“What’s that?” Devin asks, looking like there might be some infinite wisdom about to come his way.
“People who like to start trouble.” He laughs and jogs ahead, his younger boy in his arms. “Hey, Adeline, do you want a baby brother or a baby sister?” With a glance back, he increases his speed to get away from Devin’s angry glare.
I can hear Adeline going into her explanation of why she wants one of each, a brother and a sister but not twins, all while Devin tries to get her to pick between chocolate and vanilla cake instead.
“Stwawbewy and puwple cake. I want a puwple cake.” I see his shoulders relax slightly as we walk up the beach toward the house. I stay a couple steps behind, just taking this all in. It’s amazing that I arrived exactly where I wanted to, even though it took a long time to get here.
“You can have a hundred cakes, Adeline. One in every flavor,” Devin promises, tickling her feet and sending her squirming on his shoulders. “You’ll have whatever you need from now on, okay? I’ll make sure of it. I promise.”
“Anything, Debin?” she asks, resting her chin on the top of his head as he nods his agreement. “I weawly need a unicown.” I watch as Devin spins around to face me, walking backward for a few steps as he shoots me a wink. “You are your mother’s daughter, Adeline. That’s for sure.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Click
Watching Jordan sunbathing in her white bikini is the best part of this vacation so far. Her already dark skin has turned a deeper espresso under the hot island sun, and the smell of coconut in her black silky hair is driving me wild.
“Are you going to get something to eat with everyone else?” I ask, watching our little pack of oddballs head back to the house.
“I’m not that hungry,” she says as she rolls onto her back and looks up at me from behind her sunglasses. I want to lay down with her, right here on this now-deserted beach, and make love to her. We let things cool off a little after the night at Devin and Rebecca’s. A combination of embarrassment from her screaming my name loud enough for the neighbors to hear and the intensity of the situation at hand has us keeping our distance. The beach house doesn’t lend itself to much secret passion either. Three kids running around and popping in and out of every room has put some space between us.
But I know there is something connecting us. If I wasn’t sure before, the day she pulled up to the courthouse, watching me being loaded into the ambulance, there was no doubt. A bullet had grazed my calf, a fairly superficial gash, but I still needed stiches. The ambulance doors were shut and when I heard Jordan’s voice outside, I knew she loved me. There was no denying it . . . or that I loved her.
She yelled at the EMT that if he didn’t open the door and let her ride with me she would hurt him so badly he’d be the one who needed the ambulance. There was urgency in her voice, a demanding need to see me that made it clear she was feeling the same way about me as I was about her. Yet we hadn’t talked about it. She climbed into the back of the ambulance, rode with me, stayed with me. Made me laugh, made me forget, made me feel some peace and happiness.
“Want to walk the beach with me?” I ask as I extend my hand to help her up. Her sweet smile and her fingers laced with mine are all I need to tell me what I’m about to say is right. I don’t let her hand go once she’s on her feet. I hold it in mine and we head to the water. She doesn’t make a move to take it away.
“I could stay here forever,” she says lightheartedly as she kicks at the water, splashing it up into the air.
“Is that what you want?” I ask, trying to navigate this conversation correctly.
“Well, it’s beautiful and I guess now that I’ve been fired I should consider it.” She laughs a little. “I have a year of severance pay and enough in savings. I could get a job here making surfboards or something.”
“You’d be terrible at that.”
“I know, I’m only kidding. I couldn’t really live here. It’s too disconnected from the world. I finally feel free to focus on something other than getting ahead and making a career. I want to experience all the things I’ve missed.”
“There are things in Tennessee you might like,” I offer, accidently squeezing her hand too hard as the nerves get to me.
“What the hell is in Tennessee?” she asks with a snort. She thinks I’m joking.
“My family,” I croak out nervously as I avert my eyes and look at the sea, afraid of her reaction.
“Your family is in Tennessee? Are you thinking you’re ready to go back? You think you’re ready?”
“No, but my father called me and said my youngest sister is in some kind of trouble and he wants me to come home and help.”
“Is she okay?”
“I don’t know, he didn’t say much. It might just be a ploy to get me back there, but I can’t take the chance. If it’s something serious I want to be there.”
“I think you should. They’re your family. I know going back can be a hard adjustment, but I think you’ll do fine. You can’t keep running from your life. You can’t be the guy who’s willing to die for everyone else; it’s time you live for yourself for a while.”
“I don’t want to.” I stop and face her so she’s forced to stop too. “I don’t want to just live for myself, by myself. I want you to come with me. Come to Tennessee.”
“To meet your family? Isn’t it a big overwhelming Italian madhouse? Why would you want me there?”
“Because you understand me. You get me and when I’m with you I feel more normal. I don’t feel like an assassin, or a robot; I feel like a person. You make me feel whole. Put back together.”
“Click,” she says, her face reading confusion. “I wasn’t sure how you felt. I didn’t know if we had something here or not. You’ve been so quiet.”
“We do. We have something. I’m not ready for it to stop. I can go back there without you. I can face this alone. I just don’t want to. I don’t want to do anything ever again that doesn’t include you. I’m sorry I wasn’t telling you this all along, but I’m telling you now. When I’m with you, the nightmares don’t come as often. You keep my demons at bay.”
“That’s a lot of responsibility for one person. What if I’m not enough? What if you get there and you can’t stay?”
“Then we leave, and we try again another time. I don’t care what we do, as long as we’re doing it together.”
“So you want me to leave this beautiful tropical island and go to Tennessee with you? You want me to meet your giant family who will probably hate me?”
“Yes,” I answer, hoping my small smile will be enough to convince her. “So come with me.”
“I will. But we have one thing we have to do first. We’re flying home before Devin and Rebecca because we have a job to do. We can’t back out on that.”
“We won’t. We promised Devin, so we’ll finish in Clover first.”
“Am I going to like Tennessee?” Jordan asks, looking a little nervous.
“Probably not,” I admit, thinking of all the ways my hometown differs from New York. “But we’ll be together. And even if you hate everything there during the day, I’ll make it up to you at night.” I lean down and take her face in my hand as I cover her lips with mine. She jumps up into my arms and wraps her legs around me.
“So how private do you think this island really is?” she asks, pulling away from our kiss but keeping her lips close to mine. Her seductive smile gets me instantly excited.
“Let’s find out.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Devin
Leaving a gorgeous island to come back to Clover in the middle of winter, even a mild North Carolina winter, is torture, but luckily I have a lot to look forward to. Keeping these secrets and surprises from Rebecca has not been easy. It wasn’t just the million phone calls from Click and Jordan asking about last minute details, but I wanted to spill my guts to her. I wanted to share the excitement and fun of planning. However, the desire to see the shock in her eyes wh
en it all comes together was enough to help me keep my mouth shut.
“That was an amazing vacation, Devin. I can’t thank you enough,” Rebecca whispers as we pull onto the long road, leading to our house. Adeline is asleep in the back seat, and I’m hoping she wakes up in time to partake in the surprises. “I think you were right to stay a few extra days while everyone else came back to Clover. It was nice to have time for just the three of us, too.”
“They had work to do back here,” I say, trying to keep a straight face.
“I didn’t think any of them were staying on with the recycling plant deal. Jordan was replaced, right? But the company is moving forward with the plan she proposed. Click said he’s going back to see his family in Tennessee. Luke is staying here while Olivia takes over security for Click, but he isn’t still in the PR role, right? So their work here is done.”
“They were working on something else. Something special. I hope you like it.”
“Like what?” she demands, and I hear Adeline stir in the back seat at the sound of her mom’s slightly alarmed voice.
I pull the car into the driveway and feel her nervous eyes on me. “What did you do, Devin Sutton?” She looks up at the house, and realizes something is different. Gone is the weathered and peeling paint. It’s been replaced with a bright blue shining coat. New shutters frame the windows, a new roof stands out against the blue sky, and flower boxes in the windows patiently wait for spring flowers. New shrubs have been planted to frame the walkway. It’s better than I imagined.
“Did they do all this?” she asks, looking up toward the house in shock. “How could they have done this so quickly? It was just three days.”
“Don’t give them too much credit. They weren’t out here painting. They don’t love us that much. That was done while we were all away.” I step out of the car and take Adeline from her car seat. Rebecca rushes over to my side. We head for the front door and I pray they pulled off everything I asked of them.
I open the door and sigh with relief when I see it. The house is perfectly decorated just as I had hoped.
“My paintings,” Rebecca says, clutching her heart at the sight of her artwork all over the house. A picture of a placid pasture is over the mantelpiece. Three framed oil paintings of flowers are lined up across the wall behind the couch.
“Where did they find these? My daddy said he threw them all away.”
“He didn’t. They were in a shed behind his house.”
“You had them all framed so beautifully. That’s so thoughtful, Devin. And the furniture—it’s gorgeous. This is the perfect surprise.”
“You haven’t seen the big surprise yet,” I say as Adeline squirms out of my arms and begins exploring all the new additions to the house. “Come upstairs with me.” I take her hand and lead her to the top of the stairs and stand in front of the closed door of the room Jordan and Click had been staying in. “I want this to be everything you imagined it would be. I tried to get every detail just right. But if it’s not right you tell me and we’ll change it.” I swing open the door and step into a room where almost everything has been stripped away. The drapes on the large bay window are gone, allowing the light to pour in. The bed and the desk have been taken out and replaced with every paint supply known to man. The walls are covered with blank canvases, just waiting to be transformed. The floor is covered with protective drop cloths. And in the center of the room, catching all the light of the midday sun, is a single stool, perched in front of an easel. “I want you to have a place you can paint any time the mood strikes you. I want you to have the room of your dreams.”
She covers her mouth with her hands and her eyes are so wide I know she’s completely shocked. “It’s so perfect, Devin. It’s everything I ever imagined. Every detail.”
“I know,” I say, wondering if she’s made the connection yet. “There’s more.”
She’s shaking her head in disbelief as she follows me down the hall to Adeline’s room. I push the door open and unveil the next surprise. The room is like a bright rainbow of colors. I hear the pitter patter of Adeline’s feet as she races up the stairs and pushes in between our legs. “Pwincesses!” she shouts as she jumps onto the plush bed and starts to dig through the mountain of stuffed animals that have been placed there. Rebecca is looking around at every detail. The purple dollhouse. The unicorn mural. And I see a light of recognition in her eyes, but I’m still not sure if she’s connected the dots. “There’s more,” I say again as she follows me out of the room and toward our bedroom.
Hanging over our bed is something I hadn’t had on my list of requests, but it is so perfect I want to hug whoever thought of it. It’s the painting of Rebecca and me. The painting she made of us together that first night. Before it all went wrong. We’re holding each other about to make love, about to fall in love. It’s more beautiful than I remember it, and it’s perfectly positioned above the bed to be seen every day. To be remembered and cherished.
The room has been painted. New furniture delivered. It’s serene. It’s calm. It’s a place I hope she’ll come to and find peace every day. I hand her something I know she’s been missing. “My locket! They told me they lost it at the jail. I was devastated,” she tells me as she snatches it from my hand.
“I had Nick get it for me. It needed some repairs.”
“Repairs? Did they break it?”
“No, but it needed to be changed. It used to say half my heart.”
“I know,” she says, inspecting it carefully. “It’s what my letters always said to you. It meant that you held the other half of me.”
“You don’t hold half my heart, Rebecca. You have it all. I’m nothing without you.” I watch as she looks at the new inscription and smiles.
But that isn’t the surprise I brought her up here for either. “Check out the bathroom,” I say, nudging her stunned body forward slightly.
“You had the bathroom remodeled, too?”
The answer to that question is yes. The claw foot tub is refinished. The tile redone. The vanity replaced. But that isn’t what I’m excited for her to see in there. I step in behind her and watch her face twist in confusion as she comes face to face with a wedding gown hanging on a hook on the wall. She covers her mouth with her hands again and I can see the tears spill over her eyes.
“My dress.” Her voice cracks with emotion.
“This is the dress you wrote me about, right? The long lace sleeves? The heart shaped top? The pearl buttons that trail all the way down the back. It’s elegant but not flashy. It’s trimmed with silk and comes in just right at the waist.” I watch her reach out and touch it as I read back to her the words she wrote to me in her letters all those years ago. I have them memorized. I had a vision of her in this dress for so long and now, I think it’s hitting us that this is finally our reality.
“Devin, it’s the exact dress. I saw it in a shop window. I sat on the bench and stared at it while I wrote your letter. I imagined myself in it, standing across from you, starting the rest of our lives. This is from my letter. This is all from my letters?” She breaks into a full cry as the moment comes crashing in on her.
“Yes it is. All of this is. The color of the house, the shutters, the decorations in Adeline’s room. Your painting studio. This dress. It’s all the memories we never had a chance to make together, and now we can. It’s the life you dreamed up, and I’m finally able to give it to you.” I pull her into my arms and let her fall to pieces against me. Tears are filling my own eyes now, too. I brush them off and smile as I whisper, “There’s more.”
“Oh Devin, you’re going to kill me. My heart can’t take any more.”
“That dress, it isn’t for our wedding someday down the road. It’s for today. Everyone we care about is sitting out in the backyard, waiting to see us get married. There’s a flower-girl dress in Adeline’s closet. My tux is downstairs. The arbor you wrote about, the one with the ivy and the lilies? It’s out back just waiting for us. The cake you wanted with the thre
e layers and the little bride and groom on top, it’s there. Right next to Adeline’s purple strawberry cake. So I know I asked you to marry me someday. But now I’m asking you to marry me today. Right now.”
“Devin,” she says pulling away from me, “I’m a mess.” She gestures up to her wet eyes and tousled hair.
“Take your time. Everyone is out there having a blast I’m sure. I promised free drinks.” I lean in and kiss her forehead as I step out of the bathroom. “You’re going to look amazing. You’re going to make me the happiest man in the world. You already have. And Rebecca . . .”
“Yes,” she answers with a shaking voice before she closes the bathroom door to get ready.
“There’s more. But you’ll have to wait and see.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Rebecca
The dress fits perfectly. It’s exactly how I imagined it the day I saw it in the store window years ago. The soft knock on my new bathroom door is a godsend since I can’t manage to twist around enough to pull the zipper up all the way.
“Rebecca?” I hear Jordan say and I smile, glad it’s her. “Do you need any help getting ready?”
“Yes,” I say, pulling the door open. “I’ve been trying every yoga move I know to get this zipper up. Can you help?”
Jordan steps in and gives me a hand, standing back to look me over. “That dress was made for you. And your paintings, I can’t get over them. They are so deep, so emotional. That painting studio, I bet you’ll do amazing work in there.”
“Sorry Devin used your room for it.”
“It’s no problem. I’m leaving anyway. I’m going to Tennessee with Click. He’s going back to be with his family, and he asked me to go with him.”
“That’s incredible.”
“Incredible or crazy?” Jordan asks, and I see the doubt in her eyes.
All My Heart (The Clover Series) Page 17