She nodded. “I don’t think talking to this woman will do any good, but Mary made a good point.” She looked over at Mary. “More than one good point. It’s time I let you live your life, Dilly. If me talking to this quack will give you some peace, then I guess I’ll do it.”
Crossing the room, I bent and hugged her. “Thank you, Momma. I love you.”
She wrapped her arms around me and hugged me back. “I love you, too. Daffodil. Why don’t you get to work so Mary and I can make this place look presentable before the doctor arrives?”
“Okay.” I hugged Mary and I left. Hope blossomed in my chest like a dangerous thing, but I held on to it, because somehow Mary had made more progress with my mother in one night than I’d made in years. Maybe Mary was the magic Mom and I had both needed for so long.
I made a quick call to work to let them know I’d be late, and then I took a detour to Oscar’s salt spa.
***
I pushed through the door to Oscar’s spa, a box in one hand, Buddy’s leash in the other, my heart pounding, ready to say the words that would fix everything, but he wasn’t behind the front desk. There was a woman with purple streaks in her hair, a nose ring, and bright blue eyes. She smiled at Buddy before she looked at me, her smile turning to a glare.
I stopped just inside the doorway. I’m no coward, but the woman had a good five inches and twenty pounds on me. “Is Oscar around?”
“He’s teaching a class right now. Can I take a message for him?”
I took a few steps toward three chairs arranged in a small waiting area. “Would it be okay if I waited for him? I really need to talk to him in person.”
She shrugged like it didn’t matter to her but didn’t stop glaring at me. “You’re the chick who broke Oscar’s heart, right?”
“I’m Dilly.”
She sniffed. “You here to cause him more pain?”
I fought the urge to tell her it wasn’t any of her business, because she actually could kick me out if she wanted. “I’m here to thank him for his help this morning and to apologize.”
Her glare faded into a warm smile. “Are you going to ask him to take you back? That is so sweet.”
“I doubt he’ll want me back.”
She drummed her nails on the counter top and studied me for a moment. “He’s not really teaching a class. He’s in his office. I’ll get him for you.”
My heart, which had finally settled down, resumed its manic pounding. She disappeared around a corner and, well before I was ready, Oscar was walking toward me, his expression warm but wary. I got to my feet and took a few steps toward him, not sure how welcome my advance would be.
“Dilly. Do you need me to take Buddy?”
My throat was tight, and it took me a few swallows to clear it enough to speak. Maybe this was a bad idea. Just because Mom was better now, it didn’t mean my life would suddenly be easier and…Oscar took a step toward me and smiled, and my fear vanished. It didn’t matter what the future held. The idea of shutting Oscar out of my life, of letting him walk away from me wasn’t something I’d be stupid enough to ever do again. He was all I wanted, and I was going to trust myself to be what he needed, to be his support and lover and friend in all the ways he was those things for me. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I brought you muffins to apologize.”
He took a few more steps toward me and took the muffins. “What are you sorry for?”
“For pushing you away, for hurting you, for not giving us the chance we deserved.”
His smile widened, and I found it suddenly hard to breathe. The love I felt for him, the joy in his presence, was so overwhelming as to be frightening. He took another step toward me and cupped my face with one hand. “Does that mean I can kiss you?”
I nodded, unable to speak. This was going so much better than I’d hoped. Before I could congratulate myself, his lips were on mine, his free hand was holding my head to pull me tighter against him. I got lost in his kiss and I gave into the feeling instead of pulling back, instead of maintaining a distance. Loving someone was terrifying, but it was worth the risk, because the alternative, never loving Oscar, never feeling his arms around me or his lips on mine again, was unthinkable. “I love you,” he said, pulling away only enough to be able to speak.
“I love you, too,” I said. “Do you think we could try the dating thing again?”
“Nope,” he said. My heart dropped for a moment until I realized he hadn’t let me go and he was smiling like he’d never been happier. “We’re going to rock dating so hard everyone else in town will be jealous. We’re going to skip straight over trying to date to being a bona fide couple because I don’t want to go one more day without calling you my girlfriend.”
Tears filled my eyes and my lower lip quivered.
He faltered. “If you’re okay with that. If you aren’t ready—”
I grabbed his head and pulled him in for another toe-curling, life-changing kiss. “I’m more than ready,” I said when we came up for air again. “I’m so ready I brought Buddy here to convince you if you tried to turn me down.”
Oscar laughed and tossed the box of muffins onto a chair, so he could wrap both arms around me and hug me tight. “I love you and Buddy and I’m never letting either of you go ever again.”
The sound of a throat clearing interrupted our reunion and we turned to see Oscar’s receptionist and a customer watching us, both grinning. “Congratulations,” the customer, a man in a suit, said.
“Thanks,” Oscar said. He looked at the woman behind the counter. “Do you think you could handle things here for a bit? I’d like to walk Dilly and Buddy home.”
The woman waved and gave us a saucy wink. “Take all the time you need.”
Oscar grabbed his muffins, linked his fingers through mine, and walked us out into the bright sunlight. “If I take all the time I need,” he said. “I’ll never come back.”
I laughed and wrapped my arm around his waist as we walked down the street, my heart light, the sun warm, and the future brighter than it had ever been before.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Epilogue
Dilly
I put down my note cards and smiled at the applauding, and very large, audience. I was riding the high of having completed my speech without a mistake. I sought out Oscar, his face lit with pride, his smile huge. I stepped away from the podium, hurried off the stage, and through the crowd to him.
I threw my arms around him and hugged him tight.
“You were amazing,” he said, his breath warm against my ear, his voice husky. My whole body shivered with a desire for another kind of adrenaline rush.
I stepped back from him and grinned. “You have to say that.”
He nodded. “I do, but it’s true. I’m so proud of you.”
“I love you,” I said, unable not to speak the words that filled me with so much uncontainable emotion.
He pulled me back in for a quick, hard kiss. “I love you, too. What do you want to do next? Did you want to go to the presentation about technology and media?”
He’d been so wonderful over the past two days. He’d gone to every presentation I’d wanted to see, and he hadn’t complained once about what must have been terribly boring for him. He’d claimed he wanted to learn more about my industry. “I want to spend some time with you.” I laced my fingers through his and pulled him through the crowd. Okay, I didn’t pull him, because he’s bigger and heavier than me by a lot, but I yanked and he followed.
“You want to see the city?” he asked. “There’s supposed to be a good band at a bar not too far from here.”
I spun and wrapped my arms around his neck. “I just want to be with you. Whatever you want to do, I want to do. You’ve been doing what I want for two days. Now, it’s your turn.”
His eyes lit. “You’ve been rewarding me very well every night at our hotel. I really can’t complain.”
I stepped closer, pressing my body against his. “It’s been as much my reward as yours. What do you
want to do with our last twenty-four hours in New Orleans?”
If I was honest, which I was trying to be all the time, being away from Catalpa Creek hadn’t been easy. I worried about my mother every five minutes and I worried about Buddy every other five minutes, but I’d still managed to have the time of my life and Oscar had been very good at helping me forget my concerns. Mom had continued seeing her therapist and had even started taking medication for her anxiety. She still had a long way to go, and preferred not to leave her apartment, but she was doing so much better than I’d ever thought it was possible to hope for. She’d even laughed with me and Oscar when we’d visited before we left for New Orleans. It helped that I had a whole posse of women willing to drop everything and go see Mom when she was having a bad day.
I’d also been seeing a therapist on my own, and with my mother. She’d helped me to work through what I now understood was trauma from my past, and she’d helped me to accept that I wasn’t at fault, that I wasn’t a bad person.
Oscar grinned down at me. “I’d be happy to spend our last twenty-four hours in bed, but we shouldn’t pass up the opportunity to see New Orleans.”
“How about we spend the next hour in bed, explore the city for a bit, and go back to bed?”
“That sounds like an amazing plan.” He pressed a soft kiss to my lips and we walked out of the conference hall together.
As we stepped out onto the street and into the hot, humid, sunshiney day, my phone dinged with a text from Carrie asking how my presentation had gone.
I smiled, glad I’d convinced her to forgive me for lying to her for the past ten years. There was a new wariness from her and I knew I hadn’t regained her trust, yet, but I would. She was my best friend and I wouldn’t give up on her. Not ever. Surprisingly, Lance had been the reason she’d been willing to talk to me when I’d knocked on her door. Somehow, he’d become a good friend, too. Cody, on the other hand, was even more wary about me than Carrie was. I got it. I hurt his wife and he wasn’t going to let me hurt her again. I’d convince him, too. It would just take time.
I sent Carrie a quick text back as Oscar guided me with a hand on my back, so I didn’t run into anyone. Once I slid my phone in my back pocket, he wrapped his arm around my shoulders and squeezed me tight to his side. Happiness rolled through me like a gentle wave and I wrapped my arm tight around his waist. My life might not be perfect or easy, but it was all mine and I wouldn’t trade lives with the richest woman in the world.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Katharine Sadler lives with her husband in North Carolina. She’s been writing since she was ten and has wanted to be a writer even longer. When she’s not writing or otherwise gainfully occupied, she reads like it’s an addiction, exercises, skis whenever she gets the chance, and adds more books to her wish list.
OTHER WORKS BY KATHARINE SADLER
FANTASY
The Reapers (5 book series)
The Reaping (Reapers 1)
On a White Horse (Reapers 1.5)
The Revolt (Reapers 2)
The Rift (Reapers 3)
Switch (Reapers 3.5)
The Resonance (Reapers 4)
The Resistance (Reapers 5)
The Reapers Series Box Set
Dying Dreams (Trilogy)
Dying Dreams (Dying Dreams 1)
Dying Innocence (Dying Dreams 2)
Fairy Files (6 book series)
Fairy on the Rocks (Fairy Files 1)
Pink Princess Fairytini (Fairy Files 2)
Fairy with a Twist (Fairy Files 3)
Wild Fairy Moonshine (Fairy Files 4)
Bloody Fairy (Fairy Files 5)
Fairy, Neat (Fairy Files 6)
Wolves of Mule Creek
Fighting Furry (Mule Creek Book 1)
Stripped (Mule Creek Book 2)
Nature’s Call (Mule Creek Book 3) – Spring 2019
ROMANCE
Remixed Fairy Tales (7 book series)
Remington’s Tower (Remixed Fairy Tales 1)
Francesca’s Slumber (Remixed Fairy Tales 2)
Lizabell’s Gamble (Remixed Fairy Tales 3)
Catalpa Creek (6 book series)
The Deadbeat Next Door (Catalpa Creek 1)
The Workaholic Down the Hall (Catalpa Creek 2)
The Good Guy on my Porch (Catalpa Creek 3)
The Ice Queen in the Corner Office (Catalpa Creek 4) -December 2018
I’D LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU
You can chat with me at:
www.KatharineSadler.com
www.Facebook.com/KatharineGSadler
www.Twitter.com/KatharineSadler
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you to my family for their unfailing support. And a big thank you to my husband/business manager for making sure I keep my priorities straight and keep writing and editing and publishing, even on the days I’d rather spend curled on the couch reading a good book. Thank you to my friend and beta reader Becky Kyslinger for letting me know when something isn’t working for her and giving me spot-on advice about how to improve the book. Thank you to www.CoverYourDreams.net for the gorgeous cover on this and all my books.
The Good Guy on my Porch (Catalpa Creek #3) Page 26