She put on the thick socks she’d been wearing that he hadn’t noticed until the second time when he’d taken them off and when they got downstairs draped a shawl around her shoulders before she started to walk outside in her socks with him to his truck.
He stopped her before he even opened the door.
“Cady, shoes,” he said.
She looked to her feet then to him. “I’m okay.”
“It’s not even twenty degrees out there.”
“Am I hanging out there for an hour?”
“No.”
“I’m good.”
“Cady, there’s snow out there. Put on some boots.”
“Coert, they’re at the Lobster Market loitering over whoopee pies. They probably stopped loitering two seconds after I gave them the go ahead to come home. They’ll be back any minute.”
“Boots,” he ordered.
“These socks are thicker than my boots.
“What’d I say?”
“Coert!” she snapped.
“Cady.”
Her frame went still.
Then she bowed her head.
He grew instantly alarmed.
Shit, he shouldn’t have pushed the boots.
When she lifted her head, she was on him again. Hands in his hair, yanking his mouth to hers and kissing him wet and heavy and deep.
He turned her, pushed her against the door and participated avidly.
He eventually tore his mouth from hers saying what he had to say, not for him or them.
For her.
“I gotta go.”
“Love you,” she whispered.
That was when Coert stilled.
“Love you, Coert,” she whispered again.
“Love you too, Cady,” he whispered back, went in for another touch of the lips and said, “Just stay in. Stay warm. And I’ll call tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
Another lip touch like he couldn’t exist unless he had that connection and finally he pulled her from the door, set her aside and gave himself one last moment to give Midnight a quick rubdown. He moved his eyes to her, shot her a smile, waited and watched her face get soft.
And then he turned to the door, opened it and walked right out.
He was halfway to his truck when he heard the door open behind him.
He turned and started walking backward seeing Cady in the door.
“Get inside!” he called.
“Text me when you get home,” she called back.
“Right.”
“Talk to you tomorrow!” She was yelling now.
“Right!” he yelled back.
“’Bye!”
“Later, baby!”
He nearly ran into his truck so he turned to watch where he was going, got in, started her right up to get her warmed up, because it was freaking cold, and he looked to Cady’s door.
She stood illuminated by the light behind her, the Christmas swags, the spiral pines, Midnight sitting at her side.
She waved.
Coert waved back.
It looked like Midnight woofed.
And he was smiling when he reversed out and drove away.
He was still smiling when he got into his house, turned on Janie’s tree and pulled out his phone.
Home safe. Sleep tight. Love you, he texted.
He was in his kitchen pouring a needed two fingers of bourbon when he got back, Family’s back. Impromptu meeting. Although they see me breathing, Pat’s in trouble.
He strikes me as a guy who can take it, Coert returned.
He is, thank God, she replied.
After taking a sip of bourbon he told her, We’ll scratch a meeting with your family on the agenda before they leave.
I’m feeling a good deal of happy right now and Mike can be more overprotective than his dad. So maybe you can meet them over Skype when they’re a gazillion states away.
Coert grinned. Fortitude, honey. We can do this.
Yes we can.
Coert kept grinning and sipping as he turned on his TV but sat not watching it, rather smelling Cady on him, his phone in his hand, Cady on the other end.
And just to say, he texted, I’m liking that good deal of happy.
She didn’t text for a while and Coert didn’t like it until she did, and it stated, Daly put me on the hot seat. I was just grilled to within an inch of my life and then had to endure Kath shouting, “For God’s sake, Daly, can’t you see you’re ruining her afterglow!” Thank God the kids are at Elijah’s or that would have been bad.
Coert burst out laughing.
And when he was done, he tried to think of the last time he’d laughed that hard with that sense of freedom.
It wasn’t even when he was with Cady, no matter how funny she could be, and she’d always been funny, because all he was doing to her was standing in the way.
Was Elijah there tonight? he asked.
Out on a date but he’s back and I’ll tell you about it, but this date was not good seeing as I think Verity got a huge crush on him the second she laid eyes on him.
Which ones are Verity’s parents?
Kath and Pat.
Was in his presence five minutes and still can say, she catches his eye, they should count themselves lucky.
Yes. I SO agree. He’s SUCH a good guy.
Coert was again smiling. Yeah.
I should let you go. Kath’s opening another bottle of wine and she’s demanded the men go to the studio so I think I’m about to be on a different kind of hot seat.
More smiling Right, Cady. Don’t worry about your afterglow, honey. I’ll give you another one tomorrow.
Her reply didn’t come as quickly, and he got why when he read it and felt it deeply when he saw, Love you, Coert. A lot.
I know, Cady. Love you too. Talk to you tomorrow and see you tomorrow night.
Can’t wait. See you.
Don’t get drunk. Afterglows aren’t as good through a hangover.
It was then she sent him a cartoon picture that looked a lot like her, smiling big, but wearing a dragon outfit with a sword in her chest with the words You Slay Me! hanging over it.
A shock of laughter exploded from his throat and he asked, What the fuck is that?
He got rapid texts.
Bitmoji.
Nieces and nephews.
Learn to cope. I can have entire conversations through Bitmoji.
Coert chuckled and returned, Go get drunk with your girls. But not too drunk.
Okay. Sleep tight.
Oh, he would.
Will do. Night, honey.
Goodnight, Coert.
He didn’t text her back to hold their connection even when he wanted to, letting her go to be with her family.
But he did stare at the cartoon of Cady in a dragon suit and he did it a long time.
Then he couldn’t stop himself from leaning over, elbows to his knees, pressing his bourbon to one temple, his phone to his other, his mouth engaged with sucking huge amounts of oxygen into his lungs.
It happened.
They did it.
They were committed to negotiating the in between and finding each other again.
Which meant rediscovering each other.
Which meant Cady sharing Bitmojis.
He stopped deep breathing and started laughing then he grunted twice to hold a different emotion at bay and folded deeper into himself holding the phone and glass to the back of his neck.
“She forgives me,” he muttered to his knees.
Love you, Coert. A lot.
It was ragged when he repeated, “She forgives me.”
He drew in breath, sat up, sat back, set his phone aside and trained his eyes to his Christmas tree.
Then he flipped off his boots, lifted his stocking feet to the coffee table and turned his attention to his TV.
Totally Show Me
Cady
Present day . . .
MIDNIGHT ROAMING MY BACK SEAT, a pie in the seat beside me, the next nigh
t, I drove to Coert’s.
No matter all the good that had happened the night before, part of that being after it happened I had the girls right there to process it with over wine, I still hardly slept at all.
I couldn’t believe in it.
I couldn’t believe it was real.
I eventually fell into a fitful sleep sometime in the early morning hours.
And I did this only to have Coert not waste any time proving to me it was real.
This came through a text at six thirty that made my phone on my nightstand buzz.
I woke immediately, saw his name and snatched it up to read, Morning, honey. Hope you slept good. I’ll give you time to have breakfast with your family and call around 10:30 or 11:00. If you need me sooner, you have my number.
That was so sweet, so wonderful, so everything, I didn’t hesitate to text back, Good morning back to you. Hope you slept well too. That time will be great. Look forward to it. Love you.
And I immediately got back, Love you too. Talk soon.
I was up on an arm in my bed, the sun not yet even a promise in the sky, my dog awake and knowing I was as well thus sharing with some nudges it was time to be let out and then provide doggie breakfast, and in my hand as I scrolled down with my thumb, I saw the proof.
Ample proof.
In writing.
This was real.
Coert and I were real.
On that thought, regardless of the little sleep I’d had, I’d bounded out of bed.
The morning had been interesting, assessing the two camps that had formed around this situation.
Kath, Shannon and Verity (the last now of an age that her mother and I had allowed her to be a part of the women’s discussion, but it was just her mother who let her drink wine) were all in, Verity going so far as to declare it, “Like a Christmas romance movie, Auntie Cady. With a lighthouse and everything!”
The night before, Pam had fallen when I shared Coert broke down under the crush of emotion he was feeling and all he’d given me when he did.
That morning Pat, I could tell, was happy it happened, but still watchful.
Daly and Mike did not hide they had yet to be won over.
The rest of the kids didn’t really know what was happening, but they’d seen Coert and sensed it was something. Though they had pancakes, were staying at a lighthouse and Christmas was around the corner so the conversation about Coert had been limited, starting when Ellie asked, “Who was that tall man at your house last night, Auntie Cady?”
To which, under smiles from the women, a thoughtful look from Pat and glowers from his brothers, I replied, “Since I’ve been here, I’ve reconnected with somebody I knew a long time ago. We had something important to talk about so we had to do it alone. But you’ll meet him soon, sweetie.”
“Gross, a boyfriend,” Riley declared.
“Not gross, he’s an old guy but still it was right there to see Auntie Cady scored herself some hot,” Bea, my fourteen-year-old (in truth), twenty-five-year-old (in her head) niece announced.
“Sick.” Riley.
“Lush.” Verity.
“He was really tall! Taller even than Daddy!” Melanie.
“He jacks you around, I’ll break his neck.” Dexter (or my now eighteen-year-old nephew who’d lived with a sister who was a serial girlfriend who (until her crush on Elijah) had chosen poorly so he’d also lived through the dramas and tantrums of many a breakup).
“He’s the sheriff, Riley,” Verity declared a little smugly, rubbing the youngsters noses just a tad bit in the fact that she was now an “adult” so was in the know.
“The sheriff! I change my mind! That’s awesome!” Riley cried.
“Let’s stop talking about the sheriff and start talking about bacon,” Daly cut in to put an end to a discussion he didn’t like (as any mention of bacon would do). “Who wants some and how many pieces?”
This prompted a cacophony of shouts and a feeling of relief that when we’d gone to the grocery store, we’d bought eight packets of bacon.
And I lounged on the sofa in the studio sipping coffee and eyeing Daly and a grumpy-faced Mike while Shannon made silver dollar pancakes for everybody, Daly fried up enough bacon to feed an army, and I decided to let Coert be Coert, which would bring Mike and Daly around.
And if the unlikely event occurred that he didn’t manage that, I could not let that faze me.
Fortitude, honey. We can do this.
We could.
We would.
We had to.
And I had to stop thinking about what everyone thought about me. I had to make my own decisions, live my own life, and if doing that meant I’d need to, bear my own consequences.
Last, I had to stop believing what my mother (and brother) thought of me and I had to start believing in me.
I was a good person. I’d done things that might be unwise, but the person I was, I’d earned happiness along the way.
Now it was my time.
And it was the time to stop thinking so much about what others thought of me, trying so hard to earn the love of certain people—two of which were now dead, one I’d never win over—and concentrate on what I’d already earned, how precious it was.
And what it said about me.
As promised, Coert had called at ten forty-four and it wasn’t a quick chat, a duty call because he’d promised to do it.
We talked for over twenty minutes.
I told him about the family. How they were taking it. Then got into who was who with husbands and wives and kids.
He told me how he’d had a chat with Kim about getting along better for Janie, how well things went at Thanksgiving and how Janie wasn’t acting any differently but it still felt like things were healthier for all of them.
This was the only time when we were talking that things turned sticky, because I needed to know and Coert was giving every indication he wanted us communicating frequently, but more importantly openly, so I had to ask.
What I asked was if Kim knew about me.
I’d be sharing his life. I’d be sharing his daughter’s life. And thus I’d have to be in her life.
So I needed to know what I was facing.
“That’s a talk for when you’re with me, honey,” he’d replied.
That didn’t seem like open communication, and I didn’t know what to make of it so I fell silent.
“I told Darcy,” he shared into my silence.
Darcy. His fiancée that he’d never married.
Because of me.
“There’s a lot to this,” he continued when I said nothing. “And I’d like you close when I explain it. But so you understand now and don’t get anything twisted in your head, it was her and it was me doing it to her. She knew she didn’t have all of me and that’s on me. How she handled it is on her. And when things got tough, her throwing you in my face all the time instead of trying to talk to me about it, using you as a weapon which kept you sharp in my mind, including the guilt I felt, rather than understanding you’d been a part of my life and finding our way with that made matters worse. So I learned from what happened with Darcy and I never told Kim.”
“I . . . that . . . I,” I stammered, because I was thinking too much and feeling too much to put any of it into words. The only thing I could push out was, “I’m sorry about that.”
“I’m not because if I was married to Darcy, I wouldn’t have you.”
That made me grow silent for a different reason.
“But that would never have happened,” he went on, “because all I ever wanted was you.”
That made me grow warm.
“Coert,” I whispered.
“I know that it happened as it should now. I hurt a good woman along the way and that really sucks. I have to live with that. The worst part about that is that I let it go on too long. With her and with Kim. I should have let them both go long before I did so they could find someone to make them happy. But to deal with that, I have to look at the bottom line.
And that’s the fact that, since I was in love with you, it took too long but it turned out better for Darcy in the end too. She’s married to another guy. They have a kid and one on the way. I hear this from others. She doesn’t stay in touch with me. But I also hear she’s happy.”
With this news I knew Coert was actually very right.
So all I could say was, “Yes.”
“I’ll have to tell Kim and I’ll have to go into detail, and just like we’ll deal with Mike and Daly, we’ll deal with that too,” he finished.
“Yes,” I whispered, loving his strength, feeding from it, letting it fill me, making me think this was easy.
We’d had so very much that was almost too difficult to bear.
So now was not my time.
Now was our time.
Coert’s and mine.
He had to go back to work so I let him go, and then I came up with my plan to bring him a pie, something I’d made him a lot when we were together, a touch of yesterday that I hoped was sweet to bring into today.
But this meant I needed a pie carrier and a pie carrier was not something Paige and I had stocked in the kitchen.
There was a kitchen shop on the jetty that was one of the shops that hadn’t burned down, but it had sustained some damage they’d had fixed since and reopened, and I told the girls we needed to load up and go there.
It was shopping, so in the end we had to take two cars to fit me, Kath, Pam, Shannon, Verity, Bea, Ellie and Melanie.
I was on a mission for a pie carrier and I also had to go to the grocery store to get ingredients, but the others were on a mission just to spend money.
I’d gotten what I needed in five minutes.
This meant I was standing by the door, getting antsy to get home and get cracking on my pie when two blondes approached me.
“You’re the lighthouse lady,” the bolder of the two stated (and brasher, if I was being honest, but even so you could tell it was an endearing trait of hers right off the bat).
“Uh, yes,” I agreed.
“And you’re giving our handsome sheriff a run for his money,” she declared.
I stared.
I’d lived in Denver all my life. It felt small town-ish but it was a big city.
I hadn’t lived in Magdalene very long and events were such that I hadn’t been especially social and thus had not met very many people.