drops open to accompany her suddenly wide, hazel eyes. “Wow, Hadley.” Bethany sits down on the brown-and-beige-striped comforter covering the bed, and I sit down next to her, crossing my legs.

“I know, Beth. Bad timing.”

“A little, but I guess it’s as good of a time as any, really. He probably would’ve given you the same answer sitting in the car.”

“Probably.”

“You said on the phone that Finn took off? Does he even know you’re here?”
I look down at my lap. “No, he doesn’t, but I left your number with his mom in case something happens and I don’t have my phone with me.”

“Why did he leave? Was it because you asked him to have a baby with you? That seems a little extreme. If he truly loves you, he wouldn’t just leave.”

I twist my ponytail and inhale as I look up at her. “His mom also announced that she and Finn’s stepdad are divorcing after 19 years of marriage.”

“No way.”

“I know. He actually was close to Jack. He’s close to his dad, Henry, too. So, this is a blow to him. He loves his mom, but I think because Finn was surrounded by so many women in his house, he stuck close to his dad. When his mom and Jack were married, Finn was in high school. Jack went to all of Finn’s baseball games and cheered him on. Finn played first base and Jack would tell everyone that was his stepson and how proud of him he was. Henry tried to make it out to some of his games, too, but mostly it was Jack. Jack would also practice with him out in the backyard to work on his throwing arm.”

“I thought you said before that Finn played soccer in high school?”

“He did, but he played in a summer league with a lot of his classmates. His school didn’t have a soccer team.”

“Oh.”

“I feel so bad for him. I know this is a blow to us not getting married, but for the moment, I’m so worried about how this is going to affect him overall. He’s an adult, so it shouldn’t be that damaging, I guess, yet he thinks of this as a betrayal.” I sigh and clasp my hands over my thigh. “I know he’ll most likely not ever ask me to marry him now. He was yelling at his mom. Then he told me their divorce was another example of why marriage doesn’t work and that marriage is ‘a love killer.’”

“Maybe he still might change…” Bethany stops and bites her lip and I sigh. Even she knows he won’t.

I cringe at her. “I bought him a ring.”

Her eyes tentatively widen with a slow smile. “What kind of ring?”

“A black band. An engagement band. I wanted to ask him to marry me.”

Her entire face fully lights up. “Hadley! When?”

“The ring is being engraved. I don’t know when I’m going to do it, especially now after everything that happened. I figured I was going to give him a few weeks, but now, I just don’t know.”

“Give him some time. Maybe this divorce won’t be so bad for him. He’ll still see Jack, won’t he?”

“Yes, but not that much because he barely sees him now. Jack even had to go out of town this weekend for work. Both Julie and Jack want them still to have a relationship. And before all of that, Julie informed us that she and Simone became ordained ministers online. They wanted to marry Finn and me this weekend.”

She gasps, “Say what?”

“Long story short, they wanted to perform a ceremony. It wouldn’t have been legal because we don’t have a marriage license beforehand, but she also mentioned fudging the date, which irked Finn.”

“What? I don’t...”

“Yeah. And then Finn said if we ever got married, he wants to get married in his church. We’d have to go through a long process before being allowed to get married Catholic.”

“How does he know all of that? Did he actually look into it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he’s just aware of it because that’s part of his religion. I didn’t ask.” My eyes animate as I remember something else. “
And
, I forgot to mention that Finn got a new tattoo. His nickname for me,
Becks,
on his chest.”

“He did? That’s so romantic, Hadley!” she squeals.

“He did it for his
Wild Side
segment, so everyone in Richmond’s viewing area will see it.”

She stutters, “That is… He… Wow! Did you jump his bones after that?”

“I tried, but that’s when I had a lapse in my good decision-making skills. Before my faux pas, I did tell him that I’ll move in with him.”

“You are?
You said you didn’t want to.”

“I didn’t, but I really miss him, Beth. I don’t see him that much at all. Maybe he’ll eventually change his mind about us getting married. However, I doubt that, but I can’t tell him that I won’t move in with him now, especially after he got my name permanently etched into his skin. He’d be so hurt and pissed off if I changed my mind.”

Bethany sighs and shakes her head with a light laugh. “You’ve had a rough day!”

I warily laugh. “I have. I just want to relax before I have to see Finn again. He’s going to be so upset and…not fun. I don’t even know about him coming here tomorrow night. I don’t think he’ll be in the mood to socialize with anyone.”

“That’s okay. You don’t even have to come to the bonfire if Finn needs you. I’ll understand. You’re here now, so we can hang out. We’ll make some snacks for the fire tonight. Or, we can go for a walk on the beach or go shopping. Whatever you want to do.”

“Right now, I’d really love to get a shower. I just feel…stressed.”

“Go ahead. I’m going to start on some snacks for later. Come join me when you’re done. We can have margaritas out on the deck before we do anything else.”

“That sounds awesome, Beth.”

She heads off for the kitchen. I pick up my bags and walk out into the hall, heading to the bathroom. After I turn on the water, I feel everything I’ve gone through today pushing down on me. I sink to the floor as the sorrow engulfs me once more.

Lounging on the patio with our feet propped on opposing chairs, we stare alternately at the ocean and into our drinks. “So, what has been going on with you?” I ask Bethany as I swirl my frozen strawberry margarita around like a mini, slushy cyclone in my glass.

“With opening a shop in Richmond, Cody will stay here while I get it running, and then I’ll come back here on the weekends. Cooper will be in preschool. After Cody’s dad died, his mom was alone, so we suggested she move in with us. She didn’t want to, but she did move to Virginia and found a place near us. She’ll move in here temporarily while I’m gone during the week.”

“How’s work for Cody?”

“Good. He wants to bring home animals, but we already have two cats and a dog. No more!”

I laugh. “You have it all, Beth. You really do. A career you love, a sexy husband, a gorgeous little boy, a beautiful house—on the beach, no less—and you’re immensely happy.”

She smiles back at me. “I also have the bestest friend in the whole world. The material things don’t matter as much as friends and family do.” She looks thoughtfully at me. “You’ll get yours, too, Hadley. Finn will always be with you. The rest will fall into place.”

“You think so?”

“I
know
so.”

I dubiously scoff, “How do you know?”

Bethany looks out at the water and then up to the sky, the sun shining on her pretty face, making her hair glow like a copper halo above her. She then turns her head to me. “It’s in the stars, Hadley. Tonight, when you look up into the night sky at all the wonder above us, you’ll have your answers.” She mysteriously grins. “You’ll see.”

“I wish it were that easy, Miss Sunshine,” I grumble into the glass at my lips.

“Quit looking so hard for the answers. They’ll come to you. I promise.”

“You’re awfully weird.” I giggle and take a sip.

“And you love me!”

“That I do, Bethany Louisa Donaldson-Chackmore. That I do. Eternally.”

She reaches over and grabs my hand. “Hadley Bliss Beckett-
Wilder
. Eternally.”

I grin ridiculously and she raises her glass to mine. We clink them and giggle in the late afternoon sun.