Pursuing Sarah (Sarah Series Book 2)

by Julieann Dove

  “I hope everyone didn’t pile here who was in that horrible meeting. Say, did anyone see Michael?”

  “I didn’t.” I wondered where he was.

  “What’s going on there? I haven’t seen or heard from him in weeks.”

  “He’s been staying with his brother.” At least I knew that much.

  “He transferred to New Springs High,” Carter said quietly.

  I turned around. “What? He’s not teaching at Calvert anymore? How long have you known?”

  “He turned in his notice a couple of weeks ago. I thought you all knew.”

  “No.” I suddenly felt like I had to reach out to him. I’d dropped off the planet, it seemed. But then again, I felt I was on restriction from seeing him because of my friendship with Maggie. Divorces were so complicated. Not only kids had to pick a side, but friends did, too. I didn’t like it at all.

  “What?” Carter poked me in the side. “He didn’t call and tell you? Aren’t you close with him?”

  I noted a tone when he asked. “We sort of went in two directions.”

  “Hmm.”

  I side-turned and gave him a look. Finally we were at Mac’s. It was busy. We stood in the front, waiting for someone to get up and leave. Liz went to the bathroom.

  “I’m sorry for my comment about Michael.” Carter leaned against the wall.

  “It’s nothing.”

  “I guess you could say that was another sign that I sensed I had a thing for you.”

  “What?” My octave climbed.

  “You and Michael. Don’t deny it, either. There was something going on. Maggie even said.”

  “Maggie was confused.”

  “So there wasn’t?”

  I paused before I answered. “There was a deep friendship. That’s all.”

  “I see. And was it true about what Liz said? You cried over Sam?” He stepped closer to me, talking as though we weren’t standing in the walkway of people streaming in and out of a crowded burger joint. “Tell me now, Sarah. Because if you’re hungover with this guy, I don’t want to step in and be a rebound. If there’s something that could happen—”

  “What about you?”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah, this isn’t exactly the first or second time you broke it off with Paige.”

  “In fact, it is. All the other times was her.”

  “Well.”

  “Well.” He stepped back, making room for an older woman to sludge by with her grandson.

  They cleared the way and I moved back to stand face-to-face. “Sam is my ex-husband. I’m here. With you. If you still want me to circle yes.”

  “Of course I do. I don’t just go and send those important texts to just anyone, you know.”

  Liz flailed her arms, trying to grab our attention for an empty table. We strolled through the elbows and pushed-out chairs to finally sit down and grab a bite to eat. Although my stomach was feeling a little teenager-ish. Especially after the little talk Carter and I had just had. Life was good.

  Did I say life was good? The burger was good. It was amazing. In fact, I didn’t realize how hungry I was. I envied Liz’s onions. But I didn’t want to take a chance, just in case I did get one of those kisses I’d dreamed of getting since the moment I saw Carter in his purple tie that morning. He was amazingly handsome both in the boardroom and in the backyard.

  “So, Liz.” I swallowed, placing my half-eaten burger back on the plate. “Your news about Rick was something…something else, in fact.” I was still reeling from the revelation. Hanging on to the edge of my seat to see how she’d wriggle out of it.

  “Tell me about it.” She smoothed the paper napkin that sat on the table.

  “Maybe we could do a double date or something? You’ll never guess who I’m going to bring.” I bit my lip, hoping Carter would be on board. Perhaps we could get back to those Sunday meals. Hope clicked its heels in my heart. Finally.

  Her stare went from me to the back of the room. Seriously? Couldn’t she for once in her life, let me talk and get her full attention?

  “Earth to Liz?” I waved my hand.

  “I think I know who.”

  “There’s no way you know who.” I glanced at Carter. He seemed oblivious.

  “Does he have sandy-blonde hair, wear a Rolex, and look like Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned around. All the blood drained from my head and pooled at my feet. Which now felt as heavy as concrete. Stuck to the floor.

  “Sam?” My heart revved.

  His smile beamed. He was holding a dozen pink roses. Baby’s breath was pushed up between the stems. “Sarah, I found you. It wasn’t easy.” He appeared out of breath.

  I stood. “What are you doing here?”

  He handed me the roses. “Can we talk?”

  I looked back at the table. Carter resembled one of the rocks I had lying in my driveway. Liz grinned like a hillbilly who just got her first taste of moonshine.

  “Guys, I’ll be right back.”

  “Take your time,” Liz blurted out. “By the way, I’m Liz.”

  Sam reached out and shook her hand. “Sam. Nice to meet you, Liz.”

  Carter said nothing.

  I pushed in my chair and weaved through the busy place and out to the sidewalk.

  I made sure we were out of sight from the front window of the restaurant. We stopped walking when we finally reached the lawn of Mrs. Peterson. She was one of the last residents living on the commercial block of downtown. The whole way there I trembled. What was Sam Turner doing in Calvert, Colorado?

  I dropped the roses to my side and waited for some earth-shattering question to exit my mouth. Something without profanity, shock, or disbelief. They, after all, would be understood in a matter such as this.

  “I remembered you sent me to that restaurant for lunch when we visited your dad. Luckily, because when you weren’t at your school, I wasn’t sure where you could be. I tried searching online for your home address.”

  “What are you doing here, Sam?”

  “Does someone live here?” He looked around the perfectly manicured lawn toward the bench Mrs. Peterson had in the rose garden. “Can we have a seat?”

  “I guess.” I looked around for someone to come out and yell for us to get off their lawn. When we reached the bench, I cautiously sat down.

  He sat beside me, a faint smile on his lips. He picked something off my dress and gently rubbed my leg. “Hello.” He smiled. It was how he looked the morning after we slept together as a married couple. With a tad bit of sheepishness behind it.

  “Hi.” What in the world?

  “You look amazing today. I love your hair.”

  I was wearing it pulled back in a band. Something I used to do in college. I was feeling particularly spry today with my pending lunch date with Carter. Little did I know what the side show would be. And I thought Liz was a buzzkill.

  “Thanks,” I said, touching it. “Sam, tell me what you’re doing here.”

  “I missed you.”

  I took a deep breath. Oh boy.

  “Is Sophie better? Where is she?”

  “She’s with Stan and Caitlyn. And yes, she’s much better. Thanks to you.”

  “No, thanks to the medicine.” I looked down at the roses beside me on the bench. They were gorgeous. “Thanks for the roses, Sam.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  My eyes darted from Mrs. Peterson’s rosebush to her box of geraniums. “I’m not sure what to say.”

  “Hear me out.”

  “Okay.”

  “After you left…” His gaze left mine and trailed to the grass. “After you left, I sat there kicking myself. Thinking, ‘You fool, you let her go again.’”

  “Sam—”

  “No, Sarah. Let me finish.” He edged closer. “When I watched you walk out, it was five years ago all over again. Of course, I wasn’t left with a crazy lady standing in
my living room.”

  My eyes went to the ground.

  “And I realized last night—hell, I realized six years ago—that I shouldn’t have let you go. Not then, and not the other night.”

  I sighed. My breathing was constricted. My ribcage felt a little more snug the more he kept talking, and the sun beat down on my scalp.

  “Sarah.” He took my hand. “I don’t want to spend the next six years kicking myself, remembering your face before you turned to leave, feeling the hole left inside me when you did.”

  “Sam, you have Jo-Ann.”

  He squeezed my hand, peering into my eyes. “Jo-Ann isn’t you. She’s not even in the same league as you, Sarah. She’s a woman who for the past year has been making my house her layover for other places to travel. You heard Sophie—she just doesn’t fit into things. Not like you. You naturally fit.” He shifted his body to face mine. “You walk into the house and it’s as though you never left. And I’m sitting there thinking, my God, what kind of man am I to let you walk back out of it without doing anything.”

  “Sam—”

  “No, Sarah. I realize you have a life here now, and I realize you’ve maybe moved on. Hell, I know you’ve moved on. Look at you.” He scanned my body. “You’re amazingly beautiful, you’ve got a kick-ass job, you’ve got friends.” He pointed down the block, back toward the restaurant. “But I know your life could be more. I know I could make it more. You here, single, it doesn’t make sense. Especially when I’m in Charleston pining away for you.”

  I grabbed my neck, and bit my lip.

  “You’re all I’ve thought about, Sarah. And I’m here…in Colorado…begging for that second chance. To date you, to woo you, to make you fall in love with me, as much as I have fallen—again—in love with you.”

  “Sam, it was one night. You slept on a chair, and I slept on a sofa.”

  “It’s the best night I’ve had in years.” He wiggled to get closer. “Knowing you were within reach, knowing I could try again, and maybe you’d be open to it.” He lowered his head. “Realizing how my feelings for you never left.”

  I pulled back, even reclaiming my hand. I felt woozy. The sun continued to beat on me.

  “Sam…”

  I actually stood. He did, too.

  I crooked my jaw, trying to stave the nausea I felt coming on. “Sam, it would never work.”

  “There’s two main components that can ever stop it from happening. That’s you and me. Geography is the gravy, if that’s what you’re concerned about.” He looked around. “Who knows, I could stand a change of scenery. It’s beautiful here.”

  “Listen to you.” I pushed on his chest. “Charleston is your life. It’s where your business is, where Sophie only knows.”

  “She’d give it all up for the chance to live where you are, Sarah.”

  I took a step away from him. “Sam, you’re wrong. There is a component that can stop this from happening. Something I understood from the moment the notion of you crept back into my mind. And because of it, we couldn’t stand a chance.”

  “Now you have me worried. What are you talking about?”

  I turned to face him with my head hung. “I have a little girl.”

  His nose scrunched. “But you said you weren’t…” His face relaxed. “That’s okay. Did you get married again? I don’t understand why you didn’t want to tell me. But it doesn’t change things. Where is she? Is your ex involved? Oh, is that why you can’t move? Does he share custody? Whatever it takes, Sarah, know that—”

  “She’s turning five, Sam.”

  He stopped. “Okay.”

  He wasn’t getting it.

  “Five? Did you move here and…” His eyes darted. “Five?”

  “Yes, five. Her name is Rose. I named her after my mother.”

  “Five?” As if he was triple-checking, running numbers through his head. “You’ve only been gone a little over five years.”

  “She’s yours, Sam.”

  His eyes enlarged and he collapsed on the bench. I took a seat next to him, his eyes still stuck somewhere in the thousands of blades of grass.

  “I didn’t know when I left.”

  “And when you found out? Why didn’t you call? Why…why…?” He shook his head and leaned on his knees, appearing to gasp for air. “Sarah…”

  I positioned myself to face him, touching his arm. “Sam, I was scared, freaked out, alone. My dad just died, you just hit me with Gennifer, and we were getting a divorce. I had no one. No one, Sam.” My lips trembled. “Then, out of nowhere, a doctor tells me I have someone. And I guarded her with all I had.” I reached out to him again, his head still buried in his hands. “Sam, I couldn’t let her go to Gennifer. I would’ve told you in a second, but I knew you had her. And the five of you were happy. She was clinically insane, but whatever, you had a family. To tell you about Rose would be nothing. Just another kid to find where to sleep on visits. But for me…” I grabbed my chest. “She was all I had.”

  “You had no right to keep this from me, Sarah. Knowing what you did about Gennifer especially. Knowing what I went through with her about Sophie. And then you? Keeping my daughter from me?” He scooted away from me. “How could you?”

  “I don’t know. It was easy, I guess. And then it wasn’t. As she gets older, I realize she needs to know something.”

  “She deserves to know. I deserved to know. How did you think this was right?”

  I shrunk back in to the bench. I could feel the vibration of my phone. “It was my way of protecting her.”

  “Protecting her from knowing who her father was? Are you kidding? No, you were protecting her for yourself.” He jumped up.

  “I’m sorry, Sam.”

  He squeezed his temples and began to pace. “I’m so…I’m so shocked. I’m in shock. Just when I thought getting rid of Gennifer would put peace in my life, I’ve been rocked by someone else who chose a lie over the truth.”

  “Don’t compare me to her.” Anger flared my nostrils.

  “Do you think you’re different?”

  “Yes. I claim my daughter. I love her with all that I am.”

  “So much that you deny her knowing who her father is. Me, who could give her more love than she’d know what to do with? Did you think I was doing such a terrible job with Sophie that you didn’t want to tell me?”

  “I told you, at the time you were with Gennifer, and I didn’t want Rose anywhere near her. And you had a family, Sam. I had no one.”

  He took a deep breath. “Where is she?”

  “She’s in Florida. She went with Aunt Heidi to Disney.”

  “When does she get back?”

  “Why?”

  “Sarah, when does she get back?”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I would like to meet her, if that’s okay with you. I’d like to introduce myself as her father. Fill in the missing gaps. Maybe have a relationship.”

  “I would like to tell her first.”

  “I’m not sure you’re capable.”

  I put my hand on my hip. “Sam, I told you—”

  “You told me nothing, Sarah. Of all people, I would’ve never expected this from you. This is the world…it’s more than the world, in fact. We had a child together, and you didn’t think that was anything important to tell me. She’s our child, Sarah. Ours.”

  “I know. I know.” I held my head. It was about to burst open.

  “Does she ask about who her father is?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you still don’t think it’s wise to tell her? Are you serious?”

  “You make this out like…like…I had a choice.”

  “You did, and you chose wrong.”

  I lowered my head.

  “When does she get back?”

  “Four o’clock.”

  “Give me your address. I’d like to come over tonight. I have to fly back tomorrow for a meeting.”

  “Sam—”

  “Sarah, don’t you think
it’s about time?” He stared into my eyes.

  “897 Pine Street. But please give me a little time to prepare her.”

  “I’ll be there at seven.” He walked off down the street.

  I saw him shaking his head a few times. I plopped back down on the bench and saw Mrs. Peterson move the curtain back from her front window. I looked down at the pink roses and closed my eyes. In a span of one weekend, my life was unrecognizable. I would forever hate seven o’clock.

  Carter finally picked up the phone. I’d been trying to call since my breakdown. After Sam left, I went home and cried my eyes out, looking at baby pictures of Rose. How does someone ever repair years of damage? There are no winners. I know that if I’d told him…no, I don’t know what would have happened. All I do know is I had reason for not telling him, and now none of that mattered.

  “Hello.”

  I slouched in the hard-backed blue chair I’d been occupying for the last hour, and bit my nail. “Hey.”

  “Sarah, I—”

  “No, you don’t have to say anything.”

  “Obviously, I’m not there with you. I just—”

  “It’s fine. I realize what a circus that must have seemed like at lunch. I’m really sorry.”

  “So that was Sam?”

  “That was Sam.”

  “Funny, I imagined something completely different.”

  “How?”

  “For starters, remove his front teeth, stretch on a beer belly, and maybe a neck tattoo.”

  “What?” I screeched. “Are you serious?”

  “As a heart attack. Well, okay, not the front teeth. I imagined rotten ones.”

  “Gee, thanks. Who exactly do you think I dated?”

  “When you said you didn’t tell him about Rose for her protection, I just assumed he was in a motorcycle gang. Or had ties to the Mafia. Not a guy who shows up in Dockers and an Izod shirt, wielding a dozen roses.”

  I pressed my eyes shut, trying not to relive the moment. The very second my world crumpled.