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Wayne tied up the sailboat to the dock as Michael tidied up, zipped up his jacket again, then gave Wayne a large grin, one that reminded Wayne of a much younger Michael—a Michael who’d often fallen over with laughter when he, Tara, and Wayne had played Monopoly at their house.
Out there on the water, they had made the first steps toward reforming their relationship.
It was a gift that Wayne hadn’t thought he would ever have.
That moment, the dock he had attached the boat to shook with severe, stomping footsteps. Wayne turned quickly to find a glowering Cindy with her hands in fists. She stood over the boat with her eyes toward her son. Behind her, Tracey hustled up—and far toward the end of the dock, still on land, looking on the verge of running for it, stood Elise.
“Why don’t you just tell her how you feel? If there’s anything I’ve learned from the past three years, it’s that we don’t have that much time. We have to fight for what we want,” Michael had told him out on the water.
“Hey, Mom,” Michael started.
Wayne didn’t want to wait around to see what kind of interaction Cindy decided to have with Michael. Obviously, he hadn’t communicated his trip out on the sailboat—had probably scared her to pieces—and now had to face it.
Wayne hustled down the dock. When he stepped off, Elise turned her eyes toward his. They glinted beautifully, catching that somber, autumn sun. She wore a coat that Wayne might have said was a little thick given the time of year.
A California girl.
Wayne stepped toward her. His tongue felt thick and unwieldy. Since the dinner the previous night, he hadn’t heard a single thing from her, and her demeanor had been anything but warm when he had appeared at the Bloomingfeld with Tracey earlier.
“Hello,” he said finally.
The word wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.
How could he possibly explain himself?
“Hi.”
Her eyes escaped his and fell to the ground. Maybe the dinner had been the final nail in the coffin. Maybe it was the push she needed to get off the island.
We’re all looking for something. Maybe she found her family here but learned that even that wasn’t enough.
“Can I walk with you for a while?” he asked.
Elise turned her eyes toward Cindy, Tracey, and Michael, who remained out near the boat.
“Who is that guy?” she asked.
Wayne slipped his fingers through his hair. “It’s difficult to explain, I guess. There’s so much to explain. I don’t even know where to start.”
Elise’s eyes shimmered with tears. “You don’t need to explain.”
“I want to,” Wayne told her, his voice somber.
They fell into step alongside one another. Wayne glanced at her several times as they walked along Main Street, struggling to read her. After several moments of silence, Elise was the first to speak.
“Tracey is a wonderful person,” she said. “Kind and generous, creative and interesting. I can’t believe I went my whole life without knowing her.”
“I’ve known her almost my entire life,” Wayne said with a dry laugh. “And Cindy, well, she’s the reason I met my wife.”
They neared Bloomingfeld and passed right on by. Elise made no move to leave him. Her hand was just an inch or so to the left, away from his, and Wayne ached with desire to hold it.
Even throughout his bachelor days on the island— his playboy ways, he hadn’t wanted to hold someone’s hand. Not like this.
This was a feeling he hadn’t had since the early days with Tara.
“But that was a long time ago,” he continued as they traced an easy path past the road that led to his house and toward the Grand Hotel itself. “And now, my wife has been gone three years.”
Elise stopped short at the Grand Hotel grounds entrance and turned her perfect face toward his. “I just lost the most important person in the world to me. I can’t imagine what it must have felt like to lose her. But even now, I know the pain follows you.” She swallowed and then turned her eyes back toward the ground. “And I’m so sorry that anything like that ever had to happen. You don’t deserve it. Nobody does.”
Neither of them spoke for a while after that. Wayne allowed Elise to lead them across the green grass and around the lilacs and lilies and the bright pink and purple roses. They continued to walk beneath the trees and then toward the steps leading to the Grand Hotel’s world-famous porch.
As Wayne walked behind her, he tried to imagine Elise as a California woman in the wake of her mother’s death—learning suddenly of this film, Somewhere in Time, and her mother’s role in it.
Suddenly, a silly movie about time travel and everlasting love became an answer to a question Elise had probably had since her childhood. Who was my father? Where did I come from? Who was my mother, really?
At the top of the staircase, Wayne watched as Elise paused and turned around to gaze out across the grounds.
“I’ve only seen it once,” she whispered. “But that scene when Jane Seymour calls for him and runs across the grounds.” She shook her head and bit hard on her lower lip. “I’ve never felt that way about someone. Never felt that urgent fire to run toward someone as quickly as I could because I couldn’t take another moment without being in their arms.”
Wayne wasn’t sure what to say. In his memory, he had loved Tara with that very fire, and when she had been taken from him, his insides had felt like ice for a very long time.
Elise turned back and stepped onto the porch. Together, they entered the hotel, which creaked ominously with the autumn winds. The carpet, the décor, the chairs, the paintings that hung on the walls—everything seemed of a different time. Elise’s eyes grew wide as she strolled through.
“I haven’t stepped foot inside before,” she said, pausing near an old black-and-white photograph of the hotel itself. “It’s where my mother stayed during the filming. Apparently, Dean Swartz would sneak in to meet her.”
After a long pause, Elise turned to look at him. That eye contact felt like a punch through the stomach.
“Sounds like his love for her was enormous,” Wayne offered.
Elise nodded sadly. “Not enormous enough, apparently.” Her shoulders slumped slightly as she added, “Where were you last night, Wayne? I’m sorry to ask. The whole island has been very eager to tell me just how little you want to be tied down, and you’re not the kind of guy to get involved in anything. And I guess I have to understand that, especially after all you went through. But the text message, just minutes after I was meant to arrive...”
“It was cruel,” Wayne whispered. “And I can’t take it back. But you have to believe that all I wanted in the world was to sit across from you at my table last night. I had the meal made and everything.”
Elise pressed her lips together. “Maybe you just realized that it’s too complicated?”
Wayne shrugged. “Everything is complicated. That’s one of the only things I’ve really come to terms with over the years. Nothing ever gets easier, and it’s all a mess.”
“Maybe I should get that tattooed on my back,” Elise said.
Wayne was so surprised at the joke that his laughter was a little too loud. The woman who operated the reception cast him a strange look.
“That kid. The one you saw on the boat,” Wayne said finally. “He just came home after a long, long time away. None of us thought we would ever see him again. When I got word that he was coming home, I dropped the ball and ran up to Cindy’s. Everywhere I looked, I was overwhelmed with memories. Tara and I kind of adopted that kid for a while because he didn’t get along so well with his parents. And...”
Elise’s eyes gleamed. She stepped toward him, bowing her head slightly.
“So another person has come back to Mackinac Island for a reunion with the Swartz family?” she asked with a soft laugh.
Wayne chuckled. “I guess there’s something in the air.”
“I guess so.”
The receptionist bustled toward them. Her eyes were like little pinpoints of needles behind her cat-eye glasses.
“Excuse me. Wayne? I’m sorry to say, but if you’re not a guest at The Grand at this time, we need you to step out. We’re going to have the reception cleaned.”
Elise and Wayne returned to the porch, where Elise stuck her elbow into Wayne’s ribs. “Every beautiful woman on this island knows your name.”
Wayne rolled his eyes. “I told you. I’m trying to overcome my reputation. I did a pretty good job of building it.”
“I mean, when I looked over to find you on that dock in Mackinaw City on my first day, I knew what kind of guy you were,” Elise said. She placed her elbows on the white railing of the porch and gave him a sneaky smile.
“Oh, did you? You already knew that I was a kind and considerate gentleman? That I go out of my way for my friends? That I would be willing to let you stay at my place when your bed and breakfast burned to the ground?”
“Here we go. Now you’re just complimenting yourself.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“I know,” Elise agreed. “That’s one thing that’s become increasingly clear as the days on Mackinac Island have gone by.”
Wayne stretched his large hands over the railing. He stood only an inch to the left of Elise, where he could inhale the beautiful scent of her perfume and the smell of her hair.
He wanted to kiss her more than he had ever wanted to kiss another woman in the previous three years.
“I’ve really struggled to let anyone into my life,” Wayne whispered. “And I know there’s a lot you don’t know—about your life in California, about your relationship to the Swartz family, about what you’re going to do next. I guess all I can say is...”
He trailed off as a phone began to vibrate.
Elise turned her eyes toward his as he pressed a hand on his phone, which was still and silent.
“I guess it’s you,” he said. He could feel a crooked grin play out between his cheeks.
“I guess so,” she said. “Bad timing.”
“We don’t have the timing thing down at all, do we?”
Elise lifted her phone so that they both could read: Officer Cutler.
“I better get it, I guess,” she said, sounding disappointed.
“Officer?”
Elise was silent for a long time while Wayne’s eyes found the water’s edge. Everything in his life felt up in the air, as though it had been lifted up on stilts, without rhyme or reason, poised to fall to the ground and erupt.
“Thank you again, Officer. I’ll see you soon,” Elise said, finishing the call.
When she turned back up to face him, she said, “Apparently, they’ve finished the investigation into the bed and breakfast fire. They want me to come to the station quickly. Do you mind?”
“Not at all. I love a casual trip to the police station,” Wayne said.
Fear permeated behind Elise’s eyes. Against his better judgment, he reached out and grabbed her hand. “I’m sure he just wants to tell you the insurance will cover all the things you lost.”
Elise’s eyes scanned his hand over hers. Her eyes were difficult to read.
Did I actually just tell her how I’ve struggled to let people into my life?
Did I really just insinuate that I would bring her into my life if she wanted that?
Wayne was suddenly overwhelmed with panic and nausea.
He couldn’t just assume Elise wanted anything to do with him, especially now.
After slipping his fingers through his hair again, he said, “Shall we?”
Elise watched him with eyes that seemed to catch everything. She reached a tender hand toward one of his curls and slipped it around his ear. The intimate act nearly broke Wayne’s heart.
“You always mess with your hair,” she whispered. “But it always looks perfect.”