Marrying Daisy Bellamy. Сьюзен Виггс

know, because they’d never slept together. Maybe they were on different paths and destined to stay that way.

      But in her heart of hearts, she wished this didn’t have to be the case. She loved him with so much of herself that she couldn’t imagine any other way to feel. To stop loving him would be to stop breathing the air.

      Still, all the love in the world couldn’t change the fact that she was tied to home, to Charlie and his dad, while Julian was bound for adventure. The only practical thing to do was to make their peace with reality. She tortured herself with the very real possibility that in his travels, Julian might meet someone, a woman who was free to follow him to the ends of the earth. For the briefest of moments, she fantasized about what it would be like to be that woman, unfettered, nothing keeping her from striking out on an adventure. Then she thought of Charlie and immediately felt guilty. How could she even imagine a life without Charlie?

      Somehow, she managed to steal a few hours of sleep. In the morning, they all gathered for breakfast. She sat next to Julian, watching him methodically eat his way through the buffet—an omelet, pancakes, cereal, fruit—like a starving man.

      “You always did have a big appetite, boy,” Tante Mimi said fondly.

      “‘Member when we had that pie-eating contest?” Remy asked.

      “Sure,” said Julian. “I was the winner.”

      “Yeah, but you had a bellyache all night.” Remy leaned forward to catch Daisy’s eye. “Me and Jules, we went camping at the state park. What we call that park, Mama?”

      “I don’t remember,” said Tante Mimi. “It was by Lake Ponchartrain.”

      “Yeah,” said Remy, “with our scouting group, and we had the eating contest. Learned stuff, too.” He handed Julian a plastic matchbox. “‘Member this? I made it for you.”

      “Thanks, Remy.” Julian slid open the box. “Strike-anywhere matches, a water purification tablet … It’s everything I need to survive in the wilderness.” He took out a small wire. “I don’t remember what this is for.”

      Remy beamed, clearly delighted to be the authority. “You rub it on your hair and set it on top of some water, and it’ll always point north.” He frowned at Julian. “You got enough hair for that, Jules?”

      Julian burst out laughing. “I guess I’d better check.” He demonstrated the makeshift compass on his water glass.

      The tiny filament swung gently toward Remy. “Look at that,” Julian said. “You’re my true north, Rem.”

      “Even in Colombia?” Remy asked.

      Julian’s smile stayed in place, though Daisy sensed the tension ramping up. “A compass works differently south of the equator,” he said. “Still works, though. Thanks, Remy.”

      His New Orleans relatives and his mother had a long day of travel ahead of them. Daisy would be driving back to Avalon with Connor, Olivia and baby Zoe.

      Soon, Daisy would be back with Charlie and the life she’d made for herself. A few times, she caught herself thinking, I wish … And then she would rein herself in. Let him go, she thought. Let him go.

      After breakfast, she returned to her room to get her bag, pausing to check her hair and makeup. For some reason, it seemed important to look nice when she told him goodbye.

      In the lobby, she was surprised to find Julian there by himself.

      He was dressed in civilian clothes, loose cargo shorts and a pink golf shirt. It didn’t escape Daisy’s notice that every woman who passed by checked him out, yet he seemed oblivious to the attention. He had no idea how amazing he looked, at the peak of fitness, his posture perfect even when he was relaxing. The minute he spotted Daisy, his gaze never wavered, focusing on her with laserlike intensity.

      So much had changed for them both, but one thing remained constant—this pull of emotion that drew them together. It felt particularly present this morning, and Daisy discovered she was not the only one who felt that way.

      “Morning,” he said in a low voice that sounded intoxicatingly sexy. “I thought you’d never get here.”

      This was not, she reminded herself, the way she had scripted the conversation in her head. She was supposed to have a talk with him, tell him their lives were taking them in different directions and figure out how they were both going to deal with that.

      “Where is everyone else?” she asked, trying to get her bearings.

      “They all took off for the airport. They said to tell you goodbye.”

      “Connor and Olivia?”

      Julian picked up her overnight bag. “Already headed back to Avalon.”

      “What?” She stopped in the hotel doorway. “But what about me?”

      “I’ll get you home.”

      Her heart skipped a beat. “You’re driving me all the way to Avalon?” It was a long drive. The idea of having him all to herself was almost too much to bear.

      “I’m not driving you,” he said.

      “Then how—?”

      “You’ll see.”

      They boarded a campus-to-town bus marked Cayuga, the name of the narrow, forty-mile-long lake that stretched from Ithaca to Seneca Falls.

      She looked around nervously at the other passengers. “Don’t tell me we’re—”

      “Hush.” He gently put a finger to her lips, and his touch made her shiver despite the warmth of the day. “You’ll see.”

      She tried to steel herself against his charms but instead settled into a sense of delicious anticipation. Their heart-to-heart could wait a bit longer. “I do love surprises,” she said.

      “Then I guess you’ll love this.”

      At the lakefront he led the way past a busy marina, bobbing with sailboats and runabouts. There was a boathouse, with kayaks and canoes stacked on racks. At the end of a long, L-shaped dock were a couple of float planes.

      When Julian started down the dock, she balked. “Really, Julian? Seriously? You’re flying?”

      He grinned, his eyes bright with excitement. “You okay with that?”

      Unable to hold herself back, she set down her camera bag and raced toward him, leaping into his embrace and wrapping her arms and legs around him. “What do you think? “ she demanded.

      He held her as if she weighed nothing. “Cool. We’ll be back in Avalon before Connor and Olivia.”

      “I’m in no hurry,” she said. “I mean, I miss Charlie. I always do when I’m away overnight, but—”

      “It’s okay.” He brushed his knuckles over her cheek.

      He knew her well. He knew that having a good time without Charlie around was a struggle for her. She and her little boy were a pair, even when they couldn’t be together.

      The float plane was a single engine two-seater that had been painted fuchsia. It belonged to the local flying club, which Julian had joined as soon as he’d matriculated at Cornell. He’d been taking flying lessons all through college, exchanging mechanical and maintenance labor for instruction, flight hours and fuel.

      Before boarding, he went through a safety and readiness checklist with methodical precision. She knew the reckless boy was still inside him, the guy who jumped rows of barrels on a motorcycle and tackled the worst technical rock climbs without batting an eye. Now she watched that restless energy channel itself into intense focus and concentration.

      She stood back on the dock, admiring the assured efficiency of his movements as he worked. Like a child’s toy, the moored plane bobbed in time to the lapping of the water. “I can’t believe we’re doing this,” she said.