Page 61 of That Reilly Boy
Thanks to past me hoping a trip to the river might happen—or maybe I’d simply surrendered to a moment of nostalgia-induced weakness—I already have ice cream in the freezer. I toss two of the small tubs in one of Colleen’s insulated shopping bags, along with one of the frozen doggy treats I picked up for Penny.
I pass on the idea of dragging my old bike out of the garage, though. For one thing, it doesn’t have a basket for Penny, which I’m sure she would hate anyway. And also, the last time I rode that bike was the last time I’d ridden any bike at all. I don’t even like the stationary kind at the gym in my building, choosing instead to spend my workout time on a treadmill.
I drive instead, parking behind the closed post office because the lot is closest to the path I need to take. I don’t see Cara’s car anywhere, so she either walked or she hasn’t arrived yet. After clipping Penny’s leash to her harness, I grab the bag from the backseat and head down the path into the woods.
I’m not sure where Cara parked, but as I get close to our spot, I catch a glimpse of her through the trees. She’s sitting on our rock and my pulse quickens with each step I take.
I’m tempted to stop and lean against a tree for a moment to get myself under control, but Penny’s already spotted her. Rather than giving me a look that conveys her annoyance at dealing with woods and other people, she starts straining against the harness, eager to get to Cara.
Not in a million years did I imagine Penelope Louise being so excited to see a human who isn’t me.
“Penny!” Cara’s just as excited as my dog, and she doesn’t even look at me as Penny climbs into her lap, licks her hand a few times, and then curls into a ball.
“I brought the ice cream,” I say, trying not to sound like I’m sulking because Cara likes my dog more than me. I’m not sure I succeed because she laughs when she finally looks up at me.
“Sorry, and hello. But you must be used to being sidelined while people love on this sweet face.”
“Not really,” I tell her as I climb onto the flat-topped boulder. “I wasn’t kidding when I said she doesn’t like anybody but me.”
“And me,” Cara says as she scratches the sweet spot under Penny’s chin. The dog stretches her neck, asking for more, while giving me a smug look I try to ignore.
Sitting on this rock with the river gurgling past, it’s harder to ignore the memories of that summer flooding my mind. I rub the tattoo on my chest through my shirt for a few seconds, as if I can make the ache go away.
Cara and I shared our first kiss on this rock—the first of many.
How naive I’d been in high school, daring to believe that the intense feelings Cara and I had for each other would be strong enough to withstand our parents’ objections. I thought we’d wear them down until they gave us their blessings, and then we’d get married and raise our kids in Sumac Falls. I’d daydreamed about our future so much, my grades had actually dipped.
But I’d underestimated just how dirty Marcus Gamble was willing to play when it came to keeping his daughter away from a Reilly boy.
“You look like you’re having a worse day than I did,” Cara says, jerking my attention back to the present.
“Just a lot on my mind, I guess. Are things getting worse with Gin or did you just need a break?”
She shrugs one shoulder. “Mostly I just wanted a break, I guess. But my great-aunt Tess told her she was going to disown us and even though that means exactly nothing except me not getting ten dollars in a birthday card every year, it upset my mother.”
“Tess. That’s short for Tennessee, right?” he asks, remembering our conversation about the women in her family being named after states. She nods. “So just lie and tell your Aunt Tennessee that Penny’s full name is Pennsylvania. She’ll think it was fate.”
I’m rewarded with her laughter, which never fails to send warmth flooding through my body. It also makes me aware of a fundamental truth—if I could hear Cara laugh every day for the rest of my life, I’d consider myself rich beyond my wildest dreams.
I don’t want her to see that emotion on my face, though, so I busy myself opening the insulated bag. I set Penny’s frozen treat on the rock between us, open so she can lick at it. Then I hand Cara a small carton and a spoon before opening my own.
“I needed this,” she says after savoring the first spoonful. Almost as much as I savored the way she closed her eyes and made a delicious little moaning sound.
“I know it’s been hard, but we’re almost there.”
She pauses with her spoon in her mouth to give me a look. “We’re almost to the wedding part. We still have to go through the selling the house part and the getting divorced without Gin suing you to get her house back part.”
The urge to remind Cara that her mother doesn’t have the resources to defeat me in a legal battle is strong, but it’s smarter to deescalate. “It’ll be worth it. Think about down the road, when you can do something you love.”
“I am doing what I love, actually. I like Sumac Falls and I would never give up Pampered Pets. It’s the only thing that’s really mine.”
“It’s just the house, then? That you would change, I mean.”
“It’s not even so much the house.” She stares into her tub of ice cream for a few seconds, stabbing at a chocolate chip with the tip of her spoon. “I love that old house, actually. Generations of Gambles have lived there, so my family history is basically baked into the bones of it. But it costs a lot to maintain and by the time I was born, that battle was already being lost. I’m tired of living every single day knowing we’re one household disaster away from not being able to fix the furnace or the roof or pay the tax bill.”
I know from researching the property that the tax bill on the Gamble house isn’t insubstantial. While the house might be in a state of disrepair, it covers a lot of square feet and it sits on a large plot of private land. The homeowner’s insurance is probably no joke, either, because they base it on replacement cost and rebuilding a house like that with current construction costs is painful for even me to imagine.
But I don’t want to talk about the property anymore.
