Page 33 of Love In Harbor Falls

“I named it after my parents. Betty was my mother, and Lou was my father. So I just combined their names and called this baby Betty Lou. We had a smaller cruiser a few years back. Nothing fancy, just something to take out every now and again for the day. Between the money from the sale of the house and the other boat, I was able to buy this one.”

“I like it,” I said.

“I was hoping you would. You’re actually the first girl I ever took out on this boat.” He glanced at me as we sailed across the water.

“Can I ask you something?” I asked.

“Of course. You can ask me anything.”

“Annie dropped by this morning on her way to the grocery store, and when she found out I was coming on the boat today, she started to tell me about Olivia.”

“Let me guess. She told you she cheated on me with some guy she met online from Seattle.”

“Yeah.” I chewed my bottom lip. “I was just curious as to why you didn’t tell me that before when we talked about her.”

“Honestly, it’s a little hard to tell people that the woman you loved found someone better than you.”

“I can totally understand that, but it wasn’t easy for me to tell you that my husband had a secret vasectomy and never told me.”

“I’m sorry, Adalyn. I should have told you. It was dumb on my part. I went on to say how you shouldn’t be ashamed about being divorced, and here I was, ashamed to tell you that Olivia cheated on me. She told me she loved me the night she left, and it had nothing to do with me. She said it was all her, but she couldn’t see herself settling down yet and wanted to explore things outside of Harbor Falls. It wasn’t until a couple of days after that a friend of hers called and told me the truth. She had met a man online, and they had first exchanged emails. Then, it led to text messages and secret phone calls. When she told me she needed to get out of Harbor Falls for a while, she said she was going to visit her friend in Seattle, which she did have a friend there, so I didn’t think anything of it. Little did I know that it was the guy she was going to visit. When she came back, I guess she realized she loved the guy and moved there to be with him.”

“Did you ever confront her about it?”

“Nah.” H shook his head. “It wasn’t worth it. I just wanted to put it to rest and move on.”

“I admire you for that. I’m not so sure I would have kept quiet if it had happened to me.” I reached over and placed my hand on his.

He looked down at my hand and then up at me. Our eyes stared into each other as silence fell upon us until my phone rang.

“I have to take this. It’s one of the artists I contacted from New York.”

“Go right ahead.”

* * *

Colin

Later that day, after I had brought the boat back to the dock, I asked Adalyn to come into the bar and grab some dinner.

“As much as I’d love to, I really need to get home,” she said.

“Come on. We ate lunch like hours ago. I’m starving, and I know you must be, too—just a quick bite. You know you’re hungry.” I smiled.

“Fine. Just a quick bite, and then I have to go.”

I let out a sigh of relief. If she wouldn’t have agreed, we would have had a problem. Opening the door, I motioned for her to step inside first.

“SURPRISE!” Luis and his husband, Alfred, grinned as they ran over to where Adalyn stood in shock and hugged her.

“Luis! Alfred! What are you doing here?” She beamed with excitement.

“We came for a visit, darling.” Luis kissed her cheek.

“Did you know about this?” Adalyn looked at me with a beautiful smile.

“I did. Luis and Alfred came into the bar last night and asked if there was any way I could get you out of the vicinity for a while.”

“Why?” She looked at Luis and Alfred.

---