by Sandi Lynn
He stripped out his clothes and slipped into a pair of navy blue pajama bottoms. He climbed on the bed, rested his laptop on his legs, and began working.
“Chase?” I spoke as I set my laptop over to the side.
“Yeah, baby,” he answered as he stared at his computer screen, typing away.
“I love you.”
“I love you too, sweetheart.”
“Will you marry me?” I blurted out.
His fingers came to a standstill as he slowly turned his head and our eyes met.
“What?” he asked as a shocked expression splayed across his handsome face.
“Will you marry me? If you’re not ready, I’ll understand.”
He closed the lid to his laptop and set it on the floor.
“I am so ready to marry you.” He jumped off the bed, went into the closet and returned with a small blue velvet box. “I was going to ask you to marry me.” He flipped open the lid. “But I was afraid you weren’t ready.”
“Oh my God, Chase. It’s beautiful.” I placed my right hand over my mouth as I stared at the three-carat princess-cut white-gold diamond ring.
With a smile on his face, he took the ring from the box and held it up in front of me.
“Let me do this. Kinsley Davis, I love you with all my heart and soul. Will you marry me, darling?”
“Yes, Chase Calloway, I will marry you.” I smiled as tears filled my eyes.
He took hold of my left hand and slipped the ring on my finger.
“I promise to love you for eternity. I can’t imagine my life without you,” he spoke as he leaned in and kissed my lips.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and placed my forehead against his.
“And I promise to love you for eternity.”
Chapter Forty-Three
Four Months Later
Kinsley
“Hello, my sweet boy.” I smiled as I picked up Christopher from his crib. “Did you have a good nap?”
He smiled and laid his head on my shoulder. After changing his diaper, I walked downstairs and the doorbell rang. With Christopher in my arms, I opened the door and stood there in shock.
“Jimmy?”
“Kinsley. You are one hard woman to find,” he spoke.
“My God. What are you doing here?”
“I need to talk to you about your mother.”
“Come in.” I opened the door wider.
“Who’s this handsome little guy?” He smiled.
“This is Christopher, my son.”
“Your son?” he asked in shock. “Wow. It’s good to see you.” He reached out and touched my arm.
“It’s good to see you too. How did you find me?”
“I hired a private investigator. I had no choice. I needed to find you. Your mom is in the hospital, Kinsley, and she’s asking to see you. She’s dying, and she doesn’t have much time left.” He lowered his head.
Suddenly, I felt weak, so I sat down on the couch.
“What’s wrong with her?” I asked.
“Her liver is failing.”
Tears started to fill my eyes as I looked up at the ceiling.
“I’m not surprised,” I softly spoke.
“Listen, Kinsley, I know she was a shit mother, but she’s still your mom and she wants to see her daughter before she dies.”
Christopher started to cry, so I got up from the couch and put him in his high chair.
“I need to give him his dinner,” I spoke as I grabbed the baby food from the cabinet.
“How old is he?” Jimmy asked.
“Six months.”
I heard the front door open, and when Chase walked into the kitchen, he stopped dead in his tracks.
“Umm. What’s going on here?” he asked.
“Chase, this is Jimmy, from back home. Jimmy, this is my fiancé, Chase Calloway.”
“Nice to meet you, man,” Jimmy spoke as he extended his hand.
“Ah yes, I do believe Kinsley has mentioned you.” Chase shook his hand. “What brings you to California?”
“Kinsley can tell you. I need to get going. It was good to see you.” He smiled at me. “Thanks for taking care of her.” He turned to Chase. “You have a beautiful family.”
“Thank you,” Chase spoke.
As soon as he left, I sat down at the table and began feeding Christopher.
“Are you going to tell me what that was all about?” he asked.
“My mom is dying of liver failure and she’s asking to see me.”
“Oh, baby.” He walked over and kissed the top of my head. “I’m sorry.”
“I always knew this day would come. To be honest, I’m surprised it took this long with the amount of alcohol she drank every day.”
“I’ll feed Christopher,” he spoke as he placed his hand on mine.
I jerked away.
“I can feed my son,” I shouted in an irritated tone.
“Sweetheart, talk to me.”
“I don’t want to talk about anything, Chase. So just drop it,” I snapped.
“Okay, fine. I’m going upstairs to change.”
As soon as I was finished feeding Christopher, I took him upstairs and handed him to Chase.
“Can you bathe him, please? I need some fresh air.”
“Of course. Come on, little man, let’s get you cleaned up.”
I went downstairs, grabbed a blanket and a bottle of wine, and took it down to the beach. Darkness was falling upon the sky and the stars were waiting patiently to make their appearance. Sitting down on the blanket, I brought the bottle to my lips and took a sip as I stared out into the ocean water.
“You okay?” Chase asked as he sat down beside me and brought his knees up to his chest.
“I’m sorry for snapping at you. To be honest, I don’t know if I’m okay or not.”
“It’s okay, sweetheart. You’re going through a lot of mixed emotions right now.” He hooked his arm around me and I laid my head on his shoulder.
“A part of me hates her and a part of me loves her.”
“We’ll go to Indiana. You have to make peace with her, Kinsley. If you don’t, you’ll end up regretting it the rest of your life.”
“I know.”
“You can do this, baby, and Christopher and I will be there for you. I’ll make a few calls, get a private jet, and we’ll go first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Then I guess we better get packing,” I spoke as I took a sip of wine.
“By the way, you never really did tell me who that Jimmy guy is?”
“He’s her cousin. He gave up on her a long time ago. They had a huge fight one night and he never came around again. He owns a car repair shop in town. He buys vintage cars and rebuilds them.”
“Come on, let’s go inside. I have calls to make and we need to get things ready to leave tomorrow,” he spoke.
****
When we arrived in Indiana, we checked into a hotel because I knew the house was going to be filthy and I didn’t want Christopher there. As soon as we settled in, we headed straight to the hospital.
“You can do this, sweetheart. You’re a strong woman,” Chase spoke as he reached over and held my hand.
“I know.”
As we entered the hospital, the sick feeling in my belly intensified. Chase held Christopher in one hand and held mine with the other. I didn’t think I could do this without him here and I was so grateful for all his support. We took the elevator up to the second floor and walked down the hallway until we found room 2101. I stopped in the doorway and took in a deep breath as Chase gave my hand a gentle squeeze. I slowly walked into the room and my mom turned her head and looked at me. A small, weak smile graced her face when she saw me.
“Kinsley,” she spoke in a soft voice.
“Hi, Mom,” I spoke as I walked over to her bed. “I want you to meet my fiancé Chase Calloway and your grandson, Christopher.”
Tears filled her eyes as she looked at him.
“My grandson? You’
re a mother?”
“Yeah.” I smiled.
“I met him already.” She looked at Chase.
“Hi. I apologize for being rude,” Chase spoke.
“Nah. Don’t be. You didn’t tell me anything I already didn’t know. Can I hold my grandson?”
“Of course,” I spoke.
Chase walked over and put Christopher in her arms. Tears ran down her face as she held him against her.
“You’re so handsome,” she spoke to him.
After a few moments, Christopher started to cry, so I took him from her and handed him to Chase.
“He’s probably hungry,” I spoke.
“I’ll go feed him and leave you two alone.”
Chase walked out of the room and I took a seat in the chair and stared at my mother. She was so frail and weak.
“How long have you known, Mom?” I asked.
“I kind of suspected something was going on the past couple of years.”
“You could have gotten help. You could have asked me to help you,” I spoke.
“You’ve helped me enough, Kinsley. I didn’t want to put that on you. You had Henry and you were doing your own thing.”
“It doesn’t matter.” I shook my head.
“Listen to me. I know I was a shit mother, but I loved you and I did what I did for you. I needed you to be stronger than I ever was. I’m sorry, Kinsley. I’m so sorry.” She began to cry.
Suddenly, all the anger I felt for her all these years slowly dissipated away. This woman, whom I called my mom, was dying and remaining angry at her for something neither she or I could change wouldn’t solve anything. She needed my forgiveness.
“I forgive you, Mom.” I squeezed her hand. “I am strong and it’s because of you.”
I got up from my chair and wrapped my arms around her as we both cried together. After we settled down, we talked for a while. I told her all about California and how I was going to school. I shared my dream of owning my own antique shop and she told me for the first time in my life that she was proud of me. After Chase was finished feeding Christopher, he came back into the room and we stayed for a while longer so she could spend some time with her grandson. She was tired and growing weaker every minute we were there.
“We better go and let you get some rest,” I spoke.
“Thanks for coming, Kinsley,” my mother whispered.
“I love you, Mom.” I leaned over and gave her a hug. “We’ll be back tomorrow morning.”
“I love you too.”
Later that night, Jimmy called me at the hotel and told me that my mother had passed away.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Chase spoke as he held me tight.
“She’s in a better place now,” I cried on his shoulder. “She doesn’t have to suffer anymore.”
A couple days later, we buried her in the same cemetery my father was buried at.
“Kinsley.” I felt a hand on my shoulder.
“Well, well.” Chase smiled. “If it isn’t the waitress from that grease pit.”
I turned around and locked eyes with Krista.
“I’m sorry about your mom.”
“Thanks, Krista. I appreciate it.”
“I didn’t know you had a baby. He’s so sweet.” She smiled.
“He is.” I hooked my arm around Chase. “They both are and they’re both the love of my life, so thank you.”
“For what?” she asked.
“For sleeping with Henry. Because if you hadn’t, I’d probably still be stuck in this miserable town, living a miserable life with a man I never even loved. But thanks to you, I moved to California and met this wonderful man and had this beautiful baby.”
“Umm. You’re welcome?”
I gave her a smile and gracefully walked away.
Chapter Forty-Four
Sixteen Years Later
Chase
It was hard to believe that Kinsley and I had been married sixteen years already. It seemed like it was yesterday when I first laid eyes on her. The three of us turned into the five of us. Christopher was almost seventeen, and the twins, Chanel and Camille, were blooming teenagers at the age of thirteen. My father retired a few years back and I stepped in and took over the company. Christopher was following in my footsteps, not only attending Stanford, but he would be the next generation to take over Calloway Tech. The girls were typical teens, and they were smart, strong, and beautiful like their mother. Needless to say, when we found out we were having twins, we were shocked. Kinsley didn’t know that twins ran in her family. So after some investigating of the family tree, we found out that Kinsley’s great-grandmother was a twin.
After Kinsley graduated from college, I gave her her dream and she became the proud owner of an antique shop she called Timeless Treasures, which turned a profit in the first year. I was so proud of her and fell in love with her even more.
“Listen, sweetheart, I don’t know what’s going on yet. I’ll text you as soon as I find out. I have to go,” Christopher spoke as he walked into the kitchen.
“Who was that?” I asked him.
“Hold on.” He put up his finger as his phone rang again. “Emily, darling, I was just going to call you. Was that tonight? Ugh. I’m so sorry, but I completely forgot. My parents had me busy all day doing work for them. I’m afraid tonight won’t work, so let’s set something up within the next couple days. Great, gotta run, my mom’s yelling for me.”
Kinsley and I looked at each other as Christopher made another call.
“Hey, baby, it’s me. “I’ll pick you up around eight o’clock. Can’t wait to see you either.”
“What the hell is going on?” Kinsley asked him.
“What?” He shrugged.
“Obviously, our son is juggling two girls at once.”
“Three, Dad. Emily, Katia, and Val.”
“Oh.” A grin crossed my face. “Three girls.” I glanced over at Kinsley.
“And you think that’s okay?” she asked Christopher.
“Why not? It’s not like I’m in a relationship with any of them. It’s all casual dating.”
“And you think just because you’re ‘casual dating,’ it’s okay to lie? Are you having sex with all of them?” Kinsley spoke sternly as she pointed her finger at him.
“Mom! Oh my God!”
“Don’t you oh my God me, Christopher Chase Calloway! Chase, talk to him!”
I sighed as I hooked my arm around him.
“Listen, son, believe me when I tell you, this will all catch up to you, and when it does, it’s not going to be pretty. Just be honest from the beginning with these girls, and if you’re having sex, you better be using a condom.”
“And, Chase?” Kinsley spoke.
“And you better make sure the girl is on birth control as well. If she’s not, double up the glove.” I winked.
“Dad, come on.”
“Your father and I used a condom and it broke,” Kinsley spoke. “And then came you.” Her brow arched.
“Okay. Okay, I get it. Do you realize how awkward it is talking to you about this?” Christopher spoke.
“I can only imagine, son. Now go have your date and be safe.”
Christopher started to walk out of the kitchen and Kinsley stopped him.
“Christopher.” She pointed to her cheek.
He walked over and gave her a kiss.
“I love you, Mom.”
“I love you too.” She smiled.
As soon as he left the kitchen, I walked over to Kinsley and wrapped my arms around her, pulling her into me.
“He can’t help it, sweetheart. He’s a Calloway and we Calloway men are natural born charmers.”
****
I was looking out the window at my beautiful family on the beach before I headed down to join them. Christopher was charming his way into the heart of yet another girl and Chanel and Camille were in the water with Kinsley. I smiled at what a lucky man I truly was. This was something I never envisioned for myself. I was nothin
g but a man who hid behind fear. Then Kinsley came along and changed all that. She set me free and I would never stop loving her.
I stepped out onto the patio, grabbed my surfboard, and ran down to the beach.
“Surf’s up, son. Let’s go!” I smiled as I ran past him.
“Sure thing, Dad. I’m right behind you!” He grabbed his board and followed behind.
I set my surfboard in the water and paddled up to Kinsley.
“I love you.” I leaned over and kissed her.
“I love you too.” She smiled.
About the Author
Sandi Lynn is a New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author who spends all her days writing. She published her first novel, Forever Black, in February 2013 and hasn’t stopped writing since. Her addictions are shopping, going to the gym, romance novels, coffee, chocolate, margaritas, and giving readers an escape to another world.
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