by Jenny Lyn
“Why didn’t you wake me?”
“I didn’t know what to say. I was furious and embarrassed over what my dad had done. And then on top of that my mom is cracking up. My family was falling apart, and I didn’t know how to fix it.”
“We could’ve at least talked about it, tried to figure something out together.”
“That’s just it, honey. My life had been turned upside down. There were no choices left for me, but you had them. A bright future. You worked so hard to get into medical school, and I wasn’t about to fuck that up. And it would have in some way, and I couldn’t do that to you. I knew my leaving was going to hurt both of us badly, but at least it was a clean break. It left you with no distractions.”
Tate gave his hand a tug, and he slid onto the couch, wrapping his arms around her. “I understand why you did it now,” she whispered, her throat swollen with emotion.
“I don’t think you’ll ever know how hard it was for me to walk out of your life, Tate. I picked up the phone a dozen times that night on the drive back to Birmingham, but I just kept reminding myself it was for the best. That you deserved better. You’d be confused when you woke up, then later angry, probably hate me for it, and then more determined than ever to succeed.”
She laughed softly. “You were right about most of that, but I never hated you.”
“I hated myself enough for the both of us. Trust me when I say there were a few self-pitying years where you would not have wanted to be anywhere near me. I drank too much, despised the world, even got in a fistfight or two before clawing my way through the bitterness, determined to live for myself again one day.”
“What happened with your family?”
He sighed against her hair. “The Cliffs Notes version is Dad went to prison, Mom recovered, and she and Dannie both received counseling, and they pretty much lost everything they owned. I sold my car for something cheaper, rented a very modest three-bedroom apartment, worked two jobs to pay the bills, and took care of Mom and Dannie.
“One of those jobs was in a restaurant. I worked my way from wait staff to the kitchen and discovered along the way I was a damn good cook, and it was something I genuinely enjoyed. I managed to snag a job as a sous chef at one of the trendier restaurants in town. Then last year Kevin came in for dinner and my boss just happened to be gone that night. I was the lucky bastard who got to meet him. Over a bottle of wine, we talked food and the future. When he mentioned he was planning to open a restaurant in Atlanta, I told him I was dying to get back here. Four months ago, I get a call from him, and the timing was right for me to finally make the move. Dannie is finishing her last semester of college and doing fine on her own, and Mom is mentally healthy again. She moved to Mobile to be closer to her sister.”
“What about the girl—Melanie?”
“Last we heard she was attending Auburn University.”
“And your dad?”
“He and Mom divorced about a year after he went to prison. I haven’t spoken to him in over three years, and even when we did talk, it was difficult. He writes to Dannie once in a while, but I don’t have anything to say to him.”
“I’m sure he regrets what he did, Ryan. It ended up costing him everything.”
“Eventually we’ll find our way to forgiveness, but I’m still not ready yet.”
Tate sat back, toying with the buttons on the front of his wrinkled oxford. “I hope you can forgive me for being so vile to you when you first showed up in my ER.”
He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her, taking his time, reassuring her with his mouth that all was forgiven. When he broke the kiss, she chased him for another. Her fingers worked at the buttons on his shirt, freeing them one by one until he was forced to turn her loose so she could shove the material off his shoulders. Ryan shrugged out of the sleeves, then reached for the hem of her t-shirt. Both of them naked now from the waist up, he pushed her back on the couch, blanketing her body with his. Tate sighed, making room for him between her legs.
The rough stubble on his jaw felt delicious on her skin as he kissed her throat, her collarbone, making his way slowly down her chest toward her breast. She huffed her disappointment when he lifted his head, bracing himself on his forearms. She’d never seen his eyes look so warm and blue, like ocean water in the tropics.
“I love you, Tate. I never stopped. It was the hope of finding you again that kept me going through the worst parts of the past eight years.”
She bit her bottom lip to quell its need to tremble. “I love you, too. Maybe … deep down inside I knew we weren’t really finished.”
Ryan smiled, then kissed the corner of her mouth. “We’ll never be finished. I want to grow old and wrinkled with your stubborn ass.”
“Will you still be making me chocolate chip muffins when we’re eighty?”
“Baby, I’ll even feed them to you by hand.”
The End
www.authorjennylyn.com
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Evernight Publishing
www.evernightpublishing.com