by Leanne Davis
Air escaped her lungs as her anger left and grief settled like physical weight over her shoulders. As with Trent, her parents had a point of view in this too. She should have told them she was pregnant. She should have told them about Jason, and then maybe they wouldn’t have tried to protect her from him. Jason had asked her to tell them and she had refused him. She hung her head. She should have done everything different, from the first time she met Jason. She should have been open and honest, with first herself and then everyone else.
“But you didn’t tell me he came to the hospital,” she whispered in defeat. That knowledge would have changed the course of the last six months; she was sure of it.
Her mother gently reached out and pulled her into her arms. She patted Christine’s back in soothing strokes. “Jason came to see you. He was there. He was pacing and scowling and upset. I was intimidated by him. I thought he had used you. Now I think what I saw was his grief for you.”
Christine wiped at her eyes. She stepped back from her mom. “Everything changed after I got home from the hospital. It was like we were a close, happy family again. You loved me easily, unconditionally, and now I find out it’s all a lie?”
Aaron shook his head. He grabbed her other hand. “Not a lie. None of that was a lie. Please, don’t leave here in anger again. Don’t. Let’s work this out. Let’s be the family you always wanted, and the one I want us to be, too.”
She held his gaze. “You can never lie to me like this again.”
“Agreed. But you can’t leave us so in the dark again.”
She held their gazes. “Are you sure? You want to know what I really think and feel?”
They exchanged a long, deep look and then slowly nodded.
“I think I want to keep on living in Almstad. I think someday I might want to work closer with Dad. But not now, and not yet. I like being where I am.”
They nodded their heads a long with her. “And I might still be in love with Jason.”
Aaron let out his breath through his teeth. “I was afraid that’s where this was all going. The thing is I might have made it all worse.”
“How could it be worse?”
He shuffled his feet around and cleared his throat. “I tried to sabotage his business. I succeeded, just a little bit. I had some unpleasant words with him after we saw him at The Mill.”
“You... what? You sabotaged him?” She shut her eyes in complete horror. Holy Christ, what had her family done to Jason? And more to the point, what she had done to him?
Aaron and Kay were silent for a long moment. Then Aaron suddenly turned and started searching around the counter. His uncharacteristic fumbling forced her attention. She scrunched her face up in confusion. What was he doing?
“Let’s go.” He held up his key ring in triumph.
Her head was spinning and aching. Go where? What was there to do but curl in a ball and cry about everything that had gone so wrong?
“Let’s go find Jason Malone and apologize to him.”
Her mouth dropped open and she stared in speechless shock at her father. He was smiling. He grabbed her hand and tugged her forward. “The way I see it, we can sit here rehashing this together, or go do it with him. You just told us you’re in love with him. So I think it’s time we met this man. And perhaps, I might possibly owe him an apology.”
“Meet him? Apologize to him?”
Her father raised his eyebrows. “You have never introduced us to the man you think you love. Don’t you think you should do that?”
She pulled her hand out of her dad’s. “He’ll never forgive me... or hell, you. All of us. There is no way.”
“You know, I’ve been pretty successful in my professional life.”
She scoffed. “Duh. I think that’s half our problem.”
He smiled. “Well, I know one thing, Christine; you never know something unless you ask. Let’s go ask.”
“We?”
“We all did this. Let’s all go fix it.”
“How?” She was nearly screeching. “How can we fix this?”
Aaron grinned. “You can convince him. He wants to be convinced.”
“How do you know?”
“I just know. Come on. You talk to him, and then maybe we’ll all go out to dinner together. Like we should have done six months ago.”
“You want to go out to dinner? Are you crazy? Have you listened to all this? And I’m angry at both of you.”
Kay clutched her hand. “It’s well deserved. But let’s not go back to what we were before you fell. I think we all agree, it was a profound wake-up call that changed us all for the better.”
Christine crossed her arms over her chest. “I doubt this will work. But we might as well try.”
****
Jason was in middle of touching up a dent on the fender of a sedan when a flash of color caught his eye. He pushed his hat back and blinked. Holy shit. His heart might stop. He pressed a hand to chest to keep it steady.
Christine stood across the garage bay, staring right at him.
She wore jeans and a pink sweater. Her hair was pulled back in a long ponytail. She had not a hint of make-up on. She appeared completely different than last night. He narrowed his gaze. He was sure those were dried tracks of tears on her cheeks. What had happened?
She visibly swallowed and stepped closer to him. He didn’t move. He was inert with shock, with overwhelming emotion. With wanting to go see her. But no... no, he could not go see her. He had hurt her. He had destroyed her. He had told her to not have a baby she then lost seven days later. He deserved her scorn and rage.
She stopped dead five feet from him. The fender that rested on two saw horses was between them. Clangs and the grinding of miscellaneous tools rang through the shop. The guys called out or sang with the radio that played in the back ground.
“I was hoping to talk to you.”
His throat was sandpaper. He gazed at her blankly. “I’m working.”
She smiled softly. “I know. I can wait to talk to you.”
He shook his head. “You don’t have to wait. What is it?”
She took a breath. She didn’t speak for almost an entire minute. Her gaze stayed pinned on him. Agitation started to rise in his chest. What was going on?
“You were there. You came to the hospital.”
He felt like gripping the car hood to stabilize himself. Why was she here? What did she mean? What was this? His emotions were a tidal wave, nearly blinding him and buzzing crazily in his head.
She licked her lips. Was she nervous? No, couldn’t be. What would Christine have to ever be nervous about? “The thing is, I didn’t know you came.”
Were they talking about when she miscarried? Yes, of course she was. There was no other time. But he couldn’t figure out what she meant. “I don’t understand.”
“I didn’t either until last night. They all told me you were told I’d fallen and miscarried and that you hadn’t bothered to come to the hospital. That you were not ever going to come. Trent, Terry, Peggy, and my own parents. They all told me that.”
He dropped the paint can he’d been holding.
He punched a fist into the car’s hood. His hand instantly started throbbing. “Fuck!” He shook his hand out, unsure if he was swearing at the pain or the people who had caused it.
She stepped back. Tears filled her eyes. “I didn’t know you came to the hospital, Jason. I hated you because I simply thought you were glad I’d miscarried. I should have known better. I should never have believed you’d be that heartless. I knew better. I did. I knew you were not like that. I just... forgot for awhile. I was wrapped up in how awful I felt. I just—”
He shook his head and fisted and unfisted his hand. He’d deserve it if he’d broken it. His stupidity was spectacular. He took in a deep, shuddering breath. “No. Of course you believed it. Of course they said that. I told you to get rid of the baby. That you could believe that of me is my fault. I did that. What parents would want a guy like me near their
daughter? Of course they did that.”
Silence hung thick and unpleasant. She stared at his hand and then at the paint splattered all over the concrete floor. He’d be there for hours cleaning it. She lowered her head and more tears slid down off her face. “Did you love me? Just tell me that. Did you love me?”
He jerked back. His mouth stayed open for thirty seconds. She raised her gaze up slowly. “Start there. Please, just be honest with me. No more games. Did you love me?”
He should lie. He should tell her some cold, callous answer. Opening himself up to this is what had started all this pain in his gut. But... he couldn’t. He couldn’t look into her eyes and lie to her.
“Maybe.”
She smiled slowly as she nodded. “Do you still smoke?”
Confused, he crossed his arms over his chest. What the hell? Where was she going with all this? “No. I quit.”
She closed her eyes and opened them again. “Did you quit for me?”
He tapped a finger on his arm. So what if he did? It had been something constructive he could do when his entire life and heart were melting down. “So what if I did?”
A soft, slow smile started to spread over her lips. “Do you still love me?”
He closed his eyes. Did he dare? How could he admit it to her? It would give her all the power in the world over him. She could fully destroy him beyond the partial damage that she had already done. She stepped around the fender and right next to him. She touched his hand. It still throbbed from being a jackass and hitting a car he’d have to fix the dent on. “Do you?”
“Maybe.” There, he didn’t lie. He didn’t outright give her his complete life.
“I might love you still too.”
He jerked his gaze off his shoes. A soft smile hovered on her lips. “What about all this? What I said to you? Everything went wrong. Why wouldn’t it again?”
“Because this time we don’t let everyone else get between us by way of lies and hiding. This time, everything is out in the open. All of it is for real.”
He shook his head and stepped back from her. He didn’t believe her. “I still said those things to you. Regardless of how wrong your family and mine was, I still did that.”
She sighed heavily. “You did. I’m pretty sure you were very angry and didn’t mean most it. I mean, did you want me to miscarry?”
“Not once it happened. No. I just didn’t want you to have Trent’s baby.”
She reached her hand out and gripped his fingers dangling at his side. He jerked in surprise. “I don’t think that makes you wrong. It was an awful situation.”
He slowly lifted his hand to accept hers. He stared down at the pale-pink polished fingernails. “I didn’t want you to miscarry. I didn’t want you to hurt in any way. I wanted to tell you a thousand times how sorry I was about the things I said to you. I didn’t mean it. Not like I said it.”
“I know. A lot of things happened that neither of us meant to. But some things were what I’d been waiting for my entire life.” He looked into her eyes. She shook her head. “I hear my father did some things to you.”
He shrugged. “Nothing I wouldn’t have done if I were him.”
“You didn’t deserve it. You don’t deserve blatant disregard from people who know nothing about you. I’m sorry for that. If I had just told them about you, none of that would have happened. I hold a huge amount of blame in this too.”
“How did you figure this all out?”
“Trent. Trent told me.”
“Trent? What? After all this time, why did he tell you?”
“He met someone. She made it clear if he was really over me and everything that happened, then he wouldn’t keep this from me. I’m really, really glad he met someone.”
He tilted his neck back. Was she really standing in front of him saying all this?
“Do you remember the first time we kissed?”
He slowly lowered his gaze to meet hers. His eyebrows scrunched up in confusion.
“As if I’d forget,” he mumbled, puzzled. Where was she going with this?
“Do you remember what you asked me?”
He frowned. Where was she going with this? Surely she couldn’t be referring to call me if you want to fuck? He flinched remembering how he had wanted to shock her.
“I recall pretty vividly.”
She grinned. “The first part you asked me. You asked me to come home with you. I think I’m ready to do that. I’d like to come home with you tonight, Jason Malone. Maybe I’d even like to stay there forever.”
His entire body froze. His heart ached and dropped into his stomach. His throat closed off. She could not mean this. This could not be happening. This didn’t happen to him. Nothing real or permanent—or hell, even good—happened to him.
Except... she was smiling up at him. Her eyes were misty in tears. She was putting her arms around his waist. He lowered his hands to her shoulders and finally her waist cautious-like, ready for her to stomp on his foot or spin around and flip him off. Instead, she merely rested her head against his chest. He raised a hand to her hair and stroked it. She full-on leaned into him.
“You could try it again.”
“What?”
“Kissing me. I think it’s time we did that again.”
He twirled her around so her back was against the car. She exclaimed in surprise as he lifted her off her toes and up close to fit along his body. He lowered his head and kissed her until she let his tongue in.
She squirmed and finally laughed against his lips, talking in a disjointed mess. His heart blipped strangely in his chest. What was that? It felt nice. It felt something like happiness. Yeah, it was. The way she giggled when he ignored her exclamations and kept nibbling her lips made his heart lift in something like joy. Lightness. Love. Yeah, damn it. He loved her. He lifted his lips off hers. “I don’t remember you laughing the first time I did that.”
“My parents weren’t watching the first time you did that.”
He let her go so fast she plopped back down to her feet. He whipped around in horror. No shit, there sat her parents across the lot in their pimped-out SUV. What? Why? Why were her parents here watching this? He shut his eyes in horror. He’d just nearly mauled their daughter in public. They were never ever going to like him.
She tugged his hand and pulled it into hers. She turned his face so he was forced to stare into her eyes. “It’s okay, Jason. It’s okay that you love me. And that I love you. It’s okay if we’re a couple. It’s okay if we kiss. There is no reason we can’t. There is never again going to be a reason why it isn’t okay if we kiss each other. You’re no longer the forgotten son, the ex-convict who isn’t good enough for me. And I’m no longer engaged to your brother. In fact, we have your brother to thank for figuring this out. So, it’s okay. Everything is finally okay.”
He looked at her parents’ vehicle and then back to her face. Her eyes were bright with conviction. She touched his hand again. He nodded slowly. Indeed, he wasn’t the forgotten bastard ex-con anymore. He was not. He was a respectable business owner. He was in love with their daughter. And she was right; there was no shame in it. Not anymore.
She cupped his chin and smiled. “Now, would you like to come and have dinner with my parents? They have some apologizing they’d like to do... and I’d like to hear. Maybe then we could all start over. Fresh. Maybe start something that will last forever.”
He tightened his grip around her waist. He pulled her in closer and buried his face in her hair before he took in a long, happy breath. “I don’t think there’s anything I’ve ever wanted to do more than have dinner with your family.”
She smiled and led him to her parents’ waiting SUV and unbelievably, both Kay and Aaron Andrews smiled warmly as he got into their vehicle, holding their daughter’s hand.
****
They entered the restaurant at precisely seven o’clock. They walked together to the table, holding hands. The couple they were meeting was already seated, but stood at th
eir entrance.
“Christine, I’d like you to meet Chelsey. Chelsey, this is Christine and... my brother Jason.”
Jason stared at Trent across the linen-draped table. Trent held his gaze. Finally, slowly, Jason smiled slightly and extended a hand to Trent. Trent slid his hand off his date and hung his arm out so their hands clasped halfway over the table.
Christine exhaled slowly. Finally, a God damned conversation was about to start. She smiled warmly at the girl she’d just met, but who seemed to exactly understand what Christine’s smile was all about. She was a tall, willowy girl with blonde hair, thick glasses, and a wide, infectious smile. She leaned in to Christine with a grin and mischievous glint in her eyes. “I’m very happy to meet you both. I’ve heard a lot about you all.”
Christine let out a laugh. It was too loud for the dimly lit, stuffy restaurant. They all four exchanged a look. Yes, there had been a lot to tell about them. At her laugh, the entire group seemed to let out a collective breath and they all sat down and began a discussion about what was the best choice of alcohol to order off the menu at The Mill.
###
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