GABE
I drove us out to a spot overlooking the Skidaway River and the Isle of Hope. I backed the truck into a parking space so we’d have a view of the water from the tailgate and popped open my door. Not going around to open her door for her rubbed me the wrong way—chivalry isn’t dead yet—but I knew I was already pushing it. The picnic basket full of all her favorites had been a gamble, and I didn’t want to go over the top. If we were going to get back to the way things had been before she saw the contract, it was going to be on her terms. Mostly.
She joined me by the tailgate, where I hoisted the basket up onto the truck bed. She wasn’t wearing any makeup tonight, and it let me see her eyes in a new, more vivid way. Her skin was flawless, and in the evening light her handful of freckles was even more pronounced. She had a timeless beauty and grace that made me wonder why she wore makeup at all. I held her stare for a second, but she looked away first. She ran her fingers over the wicker. “Thank you for all this,” she said softly. She straightened out her T-shirt and lifted the toes of her sneakers, and then she glanced at me and my dress shirt. “I just feel a bit underdressed.”
The last thing I wanted was for her to be uncomfortable. So while I had her eyes on me, I began to undo my buttons. She gave me a stare that said, Gabe! But I kept going. She gripped the edge of the truck bed, her pink nail polish a beautiful contrast against the black paint. I undid my last button and slipped my shirt off, revealing one of my trusty old cotton tees below. This one was one of my favorites. It had a faded ThunderCats logo in the center, ancient silk-screening that had almost disappeared from so many washes in so many laundromats all over the world. “Now neither one of us is overdressed.”
“Pum-raaaaa,” Lily said, and swiped the air like a tigress.
All that and ThunderCats too. I balled up my shirt and tossed it into the corner of the bed and then patted the tailgate. Lily stood beside me, and the breeze let me have a hit of something sweet—her lotion, maybe. She planted her hands on the tailgate and tried to hoist herself up. But the truck wasn’t some little F-150. It was a serious piece of American engineering—the biggest truck I’d ever gotten to rent. She was way too short to get up on her own. She tried, though. A lot. Huffing and puffing and struggling so hard that it brought a blush up into her cheeks.
“Need a hand?” I asked her.
“Or a step stool!” she growled as she gave it another shot.
So I put my hands on her hips and turned her around to face me.
We had a moment—a serious fucking moment with energy and heat pinging between us. But I didn’t push it—not yet. She placed her hands on the tailgate for support, and I gave her a boost. I was in the perfect position to kiss her, but I stopped myself. She didn’t lean in to me, but instead, as her chest rose and fell with quickening breaths, she leaned back slightly to create some distance between us.
Message received. I took my hands off her and turned my attention to getting the champagne poured and everything else squared away. Chivalry wasn’t dead and never would be. All I could do was wait at her drawbridge and hope like hell she’d lower it down far enough to let me back inside.
Once we made a dent in the picnic, I grabbed one of my cameras from the truck. In the dying light, I took my chance to get a few minutes of footage. I hit the record button, with the lens focused on my face. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Lily nibbling on a gooseberry, the stem pinched between her fingers. Three, two, one, action. “So we’re out here on Bluff Drive. The story about this place is a pretty classic lovers’ lane legend. In 1861, at the start of the Civil War, a young woman named Mary Goodwin came out here with her lover, William Hackett. It was to be their very last night before he went off to fight for the South.”
Next to me, Lily coughed delicately and whispered, “The Confederacy.”
I panned over to her. When she realized I’d gotten her on camera, she froze. Then she smiled, a cute and polite smile. Not the vixen but the sweetheart. It was more proof that nobody should ever believe what they see on television.
“I’m with my assistant again, as you can tell. She’s from around here, aren’t you, Lily?”
She stared at the camera. “Born and raised.”
“Which is good, because I clearly need to get schooled in the local lingo. So what I call the South, you call . . . the Confederacy.”
She nodded with more certainty this time. “Right.” She looked away from the camera and straight at me, which seemed easier for her. I sure as shit wasn’t complaining. She went on, “When you’re talking about that era, it’s the Confederacy. And it’s not the Civil War down here. It’s the War between the States.”
I panned back to myself. “This is why it’s good to have someone local, right? Just think of the emails I’d be getting from you guys.”
“All y’all,” Lily said.
“From all y’all,” I echoed back.
Lily snickered beside me. “You’re doing fine, though!” In the viewfinder, her eyes sparkled, and the deep-blue water glittered behind her. She got some sass going for the camera—hamming it up like only a gorgeous goddess could. Then she said, “He’s doing fine . . . bless his heart.”
“Ohhhh! Boom! The classic Southern shut-down, right?”
“Kinda!” she said. She talked right to the audience now. “Y’all know what I mean, though.” Now she’d put on her accent, thick and rich. Fucking sexy as hell. “He’s all right, though. For a Yankee!”
My belly laugh filled the air along with her giggle. She was a natural on camera. Totally herself, and just as she’d been the first time I saw her. Unselfconscious. Authentic. Beautiful.
“All right, so chime in here whenever.” I zoomed out so we were both in frame but kept the angle high so the picnic stayed our secret. “In 1861, at the start of the War between the States,” I said as Lily nodded approvingly, like a teacher giving the go-ahead to her student, “Confederate soldier William Hackett came out here to the road now known as Bluff Drive to spend an evening with the woman he loved.” Lily made a circle of her thumb and forefinger to give me the A-OK sign, so I went on. “He proposed to her that night, and she said yes. But Hackett was killed at the Battle of Antietam—”
“Also known as Sharpsburg,” Lily added.
Rather than stopping to acknowledge what she’d said, I rolled with it like we’d written this whole thing out. “Mary Goodwin never married and never stopped pining for him. They say that if you come out here on a quiet night like this one, with your lover . . .” Lily’s eyes met mine for a millisecond before darting away. “They say you can still hear Mary singing to William. Apparently, there’s one she likes most of all. ‘The Darling of My Heart.’”
“Just ‘Darling of My Heart,’” Lily corrected.
Sometimes, in this strange-ass business of mine, life handed you a great scene on a silver platter. This was one of those moments. If she knew the song, that was a million times better than my having to find some recording. I panned over to her fast and captured the expression on her face when she realized what she’d said.
“It’s all you. Go for it,” I told her.
She shook her head. “Oh no.” She waved me off. “Nope. I don’t. Nope.” She looked up at the sky. “No idea. Nope. Never heard the song before in my life.”
Bullshit. “Come on now.”
Lily gave me a sidelong warning stare.
I watched her over the top of the camera. “If you don’t like how it sounds, I won’t use it. Just let me hear you. I’d love to hear you sing.”
She shook her head again and plunged her hand into the picnic basket. But I kept the camera right on her and waited until she glanced at me again. I mouthed Please to her. She bit the inside of her lip, watching me all the time.
“Come on. Please. For me.”
She sighed, glanced away, and wet her lips. “Lemme see.” She ran her fingertips along the rippled liner of the truck bed. She began to hum very softly. It was such a beautiful sound—like a lullaby but sadder. Her voice was lovely, just like her. The more she got into the melody, the more confident she became. I watched her, captivated by her beautiful face as much as the lilt and emotion in her voice. It felt as though time stood still as she sang to me about the darling of her heart . . . and the home he would be leaving.