“If I can’t change your mind, then I guess I wish you luck,” Harvey said finally. “I won’t just cut you off though, Mike. There’ll be a severance package, benefits… for a few months, okay?”
Mike beamed at him. “Thank you,” she said.
I wanted to speak, to ask a million questions, but I could only stare at Michaela Grayson, standing behind her big executive desk and smiling. She had never looked as beautiful as she did in that moment, like she knew her heart and mind and didn’t have a care in the world. I just hoped I could be a part of whatever world she was about to enter.
A few minutes later, Harvey and Jeff shuffled out, and Eva returned to the lobby. I faced Mike and words began to fall from my lips, unscripted and honest.
“I’m sorry to just barge in,” I began. “Clearly I walked into the middle of something, and I don’t know what any of it means, but I hope it’s not too late.”
“Chance, I—” she half laughed as she interrupted me.
“No, just listen,” I said, stepping closer to her as she moved around her big desk and leaned against the front edge of it, the smile still in place.
My heart hammered and my blood rushed through my veins so violently I could feel it in every part of my body. “I need to talk to you,” I tried again. She didn’t interrupt again so I continued. “Life moves pretty fast,” I started.
“I think you’re quoting Ferris Bueller now.” She was laughing. And she wasn’t asking me to leave.
I could do this. “Not my intention.” I swallowed hard and tried to shift my racing heart to a lower gear. “These words need to be mine, but it’s hard for me to think around you, Mike. It’s just…I think life is like a merry-go-round. Or a slow train, maybe.”
“You came all the way down here to chat about carnival rides?” She was enjoying this. She tilted her head and fixed those deep dark eyes on me.
“Yes, and if you don’t stop interrupting, I’ll never get to the part where we win the prizes.” Oh my God, now I was just spewing stupid analogies. This was not going well. I was about to try again when an alarm pinged in my mind and I realized I didn’t know about Finn, about how the weekend went, about custody. “Is Finn okay? How did the weekend go?”
Her smile brightened. “He’s fine. I have a million things to tell you, too, but I guess you’re going to stand there talking about merry-go-rounds for a while first. Go on,” she coaxed.
That relaxed me a bit, and I found the words I needed. “Look, Mike. The thing is, I think I’m in love with you.”
Her smile beamed and she stood straight, pushing up from the edge of her desk, a glow emanating from her that made my heart rise with optimism. “Yeah?” She whispered.
I stepped closer, and then closer still, until I could smell the faint scent of honey and oranges. I wanted to pull her into my arms, I ached to have her near, but I hadn’t earned it yet. There was more I needed to say. “Yeah. And I don’t know how many times in life a guy gets this lucky, so I don’t want to screw it up. For a while, I think I believed we each got one chance in life, one opportunity for love, for happiness. And I thought I had mine a couple years ago. I already got all that, and then it ended.”
“Rebecca.” Mike breathed the name reverently, and for the first time in years it didn’t hurt to hear it.
“Rebecca,” I agreed. “But I think I was wrong. I know I was wrong. Some of us are lucky, and we get a second chance—a second chance that’s every bit as incredible and impossible as the first. But not all of us are brave enough or sure enough to take it. And I think I almost let uncertainty get in the way of mine.”
She shook her head. “Not uncertainty,” she said. “Because that’s your super power—certainty. Since the day I met you, you seemed like you were one hundred percent sure about everything. Every word out of your mouth, every action you take, it all carries this assurance that you know it’s exactly the right thing. I’ve envied it since we met. I wonder if I’ve ever felt so sure of anything.”
“I’m one hundred percent sure about one thing only,” I told her now. “That you and I have a chance—a take-it-or-lose-it kind of chance for happiness. For the kind of happiness some people are too scared to ever look for, or too worried to take when they see it. I’m in love with you, Michaela. And if you feel the same way, I don’t want to let this go just because it’s scary and uncertain. I don’t want to lose you out of fear. I want to walk out of this building today knowing I did everything I could to grab onto the best chance I’ve had for happiness, that I didn’t let it pass me by.”
Her eyes widened and the smile didn’t falter. “We do have a chance,” she said, her voice just above a whisper. She stood and stepped close to me, her eyes never leaving my face. “And I want to take it, too.”
That was all I needed. I closed the distance between us and wrapped her in my arms, everything in my body shuddering with relief, with satisfaction and a feeling that this was more right than anything had been in years. This woman in my arms was exactly right.
“Chance?” she asked, her voice muffled as I pulled her tighter against me, unable to resist trying to memorize the way it felt to hold her pressed into every part of me. “What the hell does any of that have to do with trains and carousels?”
I relaxed my hold a bit, letting her step away and look up at me, but not letting her go. “What?”
“You came in here babbling about merry-go-rounds. After you quit quoting Ferris Bueller.”
“Right.” I tried to remember where I’d been going with that. “It was going to be some kind of analogy.”
“Oh, I see.”
“It was probably brilliant.”
“Of course.”
“It was going to convince you to leave all this behind and fall in love with me. That’s how good an analogy it was.”
She laughed, the sound bubbling like the giddy rush of a stream trickling though rocks. “You know what?” Her dark eyes found mine and everything inside me tightened, coiled with energy and anticipation.
“What?”
“It worked,” she said.
She might have been about to say she loved me, but I couldn’t wait long enough to find out. I leaned in and took her lips with mine, relief and love and an overwhelming excitement washing through me as my mind spun over what the future could be for us. She pushed her body against mine, and my mind slowed to a hum as my body took over. I was going to enjoy every second of this kiss. I was going to enjoy every second of everything, from now on.
Eventually, Mike and I untangled from what ended up being a very long kiss, and I helped her get her few belongings together and down to her car. We traded car keys and I followed her in the Palmer truck to her house nearby, my entire body zinging with possibility, with certainty.
A voice in my mind deliriously chanted the whole time, yes yes yes, this this this. I remembered the feeling, or a shade of this feeling—different somehow, with different nuances—from when I’d first been in love with Rebecca. And the realization didn’t make me feel guilty as I had for so long, and it didn’t make me sad. Instead, a rush of overwhelming love washed through me. For Rebecca, for being strong enough to make sure I knew her death wouldn’t be the end for me; for Mike and everything she was, everything we might be together; and for a world that allowed a man like me to figure out who the hell he was supposed to be.
We had an hour before Mike needed to get Finn from school, and even though I pleaded with her to go get him now, she insisted we should wait. Once inside her cozy little house, she convinced me that waiting had been the right thing. We managed to fill the hour nicely—perfectly. And as I traced my fingers down the length of her bare back later, my heart expanded even more and I felt the grin I’d worn all day grow bigger still.
“You look happy,” she said, watching me from the pillow next to my head.
“I am,” I told her.
“I am too,” she said. “I feel like I’m stepping into a new world, like all this time it was here, ju
st through a door I was too scared to open.”
“No,” I said. “Your super powers are strength and intuition. You do things at the right time, when you’re sure you’re ready. When you know Finn’s ready. You feel and think for two people, protecting him and preparing a safe path for him. You had to make sure what was behind that door would be good for you both. And it wasn’t the right time before.”
I watched the lazy smile cross her face, her eyes soft and content. “We need to figure some things out,” she said, rolling to prop her head in her hand as she laid on her side next to me.
“Yeah.” I wasn’t sure exactly what things, but of course there’d be details. Mike needed a new job. I needed to rearrange as much of my life as necessary to be as close to her and Finn as possible. I’d follow her anywhere. I’d already decided that. As hard as it would be for me to leave Kings Grove, I knew this was what my life was about. I could always come back to visit. Kings Grove was just a place. This—here beside me in this bed, in this little house—this was the life I wanted.
“I want to move to Kings Grove,” Mike said, sending shock spiking through me.
“What?”
“I want to build the resort. And live in Kings Grove. With you. And Finn.”
I sat up, my body unable to contain the enormous happiness swelling inside me. Moments ago, I hadn’t thought I could possibly be happier, but now I thought I might actually explode.
She sat up and faced me, concern etched into her face in lines around her eyes, her mouth. “It’s too much too soon, right?”
I tried to rearrange whatever gob-smacked expression I wore to make it clear I was happy. I was so happy I no longer seemed to have control of my reactions or expressions. “No,” I said quickly. “Not too much, not at all. I was just thinking how I’d follow you anywhere in the country—hell, anywhere in the world, if you thought you needed to go there to start the next part of your life. I just want to be with you, and Finn. But…” I trailed off, still unable to really believe I might be that guy. That guy who gets everything he always wanted, all at once. “I’d love to stay in Kings Grove. To have you and Finn there…”
“Will you help me build a resort?”
I had almost forgotten half the reason I came down to interrupt her meeting in the first place. “Hang on,” I said, scrambling out of bed and pulling my jeans back on. “I need to grab something.”
Mike looked at her watch and jumped out of bed behind me. “It’ll have to wait. We need to go get Finn.”
An hour later they both sat on the couch in front of me, grinning wildly, and I wondered just how much joy this small house could hold, how much my heart could contain. It felt like our happiness was too big, unfairly huge, and it was bouncing around the room like an enthusiastic golden retriever. I couldn’t wait for that unbound happiness to fill the spaces of my open, empty house too.
I’d shown Michaela the plans Sam and I put together, the partnership agreement we’d drawn up, the financing arrangements we’d hammered out with our accountant. Palmer-George-Grayson could be a real thing, a new resort builder in Kings Grove. Michaela just had to say yes.
“I love it,” she finally said. “But we can drop the management piece from the costs here.” She was pouring over the spreadsheets I’d laid on the table in front of her. “I’ll handle that.”
“Seriously?” I asked. I’d worked up estimates to bring in a management company to run the resort I hoped we could build together, the all-season sports property Mike had hoped to build with McLaren that we had just agreed to build together instead.
“What else am I going to do once the place is built? I need a job, Chance!”
“Fair enough,” I said. “We can figure that out later. For now, we just need to sign the agreements and we can get started.” I’d talked Sam and Miranda into expanding the business. Palmer-George was getting into resort management as part owners of the proposed Grayson Hotel.
“I’m not totally sold,” Mike said, and a little kernel of doubt blossomed in me for the first time all day.
“Oh,” I said, my voice wary.
“We can’t call it the Grayson Hotel,” she said. “The place is the Kings Grove Inn. That’s what it’s always been, that’s how it should stay.”
Relief swept through me, and Finn piped up, having been quiet as he listened to all the ideas and plans being tossed around.
“How about the Finn Inn?” He asked, grinning.
“It’s got a ring to it,” I agreed.
Mike made a face and then poked Finn in the stomach, making him giggle. “If I didn’t feel so strongly about keeping the name,” she told him earnestly, “we’d absolutely call it the Finn Inn.”
“Really?”
“Definitely. In fact, that can be its secret identity,” she said, and Finn shot to his feet.
“Like Bruce Wayne!”
“Exactly like that,” she said.
We spent the rest of the day making arrangements, and that night we talked quietly in Mike’s bed about the future.
When the moving trucks pulled up a week later, everything had been arranged. Finn’s records had been transferred and he’d already met with the principal and his teacher at KG Elementary, where he’d been wowed by both the small class sizes and building, but also the environment. “Chance, there’s a Giant Sequoia tree on the playground!”
“It’s been there since I went to school there,” I told him.
“But it’s still so small,” he said.
“Sometimes,” I reminded him, “the strongest things don’t start out looking strong. Strength takes a long time to grow solid.”
Finn nodded as Mike grinned at me, and I got the sense we all knew my words were about more than big trees.
As we drove up the side of the mountain behind the huge moving truck carrying all of Mike and Finn’s things, I sighed with happiness and relief. The world, which had made little sense since Rebecca’s death years ago, clicked back into place, and I knew I was finally on the right path, exactly where I was supposed to be, with my family at my side.
Finn bounced in the back seat, his head appearing between us. “I love you guys!” he hooted, and wonder filled my chest at the thought that this could all possibly be mine.
“I love you too,” I said, looking between him and the beautiful woman beside me.
Mike smiled at me with shining eyes, and whispered back, “I love you too. So much.”
The trees grew in size as we climbed the mountain behind the big truck, and so did the contentment inside me. I was happy to go back to Kings Grove, this little family at my side, and for the first time in years, it felt like I was really going home.
Epilogue Part One
Michaela
I crossed the parking lot at a run, narrowly dodging Craig Pritchard’s Subaru as it pulled suddenly backward from a spot in front of the Post Office. He stopped, brakes squealing dramatically and then rolled down his window to lean out and chastise me. “Ms. Grayson, I know you’re not from around here, but we generally use the sidewalks for our morning workout endeavors here. Leaves the roads open for cars and the like.” His face sneered slightly as he delivered the words, but I’d learned that Craig was much more bark than bite.
Pausing in my hurry, I apologized. “You’ve got a point, Craig. I’m sorry. Are you going to make it tonight?”
His face clouded for a moment and then cleared. “Haven’t decided.”
“I really hope to see you. Most of the village will be there. This Inn is for everyone, and it would mean a lot to me to have your support.”
Craig glanced to his left, his eyes on the front of the big new building that dominated the far side of the main parking lot—the new Kings Grove Inn, almost complete and exactly what I’d hoped it would be. “I’ll try.”
I had the sense Craig didn’t get included in many social activities around town, mostly due to his bitter attitude, but I wasn’t going to start my time in a new place by judging people and making ene
mies. I could be sweet to even the saltiest old codger, and Craig Pritchard was definitely salty. But in my experience, you got a lot further being nice than you did in taking the word of others. I’d heard plenty about Craig from Maddie, Connor, and Chance. “I’ll see you tonight,” I said, flashing him my brightest smile before hurtling on, still across the lot. It was more direct than the sidewalk, and I was in a hurry to find out what made the crashing noise I’d heard coming from my Inn. We didn’t have time for any catastrophes with the grand opening scheduled this weekend.
When I reached the Inn, the source of the crashing sound was all too clear. The new sign I’d commissioned at great expense, the one that was supposed to be affixed atop the overhang to the sweeping entrance of the building, lay in shattered pieces on the ground in front of the steps. “What happened?”
Maddie’s brother Cam sat in the cab of the crane, a dark look on his face as he stared at the ruined sign. “Sorry,” he muttered, barely able to make eye contact with me. “Come on down,” he called to the two men who’d been waiting on the roof to fasten the sign in place. They scrambled down the ladder and moved on to other tasks. There was still plenty to do.
I walked up to the huge vehicle, not wanting let my disappointment over the sign ruin my relationship with Cam. Ever since I’d moved up here, he’d been barely friendly to me, and occasionally he ignored me altogether. Chance had put him on the construction of the Inn, where he did a good job, but he still seemed to avoid me when he could and definitely didn’t want to talk to me. Chance told me to let it slide, and I knew Cam was working on some emotional issues.
Weren’t we all?
“You okay, Cam?” I asked, realizing this was a little ironic since I was standing in the ruined remains of a very expensive sign and I didn’t feel quite okay myself.
Cam’s dark eyes dulled and his face twisted with emotion before he slid out of the crane after cutting the engine and stalked away, leaving me standing without an answer or a sign. I watched him leave, his lean form cutting through the trees toward the residential part of the village, and then turned back to the disaster at hand. Despite the shattered sign, the Inn looked great. It was rustic and luxurious at the same time, the clean lines and natural accents blending perfectly into the environment. This weekend we’d welcome our first guests, and this would be our first year of full operation.
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