K-I-S-S-I-N-G
Page 18
“I’m sorry about that. She just showed up,” he said. He had to get Dee’s car back to her tomorrow.
“Don’t worry about it,” Winsome said. “You couldn’t keep a nutty ex away any more than I could.”
He looked at the floor. At least his hadn’t tried to kill him.
“We need to talk about that,” she said.
“She won’t come around again.”
“I don’t mean her.”
Cal joined her at the table, hands folded on the tabletop. “What’s on your mind?”
“You’ve been avoiding me,” she said.
“No more than you’ve been avoiding me.”
He expected her to argue that point, especially since he didn’t know if it was entirely true, but she didn’t.
“Can I tell you why?’ she asked.
“Please.”
“Because after Dante…did what he did, you started treating me differently again. Like a helpless child.”
He wanted to deny it, but the earnest look in her eyes made him think about it, and swallow his next words.
“I didn’t want to look needy by asking you to stay with me in the treehouse, or by letting you see how hopeful I was that you’d ask me to stay with you, so I kept my distance. But you’ve been keeping yours,” she added.
“That’s because I thought you wanted me to. That first night, it felt like you didn’t want me around…I didn’t know why, maybe you resented me for not getting there sooner?”
“No! No,” she reached over and took his hand. “I was trying to be strong. Look strong anyway, so you wouldn’t pity me.”
He sighed. Now he felt worse than he had just a minute ago. He’d wasted all this time thinking she wanted more space and the whole time….
“Then as the days passed, I figured you’d just realized that you can do anything on your own and wanted to do that for a while. Start asserting your independence,” he said. “And I assumed you were working.”
“And you were going to let me, just…move on in my life without you?” she asked. “That’s incredibly sweet. And really pisses me off!”
Shocked, he leaned back in his chair, still holding her hand. “What? Why?”
“I don’t want you to let me go! I want you to want me with you.”
“I do. I thought you….” Cal took a breath and slapped his free hand down on the table. “I didn’t want you to feel like I’m suffocating you. I’m sorry, I just didn’t know what you expected. You don’t want me to treat you like an invalid, is that it?”
She nodded fervently. “But at the same time, I…oh I don’t know!” She released his hand and stood up, facing away from him, staring out the window. “I’m trying so hard to be strong, but I can’t do it without you. I mean, I can, but why would I?”
Cal got up and stood behind her. He could practically feel her tremble though they weren’t touching. “I don’t know what you want from me, Winsome. It’s my nature to be protective.”
She spun to face him. “It’s not that you’re protective, that’s not it, I just…I don’t want you to think of me as a victim. Weak. I want you to view me as your equal.”
“Baby, I do. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met.” He took her hands. Yes, they were equals in every way, including in something that had been on his mind these last few days. “I’ve been thinking…” he began. “When you start those PTSD meetings, I want to come. If you don’t mind. Not to watch over you,” he added, shaking his head, when her left brow jutted up briefly. “I…I don’t think I ever dealt with losing Tiffany. Not the right way.” Winsome just stared at him. “Or if that’s too weird, I’ll find another group.”
She wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged him, resting her head on his chest.
“I just want to be with you, Winsome. Not because you can’t be without me, I know you can. Because I can’t be without you not another day.”
“You seemed like you were doing okay without me,” she said, teasing.
He shook his head and held her closer. “I never want to go back to the day before I met you. And if my protective nature goes too far and it feels like I’m starting to get possessive, or treating you like a victim, it might help to throw something at my head. A book maybe.”
She laughed. “I don’t think that will be necessary.”
“Yeah, maybe the cat on the bus book. You do owe me a story.”
“I’ve got a better one,” she said, backing away and taking his hand. “How about the story of a girl who is so grateful for everything she went through, because she knows without those things, as awful as they were, she would never have met the man she loves with everything she has in her?”
Cal’s heart thudded thickly, feeling full and content when she smiled up at him. “You were eavesdropping in the hall outside my room,” he said, amused. “How much did you hear?”
“Every word from ‘we were really good together,’” she said, mocking Dee’s drunken slur.
Cal laughed and dropped a kiss on her forehead. “So, this fairy tale…does it have a happy ending? I only do happy endings.”
“The happiest.” She tugged him toward the back door. “But it has to be told in just the right setting.”
“Like a magical treehouse?”
Winsome laughed. “Yes. Naked. With fifty pillows.”
“Lead the way.”
Gleefully, she took his hand and walked him outside. A few steps in, he took the initiative and tugged her toward the garage.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“I have to grab a few things.”
It was silly, but he felt nervous. He wanted this to be perfect. She deserved nothing less.
“Hold on.” He released her hand to open the garage door, then stepped into the chilled darkness and came back out with a drill. “Hold that, please,” he said, handing it to her.
He dipped back inside and retrieved what he needed from the space beside the door. When he returned with the four-foot hand carved sign, he turned it horizontally so that she could read it.
Winsome’s eyes grew wide and she hugged the drill to herself. “Out on a Limb,” she sighed, in a reverent whisper. “Oh, Caleb….”
“You didn’t decide to call it something else, did you?”
She shook her head, her eyes filled with what he now recognized as happy tears. “When something’s perfect you don’t change it, you go with it,” she told him.
Cal shifted the sign up under one arm, Winsome under the other, and started for the treehouse ramp. “That’s exactly what I was thinking.”
THE END
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OTHER BOOKS BY DANA PRATOLA:
THE COVERING
JETT (Descended Book 1)
SEBASTIAN (Descended Book 2)
AARO (Descended Book 3)
ULRICK (Descended Book 4)
The DESCENDED SERIES
VOICE OF TRUTH
THE MAYWEATHER CHRISTMAS QUEST
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