But what she and Leo had…that did work. It was uncomplicated. And easy. And natural. And fun. There was no pressure. No arguments. No expectation.
“Why shut down the possibility of something wonderful?” she asked.
“Why set yourself up for disappointment?” he countered. When she didn’t respond right away, he stood. “You’ve been there, Gemma. You know how it feels to be let down, and betrayed. We’re a lot alike in that department.”
“No,” she said, shaking her. “That’s where we’re different. When I first came here, I was coming to escape, and run away, it’s true. But now, being here, being with you, it’s made me realize that there are second chances. If we want them. We can punish ourselves, or shut ourselves off, turn our backs on what we love and who we are and what we want, or we can try again. And…I’d like to try again, because to not even try…” She shook her head. “I can’t give up on myself like that. And I don’t think you should either.”
Leo looked at her sadly, and she knew that there was no sense in trying to change his mind.
Finally, with a heavy heart, she stepped back. “Good night, Leo.”
Or maybe, it was good-bye.
She waited to see if he would say something, stop her, but he just stood there, at the base of the steps, looking like a man who had lost everything. And maybe he had.
The door closed behind her, and she walked into the house, expecting to find it dark, and just as quiet on the inside as it had been on the outside. She planned to go to her room, go to bed, maybe even pack her bags, board the ferry tomorrow. It didn’t matter where she went. If she was in Chicago or if she was seven hours away on Evening Island.
She couldn’t run from her troubles. She couldn’t run from the pain in her heart.
Her hand was on the banister, her sandals slipped off into the pile of others that Ellie kept in a wicker basket and which Hope kept trying to line neatly, by pair, in vain, when she saw the glow of a light from the kitchen. She sighed, thinking that she should be an adult and turn it off for the night, even though what she really wanted to do was crawl under the covers and have a good cry.
She walked to the back of the house, seeing that it wasn’t the kitchen light that was on at all, but rather, the old lamps that were set up in the backyard so that people wouldn’t trip coming in from the outdoor shower. She opened the screen door, calling softly, “Hello?”
“Over here,” a voice whispered back. Ellie. “On the hammock.”
Despite the heaviness in her heart, Gemma smiled and stumbled through the cool grass barefoot until she found the hammock, tied between two old trees, whose branches extended high above the roof of this massive house.
She crawled on, settled in so she was facing Ellie, even if she could only make out shadows of her sister’s face in the dim light.
“I’m sorry about Simon,” she said, reaching out to squeeze her sister’s hand.
Ellie was quiet for a long time. “Where’s Leo?” she eventually asked, tossing her half of the old wool blanket that they used on evening bonfires at the beach.
“Gone,” Gemma said flatly, as simply as Leo had answered the question she needed to ask.
Ellie nodded her head, no further explanation needed. They stared up, into the night sky, at the very stars they used to wish upon as young girls, back when they still felt full of hope and possibility, back when they were still bonded by childhood struggles and daily routine, not just the ownership of an old, run-down house.
Only they were bonded by more than that, Gemma thought. And it would seem that between the three of them, lasting love only did belong in fiction.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Ellie
It was early when Ellie arrived at the studio, but unlike the last couple of weeks, her heart didn’t speed up as she passed through town, and she no longer viewed the hours that stretched ahead as being filled with possibility. It was another day on the island, same as always. She’d make some coffee. Some of the guys off the docks would come in to start their week off right. They’d chat about the weather, the choppiness of the water, and then they’d go on their way. She’d call around to the shops to see how her weekend sales had gone, and if any new inventory was needed. And then…
And then this was where things got lonely.
Before she could let her mood get the better of her, she started a fresh pot of coffee to brew and turned a sign on the door that led directly to the docks, letting all the regulars know that she was open. The coffee had only finished brewing when Edward came through the door, holding up his thermos.
“Happy to see you back in business,” he said with a grin.
“I was never out of business,” she said, filling his mug. He dropped a few bucks in her change jar, even though it wasn’t necessary really.
“Well, you haven’t been making your coffee these last couple days,” Edward said, giving her a wink. “Made me drag myself all the way to Cottage Coffeehouse.”
“Which is only around the corner.” She laughed. “And they have the best coffee in town.”
He gave her a wry look as he helped himself to the container of milk she kept in the mini-fridge. “Well, they don’t have the best conversation.”
She grinned. “Aw, Edward. You’re too kind.”
“Just being honest,” he said gruffly, looking her square in the eye, and something in her melted a little. He was one of the fixtures of the island, the kind of local stock that made this place what it was, and she’d known him since she was a little girl.
The warmth in her heart lasted long after he’d taken his leave, after she’d promised to be here bright and early tomorrow, with muffins this time, and he promised to bring her some fresh catch to share with her sisters. This prompted them to share a good laugh about Hope that day last week, and Ellie was still chuckling about it when she was settled at her easel, only this time she didn’t stay in her back room. She pulled her workspace into the brightly lit studio. The sun was reflecting off the water, and she wanted to capture the harbor before the light changed.
She was just sketching a few of the boats when the door opened. She expected to see Edward, back for a refill, but it wasn’t one of the fishermen coming in off the docks.
It was Simon.
She frowned. She couldn’t help herself, and he held up a hand before she could protest.
Still, she did. “Shouldn’t you be with your fiancée?” she asked. She picked up her paintbrush, went back to the boats, but she was angry and her hand was shaking, damn it, and he’d messed up her morning. She wasn’t going to let him mess up her painting too.
“You’re mad,” he said.
She flashed him with a look. “Gee, you think?”
“I’m sorry if you thought I was leading you on,” he said. “That was never my intention.”
“And just what was your intention?” she asked, but it was all so obvious now, so horribly, painfully obvious. She saw what she wanted to see even when real life was staring her in the face.
Simon had moved on. And she was still right here.
“I guess I wanted it to be like old times,” he said. “Like how we left off.”