907 For Keeps Way (Cherry Falls)

“Got it?” he asks.

“Sure do.” I face forward before I drool. “Do we have a destination in mind or are we free-balling it? I mean, free-lancing it?”

I cringe as he chuckles behind me.

“We are staying close to shore,” he says, his words kissed with humor. “There’s a small cove over here that’s protected from the wind and waves. Not that either are particularly bad today, but it’ll feel less exposed.”

“I like the sound of that.”

We work quietly through the water as I find my rhythm. It’s surprisingly easy once I get the hang of it and we speed through the water.

“So, tell me about Cherry Pie Pizza,” he says.

Oh. “Well,” I say, slowing my strokes. “What do you want to know?”

I have no idea where this conversation is headed or why he’s asking me about work.

“What’s the most enjoyable part of it for you?” he asks.

“Uh, the pizza. Hence the reason that I signed up for personal training.”

He laughs. It’s gentle and amused … and also not directed at me. It doesn’t make me feel like I felt when Derrick would laugh at my love of pizza. With Derrick, it was almost like, “Of course you do. I see you.” But with Dane, it feels like I’m funny.

It’s nice.

“Actually,” I say, sliding my paddle through the water again, “it’s the people. I honestly love my staff and my customers. Well, most of them.”

“I feel you there.”

“So, what’s your favorite thing about the gym?” I ask, turning the tables.

“A couple of years ago, I would’ve said the people too. But now, I guess I’d have to go with the freedom that being a business owner gives me.” He sighs. “I do enjoy helping people be their best selves. I’ve just learned over the years that some people are …”

“Assholes?”

He laughs. “Yes. And demanding.”

“And self-absorbed,” I say, thinking of Derrick.

“And diabolical.”

I glance at him over my shoulder. “You sound like you have an ex too.”

He makes a face. “I mean, sure—I have an ex-girlfriend. I am thirty-five years old, you know.”

“But you said that with a lot of … emotion. That screams ex-wife.”

He shakes his head as if I’m out of my mind. It makes me giggle.

I turn around and take in the deep green vegetation along the shore as I drag my paddle through the water. It’s so peaceful, so tranquil. The watery air mixed with the heat of the sun fills my body with a vigor that I haven’t felt since before Anna.

I make a mental note to do this again.

“Why haven’t you been married before?” I ask. “If that’s too personal, then ignore me. I have a tendency to just jump into conversations before I think about them.”

“No, it’s not too personal. I just … I’ve never found the one, I guess.”

Fair enough.

We paddle along in silence, passing a kayak or a boat here and there. The other boaters wave as they move along in some boater code of conduct that I don’t understand. They don’t stop, don’t slow. They don’t say hello. They just wave happily and keep on moving without breaking stride.

“What made you fall in love with your ex-husband?”

Dane’s question comes out of nowhere. I bobble it around my head.

“Of course, if it’s too personal, then ignore me,” he says, giving me my words back.

“It’s not. It’s just hard to tell at this point.” I glance at him over my shoulder. “My recent thoughts have been why I shouldn’t have been with him to start with, not why I fell in love with him.”

“Makes sense.”

I pause just long enough to commit his face to memory—the way his grin makes his eyes wrinkle at the corners. The lack of judgment in his features. How the life jacket pressed tight to his body makes him seem even more sturdy, more reliable, than before.

He reminds me of my grandfather. Cecil was an honorable man. He was the rock of our family and good to his core. He always seemed to have the answer with his innate ability to solve any problem that came his way. It was a trait that I appreciated even as a child. Something about Dane resembles that.

I face forward again.

“For what it’s worth,” I say, the words plucked from a crack in my heart, “I think I did love Derrick. It might have been in a specific way—a hopeful way, but I was in that marriage to make it last. It just … didn’t.”

“You don’t have to justify anything to me.”

“No, I know. It’s just …” I sigh. “I have such mixed emotions about it—him, marriage, that marriage, the divorce. All of it. How can I hate that I made a decision that gave me Anna? I love that girl with all of my heart. So when I reflect back and think, ‘Man, I wish I hadn’t met him’ or something along those lines, I feel guilty.”