Under the Table(62)
“Isn’t it funny how those things work?”
He started to sway side to side with her still tightly in his grasp. “I can’t wait to spend all our days and nights together, dancing and playing Rock Band. Maybe smoking some pot.”
“You’re getting a little more modern every day.” She allowed him to dance her around the library floor until they were both dizzy from the twirling, and the joy.
He continued to hold her close and stared down into her jubilant eyes, brushing the hair off her forehead.
“I will love you forever, Zoey. You’re my one. My only.”
Zoey thought she might start to swoon. Before he could recapture her mouth with his, a frown began to furrow her brow. One he noticed immediately.
“What’s the matter?”
“There’s still my feelings about starting a family. I love you so much, but that hasn’t changed. I can’t promise that it ever will.”
Tristan set her at arm’s length and gave her a tender smile. Then he let her go and struck a perfect Steven Tyler pose. “A baby would cramp my vicious style.”
She giggled, and his smile got wide. Then he returned to being serious. He slid closer to her and brushed his knuckles across her cheek before gently tilting her chin up to meet his penetrating gaze.
“Zoey,” he said reassuringly. “I’ve said it before, it’s your body, your baby. Between the work that I do and all you did to enlighten me, I’ve seen enough of this world to make a valid argument for either side. As long as I have you, I have everything I need.”
In the end, it was Tristan who taught Zoey the most important lessons. About what love really looked like and how it was supposed to be shown. It was the unwavering, unflinching ability to support a partner throughout their changes. Or no changes at all.
Epilogue
One year later . . .
It was the easterly trade winds that allowed the breezes in St. Croix to blow cool and kept the humidity low. On the return from her morning walk on the beach, Zoey turned her face toward them.
They had been there only a week before she had drawn two conclusions. Tristan must have been in the darkest stages of grief when he left this beautiful oasis with its sweeping vistas and tropical waters that came in every color blue she could imagine. And she didn’t care if the cold never nipped at her ears or nose again.
The island wasn’t the desolate place she first imagined when he told her about it. It had all the comforts of the mainland, including a Kmart and an OfficeMax. But as they got closer to the property, it was easy to see why Tristan had grown up so isolated. It was quiet and secluded. She could see no reason why his grandparents would ever have wanted to leave it.
When they first arrived, Paradise Cove was in a minor state of disrepair. The people Tristan paid to watch over the place did their best. But it was already weathered when he left, and without a steady stream of funds, the maintenance was minimal. Zoey thought about those first nights they spent chasing out geckos that scurried across the tile floors after taking up residence in the cupboards and closets. Not quite as amusing was the mongoose she found in a bathtub. But her hero assured her that it was more scared of her, and she believed him.
Tristan spent their first night showing her around St. Croix, and then the two of them hit the ground running. Within days of their arrival, a contractor he had hired from the mainland arrived, and not long after that, local workers appeared every day, ready to get to work. There were times Zoey was certain Tristan was employing every able-bodied worker in town.
They worked hard as well. Side by side and room by room, they revitalized every square inch of his grandparents’ legacy, careful to preserve the intimacy that drew them to the place to begin with. Except the kitchen, which Tristan insisted be upgraded with every modern convenience imaginable until the original structure was unrecognizable and the only part left intact was the original frame. Tristan wanted the new kitchen to be a place for people to gather, not merely someplace to cook food to be carried off to another room. Zoey couldn’t agree more. She had always said old habits were hard to break. As soon as the kitchen was fully functional, they were cooking for all the people who helped work on the house.
In those early days before the workers arrived and the big house was constantly abuzz, Zoey lovingly roamed the premises in search of the spirits of his grandparents, a sign telling her they approved of her being there. She imagined her husband as a boy, running up and down the halls and splashing in the nearby surf. A young lad in Bermuda shorts with tanned limbs, and hair just a tad too long. The kind his grandfather would always say needed to be cut.
They had married, in a simple ceremony performed by a local judge on a palm-fringed beach exactly three months after they arrived. Two weeks earlier, her divorce decree from Derek arrived via FedEx. She never had the misfortune of having to deal with Derek again after he left her on the side of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Whether it was that he didn’t care or that Tristan’s lawyer scared him into signing the papers, she would never know. Tristan secretly had a magnificent gazebo built during the eight-day waiting period for their marriage license.
“Money talks,” he reminded her with a grin, not sounding the least bit guilty for abusing his position.
Now Paradise Cove was all but finished, but the idea of filling it with tourists had lost its luster. They attributed that change of heart to being newlyweds. In December, Tristan spent his half hour doing keystrokes on his program and by January he didn’t need to worry about customers again.