She meets my eyes with a quizzical glance. I shrug my shoulders before admitting, “I’m a selfish bastard, Kara. You know that about me.”
“How long is it going to take me to recover from this?” Her fingers dance along the side of my face reverently.
I wrap an arm around her shoulders and tug her closer. Pressing a kiss firmly to her lips, I tell her flat out, “You won’t be able to. It may be scary at first, but please, God, trust me. I’ll find a way to return to you.”
She pulls back a bit, something that causes an ache inside of me. “I’ll try.”
“Then lean on me when it gets to be too much. There’s nothing and no one but time preventing me coming for you,” I swear.
Sadly, she rises from the bed. “You forget, Jennings. My mind has a hard time counting on much.”
“Then trust your heart. Trust mine,” I implore her before I press my mouth to hers.
Her hand drags behind as she pulls away. “Dinner in ten,” she calls before she makes her way out of the room.
I scrub my hands over my face. “God, Jed. If you’re up there listening, help me out?” I plead aloud. “I need to make them both understand this isn’t over.” Because in such a short time, I realize I was blessed with the chance to be gifted with love twice.
I’m doomed if I screw this up again. I know it.
And I want a life with the woman I love and our son.
No matter the cost.
Kara
I’m trying to not let my dejection show as the days move as swiftly as Jennings navigates the plane on a good crosswind.
Am I doing the right thing for us? I question my decisions every second of the day when I’m not actively engaged in a conversation with Jennings or Kevin or being loved by Jennings at night. But it’s those quiet moments before I curl up in his arms and sleep that are the worst.
I don’t question my love for him. What I question is the wisdom of falling head over heels in love with a man who has a life on the completely opposite side of the country from me.
This is the pain I set up Kevin for—life without both of his parents every day.
If I let myself go back to the woman I was before my heart was indelibly changed, I’d be a shell. But that shell I was living in might be less painful than the heartbreak I know I’m setting myself up for when we board the jet to carry us back to Jacksonville in just three days.
As we bank over the White Pass Railroad chugging along below, Jennings points out Dead Horse Gulch, an immense steel cantilever bridge. As he enlightens us to the history behind the bridge, I think about the men who bravely hung over the sides to build it clinging to nothing but a rope. I realize when I first came to Alaska I was much the same way. Maybe my dream wasn’t to work on Mendenhall, it was to find meaning, a purpose. Twisting slightly in my seat, I catch sight of Kevin, who’s eagerly listening to his father give a historical perspective of the land below us.
I can’t shield him from this, I think painfully. Another loss, and I can’t protect him from it no more than I could Dean or Jed. What I want is for life to not to be so riddled with responsibilities so I could just pick up our lives and move to Seattle. But I can’t do that to Kevin. Tears of anguish fill my eyes when I wonder if knowing my reasons are because of his son will be enough to ask Jennings to wait.
But what do I have to offer him in three years except being forty-one? An aching bitterness sets in when I realize that despite the fact we’ve both professed our love, Alaska is going to return me to Florida in much the same condition I was before.
Alone.
As the chatter between Jennings and Kevin continues, which involves them making plans for winter and summer breaks, I absorb the memories, storing them in my heart for when I need to pull them out in years to come.
With a jerk, I realize Jennings is calling my name over the headset. “Yes?” I answer.
“Are you okay?” he asks, concerned.
“I’m fine.” I stretch the truth so thin you could see through it. Then I add on immediately behind it, “I was just enjoying listening to you both make plans.”
Jennings doesn’t say anything for a moment. Then his hand reaches over and grabs mine. He gives it a firm squeeze.
I don’t know what that means. Is it reassurance, comfort? I want to ask, but I hold myself back.
This isn’t the time. The problem is, with so few days left, will there be a right one?
The day before we’re due to depart Juneau is riotous at Maris’s. Brad, Rainey, and their family have joined Maris, Jennings, Kevin, and me for a farewell barbecue. As much as I love the camaraderie Kevin and I have built here, I want nothing more than to throw everyone out so I can drag Jennings to my room and alternate between making love to him and crying.
We’re not down to days now, but down to hours.
Our flight takes off at seven in the morning in order to get us back to Florida late tomorrow evening. That means we’re due at the airport at an ungodly hour to check in a summer’s worth of bags. I’m torn between making mental lists and being so utterly morose I want to curl into a corner with a bottle of wine to just forget.
But the reality is, I’m being engaged in too much conversation for any of that to occur.
“You have to be looking forward to getting back to some warmer weather,” Meadow teases me, before she takes a bite of one of the brownies she brought with her.
“You’d be surprised,” I chuckle ruefully. “It rarely stays this temperate in Florida. It’s been a nice reprieve.” I’m about to say more when I feel a set of strong arms wrap around me. Jennings’s beard brushes up against the side of my cheek. I close my eyes to memorize the sensation of the bristles as they scrape across my skin, the woodsy scent of his cologne mingling with the outdoor air, the strength of his jaw as he rubs it back and forth against me.
And my heart aches because I could be in Antarctica or in the sweltering heat so long as I had my son and this man with me. The air might be uncomfortable, but I’d be whole.
Meadow smiles at me with understanding. “I think I hear Rainey calling for me. Since you’re in such great hands, I’ll be right back.”
I don’t respond as I nestle back into Jennings. He obviously feels the same way when he mutters, “If I didn’t know everyone was going to miss Kevin, I’d blast Maris for suggesting this. All I want is a quiet night with my family before…” He can’t even complete the sentence.
And I give him some of the most honest words I’ve said in the last few days as I’ve held up a front for our son. “It hurts,” I whimper softly.
He growls behind me, before spinning me around. I gasp softly as he hauls me up against him so closely our bodies are aligned as perfectly as they are when he’s thrusting inside of me. One arm is banded around my hips while the other is threaded through my hair, pulling it back slightly. “Look me in the eye and say that again,” he demands.
Helpless, I comply. “Of course it hurts, Jennings. It’s slipping away again, and the wounds are starting to open. But I’d rather have had this time with you than nothing at all. I…” I don’t get a chance to tell him how much I’ll always love him because he slams his mouth down on mine.
Voraciously, he kisses me in front of the people that matter to both of us across a continent of living. It isn’t until a moan starts to build in the back of my throat he pulls back.
Words almost don’t seem necessary, but Jennings gives them to me anyway. And when he does, they’re perfect and painful because they give me hope. Damn him.
“Understand me, Kara. We’re going to be together in the end. I just have to deal with the how.”
My hand lifts from where it rests lightly on his shoulder to drag down the plane of his cheek until I can smooth it over the scruff of his beard. “I want you to know I’ll never be sorry.” At his questioning look, I expand, “For either summer I spent loving you.”
A slow smile spreads across his handsome face. “That’s good to know because I’ll nev
er be sorry for falling in love with you.” Before I can respond, he loosens the grip on my hair. “Let’s see what we can do to end this party before dawn. I need to have tonight to hold you.”
Woodenly, I nod, incapable of speaking. I always wondered what it would feel like to have all of John Jennings. Now that I do, I’m sorry I don’t know what to do or what to say.
And I’m more sorry I have no time to find out.
Slipping an arm around his waist, we head in the direction where our son is laughing with Brad and Rainey’s kids. We stand there absorbing the sound since it might be the last time either of us hears it for a while.
The house is finally quiet. Jennings’s hands are running up and down my back after I’ve collapsed on top of him a limp mess. The words start to form before I know they’re coming. “I could talk to…”
“Shh, Kara. Not tonight. Let tonight be about just us.” His vivid green eyes meet mine. “Right now, I need to just memorize everything before the air shifts and drags you away from me. We’ll figure out our tomorrows then. Tonight, until the sun comes up, I want to put us first.”
“How can I possibly refuse that?” Even though my words are the same ones I teased him with when I said yes to our first date over sixteen years ago, there is nothing joking about them now.
“I thank God every day you can’t.” Unlike the first time, there’s no arrogant smile accompanying his words. And the next ones would have melted me if he hadn’t already performed that feat with his lovemaking earlier. “Did I ever say thank you? For Kevin, for staying, for being so courageous when you were young, and even more perfect now that we’re older?” Jennings’s eyes burn into mine.
I shake my head. “You gave me the greatest gift of my life. It’s me who should be thanking you,” I counter.
“I’ve spent so much of my life in the air because there was nothing I wanted on the ground. Now that I found you and Kevin, well, I know what he meant.”
“What who meant?” I lean down and press a brief kiss to his lips.
“Love and family. They’re the secrets that give you a shot at the stars. Funny, Jed told me that on the flight we took when he told me about your brother.”
Tears slip from my eyes and fall heedlessly to his chest as I lean down and press my lips to his. Over and over, our lips slide over one another. Our tongues duel back and forth until we’re again entwined in each other’s arms seeking heights, needing solace, not caring about true sleep because all too soon, the sun will come and with it, the flight that will take me and Kevin away.
We doze intermittently in between long bouts of lovemaking and even longer sessions of talking. For the last few hours, we continue to live a lie that nothing’s changing. But all too soon, both of our cell phone alarms start to sound.
I have eleven hours of flights to make up for it or cry. And I’d rather not let Kevin see me in this condition.
Not yet anyway.
Kara
“I think I want my epidural back,” I mutter.
“What was that?” Jennings pants as he hefts another set of bags out of the SUV he borrowed from Maris.
“Nothing,” I answer him. But between the shooting pain every time I see another piece of luggage being removed, knowing it’s taking another piece of us away from Jennings and remembering the baggage fees from our flight here, I debate the merits of drinking heavily to subdue the agony.
Honestly, if Kevin wasn’t with me, nothing would prevent me from getting completely annihilated during the first part of the flight. “I don’t want to think,” I mutter, softly enough so only I can hear it.
Or so I think.
Kevin drapes his arm around my waist from behind and puts his chin on my shoulder. “Can I sum up our trip?”
Laying my hand on top of his, I watch as Jennings talks to the porter before slamming the trunk closed. We’re down to minutes, I think wildly. “Sure, baby,” I manage to get out. Anything to distract me from walking into that airport for the second time in my life with my heart feeling like it will never be the same.
Because I’m positive this time is going to be worse than the last.
“We arrived and I thought I would never heal from the pain. Then Dad came into our lives.” I jerk a little in his hold unintentionally.
Trying to restore a semblance of calm, I ask, “And you…”
“Fell in love with my father as much as you did,” my son tells me bluntly. “Mom.” He turns me a bit so I’m facing him. “I know why we’re going home. You keep forgetting I’m not a kid anymore.”
I open my mouth to start babbling, but Kevin hushes me. “I loved every minute of it, but I’m looking forward to going home. I told Dad the same thing.”
Instead of the words wanting to pour out, I find I can’t get them out. “When did you tell him that?”
“Yesterday at the party. So, in case I forget to tell you later—” My son leans down and kisses me on the cheek before whispering in my ear. “—thanks for being the greatest mom in the world. Your whole life you’ve giving me everything.”
There’s no way I can stop the tears at that point. I try to surreptitiously swipe them from my eyes before Jennings locks the car and comes over. “What’s wrong?” he demands, missing nothing.
“Nothing, Dad. I was just telling Mom how great she is. You know she just can’t take a compliment.”
I reach out and jab him in the stomach with my fingers. “I can so,” I protest.
“When it comes to your brain, Owl, yes. Otherwise, Kevin’s got you dead to rights.” Jennings wraps his arm around my shoulders. He sucks in a breath, and I swear I gasp as I feel the pain swirl between the three of us.
Jennings guides us toward the porter so we can make our way to the airport terminal. Each step we take is physically shredding my soul.
I feel like shouting in the cool morning air, but my voice is trapped inside me. Over my head, Jennings and Kevin murmur to each other about connections and what time we’re expected to land back in Florida. I know it’s not the concerned lover talking to me but the pilot talking when Jennings says sternly, “I want you calling in between each flight, Kara. Unless you’re too close on time. Then text me.”
Jolting me from my agonized stupor, I whisper, “All right.” But my voice breaks.
Jennings stops moving. “Kevin, give me just a minute with your mom,” he orders our son. “We’ll meet you inside by the ticket counter. We’re less than a minute behind you.”
“Sure, Dad,” Kevin says. But he’s hurting too. I can hear it. I whimper at my weakness and start to go after him, but Jennings holds me fast against his side before turning me to face him directly.
Then he’s kissing me as if we’ve got all night instead of mere moments before Kevin and I slip into the security line. “You’ve got this. You’ll be fine,” he reassures me.
I shake my head, but before I can speak, his words stop me. “You have to, because otherwise, how will I? ’I need to know you’re going to be okay because my heart aches so damn bad, I feel like I’m going to die.”
“Jennings,” I whisper his name. I reach up and stroke the softness of his beard. Memorizing it, him.
“I promise you’ll get through this. And soon we’ll be together again. You have everything you need to make it through, Kara,” he whispers harshly.
“What’s that?” I ask, because right now, I need to know.
“My whole world. I need you to take care of it for both of us.”
“And who’s going to take care of you?” I ask wonderingly, finally finding my voice.
He shakes his head, the movement making his beard brush back and forth against my palm. It sends shivers racing up my body, warming me when I’d begun to think I might die from the cold seeping inside me from the thoughts of leaving him. “I’ll have you and Kevin looking out for me. It might be long distance, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to love me any less. Does it?” A hint of vulnerability crosses his face.
“Never.�
� Realizing Jennings’s pain is as close to the surface as my own, I pull his head down and tell him the final truth I never shared. “Last time I left Alaska, I was in so much pain because I was scared and alone. What was I going home to? When we came back, Kevin and I were empty from the loss of Dean and Jed. Now, I’m getting on a plane to go home, and I don’t want to leave because my heart’s finally stopped hurting.” I try to make him understand in the final seconds we have. “Jennings, it’s you who flung our souls back up into the air.” Pressing my lips against his shocked ones a final time, I whisper against them. “That’s because of your love. Now, I don’t want to leave, but…”
“But the sooner you get home, the sooner I can do what I need to in order to be with you.” He turns me forward, and we move again.
“Yes.” The word is a single statement that encompasses my willingness to believe in John Jennings as a father and as the man I love. Spotting Kevin, I break away from Jennings.
The porter sees me head for check-in. After a few moments, and wincing painfully at the luggage fees hitting my card, I quickly give the man a tip.
Jennings refuses to let us handle our carry-ons until we reach the security checkpoint. Tipping his head back, he swallows before he grates out, “This is it for me.” His head whips around, torment stamped on every feature of his face. I’m about to panic until I feel Kevin’s hand settle at my shoulder. “Son, you take care of your mother like we talked about?”
“I will, Dad.” Kevin lets me go and steps forward. If it wasn’t for the clothes and the beard, I almost wouldn’t be able to tell where one began and one ended in their embrace. “Love you, Dad,” Kevin mumbles.
“Love you too, son. Always, forever. I’ll be there sooner than you think. And use that phone often. Just not while you’re in class,” he says sternly.
My lips twitch despite themselves.
“Yes, sir,” Kevin mutters as he steps back to give me and Jennings as much privacy as he can.
Return by Air (Glacier Adventure Series Book 1) Page 27