He pushed away the troubling thoughts and rolled down the window, breathing in the earthy scent of pine and brackish water as the road wound among the trees. A few minutes later, Dawson made the turn onto Tuck’s property. The car bounced along the rutted dirt drive, and as he rounded the corner the house came into view. To his surprise, a BMW was parked out front. He knew it wasn’t Tuck’s. It was too clean, for one thing, but more than that, Tuck would never have driven a foreign car, not because he didn’t trust the quality, but because he wouldn’t have had the metric tools he’d need to repair it. Besides, Tuck had always favored trucks, especially those built in the early 1960s. Over the years, he’d probably bought and restored half a dozen of them, driving them for a while before selling them to whoever happened to make an offer. For Tuck, it was less about the money than the restoration itself.
Dawson parked beside the BMW and stepped out of the car, surprised at how little the house had changed. The place had never been much more than a shack even when Dawson had been around, and there had always been a half-finished-and-in-need-of-repair appearance to the exterior. Amanda had once bought Tuck a flowering planter to spruce up the place, and it still stood in the corner of the porch, though the flowers had long since withered away. He could recall how excited she’d been when they’d presented Tuck with it, even if he hadn’t known quite what to make of it.
Dawson surveyed the area, watching a squirrel as it skittered along the branch of a dogwood tree. A cardinal called a warning from the trees, but other than that, the place seemed deserted. He started around the side of the house, walking toward the garage. It was cooler there, shaded by the pines. As he rounded the corner and stepped into the sun, he caught sight of a woman standing just inside the garage, examining what was probably the last classic car that Tuck had ever restored. His first thought was that she was probably from the attorney’s office, and he was about to call out a greeting when she suddenly turned around. His voice died in his throat.
Even from a distance, she was more beautiful than he remembered, and for what seemed an endless span of time, he couldn’t say anything. It occurred to him that he might be hallucinating again, but he slowly blinked and realized that he was wrong. She was real, and she was here, in the refuge that had once been theirs.
It was then, while Amanda was staring back at him from across the years, that he suddenly knew why Tuck Hostetler had insisted he come back home.
4
Neither one of them was able to move or speak as surprise gradually turned to recognition. Dawson’s first thought was how much more vivid she was in person than in his memories of her. Her blond hair caught the late afternoon light like burnished gold, and her blue eyes were electric even at a distance. But as he continued to stare, subtle differences slowly came into focus. Her face, he noticed, had lost the softness of youth. The angles of her cheekbones were more visible now and her eyes seemed deeper, framed by a faint tracing of lines at the corners. The years, he realized, had been more than kind: Since he’d seen her last, she’d grown into a mature and remarkable beauty.
Amanda was also trying to absorb what she was seeing. His sand-colored shirt was tucked casually into faded jeans, outlining his still-angular hips and wide shoulders. His smile was the same, but he wore his dark hair longer than he had as a teenager, and she noticed a wash of gray at his temples. His dark eyes were as striking as she remembered, but she thought she detected a new wariness in them, the sign of someone who’d lived a life that had been harder than expected. Perhaps it was the result of seeing him here, in this place where they’d shared so much, but in the sudden rush of emotion she could think of nothing to say.
“Amanda?” he finally asked, beginning to walk toward her.
She heard the wonder in his voice as he said her name, and it was that, more than anything, that let her know he was real. He’s here, she thought, it’s really him, and as he closed the distance between them, she felt the years slowly falling away, as impossible as that seemed. When he finally reached her, he opened his arms and she went into them naturally, as she’d done so long ago. He pulled her close, holding her like the lovers they once had been, and she leaned into him, suddenly feeling eighteen again.
“Hello, Dawson,” she whispered.
They embraced for a long time, holding each other close in the waning sunlight, and for an instant he thought he felt her tremble. When they finally pulled apart, she could sense his unspoken emotion.
She studied him up close, noting the changes the years had wrought. He was a man now. His face was weathered and tanned, like someone who spent long hours in the sun, and his hair had thinned only slightly.