Read Online The Cottage Next Door by Georgia Bockoven - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Georgia Bockoven
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Instead of waiting for him to get up again, Diana plopped down beside him, pulling up her legs and propping her chin on her knees.
A full moon dominated the sky, laying a silver pathway across a surprisingly still ocean. A slowly encroaching high tide nudged the shoreline, the waves playing with a piece of driftwood and washing away the remnants of a sand castle built too close to the water.
“I won’t,” she said.
“Okay . . . ” he replied slowly, doing a quick mental search to try to figure out what she was talking about. Giving up, he scooped a handful of sand and let it sift through his fingers while he waited for her to go on.
She turned to him and smiled. “I won’t ever get used to this. I don’t see how anyone could.”
“Are you talking about me personally, or people in general?”
“You?”
“Never gonna happen,” he said.
“I didn’t think so.” She turned to look at him.
“Cheryl said you were looking to make the move out here permanent.” There were other bookkeeping jobs Peter could help her find. She wouldn’t have to go back to Kansas, if she didn’t want to. “Of course, that was when she was deep into the sales pitch about why Peter should hire you.”
“She wasn’t misleading you. I love Kansas, but something happened that stole my sense of belonging.”
“It must have been pretty bad.”
She didn’t like putting her feelings into words. But there was something about him listening to what she would say that made them tumble out like coins from a winning slot machine. “I stopped believing in myself. I was willing to settle for whatever came my way because I was so desperate to be like all my friends. It was the only way I knew to fit in.”
“I get that. But something awful had to happen to push you off the cliff.”
“Would you be surprised if I told you it was a guy?”
“No more than you were surprised when I told you I made an ass out of myself because of a girl. We’re human. It’s the kind of thing we do.” He plucked a piece of the tall grass and pulled the seed end through his pinched fingers. “It’s not fair for me to put this off on Leslie. I should have realized what she saw as romantic for someone else didn’t necessarily translate into something she wanted for herself. She had nothing to do with what I did.”
“She must have given off some kind of signal that she was in love with you. Maybe not on-bended-knee-in-front-of-twenty-thousand-people love, but something .”
“There was never any doubt that we were in love, at least in the beginning. She’d even jokingly proposed to me when we were in Hawaii, and everyone thought we were on our honeymoon. Hell, when her sister had a baby, Leslie started talking about what she wanted to name our firstborn. What I didn’t recognize was what was real between us and what was role-playing. She loved the idea of being in love more than she loved me.”
“Do you still love her?”
He shook his head. “We almost made it to being friends when she met the guy she’s with now. He wasn’t comfortable having me around. So that was it.” Tossing the seeds into the air, he put his hands on the wooden plank and stood. “Let’s see what treasures the tide brought in.”
She followed him down the stairs. “I saw an old couple swinging a wand across the sand this morning. Is that what they were doing? Looking for treasure?”
“Mary and Harold have been combing this beach with their metal detectors for as long as my family has been coming here. They own the white house on the other side of the cove. When my brother Paul and I were kids, Harold convinced us that he and Mary made so much money with the things they found that they didn’t have to work a regular job.”
“Not true, I take it.”
“About as far away from the truth as Lance Armstrong swearing he never took drugs. I was in my high school computer science class when I came across their names as co-inventors of
A full moon dominated the sky, laying a silver pathway across a surprisingly still ocean. A slowly encroaching high tide nudged the shoreline, the waves playing with a piece of driftwood and washing away the remnants of a sand castle built too close to the water.
“I won’t,” she said.
“Okay . . . ” he replied slowly, doing a quick mental search to try to figure out what she was talking about. Giving up, he scooped a handful of sand and let it sift through his fingers while he waited for her to go on.
She turned to him and smiled. “I won’t ever get used to this. I don’t see how anyone could.”
“Are you talking about me personally, or people in general?”
“You?”
“Never gonna happen,” he said.
“I didn’t think so.” She turned to look at him.
“Cheryl said you were looking to make the move out here permanent.” There were other bookkeeping jobs Peter could help her find. She wouldn’t have to go back to Kansas, if she didn’t want to. “Of course, that was when she was deep into the sales pitch about why Peter should hire you.”
“She wasn’t misleading you. I love Kansas, but something happened that stole my sense of belonging.”
“It must have been pretty bad.”
She didn’t like putting her feelings into words. But there was something about him listening to what she would say that made them tumble out like coins from a winning slot machine. “I stopped believing in myself. I was willing to settle for whatever came my way because I was so desperate to be like all my friends. It was the only way I knew to fit in.”
“I get that. But something awful had to happen to push you off the cliff.”
“Would you be surprised if I told you it was a guy?”
“No more than you were surprised when I told you I made an ass out of myself because of a girl. We’re human. It’s the kind of thing we do.” He plucked a piece of the tall grass and pulled the seed end through his pinched fingers. “It’s not fair for me to put this off on Leslie. I should have realized what she saw as romantic for someone else didn’t necessarily translate into something she wanted for herself. She had nothing to do with what I did.”
“She must have given off some kind of signal that she was in love with you. Maybe not on-bended-knee-in-front-of-twenty-thousand-people love, but something .”
“There was never any doubt that we were in love, at least in the beginning. She’d even jokingly proposed to me when we were in Hawaii, and everyone thought we were on our honeymoon. Hell, when her sister had a baby, Leslie started talking about what she wanted to name our firstborn. What I didn’t recognize was what was real between us and what was role-playing. She loved the idea of being in love more than she loved me.”
“Do you still love her?”
He shook his head. “We almost made it to being friends when she met the guy she’s with now. He wasn’t comfortable having me around. So that was it.” Tossing the seeds into the air, he put his hands on the wooden plank and stood. “Let’s see what treasures the tide brought in.”
She followed him down the stairs. “I saw an old couple swinging a wand across the sand this morning. Is that what they were doing? Looking for treasure?”
“Mary and Harold have been combing this beach with their metal detectors for as long as my family has been coming here. They own the white house on the other side of the cove. When my brother Paul and I were kids, Harold convinced us that he and Mary made so much money with the things they found that they didn’t have to work a regular job.”
“Not true, I take it.”
“About as far away from the truth as Lance Armstrong swearing he never took drugs. I was in my high school computer science class when I came across their names as co-inventors of
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