“We do,” I said, laughing.
“You know, I’m only about an hour away from Lipton.” She pulled away and looked at the ground. “If you ever wanted to, you know…but I mean, we wouldn’t have to or anything.”
“I’d love to hang out. You’ve got my number and I’ve got yours so let’s plan something. Aiden has to go on a work trip in a couple weeks, so maybe then?”
She smiled brightly. “Yeah, okay.”
When the goodbyes were over, Aiden led me to the truck, opened my door, and helped me in. We both waved and I couldn’t hold back a few tears.
It wasn’t that I wouldn’t see these friends again, because I was going to make sure I saw a lot of them. I was feeling emotional because of how much I’d changed in my few weeks here with them. I’d arrived here a shampoo girl who was scared out of my mind to reach for anything outside my comfort zone. I was leaving a changed woman. I’d seen tornadoes up close, survived a night alone in the woods, and helped bring comfort to survivors of a disaster.
I looked at the driver’s seat and smiled as I thought about what else I’d done. I’d opened my heart back up and let in a man who was sometimes sullen, often silent and always strong. We’d seen each other’s fears and weaknesses on this trip and gotten close fast. I couldn’t wait to get home and settle into an everyday routine that included Aiden.
What would Colby’s mom think? What about our friends? My family? I was curious, but I knew no one’s disapproval of us would change my feelings for Aiden.
“You okay?” he asked me.
“Yeah. Just a little overwhelmed.”
He took my hand, his touch a tangible reminder that we were together now. And I hoped with all my heart we’d stay that way.
—
Jackie and Shayla embraced me together, making me feel like the filling in a powdery, perfumed sandwich.
“We missed you!” Jackie cried. “And I see you’ve injured yourself, which is absolutely no surprise. You’re lucky you didn’t do anything worse, off chasing tornadoes like that.”
“You’re so tan,” Shayla said. “And you look so happy, Drew. That makes me happy.”
She sniffled and I knew she was crying. I’d missed these two more than I even realized.
“I was worried sick,” Jackie said as she pulled away. Apparently the sweet reunion was over. “When that tornado hit in Iowa I was inconsolable.”
“I texted you right back that I was okay,” I reminded her.
“I know, but those were the longest seconds imaginable. I mean, did you see that place? It was destroyed. Flattened.”
I nodded and flipped through the salon’s appointment book. Shayla’s niece, Dana, had penciled in appointments in neat cursive. She’d kept things running smoothly in my absence from what I could see. And surprisingly, I felt no insecurity about it.
“So Dana liked it here?” I asked.
“She did. Said we can call her anytime you want a day off,” Shayla said.
I took a calming breath, telling myself it was now or never. “Do you think she might have any interest in keeping the job? Like maybe starting next month?”
Shayla and Jackie turned to me, eyes wide and mouths open.
“What?” Shayla squawked. “Why? Oh, I knew this would happen. You want to go chase storms all the time now, don’t you? Drew Nicole McGovern—”
I put up a hand to quiet her. “No, that’s not it at all. No more storm chasing until next summer. I’ve got something else in mind, but I want to talk to Aiden about it first.”
“Aiden?” Jackie approached the front desk, where I was sitting, leaning her elbows on it and giving me a hopeful look. “Aiden O’Neal?”
My cheeks warmed and I smiled. “Yes. We’re seeing each other.”
Shayla and Jackie squealed and jumped up and down, holding on to each other’s arms.
“You two,” I said, rolling my eyes but still smiling. “Good thing we’re not open yet.”
“Oh, he’s such a hot hunk of man,” Shayla said. “And he seems like such a nice one, too. He saw me trying to carry bags of potting soil out to my car one day and he threw them over his shoulder like it was nothing. And then he followed me home and unloaded them.”
“That sounds like him,” I said, feeling a surge of pride in my man.
“Have you seen that house he’s building?” Jackie asked.
“The cabin? I haven’t yet, but he’s told me a lot about it. I’m going over there for dinner tonight.”
Jackie snorted. “Cabin, my ass. That place is a log palace. It’s gorgeous.”
Now Shayla was the one with tears in her eyes. “I know his uncle. After what he’s been through, and what you’ve been through…I just couldn’t be any happier for you, Drew. You deserve all the happiness in the world.”
I went around the desk and hugged her. “Thank you. And I hope you know that no matter what I do or where I work, we’ll still see each other. You guys are stuck with me.”
Shayla wiped her eyes and composed herself. “All right, well, you let us know. We won’t say anything to Dana until you’re sure.”
I nodded.
“Now get in my chair,” she said. “Your roots look terrible and you need a deep condition.”
I followed her to her station and sat down. She wrapped a cape around me and I thought about how ironic it was that none of the places that felt like home to me were where I lived. My apartment was just where I ate, showered, and slept. Home was wherever the people who mattered to me were.
Chapter 35
Drew
A speck of sizzling bacon grease flew out of the pan and hit my arm. I swore and took a step back, wishing I’d remembered to buy one of the screen things to keep that from happening.
I cooked for myself in the camper, but never anything elaborate. My first dinner date with Drew called for more than chicken wings or burgers, though.
It was also the first time I’d used the kitchen in the cabin, which was a hell of a lot bigger than the one in the camper. This six-burner stainless range was no comparison to the small one I was used to. When I’d put it in, I’d only ever imagined my mom using it, impossible as that was.
“Okay,” I said to myself, reading the pasta carbonara recipe again. “Cook this, crumble it, make the sauce, and mix.”
The doorbell sounded and I straightened. Another first. I smiled, liking that Drew was the one to christen it.
I wiped my hands on a dish towel as I crossed the open kitchen and great room to open the door for her. She wore jeans and a sleeveless black shirt, her golden skin glowing and her light blond hair loose around her shoulders.
“Hey,” she said, reaching her arms around my neck. “I missed you.”
I closed my eyes and took in the honeysuckle scent I loved so much. “Missed you, too. You look beautiful.”
“Thank you.” She reached into her big black bag and pulled out a bottle. “I brought wine.”
“Ah, good. I’ve got three bottles, too, so we’re set for a few dinners.”
I took her hand and led her into the cabin’s great room. Her gaze wandered up to the two-story ceiling and she drew in a breath.
“Aiden…this place is incredible. I had no idea it would be this beautiful.”
She took in the stone fireplace and the wall of windows overlooking the lake. When she got to the kitchen, she grinned and shook her head in disbelief.
“It’s like a magazine,” she said. “Just spectacular. I can’t believe you built this place yourself.”
I’d hired subcontractors to help with different projects here and there, but she was the first person I was actually showing it to. Her happiness flowed into me, filling me with a sense of accomplishment I’d never felt over building this house.
“I still have finishing work to do,” I said. “And it’s not furnished. I bought a card table and some folding chairs so we could have dinner in here tonight.”
She set the wine down on the island. “It smells amazing. Yo
u didn’t have to go to all this trouble, you know. I would’ve been just as happy with pizza in the camper if that’s what you wanted.”
“I know. But it’s our first date.”
Her smile lit up the whole room. I couldn’t believe how amazing it felt to have that smile directed at me. Sometimes it still didn’t feel real that we were together now.
“It is our first date, isn’t it?” She walked to the stove and turned the heat off on the bacon, moving it to a back burner to cool and switching on the exhaust fan.
“Guess I forgot about the food when you got here,” I said, approaching her from behind and wrapping my arms around her waist.
“I’m nervous,” she said, pulling my arms tighter around her.
“About what?”
“Telling you something. Let’s finish this and we can talk about it while we eat.”
I put a hand on her hip and eased her around to face me, tipping her chin up so I could study her eyes. “What is it, Drew?”
She sighed, uncertainty swimming in her pretty blue eyes. “Let’s finish this first, okay? Then I’ll tell you.”
“I don’t like to be kept waiting and now I’m worried. What is it? Is this about us?”
She considered. “Not exactly…though it may affect us.”
My mind was sorting through all the possibilities. “Someone you told about us gave you a hard time over it, didn’t they? Who was it?”
She shook her head and waved me into motion with her hand. “It’s not that. Come on, let’s get this pasta put together.”
I drained the fat from the bacon and then strained the pasta, still trying to figure out what this was. Drew was lost in thought as she stirred the cream sauce.
“Hey,” I said softly. She looked up at me. “Are you pregnant?”
Her lips parted in shock. “Aiden, no. I wouldn’t do that to you. I said I was on birth control, and I am.”
“Sometimes it fails,” I said, shrugging.
“Why are you so calm right now? Wouldn’t you launch into orbit if I was pregnant?”
A smile tugged at the corners of my lips. “No. I’d be good with it. I mean, I wanted to marry you first, but…”
“You would? Be happy? And you do?”
I took the spoon from her hand and set it on the counter, turning her to face me. “Yes, yes, and yes. I love you, Drew. So are you?”
She was giving me a dreamy look. “Am I what?”
“Pregnant. You’re killing me, babe.”
“Oh.” She shook her head to clear away the daze. “No, I’m not. Let’s mix this and eat.”
I threw everything into a big mixing bowl, stirred it for a few seconds, and set it on the table.
“So tell me,” I said, turning to her.
“Let’s pour some wine first.”
“Drew.”
She fiddled with the corkscrew on the wine. “I’m nervous, okay? Give me a second. Open this, will you?”
“You haven’t changed your mind about us, have you?”
She laughed as she handed me the bottle. “Of course not. Who else would have me in this boot, anyway?”
“Don’t joke about it.”
“Sorry.” She wrapped her arms around my waist from behind, pressing her cheek and chest to my back as I poured two glasses of wine. “I missed you so much today.”
“Me too. I don’t like waking up without you beside me.”
“I’ll stay tonight, if you want me to.”
“You know I do.”
She let go of me and took the glass of wine I handed her. We sat down and I dished up a plate of pasta and handed it to her, waiting.
I could tell she was working up the nerve to tell me whatever it was as I filled my plate with pasta, so I stayed quiet. When we both had our food in front of us, she took a bite of hers and closed her eyes, giving a hum of satisfaction.
“So good, Aiden. Thank you for making this.” She took a sip of wine and a deep breath. “Before I went on the storm-chasing trip, I was feeling restless. I love Jackie and Shayla, but I was starting to feel like maybe I wanted to do something besides shampoo hair with my life. But what, you know? I only have an associate’s degree and I didn’t even know what I wanted to do.”
I just watched and listened. She was getting more nervous as she continued, licking her lips and looking down at her plate often.
“When you brought me that little girl in Adelia, I sat beside her and felt the most overwhelming sense of helplessness. She needed help, and I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to help her so badly.”
I fought the urge to cut in and tell her she’d done just what she should have by putting pressure on the wound, but I didn’t want to break her flow.
“And it came to me the next day. I’ve been thinking about it a lot since then. It’s completely crazy, I know, and you’ll want to laugh at me. I want to laugh at me.”
“What is it, babe? Just tell me.”
She let out the breath she was holding and spoke in a rush. “I want to be a doctor.”
Her eyes searched mine, waiting for a reaction. It reached something inside me that brought a lump of emotion to my throat. I mattered to her. In this world we all needed a safe place where we could bring our wild ideas and expose our vulnerability, and I was hers. God knew she was mine.
“I think you should do it,” I said. “You’d be an amazing doctor, Drew.”
“But I don’t even have a bachelor’s yet.”
“So you start there.”
“And medical school costs a fortune.”
“We’ll work it out.”
Her eyes widened. “I didn’t tell you because I want help paying for it. I don’t want that.”
I reached for her hand and held it in mine. “I know that, babe. But I’m hoping that by the time you finish your bachelor’s, we’ll have a joint bank account and the same last name.”
She squeezed my hand. “I might not even make it. I could flunk out.”
“You’ll make it.”
“I could go to the U of I medical school and commute,” she said. “I looked it up online at the salon today.”
“Wherever it is, we’ll make it work.”
She looked around. “But…this house…you’ve worked so hard on it. And it’s only been a few weeks for us. I feel like I’d be asking a lot of you.”
“Slow down. First, finish your bachelor’s.”
She relaxed into a smile. “You’re right. I can go part-time and stay at the salon or take out a loan and go full-time. I’m leaning toward the loan because I have so many years of school ahead of me and I want to get these first two done as fast as I can.”
“I really don’t want you taking out a loan.”
“You think part-time would be better?”
I stroked my thumb over her knuckles. “I think that even though it’s only been a few weeks for us, I’ve loved you for a very long time. I don’t have any doubts, Drew. You’re the one. So let me help.”
I saw the struggle in her eyes.
“You’re not used to anyone helping you,” I said. “I know you’re used to taking care of others and yourself. But this is what love is. We’re supposed to chase our dreams together. Don’t run off without me, woman.”
She smiled. “What about your dreams?”
“I’m living the biggest one right now. And I can work from anywhere. We can do this.”
“We can, can’t we?”
I drew her hand to my mouth and kissed her knuckles. “Life’s only just begun for us, baby. Let’s kick its ass hand in hand.”
Epilogue
Drew
TEN YEARS LATER
As soon as I walked through the doorway, my eyes went right to the stone that rose two stories up to the ceiling. That fireplace never failed to take my breath away.
“Still smells like fresh-cut wood in here,” Aiden said, walking in behind me. “Damn, I love that smell.”
“Damn!” our three-year-old daughter, Maura, said, grinni
ng. “Damn, damn, damn!”
I gave Aiden the side eye before scolding her.
“You don’t get to use grown-up words,” I said. “And that’s a grown-up word.”
“Daddy said it.”
“Well, Daddy’s a grown-up.”
Maura took off to run on the hardwood floors in the huge, vacant great room, circling through the kitchen and dining room in a loop.
“She’s gonna wear herself down,” Aiden said, nodding his approval.
I approached him and wrapped my arms around his waist.
“It feels so good to be here,” I said. “After all these years, we’re finally home.”
“I’m looking forward to starting my life as a trophy husband, Dr. O’Neal,” Aiden quipped, kissing my head. “You bring home the bacon and I’ll be here watching my stories all day.”
I laughed and nuzzled myself against his firm chest.
“Yeah, good one. You’d go out of your mind on day one.”
He rubbed a hand over my four months’ pregnant belly and we looked out at the lake together.
“Still feeling good about living here?” I asked. “You know we don’t have to.”
I felt a sigh in his chest as he continued rubbing my bump. “I want to. I wish my parents and sister could’ve met you and Maura. But this house is as close as we’ll ever get. It makes me feel like they’re still part of me, moving my own family in here.”
“I love you so much,” I said, tightening my hold on him. “You’ve given up so much for me to finish med school.”
He pulled back and looked down at me, brow furrowed. “What are you talking about? I haven’t given up a thing.”
“Not getting to live here all these years since I went to med school in Boston? Being a stay-at-home dad when Maura was born and putting your career on hold for mine? And parting with two hundred grand to foot the bills?”
“No.” He kissed my forehead. “We’re in this together, remember? That was our money, and we invested it well. There’s plenty more, too. Maybe we’ll put Maura through med school one day. And you know I wouldn’t change a thing, even if I could. I’d rather be with you and Maura than anywhere else.”
“Well, it’s all behind us now. Time to settle in to our home and my practice before this kid comes.”
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