In the Age of Love and Chocolate (Birthright #3)(60)

“Right. I wouldn’t have dumped that lasagna on Gable Arsley’s head. I would have had productive channels for my anger.”

“But if you hadn’t dumped that lasagna on Gable’s head, how would I have known where to come and meet you?”

I swam a bit away from the deck. After a minute, he swam after me. “Not so fast,” he said. “You’re still a beginner.”

He grabbed my arm and pulled me to him so that we were facing each other in the water.

“Sometimes,” he said, “I think my mother is as manipulative as my father.”

“What do you mean?”

“My mother, with her absurd and transparent notion that I should teach you to swim. And my father … I think he has the idea that if he can get us back together, then he’ll have redeemed himself for 2082.”

“Ridiculous man,” I said. “It was really 2082 and 2083.”

“But one must ask the question: Is the only reason that stupid boy ever liked you because his ambitious father objected? Isn’t that what you always told me? My point is, maybe Dad’s plan is faulty. Because maybe those cute young people need obstacles, you and me. Maybe once the star-crossed become unstar-crossed, Romeo gets bored with Juliet.”

“Well, there are still a few obstacles,” I said. “I was married, and no matter how you look at it, it was basically a marriage of convenience.”

“You’re saying I should consider the fact that you are a person of low morals, ethics, and character to be an impediment.”

“Yes, that is what I’m saying.”

He shrugged. “I knew that about you a long time ago.”

“And I killed someone. In self-defense, but still. And my body is broken. I’m pretty much like a fifty-year-old woman. I move about as fast as my nana.”

“You look okay,” he said. He tucked a curl behind my ear.

“And the timing is wrong. I want to come to you when I am strong and beautiful and successful.”

“Do you want me to say that you are all those things still, or will you roll your pretty green eyes at me?”

“I will roll my eyes at you. I have a mirror, Win, though I try to avoid it.”

“From where I am, the view is not that bad.”

“You haven’t seen me naked,” I said.

He cleared his throat. “I’m not sure how to respond to that.”

“Well, it wasn’t an invitation, if that’s what you’re thinking. It was reportage.”

“I’m”—he cleared his throat again—“I’m sure it’s not so bad.”

“Come closer,” I said. I thought I’d settle the matter. I lowered the scoop neck of my T-shirt to show him the large, bumpy pink scar from my heart surgery and the one from where the sword had gone all the way through.

His eyes grew wide and he inhaled sharply. “It is a bad scar,” he said in a subdued voice. He put his hand on the scar that ran below my collarbone, which was dangerously close to my breast. “Did it hurt?”

“Like crazy,” I said. He closed his eyes and looked like he might kiss me. I pulled my T-shirt back up. I swam over to the dock, my heart beating just short of an attack, and I climbed up the ladder as quickly as I could.

XXIII

I BID FAREWELL TO SUMMER IN A SERIES OF UNCOMFORTABLY EMOTIONAL VIGNETTES

“I HATE WHEN SUMMER ENDS,” Ms. Rothschild said, waving her hand in front of her face. I had found her crying in the farm’s library. “Don’t mind me, though. Come sit for a spell.” She patted the place on the couch next to her. I returned Persuasion to the shelf—I’d worked my way through all of Jane Austen that summer—and then I sat down. Ms. Rothschild put her arm around my shoulders. “It has been a good summer, hasn’t it? You look a tiny bit plumper and rosier, I think.”

“I feel better,” I said.

“I am glad to hear it. I hope you have been happy here. It has been delightful having you and your sister. Please come back anytime. I am thankful to my ex-husband for thinking of it. I always liked you, you know, even when Charlie was so dead set against the match with Win. We argued about it quite a bit back then. He insisted it was just a high school romance, and I said, no, that girl is special. But these many years later, Mr. Delacroix has come to the opinion that I was right, which he always does, by the way, and I know we both have had our fingers crossed that you and Win might find your way back together.”

“It’s not to be.”

“May I ask why, Anya?”

“Well … I was widowed less than a year ago, and I was so badly hurt. It’s hard to imagine a relationship with anyone until I feel more like myself. And, the truth is, romantically, I question a lot of the choices I’ve made. I’ve made so many mistakes while thinking I was doing exactly the right thing. I think I need a break from relationships.”

“That is probably sensible,” Ms. Rothschild said after a pause.

“Besides, I think what Win truly feels toward me is nostalgia, and he is good to me because of our shared past,” I said. “You raised the world’s most decent boy, so congratulations for that.”

“I had help,” she said. “Win forgets, but Charlie was a pretty good father most of the time, too.”