by Taylor Hart
Beth threw her hands up. “She took off at four-thirty this morning.”
“We had to sleep in the car so we could say goodbye to her.” Savannah’s mother stepped forward, looking worn out and sad. “You know how that girl is; she runs off before you can catch her.”
Their gazes locked, and a deep calm came over him as he realized the real reason her mother had hated him. “I’m sorry I broke her heart back then. I messed up.” He ran a hand through his hair. “But, I love her. And I want to be with her now.”
Abruptly, Savannah’s mother stepped out the door and threw her arms around his midsection, pushing her cheek into his chest and hugging his arms and everything. She pulled back and put her hands to her face. “I have blamed you for so much all these years, but … I didn’t realize she never told you she was pregnant.”
He blinked back tears.
“I’m sorry,” her mother said again.
Then he did something he never imagined he would do; he took her mother into his arms and held her, making her cry harder.
Savannah’s father’s hand rested on his shoulder. “You’re a good kid, Luke. We always liked you.”
He snorted. It was ridiculous, but being here with her father and mother and finally understanding everything felt so good. “Thanks.” He smiled at her father.
Savannah’s mother pulled back. “But she’s gone. That girl, she’s been running for a long time.”
Letting out a breath, Luke raked a hand through his hair. “O-kay.” He tried to get his thoughts together. “Once again, any plan I ever have for me and your daughter has been thrown out the window.”
Beth crossed her arms. “I heard a rumor that you gave a lot of money to Primary Children’s and started a foundation for abandoned babies?”
Luke kept his expression carefully neutral. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Beth’s eyes narrowed. “Kathy.” She lifted her eyebrows.
Still, he didn’t admit anything.
“I’ve always thought you and Savannah made a cute couple.”
Her words gave him hope. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Beth whipped out her phone. “Do you want to know where she’s at?” She tapped her phone. “I have an app that can show you where she’s at right now. She doesn’t know I installed it on her phone.” Beth grinned. “Want to track her down?”
30
Savannah sat in her Camaro, staring at the chapel she and Sean had been married at in Las Vegas. She hadn’t been back here since that day. They’d just never been back to Las Vegas.
She’d told the story about them eloping a lot, especially at dinner parties. When people would ask how they met, she would always say they grew up together, leave out all the really dramatic parts, and just tell them they’d eloped. People were satisfied by this part of the story. It always made her feel brave and daring.
Of course, she had been pregnant at the time. With Luke’s baby.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she brushed away another round of never-ending tears. Pounding her hands against the steering wheel, she cursed, then slammed her head back into the seat. What was she doing? When she’d started driving this morning, she’d planned to go straight to California. She would stay in a crummy motel until she would figure a place out.
Getting out of the car, she walked closer to the beat-up Elvis Chapel. She felt a bit weak. There had been no way she’d been able to eat. She hadn’t eaten since … since ice cream with Clark.
Forcing Luke out of her mind, she stared at the chapel. It had been dingy then, but now it was worse. There was a huge Elvis on the top, with chips of paint coming off. She and Sean had stopped here because it had been the first one they saw.
The memory flooded her: the two of them walking hand in hand together, both nervous and giddy. The feeling hit her, the one she’d had when she’d stared into his chocolate-brown eyes. He’d loved her so much. It’d been innocent and happy. She remembered feeling grateful, yet ashamed and unworthy of his love. She got to the door of the chapel and saw the chapel opened at noon.
Pressing a hand to the door, she lightly traced the gaudy chipped gold that was made to make the building look ornate but instead just looked cheap. Pulling back her hand, she figured that was how she felt now. That’s how she’d felt, on some level, since she’d married Sean, like she’d somehow taken advantage of him. Images of their whole marriage rushed through her.
She heard a car pull up to the curb behind her, but she ignored it. The chapel wasn’t open yet. They would leave. Some young, happy couple would have to wait.
“Sav …”
Swinging back, she couldn’t believe it.
Luke stepped out of the back of a car, then turned to the driver. “Please wait.”
Unable to believe he was here, she stepped back, feeling light-headed. “What are you doing here?”
When he spread his hands, she noticed that his ice-blue eyes didn’t look icy at the moment. They were more like liquid.
“How did you find me?” She couldn’t believe it. Did he have her followed?
He shrugged. “Beth.” He moved closer to her. “She had an app that tracks you. So I got on my jet and came to find you.”
Understanding surged through her and she thought about her sister’s smug face. She held up her hand and shook her head. “Please … just go.” Now she was trembling, and all the exhaustion from the past two days felt like it was washing through her.
“Please, just listen. Just—”
“What is wrong with you? I told you …” She didn’t want to repeat it all from last night. “I told you everything last night, we can’t. You should hate me.” She broke off, leaning back into the chapel door for support.
“Are you okay, Savannah?” He eyed her sharply.
She didn’t even know how to answer him.
In two strides he moved back to the car, grabbed and ripped open a protein bar, and held it out to her. “Eat.”
Giving him an incredulous look, she was ticked off. “No!”
“I’m not leaving until you at least eat this.”
“Oh my gosh.” She yanked the bar out of his hand and took a bite of it. She resented the fact he’d given this to her, and she resented even more that he was right. She was weak because she hadn’t eaten all day. She almost just passed out.
“We need to talk.” He crossed his arms.
At this point, she was so exhausted and spent, she resolved to take it. “Fine. Did you track me down to yell at me? Chew me out?” She took another bite, gnawing on the rubbery bar and then gulping it down. “I deserve it. Whatever you have to say, I deserve it.” She ripped off another bite of the bar, hating she needed it. Hating he’d given it to her.
Sizing her up, he rubbed a hand over his face, stopping on the little more than five-o’clock shadow on his face.
Savannah hated the fact she found him so attractive. Even now, when she was in full-out self-pity mode and she wished he weren’t here, there was still that pull between them.
His eyes moved to the building. “This is where you were married?” he asked softly.
Looking away, she took another bite. “Not up to your standards for sure, right? Your billionaire standards.” Her eyes flitted back to him. “Why aren’t you in Jackson working on your deal?”
Waving a hand in the air, his face was sober. “Deal didn’t happen.”
The way he said it, she knew it was because of her. “What did you do?”
His eyes held hers.
“Why didn’t you go?” Now she was feeling even worse.
He shrugged. “I guess you were right … the date is more important than the money.”
She shook her head. He’d blown the deal? “Get your butt in the car and go to Jackson and figure out your deal.”
“No, I want to talk to you.”
“No! You want the deal. That deal will make you a billionaire!”
“I don’t care about being a billionaire! I want you! I came fo
r you!”
It stunned her. His passion. His intensity. It had always stunned her.
He sighed. “Just listen.”
The fact he’d given up the deal washed over her in a hyper, weird way. “I cannot believe you just did that.”
His gaze hardened. “Look, Savannah, I realized this morning I don’t care about the past.”
Her heart sped up.
“Yes, I was mad because I didn’t get a say in it. In … the baby. In us.” His voice was low. “Even though I didn’t deserve it.” He sighed. “But last night, after a fight with my brother and swimming until I dropped into bed, I thought of baby Lincoln.”
She softened, thinking about the little baby she’d held not too long ago.
“And I realized he didn’t get a say, either. In his illness, in being abandoned. But now he’s being given a chance at life. If they find foster parents, he would actually be lucky, because he would get parents who would choose him, choose to take him home, love him, raise him through whatever—good or bad—happens.” He paused, taking a breath. “And I thought, I can still choose that. I can still choose you. Us.” His hand gripped hers. “We can have a second chance together. We can decide that. Right here. Right now. I can quit being lost and you can quit running and we can find each other.”
Her vision was so blurry with tears that she could barely see him.
“Because, Savannah, I love you. I still love you. In the hot tub the other night, when I started telling you all those memories, those aren’t things I think about once in awhile. Those …” He put his fist to his chest, the same way she’d done that night in the hot tub. “Those memories are here. Inside me. Ten years didn’t take them away. This past year …” He wiped under his eyes. “Since you told me last night, I’ve felt like a surgeon going through the parts of the body and trying to find the part that was hurt, broken. The part that needed repair. Every time, I kept coming back to the thing you didn’t want to tell me—the past. The thing you knew would hurt me—the past. But I don’t want to let the past be in charge of my future.” He let out a ragged breath. “I want you, Savannah. I want you now. And, that means … I want the past. The present. The future. I want it all. Even the parts that are broken. That hurt. And I want them with you. I want them with us.”
She shook her head and held the protein bar lamely at her side. “But …”
Taking two steps, he cupped her hands into her face.
She saw there, in his eyes, the same love, devotion, and care she remembered from Sean all those years ago. “I don’t deserve it. I’ve never deserved it.” She broke away and turned, pointing to the chapel. “Do you want to know what I was just thinking about the day I got married? Do you?”
The way he looked at her told her she looked on the verge of a breakdown.
“I thought about how Sean loved me so much the day he married me.”
Luke’s brow furrowed as he inspected the building. She could only imagine how many ways it wouldn’t meet his standards. “Of course he loved you.”
“That’s just it, Luke. He loved me and I didn’t deserve it. I was pregnant with your child, and … I never deserved his love, his devotion.”
Luke frowned. “Savannah, that’s not true.”
“But it is! I can’t tell you how many times I saw disappointment on his face when things didn’t work out with having a baby. Later, I can tell you that although we were fighting about him thinking I should have married you, what we were really fighting about was how he wished he wouldn’t have married me!” Taking the stupid protein bar, she chucked it out into the street. “I hate these things!” Even though she felt better, her mind clearer because she had eaten, her self-anger was imploding, and like all bombs imploding, there would be damage to the surrounding environment.
“Savannah, let’s go some place and talk about this. Please …”
Savannah knew she couldn’t. She knew, and the numbness weighed her down. “Luke …”
“I love you, Sav.” Tears were in his eyes and his voice cracked. “I’ve loved you forever. Please come home with me.”
“Find somebody good, Luke.” She swallowed and ignored the stream of tears on her face. “Somebody who can love you like you deserve to be loved.”
“Sav …”
She ran across the street, got into her car, turned it on, and took off, only glancing in the rearview mirror and realizing that she’d left the man she’d always loved … a second time.
There was only one thing that consoled her; he was better off without her.
31
One Year Later
Luke stood at the construction site, satisfaction weaving through him. The first phase of the resort construction had started.
Damon and Nick stood in the center of a group of men, hard hats on, work boots on, and clipboards in their hands. Nick looked up at him, put on a dopey smile, and gave him a thumbs-up. Damon turned and grinned, too.
It was a good day for the Freestone brothers. A day that marked the beginning.
He’d been gone for a year. After she’d left him in Los Vegas at that Elvis chapel, he’d gone to the airport, flown to Jackson, and saved the deal. Then he’d told them he needed a year off. He’d gone to Alaska. Fishing and hiking, he told his brothers to deal with all the details. He made Samantha a partner so she could deal with the firm.
Even though things were going better than ever, he never stopped thinking of her. He assumed she’d gone to California. It’d been important to him that he made sure she got paid for her matchmaking services and he fulfilled his contract with her, even though he knew she would never cash that check.
It’d been why he’d put it into her account—so she couldn’t give it back.
But now he was back. And it was time to move on. At least, that’s what his brothers told him.
“Good day, bro.” Nick stepped up next to him.
Luke grinned and patted his brother on his back. “Good day.”
Damon stepped up on the other side. “This is gonna rock,” he said.
Luke pointed to the plans. “I thought it would take get longer to get the plans approved, but it all just fell together.”
Damon nodded, then inspected his brother’s face. “You doing okay?”
Luke didn’t like it when his brothers asked questions like that. “Of course I’m okay, why?”
“Because you’ve been gone for a year and we thought we were going to have to go to Alaska and haul your butt back here.”
Luke shrugged. “Well, I’m back and ready to rock.”
“Good to hear it,” Damon said. “It’s good to have you home.”
The words hung heavily in the air between the three of them.
“Yeah.” Nick slapped his back.
Luke swallowed, grateful for his brothers. Grateful to be home. He was a Freestone, after all, and moving on is what they did. “Thanks.”
Nick cleared his throat. “Did you hear about that party on Friday for baby Lincoln? Some of the nurses are having a party for him. A send-off party. You know he’s getting adopted.”
Lincoln had been declared in remission six months ago, and Luke had reports from the doctors that stated they thought he would live a normal, healthy life. His heart felt lighter just thinking about it. “Yep, that’s great.”
Nick nodded. “We’re actually invited. I mean, you’re the reason we’re invited, because you apparently donated a ton of money. I guess the hospital is naming some wing the Freestone Wing.”
Luke stared straight ahead. It felt like a dream, the days he’d held Lincoln, the days he’d spent with Savannah. “Yeah.”
“Pretty cool,” Damon said, his voice sounding final, telling Nick to quit talking.
Nick pulled out a clipboard. “Let’s talk about the crew we want to hire to dig out the swimming pools.”
32
Savannah stared at the ocean. It still felt like a dream to get up and walk on the beach each day. It was early, before many of the beachgoer
s came for the day. The sun was just cresting above the line of water. Warmth seeped into her skin, but not into her heart.
It’d been a lot of work to practice Luke out of her brain again, but she wouldn’t be here without his money. Well, she wouldn’t have gotten to live on the beach as quickly. Her business was doing well, but Luke’s money had given her the freedom to work on it without getting a second job to pay bills. The money had shown up in her account three days after she’d told him the truth. He’d done what he’d always done—done what he wanted, anyway.
Breathing deeply, she felt the hollowness of it all sweep over her.
As she walked, she bent and picked up a half-broken piece of blue glass, grateful she hadn’t stepped on it. Examining it, she was struck by the color. The perfect color of blue she loved. Not navy, not dark blue. Kind of a purple blue. Just like the flowers he’d left for her in seventh grade.
Without warning, the sharp pang of regret hit her, and she pulled the piece of glass to her chest and sucked in a breath. There were parts of her that would never be the same because the short time she’d spent in Park City had opened up all her feelings for Luke, again. Now he could move on. She would too, hopefully, someday.
Beth had told her Luke had gone to Alaska. She was happy for him, even though she had to wonder if he was okay.
Her phone buzzed and she didn’t have to look before answering. “Hey, sis.”
“How’s the sunrise?”
Savannah smiled and closed her eyes for a second, loving the sun. “It’s wonderful.”
“I miss you.”
“Me too.”
“But I’m happy for you.”
“Me too.”
“I met a new guy last night.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah, he has the greatest abs.”
She laughed despite herself. “How did you see his abs if you met him last night?”
“We were out dancing.”