Saving Forever (The Ever Trilogy: Book 3) (41 page)

“First swim of the season! Brisk, baby!” He shook his head like a dog, water spraying on me, so I laughed and shielded myself with my hands. “You gonna swim with me?”

“Maybe when it’s warmer?” I said, wiping my face with my sleeve.

“It’s not that bad. I’ll have to spend a few weeks getting into condition before I make the whole distance to the mainland. If you start swimming with me now, you’ll probably be able to keep pace with me. You’re pretty badass. That run south from the lighthouse? You remember that? I thought I’d die trying to keep up with you.” He sat down on the bench next to me, stretched his arm out behind me, and stole my coffee from me to take a sip.

I laughed. “God, that was crazy. I was so pissed off that you wouldn’t talk to me, but I would be damned before I let you show me up. By the time I got back home, I could barely walk. I had to literally crawl into the house.” And then what he’d said about me penetrated. “You think I’m badass?”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Um, yeah.”

I blushed. “Thanks, I guess. I don’t feel badass right now. I feel fat and sloppy and slow and soft. I used to be…fit. You could bounce a quarter off my ass. I could run a mile in six minutes and almost lift my own body weight. I was actually thinking about doing the Tough Mudder at some point. That was before, though. Now? Probably not. I’d be lucky to be able to run a mile at all, let alone in any kind of time.”

Carter frowned. “You’re really hard on yourself, physically, aren’t you?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I struggled with my weight all my life. I was never actually overweight, and I know it. But I always compared myself to Ever. She’d always been effortlessly slim. She can eat whatever she wants and not have to worry about it. If she’d been the one to get pregnant, she would’ve been back to her initial weight already. I’m still twenty pounds over my pre-pregnancy weight, and I’m super out of shape. I just…it’s part of me now. The need to exercise. Work out. Stay fit. Run off what I eat. I work out when I’m upset. If I’m super pissed off, I’ll work my legs until I can’t move. If I’m depressed, I’ll work a heavy bag until it goes away.”

Carter’s eyebrows went up. “You box?”

“Kickbox. Used to. Haven’t in a long time, though.”

“I’d like to see that,” he said. “It’d be hot.”

I laughed, blushing. “You have a heavy bag?”

He shrugged. “Not yet. But I’ll get one now.” He rested his hand on my waist. “You’re beautiful the way you are, right now. I want you to feel good about yourself, so if there’s any exercise equipment you need, let me know. But you don’t need it. You’re gorgeous, okay?”

I shook my head. “You’re sweet, Carter. Thank you.”
 

“But you don’t believe me?”

I sighed. “Yes, and no. I know you believe that, and I know your feelings are genuine. But that doesn’t change how I feel. It doesn’t change the fact that I need to work out to feel okay about myself. I’m not as worried about my weight as I used to be. I’m not panicked or comparing myself to Ever, or watching my pants size. I just have to feel in shape.”

He bobbled his head side to side. “I get that. I feel the same way.”

“The other thing is, I’m getting bored. I need to find work.” I glanced at Carter to make sure he didn’t misunderstand. “I love being here, and I love your house and I love how things are, but I need to be busy.”

Carter took my coffee again and sipped it. “I need more coffee. I’ve drunk most of yours.” He stood up and held out his hand for me. We walked hand in hand up to the house, and he made us both coffee. “So, give music lessons. It’s something. There’s always kids around here, and I bet you’d get some pretty steady clientele with only a little advertising.”

It turned out he was right. I used Carter’s massive iMac to make a flyer:
Private cello lessons with Eden Eliot, Cranbrook Academy educated, first chair cellist. To inquire, call 248-555-3456.
I included a close-up photograph of Apollo’s bridge, and my official headshot in the ad, printed out a few, and the next time we ventured downtown for dinner I posted them in a few places, leaving them in restaurants and bars and music stores.
 

Within a week I had my first client, a little eight-year-old girl named Annie. I developed a relationship with the proprietors of the music gear stores, so I could refer my clients to a rental facility. I taught out of the cabin three days a week, and I made a hundred and fifty dollars a week. It wasn’t much—not enough to sustain me on my own, but it was something. It was my own thing, and it kept me busy while Carter tended to the vineyard and the tasting room and delivered art pieces to clients.

Weeks passed in that slow-fast taffy way time has. Carter took me to the doctor for my six-week, post-natal checkup. He stayed in the waiting room for the actual vaginal exam, thankfully. I wasn’t quite ready to include him in that kind of thing yet. I wanted to be, though.
 

The doctor tugged off his rubber gloves, tossed them in the trash, and washed his hands, then turned to address me. “You’re in perfect health, Miss Eliot. You’re clear to resume exercise, sexual activity, what-have-you. If you feel any unusual discomfort or bleeding, however, please call the office immediately. Otherwise, you’re good to go.” He leaned back against the counter. “Will you be going on any form of birth control?”

I nodded. I’d thought about that. “I think I’d like to go with an IUD, actually.”

A few minutes later, I was on birth control, with a clean bill of health, and ready to go. I thanked him and left with Carter, feeling relieved, excited, and more than a little nervous. As we drove back to the marina, Carter clearly wanted to ask how it went, but didn’t seem to know how. I decided to spare him.
 

“Everything’s fine,” I said. “I can go back to working out, and…whatever.”

“Good. I’m glad you’re healthy,” Carter said.

To celebrate, he took me to The Boathouse, a beautiful, upscale restaurant overlooking the West Arm. We ate rich, delicious food and drank expensive wine, and talked about anything and everything except what my all-clear meant for us.

I was thinking about it, though. I was thinking about how it would happen. Would he wait for me to start something? Should we ease into it the way teenagers did, gradually? No, that wouldn’t work. We were both adults and totally aware of what came after kissing. I didn’t want to be the one to start things between us; I wanted him to. I wanted to feel pursued by him. He’d been a perfect gentleman for months--—now it was time for him to show me his dirty side. His passionate and loving and voracious side. It was time for me to show him
mine
. It had been buried for so long, suppressed and ignored and pushed away, that it felt like a distant memory—like an old me, somehow. But I realized I’d changed. I wasn’t the same woman I’d been before Ever’s accident. That single event had changed all of us, each of us in different ways.
 

I wanted to think I was smarter, wiser, and more mature now.
 

Maybe not. All I could think of was getting Carter home and finding out what he’d do. How he’d handle this all-clear. Would he shy away? Want to wait? Would he pounce on me as soon as we hit the kitchen? Or maybe even sooner. Maybe he’d be so overcome by need for me that he’d ravish me on the boat.

I almost laughed. Not likely. He’d be waiting for some kind of signal from me, I knew.
 

He paid the tab, and led me by the hand to his boat docked at the marina connected to The Boathouse. He climbed aboard and started the engine while I untied us, a routine now familiar to us both. He’d taught me the proper knots, and I tied us up when he pulled into the slip, and untied us when we pulled out.
 

The ride across the rolling waves, lit orange and pink by the setting sun, was quiet and tense. Carter seemed uncomfortable, at loose ends. As if he didn’t know what to say, how to act. I knew he wanted me. I’d felt his gaze, felt the heat in his eyes, felt his hands on my waist, going lower until he chickened out. He’d told me he wanted me. But he was too aware of my past to push it on me.
 

I was different, though. So different. I’d approached sex casually throughout the end of high school and most of college. I’d always wanted more from it, wanting it to be special and meaningful. It just hadn’t happened yet. It had meant
something
with Cade, just not what I wanted, and not what he wanted. Now, after nearly a year of abstinence, I was nervous. Anxious. Carter and I had been skirting this issue for so long that it was now a big deal. We’d been so clear about the boundaries of our relationship that crossing that line would be a big step. And for me, that step had to be into something meaningful. I couldn’t go back to doing the walk of shame. I couldn’t go back to one-night stands with frat boys and two-day benders with art majors. I’d been through too much to treat myself and my life and my body so casually.

And
we’d
been through too much to treat my relationship with Carter so casually. If we crossed that line, it would mean something. A very, very important something.
 

He’d been there for me through everything. He’d taken care of me, done a hundred-thousand-dollar remodel for free, because he liked me. He’d held my hand as I’d delivered a baby. He’d taken me to his parents’ house for Christmas. He’d brought me to his home, which I’d realized was a very sacred place to him. It was his private place, his lair. And he’d brought me here. He’d slept next to me night after night for a month and a half, and never once tried anything, nor had he made me feel bad or uncomfortable about it.
 

With the island just coming into view, the sun a huge orange ball to our left, I realized something: Carter loved me. He wouldn’t have done everything he’d done if he didn’t. He’d never asked me for anything in return. Not once. Such selflessness only came from a place of love.

Did I love him back?

I asked myself the question, addressed the deepest part of my heart. I asked my mind, my soul. I asked my body.
Do I love Carter Haven?

The answer was immediate: Yes.

I slid off my chair, reached across him, and pulled the throttle back to a stop. Carter let me do it, an interested expression on his face. The boat rocked forward as our momentum slowed, and the wind of our passage faded to a slow, warm breeze. I turned Carter’s captain chair to face me, pushed between his knees. He knew something significant was happening but, in true Carter fashion, he didn’t ask any questions; he simply wrapped his arms around my waist, lower than he’d ever dared hold me before, his forearms resting on the bell of my hips, and stared up at me. His ice-blue eyes were hot and intent, burning like pale fire.
 

I leaned into him, pressing my breasts to his chest. Curled my hands around the back of his head, cupped his nape, dipped in to kiss him.
 

“I just had an epiphany.” I spoke with my lips brushing his.

“Oh, yeah? What’s that?” His hands played on my back, on my waist, on my hips.
 

“You’re in love with me.”
 

His chest swelled, and his head tipped back to assess me. “Yes. I am.”

I brushed my fingers through his hair, the way he did to me. The wind had tousled his thick beautiful black hair until it was a mess across his brow. I smoothed it aside with my middle fingers, the way he did to me. I brushed my thumb across his cheekbone. Caressed his jaw with my palm. Leaned in and kissed the corner of his mouth. His lips, quickly. The opposite corner. His cheekbone. His eyes, each in turn, which closed as he sighed, and then I kissed his forehead, slow and softly and with great meaning. Then, at last, I pulled back, met his eyes.

“I love you.” I said it evenly, smoothly, although my heart was hammering.
 

Carter’s fingers tightened on my hips. “I’ve loved you since Christmas. Seeing you with my family? That was what told me it was for real, forever. I’d been fighting it before that, falling for you.” His mouth moved on my lips, his breath a hot whisper. “But seeing you with my family, how absolutely perfect you fit in with us all, that was the day I knew.”

“You never let on.”

He shook his head. “I couldn’t. You had to love me for yourself, not because I’d…been your friend. Because I’d been there. If I’d let on, I was afraid I’d scare you away. I was afraid you’d feel pressured to do something you weren’t sure about.”

I nodded. “Probably smart.” I sat on his lap. “I just want you to know this isn’t directly about the appointment. About what that means. I was just thinking, you know, about us. About myself, and how much I’ve changed since I came up here. Since I met you. And I thought about everything you’ve done for me without ever asking for anything in return, and I realized you could only have done all that if you loved me. And it made me ask myself if I felt the same. And I do. With all my heart.” I took his hand and turned his palm to touch the left side of my chest. “And I’m terrified. What if…what if I don’t know how to love you? I’ve never been in love before. And I feel like telling you this is putting…god, everything I am, everything I want, in your hands. Like I’m totally trusting you. I’m opening up and showing you part of me that I’ve never even seen myself.”

Carter left his hand where it was to feel my heartbeat, and took my hand to place my palm so I could feel the mirrored hammering in his chest. “You feel that way because that’s exactly what love is. Giving yourself, with all your faults and vulnerabilities, to someone else, trusting that they’ll treasure what you’re giving them.” He let those words sink in. “I’m telling you right now, Eden, that I treasure it. I can’t…I don’t have enough words to tell you what your love and your trust means to me. I’ll just have to take all the time in the world to show you.”

I sniffed back tears of roiling emotions. “God, Carter. Could you be any more perfect?”

He laughed. “Yes, I could. I’m not perfect.”

“You seem that way to me.”

“I hope to stay that way, for you.” His brow furrowed, and his eyes narrowed. “But I won’t. For example, I’m going crazy right now. I want to kiss you so badly, but I don’t dare because if I do, it’ll end up with us on the floor of this boat. And you deserve better than that.”