He did not have a home to go to, at least not the one next door. She realized he was looking for reasons not go back to the house he had grown up in, not the way it was now.
And whether he knew it or not, or could acknowledge it or not, something about what had just passed between them had let him know she would stand by him.
That she had his back.
Just as she had become so aware that he would stand by her, no matter what.
Kayla had seen the pain and desperation in him this morning. She had nearly wept when he had spoken about how the way his mother was now was threatening to wipe out everything that had happened before.
And she saw the truth. This morning she had been a different person than the one she was now. When had she become that person? The one who would turn away from someone in need to protect herself?
That was what the hardness inside her had done. That was what the bitterness of her marriage had done. That was what being so unforgiving had done.
But those were things that had happened to her. Only she could decide if they could change who she really was.
Really, did anything change the essence of who a person was?
Once, a long time ago, she and David and some other kids had hiked in to Cambridge Falls, not far from town.
But when they had gotten there, someone had left garbage along the edges of the jade-green pool at the bottom of the falls.
She had been incensed, but David had simply picked up the trash and stowed it in his backpack.
“It’s temporary,” he’d said, seeing her face. “It can’t change this.” He gestured at the beauty of the fall cascading into the greenness of the glade.
“Even if I didn’t pick it up,” he’d insisted softly, “five years from now, or twenty, or a hundred, the garbage would be gone, and this would remain.”
This would remain. The essence. Water hammering down over moss-covered rocks created a cooling mist and prisms of light, falling into a pool that was the deepest shade of green she had ever seen. Like emeralds.
Like her eyes, David had said.
The essence: what was at the heart of each thing in the universe.
And Kayla felt the garbage had kept her from seeing hers. Now, just as then, David had seen past the garbage, to who she really was.
And had allowed her to glimpse it again, too.
Kayla could feel something fresh and hopeful unfolding in herself. And it made her want to be a better person, even if that meant taking risks.
Surely she could trust herself to be the friend David needed just as he had been the friend she needed this morning?
Or could they ever be just friends after what had just transpired between them?
She drew in a steadying breath at the thought. She remembered his mother in her pink winter boots and her gaping nightgown, and him sleeping on the lawn.
She guessed he was sleeping out there, not just because he didn’t like it inside the house, but in case his mother got out again.
He was a warrior protecting his camp, and somehow Kayla had fallen inside that ring of protection.
The tenderness she felt for this strong, strong man who was having his every strength tried nearly overwhelmed her.
Kayla drew in a deep breath. If she could help him get through that, she was going to, even if it meant putting herself in danger.
And being around him did make the very air feel as if it were charged with danger. She was just way too aware of him right now: the rain-fresh scent of the lake clinging to him, his wet shirt and shorts molding the fine cut of his muscles.
And then there was the way his lips had felt on her finger. And then on the tenderness of her lips.
In fact, the place where his lips had tasted her and touched her and claimed her felt, still, tingling, faintly singed as if she had been branded by the electricity of a storm.
“I’d appreciate it if you could fix that chair,” she said. “You’re right. I would have stood on it to put the cream in HAL.”
He nodded, knowing.
“And while you fix the chair, I’ll see if I can rescue any of the cream from that machine. We might have homemade dandelion ice cream yet today.”
She was pleased that her voice sounded calm and steady, a complete lie given the hard beating of her heart as she recognized a new start, a second chance, a return to herself.
A homecoming.
He shot her a look. “Stay away from HAL,” he warned.
“I’m going to rescue my ice cream from the jaws of HAL,” she muttered, and heard his snort of reluctant laughter.
“Okay, but don’t do it until I get there.”
She should have protested at his controlling behavior. Instead, knowing it might be a weakness, she savored someone caring for her.
And she savored caring for someone right back.
“Aye-aye, David,” she said, and gave him a mock salute. His grin was sudden, warm, spontaneous, completely without guards; it was the cherry on top of the sundae of what they’d just shared.
“I prefer the French pronunciation,” he said, “Duh-veed.”
It was an old, old joke between them, a leftover from their high school days, a reminder of the people they both had been, and perhaps, could be again.
“AYE-AYE, DUH-VEED,” she said, and her laughter felt rich and warm and real as she watched him cross the lawn between their two houses. Then she turned and went around her walkway to her back door, Bastigal tucked close to her heart. She was aware of the dog’s heart beating. But even more aware of the beating of her own.
Life.
She was aware she was alive, and glad of it.
A little while later, feeling joyous with her dog back in his little basket watching her, Kayla tried to decide what to wear and what to do with her hair.
Momentarily, guilt niggled at her. What was she doing?
But she brushed the guilt aside and decided right then and there that she had had enough guilt to last her a lifetime. David had said guilt and happiness could not coexist. He had said fear and happiness could not coexist.
When was the last time she had just taken the moments life gave her as a gift? In the past days, lying out under the stars, getting sprayed with yellow globs, swimming fully clothed in the chilly and refreshing waters of the lake she had felt something she had not felt for so long.
Happy.
And then when she had given in to the temptation to taste his lips?
Alive.
And if it was some kind of sin to want that feeling, to chase it, even though it was connected to him, well, then she was going to be a sinner.
She had tried for sainthood for the first twenty-some-odd years of life. She was going to try playing for the other side.
And so, she looked at her wardrobe with a critical eye, and she passed over the knee-length golfing shorts and the button-down blouse.
She put on, instead, shorty-shorts and a tailored plaid top that she left one button more than normal undone on.
She scooped up her hair into a loose bun, letting the tendrils fall out and