A Time for Us - By Amy Knupp Page 0,88

make it happen. You can do it right before I introduce Tim Bowman.”

Just like that, Rachel sobered, wondering what she’d gotten herself into but knowing she couldn’t change her mind. It scared the daylights out of her, but she felt compelled to do it. A simple public tribute to the amazing woman who was her sister—it was long overdue.

* * *

THE MORNING OF the benefit concert, the air was so thick with humidity you could slice it like heavy pound cake.

By the time Cale stood on the beach, watching Tim Bowman’s crew assemble the stage, the midmorning sun had broken through, clearing the overnight rainstorm, and gave hope they’d have clear weather by the 8:00 p.m. start time.

Today marked twenty months since Noelle’s death. That seemed significant in light of all that was running through his head. Twenty months. Six hundred-some days. He wasn’t sure when it had happened, or even whether there had been a specific moment or if it had been a gradual thing, but he finally felt as if he could breathe. As if he could stand the thought of having a future.

Rattling his keys in the pocket of his cargo shorts, he left the concert site and walked north in the sand. He had things to take care of—big things—before he went home to steal a few hours of sleep after work. Last night had kept him and the rest of the crew on duty busy enough he’d only snoozed for a couple of interrupted hours. Tonight had the potential to be draining, and he’d promised to come back late this afternoon to help with last-minute preparations.

When he’d walked out of work this morning, he’d had an unexpected moment of clarity regarding the condo. As he hiked closer to it now, that clarity was gone, and he wondered if he’d just been sleep-deprived and delirious instead. Maybe the alarms last night—a garage fire, a domestic altercation that had turned into the man trying to set his house on fire and a vehicle extrication—had been too stressful and had knocked him all the way off his rocker.

As he passed the Shell Shack bar, he looked for Derek’s wife, Macey, out on the patio or inside the thatched-roof building before remembering she’d given birth—a month earlier than she and Derek had expected—only a week or so ago. He kept walking, as tempting as it was to stop in for a burger. Procrastinating wouldn’t make anything easier.

A few minutes later, his building was just up ahead, on the other side of a small, older motel. The condo building jutted out a few feet beyond the motel and towered four stories higher than it. His eyes automatically sought out his door, and he was taken back to another time, another walk up to it from the beach. The first time he’d taken Noelle to see the place, he’d purposely taken her by this route, the scenic route. The selling Realtor at the time had left the beachside door open for them. Cale kept a security bar in the sliding glass door now, so he had to go around to the main door to enter.

When he did, he waited for the familiar pang—the sting of interrupted plans and jackknifed futures—to hit him in the gut as it always did. He cautiously shut the door and looked left toward the kitchen and then right toward the living room.

Nothing.

Furrowing his brow, he flipped on the light switch suspiciously, as if searching for a live enemy.

The pang was still missing. As he narrowed his eyes, it hit him why: there was very little about the remodeled place that was familiar now. This was no longer the home he’d planned to share with Noelle. He’d gone with more masculine, muted colors and materials than anything they’d ever seriously looked at in the home-improvement store. The light fixtures were steel and glass, something she never would have gone for. Between them and the sleek, black blinds he’d installed in all the windows, the condo had the feel of an upscale bachelor pad.

It hit him now that his subconscious had been hard at work. Though he hadn’t realized what he was doing at the time, on some level, it’d been deliberate. He’d been preparing himself to walk away, gradually letting go of what he and Noelle had envisioned without really realizing it.

He strode to the spotless, unused kitchen. Nope. He could no longer imagine Noelle cooking in here. It was gray, black and white, and the stove