by Ashlee Price
Paul had to agree. While he liked his sister in law, she was certainly quite different than Katie. Katie was in the middle of her career and even though it was for her family, she had to be proud of the great strides she had made in it. Paul had done some internet research on her and her family and she had grown her area stores almost double since starting only a few years before. She was VP of her region and there was some talk that figured she would be the one to eventually take over. While Katie wasn’t the oldest in her family, she had the most experience and success and it just seemed natural.
“Yeah Katie is different and I know she is gone forever, but damn it Scott, I just need some time!”
Scott was more surprised by him raising his voice than anything else. His brother was the most mild-mannered out of them all and he didn’t get upset very often. When he did, it was always running far deeper than it looked like on the outside.
“I’m sorry Paul. I don’t know what to say to you, I just want you to get better. It’s not about the work. There are plenty of people to take care of it for a while. Why don’t you take the rest of the week off and find something to do?”
Paul felt guilty almost immediately for yelling at him. It wasn’t in his nature for that very reason. The idea of a couple of days off did sound good though and maybe he was right. He was just burnt out and maybe after a few days away from the ranch, he would have a different perspective.
“I think I will Scott. Sorry I yelled at you, it’s just that Katie did a number on me and I don’t think she meant to, but I don’t know what to do with it. I haven’t really ever felt this way before and I can tell you that I do not like the feeling.”
Scott just nodded, recognizing the brother that he knew so well again. His momentary lapse told Scott that he really did care and he hoped that with his time away, he found a way to get over the redheaded vixen that had made him go crazy.
“So where are you going to go?”
“I don’t know, but I think I am going to get out of here for a little while.”
Scott wanted a better answer, but it looked like he really didn’t know. “Well just be careful and if you need me, just call.”
Paul gave him a pat on the shoulder and then walked up the stairs slowly, trying to forget the last thing that Katie and him had done in his bedroom. He still hadn’t changed his sheets, hoping to keep the lavender perfume on the surface as long as possible. Sighing to himself after smelling his pillow, he knew exactly where he wanted to go. Paul wasn’t going to regret anything. He had to see her, beg her to come back with him or maybe he could give up the ranch and live in the city with her. It was something that he would never want to do, New York a place he would never want to go, but for Katie, he would do anything.
***
He took his first flight to New York later that evening and though he wasn’t afraid of heights, the tin box that could come crashing to earth at any minute was not something that he would have wanted to do again. The seat was too small for his 6 foot 4 frame and rode the several hours there with seemingly, his knees against his chest. What he really wanted was to drive, but he only had a couple of days and it wasn’t enough time. Planes were faster and thus why he was taking one. But he didn’t like it.
There was a moment when he got off the plane that he wanted to kiss the ground, so grateful to feel it underneath his feet. But there was too much going on around him. He had seen New York from the air and it was large and sprawling as far as the eye could see. Seeing it from the street and having all of the towering building all around, was another feelings all together.
Paul instead stood there awestruck. He had always stayed close to home, never seeing a need or reason to venture out into the rest of the world. There now, he was overwhelmed. The buildings were blocking out the sky and it was strange to think that such stark differences could exist on the same world and country. It was like nothing he could have imagined. His mind went to tiny ants and he felt like one amongst the millions of other ones that occupies such a small place on the island.
He was pushed from behind was a stream of people exited the airport to get to the taxi stand. It woke him up from his wonder and it took Paul a minute to decide what to do. There was no way that he was going to find her on his own and since he wasn’t sure where to start, Paul decided that he had to find a place to stay first and then he could worry about finding Katie.
Nothing was as easy as it seemed though and after a couple of hours, he had finally found a motel that sold rooms by the night instead of by the hour and he was sitting on the springy bed. The cost of the room was the cost of a mortgage payment where he was from and Paul had only paid for a couple of nights. The room itself was dank and dingy, nowhere that he would have personally ever imagined would be the best place that he could find in the last couple of hours. It seemed that he had found himself on the wrong side of town, though it all seemed to look the same, concrete, signs and advertising. Paul had never felt so out of place in his life.
He sat there for several minutes, trying to gather his thoughts. It was hard to think, so many sounds of so many people all running around, car horns honking. It was too much almost and he had a desire to leave then. Paul tried to think of why he was there and of Katie. It was easy to remember and relax him, but as soon as he went back out on the street, he was feeling like a caged rat again. How could anyone choose to live in such conditions? Why did Katie like it there, when she seemed so peaceful back home with him?
Paul spent the rest of the day trying to find her and eventually he went back to the roach infested room that he had found to rent. It was depressing to come back to, almost as much so as the fact that he was still no closer to finding her than when he had started out. He had come there with a mindset that he would stay there with her if he had to, but now he knew that he could never live in a place like that.
He knew that he had nothing to offer her in that lifestyle. What would he do there? Paul went back to the room defeated and spent the next several hours listening to the busy city below. It really was the city that never slept and neither did Paul. They had at least something in common.
Chapter 7
“Paul?”
He sat up and tried to figure out who the voice was. When he had first put the phone to his head and heard the female voice, his mind had gone to Katie. But it wasn’t her and after a few moments, he realized that he was talking to his sister Gemma.
“Yes Gemma. Good morning.”
“You don’t sound very good.”
Paul didn’t feel very good. Though it was usually time for him to get up, he hadn’t really gotten to sleep until late. He couldn’t block out the noises like he could the hundreds of steers out on a drive. It was different there and he knew that it was the reason that he felt so bad right then. “I don’t feel very good sis. Is everything okay?”
“Yes, everything is fine, but I just talked to Scott.”
Of course she did, he thought to himself. His younger brother was always the one to tell on him and he had probably told her what an incredible idiot he was being. Paul was waiting for her to tell him that he was crazy and he should just come back to the ranch where he belonged. He almost wanted her to say that so he would have an excuse to leave. New York just wasn’t for him and he knew that though he loved Katie, he would be miserable there. Men like him couldn’t change that much.
“So what did our brother have to say?”
“That you had fallen in love with Katie and that you were there, trying to find her.”
Paul knew that she would have the complete run down. Gemma had a way of making you feel safe and getting every last detail that she was after. They had both said before that she should have been an interrogator and she wouldn’t have to do anything but ask nicely for the information. It was almost impossible to keep something from her.
“Yeah that sounds about right. Until I got here and seen this place for myself. There is no way that I could live here. Hell, I couldn’t even get to sl
eep last night.”
“You are not made for the city brother. You know that. Marcel may have been able to when he was thinking about moving to Houston for Davina. That was different. You are different and made for the farm. Why can’t you find you a girl from town, who wants the same thing?”
It sounded easy, like one small decision could make everything better. But the thing was though, that he didn’t want anyone else. He had been alive over thirty years and he had never felt the way Katie had made him feel. Not just the night of passion he could never get far from his mind, but the moments before when he would smile like an idiot just to be in her presence. She was the woman that made him want to be a better man, but New York was too much and he knew that he would lose what sort of man he was if he stayed there too long. “I wish I could Gemma, you just don’t understand.”
“I do Paul. I have been in love too, but you can’t change who you are for someone. Neither can she. You are like a fish and doe trying to love each other. It’s never going to work.”
“I don’t think I will feel like this again. She was the one.”
He heard her sigh on the other end of the phone. She had been in love as well. A long time ago before she knew it for what it was. When it was happening, it was too intense for retrospection, but now she seen it for what it was. She herself wondered if she had messed up the one good thing that had happened in her life. Gemma still regretted breaking up with Tony and she didn’t want Paul to feel the same way. But he would be unhappy there and she didn’t want to suggest pushing to stay either. Gemma was at a place of indecision and she was not there very often, so it felt strange.
“I don’t know what to say. You know I still miss Tony and it has been almost five years. So I am not going to tell you that you are just going to forget about her because sometimes that doesn’t happen. I know this, but I also know that you will be miserable there. You sound miserable Paul. You don’t even sound like yourself. Sometimes you just got to sit back and see how things are going to right themselves. You may even be surprised at what happens.”
She was trying to sound more optimistic than she really felt. Gemma still felt the pain of losing Tony and wondering if she should have fought harder. She still had the what-if questions in her mind that were impossible to shut off.
“Maybe you are right.”
Gemma felt saddened in a way when he gave up. What she said was true, but she still liked to think that love would conquer all. In reality it just wasn’t the case. “Are you at least going to find her first before you come back?”
Paul didn’t know if he should or not. How could he see her again and then just walk away. But at the same time, how could he make it all this way and not? “I don’t know. I don’t even know how to find her. This place is crazy and there are so many people. How do you even do it?”
He heard her sigh and after a few minutes, Gemma had him write down a couple of numbers that matched up to Katie. “She is at one of these numbers, but I am not sure which one. There is only three, so that isn’t so bad.”
“Thanks Gemma. I don’t know what I would do with you.”
She hung up, but worried about her brother in the city. He was more used to the open space of the ranch and she couldn’t even imagine him there. She wondered to herself if he was still wearing his cowboy boots and she had a feeling that he was.
***
Katie answered her phone to the unknown number. She had a feeling that she needed to, but when she said hello, there was no one there. It happened once more and she said the name of the one she had hoped it was, but then it hung up on her. She was left looking at the phone in her office and wondering who it was. When she called it back, it just rang and left her to guess at who it was. She wanted it to be Paul, as much as she wanted to forget him and his simple life in Texas.
She had never lived so free and even now as she looked at one of the best views in the city, she wanted to see horses and sunrise, instead of all of the skyscrapers that blotted out the sun. She wanted Paul, but she recognized that they were from two different places in their life. Katie had a corporate ladder to climb, even if it was her family. That it was the family business, gave her more obligations to stay and it seemed impossible that it could be any other way. It was reality, even if it was slightly depressing.
“Katie, you have a meeting at ten, remember?”
She nodded at her assistant and tried to remember who she was meeting. When she gave her the slightly blank look, she took the cue and gave her the names. It was two men that wanted to buy in with five franchises and I was supposed to be there to push the sale. Five more locations was a lot of fees and royalty money for the company. There was never enough for the business, even when it was so different than what she needed.
Chapter 8
“Katie? Are you okay?”
She nodded to her assistant, but tried to shake the feeling that she had. She wasn’t okay and ever since getting out of the meeting with the two men, she was feeling worse than she had in a long time. They were so pumped to get started, the excitement and purpose were blinding. It was how she had felt when she was around Paul while he was working at the ranch. It was what he liked to do, what he loved to do and it was so clear. Like the two men she had met with earlier, they were as excited to get started.
“Can you find me the number for the Callahan Ranch in Crouse, Texas please?”
“Crouse, Texas? Is that where you were recuperating?”
“Yes.”
“Of course. Do you want me to send them a thank you card or basket?”
Katie shook her head. “I think that the thank you should be a little more personal than that Bea. But thank you for offering. I do want to do something special to thank them. That man saved my life.”
The short brunette walked out to go find her the number, but Katie still wasn’t sure what she was going to do with it. While she wanted to talk to Paul, see if he even missed her, beg him to come back. Any of those things had to be better than how she felt right then, the emptiness she felt without him.
When Bea came back in with the number and left, Katie stared at her for some time. She knew that Paul would be out working till close to night fall, so there was no reason to call him then. She would wait till that evening and hope that she had more courage than she felt right then. Right then, her stomach was knotted and she was afraid to even consider calling him. Her worst fear was that he would have forgotten about her already and moved on. It had only been a little over a week and she felt lost without him, but what if he didn’t feel the same way? Katie would be crushed if he didn’t and she knew by calling him, she was going to be putting herself out there and she wasn’t sure if she should. Or even if she could.
***
“Hi, is Paul there?”
“Katie?”
“Yes Scott. I was hoping to get a hold of your brother.”
“I thought you would have seen him by now.”
“Seen him? What do you mean?”
“He left a couple of days ago to see you and he should have been there by now.”
Katie stopped, not sure if she was hearing what he was saying or what her heart yearned to hear. “He is coming here?”
“Supposed to, though Gemma said that he was having second thoughts. The city was a lot for him to take in.”
She couldn’t even imagine Paul there and her heart leapt in her chest. Where was he? When she asked Scott he didn’t seem to know, but promised to get a hold of the sister and call her back. Those few minutes were the longest in her life, but she waited. When she finally did talk to him, her heart sank back down to the level it had been in the beginning. He had left without seeing her, giving up on her. When she hung up, for a long time she stared at the same painting she had looked at for years.
There was a decision to be made. Should she just let him run away and what they have diminish or could she change it? Her mind made up, she left that evening with a small bag of things she thought she would need and he
r purse. When she got to the ticket terminal, Katie bought a one way ticket, hoping that she wouldn’t need to get a way home. He was who she wanted and while he couldn’t make it in the city, she knew that she could make it in the country. Anywhere he was going to be.
It didn’t seem right for her to even think of him leaving the ranch. He was happy and she wasn’t. New York had never made her happy, but Paul had and she wanted to feel that way again.
***
Scott had left the door unlocked for her since she was going to be getting into town so late at night. The ride from the airport was almost as long as the wait to hear from Scott about Paul. While she had been saddened that he had left early, the fact that he had come at all spoke volumes to what he really felt about her and she was okay with him backing out. She wasn’t going to. All she saw it as now, was that he loved her and they were going to be together, one way or another.
She got to the ranch and opened the door to the large house that she had so many fond memories of. Her mind went straight up the stairs and then her body followed to Paul’s bedroom door. She pushed it open and found him sleeping. He looked tired from all of his traveling and she was almost tempted to slide into bed with him right then.
Instead she slid off her clothes first, wanting more than anything to feel his hot body against her own skin. Katie felt naughty in that moment, but she needed to see the look in his eyes like the first time he had looked at her. It had been hot and she wanted it again. Pulling the covers back in front of him, Katie laid down quietly next to him.
Paul moved to pull her against him, mumbling her name as his hips pressed against her. Like before, he wasn’t wearing anything in bed. That fact, paired with the fact that he had said her name in a soft growl, was enough to know that she had made the right decision. No matter what the next day would bring.
“Mmm, Katie.”
She rubbed herself against him as he said her name over and over again. He was getting excited, his body readying them both without him even knowing it. When his arm moved to cover her waist and she felt him stiffen up behind her for a moment, Katie knew he was awake.