Page 56 of Adrift

This is my first time skinny-dipping here since the first night. But this time, Kieran’s right here with me.

“Kieran,” I groan.

He just giggles, swimming away from me and up toward the beach. “What? Don’t be shy. That night sold the whole package to me. Or… your whole package sold that night…” He laughs at the look on my face, and then he makes for the shore. “Come on, let’s go. I’m getting cold, and the coast is clear.”

“Kieran, Kieran, Kieran,” I mumble under my breath, shaking my head. With one last look at the stars overhead, I swim back to the beach.

The man who’s calling to my heart leads us both toward the orchard that called my heart here in the first place. And with that thought, I’m pretty sure everything really was meant to be.

I can see the future, as clearly as a vision.

Our future. The orchard, when the as-yet-unplanted trees have grown tall and burst into flower. Kieran’s hand in mine as we sit side by side on the porch, quietly watching the sun set over the harbour, just as we will have done a thousand times by then.

I’ve always been the sturdy, plain old branch on the family tree… but I’ve finally found my flower.

“A towel, if you must,” Kieran says when I reach the last boulders before the woods. He tries to hold it out of reach, but he’s way too short to get away with that.

“You’ll see the rest of it again soon,” I promise with a laugh as he whines in protest.

“But home is so far away. Soveryfar away.”

“Not that far at all,” I promise him, softly pressing a kiss against his lips until he yields and tilts his head back with the sweetest little smile.

At last, I pull away and Kieran looks around the orchard. “Itisamazing, though,” he says softly. Solar lights are jammed into the ground now, softly illuminating our surroundings.

He’s waiting to let me choose the route back to his place—via the road or the beach. Little does he know what I’m planning. He follows me up the solar light path toward the porch steps.

He hasn’t voluntarily entered the cabin since that first night, either, and I can’t really blame him.

“Gage?” he asks, stopping in his tracks.

“I forgot something,” I tell him with a straight face. “Come on. Just for a minute.”

Kieran groans doubtfully. “Okay. But you promise there’s no spiders now?”

“And no unexpected wetness.”

As I’d hoped, that distracts Kieran into giggling. “Only expected wetness?” He steps inside without even really noticing where he is—and then he stops in his tracks and stares.

“Watch your eyes.” I flick the lights on, illuminating the newly-refurbished cabin. “You like it?”

Kieran blinks slowly, several times, like he’s dazed.

Over the last few weeks, this was the hardest project to pull off without letting anything slip. But it only took a secret work party, several gallons of varnish and cleaning supplies, a team to move the furniture…

Okay, so it took a lot of effort. But it was worth it, I hope.

Every wooden surface is polished and gleaming. The kitchen counter is gone, replaced by a long worktop—or bar top—made from aged apple wood. There’s comfortable bar stools sitting along the kitchen island. I even have a dining table and a sofa and chairs.

There are shelves built from the original wooden crates that once sat in the corner gathering dust. Upon them sits all the memorabilia I found boxed up inside them, now taking its rightful place.

“This space could be a living space… or a tasting room on special occasions. Like a cider fesival.”

“Oh,” Kieran breathes out as his eyes land on the centrepiece of the room—the framed, hand-drawn map hanging from the wall above the fireplace. On the mantel sits a row of glass bottles—and in the middle is a certain bottle with a hand-painted signature that I thought he might recognize.

Of course he immediately did.

“Berty thought it belonged here,” I say quietly as he walks up to the mantel to touch it.

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