Page 83 of The Kiss Keeper
11
Natalie
Natalie drew the brush across the canvas. Stroke after stroke, she blended the blues and greens until an angry churning sea engulfed the white backdrop, swallowing up a tiny battered rowboat. After all the revelations, and after all the deception came to light, she’d gone where Jake couldn’t follow her—the ocean.
Perhaps, it was cruel, setting off into the same sea where he’d lost his parents, but she’d had no choice. And it wasn’t like she’d gone far. She’d sailed the short distance to Woolwich Island, hundreds of times. Despite the rain, the winds had been relatively calm, and she’d reached her refuge with no problems. And that’s where she’d stayed until the sun rose and then she’d sailed back to camp in the first threads of dawn. She hadn’t gone back to the cottage she’d shared with Jake. She couldn’t risk seeing him or worse than that, remembering what they’d shared. Instead, she’d holed up in the arts and crafts room, sustaining herself on packets of trail mix and soda from the vending machine in the lodge.
And that’s where she’d spent another day and night, painting. She’d poured herself onto the canvas. With powerful strokes and broken, jagged lines, she laid out her soul in the shades of the ocean as a newfound peace set in.
Maybe she’d been the screw-up Woolwich granddaughter, but staring across the cove after a night on Woolwich Island and watching the veil of darkness rise to reveal the camp that she’d loved her whole life, she knew she belonged here. The curse may have cost her the love of a partner, but she wasn’t about to let it hinder the connection she had to this place.
And, despite her broken heart that still longed for Jake’s touch, that had to be enough.
If her grandparents still wanted her, she was ready to dedicate her life to Camp Woolwich.
She wiped a lock of hair from her forehead with the back of her hand and concentrated on the composition coming together in front of her when a knock at the door pulled her attention from the painting.
“Natalie, can we come in?” her grandmother called from the hallway.
“Sure,” she answered, then set down her palette, rested the brush on a sheet of old newspaper, and stared at her latest painting.
“There’s more depth to your work now,” her grandma said, coming to her side.
“It’s not the silly blackberry bush nature scene I used to paint over and over again,” she replied, thinking back to when she and her grandmother would come here and paint. Artist in Residence, Beverly Woolwich, working on a masterpiece for a show, and little Natalie Callahan, content with her berries and butterflies.
Grandma Bev crossed her arms, taking in the watery landscape. “Those were good, too. But when I look at this, I see wisdom.”
Natalie laughed, a tired, ragged sound. “After everything that’s happened, I’m not sure I can boast that quality.”
“Well, I see green and blue,” her Grandpa Hal said, cocking his head to the side. “Oh, and there’s a boat,” he added as she shared a look with her grandmother, who pressed her lips together, suppressing a chuckle.
Her grandpa glanced around the room, then gestured to a trio of stools. “Can we sit and have a chat?”
Natalie wiped her hands on an old rag, ignoring the paint crusted to her nail beds, and joined her grandparents. Everyone had left her alone these last couple of days. She hadn’t changed her clothes or left the lodge and probably looked like a zombie cowgirl by this point, but she knew that, eventually, her grandparents would come to find her. She could only hope that it wasn’t to tell her that they didn’t trust her with the camp.
“We owe you an apology, Natalie,” her grandfather said, folding his hands on the oak table dusted with a smattering of dried paint.
Nat shook her head. “I think you’ve got that turned around. I’m the one who owes you both an apology. I’m the one who brought a fake boyfriend here that happened to want to steal the camp out from under our family. But I’ve had some time to think, and I know that beyond a doubt, my place is here. I hope that you’ll still allow me to take over Camp Woolwich.” She steadied herself. “And I can promise you one more thing. I’m done trying to find Mr. Right. You don’t have to worry about me parading a bunch of strangers here ever again.”
“Of course, we don’t have to worry. You’ve already found your Mr. Right,” her grandma answered with a quizzical look.
“Jake?” she sputtered as her grandparents nodded. Natalie threw up her hands. “How, after everything that he kept from me, could I trust him with the camp?”
And her heart. But she wasn’t about to go there with her grandparents.
“Because you love him, kiddo,” her grandpa Hal replied with a New Englander no-nonsense shrug.
Nat’s jaw dropped. “Love him? Grandpa, I met him at the airport a week ago. Who falls in love that fast?”
Her grandparents shared a knowing look.
“Everyone gets so wrapped up in the story about your grandfather winning this land in a hand of poker and how we got married here the next day that most don’t even ask us how or even when we met,” her grandmother said with a twinkle in her eyes.
Natalie reared back. “You’re right. I figured you guys were together before he won the land. So, I’ll bite, when did you meet?”
Her grandfather took her grandmother’s hand. “The day before we got married.”
“The day. As in, you knew each other for twenty-four hours before you decided to take vows to be together forever?” Natalie shot back.
