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“How are you, man?” Robyn asked. Tyler sat at the table with a laptop, and she paused to give him a squeeze around the shoulders. “How’d it go at court yesterday?”
“Good.”
Robyn kissed Grace hello.
“I’ll be ready in a flash.” She dashed into her room to finish getting ready.
“Where are you two off to today?” Tyler asked.
“Corkscrew Tree.” Robyn sat and leaned her backpack against her chair.
“I thought you did that last weekend.”
“That was Lady Bird Johnson Grove. You’re welcome to come along.”
He laughed. “No thanks. I’ve had enough of the local scenery.”
“Did they walk?”
“Released on bail. I’m sure their fancy lawyers are working on a plea.” He glanced up at her and rubbed his hand from elbow to shoulder. “I still might have to testify, but I really hope it doesn’t play out like that.” His hands fiddled with Grace’s lace tablecloth suggesting he had more to say.
Robyn waited.
“Thanks for believing me about the estate sale.”
“Why wouldn’t I believe you?”
“I have a record. Anyone else who hears that I was involved will assume that I planned the whole thing.”
“Yeah, because you have such an intimate knowledge of the area you’d know the estate sale in King Salmon was accessible by water.”
“I thought we were just shooting the shit, you know, but when I mentioned that I had a plan to go to the Stansbury place with you, they got so excited. When they told me it was a shoreline property and said we could take a look, I never thought they’d stop and get out. It didn’t seem like the best idea to me, but when we got there…”
“I know. I told you the place is really something. You can just see Lady Stansbury standing out on the widow’s walk searching the ocean. It’s captivating.”
“They said it had been empty for years while the heirs fought about the will and no one would care if we had a look around before the sale. I didn’t think it felt right and stayed close to the dock. I wasn’t surprised at all when they came running back saying they saw security guys. Back out on the water, I chewed them out. I didn’t know about all the stuff up at the university, so I thought it was no big deal anyway. Man, when Jack pulled out an old spyglass that he snagged from the boathouse, I nearly crapped my pants. But I was there with them, you know? That was my choice, so it’s all my word against theirs.”
“And you were the only one who wasn’t stoned, which was very fortunate in your defense. So now you make better choices about who you hang out with. You’ll figure it out.”
Grace came back with her red curls swept up in a ponytail. She wore a form-fitting T-shirt and stylish cargo pants. Robyn sighed. If she wore cargos, she looked like a guy. When Grace wore cargos, she looked like she had stepped out of a catalog.
“Ready?” Grace asked.
“You bet!” Robyn stood. “Oh. I brought you something.” She opened her pack, pulled out a lump of flannel tied with ribbon and handed it to Tyler.
“What’s this?”
“A hot thing. It’s filled with rice. Heat it up for two minutes in the microwave and set it across your shoulders or put it on your feet. Grace said you were having trouble staying warm.”
“Thanks.” He unfolded the sock-like thing curiously and slung it over his shoulder.
“Be good,” Grace said, kissing him on the head.
Robyn and Grace wove their way up to the interstate and headed north. Grace stretched her arms into the sunlight streaming in on the dash. “Oh, I’ve missed the sun.”
“It does feel nice,” Robyn agreed. Just outside of town, she pointed to a huge rock protrusion on the forested hill. “That’s Strawberry Rock. It’s a good hike.”
“But not for today.”
“Nope. Another time. I have something else in mind for today.”
“Our first kiss,” Grace said, taking Robyn’s hand as they passed the exit for Patrick’s Point. “I was just starting to learn about the great local sights. Imagine my surprise when I found you. You looked so lost that day. Do you remember?”
Robyn remembered exactly how lost she had been on that gray day. How life had seemed so pointless. She met Grace’s eyes for a moment. “I was out there thinking about how my relationship had tanked. It’s where Barb and I…I don’t even know what to call it. I usually just say that’s where we got committed.” A sly smile crept onto her face.
“What?”
“I just remembered that the stones sent me there that day. I got Kiss.”
“So you were waiting for me.”
“Waiting for you to wake me up like a fairy tale princess.”
Grace laughed and rested her head against the back of the seat. “A modern one who rejects being rescued. I imagine that would be difficult for the one used to doing the rescuing.”
“It took me a while to figure out I didn’t have to do it on my own.”
Heading toward summer, the day was bright, affording them a view of the rocky coastline as they followed the twisty road to the corkscrew tree. After they parked, Grace slipped into her Windbreaker, sweeping her ponytail out of the collar. “Now tell me about this one,” she said as they fell into step together on the soft forest trail.
“What do you mean?”
“There’s always a story. You hiked Tall Trees for years with your papa, but your obaachan preferred Fern Canyon. Your family always went swimming at Willow Creek, but not the beach you took me to.”
“No, the nudie one my first girlfriend taught me about. You take good notes.” They walked hand in hand through the quiet forest. Vivid green ferns lined the path and seemed to absorb every sound. Within minutes, they were completely wrapped in old-growth forest. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me.”
“I’ve never been here before. I was running out of destinations so I Googled local hikes. This one was on the list, and when I saw pictures, I thought of you.”
Grace scrunched her brow and accepted that Robyn was not going to elaborate. They walked in companionable silence, enjoying the serenity of the place until they reached the grand oddly formed tree with four trunks woven together as they stretched to the sky.
“Wow,” Grace said. “That’s the sexiest tree I’ve ever seen.”
Robyn threw her arms around Grace. “That’s exactly what I thought when I saw it, like someone sculpted two people lying with their legs intertwined. You approve of the destination?”
“That and how your mind works.”
They climbed the trunk a few feet and peered up the middle of the trees before continuing their hike. “There’s another reason I chose this park,” Robyn said, pulling Grace to sit on a bench away from the other park visitors. “You know that Sergio moved after graduation.”
“Of course,” Grace said. “I gave him his very own razor.”
“Razor?”
“Since he won’t have access to mine anymore.”
“That’s gross.”
“You’re telling me,” Grace said tersely. “Let’s go back to how he’s moved out.”
Robyn absorbed Grace’s need to snark about her former tenant and continued. “Now that it’s just me in the main house, I thought maybe you’d like to move in and wind all of our stuff together. Tyler’s got a good start on the stairs for the studio entrance, but Jen’s students are only there in the afternoons. That gives us total privacy. Isaac has until the end of the summer to find another place. I wondered if maybe you’d be okay with Tyler being in your place at the bottoms on his own for a few months before he takes over that back self-contained unit. Will you stay, not just tonight?”
“That’s what you wanted to ask me?”
Robyn felt confused. She’d expected Grace to be excited about the fact that her house was now empty. She’d made sacrifices to make room for Grace, yet now that it was available, Grace didn’t seem enthusiastic at all.
“You want us to live together,” Grace said flatly.
“Yes, that’s what I want. I thought that was the next logical step for us,” Robyn responded.
“I see.” Grace sunk her hands deep in the pockets of her jacket. “It’s a good thing one of us is thinking about the future.”
“The future?” The future was exactly what Robyn was thinking about. What part of the conversation had Grace missed to not understand what she was talking about?
“I hope it’s not terrible timing…I didn’t expect Barbara to come up today…But we have been talking about the future, and I want that to be more than just moving in with you.” Grace took a deep breath and slipped her hand from her pocket.
Robyn had never seen Grace uncertain. She’d seen her adamant, angry and perturbed. She’d seen Grace pushed to the edge by Kristine’s children and frightened beyond measure when Tyler was missing. Mostly, she’d seen her radiant and confident. The uncertainty threw Robyn, so she was completely unprepared when Grace extended a tiny polished redwood box.
“It’s beautiful,” Robyn said, running her thumb over its top before pushing the lid back. As she was about to examine the box’s construct, she realized its contents.
A silver band.
She tipped it into her palm. “It’s heavy,” she said.
“Platinum.” Grace’s confidence returned.
Robyn studied the swirls engraved on it. Robyn opened her mouth to speak, but Grace interrupted, “Don’t you dare ask if it was expensive. You’re supposed to say whether or not you’ll marry me.”
“I was getting there.”
“I’m forty years old. I don’t want to just shack up with someone. I want to start my forever.”
“Right to the point, true to your style. Have I told you how much I love your style?”
“No. And you also haven’t told me if you’ll marry me.”
“Yes. Of course I will.” Robyn slipped the ring onto her finger and met Grace’s eyes. “Yes.”