“What happened?” he asked, immediately regretting it. His grimace was lost in her hair as he rested his chin lightly atop her head. What if her fiancé had passed away? He would feel awful for stirring up painful memories for her if that were the case.
Aurora lifted her head from his shoulder and took a step back as Gage released her. Looking up, she met his gaze. “Ben and I have been friends forever,” she began.
Have been.Not past tense. Relief for her swept through him.
“Since childhood,” she went on. “I think it was second grade. As adults, with no serious relationships for either of us, we decided to give dating a try. It was comfortable.”
“Comfortable?” Not exactly how he hoped to describe his connection with the person he’d someday be marrying.
She nodded. “Our parents are friends. We shared the same friends back home. We both moved to Seattle for work. It was easy enough. Ben and I dated for a little over a year before he proposed. We went through all the motions of planning our wedding, but I couldn’t stop thinking about how much I wanted the kind of marriage my parents have. My sister has.Yourparents have.”
“A good thing to strive for. Especially when you are exchanging vows to be together for the rest of your life.”
“I realized, thankfully before it was too late, that Ben and I weren’t going to have that same special sparkle. We were far better suited to be friends than the married couple we were making plans to become. Six months ago, I asked Ben to come over so we could talk. Before he left, I gave him his ring back, calling off our engagement.”
“How did he take your ending things?”
“I didn’t want to hurt him, but I think when I sat him down to talk about my feelings, he was. Once it was done and he’d taken some time to think over my reasons, Ben realized I was right. We went back to being just really good friends.”
Gage’s brows drew together. “Then why did my talking about that couple getting married on one of our fishing boats make you emotional? Are you second-guessing your decision to call off the engagement?” He wasn’t so sure he wanted to hear her reply. Did Aurora want to get back together with her ex?
“No,” she said, sounding sincere in her response. “I don’t have any regrets about not marrying Ben.”
“Then why are you upset?”
She thought about the question for a long moment. Just when Gage thought she might not respond to it, she said, “Mine was supposed to be the perfect Alaskan honeymoon with its breathtaking visual backdrop. I began planning it when I was a little girl, listening to my mom’s stories of how she met my dad and their time spent here. I’ve been chasing a dream that isn’t ready to be caught, which makes me feel like life is passing me by. My baby sister is happily married, complete with the white picket fence little girls dream about. Only her fence is a bit more on the cream side than white, but it’s there all the same, wrapping around their cute little Cape Cod with their adorable little pup racing around their backyard. And where am I?”
“Standing by a river in Alaska,” he answered with a grin, trying to lighten the mood.
A hint of a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Besides that,” she told him. “Sure, I’ve got a really good career and friends and family who care about me. But I don’t have a family of my own. Or a dog to come home to after a long day of work.” She paused. “I suppose I need to focus on the positive in this situation. My toilet seat is always down.”
Gage blinked. “Excuse me?”
She giggled. “My sister’s one pet peeve is her husband always leaving the toilet seat up. Believe me, I hear about it often.”
“And what do you tell her?”
“To glue the seat down.”
He threw his head back and gave a hearty chuckle. “Remind me never to get on your bad side.”
“I think you’re safe.”
“I’m sorry about how things turned out with Ben,” he told her. But was he really? If she had been on the verge of marrying, he might never have crossed paths with her.
“No, I apologize for taking our beautiful day and making it uncomfortable.”
He shook his head. “It wasn’t. I just don’t like seeing you upset. I know something, or maybe I should say somewhere, that might put that pretty smile back onto your face. Camera at the ready?” he asked, his tone teasing.
“Ready.”
“Here we are,” Gage announced as they stepped out from the covering of trees they had parked beneath.
Aurora gasped, unable to keep the smile from her face. “Oh my gosh!” she said as they moved toward another body of water. “They’re sooo cute!”
“I take it you’ve never seen beavers frolicking in the wild before,” he said, grinning.
She lifted her camera and began snapping away. “This is a first,” she replied. “I know these aren’t fishing-related pictures and have nothing to do with my assignment, but I can’t resist.”
