Page 5 of The Vineyard Bride

“How the heck do you manage the Sunrise Cove so well?”Amanda shot back.

“I give all my organizational skills to your family’s business,” Sam returned.“Nothing left for me and my belongings.But you know, a bit of chaos makes things a little more interesting.Don’t you agree?”

Amanda’s smile was crooked, drawing up toward her left ear.“Do you even know who you’re talking to?”

“I know, I know.”Sam waved a hand.“This is the woman who makes grocery lists in order of where the items are located in each aisle.This is the woman who made an hourly schedule for what snacks to eat at the Super Bowl Party.This is the woman...”

Amanda leaped up to place a kiss across his lips, ending his tirade.Her heart pounding with longing, she opened her lips against his and closed her eyes.The scratchy blanket caught the wind and flapped against their legs.In the distance, a seagull cawed out ominously.

“This is the woman who loves you,” Amanda finished, dropping back down to the sand below.

Sam wrapped his fingers together at the base of her back and held her for a long time, gazing into her eyes.“And this is the man who loves you back.”

After a full beat of simmering tension and longing, Amanda stepped back, punched him gently on the upper arm and teased, “Oh, you’re a man now, are you?”before she then scampered down toward the stone-lined beach.Sam remained hot on her heels, hollering out for her to slow down.But Amanda felt an unwavering sense of energy.She could have run ten miles, even twenty, without slowing down.

She’d never felt this way with Chris.Chris had been a necessary part of her “goal-oriented plans” for her twenties.He’d fit perfectly into the puzzle of “the rest of her life.”Sam, on the other hand, had been a blissful surprise, waiting in the wings of her life as she’d fallen into a state of devastation.She’d told Audrey recently, “Sam taught me that you don’t always have to have a plan.”To this, Audrey had laughed and said, “That drives you crazy, doesn’t it?”

Amanda fluttered the orange and yellow blanket across a stretch of sand and dropped down to cross her legs and lift her chin toward the orange orb of sunlight as it dropped itself toward the western horizon line.Across the Vineyard Sound and the Atlantic, the next stretch of land was Rhode Island.

“When was the last time you were on the main land?”Amanda whispered.“It feels like this whole other world.Like I was someone else when I lived over there.”

Sam puffed out his cheeks.“It’s been since February for me.”

“That’s right.”Amanda remembered that Sam had helped his younger brother, Xavier, move to Providence in February, where he’d begun his first semester at a community college.“Do you miss him?”

“I miss him in a very strange and faraway way,” Sam replied contemplatively, splaying his hand across the sand and digging with the tips of his fingers.“He was always getting into so much trouble.That DUI case that your mom helped us with was one in a very long list of problems.”

Amanda dropped her head against Sam’s shoulder.The water beneath the sun glittered with springtime nostalgia.She could already half-imagine missing this night in the near future when they were lost in the throes of summertime bliss.

“Was it hard for you?”Sam whispered then, drawing his hand across her shoulder.

“What?”

“Falling in love again.”Sam’s words were mere whispers, sweeping across the outer edge of her ear.

Amanda and Sam had never spoken so concretely about their love versus her previous long-term relationship with Chris.Incredibly, Amanda didn’t immediately want to change the subject.Instead, she tilted her head and engaged with her emotions.Perhaps honesty was better in all cases.Perhaps this was what you needed to do to survive.

“We took it so slow,” Amanda whispered, closing her eyes as a salty breeze flashed across her cheeks.“So slow that I sometimes questioned if you liked me at all.”

“You were like a cat,” Sam returned sheepishly.“I couldn’t get too close to you too quickly.I was terrified you’d run as quickly as you could away.”

“I really might have.”

Amanda’s heart swelled, threatening to make her ribs crack.“It all happened the way it was meant to,” she added after a long pause.“I truly believe that.”

Sam popped the cork from the bottle of rosé and poured them two glasses, which sparkled in bubbling pinks.Amanda’s head flashed with images: Chris cracking open a beer before he watched a sporting event on their large TV.Amanda, making list after list of her potential plans for their future— Rutgers University, married by twenty-two, and her first house by twenty-three.

Now that she was twenty-four, there could be no more lists.No more dreaming.Not even: Sam Fuller, carrying an infant child across his chest.

Whatever will be, will be.

Sam crunched on a chocolate-covered peanut and passed her the bag.Amanda allowed the morsels to melt across her tongue, watching as the waves frothed across the sands.A little girl far down the beach tossed stone after stone into the water as though she wanted to prove something.Imagine us coming here with our children.Imagine us, here together for the next fifty years.

“I guess I should just tell you how happy I am,” Amanda whispered.“I don’t know if I’ve ever been this happy before.And sometimes, it terrifies me.I’ve lost so much.I’ve watched my parents get divorced.I’ve watched Audrey have the baby of a man who wanted nothing to do with her.I’ve watched my ex-fiancé run all the way across the world, as far away from me as he could get.”

Sam set his jaw, his eyes catching the last light from the glittering sun.“Do you feel like you can trust me, Amanda?”

Amanda swallowed the lump in her throat.With her eyes locked on his, she whispered, “Yes.I think I can trust you.Do you feel like you can trust me?”

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