by Kylie Walker
So tonight I have on my new jeans and my new B.B. shirt that Mom let me buy yesterday even though it was way out of the price range she gave me before we left the house. I think I look pretty good. Daddy had tears in his eyes when he saw me. It’s not like I’m going to the prom or something. I rolled my eyes at him, but inside I’m glad that he loves me so much. I don’t know what I would do without him or my Mom. I have to go now, Nick is here!
That night when she came home she wrote:
My date with Nick was amazing. He took me to see The Guardian. It just came out today. It had Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher in it. It was about Navy Seals. The movie was good, holding Nick’s hand was better. After the movie we had Pizza at Fatte Albert’s and we talked and laughed and I found out that we have a lot in common. I wonder if it’s too soon to wonder if Nick might be “the one.” He’s already asked me out again, so we’ll wait and see.
On the opposite page there was a drawing of Nick. He was definitely an upgrade from Ryan in the looks department. The sketch was in charcoal, black on white, but she’d colored his eyes a sapphire blue. He reminded Chloe of Derek.
Chloe read about Trevor taking his daughter out on the country roads and teaching her how to drive. She read about her applying to colleges and being accepted to the Rhode Island School of Design. She was ecstatic about that and although she was so happy, she’d written at the bottom of the page, “You can break down a woman temporarily, but a real woman will always pick up the pieces and rebuild herself.”
“Thank you, Sarah.” Chloe spoke out loud to the room. She was really beginning to believe that although neither of them knew it, they did have some kind of connection and inner strength.
By her third week, she came to the journal that Sarah had written about meeting Derek in…Chloe was hesitant and actually put off reading it for a few days. She’d gotten through Derek telling her about falling in love with Sarah. It wasn’t always easy to hear about, or think about…but it was a fact and now the fact was that Derek loved her. Chloe didn’t feel guilty about that…but that could be because she had yet to read it in her sister’s own words. She was sitting out on the patio, sipping a glass of iced tea. Derek and Trevor were out riding the horses and Samantha had gone into town. Chloe thought this was probably the best time she would find to do this. She opened up the journal and began to read.
August 12th, 2006
Dear Diary,
I borrowed Dad’s car today. That’s not the news; I do that all the time. Today my car was having the brakes worked on and I had to go to Rhode Island to finish some paperwork for school. I can’t believe I’m starting college in a week…Yay! I know I dedicated an entire two pages to that when I got accepted, so I’ll leave that part alone for now. What happened that was really exciting was that I met a man…Well, I didn’t really meet him, I saw him at Daddy’s office and said hello. I intend to meet him, however and soon.
I was coming out of Daddy’s office and there were two men coming down the hall with Daddy’s receptionist towards his office. The older man smiled and I smiled back and then my eyes traveled up and locked into an incredibly beautiful pair of crystal blue ones. Those eyes were the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen, and they were surrounded by thick, dark lashes. I have to use mascara to make mine look that way, it’s not fair. I had to hold my head up as I looked at him because the man was really tall, way over six feet I would have to say. He had dark hair that looked so soft I wanted to touch it and he was wearing a suit that looked like it was made for him. The suit was a gun-barrel gray color and even underneath the fine material, I could see the outline of the muscles in his arms. My mouth went dry, but I think I did okay. I smiled and said hello. That was reality. In my fantasy, I took a giant leap, landed in his arms and pressed my lips to his. Did I forget to mention those lips? He had the most amazing set of full lips that looked like they were made for kissing.
I wanted to turn around and take another look, but I was afraid he would see me and I would look like a pervert. I kept walking and I had to remind myself to breathe. I’ve honestly never seen anyone who looked like him in real life. It was as if he’d walked right out of a magazine or off a movie screen. When you looked at him it was like you were looking at the most perfect design that God ever created. Afterwards, I wondered if he was even real, or if my mind had conjured him up.
That night when I got home with Daddy’s car I tried to casually ask about the man. I said,
“Daddy, who was the really tall man in your office when I came by today?”
Daddy looked up from his paper and said, “Hmm…really tall? Was he bald?”
“No.”
“Did he have bushy blonde hair?”
“No.”
“A pot belly?”
I laughed. “No daddy. He was wearing a gray suit and he had another man with him…”
“Mustache?”
“No.”
“Bald spot in back?”
Laughing again because I knew Daddy was teasing me I said, “The one who looked like a model, Daddy. The man with the crystal blue eyes.”
“Oh that one!”
“Yes, that one. Who is he?”
“He’s a client.”
“Oh…what’s his name?”
He narrowed his eyes at me then and said, “Derek Stark.”
I suddenly realized why I felt like I knew him as soon as I’d laid my brown eyes on his blue ones. I’d spent a lot of time in Rhode Island, getting ready for school. There was a billboard in downtown Providence that I just had to look at every time I drove by. I remember the first time I saw it, I was thinking that maybe I should go house hunting. I already had a dorm room and a roommate…but that man sold real estate and he was drop-dead gorgeous. I have to see him again…in person.
Chloe was smiling. She knew first-hand the impact of those crystal blue eyes and full lips. She turned the page. During this period when Sarah was getting ready to start college and move away from home, she didn’t write in the journal as much. This one skipped two weeks ahead.
August 26, 2009
Dear Diary,
I met Derek Stark today!!! He was on campus, giving a real estate seminar. I had hoped he was coming, I’d seen the bulletins for it, saying that “representatives from Stark Real-Estate” would be here. The announcements were all over campus for over a week. Each time I looked at one of the fliers I wondered if he would be there too. I told myself that if he was there and I saw him that would mean that our meeting was “fate” and he was “the one.” Silliness, but he definitely was in my fantasies. I had the whole relationship, wedding and child-having imagined already. I know that I’m being silly, but Diary…you’ve never seen, or met Derek Stark.
I waited outside of the conference hall. Some might call that desperation. I call it innovation. As he and his associates started out, I walked by…casually…I hope. He and I made eye contact and that same jolt ran through me as it had the first time I saw him. I smiled…but the whole plan I had in my head of saying hello and making conversation with him, was not going to happen. I couldn’t do it. I would have been lucky to croak out a “hello.” But something happened Diary that stopped me in my tracks. Derek Stark said my name. He looked right at me. He is the most beautiful man on the planet. I was shaking all over as he said,
“Hello again, Sarah.” It was like he knew me, but not creepy or icky like it is sometimes when men you don’t know use your name. It stopped me in my tracks. I was frozen, I couldn’t move and I could hardly breathe. I heard Derek tell his colleagues to go on without him. “I’ll catch up,” he said. They left and I was still standing there like an idiot. He smiled at me again and said, “It’s really nice to see you again. We didn’t meet properly the last time, however…I’m Derek.”
“Um…yes, I know. It’s really nice to see you again too. How did you know my name?”
He smiled. This time it was a full mouth, white-teeth, knock-your-socks-off smile. I don’t know how I managed to no
t fall down at his feet. It was beautiful. “I asked your father about you.”
I’m not kidding, diary! He said he asked about me! This was a grown, professional, model gorgeous man and he asked about me. I didn’t even know what to say to that. I squeaked out an “Oh...um…okay.”
Then it happened, diary…the one miracle I will probably see in my lifetime. Derek Stark said, “I came to this seminar with my colleagues today because I was hoping to somehow find you. If that didn’t work, I was going to ask your father.”
I laughed. It was a giddy laugh. He was trying to run into me? He was going to ask Daddy? Oh Lord! I didn’t know how much more my heart could take. “Why?” I said. That was almost as brilliant and articulate as “Oh.”
“Because since the day I saw you in your father’s office, I haven’t been able to get you off my mind.”
I nearly fainted. I don’t even remember what I said. I’d be willing to bet that it was completely inarticulate and not very smart. We had coffee, diary! Tomorrow we are having lunch! Maybe the day after that we’ll go to dinner and then we’ll get married…I know, I’m being silly again, but a girl can dream.
Chloe alternated between smiling, laughing and crying as she read that entry, twice. She felt everything that Sarah must have been feeling…because she’d had those same feelings herself. He was the most beautiful man on the planet…inside and out. Chloe often had the feeling herself that it was “fate” that they met. She never used to believe in things like that. As a child she’d been denied any magic in her life, so she had a hard time believing it existed. But there had been something about Derek right away that convinced her otherwise. It was another thing that she and her sister had in common. Reading that hadn’t made her feel guilty because she suddenly believed in her heart that he had been made and put on this earth to love both of them.
CHAPTER EIGHT
When Trevor and Derek got back from their ride, Trevor went in to shower and Derek found Chloe clutching another of Sarah’s journals with fresh tears staining her face. He understood that she needed to know her sister and the journals were the best way for her to do that, and he wished so badly that they could have known each other…but it broke his heart to see her cry over anything.
He sat down next to her on the patio and said, “Are you okay?”
She smiled and touched his face. “Yeah. It’s funny, but I feel like I miss her. Do you think it’s possible to miss someone that you never even knew?”
He nodded. “She’s a part of you. She always has been and always will be. It makes perfect sense to me that you would miss her.”
Chloe leaned in close and said, “You want to know something else?”
“What’s that?” His breaths were speeding up. He wanted her so badly that his whole body ached when she was so close. Between worrying that Trevor and Samantha would hear them, and worrying about hurting her arm, they’d barely had a chance for a make-out session in the past three weeks.
“She had great taste in men.” She let her tongue slide out and glide across his bottom lip. It caused him to shiver. “You like that?”
“Oh baby, I love it. I love you. I want you so bad…”
Chloe smiled and covered his mouth with hers. She parted her lips and let his tongue tangle up with hers. He brought his hands up and fisted them in her hair. He tugged on it gently, angling her head to one side while he delved deeper. The front of his jeans were suddenly uncomfortably tight and when she laid her palm on his thigh as they kissed, he actually growled.
Chloe pulled back just slightly and said, “I want you too.”
“How about a walk to the barn? I saw a fresh stack of hay and a blanket…”
Chloe stood up and held out her hand. Derek suddenly felt guilty. He looked at her other arm which was healing, but still far from 100% and said, “Are you sure that you’re up to this?”
Chloe stepped in close again and after looking over his shoulder to make sure neither of her parents were around, she rubbed the palm of her left hand against the front of his jeans, causing his swollen member to throb even more. “I’m as up for it as you are, baby.”
Derek gave her another quick kiss and took hold of her left hand. They made it out to the barn in record time. He took a quilt that was folded up on the tack shelf down and spread it over the top of a fresh pile of hay. Then he kissed her again, this time tugging back on her hair to expose her long, sexy neck. He planted kisses across it and then using his teeth very lightly, he gave it a few nips.
Chloe lay in Derek’s arms after they made love, tracing the lines of the muscles on his chest with her finger. He had his eyes closed, but every so often as she drug her fingers down his abdomen or across his nipples, he would shudder and moan. After several minutes of that he opened his eyes and said, “You’re going to get me all excited again.”
She stopped and let the palm of her hand rest against his chest. Kissing him lightly on the lips she said, “It’s hard not to touch you.”
“I didn’t say you had to stop…”
She smiled. Propping herself up on her left elbow she said, “We probably shouldn’t. We’ve been gone from the house for a while. I don’t want them to worry.”
Derek groaned. “Okay, but we have to get our own place soon.”
Chloe looked down at him. “Our own place? You mean together?”
“You don’t want to live on a yacht, do you?”
“Not really…”
“Well I don’t want to live with Lexi and Brock…no offense to either one of them.”
She giggled. “Yeah, that would make for a crowded house. I just didn’t realize that you wanted us to live together.”
“I guess I just assumed…the baby will be here soon and we’re committed to each other. I guess that I should ask you first how you feel about it, huh?”
“I feel…excited and impatient. I mean this with all of the sincerity in the world: I would love to live with you…and I would live on a yacht, if that’s where you want to live.”
They kissed again and when they came up for air Derek said, “I want a house for you and our child. I have a big question for you though…where do you want to live?”
“I have choices?” she asked.
“Of course. You, my love, will always have choices.”
She smiled. “I just meant, I thought we would need to stay in Rhode Island because of your business.”
“I can do business anywhere. If you want to live in Jamaica…or on the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro…I’m there.”
Laughing she said, “Mt. Kilimanjaro might be difficult to maneuver a stroller up the side of.”
“I’ll hire someone to carry it and you up.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too. Give it some thought, and maybe next week we can go house hunting. Oh, and don’t forget to factor in where you want to go to school.”
“School?”
“Don’t you still want to be a teacher?”
“Yes, but…”
“No buts. You’ve waited long enough…to long, for your dreams to come true.”
“You’re the embodiment of every dream I’ve ever had, you know that?”
He answered her with another kiss.
CHAPTER NINE
Saturday would be Chloe’s twenty-fifth birthday. For some reason, when she woke up on Friday morning her first thought was that she found it a little bit strange that no one in the house mentioned it at all. It wasn’t like she was used to celebrating it. Last year, Roxi, Lexi and Chloe had a girls’ night out and Roxi took them out for a nice dinner. She wanted to take them to a club in New York, but at the time Chloe was still running from her past, so she turned her down. But this year there was so much to celebrate and she was finally with the people that she wanted to celebrate it with the most. She felt kind of silly worrying about it…but she did find it strange.
When she got out of bed she found a note from Derek that said, “Off to Rhode Island today. I have meetings with staf
f and clients scheduled for most of the day. I will keep my phone on and handy however if you need anything at all, please call me! I love you so much. Have a peaceful, relaxing day.”
She noticed when she came out of her room that the house was deathly quiet. She could tell right away that no one was there, even before she found the note on the big chalkboard in the kitchen that said,
“Dad and I had to go into the office today. Please call us if you need anything at all. We love you! Have a great day!”
Chloe smiled and chastised herself for worrying about her birthday. These amazing people loved her and told her so every day. Her birthday was just another day and if no one remembered it that would likely be due to all of the drama she’d caused them recently anyways.
She fixed herself a bowl of cereal. She hadn’t been able to drink coffee, not even decaf lately without getting severe heartburn. She could only drink milk if it was skim milk, and she’d had to give up eggs completely. This child was going to be a picky eater, she could tell already. She took her cereal into the dining room and when she sat down; she looked over and saw the crates of journals. She got back up and went over and picked up the one that came after the one where Sarah talked about meeting Derek. That was the only entry that Chloe read. She didn’t really feel the need to read about them falling in love and she wasn’t sure that she was ready to handle anything that had to do with making love either, so she skipped all of that. The one she picked up this morning was the last one…the very last journal Sarah had written in before she died. It broke her heart to think of Samantha and Trevor reading the last passage she wrote. Sarah’s entries were all so positive and usually so filled with her hopes and plans for the future. If that was the case with her last entry, Chloe wasn’t sure that she wanted to read it herself.