“You okay, baby?” I asked.
“Hmm,” she responded. “I’m great.”
I held her tighter. “You are.”
She tilted up her head, and I dropped a kiss to her full mouth. I would never tire of being able to kiss her again. I was addicted to her mouth.
She sighed in contentment. “I love this tub.”
“It’s yours. Use it whenever you want.”
There was a beat of silence.
“It’s a little far away from Mission Cove,” she reminded me, her voice gentle.
“Whenever you’re here,” I assured her, the reality of our situation breaking in. She lived there; I lived here. Fewer than a hundred miles away, but when we were apart, it would feel like an entire continent.
She was quiet, but I felt the tension creeping back into her shoulders. I bent over her ear. “We’ll figure it out, Sunny. Just live in this moment with me, right now.”
“It’s more than I thought I would ever have again,” she admitted.
“It’s the start,” I insisted. “We’ll find a solution.”
She pulled away and turned in the water to look at me. Her curls were damp, tendrils falling down her neck and over her forehead. Her skin glistened pink and wet from the heat and water. She was beautiful but looked troubled, a V forming between her eyes. I rubbed my thumb over the crease. “Stop, Sunny. Stop questioning this.”
“How will this work, Linc? You pop down on the weekends, and I come visit once a month? We have enough sex to tide us over until the next time? Talk and text during the week?” She looked away. “Eventually, you’ll get tired of that.”
I was honest. “Yes, I would. Very quickly, in fact.” Her eyes flew to mine, wide and worried. “Which is why that isn’t going to happen, Sunny. I lost too much of my life with you already. It’s not happening.”
“My bakery—”
I held up a finger to her lips. “I know your bakery is important, Sunny. And for now, yes, I will be there with you as much as I can. We will talk and text every day. I won’t even address the ‘have enough sex to tide us over,’ because there will never be enough with you. But as the future becomes now, we’ll figure it out.”
“You don’t ever want to live in Mission Cove again.” It was a statement, not a question.
“It was never in my plans, no,” I admitted, running my knuckles down her cheek. “But I didn’t know you were there.”
“And now?”
“Now that I found you again, I’m not letting you go. Ever. So, whatever we have to do, we’ll decide it—together. Here. There. Somewhere in between. But it will be us, Sunny. Not a summer of us, but a lifetime of us. Understand?”
She regarded me in silence, then turned back in my arms and sank down in the water again. “Fine,” she huffed. “Bossy man.”
She pushed away a mound of foam.
“Possessive bastard,” she added, muttering under her breath.
I hauled her up my chest and bit her neck. “Damn right, I’m possessive. Don’t forget it.”
I heard her muffled giggle. I tightened my hold. “We’ll work it out, Sunny. Trust me.”
“I do.”
I liked those two words. I planned on her saying them again—in a totally different setting and with witnesses.
And soon.
I liked waking up with Sunny beside me. Even more, I liked being able to make love to her in the early dawn, listening to her low moans and feeling her clench around me as I took her from behind, holding her leg over my hip and slowly thrusting into her until she cried out my name. I followed not long after, with my face buried in her neck, her light scent filling my senses.
We showered, ate the biscuits she’d made the day before, then left for Mission Cove. On a whim, I took a detour, and we stopped at the old summer camp. The camp had closed and the land sold, but Gerry and Cindy retained a small piece of the property and still lived there.
I followed the road that led up to the old dining hall. Gerry and Cindy had converted it, and it now looked like a comfortable home.
I stepped out of the car as Gerry opened the front door, stepping out on the porch. He was older, his hair gray, but he still walked tall, his shoulders straight. He approached the edge of the porch.
“Can I help you?”
Sunny opened her door and she slid out. “Hi, Gerry.”
He beamed at her. “Hey, Sunny.” He indicated me. “Who’s your friend?”
I pulled off my sunglasses. “Hey, Gerry.”
His eyes widened. “Well, son of a bitch.” He hurried down the steps, shouting over his shoulder for his wife, then grabbing me in a bear hug. “Linc.”
Cindy came out the door. She hadn’t changed, although her hair was white and her face had a few more wrinkles. But her warm smile was the same, and her hug was firm.
They insisted we come in. Cindy bustled around getting coffee, Sunny offering to help her. Gerry showed me around, explaining how they’d remodeled the large building. “Cindy had knee surgery a while back, so we needed one floor. This is perfect for us.”
“It’s great, Gerry.”
We sat on the porch they had added, facing the lake.
“I often wondered about you, kid,” he mused. “Your father—he made you disappear?”
“Yeah,” was all I could get out. Memories of that summer, that perfect summer Sunny and I spent here, were overwhelming me.
“I should have done something.”
I shook my head, facing him. “There was nothing anyone could do, Gerry. My father was too powerful and determined to keep me away from Sunny or anything that made me happy.” I slouched back in my chair, staring at the water. “But he’s dead now, and his control is gone.”
Sunny and Cindy joined us, a tray of coffee and cookies sitting on the table. I grinned around a mouthful of the oatmeal raisin cookie. It was another memory come to life. “So good,” I murmured, reaching for another.
“We use Cindy’s recipe at the bakery,” Sunny informed me. “They are one of our biggest sellers.”
I grabbed a third, not at all embarrassed.
Cindy chuckled. “I see your appetite hasn’t changed.”
“Nope. I was denied all the things I loved for so long. Now, I have them anytime I want.” I met Sunny’s gaze with a subtle wink, causing pink to spread across her cheeks.
Gerry caught me and chuckled. “Nice to see the two of you together.”
I lifted Sunny’s hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “It feels nice. Really nice.”
We all laughed, and Gerry and Cindy caught me up on their life.
“About four years after you disappeared, we decided to close the camp,” Gerry mused. “We were getting on, kids didn’t want to be counselors anymore, and our numbers were dwindling.”
I nodded, already knowing what he was about to say.
“We put the land up for sale, with the stipulation we keep a small piece for our retirement.” He sighed. “It was a hard decision, but we knew it was our nest egg.”
He rested his arm on the chair. “Imagine my shock when we got an offer—a really good offer on the land—that allowed us to keep, in what was my opinion, the most valuable piece of the property. I was given a free lease that expires when both Cindy and I are gone.”