In his experience, middle-of-the-night guests rarely brought good news.
OH-JESUS-GOD-NO-NOT-HER-PLANE...
He ran to the front of the house, knocking over a lamp and a chair in his frantic race to the door and threw it open, heart pounding, steeling himself to see a teary-eyed Pam or Wendy there...or maybe they would send his brother...OH GOD...
It took him a few seconds to process who was actually standing on his porch, and then his heart simultaneously dropped and expanded.
Katie was here, on his doorstep. In Harper's Crossing, not in California. But this wasn't entirely happy news, because he could see that she was upset. Her eyes were puffy and her nose was bright red.
He pulled her to him and she wrapped her arms tightly around him.
“What’s wrong, are you OK?” He tried to not sound as alarmed as he felt.
She sniffed and nodded her head yes.
He pulled back slightly and cupped her face in his hands, wiping the tears that were falling down her cheeks with the pads of his thumbs.
“Baby, talk to me, why are you crying?”
“I don’t know why I’m still crying,” she laughed, but there was more frustration than humor in it, “It’s like I've opened a valve and I can’t shut it off. I’ve been like this for hours. It started when I rented a car at the airport and it hasn’t stopped since.”
“You’re upset because you missed your flight? That was hours ago, where have you been?” Jason asked. This wasn't making any sense and he needed to get some clarification on the subject.
“No, no,” Katie smiled and rolled her eyes a little and he felt his body relax, “I’m not crying because I missed my flight. I went to go visit Nick and then Grandpa J showed up. He wanted to tell Nick about the wedding.”
Katie swayed against him and he moved them to the couch and sat down pulling her onto his lap. She laid her head on his shoulder as he rubbed the palm of his hand up and down her back, waiting as patiently as he could for her to tell him what was going on. Her breathing got steadier and slower and he was just about to check to see if she had fallen asleep when she broke the silence.
“I’m not going back to San Francisco, Jas.”
He felt like his heart was going to jump out of his chest but he tried not to get too excited until he heard her out.
“I don’t mean ever. Obviously I have to go back to tie up loose ends like, oh I don't know...my CAREER,” she laughed a little, “and my apartment, things like that. But then I'm coming back.”
He still waited quietly to make sure that there wasn’t a catch. He needed to make sure that what he thought she was saying was what she was really saying.
When she didn’t continue, he figured he would have to move this along if he was going to get the answers he so desperately needed.
“When did you decide this?” he asked carefully.
“I was sitting at the terminal waiting for my flight and I started hyperventilating. I got my paper bag out and started repeating the mantra my therapist had suggested, but neither of those things made it any better. In fact, it seemed like they were making the symptoms worse. At first I thought it was just all the leftover anxiety from the weekend.”
“Why? What happened this weekend?” Jason asked innocently.
“Ha ha ha, real funny Jas,” She pursed her lips and tilted her head before swatting his arm and smiling. It was a smile that reached all the way to her eyes and he knew if he could just see that smile every day, he would be the luckiest man in the world.
“I kept telling myself that once I got home, to San Francisco, I would be able to sort everything out and make sense of it all. But every time I thought about getting on the plane to head back home, the panic attack got worse.
“I closed my eyes and tried to just will the panic attack to stop. No dice.
“Then, I heard your voice telling me it was going to be OK. I felt your arms around me, and I started calming down. Once it had completely stopped, I decided I would just do some work until it was time to board the plane. Work has always kept my mind off of things before. But not this time...nope. This time, instead of being my escape, it seemed to trigger another and even more intense panic attack.
“When I tried to calm down, the same thing happened. The only thing that stopped the attack was hearing your voice and imagining your arms around me. After I was breathing normally again, since I couldn’t work or think about going home because those seemed to be triggers, I thought about you, and about this weekend, and about what my life would be like if I was here...you know, not just to visit, but if I lived here.
“And then just like magic, my whole body relaxed and I knew that going back to California...” she barked out a short laugh again,” Well, it just wasn’t an option. This is where I belong, with you in Harper's Crossing. You’re my home Jason.”
“Hmmm,” he said lightly, trying to mask the ecstatic tone he would otherwise be using, “So, basically, you’re moving home because I'm the ‘Panic Attack Whisperer’ - is that right?”
Jason knew it was wrong to tease her but, honestly, he couldn’t help himself. Katie Marie Lawson irritated, was the cutest thing in the world to him.
She pursed her lips and tilted her head to the side while lifting her arm to swat at him. This time, however, he was ready for it and he caught her arm mid swing, using her own momentum to lift her up and lay her on the couch below him. He kissed her forehead, her cheeks, her lips. He needed her, he needed to touch her, to make sure that this wasn’t a dream, that his Katie was really home and was really his.
“You’re sure about this? You're really coming home?” He needed to hear it again. Just one more time.
She kissed him and smiled, a mischievous twinkle lighting up her eyes. She teased, “On one condition.”
“Anything,” He immediately shot back.
“Admit that you were the one who wrote on my name paper,” She looked at him with a satisfied expression, clearly feeling she was about to win a quarter-century long battle that they had been engaged in.
Well, she might win this battle but he had a plan to win the war.
“On one condition,” he countered.
Her gaze turned suspicious, “What?”
“Marry me.”
She stared at him, her expression frozen. Then he saw tears once again forming in her eyes.
He was just about to say, ‘never mind - forget the whole proposal thing – obviously too soon’ when her lips turned upward into a grin and she spoke one simple word.
“Yes.”
He felt like he had just won the lottery...well, not that he knew what that felt like but, God, there was no way that it could feel any better than this!
She looked at him, waiting for his response, and he couldn’t have been happier to give it to her.
“Yes, Kit Kat,” he admitted happily, “I was the one that wrote on your name paper.”
Her eyes grew wide and she gasped as she pointed her finger up at him, “I knew it!”
He laughed and kissed her, knowing without a shadow of a doubt that writing on her paper was the smartest thing he ever did.
Sneak Peak: My Last - Riley & Chelle
THE CROSSROADS SERIES
Coming July 2013
Sneak Peek from My Last
Chelle came awake to the sound of a beating drum. Why would someone be playing a drum indoors? Especially this loudly?
She tried to open her eyes, but found that her eyelids were encased in concrete. At least that was how it felt. They were heavy, and felt abrasive and itchy on her delicate eyes. She tried even harder to open them, but resigned herself to the fact that it was a losing battle.
If she could just get the drummer to stop banging!
She decided that she needed to sit up. Maybe that simple act would help her to open her eyes, to become aware of her surroundings. When she tried to lift her head, however, she realized her mistake. HUGE mistake! Her stomach rolled with nausea, and the banging sound became l
ouder and was accompanied by sharp pains – pains that felt like ragged shards of glass being twisted viciously into her brain.
Note to self: Vodka and pizza do not mix.
That's when she realized that there was no mystery drummer in the bedroom (although if she didn't feel so crappy, she may not have objected to having a mystery drummer in her bedroom...). The thump-thump-thumping she heard was the pounding of her own head.
She laid her head back down in defeat, but did come up with a plan. She decided that she would lay perfectly still long enough for the nausea to pass, and then maybe she would just try and ROLL out of bed. Gravity, FTW!
She carefully placed her hands over her stomach and concentrated on breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth.
“You awake sleeping beauty?”
At the sound of the deep voice, adrenaline overcame all of her symptoms and Chelle bolted upright in bed, her eyes flying open.
Adrenaline didn't help her vision, though, and it was pretty fuzzy. She was having a hard time focusing. She could just make out a shadowy figure sitting in the chair across from the bed. Just as she was getting ready to scream bloody murder, the figure spoke again.
“Chelle, its Riley. Don’t be scared.”
The deep sexy voice certainly sounded like Riley. From what she could make out of his features, the seated figure looked like (a blurry version of) Riley. The frame was right – the blurry blob had Riley's wide, muscled shoulders and taut, sculpted waist. The rest of the features fit, as well. She could barely make out dark blonde hair and sun-kissed tanned skin.
But what in God’s name would Riley Sloan be doing here!?
“Riley?” Chelle spoke his name in disbelief. Trying to make some sort of sense of what was going on, she asked, “Is it...what are you...why are you here?”
“Sightseeing.”
“What?” she asked, bewildered.
“Sightseeing,” he repeated.
“In my bedroom?” she murmured, puzzled. She rubbed her eyes, trying to clear her vision to see if he was really here, in the flesh. After all these years. Live and in person – and in a chair that sat only a few feet away from her.
Was it true? Or was he just a smoking hot hallucination?
Probably the latter, she concluded.
She was most likely experiencing the final stages of her complete and total mental melt down.
Well, she thought sanguinely, I can think of worse ways to lose my mind than imagining the sexiest man in the world in my bedroom with me. If I have to go crazy, at least I have company.
Or, at least I'm imagining I do...
The figment of her imagination smiled at her and said, “Jason called me. Katie was worried about you. She's been trying to get a hold of you for a few days. When she wasn’t able to reach you, she wanted to come home early to check on you. But, since I was already in California, they asked if I could stop by and make sure that you were OK.”
Ok, so maybe not a figment of her addled imagination. She didn't imagine that some sexy hallucination she conjured up would sit there talking to her about phone calls and plane schedules.
She said, “I haven’t gotten any calls from her.” She reached over to retrieve her phone from the nightstand but her arms were so heavy that she didn’t quite make it.
“Your phone was dead. It’s charging in the kitchen.”
She tried to get out of bed, fueled by new urgency, saying, “I need to go call her.”
However, it seemed that even new urgency was not enough to overcome physical deficits, and this proved to be much trickier than she had assumed it would be. The blankets she lay in were wrapped around her tightly, and try as she might to free her arms and legs, it felt as though her limbs were filled with lead. She was having a tough time disentangling herself.
Riley stood and stepped towards her. She stopped writhing and just stared. Good LORD that was a mighty fine male specimen moving toward her! Riley was wearing a white v-neck t-shirt that he filled out like one of the models she used to drool over on the Calvin Klein billboards. (Well, to be fair, she'd actually drooled over them because they reminded her of Riley...)
He looked like a Greek God in jeans.
He stood beside her bed, “I already called them last night after I got here, and I let them know that you were OK.”
He picked up a bottle of water that she hadn’t noticed was sitting on the night stand.
“You got here last night?” she asked incredulously as he twisted the cap and handed the bottle to her. She took the proffered bottle and, as she did, her fingers brushed his.
Her body reacted as if she had gotten an electric shock. A zinging sensation raced from the pads of her fingertips where she had felt his hand beneath hers and zoomed all the way up her arm. She shivered.
Trying to cover up her completely out of proportion physical reaction to this innocent touch, she quickly brought the water bottle to her lips and started sipping from it. She had no idea if she had, in fact, been successful in concealing her reaction. Maybe he'd think she'd been...thirsty? It was worth a shot. When she looked up at him, he DID seem to have a small smirk on his lips. But she could have been imagining it.
“Yes, I got here last night. The landlord let me in. I tried to wake you, but you were passed out cold.”
“Where did you sleep?” she asked as she took another small sip of water. She definitely felt a little dehydrated...in addition to all of the other things that she was definitely feeling.
“I didn’t,” he answered matter-of-factly.
Her brow furrowed, “You didn’t sleep?”
He simply shook his head.
“At all?”
He shook his head again.
Chelle knew that she was still a little (OK, maybe a lot) foggy-brained...but that simply didn’t make any sense. She was certain she would be having the same reaction even if she were clear-headed. Why in the world would he not sleep?
Well, she thought dryly, only one way to find out.
“Why didn’t you sleep?”
“I didn’t want you to wake up and be scared that some guy was in the apartment. Plus, I didn’t know how much you had drunk, so I wanted to make sure you were alright.”
“So you just watched me sleep,” she smiled sheepishly before taking another drink of water, “Sorry that must have been boring.”
His voice dropped an octave and there was almost a growl to it as he said softly, “No, it wasn’t.”
She shivered again, this time solely from the baritone vibrations of his voice. Her eyes shot up to meet his. He looked down at her, his gaze intense and…hot. She felt a tightening in her stomach (and a fluttering a little farther south) from just the expression in his eyes alone.
Wow. He had such amazing eyes.
It was almost as if she could lose herself in them, they were deep and always held so much emotion. She had forgotten what looking into them made her feel. It was like when you didn't eat a favorite food for several years. Obviously, you remembered how much you loved it, but the passing of time makes that memory almost academic.
Until, of course, you taste it again. Then, the flavors hitting your taste buds bring all the memories of every time you ever tasted that food flooding back to you at once, all the emotion connected to it, and you truly remember how much you loved it. And you're amazed that you could have ever forgotten.
When you put a forkful of that long-forgotten favorite food into your mouth again, it was like a mouth orgasm. This was like that. But with eyes. It was an eye orgasm. An eyegasm, if you will.
She felt her breath begin to quicken.
Riley took a step back from the side of the bed and cleared his throat. “Why don’t you take a shower or a bath or whatever and I’ll go make some breakfast.”
He turned and started towards the bedroom door, walking with purpose.
“Umm, I’m not sure there’s anything to make.”
He stopped mid-exit. Without turning back to face her, he
said lightly, “Then I’ll go down to the market on the corner. Do you have any requests?”
Riley stood perfectly still and Chelle took a moment to appreciate the view from the back. Man, he looked as good going as he did coming. His back muscles were taut beneath the thin white cotton of his t-shirt, and HOLY MOLY, he had a perfect rear-end. He had the kind of physique that people carved marble statues of.
It really wasn’t fair for one man to be that insanely hot.
“Chelle?” He turned back towards her, and she realized belatedly that she had let the silence go on an uncomfortably long time.
She immediately shot her gaze up to his face, her eyes becoming as big as saucers. Embarrassment caused heat to race up her face, coloring her cheeks a deep red, she was sure.
She was pretty certain that he had caught her staring at his backside, but he didn’t make a comment about it.
“Huh?” she asked innocently.
“What sounds good for breakfast?”
The corners of his lips twitched as though he was trying to suppress a smile.
Well, even if she had been caught, at least Riley was too much of a gentleman to call her out on it.
“Oh, right. Umm, yeah. If you could just get me some orange juice and maybe bread for toast that would be good,” she stammered. She wasn’t sure if her stomach could handle much more than that.
“Got it,” he smiled and walked out of the room, shutting the door behind him – but not before he favored her with a small wink. She smiled weakly. So, he had seen.
She flopped back on the bed, letting out a loud groan as she covered her face.
“Oh, and Chelle?” she heard him say as the door cracked back open.
She popped back up into a sitting position, and said, “Yes?” in as non-nonchalant a tone as she could manage.
“Take a picture next time,” he said, a light teasing tone playing at the edges of his voice, “It'll last longer.”
Sneak Peak: Scandalous
RED HOT PRIVATE EYE SERIES
Novella
Coming June 2013
Sneak Peek from Scandalous
As Dominic and Cristal were escorted to their table by a bubbly blond waitress, Dominic tried desperately to get his body under control. Walking around with a hard on in a crowded restaurant was as uncomfortable as it was inappropriate. His valiant efforts paid off. He had just managed to lower the flagpole when they arrived at their designated table.
My First (Jason & Katie) Page 26