by Gina Wilkins
Jacqui jabbed the doorbell button at LaDonna’s house Sunday morning before she could change her mind. Mitch had moved out of the hotel and into his mother’s house since she’d been hospitalized. Jacqui had driven there straight from an early visit with LaDonna. She had taken fresh flowers to decorate the hospital room in preparation for the after-church visitors who were sure to stop by later that day, and after talking with LaDonna, she had immediately come in search of Mitch.
She had taken a risk that he’d still be here. His car was in the driveway, so it looked as though she’d arrived in time to catch him. She was a little nervous but determined to talk to him.
He looked surprised when he opened the door to him. He smiled automatically to greet her, then stopped smiling in response to her expression. “What’s wrong? Has something else happened?”
“Why did you cancel your trip to Peru?” she demanded without preamble.
He frowned. “What?”
“I just left your mom’s room. She’s very upset with you for canceling your trip.”
“How did she find out? I haven’t even told her yet.”
“One of your friends told Madison, who told your mother, who told me. Why, Mitch?”
“Come inside, okay? No need to have this conversation on the porch.” He ushered her in and closed the door behind her before saying, “I would think it’s obvious why I canceled. I can’t take a trip to South America with my mother just out of the hospital.”
“She knew that was the reason, and she feels terrible about it. Your trip isn’t for another two weeks. She’ll be out of the hospital long before that, and your sisters and I will be here to take care of her. There’s no need for you to stay.”
“I just want to make sure she’s okay. It’ll take a couple of weeks for her to get her strength back and for us to make sure the treatments are working well and that she hasn’t done any lasting damage. Anemia can wreak havoc on internal organs, even weaken the heart, you know.”
“Your mother’s heart has been checked very carefully, and it’s undamaged,” Jacqui shot back. “She’ll have a period of recuperation, but I’ve heard the doctors say they expect a complete recovery. With proper treatment and precautions, she’ll be just fine.”
“Still, I’ll be around to keep an eye on her here. I know you and Meagan and Maddie will all be available to her, but I need to know for myself that she’s okay.”
Jacqui planted her hands on her hips and studied his face with a frown. She read him very well these days. “You’re blaming yourself because she got so sick, aren’t you?”
Pushing a hand through his hair, he sighed. “You tried to tell me. I should have listened.”
“She kept telling you she was fine, Mitch. You couldn’t read her mind.”
“No, but I should have seen just how thin and pale she had become. I was too wrapped up in my own issues, with work and the fire and planning for the trip and…”
And with her, she added mentally when his voice trailed off.
“Go on your trip, Mitch,” she said more gently. “You’ve been looking forward to it for so long. Your mother wants you to go. She’ll feel awful if you miss it because of her.”
“It’s too late,” he said with a slight shrug. “I’ve already canceled. I called first thing Thursday morning. I lost my deposit, but that’s no big deal. I’d rather stay here and make sure Mom’s okay. To be honest, I’d sort of lost enthusiasm about the trip anyway.”
Frowning, she took a step closer to him, trying to determine if that was the truth. “But why? You were so excited about it.”
“Because you weren’t going to be there,” he answered simply.
She stared at him in shock. That was one answer she had not expected at all. “I don’t—”
“I didn’t want to go that far away from you. Not until I had a chance to tell you how much I’ve missed seeing you. Being with you. I’ve been trying to find the right time, the right words, to convince you that we’re a perfect match, no matter how different our backgrounds might be.”
“I, uh— I think I need to sit down.” She sank onto LaDonna’s comfortable, overstuffed flowered couch, her head spinning a little.
Mitch sat beside her, looking at her so intently she flushed. “I’m not sure what you’re trying to say,” she admitted, having been completely unprepared for this conversation.
“I’m trying to say I love you, Jacqui. Something I should have told you the night you sent me away.”
Shock jolted through her again, making her glad she was sitting down this time. “You…?”
“You said I wasn’t ready for a permanent commitment, that I was afraid to sign a long-term lease—and maybe for a little while I wondered if you were right. Mostly I wondered if you weren’t just using that for an excuse because you weren’t interested in the long run with me.”
“You’re the one who said you wanted to keep your options open,” she pointed out, her voice not quite steady.
“Yes, I did say that. I was looking for something, and for a time, I figured I needed to go somewhere else to find it. I guess I thought that because I hadn’t been able to leave Little Rock, that must mean what I was searching for lay out there somewhere. But the truth is, I’ve been free to leave for months. My residency was almost finished, my mother and sisters were well and I didn’t have a lease. Yet I stopped sending out applications to other hospitals about a year ago. Just about the time I met you. I was just too dense to make the connection until now.”
She remembered him telling her how clearly he remembered that first meeting. That he had been attracted to her then and had wanted ever since to get to know her better. She’d been shocked then by that admission—she was even more stunned by what he was telling her now. He loved her?
“But you said you didn’t even want to sign a lease,” she said weakly. She knew she was repeating herself, but she couldn’t seem to think clearly.
With an impatient shake of his head, he reached out to rest a hand on her shoulder. “You keep looking for hidden meanings in my lack of interest in real estate. I don’t care whether I live in a house or an apartment or a condo or a tent, for that matter. I just hope there’s a chance that someday you’ll live there with me. I love you, Jacqui.”
Her mind whirled with all the arguments she’d given herself. “I don’t want to be another anchor around your neck. I don’t want to be the reason you look back someday with regrets about the things you never got to do.”
“I can still do anything I want. I can travel on vacations—with you, I hope. Maybe you’ll enjoy traveling again when you know you have a permanent home to return to when the trip is over.”
That was exactly the way she’d felt about traveling lately. Knowing she wouldn’t have to keep pulling up roots and trying to settle somewhere new made it somewhat more tempting to see different places just for pleasure.
Before she could respond, Mitch added, “I don’t see my family as anchors, Jacqui. I love them very much, and I treasure the time we’re able to spend together. I don’t blame any of them for the circumstances that kept me here in the past—it was always ultimately my choice to remain close to them when I thought they needed me. Just as it is my choice to stay close to Mom now while she recuperates rather than traipse around Peru with some people I like but who don’t mean anything to me in comparison to my family. Or to you.”
She drew a deep breath. “I’ve been trying so hard not to fall for you.”
That smile of his was impossible to resist. “How’s that been working for you?”
She placed a hand on his cheek. “Not so well.”
Catching her hand, he placed a kiss in her palm. “You? The incomparably efficient Jacqui Handy? You never fail at anything.”
“Of course I do,” she said with a low sigh.
He stopped smiling. “If you’re talking about the wreck, that wasn’t your failure.”
“I know,” she said quietly. “Which doesn’t mean I won’t always feel some measure
of guilt about it.”
He kissed her hand again, then lowered it to his lap, his fingers laced with hers. “Any time you want to talk about it, I’m here, okay? And any time you need a distraction, I’m here for that, too. Let’s just say I’m here for the duration. Whatever you need from me.”
Tears threatened, but she blinked them back. “I’m not used to that.”
“You’ll have plenty of time to get used to it,” he promised. “The rest of our lives, if you’ll have me that long.”
This conversation was scaring the heck out of her, she thought candidly—but he certainly knew the right things to say to tempt her to take risks.
“There are other problems between us,” she said—as much to herself as to him.
He sighed with exaggerated patience. “You don’t want to be Cinderella. The doctor and the housekeeper thing. I can tell you right now, that’s bogus. No one, least of all me, cares to judge what you choose to do with your time. You want to keep running my sister’s household and trying to keep my teenage niece in line, I say go for it. You’re good at it. But if there are other things you want to pursue, I’ll back you in that, too. I know you can do whatever you set your mind to, Jacqui.”
She looked down at their interlaced hands. “There are still things you don’t know about me.”
“I look forward to learning them all.”
“I never finished high school,” she blurted in a rush. “I dropped out when my parents moved the last time. I got an equivalency degree a few years later, but I don’t have the education your family values so much.”
“Nobody cares about the framed papers hanging on your wall,” he said with a shrug. “If you want to take college classes in something that interests you, do it. I can’t imagine you having any difficulty with any subject. If more school doesn’t interest you, don’t do it. Believe it or not, I don’t choose my friends by the degrees they hold. For that matter, I’ve played soccer every Sunday for years with a few people I consider friends, and I couldn’t tell you for certain if they went to college or dropped out of school in junior high.”
“You have an answer for everything, don’t you?”
He smiled crookedly. “Not really. I’m still waiting for you to tell me how you feel about me.”
She swallowed hard. “I… I think I love you, too,” she whispered.
His face lit up again with his beautiful smile. “I’ll take that—for now.”
There were so many things still to be settled between them, she thought. How would his family react to him getting involved with her? How would she fit in with his friends? And she still didn’t know what would happen between her and his family if for some reason she and Mitch couldn’t make this work. But that no longer seemed to matter quite so much. As much as she cared for the rest of his family, her feelings for Mitch were stronger. If she had to make the hard choice between him and them at this moment—she would have to choose Mitch.
The realization actually surprised her with its sudden clarity.
“But,” she warned quickly, fending him off when he would have tugged her toward him, “I’m not committing to anything just yet. We need to take our time. We need to be sure any decisions we make are what we both want, what’s best for both of us. We shouldn’t…”
“We shouldn’t sign any long-term leases just yet?”
His teasing interruption made her flush a little, even though she had to smile. “You’re the one who said we should stop with the real-estate metaphors.”
“They do seem to keep cropping up, don’t they?”
She reached up to grab his collar and tug lightly. “Maybe we should just stop talking for now.”
He smiled against her lips. “I’ve been waiting for you to say that.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and snuggled into his embrace, deciding they could deal with any potential issues later. They had more pressing matters to attend to just now.
They lay snuggled together in the bed in Mitch’s old bedroom, though he commented that the decor had changed a bit since he’d lived there last. The sports and rock-band posters had been replaced by earth-toned paint and landscape prints. LaDonna had kept a masculine feel to the room so Mitch would be comfortable whenever he stayed there. Jacqui tried not to think about LaDonna’s reaction to what had just taken place in this room.
Such speculation didn’t seem to be disturbing Mitch. He looked quite pleased with himself, actually, as he smiled at her from the pillow beside hers. “I’m very glad you stopped by today,” he said. “I’ve been wondering how to get you alone to talk about my feelings for you. I didn’t expect you to show up on the doorstep today.”
“I was so perturbed when your mother told me about you canceling your trip to Peru that I guess I just stormed over here without giving myself a chance to think about it,” she admitted.
“Because you didn’t want me to be disappointed about missing the trip. I’m touched by that, Jacqui.”
“Maybe I just wanted to get you out of the country for a few days.”
He chuckled. “Sorry to disappoint you.”
“You’re sure you don’t want to—”
“I’m sure,” he cut in. “So, how would you like to maybe go to Peru with me this time next year?”
Her smile wavered a bit, though she kept her tone light. “That’s very long-term planning.”
“True. But that’s one deposit I wouldn’t hesitate to make. I keep telling you, I’m in this for the long-term, Jacqui.”
The more he said it, the more believable it sounded. And although she was still afraid to let herself believe too much in what she wanted so badly, she had to trust that he meant what he said.
He let out a long breath. “Guess I should get dressed and head over to the hospital to see Mom. I need to reassure her that missing the trip to Peru isn’t the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. Want to go with me?”
The question was seemingly casual, but she knew exactly what it meant. If she and Mitch went together to the hospital now, there would be no more pretending that they were merely friends. “All right.”
His smile curved his nice mouth and gleamed in his blue eyes. “Thank you.”
Drawing a deep breath, she told herself she would take almost any risk in exchange for Mitch’s beautiful smile. “I’m a little nervous,” she admitted.
“I know. But I’ll be right there beside you. Now and for always. I love you, Jacqui.”
She leaned over to kiss his smile. “I love you, too.”
How could she not? She’d been searching for Mitch all her life.
Epilogue
Six days later, Jacqui stood beside Mitch on the sidewalk outside the house in Hillcrest, gazing at the front door with a bone-deep longing. The keys to that door dangled in Mitch’s hand, and she wanted nothing more than for him to open it and let her walk inside to explore again. He’d borrowed the keys from the Realtor who’d shown them the house before, saying he wanted to look at the place with Jacqui one more time before making an offer—just to make sure this was the right choice.
It was still hot on this first Saturday in September. The sky was a deep, cloudless blue overhead, the afternoon sun beating down on the heat-shriveled trees and grass. A few flowers still bloomed in the beds, but their colors were fading and the beds needed tending. Jacqui’s fingers itched to play in those small gardens, weeding and pruning and planting colorful mums for the coming fall. She would rest between chores with a glass of lemonade on that lovely porch, she thought wistfully, her gaze moving to the inviting wood rockers. This was exactly the house she had always dreamed of.
She turned resolutely away. “I don’t think you should buy it,” she said abruptly to Mitch.
He looked at her in visible surprise. “I thought you loved this house.”
“I do,” she had to admit, because she was always honest with him. “It’s perfect. But you shouldn’t buy it for that reason.”
He spun to face her fully. “Jacqui
, you know I’m hoping you’ll share this house with me. I’ve gotten accustomed to having you under the same roof. Even more accustomed to sharing a bed,” he added in a low, affectionately teasing tone that brought warmth to her cheeks.
“And I will live with you,” she assured him around a lump in her throat. “But I want you to make very sure it’s what you want before you commit to a purchase this big.”
She drew a deep breath. “If you still want to try living in a few other places before you buy a house and settle in for the long-term, I think you should do it, Mitch. As for me—I’ll go where you go. I’ll support you completely in whatever you need to do, just as you’ve promised to do for me.”
For the first time in her life, she understood her mother a little better. Troubled as she was in so many ways, Cindy Handy loved her husband and she wanted to be with him wherever he drifted. Jacqui was dissimilar from her mother, and she had different priorities in her life—for one thing, if she ever had children, which she hoped to do someday, she would strive to give them much more of a sense of security and emotional support than she and Olivia had received. But she understood now what her mother had meant when she’d said that “home” wasn’t necessarily a place but a feeling.
As much as she loved living in Little Rock, Jacqui understood now that she could make a home with Mitch wherever they went. For one thing, she knew he would always put her needs and desires first—something her own rather selfish father had been unable to do for anyone else. The fact that Mitch was willing to buy this house just because he knew she loved it, that he had always put his loved ones’ best interests ahead of his own, was all the proof she needed that she had given her heart and her trust to the right man.
Mitch took both her hands in his, the keys cupped between his right palm and her left. His eyes were dark with emotion when he gazed down at her, his mouth curved in a loving smile. “The fact that you offered to move away with me means more than you could ever possibly realize. I know exactly how hard it must have been for you to make that offer. You love it here.”