He kept his peace on the ride back, lost in his thoughts, climbing out of the car in the hotel lot to follow Daphne down the narrow hallway toward the stairs. But at the Merrill’s hotel room, it came to him what he should do.

  He should talk to Howard Merrill. Daphne was his daughter. So surely, Howard was the best person to speak with about all these thoughts roaming around in his head. Besides, he had no one else. He certainly wasn’t talking to Henry Kozecky.

  But the trouble was getting her dad alone, and so an hour went by before Carter found his opening. Martha asked Daphne to help her unload groceries they’d picked up on the way, and Howard stepped outside on the landing. “For air,” he said.

  Carter trailed after him, the weight of Daphne’s eyes pressing on his back. He waited to speak until the door was tightly closed. “Mr. Merrill? Can I ask you a question?”

  Howard Merrill looked at him beneath thick brows. “Absolutely.”

  “It’s about me and Daphne.”

  This changed her dad’s expression to a mix of curiosity and fearfulness. “Go ahead.”

  Carter inhaled. “I … I like her … a lot. In fact, enough I want to date her, but I’m feeling a little … overwhelmed, I guess is the word. How do I be all the things she expects me to be?”

  Howard Merrill chuckled, his eyes growing soft. “You won’t, Son, so don’t set that standard for yourself.”

  Deflated, Carter stared at his feet.

  “Now, don’t go there either,” her dad continued. “I know Daphne, so I know what you’re feeling. Her mother’s the same way. But, you know, much of what we struggled with in our youth we’ve worked through. However, it took time. There simply isn’t any easy, quick answer.”

  Standing taller, he crossed his arms over his chest. “But that shouldn’t discourage you. It’s like taking a trip. You have to enjoy all the preparation and the travel as much as getting there. Really the arrival is a small and insignificant period of time in the grand scope of things, especially when so much happens between point A and point B.”

  He laid a hand on Carter’s shoulder. “In so many ways, you remind me of myself. Martha was headstrong and apt to leap into things when we met, and yes, like Daphne, always somehow making mistakes, but that was what I fell in love with. Truth be told, that was what I needed. And it’s never been boring or given me any regrets.”

  Carter swallowed nervously, his mouth dry, and curled his hands into fists. “One more thing,” he said. One thing huge to say, this being her dad. One thing he wanted more than anything to come true. But what if it didn’t what then?

  “What if I don’t fall in love with her?” he asked. “Does it make a difference that I want to?”

  A wide smile spread on her dad’s lips. “I think you already know the answer to that. I see it in your face when you look at her and in hers when she looks at you. Relax and give yourself time to realize it.”

  “Carter?” The door swung open and Daphne’s head popped out. “You left.”

  He turned around and took her outstretched hand. “I’m right here. Just talking to your dad.”

  She stepped out the door and cold air gushed through the crack. “About what?”

  “Oh, nothing. Guy stuff,” he said.

  ***

  The darkness descended so thick it hid the horizon and everything along the beachfront but the steps immediately in front of me. The waves made their constant swish-swish, flooding outward and receding, such a soothing sound that every time we came to the beach I missed back at home.

  I held Carter’s hand, his fingers enfolded in mine, his palm warm, and swung it back and forth in an effort to get him to lighten up. He was excessively gloomy, and after his happiness earlier, I didn’t understand why. So I thought I’d bring him out of it with more useless trivia.

  “My favorite color is blue,” I said. “But not sky blue, more turquoise. You have a favorite?”

  “Blue’s good,” he said.

  Well, that had failed, so I tried another angle.

  “But you can’t just pick my color. You have to pick your own. So if you like blue, that’s good, but what shade of blue?”

  “The sky color’s nice.”

  I formed a frown, something he couldn’t see in the darkness, and switched gears again. “You said you didn’t like cabbage. What else?”

  He was silent a second. “Broccoli.”

  I understood that. I could eat broccoli, but it wasn’t my favorite.

  “Brussels sprouts,” he added.

  “Me too,” I said. Brussels sprouts seemed like something only adults would eat. My mom and dad loved them. “What’s your favorite food?” I continued. “Mine’s chocolate cake.”

  He thought for a minute. “Roast and gravy, I guess.”

  “Your mom’s a good cook because the lasagna was great.” It really was. And she’d had garlic bread and Italian beans to go with it. And my mom had actually convinced her to play cribbage, though his mom hadn’t any idea how to play.

  “She likes to cook,” he said. “Used to cook a lot for my dad.” He clammed up quick at mention of his dad, which made me want to know. It was, after all, the one thing he didn’t talk about.

  “Carter?” I ventured his name.

  “Hmm.”

  “Can … can I ask about your dad?” I swallowed hard. “I mean you don’t have to say, but it seems like it bothers you.”

  He stopped walking and pulled me to him. I laid my head on his chest.

  “There isn’t much to say. They fought a lot. Mom said she couldn’t live like that anymore, so they divorced. Nothing happened, at least, nothing they told me. It was more they simply didn’t love each other anymore.” He spoke slow and deep, the pain evident in his voice.

  And it came to me maybe what he was afraid of – of being like them, of falling in love and it not being real or lasting. I didn’t know if we were in love or not. It’d only been a few days. Yet it seemed like there was so much happening between us, so much possibility. And possibility was a positive thing.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, my voice muffled by his shirt. Sorry seemed lame and worthless, but necessary to say.

  “Not your fault,” he replied. “Not anyone’s fault, I guess.”

  I pulled my head back, looking upward, and saw he was looking at me. Right directly at me. He lowered his face, and his breath blew hot on my lips, and moist and fervent. I sensed the trembling of his chin, the slight flutter of his heartbeat, and shaking of his hands. Something passed between us, electricity, fire, whatever you’d call it. I was awake and alive.

  Then he jerked backwards, and almost stumbled in the motion. “I … can’t,” he said. “I like you, Daph, so very, very much. But … but I … I gotta think. I’m sorry. Can we go?”

  However, it wasn’t if we could go anymore; it was him walking away and me keeping up. I willed the tears to stay inside. I hadn’t asked him to kiss me right then, so the fact he hadn’t shouldn’t matter. I hadn’t led him on either.

  Yet maybe we’d said too much to each other these few days, made too many statements and shared too much. Maybe like he’d said, he wasn’t ready for a girlfriend.

  And worse yet, maybe, just maybe, though he’d said different, maybe he wasn’t ready for me.

  CHAPTER 7

  It rained all night: thunder and lightning, tempestuous winds, in essence, a torrential downpour. The kind that blocks out anything else in your hearing. And I was grateful at first because what was going on in my head was awful and heartsick and sad. If I could describe it in one word, I’d say I was miserable. Misery of my own making.

  Yet after a while, I simply wanted the rain to stop; it seemed like until it did, my mood wouldn’t change. Nevertheless, just like my mood, the squall had set in for good.

  My dad turned on the TV to prove it, and so we watched the weather over and over.

  I don’t know why people do that. After all, you can see it’s raining, can see it’s not stopping, and yet you feel obligated to torment yourself with the evidence of it on the radar.

  Then my dad announced it, and that made it final. “Gonna rain all day,” he said.

  I sighed and my depression swirled around me. I’d seen no sign of Carter, though I’d glanced out the front window several times, knowing all along he’d get drenched coming up here. I wasn’t even sure he’d want to come at this point. We’d parted on such weird terms.

  That was the only way I could describe it. Weird. He’d said goodnight at the door and disappeared, his head ducked low between his shoulders, and I’d gotten this image of an anchor sitting on his back. Could be he felt that way, and I sure hoped it was nothing I’d put there. But my gut said I had.

  “Let’s play a game,” my mother said, interrupting my thoughts.

  “Not cribbage,” my dad replied.

  She scowled at him. “Of course not. I was thinking charades.”

  My parents playing charades should really be recorded for all time. That way I could play it for my kids in the future and have a good laugh. I wasn’t much into laughing right then, but they brought it out in me. Dad standing on one leg like a stork. Mom belly dancing. I sucked at the game. I had two left feet. But participated as best I could, and it did help while away the time. A good two hours in fact.

  We ended the game and all sat there staring at the blustery sky. Then my dad spoke. “And the rains came and the wind blew,” he said, quoting the Bible story.

  My mom finished the quote, “And beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.”

  I didn’t comment, their quote seeming prophetic to me, my little world, the bubble I’d built over five days now was crumbling into dust. I’d fooled myself to believe Carter cared for me, even a little. All those words he’d said, I’m sure he’d meant them at the time. But face it, Daphne, you are what you are.

  Mom and Dad either didn’t notice my mood or chose not to comment on it. I’m sure they were thinking how Carter hadn’t come, but I doubted they had any knowledge of what’d gone on between us. Why would they? They probably simply thought the weather was disrupting things.

  Mom fixed lunch, a collection of leftovers from meals and snack bags. She believed in being thrifty, hating to take anything home from the beach. Somehow in her mind it all had to stay here. It became tainted if we toted it the hour’s drive home.

  I ate in silence, concentrating on my food, and afterward, decided to read the book I’d brought along. The one I hadn’t touched because I’d spent every waking moment with Carter. I made it two chapters in before I realized I hadn’t any idea what the story was about. I’d drifted away to thoughts of me and him.

  Me in the pool sans shorts.

  Us swimming in the ocean, skin to skin.

  Him saying he had a crush on me.

  Us at the aquarium, and his declaration, “I like Daphne Merrill for who she is, and I like her a lot. She makes me happy.”

  Well, if I made him happy, then where was he? Was he thinking of me at all? Or had he simply done exactly what I thought all boys did after spending time with me – moved on?

  The rain and my thoughts sent me to sleep. I awoke to the rumble of thunder and drone of the TV. Dragging myself out the door, I have hoped he’d be there, smiling and waiting. But instead, it was my parents, cuddled up together, backs to me.

  I stared at them. Would that ever be me? Would I ever find someone who’d love me like that, in spite of everything I manage to goof up? Tears pushed at my eyes and I tried to hold them back. But soon it was impossible, and so lip trembling, cheeks warm and damp, my spirits as low as they could get, I stood there and wept.

  ***

  He’d ended it wrong. First, he hadn’t followed through in kissing her, and then he’d simply walked off, leaving her confused. That’d been written all over her face, a kind of, “What just happened?” Which sadly wasn’t her fault. Daphne was simply Daphne. She couldn’t be anything else.

  As far as he was concerned, he hadn’t lied to her. He wasn’t looking for a girlfriend when he’d come here. The pain of Carrie’s rejection was too fresh. He did have a crush on her. She was great – funny and honest and real. He did like her exactly how she was and she did make him happy.

  Then why was he so upset?

  Because he didn’t measure up. It all came back to that. Her dad had said to relax and give himself a chance, yet nothing in his psyche wanted to do that. It wanted to go over and over and over the problem, running through all the reasons maybe he was exactly like his father, why he might hurt her and damage her forever. And he could never live with himself if he did that.

  He couldn’t hurt Daphne and her stop being like she was because how she was is what made him want to be with her so badly, to kiss her until his mind blanked and there was nothing else around but the two of them.

  Carter folded his arms behind his head and gazed out the rain-smeared window. Red hibiscus flowers, crushed by the heavy drops, pasted themselves to the glass creating an abstract painting. A gust of wind sent them flapping out and smacking back again.

  The rain had given him an excuse to stay away, to spend time alone thinking and make up his mind. Yet in all the hours he’d been here, avoiding conversation with his mom and Henry all day, locking himself in this bedroom, he’d only concluded one thing. He was afraid. Terrified.

  No, make that two. He wanted Daphne. But maybe wanting her and being right for her were two entirely different things.

  A knock on the doorframe flipped his gaze that way and his mom looked in. “What’s got you so glum?” she said. “I figured you’d escape to see Daphne.”

  He exhaled slowly. “Needed to think.”

  She crossed the room and seated herself at his side. “About?”

  He didn’t reply right away, and so she did what moms do, she picked at his shirt and brushed his hair with her fingertips.

  “About dad,” he said at last.

  Her bearing changed. She hated talking about his dad, so they never did. But avoiding it was killing him and creating more problems for him to deal with.

  “What about him?” she asked.

  He settled his gaze on her face. He looked like his dad; she’d told him that often enough, so maybe that was part of her discomfort in talking, the memories she probably had of better times and their hopes for him and how he brought the pain back.

  “Am I like him?”

  She inclined her head to the right and dusted her hair from her neck. “In what way?”

  “In the can’t-hold-a-marriage-together way.”

  She flinched. “That’s unfair, son.”

  “Well, he couldn’t.”

  She glanced toward the open door and standing, moved back and closed it. She held in place for a minute, her palm on the surface, before turning back around.

  “It takes two to argue,” she said evenly.

  “So it was you that couldn’t hold onto things as well?” He was well aware he sounded bitter, but he couldn’t stop the force of his words.

  She sighed. “It was both of us. He messed up; I messed up, and we were both too proud to say, ‘I’m sorry.’”

  “Are you? Sorry?”

  She nodded. “All the time. Your father was the most dashing man. He swept me off my feet within days of meeting him, and I could think of nothing but being his wife, having his children. But I was unprepared; he was unprepared. We didn’t give each other enough time to be friends.”

  She squirmed a bit. “We should’ve slowed down, but then you came along …”

  “So you married for me? It’s my fault?” Guilt bashed him in the head, and he wallowed in it. He’d destroyed his parents’ marriage. Him, by coming into existence.

  “No. Carter …” His mom touched his arm. “Why are you doing this? The marriage wasn’t your fault. The divorce wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault; it just happened, and now, I have to move on, to find happiness again.”

  He pulled his arm back. “Yeah. I hear how you’ve moved on.”

  Her cheeks reddened. “Carter Pruitt, that’s uncalled for.”

  “Well, you’re not married, and he’s here, and you and him … I thought you believed what the preacher said. I did. Carrie wanted to; she begged me.”

  Her face grew alarmed.

  “But I said no, and so she said I was too ‘sensitive’ and she ‘couldn’t deal with it.’” The look on Carrie’s face returned as real as it had been that night, accusatory, hateful. He groaned and crammed his hands over his eyes.

  His mother’s voice whispered in his ear and settled there. “But if you’d done that, then you wouldn’t have Daphne.”

  His throat sealed, and he swallowed the lump forming. “I don’t think I have Daphne at all.”

  His mother’s smooth palm caressed his cheek. “Look at me,” she said.

  He forced his eyes open.

  “Henry has asked me to marry him twice. I have refused. So don’t hate Henry. He didn’t want to come on this vacation; he said you didn’t like him. But I convinced him it’d be good for all of us, good to get away and find who we are again.”

  “Who am I?” he asked, interrupting her. “What if I’m just like you and Dad and I hurt her?”

  “What if you don’t? What if you choose to be a better person than your father and I? What then? Are you willing to give up Daphne out of fear?”

  “Are you?” he asked. “Are you willing to marry Henry and make it right?”

  A standoff, that’s what this was. Face-to-face they stared at each other, waiting ‘til the other broke. And his mom spoke at last.

  “You aren’t me, and you aren’t him,” she said. “Your life is your own to choose to live. And I think you know what you want to do way down in here.” She patted his chest. “Give in. Give in and fall in love. It’s okay.”

  She rose from the bed and left the room, unspeaking. He gazed at the place she’d been for a good while, then returned to contemplation of the window. Was it really that easy? He should simply let go and see where this takes him? Would the memory of what happened to his parents send him repeating their actions or keep him away from them?