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Hudson
Palmer’s long dark hair spills across the white pillowcase as she sleeps peacefully next to me.
I’ve been sitting here for over an hour, watching her back rise and fall. Fear that she would be gone rippled through me when I first woke this morning. Palmer has reservations about love, about trust, about letting people in. She’s been honest with me about the turmoil she went through when she was fourteen and found out about her parents’ past.
Her dad started drinking too much around the time of her mom’s pregnancy with her, causing her to eventually leave him. He didn’t arrive back in Palmer’s life until she was eighteen months old. She grew up thinking she had the perfect family, the perfect father—until she googled him when she was fourteen.
I’m not sure if she felt lied to all those years, and that’s where her trust issues come from, or if it’s hurt that her dad wasn’t there for the first part of her life, but she rarely wants to talk about it, and I never force the issue. But now, I think we need to. If we’re going to give this thing between us an honest try, she’s got to work through it.
And as if we don’t have enough to figure out, Buzz Wheel reported on me this morning.
When I first moved to Lake Starlight, I thought the whole gossip app thing was small-town fun—until I found myself in it. More than once. I get that Buzz Wheel started years ago, and being that the Baileys are like the damn Kennedys in Lake Starlight, everyone seems to be obsessed with what’s going on in their lives. Maybe it’s because Palmer’s grandparents died young, and her uncle Austin agreed to take over the care of his siblings while her aunt Savannah took over the family company, Bailey Timber, which employs a lot of people in the area.
I read through the post on the app once again, wondering how much trouble it’ll cause for us.
We’re starting today off with a BANG! But there’s a bit of mystery in what I’m about to tell you. Turns out that Hudson Fisher arrived at Glacier Point last night and rented a room. Why would a resident who owns a perfectly good house close to downtown rent a room at the luxurious and expensive resort? That’s the question we’re asking too. From what witnesses have said, he was by himself and had no luggage or bags with him. Seems suspicious if you ask me. We all know he was entertaining SOMEONE, but the question is WHO?
For those of you new to Lake Starlight, Hudson shares a daughter with Palmer Ferguson, daughter of Sedona (nee Bailey) and Jamison Ferguson. They raise their daughter together as best friends. I think I can say for all of us that whoever he’s entertaining, he’s being secretive, which means he doesn’t want us to know who it is. But that just makes us want to know even more. Anyone with any details, you know what to do. You’ll know when I know!
In other news, someone saw Kenzie Whitmore buying a pregnancy test. We might just have another Bailey on the way. Brooklyn Whitmore (nee Bailey) has a pep in her step lately. Maybe she knows something the rest of us don’t!
I don’t bother reading the rest and toss my phone on the nightstand.
Palmer rolls over, and her eyes flutter open. She stretches like a cat, her back arching, her arms over her head. It’s adorable. Her eyes open fully, and a timid smile creases her lips.
“Good morning,” I say, knowing she can read my lips.
She nuzzles into my body and wraps her arms around my waist.
We lie together under the comfy comforter, but I know we have to bite the bullet eventually.
After I made love to her last night, we took a shower and ended up having sex again. Then I woke her up once more in the middle of the night when I rolled toward her and felt her soft skin under my palms. There was no resisting, no matter how tired either of us were. It’s like now that I can have her, I can’t possibly get enough.
I slide out from under her, and she sits up against the headboard, a look of surprise on her face. Grabbing her cochlear implants, I bring them over to her, and she goes to grab them, but I circle my finger, telling her to turn her back to me. Then I put them on for her.
She fiddles with them when I’m done. “What’s going on, Hudson?”
I pick up my phone off the nightstand and hand it to her.
She looks at me, biting the inside of her cheek as she does when she’s worried. “What?”
“Just read it.”
She looks down and sighs. “Buzz Wheel?” Her face falls, but when she gets to the point that her cousin, Lance’s wife, might be pregnant, she smiles. “They don’t know it’s me.” She hands me back my phone.
“Palmer, they’re gonna know.”
She shakes her head. “Linus won’t tell anyone. You can tell Matt to keep it to himself.”
“And the kitchen staff? All the people in the restaurant? I had your hand in mine.”
She goes over to the chair that has our clothes lying over the back. Great, she’s going to flee now and probably dodge me for the rest of the day. But to my surprise, she takes my shirt and slips it on. The hem hits her mid-thigh, and a caveman’s possessiveness comes alive inside me at seeing her in my clothes.
“We’re friends. You hold my hand a lot. And no one heard our conversation. If anything, people might think that you were consoling me after Matt left.”
I guess I’m glad she’s not freaking out, but still, a layer of disappointment settles inside me since she doesn’t say, “Who cares if anyone knows about us?” I’m not sure why I would assume she’d wake up and want to shout our newfound relationship from the window of the resort. I told her we could keep it a secret, and I can’t change the game now. But last night was so…not what I expected. I thought it would be like last time when we ripped off each other’s clothes and bumped into walls and furniture before we found our way to the bed.
Something came over me when I saw her fear as she stared at the bed, and I wanted to ease that hesitancy inside her. I wanted her to know how much I care for her, how much I love her, and how much I see a future for us. Regardless, I told her we’d take it slow, and if that’s what she needs, then I’ll do it.
