But that’s exactly how they had started ten years ago. At first, they were just hyperventilating episodes, but over time, they developed into severe attacks resulting in her being rushed to the emergency room—twice—both times having truly believed she was having a heart attack.
The E.R. docs were the reason she had ended up lying on the overpriced therapist’s couch—metaphorically speaking; in reality she had sat in a plush leather chair in his office. Once the doctors at the hospital ruled out the possibility that anything was physically wrong with her, they strongly recommended that she delve into the possibility that it was her psyche, not her body, that needed medical attention.
Even now, as the panic attack was subsiding, Katie was still feeling some of the physical symptoms. Her head felt as if it were floating away, her fingers were tingling as if they were being stabbed by a thousand tiny needles, and she was being bombarded by an obnoxiously loud ringing sound. She forced herself to anchor to the sensation of the paper bag digging into her lips, and the glossy feeling of the photographic paper beneath her fingers, in order to ground herself back into reality. She looked down into the large brown eyes staring back at her from the picture and kept repeating the mantra—which, she had to admit, was kind of growing on her.
You can breathe. Just breathe. Breathe in and out slowly. You can breathe.
Slowly, bit by bit, she drifted back to the present and into her body. Closing her eyes, she let herself appreciate the little sensations she was now aware of—the cold leather of the seat pressed against her back, the icy breeze from the air conditioning blowing refreshingly on her face.
Leaning her head back against the headrest, she felt the weight of her chest rising and falling. Her arms felt heavy. Lowering them to her sides, Katie was vaguely aware that the paper bag had slipped from her hand and landed on the console beside her, but she’d maintained a firm grip on her picture.
After several minutes, her breathing returned to normal and the ringing sound in her head grew sporadic. Katie searched her memory in an attempt to identify if ‘sporadic ringing in the head’ was a normal post-panic attack side effect. She hated that these horrible attacks used to occur with such frequency that she actually had a personal database of experiences to check her symptoms against.
Nope, she concluded, the sporadic ringing is new.
Turning her head to take in her surroundings, she saw cars whizzing by on the interstate. She squinted against the glare of the sun shining brightly down on the pavement and bouncing off the car windshields speeding by.
Setting her picture carefully on her lap, Katie retrieved the paper bag and folded it up. She didn’t love the thought that she might need to keep it handy for future use, but better safe than sorry. Katie had always dealt in facts, and the fact was she’d been off the plane less than an hour and had barely started down the highway towards Harper’s Crossing when a panic attack hit her hard. Did she really think she would be getting through the rest of the weekend unscathed? Not likely.
As she placed the paper bag inside her gigantic “in case of emergency” carry-on bag, she discovered the source of the ringing.
She felt like an idiot. On the bright side, at least she didn’t have to add tinnitus to the long list of symptoms that characterized her panic attacks. On the flip side? Apparently, she no longer recognized her own cell phone’s ring tone.
Picking up her iPhone, she swiped the screen to answer, saying warmly, “Hey Sophiebell!”
“Katie, where are you? I just called the house and they said you weren’t there. I’m running last minute errands with Bobby, but I thought you would be here by now. Was your flight delayed? I can’t wait to see you!” Sophie squealed, the words tumbling out of her mouth one over another.
Katie smiled to herself. She had always thought that Sophie Hunter could paraphrase that old Army motto to adopt as her own: “I say more before nine a.m. than most people say all day.”
“The flight was fine. I am on my way, and I will be there in less than an hour. I can’t wait to see you, too.”
“Okay, hurry,” Sophie pleaded but then followed it up with the firm command, “but drive safe.”
“I will. See you soon, bride-to-be.” Katie tried to cover the stress in her voice with ebullience as she said goodbye and hung up the phone.
After returning the phone to her purse, she gently lifted the picture she’d chosen for her object of security. It was of her and Jason Sloan, both eleven years old, at science camp. A knot formed in her throat and she bit her lip.
Why? That was the one word question that always filled her mind when she looked at this picture or her thoughts drifted to the boy whose big brown eyes belonged to the scrawny kid with his arm thrown around her as they posed in front of Whisper Lake, the summer before she’d met Sophie’s brother Nick. Before she’d been Nick’s girlfriend. Before Nick’s accident. Before Nick’s funeral. Before the night of Nick’s funeral.
Why?
Why had she let that night happen? Why had she done what she had? Why hadn’t she been able to face up to and own her actions? Why had she let one night define the last ten years of her life? And considering all of those things, why did this picture bring her the comfort that nothing else could?
Taking a deep breath, Katie tried to mentally prepare herself for the fact that this weekend, whether she wanted to or not, she was going to have to face her past and the brown eyes that had haunted her for the last decade.
Jason Sloan.
Jason had been her friend. Her best friend. At least, until that fateful night when she made the biggest mistake of her life. Jason had also been Nick’s best friend. The entire town lovingly nicknamed them “The Three Musketeers.”
The same town that she hadn’t returned to since the day they buried Nick.
It’d been ten long years since Katie Marie Lawson had set foot in Harper’s Crossing, the town of her childhood and her youth. She had never meant to stay away this long.
When she originally left for school in California a decade ago, her plan had been to come back at Christmastime. Sitting at LAX, waiting for her flight that first holiday away from home, Katie experienced her first panic attack. She never got on the plane. The next episode occurred as she booked her flight that same year for spring break. That time, she hadn’t even made it to the airport. Then, they started to happen more frequently any time she was under stress. It took several years to get the episodes under control, during which she refrained from making travel plans.
Then, after she graduated from law school at Pepperdine University, she immediately started working at Wilson, Martin, Gregory, and Associates, a very prestigious law firm in San Francisco.
The first three years at the firm flew by in a blur. Katie worked 80+ hours a week and even worked every holiday, including Christmas. She’d barely had time to breathe, let alone go out of town.
Last year, even though she was on the fast track to make junior partner, she’d taken a vacation. The plan had been to take a few days for herself—to decompress—and then head back to her hometown. She had booked her flight and the experience had been incident free.
That was progress at least.
Katie then spent the first four days of her vacation in her apartment, so it was really more of a “staycation”—but still. She cleaned, cooked, slept, and had a Julia Roberts movie marathon.
At the end of the four days, the morning she was scheduled to fly back to Illinois, she was called into work because a fellow associate had come down with the flu. And well, if she was being honest, she’d been more than happy to go back to work on Wednesday instead of being on a direct flight from SFO to O’Hare.
Bottom line, she hadn’t made it back home since “the incident.”
Until today.
She was here. In Illinois. Headed back to Harper’s Crossing. She’d done it. Because this weekend wasn’t about her—it was about Miss Sophie Hunter, who was getting married to Bobby Sloan, Jr., the youngest of the five Sl
oan boys. Sophie had called her, ecstatic, three months earlier to announce her engagement to Bobby and to ask Katie to be her maid of honor. Bobby was Jason Sloan’s youngest brother and Jason was the best man in the wedding.
Nerves, unlike any she’d ever felt before, bubbled up inside of Katie. Looking down at the green LED lights on her dashboard, she saw that it was 8:30 a.m. Today was Thursday and her return flight to California wasn’t until 7:00 p.m. on Sunday. All she needed to do was get through the next four days—preferably without having a nervous breakdown—and then she could wing her way back to her lovely, safe, predictable life in San Francisco.
Let the countdown begin.
* * *
Jason leaned his hands on the cool tile of the shower wall as steam rose up around him. He inhaled deeply through his nose as he let the pounding heat of the water hit his tense shoulders and back. Adrenaline raced through his veins like the white waters of raging rapids, and intense nerves whirled through him like the Tasmanian Devil on speed. Rolling his neck from side to side, he tried his best to just relax.
Never before in his life had he felt this amped up and anxious. Jason was an easygoing, laid-back guy. Always had been. Until today.
This was it. The day that Jason had been waiting for, for over a decade, was finally here.
Katie Lawson was coming home.
Dipping his head once more under the heated shower stream, Jason reached down and turned the silver knob to the left, shutting off the water. He shook out the excess water in his hair as he pushed open the glass door and grabbed the towel he’d hung on the wall. As he quickly dried off, he heard his phone buzz for probably the tenth time in the last five minutes.
Grabbing his briefs and jeans, he pulled them on and swiped the screen on his iPhone. He had twelve missed calls. Three voicemail messages and two texts. Pressing his thumb on the icon to pull up the first text, he saw it was from his oldest brother Seth. It read:
Is the kid really going to go through with this?
Jason sighed. None of his other brothers, or his dad, or any of the crew at work believed that Bobby was doing the right thing. Jason did. He saw the look in Bobby’s eyes when he talked about, looked at, or was even thinking about Sophie Hunter. Jason recognized that look. He knew it well, from personal experience. It was the look of a guy that was in love with his soul mate.
Jason’s thumbs flew across the screen as he typed back:
Yes. He is.
Bobby was twenty-four years old; a grown man. Yes, he may be the youngest of the Sloan boys, but he was still a man. Jason was sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt, his baby brother knew what he was doing.
A loud buzz once again sounded as Jason’s phone vibrated in his hand. He looked down to see that it was another text from Seth.
You can’t talk him out of it?
Jason inhaled slowly through his nose as he typed back:
No. And I wouldn’t even if I could.
A part of Jason knew that Seth and his other brothers, Riley and Alex, thought they had Bobby’s best interest at heart. But Seth and Riley left for the Marines just days after their high school graduation and had been gone since Bobby was just a kid in elementary school. Alex returned home just a few months ago after being in the Navy for the past six years. His brothers had been absent for years and didn’t know Bobby as the man he was today.
Jason was tired of having this conversation with people. Just this morning, a few guys on the construction crew had called to run the idea of kidnapping Bobby at his bachelor party tonight to “Stop him from making the biggest mistake of his life.” Jason had quickly squashed those genius’s abduction plan.
Scrolling through his missed calls he saw that a majority were from Laura, a girl that he’d been seeing off and on for the last year—until three months ago when Sophie and Bobby announced their engagement. Since then, Jason’s social life had come to a screeching halt. No way was he going to return her call. He wasn’t trying to be a dick, but she’d been calling a lot the past couple of weeks hinting—not so subtly—that she wanted to be his date for Bobby’s wedding.
Yeah, that was not going to happen.
She hadn’t been the only one who called, though. One voicemail was from his foreman on the Slater Street site and the other was from Sophie.
Lifting the phone to his ear, Jason pressed play on the message from his soon to be sister-in-law while he reminded himself that as much of a milestone, a game changer, an event that Katie Lawson’s return was in his world, this weekend was not about him. It was about Bobby and Sophie. Bobby had chosen him to be his best man and Jason didn’t take that responsibility and honor lightly.
Sophie’s bubbly voice sounded through the speaker, “Hey Jas, just wanted to see if you can get to mom and dad’s a little early. Bobby and I are still out running errands and Aunt Wendy is dealing with last minute wedding details. I just talked to Katie and she’ll probably get there in about half an hour, before I can make it back. I wanted someone to be there when she gets home. You know, like a welcome party, even if it’s just a party of one. Can you believe it? Katie’s actually coming home!” He barely registered Sophie’s high pitch squeal of excitement followed by her quick, “Thanks, Jas. You’re the bestest!”
Jason’s mind replayed Sophie’s words, “Katie’s actually coming home!”
Yes, he was his brother’s best man and he planned on being the best damn best man there ever was. But that didn’t change the fact that Jason was finally going to get the opportunity to see Katie again. To apologize for that night. To tell her all the things he never said. To set the record straight. He wouldn’t be on best man duty every minute, of every hour, over the next three days.
Jason looked at the time Sophie had left the message. Thirty minutes ago. It must’ve been when he was out for his morning run.
He finished getting dressed, grabbed his keys, and was out the door in record time.
He had no idea what was going to happen when he and Katie saw each other again. What it would be like. What they would say to each other. But, there was one thing he knew for sure; he’d waited a decade to find out, and now, finally, the wait was over.
My First – Available Here
Excerpt: Teasing Destiny
Wishing Well, Texas Book 1
CHAPTER 1
Destiny
“That boy can strut sitting down.” ~ Grandma Dixie
“Come on now, sweetheart. Why ya gotta be a tease?”
Oh, for the love of Tim McGraw!
Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath. Calm. I needed to remain calm. I had been accused—more than once—of having a short fuse, and I was doing my best to curb that particular trait.
By this time next year, I planned on being a successful business owner. I couldn’t go flying off the handle whenever anyone pushed my buttons. Too many people in this town already doubted my entrepreneurial ability, mainly due to my age. No one thought I was ready to run my bakery—successfully—at twenty-two except Gram. She believed in me. She’d even offered to front me the money, which I had respectfully declined. I wanted to do this on my own. Sink or swim—without a life vest.
“I’m not being a tease. I just don’t want to go out with you, Brady. Now, that will be six forty-five.” While stretching my hand out, palm side up, I opened the register with a friendly (not flirty!) smile planted firmly on my face. I crossed my fingers, my toes, and my eyes—metaphorically—that Brady would take the needle off the broken record he’d been playing for the last six months and stop asking me out over and over again.
“How’s your kitty?” Brady’s eyes danced with amusement at his double entendre.
Seriously!? Do boys ever outgrow seventh grade humor?
I knew he wasn’t talking about my handsome boy, a one-eyed tabby cat I’d rescued when I’d found him behind the diner two years ago, but I chose to ignore his implied meaning.
“Captain Pickles is doing great! Six dollars and forty-five cents, please.”
/> Maintaining a cheerful demeanor was not always easy when you wanted to punch someone in the face. Although the knowledge that, if my never-declawed, man-hating tabby ever got his paws on Brady, he would not be using Captain Pickles as a euphemism anymore, did help to keep my spirits high.
Sniffing loudly, Brady rolled his shoulders as he opened his billfold. His lips fell open on a sigh, and I thought for sure the toothpick—which was always hanging precariously from his lips—was going to fall to the ground. Defying gravity, it stayed in place. Slow as molasses in January, he pulled a ten out and dangled it in front of me.
“Thanks,” I chirped as pleasantly as possible and extended my hand for the bill.
After snatching it away from me at the last second, Brady leaned over the countertop, his voice growing husky as he asked, “What’s it gonna take to change your mind, Red?”
“Brady Calhoun!” Tami Lynn’s sharp voice rang out as she reached past me and ripped Brady’s money right out of his hand. “You don’t have the sense the good Lord gave a goose. The girl does not want to go out with you. Get it through your thick skull.”
I stepped to the side, my cheeks burning like asphalt on a scorching-hot day as Tami Lynn took my place in front of the cash register and made change for Brady. I tried my best not to focus on the fact that every eye in the diner was now glued to the three of us. The center of attention, any attention, was my least favorite thing to be. The small consolation to this uncomfortable display was that only ten people were dining in The Greasy Spoon. Everyone in town was getting ready for either the Fourth of July festivities tomorrow or the annual Third of July party out at Briggs Farm.
“That’s just a temporary setback. She’ll change her mind.” Brady winked at me as he took his change from Tami Lynn, dropping a dollar in the tip jar beside the register. “You wait and see. I’m gonna make an honest woman out of Destiny Rose Porter.”
Sex on the Beach (Southern Comfort Book 2) Page 25