“You feel like you're cheating on Nick,” Grandpa J stated matter-of-factly.
Katie whipped her head up, surprise written all over her face, “Oh my gosh! That's exactly what Jason said!”
Grandpa J smiled, “Well, it makes sense you would feel that way. You're a good girl. You like to follow the rules.”
Katie nodded her head vigorously.
“So, being with Nick's best friend feels strange to a small part of you, but Katie, honey...there's n
o truth in it. Nick's gone, sweetheart. He's been gone a long time. And he would want you to be happy every bit as much as Grace and Mike and I do.”
Katie started to cry again, “That's what Grace said, too!”
Grandpa J chuckled sadly, “Honey, that's because it's true. Now, listen here. Do you know what the first thing Grace said was when Sophie said she was going to ask you to be her maid of honor?”
Katie shook her head.
“She said, 'Hmmm...maybe on the same weekend that you and Bobby consecrate your love, a new love will bloom between the maid of honor and the best man,' and Sophie replied, 'Mama, you read my mind,' Now does that sound like people who don't want you to be with Jason?”
Katie shook her head, amazed.
“Besides,” Grandpa J said with a twinkle in his eyes, “Not that I'm trying to rush anything or put pressure on you, but I would just remind you that by virtue of the knot that my beautiful granddaughter Sophie just tied with one of the Sloan boys, they are now my grandsons by marriage. If, say, a pretty blonde happened to marry one of them, she'd technically become my granddaughter, if you look at it a certain way. Now you wouldn't deny an old man the hope that one of his favorite people might still become his granddaughter one day would you?”
Katie laughed and threw her arms around him, hugging him hard. “I love you, Grandpa J,” she whispered.
“Love you, too, Katie girl,” he said affectionately. When she pulled back, he said, “Now, not that I’m complainin’ mind you, but shouldn’t you be up in the sky headed back to California right about now?”
“I missed my flight,” Katie said as she blew her nose again.
“Well now, I ran into your mama and she said that she and Wendy dropped you off at the airport in plenty of time.”
Katie sighed, “I know, I just...I couldn’t…leave.”
A wide smile spread across Grandpa J's face as he stood and pulled Katie up into a bear hug that felt better than Christmas morning, her birthday and anything chocolate combined. He said happily, “Welcome home, my Katie girl, welcome home.”
Katie smiled. It really did feel like home when Grandpa J said it. They stood for a moment in silence, looking at Nick's headstone and paying their respects, until Grandpa J spoke again.
“Well, speaking of home, honey...you ready to get out of here and head there now?” he asked and Katie nodded. As they left the Harper's Crossing cemetery, Katie felt like a huge weight had been lifted off her shoulders.
She was, really and truly,
home
.
Jason laid in bed looking at the blinking red light on his nightstand. It read 3:16, exactly four minutes later than the last time he had checked. He looked at his phone again to make sure that he hadn’t somehow missed Katie’s call. He had been tossing and turning for hours now, waiting to hear that Katie had made it home safe.
He climbed out of bed and headed to the kitchen to finish off the leftover pizza from dinner. As he opened the fridge, he heard a small knock on his front door.
In his experience, middle-of-the-night guests rarely brought good news.
OH-JESUS-GOD-NO-NOT-HER-PLANE...
He ran to the front of the house, knocking over a lamp and a chair in his frantic race to the door and threw it open, heart pounding, steeling himself to see a teary-eyed Pam or Wendy there...or maybe they would send his brother...OH GOD...
It took him a few seconds to process who
was
actually standing on his porch, and then his heart simultaneously dropped and expanded.
Katie was here, on his doorstep. In Harper's Crossing, not in California. But this wasn't entirely happy news, because he could see that she was upset. Her eyes were puffy and her nose was bright red.
He pulled her to him and she wrapped her arms tightly around him.
“What’s wrong, are you OK?” He tried to not sound as alarmed as he felt.
She sniffed and nodded her head yes.
He pulled back slightly and cupped her face in his hands, wiping the tears that were falling down her cheeks with the pads of his thumbs.
“Baby, talk to me, why are you crying?”
“I don’t know why I’m still crying,” she laughed, but there was more frustration than humor in it, “It’s like I've opened a valve and I can’t shut it off. I’ve been like this for hours. It started when I rented a car at the airport and it hasn’t stopped since.”
“You’re upset because you missed your flight? That was hours ago, where have you been?” Jason asked. This wasn't making any sense and he needed to get some clarification on the subject.
“No, no,” Katie smiled and rolled her eyes a little and he felt his body relax, “I’m not crying because I missed my flight. I went to go visit Nick and then Grandpa J showed up. He wanted to tell Nick about the wedding.”
Katie swayed against him and he moved them to the couch and sat down pulling her onto his lap. She laid her head on his shoulder as he rubbed the palm of his hand up and down her back, waiting as patiently as he could for her to tell him what was going on. Her breathing got steadier and slower and he was just about to check to see if she had fallen asleep when she broke the silence.
“I’m not going back to San Francisco, Jas.”
He felt like his heart was going to jump out of his chest but he tried not to get too excited until he heard her out.
“I don’t mean ever. Obviously I have to go back to tie up loose ends like, oh I don't know...my CAREER,” she laughed a little, “and my apartment, things like that. But then I'm coming back.”
He still waited quietly to make sure that there wasn’t a catch. He needed to make sure that what he
thought
she was saying was what she was
really
saying.
When she didn’t continue, he figured he would have to move this along if he was going to get the answers he so desperately needed.
“When did you decide this?” he asked carefully.
“I was sitting at the terminal waiting for my flight and I started hyperventilating. I got my paper bag out and started repeating the mantra my therapist had suggested, but neither of those things made it any better. In fact, it seemed like they were making the symptoms worse. At first I thought it was just all the leftover anxiety from the weekend.”
“Why? What happened this weekend?” Jason asked innocently.
“Ha ha ha, real funny Jas,” She pursed her lips and tilted her head before swatting his arm and smiling. It was a smile that reached all the way to her eyes and he knew if he could just see that smile every day, he would be the luckiest man in the world.
“I kept telling myself that once I got home, to San Francisco, I would be able to sort everything out and make sense of it all. But every time I thought about getting on the plane to head back home, the panic attack got worse.
“I closed my eyes and tried to just
will
the panic attack to stop. No dice.
“Then, I heard your voice telling me it was going to be OK. I felt your arms around me, and I started calming down. Once it had completely stopped, I decided I would just do some work until it was time to board the plane. Work has always kept my mind off of things before. But not this time...nope. This time, instead of being my escape, it seemed to trigger another and even more intense panic attack.
“When I tried to calm down, the same thing happened. The only thing that stopped the attack was hearing your voice and imagining your arms around me. After I was breathing normally again, since I couldn’t work or think about going home because those seemed to be triggers, I thought about you, and about this weekend, and about what my life would be like if I was here...you know, not just to visit, but if I lived here.
“And then just like magic, my whole body relaxed and I knew that going back to California...” she barked out a short laugh again,” Well, it just wasn’t an option. This is where I belong, with you in Harper's Crossing. You’re my home Jason.”
“Hmmm,” he said lightly, trying to mask the ecstatic tone he would otherwise be using, “So, basically, you’re moving home because I'm the ‘Panic Attack Whisperer’ - is that right?”
Jason knew it was wrong to tease her but, honestly, he couldn’t help himself. Katie Marie Lawson irritated, was the cutest thing in the world to him.
She pursed her lips and tilted her head to the side while lifting her arm to swat at him. This time, however, he was ready for it and he caught her arm mid swing, using her own momentum to lift her up and lay her on the couch below him. He kissed her forehead, her cheeks, her lips. He needed her, he needed to touch her, to make sure that this wasn’t a dream, that his Katie was really home and was really
his
.
“You’re sure about this? You're really coming home?” He needed to hear it again. Just one more time.
She kissed him and smiled, a mischievous twinkle lighting up her eyes. She teased, “On one condition.”
“Anything,” He immediately shot back.
“Admit that you were the one who wrote on my name paper,” She looked at him with a satisfied expression, clearly feeling she was about to win a quarter-century long battle that they had been engaged in.
Well, she might win this battle but he had a plan to win the war.
“On one condition,” he countered.
Her gaze turned suspicious, “What?”
“Marry me.”
She stared at him, her expression frozen. Then he saw tears once again forming in her eyes.
He was just about to say, ‘never mind - forget the whole
proposal
thing – obviously too soon’ when her lips turned upward into a grin and she spoke one simple word.
“Yes.”
He felt like he had just won the lottery...well, not that he knew what that felt like but, God, there was no way that it could feel any better than this!
She looked at him, waiting for his response, and he couldn’t have been happier to give it to her.
“Yes, Kit Kat,” he admitted happily, “I was the one that wrote on your name paper.”
Her eyes grew wide and she gasped as she pointed her finger up at him, “I
knew
it!”
He laughed and kissed her, knowing without a shadow of a doubt that writing on her paper was the smartest thing he ever did.
THE CROSSROADS SERIES
Coming July 2013
Sneak Peek from My Last
Chelle came awake to the sound of a beating drum. Why would someone be playing a drum indoors? Especially this loudly?
She tried to open her eyes, but found that her eyelids were encased in concrete. At least that was how it felt. They were heavy, and felt abrasive and itchy on her delicate eyes. She tried even harder to open them, but resigned herself to the fact that it was a losing battle.
If she could just get the drummer to stop banging!
She decided that she needed to sit up. Maybe that simple act would help her to open her eyes, to become aware of her surroundings. When she tried to lift her head, however, she realized her mistake. HUGE mistake! Her stomach rolled with nausea, and the banging sound became
louder and was accompanied by sharp pains – pains that felt like ragged shards of glass being twisted viciously into her brain.
Note to self: Vodka and pizza do not mix.
That's when she realized that there was no mystery drummer in the bedroom (although if she didn't feel so crappy, she may not have objected to having a mystery drummer in her bedroom...). The thump-thump-thumping she heard was the pounding of her own head.
She laid her head back down in defeat, but did come up with a plan. She decided that she would lay perfectly still long enough for the nausea to pass, and then maybe she would just try and ROLL out of bed. Gravity, FTW!
She carefully placed her hands over her stomach and concentrated on breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth.
“You awake sleeping beauty?”
At the sound of the deep voice, adrenaline overcame all of her symptoms and Chelle bolted upright in bed, her eyes flying open.
Adrenaline didn't help her vision, though, and it was pretty fuzzy. She was having a hard time focusing. She could just make out a shadowy figure sitting in the chair across from the bed. Just as she was getting ready to scream bloody murder, the figure spoke again.
“Chelle, its Riley. Don’t be scared.”
The deep sexy voice certainly sounded like Riley. From what she could make out of his features, the seated figure looked like (a blurry version of) Riley. The frame was right – the blurry blob had Riley's wide, muscled shoulders and taut, sculpted waist. The rest of the features fit, as well. She could barely make out dark blonde hair and sun-kissed tanned skin.