Part 21 (2/2)
Fueled by excitement, Kate paced the deck. ”My mother and her husband have two young sons, too, Max and Nick. They're thirteen and ten, and they barely know me. I give more to my fans than I do to my own family. That's not right.”
”Don't you have contracts?”
”I'll get out of them.” Throwing her hands into the air, she spun around. ”I feel free for the first time in longer than I can remember. I'm free. I can do whatever I want, and what I want has nothing to do with singing or performing. It has everything to do with the people I love.”
He folded his arms and leaned back against the rail that surrounded the deck.
Kate stopped moving and zeroed in on him. ”What?”
”Nothing. I'm listening to you.”
”But what is it you're dying to say?”
He hesitated, seeming to choose his words carefully. ”I'm thrilled to see you so happy. Really, I am. It's just that I worry this incident with the video has upset you more than you're willing to let on, and you're making a big decision while in the midst of a crisis.”
”I know you'll find this hard to believe, but the video didn't cause me to make this decision.”
”You weren't talking about quitting the business before this happened.”
”No, but I was thinking about it. I've been thinking about it for quite some time, if I'm being honest. The one thing that's kept me going is my sister.”
”How do you mean?”
”She works for me. If I quit, what happens to her?”
”It's not like you'd walk away and have nothing to do with the business ever again.”
”I might not...have anything to do with it...”
”Kate, really, I fear you're being hasty. You're upset over what happened, and rightfully so, but to make a decision like this now-”
”I didn't make it today. That's what you're not hearing. I made it in a hospital room in Oklahoma City when I said I wanted to go home. I knew then that I didn't want to come back. I was done then. I didn't realize that entirely until I came here, but I get it now. I'm done. I've had enough of being accused of doing drugs when I've never touched a drug in my life. I'm sick of a different city every day but still feeling like I've never actually been anywhere. There's never time to see anything. Do you know I've been to London six or eight times, but I've never seen Buckingham Palace? What kind of life is that?”
The words, once she started, poured forth in a stream of thoughts she'd had over the last few months. Saying them out loud for the first time was liberating. ”I haven't told anyone this,” she said with a nervous laugh. ”You're the first to know.”
”Come here, darlin'.” He held out his hands to her.
Kate crossed the deck to take what he offered. With her hands in his, she looked up to find him watching her guardedly. ”I'm here.”
”I'm honored to be the first to know how you've been feeling. But I'd be remiss if I didn't urge you to sleep on it before you tell anyone else. I don't want you to make a hasty decision that you'll regret in a month or two.”
”I won't regret it. I'd regret not doing it. That much I know for sure.” She tried to calm her racing heart. ”I get that you think I'm being hasty, and I get why, but you don't know how it's been.”
”Then tell me. Tell me how it's been.”
As she searched for the words she needed, she stared out at the darkness. ”When things between us fell apart, something in me shut down. I think it was the part of me that took chances, the part that risked the odds and didn't care what anyone thought of me.” She smiled. ”How else would you explain why I was willing to risk everything on an affair with a man twenty-eight years older than me?”
”And here I thought all this time I was irresistible.”
Kate laughed, delighted by him. ”Of course you were. But after this, after us, I wasn't like that anymore. I cared too much about what other people thought. It hurt me when they accused me of doing drugs and sleeping around. I played it safe with other guys. I picked people who I knew would never break through the huge wall I'd put up around me. They couldn't break my heart because they couldn't get to it.” She shook her head. ”I'm not making any sense.”
”No, you are. I get what you're saying.”
”I want a real life, Reid. I want an authentic life. Not some glitzed-up celebrity existence where my every word and action is scrutinized by people who don't even know me. I'm tired of my whole world revolving around the next show, the next city, the next arena full of nameless, faceless people.”
”You should have what you want. You went right from your daddy's house to superstardom with almost nothing in between.”
”This,” she said, sliding her hands to his shoulders, ”was not nothing.” She pressed her lips to his and was comforted by the familiar taste and scent of him. ”This was everything.”
”Kate, G.o.d, you have no idea what you do to me when you say those things.”
”I have some idea,” she said, laughing as she rubbed against his arousal.
”Not just there, but in here, too.” He took her hand and placed it on top of his fast-beating heart. ”You touch me everywhere.”
”Will you come back to Nashville with me and help me find that real life? A real life that absolutely must include you if it's to be truly authentic.”
”You want me to come with you?”
She stared at him, incredulous. ”What did you think I've been saying?”
”That you were quitting the business and setting out to find your life.”
Kate threw her head back and laughed-hard-which seemed to annoy him. ”You silly, silly man. You are my life. How did you miss that part?”
”Um, ah, I don't know, but it sure is good to hear. I thought...” He shook his head. ”Never mind what I thought.”
”Tell me. What were you going to say?”
”I thought you were telling me you were leaving. Without me.”
”G.o.d, I'm such an a.s.s. I'm sorry. That wasn't at all what I was saying. The exact opposite.”
He gathered her into his arms, holding her tight against him.
”So will you come home with me?”
”On one condition.”
Kate drew back slightly so she could look up at him. ”What's that?”
”If you want a real, authentic life, you're going to have to marry me. I can't see any other way-”
A squeak of surprise escaped from her lips the second before she kissed him.
He tipped his head and buried his hand in her hair, kissing her with an urgency he hadn't often shown her.
Kate clung to him, kissing him back with everything she had, everything she'd ever be. It was all his. It always had been, and now that she knew for sure where she belonged, she'd never let go again.