Page 50 of The Forbidden

“Come on,” I say, moving around the diameter until we reach the other side of the tank, and that’s when Kat lets out a gasp of delight.

Stretched out below us is the stream and along both sides are hundreds of glass globe lights staked into the ground. They’re of varying sizes and illuminate the grassy banks as the stream meanders around a copse of trees and disappears.

“What is that?” she whispers as I take her hand and point to the slanted roof for her to sit.

She does and I ease down beside her, stretching my legs and leaning back on my hands. “Alaine did that,” I say softly, staring at the lights.

Kat’s head whips my way. “She did? When?”

“A visit a few years ago. Sylvie was seven I think, and they’d come to visit me here at the distillery. Sylvie loved playing by the stream… hell, in the stream. She and Alaine would make picnic lunches and I’d go eat with them. Alaine was a stargazer and they’d come out here at night.”

“A special place,” Kat murmurs.

“I’d like to bring Sylvie here at night sometime, if it’s okay with you. We’ll figure a convenient time.”

Kat’s silent, drawing her knees up and wrapping her arms around her shins. “You can bring her on your own. You don’t need me to chaperone. I’ll work it out with Ethan.”

I twist my neck to look at her. “Why the sudden change of heart as to my fitness as a guardian?”

Resting her cheek on her knee, she looks at me. “It wasn’t sudden. It was proven over time and besides, I wouldn’t be sleeping with you if I ever thought you could hurt Sylvie.”

My hand goes to her back and I stroke it lightly. I don’t know how much of the impishness she can see in my smile because it’s dark up here. “And might I be sleeping with you tonight?”

“No,” she says, her white teeth gleaming through the shadows and I hear the playfulness in her tone. “But perhaps tomorrow night.”

Laughing, I scoot closer and wrap my arm around her. She surprisingly cuddles in, putting her head on my shoulder.

“I’m really sorry, Kat.” I stare down at the lights and wonder how to take her silence. Her body remains lax against me. “For what I did to you back then. I was a coward, but then again, you already know that. That’s what you called me.”

“I stand by that,” she says softly.

“You’re not wrong. I was back then. I let my parents’ hatred and all I’d ever been taught to feel about your family cloud my judgment. I wasn’t confident enough to evaluate and make my own decisions. I’m just… really sorry. I would change it if I could.”

More silence but then she says, “You were a kid. We both were.”

“I was old enough—”

“I’m thinking we both weren’t ready for the repercussions of what would have happened.”

“Maybe,” I muse as I think about the hell that would’ve broken loose if we’d told our families. “Maybe not.”

I think that Kat and I could potentially be married now with a family of our own had I been a bit braver. Sylvie could have cousins to play with.

We sit side by side, staring down at the lit stream and listen to the music of the running water. It’s several minutes before Kat finally says, “I forgive you, Gabe.”

I didn’t know how much I needed those words, the release of weight on my shoulders making me feel like I could float off this tank. But I take Kat’s hand and hold on, letting her ground me.

CHAPTER 20

Kat

It’s late as I walk to my Jeep, but there are plenty of streetlamps to light the way. Our board meeting ran late, mostly because we were having fun—eating good food and some of my fellow horsemen drank a little too much good bourbon—and I need to let Gabe know I’m on my way.

I stop on the sidewalk, rummage through my purse for my phone and shoot him a text. I’m just now getting out. Going to run home and change. Be there in an hour.

His response is quick and strangely warming. Drive safe.

It’s crazy the turn of events in my life where Gabe is concerned. Since our talk on top of the tank the other night, we’ve easily slipped back into a relationship of sorts. It’s reminiscent of what we had back in college in that we’re both staying on the down low at my insistence, as things are just too precarious between the families and with his father’s attempt on Sylvie’s life, I’m not willing to throw things into disarray.

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