by Jamie Pope
“She did?”
“She loves you, Carlos. Probably more than you deserve.”
She was right. He knew he had been hard to deal with, hard to live with. Virginia had given so much of herself to him already. It was selfish of him to ask her to give him any more.
“So my next question, mijo, is when can I expect to meet my first grandchild?”
“She left me, Ma. She doesn’t want this life.”
“Of course not. She wants a life that you two make together. If you let her go, you’ll regret it. I’ve never been disappointed in you, not once, but if you let this girl go, I will be. Money is nice. Baseball is good, but love is forever, and the only thing a mother really wants for her child is to be happy. Virginia will make you happy. Please don’t let this chance slip through your fingers.”
* * *
Virginia packed up the last of her things and took one last look around the bedroom she had spent the past few months living in. Of all of the places she had left, this was the only one that hurt her to leave. But it was time to go. The house was finished. It was her best work. The best she could do. She’d left her mark on it. Literally. She had painted the walls herself, hung up her art in each room. She had lost herself in this project. She had lost her heart, too, but she regretted none of it.
It was time to move on. To go back. To find her next job. To work on her next piece. She was going to paint again. She was going to show her work. She had taken this job to keep her design firm afloat, but Carlos had given her the confidence she needed to do the thing she’d loved all along.
She left the room, rolling her suitcase behind her. She had left a message for Carlos last night to tell him that she was leaving. She knew she should show him the house again, go through the changes she had made, but she couldn’t bring herself to face him. It would hurt too much.
Baseball was his life. She had watched the press conference, seen how everyone had reacted to the news of his return. They were happy. He made millions of people happy just by walking onto a field. He couldn’t let them down. Baseball was his destiny. And hers... She wasn’t sure what hers was yet. But she was going to find it.
She heard the front door open as she walked toward it. A driver was coming to get her, to take her to the airport, but she didn’t think he would just let himself into the house.
“Virginia!” Her mother walked in. “I can see why you fell in love with this island. I’ve been all over the world, but I don’t think I have ever been to a place so beautiful.”
Virginia stood there, frozen to her spot. Her mother was there.
But why? They hadn’t left things on good terms, but there she was with her hair loose, wearing a long floral-print dress and a smile on her face.
“What are you doing here?”
“Carlos invited us.”
“Us?” She blinked. “Carlos?”
“Flew us in private.” Her father walked in with two large suitcases.
“Yes, he’s a wonderful man. Flew to New Jersey himself to invite us to stay.”
“Stay? But I’m leaving. I’m going home. I broke up with him because I was giving up my life to make another man happy. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“Me?” Her mother pointed to herself. “Either I was wrong or you are mistaken. I really like him, Virginia. He’s very intelligent.”
“He’s not smarter than me.” Elias walked in with a small duffel bag. Ava followed him inside with a very large designer suitcase.
“Just because you’re a surgeon doesn’t mean you’re smarter than anybody else.”
“Yeah, Ava. I think that’s exactly what that means.”
“Children...” A woman Virginia had never met before walked into the house. She didn’t need to be introduced for Virginia to know who she was. The beautiful woman looked just like Ava.
“Mrs. Bradley.” Virginia’s eyes started to fill up with tears. “You’re here.”
“You invited me.” Carlos’s mother wrapped her arms around Virginia. “It’s so nice to meet the woman who turned my son back into a human.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Thank you, my sweet girl.”
“I should say thank you, too.” She heard Carlos’s voice, and when she opened her eyes he was standing right behind his mother. “It’s lucky that I started organizing this get-together before you called me last night to tell me that you were leaving. It’s kind of sneaky of you. I thought you would at least give me one last goodbye.”
“It wasn’t sneaky. It was cowardly. I was scared that if I saw you I wouldn’t be able to say goodbye.”
“Well, that’s a good thing for me.” He got down on one knee before her. “Because I don’t want you to say goodbye.”
“What are you doing?” she asked as the tears slipped down her face.
“I love you. Ridiculously. Tremendously. There’s not a word I can think of that can describe it. I want to spend my life here with you. I want to make a family with you. And I promise that I will devote the rest of my days to making you happy. You were there for me—it’s time I give up something and be there for you.”
“Give up something?” She shook her head, her heart pounding so hard it hurt. “What are you talking about?”
“Baseball.” He pulled a ring out of his pocket and slipped it onto her finger. “I thought I needed it to be happy, but I can’t be happy without you. Marry me, Virginia.”
“No!”
“No?” she heard in unison all around her.
“You can’t give up baseball. You worked so hard to get where you are. The whole state has been waiting for your return. You mean something to them, to those people, to those children who look up to you. You can’t walk away from them.”
“I can’t let you go, either. I had to make a decision—do the right thing for the people who love me for what I can do, or do the right the thing for the woman who loves me for who I am. It wasn’t a tough decision to make. In fact, it was the easiest one of my life.”
“I don’t want you to give it up.” She got down on her knees and wrapped her arms around him, hugging him tightly to her. She’d missed him. She had felt empty without him. “I’ll marry you, but I don’t want you to give it up. It would be crazy of you to give it up, even though it’s the sweetest, most generous thing anyone has ever done for me.”
“I want you to be happy, Gin. Miami didn’t make you happy. That life won’t make you happy. I want you to be in a place where you love doing something you love.”
“But I won’t be happy if you can’t do what you love. I love you too much for that. I won’t allow you to. We’ll just have to figure something out.”
He cupped her face in his hands and looked into her eyes. “Is that a yes?”
“It’s a yes.”
He leaned forward and kissed her then, and it was the kiss that started the rest of their life together.
* * * * *
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ISBN-13: 9781488003417
Surrender at Sunset
Copyright © 2016 by Jamie Pope
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