Radclyffe - Wild Shores

“It was a hell of a kiss,” Austin added. “Just saying.”

Gem laughed, exhilaration coursing through her. The heaviness and uncertainty that had weighed on her evaporated. She felt as light as a bird must, drifting on an air current. “That’s an understatement, Ace.”

Austin caught her breath. Ace. No one called her that. She liked it. “You okay with it, then?”

“Mostly. You?”

“Sure, yeah.” Austin slowed and pulled in to a small lot in front of a single-story building with a sign out front proclaiming Erma’s Family Diner . She turned in the seat and faced Gem. “I mean, I’m not usually taken by surprise that way. I…I liked it a lot.”

“So we’ll just agree it was good, and we’re okay.”

Austin wished it was that easy. What she hadn’t said, couldn’t say, hung in the air like a thundercloud only she could see. She couldn’t divert that storm, not yet, and she didn’t want to tarnish the memory of the kiss, not when it was likely to be the only one she had. “Absolutely. We’re great.”

Chapter Seven

“We might catch a break after all,” Austin said, looking out the window beside their table. Although the sky remained gray and heavily overcast, the rain had stopped while they’d looked at menus and ordered. Unlike the diner that morning, this restaurant was nearly empty at the height of the dinner hour. Although not large, the main dining room felt cavernous with only a few tables occupied, or perhaps it was the silence at their table creating the vast empty sensation in her chest. Austin resisted the urge to shake her shoulders to throw off the cloak of melancholy. The ominous weight wasn’t going to be dismissed with a casual gesture. The easy connection between her and Gem had disappeared, and the tension taking its place twisted in her middle like a giant claw.

So much for talking away the unease between them. She’d said everything was okay between them. So had Gem. But the awkwardness intensified with each passing minute. Gem toyed with the stem of her wineglass, her expression pensive. Austin wished again she could read her mind. She wished a lot of things, and wishing for what she couldn’t have was something she thought she’d given up a long time before. Apparently, she’d been wrong. She reached across the table and caught Gem’s free hand. “Hey.”

Gem looked up, her eyes widening. “Sorry? What?”

Just the sound of her voice eased the knot between Austin’s shoulder blades. “Are you really okay?”

“Yes and no. Mostly uncertain.” Gem smiled faintly. “Lousy company. I’m sorry.”

“No need to be. Anything I can do?” Austin grimaced. She might be a little too late for that. “Or am I the problem?”

“I hate to say it’s me and not you, but that’s the truth.” Running her thumb over the back of Austin’s hand, Gem shook her head. “I’m just trying to figure myself out, and believe me, that’s never been easy. When it really counts, I’m a mystery to myself. It’s hell when you keep secrets from yourself.”

Austin sat back, reluctantly releasing Gem’s hand. She wanted to keep holding it, but she couldn’t keep inviting that connection with all that went unsaid between them. All she hadn’t said. “I’m sure there’s a million things about you I don’t know, but you don’t seem secretive to me. In my experience, people with secrets to keep rarely talk about themselves—or when they do, they never say anything that matters.”

Gem’s brows rose. “What matters, do you think?”

“To you?” Austin smiled. “Your birds, your work, your love of solitude. You enjoy being alone, but you’re easy to talk to. You like people but you don’t need someone around twenty-four seven. You’re independent and comfortable with your own company.”

“Well, at least I’ve given a good first impression,” Gem said lightly, but her expression remained contemplative. Her gaze was reflective, as if she was looking inward or somewhere far off into the distance.

Austin waited, her heart thumping, feeling like a fraud. She was the one keeping secrets, even though she’d been more open with Gem than anyone she could ever recall—at least once she’d learned not to expose her innermost thoughts to her family. Could Gem tell the disclosures were a little one-sided? They never seemed to have casual conversations. Every moment seemed so important. Maybe that was why she couldn’t pull back, didn’t want to let the silence—the distance—grow. Gem brought every fiber of her being to life. Could anyone blame her for not wanting to let that exhilaration fade away?

“The last few years,” Gem said at last, “my main goal has been to keep my life on an even keel, to be happy with what I have—the friendships, personal and professional, and my work. I thought I’d achieved a pretty good balance, all things considered.”

“And today changed all that?” Austin didn’t want to hear Gem regretted the intimacies they’d shared, but she wanted to hear Gem’s truth, whatever that might be.

“Well, some of it.” Gem reached for her wineglass, took a long, slow swallow, and cradled the glass in both hands. “I would characterize myself as being slightly unbalanced today.” She looked up, gave a rueful smile. “The kiss might have been a bit of a tilt.”

Austin grinned, happy to see even a little of the worry ebb from Gem’s eyes. “I have to admit I like you unbalanced.”

“I’m glad to hear that, because I think it’s all your fault.”

“Mine?” Austin kept her tone light, but she watched Gem’s face and read the seriousness there. She prepared herself, pretty sure she was guilty of whatever Gem was about to accuse her of. “What have I done?”

“Somehow you made me stop thinking about balance and…and comfort.” Gem nodded as if in sudden understanding. “That’s it, I think. I don’t want to be comfortable around you.” Her eyes brightened. “I want to be a little crazy. Which I guess I was.”

Austin swallowed, urgency coiling in the pit of her stomach. “If it helps, you’re not alone. You make me pretty crazy too.”

“Is that a bad thing?” Gem asked, as much to herself as Austin.

“What do you think?” Austin sensed they were talking about the future as much as the past, and she had to let Gem decide if the kiss was something to risk repeating. She couldn’t voice her own desires, not this time. Not with this woman.

“I wish I knew.” Gem sighed. “I don’t know what to make of it.”

“Do you have to understand it?”

“I don’t know. I think so. I’m usually careful, cautious. I don’t leap before I look, hard and long. At least, that’s who I’ve been for the last eight or nine years at least.”

“And before that?”

A pained expression flickered across Gem’s face. Her eyes darkened again. “Before that I was young and naïve and impressionable. Some might say stupid.”

“All of those things go along with being young, don’t they?”

“Were you ever young and stupid?”

“Careless,” Austin said immediately. “Reckless. Risk-taking. So, yeah, stupid fits.”

“Have you ever done anything you knew in your heart wasn’t what you wanted, but you did it anyway?”

“I don’t know.” Austin blew out a breath, looked inward. “I’m not sure I know what’s in my heart.” She searched Gem’s face. “But I can’t imagine you’ve done anything you can’t forgive yourself for.”

“Forgiveness is a panacea for some ills that shouldn’t be masked.” Gem’s mouth set into a hard line. “I don’t believe that forgive and forget is always the best course. Sometimes we have to remember so we don’t repeat our mistakes.”