But Ginger stayed with him every step of the way.
Her beautiful face. The way she looked in the morning, her curls fanned out on the cover around her, her mouth soft and lush and so kissable. The way she'd looked when she'd told him she loved him on the porch, the truth in her eyes telling him they weren't just words said in the heat of passion.
He'd turned back around to the workshop, none of his usual tricks worth a damn. And that was when he'd found himself standing in front of his father's sailboat. It was a beautiful piece of work, even unfinished.
The storm he'd gone out in had wrecked his grandparents' old sailboat. The morning after Ginger had asked for everything he couldn't give her, he'd taken the speedboat out to retrieve the small craft. It was lying limp against the far shore, nearly smashed in two from slamming again and again into the rocks.
He couldn't put his grandparents' boat back together, but he could finish building this one. After a thorough search, he found the plans for the boat, neatly folded up in the bottom of a drawer.
It became his goal, his focus during the difficult days in the cabin with Ginger. Working on the sailboat didn't drive Ginger from his mind, but at least it was a way to pass the hours until the sun came up again and he could secretly watch her paint out on the porch, breathe her in as she walked by.
Every day, the agitation he'd carried around since his accident in Desolation--only when he was with Ginger had it eased--was multiplying exponentially. The couple of hours he slept on some thick canvas in the workshop were plagued with nightmares. His hands went from oversensitive to numb more and more and he had to be constantly on guard against dropping his hammer and caulk gun and sander.
He was bent down over the sailboat, putting in the finishing touches. The sun was almost rising and he was planning to drag it out on the water. He almost prayed for another storm, for the universe to force him and Ginger together again.
But since he knew that wouldn't happen, he was tempted to take a hammer to it instead and start over. Because when he was done with the boat, what the hell was he going to have to focus on to keep himself away from her?
The day before, a neighbor down the lake who also had an old log cabin had been sent by a couple of guys at the hardware store to see Connor's work. Clearly impressed, the man had mentioned that it was pretty much impossible to find anyone to work on a place like this, that modern day contractors all just wanted to tear the cabins down and start over with a Lincoln Log kit. He asked what Connor's plans were going forward, if he might consider helping out some of the other log cabin owners on the lake with their homes.
Although Connor enjoyed the work, even though there was something immensely satisfying about running a paintbrush over a log in smooth strokes, coating it with a fine layer of varnish to both protect the log and bring out its natural golden sheen, despite the fact that seeing his great-grandparents' cabin come back to life was a rush, he couldn't stay here and work on fixing up old cabins full-time. Not because he didn't like the thought of becoming a carpenter, not even because he didn't think his hands could take the work, but because he couldn't stay at Blue Mountain Lake if Ginger was here too.
Watching her marry another man, have his children, would be hell on earth.
He'd rather jump into a pit of flames than stick around to watch that.
*
Andrew lay on the bed in his room at the Inn for hours, staring up at the ceiling, Isabel there with him in his head, his body the entire time. He remembered her softness pressing into him, the salty-sweet taste of her tongue sliding against his, the way she'd pulled him down onto her, pulling him closer.
Come five a.m., his eyes having been open straight through, he hoped like hell a jump in the lake would snap him out of it. But although the water was cold, and he was physically tired, his insides still buzzed and snapped as if it had been thirty seconds since he saw Isabel instead of hours.
The sun was just starting to rise when he got back into his car and headed toward Poplar Cove. But when he pulled up to the cabin, he realized it was way too early to bother either Ginger or Connor. He couldn't just sit out here in his car, so he got out and started walking the path he knew by heart to the one place he'd managed to avoid since coming back to Blue Mountain Lake.
His grandfather's sanctuary, his most prized place in all of Poplar Cove: the workshop.
Standing outside the old red barn, which his grandfather had preserved on the original property when they bought it in 1910 and started building the cabin on the waterfront, Andrew could almost see his lost dreams worming their way up out of the dirt, the dry leaves on the ground shifting beneath him so fast he lost his balance.
His heart pounding, he put his hand on the wide doorknob and pushed it open. There it was, his wooden sloop at the far end of the barn, right where he'd left it a little more than thirty years ago. He couldn't believe no one had taken it apart to use the wood for other projects, or at the very least, moved it out of the way. Why on earth was it still there?
And then he realized he wasn't alone, that his son was squatting down beside the boat.
"Connor?" he said, coming closer. And that was when he realized that the boat was no longer half built. "Did you do this? Finish building my boat?"
"It was a waste of perfectly good wood the way it was."
Despite Connor's unemotional words, Andrew was incredibly moved as he kneeled beside the boat, running his fingers over the smooth, golden wood he'd so painstakingly planed and sanded as a teenage boy.
He hadn't been much older than Isabel's son when he'd started building the boat, but it had been his dream to make his living with sailing as far back as he could remember. His father had put him on a sailboat as soon as he could walk and they'd spent hours together out on the lake in the Sun Fish and then the Laser.
Andrew had always assumed he'd end up in a boat of his making on the lake with his own sons.
"You're right," he finally said. "I shouldn't have left it unfinished all these years."
"It's just a boat," Connor said and Andrew knew his son was trying to steer them back out of the gray area. But there was no point in trying to steer clear of stormy weather. Not when it would find you no matter how hard you tried to hide from it.
"No, it wasn't just a boat. I loved to sail. It was what I was going to do, build boats and sail them. I was going to sail around the world."
"Why the hell didn't you come back then?"
"God, I wish I had come back, wish I could change everything, but I was just too much of a coward to face up to my mistakes."
"I get it you had a thing with Isabel, but who cares. You could have come anyway with Mom. You could have spent time with me and Sam. You could have taught us to sail instead of Grandpa."
"It wasn't that simple."
"I don't see how it could have been any simpler. You had a wife and kids who needed you."
"I was going to marry Isabel," Andrew confessed before he could grab the words back. "As soon as she graduated from high school, while we were both in college, we were going to be together. Instead I got your mother pregnant. One stupid, drunken night. And just like that I screwed up everyone's lives."
Realization dawned in his son's eyes, and then a rage Andrew'd yet to see, even those first days in the hospital bed when Connor's frustration had been a palpable thing.
"Mom was pregnant with Sam? That's why you married her?"
"I wouldn't have married her if I didn't have feelings for her."
"But you never loved her like you loved Isabel, did you?"
Andrew knew he'd have to work like crazy to make his son understand. "I never wanted your mother to feel like she was second best. And when she got pregnant, neither of us could just go our separate ways and make the best of it. It wasn't the way either of us had been raised. It wasn't the right thing to do. We made the decision together to put a ring on each other's fingers and we tried like hell to make it work. We didn't wa
nt Sam--or you--to grow up in a broken home."
"You made the wrong choice."
"I know that now," he tried to say, but Connor cut him off.
"You never gave a damn about any of us, did you?"
Something in Andrew snapped. He was done just sitting here and taking crap from his son.
"How dare you lecture me about love. Not when you're too damn scared to let that beautiful girl of yours love you."
There was murder in Connor's eyes, but Andrew didn't care. He wasn't going to shut up until he was good and done.
"I did everything I could to be a good father when you and Sam were little, but the house was such a war zone, so much your mother's territory, she practically forced me into hiding out at work. Any time I showed up to a baseball game, she'd give me grief about the other five times I didn't go. There was no way to win."
He held up a hand to stop Connor from interrupting again.
"A stronger man would have been a good father in spite of it. And I wasn't. But I wouldn't have traded you boys for anything in the world. And I'm hell-bent on being that better man now. Which is why I'm not going to let you get past me until you tell me what in God's name has gone wrong between you and Ginger."
Connor's hands were hard fists and Andrew wondered if they were going to come to blows. He almost hoped they would, that he could let Connor work out his frustration, taking away some of Andrew's guilt with him.
But instead of coming at him, Connor said, "She deserves more than I can give her."
They were simple words, words that shouldn't have meant much at all. But the pain behind them knocked the air out of Andrew's lungs. Thirty years ago there'd been no way out for Andrew or Isabel or Elise.
But his son still had time to get it right.
"I've never known you to back down from a challenge. Have you even tried to give her what she wants?"
"Didn't you hear me?" Connor shouted. "I can't fucking do it! I can't live my life thinking about her every single second, wanting her so bad I can't see straight, worrying that something will happen to her."
"You love her."
"Of course I love her," Connor said, his voice raw, rough with emotion. "But I've hurt her again and again. I'll just keep hurting her."
Andrew wanted to reach out for his son, but he didn't know how. "We all screw up at one time or another. We hurt each other. But the big mistake isn't screwing up. The big mistake is wasting time being bitter. Being angry. Letting guilt eat you up inside. Letting one stupid moment change you into someone you never wanted to be."
"Don't you get it?" Connor growled. "I've got nothing to give her. She deserves a whole man who can give her everything she deserves right now. Not in five, ten years. She shouldn't have to wait for me to figure out my future. To see if I even have one."
"Those are all just excuses, Connor. You know that as well as I do. Of course you're good enough for the woman you love. She wouldn't love you if you weren't."
Connor didn't respond and as a thick silence hung between them Andrew told himself he'd tried. That he'd done all he could do. He was about to walk away, give his son some space, when Isabel's words came at him.
"Try again. And keep trying. Because that's what parents do. Stop worrying about how you feel for once. And just do what you need to do for him."
He'd come back to the lake to prove to everyone--especially himself--that he had it in him to be a better man. He'd been so sure that all he needed to do was decide to do the right thing and it would be so simple. He'd expected all of the relationships it had taken him thirty years to screw up to be tied up with little bows by now.
That first day back in Isabel's bedroom, he'd told her that he was a changed man. But he hadn't been. He'd still been looking out for himself first.
It was long past time to change that.
"You don't need to be a hotshot, Connor. You don't even need your hands. Life is what you make it. And you've still got the world at your feet. Along with a beautiful young woman to love. And the only thing I know for sure is that if you let her go, you'll never forgive yourself."
And then, as his strong son stood beside the sailboat looking utterly lost, Andrew knew what he needed to do.
It was one of the most frightening moves he'd ever made, taking those first steps toward his son, and only got worse the closer he got. But he wasn't in it to see what he could get right now. Andrew's happiness was already lost.
He'd do anything he could to help Connor save his.
Andrew put his arms around his son and refused to feel the slightest bit embarrassed by the tears running down his cheeks as he spoke.
"I know I haven't told you this nearly enough times, but I love you. I know I was a shitty father, that I screwed up a hundred different ways, and even though I didn't know how to show it, I always loved you. And I always will."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
GINGER GROANED as the phone woke her up out of a rare patch of sleep.
The past week had been utterly exhausting. Worrying about accidentally touching Connor every time she walked past him, knowing that was all it would take to throw herself in his arms, to forget everything she was trying so hard to remember. Trying so hard to be mature, to not be spiteful in the little things by making only herself a sandwich at lunch.
Every night she'd waited for him to come up the stairs, her heart pounding like a lovesick fool. No matter how hard she tried to turn over and go to sleep, she'd lie there wide awake hoping and praying that tonight would be the night he'd turn the knob, walk in, and get down on his knees to beg her forgiveness, to tell her he was wrong, that he loved her after all.
But he never had.
Why did it have to hurt so much to try for happiness?
And why did moving forward after loving Connor have to be so damn hard?
Grabbing the phone off the table, she'd barely grunted out a hello when Isabel said, "Ginger, I didn't wake you up, did I?"
"Don't worry about it," Ginger said. She went to sit up in bed, but when she moved her stomach began roiling with nausea.
"I swore I wasn't going to call you--I know how much you need this week to focus on your painting--but can you come over? I asked Scott to cover for me at the diner. I'll make you breakfast."
The thought of eating anything made bile rise in Ginger's throat, but she said, "Of course. I'll be right there," anyway.
So many times since arriving at Blue Mountain Lake, Isabel had been there for her. First with a job and then with friendship. So even a sudden attack of the stomach flu wasn't going to keep her from helping Isabel.
But as soon as she walked into her friend's house and smelled eggs frying in the kitchen, she had to run to the bathroom.
Isabel found her there, throwing up.
"Oh my God," her friend said as she pulled her hair away from her face, wound it into a knot. "The only time I had that kind of reaction to breakfast was when I--" She paused, finished in a gentle voice. "Ginger, could you be pregnant?"
Ginger hadn't even had a chance to wipe her mouth off yet when round two hit her. A couple of minutes later as she sat back against the cool bathroom wall, wiping her face with the wet hand towel Isabel had handed her, she found she couldn't say anything.
Not even to tell her friend it couldn't possibly be true.
How many times had she and Connor been too rushed to use a condom? Nearly all of them, she realized now. She'd been so hungry for his touch, so desperate to be with him, that apart from their one stilted conversation about using protection, she hadn't given it another thought.
"I'm going to buy you a test," Isabel said. "Next town over so no one thinks anything."
Something pinged in the back of Ginger's brain. Slowly, as if the thought was being dragged through the mud by its hair, she said, "You needed something. Tell me what it is, Isabel. I came here for you."
But her friend had already grabbed her keys and purse. "My deal can wait. Findi
ng out about yours can't. Don't go anywhere until I come back," she pointed a stern finger at Ginger, "especially not Poplar Cove. I'll throw the eggs away outside on my way to the car. Go take a shower in my bathroom and then try to relax. I'll drive fast. I promise."
Ginger was glad to have Isabel's directions to follow. Staying in the shower until it went cold, she wrapped herself in a towel, put her clothes back on, then went back downstairs to sit on Isabel's living room couch to wait. There were plenty of magazines and books she could have thumbed through, a hundred channels on cable to watch, but her spinning thoughts were already providing more than enough stimulation.
She'd wanted a baby for so long that she couldn't help but pray Isabel was right, that she was pregnant.
But at the same time, she wasn't living in a fantasy world. Not anymore, anyway.
She'd been so adamant about not using her parents' money, about not wanting to use her husband's money, about making it on her own. But there was a big difference between feeding herself on tips from the diner and bringing a kid up right. She wanted to be able to pay for ballet lessons and go see pirates at amusement parks. She wanted to make sure she could always send her child to the best doctors, the best schools, give him or her the best of everything.
Even Isabel, one of the strongest people Ginger had ever met, had said how hard it was to raise a kid alone, that she'd often wished she had a partner to share the burdens and the joys of being a parent.
Examining her thoughts one by one, Ginger knew all along that she was leaving the most important one out.
Connor.
Isabel walked in carrying a white plastic bag. "I bought two. Just to make sure."
Ginger took the tests into the bathroom. Two minutes later, a blue plus sign stared back at her.
Joy--pure joy unlike anything she'd ever experienced outside of Connor's arms--roared through her. Ripping open the other box, she mustered up more urine and waited again. Tick-tock went her heart, pounding so hard she almost thought her ribs might splinter from the inside. But long before the two minutes were up, the open oval on the little white stick read PREGNANT in bright blue letters.
Catching sight of herself in the small, rusted mirror, she saw tears of joy streaming down her face.