Part 8 (1/2)
”I was consumed by jealousy. Every time I read you were with someone new, I wanted to find them and beat the h.e.l.l out of them and tell them you were mine. Mine.” He kissed her. ”Always mine.”
”Yes,” she whispered. ”I was always yours. From the very beginning. I've never wanted anyone else.”
”But there've been others...”
”None that mattered.”
”Kate...” He wrapped his arms tight around her. ”I can't believe you're here and I'm holding you and telling you these things I've kept secret all this time.”
”I can't believe it either. I've spent so many nights on my tour bus, watching the world go past my window, wondering where you were and if you were happy, if you thought of me at all. So many nights. Almost every night.”
”We've wasted so much time.”
Kate looked up at him. ”What about... What about Mari?”
”I care for Mari,” he said, a pained look occupying his handsome features. ”She's a lovely person, but I never made her any promises.”
”Were you together a long time?”
”Six months.”
”Do you love her?”
”I love her, but I'm not in love with her.”
”Oh. You aren't?”
”I couldn't be.”
”What do you mean?”
”How could I be in love with her when I never stopped being in love with you?”
Kate stared up at him, wondering if he'd really said that or if she'd wanted it so badly she'd imagined it.
He framed her face and tipped her head back to receive his kiss, which was gentle this time, as opposed to wild. ”Don't cry,” he whispered. ”Please don't cry. It'll be okay now.”
Kate hadn't realized tears were flowing from her eyes until he swept them away with his thumbs. ”I want to believe it'll work out the way we want it to, but all I can think about are the many reasons it wasn't okay last time.”
”That was a long time ago. A lot has changed since then.”
”Not everything. Your son still doesn't speak to me, for one thing.”
”That's his problem, not ours.”
”It's not that simple. There're so many things to consider.”
”And none of them have to be considered tonight,” he said, kissing her. ”Or tomorrow.” Another kiss. ”Or even the next day.” As he spoke, he backed her away from the wall and guided her toward the bedroom. ”Do you want me to go?”
Shaking her head, she said, ”I want you to stay forever.”
His grin lit up his face as he came down on top of her on the bed.
Kate ran her fingers through his hair, over and over, relearning every feature of his gorgeous face. ”What happened here?” she touched her finger to a new scar that ran through his right eyebrow.
”A tropical storm blew through a couple of years ago. I was helping a friend replace a window at his house when a piece of the broken one caught me just so.”
”Ouch. Did you need st.i.tches?”
”Three.”
Kate brought him down close to her and pressed three kisses to the scar, making him smile.
”You've been ill,” he said, tracing his finger over the dark circles under her eyes.
”Pneumonia. Hit me hard.”
”I read about what happened in Oklahoma City.”
”That was pretty scary.”
”You're pus.h.i.+ng yourself too hard.”
”I don't have anything else to do. My work is my life.”
”Ah, Kate... I've learned the hard way there's so much more to life than work.” He s.h.i.+fted off her and propped himself up on an elbow.
Filled with questions she was dying to ask him, Kate turned to face him. The questions, she decided, were more important than the pa.s.sion. ”Do you miss your work?”
”Not at all. I do exactly what I want all day, every day. I get asked to consult on a lot of what goes on around here. If I feel like it, I do. If I don't, I say no. I've overseen the building of affordable housing here, which is very rewarding. It's a heck of a lot more fun than working twenty hours a day, that's for sure.”
”Don't you ever get bored?”
”Nope. There's so much to do. I love to sail and scuba dive and fish. Fis.h.i.+ng is so relaxing. I had no idea.”
”I haven't been fis.h.i.+ng since I lived at home.”
”Did you like it back then?”
”I did. I was kinda good at it, too.”
”You should do it again sometime. I also like to mess around with old abandoned boats, like the one I was working on today.”
”What do you do with them after you fix them up?”
”I give them to local kids, who use them to fish.” He twirled a lock of her hair around his finger. ”I used to dream of the life I have now, you know? I'd be flying off to Chattanooga or Memphis or Knoxville to check on jobs, and all the way there I'd dream about living in the islands in a small place on the beach with nothing to do all day other than what I felt like doing.”
”You worked hard for a long time to be able to do this.”