Saturday morning dawned bright and clear in Olman County, a blessing for which Chase was grateful. A cold front had moved through Friday evening, taking the normal August heat and humidity with it. Temperatures promised to climb back into the uncomfortable range that afternoon, with more storms on the way, but for now, it was as perfect a summer day as one could hope to have in southern Indiana.
He wasn’t terribly surprised to find Annie waiting for him when he pulled into his parents’ driveway. As she got in and buckled her seat belt, he tugged one of the curls that had sprung loose from her hair clip.
“So how am I doing so far?” he asked as he turned the car around.
She tucked the curl back into its clip. “I just got in the car. I don’t even know where we’re going.”
“True.” He pulled out onto the road and headed toward town. “But you have to admit the weather is perfect this morning.”
Annie laughed. “You can’t take credit for the weather.”
“Why not?” He grinned and winked at her. “I can try.”
“You’re in an awfully good mood this morning. Not that I’m complaining,” she said hastily. “Did you hear back from Gordon?”
Chase had called her late the evening before to explain his concerns from Thursday, and he shook his head now. “Nope, and I’m choosing to go with the ‘no news is good news’ mantra. I’m going to be happy to spend the day with you, and I refuse to let that whole mess dictate my life anymore. In addition to your surprise—which I hope you’re going to love, by the way—I have something to celebrate. We’ll get to that portion of the program later this afternoon.”
She gave him a mock frown. “Speaking of that, where are we going?”
He’d driven them into Leroy, but instead of going toward the developed area around the bypass or into downtown, he had turned onto Highway 7, which was the scenic route that led away from town along the Ohio River.
“You’ll see soon enough.”
For the next few miles, they joked with each other, but when Chase slowed to turn down a private driveway flanked by two stone pillars, Annie fell silent. The driveway curved around a bluff and rose steeply to a house sitting on the cliffs overlooking the river.
“What are we doing here?” she asked in a hushed voice. When he didn’t answer but pulled up in front of the house and turned off the engine, she turned to him with wide eyes. “Do you know whose house this is?”
“I do. I take it from your reaction that you do as well.” Her wide-eyed awe made him smile.
She grabbed his arm. “This is Nancy Bolen’s house. She has one of the most extensive collections of heirloom roses in the region. Nobody but nobody gets in here.”
He put his face close to hers. “Guess who’s getting the grand tour today?”
To his everlasting surprise, Annie’s eyes filled with tears, and she pulled him in for a quick, smacking kiss. “You—I don’t know how you knew, how you managed this, but thank you.”
Before he could say a single word, she cleared her throat and got out of the car. As the front door of the house opened, he hurried to catch up with her.
“Welcome, children. You must be Chase’s Annie,” Nancy said, greeting them warmly. “Aren’t you cute as a button?”
“Nancy, hello. Thanks for having us. Yes, this is Annie. Nancy’s a client and a friend,” Chase told Annie. “When she came in Thursday, she brought some roses. We got into a discussion about them, and you came up.”
“I’m so sorry you lost your business and your home. Chase mentioned you like heirloom roses.”
“Thank you, and yes, I do. I adore them. I had quite an extensive collection, but they were in the greenhouse on the roof.”
Nancy extended her arm to Annie, her countenance serious. “That’s a real tragedy. Why don’t you two come with me? I have some things to show you.”
Once they were inside the gardens, Chase wasn’t surprised to find Annie speechless. There was so much to see, with nearly two acres of fully landscaped flower beds and arbors with trails leading in various directions, it was overwhelming even to someone who wasn’t much into flowers.
After a few minutes, Annie recovered her voice. “Mrs. Bolen, this is… I don’t know what to say. It’s amazing.”
Nancy smiled. “Thank you.”
They didn’t rush but spent a couple of hours exploring, with Annie stopping to sniff blooms every few steps. So much of their discussion went over Chase’s head that he started to feel as if they were speaking another language.
“It’s refreshing to see someone your age taking an interest in preserving the plants of our past,” Nancy told Annie when they finally sat down for tea. “Are you planning on rebuilding your greenhouse?”
“I am. I was reluctant to even entertain the idea, to be honest. I didn’t want to get attached to the plants only to lose them again if something else happened. But now, after seeing your garden, I realize how ridiculous that is.”
“Well, when you get to the point where you’re ready to start adding plants, you come back out here and see me. I’d love to be able to help you start again if you’re interested.”
Annie’s eyes welled. “I’m truly touched, Mrs. Bolen.”
Nancy quietly handed her a napkin and waved her words away. “Call me Nancy. Truthfully, I’m excited to have someone to share this with.” She gestured toward the gardens. “I’m not a young woman anymore, and when I’m gone, there probably won’t be a single person in my family who gives two hoots about this.”
When Nancy walked them to the door a short time later, she enveloped Annie in a tight hug and whispered something in her ear, something that caused a fierce blush and a bashful smile to spread across her face.
“Yes, ma’am,” Annie said.
“Come back and see me sometime,” Nancy told them both. “I’ve enjoyed having you.”
“We will,” Chase promised.
As he pulled out onto the road that led back toward Leroy a few minutes later, he glanced at Annie, who was still smiling.
“Was this worth spending a few hours in the company of a boring stick-in-the-mud like me?”
“Chase Hudson, you’re not remotely close to boring.” She faced him, her head resting against the headrest of her seat, and touched his shoulder. “This was incredible, and it means so much to me that you knew to do this for me. I didn’t realize how much I needed something like this. Thank you.”
He squeezed her hand on his shoulder. “You’re welcome. I’m glad I was able to do it. Are you up for a little more excitement? I have something else I’d like to show you.”
“Absolutely, as long as there’s food involved.” She winked. “What is it?”
“Another surprise.”
“Okay. Lead on, fearless one,” she said.
A comfortable silence enveloped the car. Within a couple of minutes, they had reached the outer edge of the city limits, and Chase slowed down to turn in at a short, steep driveway.
Annie sat up straighter as the house at the top of the hill came into view. “This is L.J. Root’s house, isn’t it?”
Chase parked next to the two-story Victorian-style house. For all its proximity to the highway, the house and grounds felt private. There were no close neighbors, and the large yard was surrounded on three sides by thick woods. The front of the house faced a small beach on the other side of the highway and the Ohio River beyond.
Chase turned off the engine before he answered, a quick flash of nervousness running through him. “It was L.J.’s house until yesterday. Now it’s mine.” He held his breath as he waited for her response.
For a few seconds, she sat there, stunned. “You bought a house?”
He grasped his car keys tightly, the metal cutting into his fingers a bit. “I did. How crazy does that make me?”
“It doesn’t. It looks like a great house. This… it’s a surprise, that’s all. I didn’t even know you were considering buying something.”
He chuckled ruefully. “I wasn’t. How about a tour while I tell you about my latest folly?”
She laughed. “Are you kidding me? Of course I want a tour. I’ve always wanted to see the inside.” She unfastened her seat belt and almost beat him to the wide front porch.
He paused as they started up the steps. “You’ve never been here, then? I thought you and Sammy or Sasha had been friends in high school,” he said, referring to L.J.’s granddaughters.
“With the exception of Beth and Lauren, I didn’t exactly run in the same circles as your cousins. I think you forget sometimes that I didn’t grow up with all of you.”
He held the storm door open for her once the main door was unlocked. “I do forget.”
He fell silent as he watched her walk around the room, taking in the bones of the older home. He was relieved to see that she was smiling when she turned back to him.
“Well, what do you think?” he asked.
“It’s gorgeous. Murphy will love these hardwood floors and the wide windowsills. How did you end up buying it?” she asked as they walked through the rest of the downstairs. “Ooh, kitchen needs a little work. It probably hasn’t been updated since the eighties. Do I want to know what’s in the cooler?”
“In a few minutes. The kitchen’s the first project on the list,” he confirmed. “L.J. is one of my clients, and when he and his son Jackson came in the other day, they told me he was getting ready to put it on the market. L.J.’s been living in a retirement facility for a couple of years now, and he was ready to part with the house. I’ve always liked it, so I offered him full asking price. It was pretty simple to go from there.”
“Wow,” Annie said, leaning into his arm as they stopped in the dining room. “I’m impressed, Counselor. What are you going to do with your condo?”
“As you see, this house needs a few updates—the kitchen, refinishing the floors, that sort of thing—so I’ll have that done first. Then I’ll either hold on to the condo as a rental or sell it.” They started up the stairs to the second floor. “You’re the first person I’ve told about this, by the way.”
She stopped. “You haven’t told your family yet?”
He shook his head.
“Why not?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I wanted to keep it to myself for now.”
“But you’re showing it to me,” she said slowly.
Chase held her gaze. “Yes, I am.”
Neither of them spoke for a moment, and he watched her cheeks flush. Without a word, she turned and continued up the stairs.
He followed her, just as quiet, as they walked through the three smaller bedrooms and the shared bath.
“The tile is obviously original to the house, and I think the pink-and-black ceramic looks like something straight out of a fifties movie.”
“It does,” she agreed with a smile. “The bathrooms need updating, but really, you could do modern old-style fixtures and keep the tile, and you could pull off a great retro look in here.”
“You think I should keep it?”
She shot him an outraged glance that said he was crazy if he didn’t. “Yeah.”
Chase laughed and stood back as she walked down the hall toward the front of the house, where the master suite graced the entire front half of the upstairs. He waited for her reaction and wasn’t disappointed.
“Oh, this is gorgeous,” she said with a gasp of appreciation. She walked to the long bank of French doors that led to the small balcony beyond. It was the upstairs portion of the front porch, and the view of the river was spectacular. “You were right to buy this house, if only for this room and this view.”
“Apparently L.J. and his wife tore down a couple of walls and made the room larger after their kids were grown.” He moved across the room and opened another set of French doors. “Check this out. It was her sitting room.”
Annie hurried over to peer inside. “I’m officially jealous. This would be so perfect for a small library,” she mused with a wistful smile. “You could line the walls with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and add a window seat there in the front window. Oh, Chase. Congratulations.”
“Thank you.” He touched her arm. “So I have a picnic in the kitchen. You hungry?”
“I’m starving, silly man. Like you haven’t heard my stomach growling for the past twenty minutes.” She followed him back downstairs.
“That was you?” he said, feigning surprise. “I thought we had a thunderstorm moving in.”
When an actual clap of thunder sounded, followed by the pounding of heavy rain, she burst out laughing.
He snorted and went into the kitchen for the cooler he’d stashed there that morning. “I figured we could eat on the porch, but as it seems to be raining cats and dogs out there, it might be a good idea to stay indoors. Where would you like to eat?”
“The living room is fine,” Annie said.
“View’s not as good as from the porch. Is that okay?”
She shrugged. “The view’s great from the bedroom. If you don’t mind toting that humongous cooler up the stairs, we could eat up there. The balcony is covered, so we could open the doors and let the fresh air in. How many people were you planning to feed by the way?”
“I was hungry when I put it together.” He stuck his tongue out at her as he hefted the cooler. “So do you think Murphy will like the house?”
“Are you kidding? Murphy will love the house. All this room, and with windows and birds instead of the postage-stamp yard at the condo? No offense.”
“None taken.”
Once in the bedroom, he set the cooler down in the back of the room, near the wall, and unpacked while she opened the doors.
“Can I help?” She sat down opposite him and grinned as the stacks of containers grew. “You really were hungry.”
“Ravenous.” He handed her the baggie that contained utensils and napkins, and after she distributed them, he handed her a plate.
“Please don’t take this as a criticism, but what made you buy this house?” she asked casually as they started eating.
He didn’t answer right away. “If I said it was because of Murphy, would you believe me?”
She considered his answer. “I would accept that Murphy was part of your reasoning. He’s a small cat, but he needs a lot of room to run. But I know you well enough now that I think I can safely assume that’s not all of it.”
He rested against the wall. “It’s hard to explain. When the Roots told me about this house, I knew I needed to buy it. Especially after I came out here and walked around. I want a real home, not some stupid condo that feels like a nice apartment. It isn’t enough anymore.”
“I can understand that,” she said, not looking at him. “Are you starting to think about settling down, starting a family?”
Chase snorted. “I’ve already started one.” When her eyes grew round with shock, he burst out laughing. He easily caught the grape she tossed at him, then popped it in his mouth, still smiling. “Not like that! I meant Murphy. To be honest, I don’t particularly want kids.” He waited in tense silence for her reaction.
She couldn’t hide her surprise. “Since when?”
“Since forever.” He hadn’t meant to make that confession quite that bluntly. “Even when I was younger, the thought didn’t appeal. Don’t get me wrong—kids are nice enough when they’re someone else’s. I’m looking forward to being an uncle so I can spoil my siblings’ kids rotten and send them home to torment their parents. I’ll love having nieces and nephews. I just don’t want children of my own… I’ve shocked you, huh?”
“You have,” she said quietly. “I never expected you to not want kids.”
Chase set his plate down and straightened his legs out in front of him as he searched for words. “You probably think that’s a callous, self-centered attitude.”
“No, I feel similarly.”
He was immensely relieved. “You do?”
“Yes. It really surprises me that you do.”
“Why?” he asked, puzzled.
“I guess because of your family. You all are so close, so much a unit. Do they know you don’t want kids?”
“That’s never really come up. What about you? I expected that with you being an only child, you’d want a houseful of your own.”
Annie frowned. “We’ve never talked about this before. Why are we talking about it now?” Before he could answer, she stood and went to the open doors.
He moved to stand beside her. “Because we need to. I think you know as well as I do that we’ve been circling around things for some time now.”
“I do know,” she said softly, her eyes on the river. “And I guess time’s up, huh? As to your question, actually, no. Being an only child, being raised the way I was? I never wanted kids.”
“I thought you had a relatively happy childhood.”
She spread her hands. “I did, mostly. I love my mom. She’s my hero. And Ralph is wonderful. He’s not just my stepfather, but I really think of him as my dad. They’re great parents, and they’re two of the kindest people I’ve ever met.
“But growing up, it was common knowledge up in Madison that Ralph wasn’t my ‘real’ father. You were a geeky kid, so you know how cruel kids can be. I was prime fodder, and even if I managed to have a normal life at home, the moment I got on the school bus, that normalcy ended. That’s one of the reasons we moved down here when I was in eighth grade.”
She walked back to the cooler and sat down, pulling the bottle of champagne out of the ice at the bottom. “Do you mind if we open this? Not that I need liquid courage to continue, but it wouldn’t hurt.”
“That sounds ominous.” He sat back down and made quick work of removing the cork.
She held up two plastic cups to catch the bubbling liquid and managed to keep most of the champagne in them. When he finished pouring, she handed him a cup and raised her own in a silent toast, then she took a deep swallow and continued her story.
“When I was in first grade, my best friend came to school and told everyone in our class that I was a bastard. I didn’t even know what the word meant, only that it wasn’t good.”
“First grade?” Chase grimaced. “Ouch.”
She nodded. “First grade. I don’t know if the teacher knew what my friend was saying or not. But what I do know is that when I went home that afternoon, I felt pretty lousy. I asked my mom what a bastard was. I can still see the pain on her face. It hurt her so much, and she knew instantly what had happened. She just didn’t know who had let it slip.”
“How did your mom handle it?”
“The same way Carly Tucker faces everything—head on. She sat me down and explained what the word meant. I knew I was sort-of adopted, so it wasn’t a huge surprise. I didn’t understand what the big deal was, and I doubt my friend had a clue of what the implications of my being illegitimate were. It took me until I was a teenager to understand what being conceived in the midst of an alcohol- and drug-fueled adulterous affair actually meant.”
Chase put his arm around her, thankful that she didn’t pull away, and rested his cheek on her hair with a sigh. “I’m so sorry. How in the world did your friend find out in the first place?”
Annie snorted derisively. “She overheard her parents discussing my ‘situation,’ and she carried the tale to school.” She lifted her face to his. “My mother never let me go back to that girl’s house again. My best friend, Chase. All I knew was that I’d lost something important, and it hurt. It wasn’t the last time either.”
Sadness and hurt lingered in her eyes. With his free hand, he caressed her cheek with a feather-light touch. “You are so much more than the circumstances surrounding your birth, you know.”
She moved into his caress, nuzzling his hand. “I’m glad you think so. Most of the time, I know that too. So long as I can go on and pretend I’m like everyone else, it doesn’t bother me. Nowadays, it’s a pretty common situation. But back then? I was an oddity, and you know what happens to kids who are odd.”
“I do, and I’m sorry you went through that.”
“Oh, it doesn’t stop there. I was such a self-righteous little snot, you see.” She drew in a deep, shuddering breath. “By the time I was a teenager, I’d pretty much heard all the comments, the jokes, the sly little remarks. I blamed my mom so much. Being a teenager is rocky enough, but add in the kind of pressure I had on me? I was not a nice person when I was younger.” She laid her head on his shoulder. “I was so cruel to Carly. I sometimes wonder how she ever forgave me.”
“Sweetheart, I hate to break it to you, but teenagers are put on this earth to torment their parents. Ask my mom if you don’t believe me. You just had a little more angst than most.”
“I had ammunition most kids don’t have,” she countered. “I used that information to hurt Mom and, to some degree, Ralph. We didn’t argue, not too much really, but I let her know in subtle ways that I thought I was better than her. All through high school, I did everything I could not to be like her—which wasn’t a bad thing in a way, and she was thankful for that. Mom had a pretty rough childhood, and she’s often said she would have gotten further in life if she had been more like me as a child.”
“How so?”
Annie smiled sadly. “I got straight As, I was on the honor roll, and I worked after school as soon as I legally could. I also never let a boy do more than kiss me. I was determined I wasn’t going to be weak like my mother. I certainly wasn’t going to wind up pregnant by a married man and be at the mercy of strangers the way she had been.”
Chase was suddenly afraid he knew what Annie was going to say next. He didn’t know if he could handle hearing the words, but regardless, he had to ask. “What happened?”
“I met Rafe.” She scoffed. “I had my plans laid out so carefully. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life—own a flower shop. I’ve never doubted that. All the turmoil through those years, I was always able to find solace in flowers. I didn’t even bother taking a summer off after high school to enjoy life, though Mom and Ralph wanted me to. I went straight from high school to Madison and Ivy Tech.” She stopped to get a bottle of water and took a long drink from it. “College was Ralph’s idea, for the most part. He promised me he would back me in my own shop, but I had to get at least an associate’s degree first.”
“Smart,” Chase remarked.
She nodded. “Ralph is a very smart man. I learned so much from him over the years, and even now, if I have a problem with the business that I can’t get my head around, he’s my go-to guy.” She took another drink and replaced the cap on the bottle. “In any event, I was sailing through my courses, and it didn’t take the instructors long to notice. By the third semester, the spring I turned nineteen, I was tutoring in what little spare time I had. That’s how I met Rafe. He needed help with algebra.”
“Figures.” He tightened his arms around her, and when she looked at him, he shrugged. “What do you want me to say? I don’t like the guy.”
Annie slid her arms around him and squeezed him tightly. “Neither do I, not now, but the young me was as green as grass and full of my own importance. I was begging ate for a comeuppance, and I got it. I thought I knew so much, and it turns out I didn’t know jack.”
“Were you still living at home then?”
“Yes. Mom and Ralph had moved to Hanover by that point, and it made sense for me to stay with them.”
When she fell silent, Chase nudged her. “You know you don’t have to tell me any of this if you don’t want to.”
She shifted in his arms so that she faced him. “Yes, I do. You know I do. I had hoped I wouldn’t have to, but things are changing between us whether I like it or not. Telling you this… it’s part of the package.”
Chase couldn’t speak for a minute, but he finally found his voice. “Okay. So you meet Mr. Hot Shit. Then what?” When she gave a startled laugh, he smiled. “I’m going to be in hock to Mom’s swear jar, and I know I shouldn’t make that kind of comment about someone I met briefly on the street. He’s probably a really nice guy.” When he rolled his eyes and made a rude gesture, she snickered.
“Actually, he’s an unmitigated ass.” Her smile faded. “Rafe was my first. My first real boyfriend, my first lover. I suppose he was even my first love, as misguided as I was.” When he tensed, she said softly, “I know you don’t like hearing that, but it doesn’t change the truth.”
“I can handle it,” he assured her.
“I started out as his algebra tutor, and within a month, we were dating. Within three months, I was pregnant.”
Chase had no idea what to say, but fortunately, she kept talking.
“I was so ashamed. When I told Rafe, he got angry. Told me I’d ruined a good thing, like he hadn’t had any part in the conception. Before I could blink, he was gone. As cliché as it sounds, he left town in the dead of night.”
Closing his eyes, he cursed Rafe Lewis for all he was worth, which didn’t sound like much. “Ah, damn it all to hell. I’m so sorry. How did your parents take it?”
“They were devastated. I was so afraid to tell them. I knew Mom would throw all those years of piousness in my face, and she would’ve been well within her rights to do so. But she didn’t. Instead, she was heartbroken for me.”
“Because she’d been there?” he asked.
She nodded. “She felt like she’d failed me even though I was the one responsible. After Rafe left and I confessed everything to Mom and Ralph, I had some tough decisions to make. I was about ten weeks pregnant by then. God forgive me, Chase, I didn’t want that baby. I didn’t want to be a parent, didn’t want the responsibility of another human being, and I especially didn’t want to have Rafe’s child. I hated that it was growing inside me.” She shifted in his arms. “There were a dozen times I started the drive to Cincinnati to have an abortion. I even made it all the way to the clinic once.”
“What stopped you?”
“Mom. I kept seeing her face when I’d told her about the pregnancy, and I kept thinking that she could have chosen to abort me, but she didn’t. I had a lot more support and love in my life than she had, and getting rid of the pregnancy because it was inconvenient for me? I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want the child, but someone else might. That decision, to not have an abortion, it was right for me. I’d never presume to make it for someone else, but for me… no.
“So I went back home and told Mom I wanted to give the baby up for adoption. She made some phone calls and didn’t try to talk me out of it. Ralph has a cousin in Virginia who counsels teen and young single mothers, and Mom made the arrangements. By the time I was close to six months along, we flew to Virginia, and I was enrolled in a program there that helps young women who find themselves pregnant, don’t want to have an abortion, and don’t want to keep the baby.”
“What did you do about school?” he asked.
“I finished out the spring semester before I left Indiana like nothing had happened. I was about twenty pounds heavier then, and I didn’t wear tight clothes, so hiding the pregnancy wasn’t an issue.” She shifted, taking his hand and holding onto it, tracing his fingers as she talked. “The further along I got, the more certain I was that I had made the right decision. Mom was with me and was going to stay until I had the baby. Do you know how much of a sacrifice that had to be for her and for Ralph?”
“She probably didn’t see it that way,” he assured her. “She loves you. You needed her.”
Annie nodded. “I know. But I see it that way. During those months in Virginia, we grew so close. We rebuilt our relationship, became friends, not just a mother and daughter. It was wonderful, at least that part of it was. Only things didn’t turn out the way I’d planned.”
He placed a soft kiss on her temple. “They rarely do, I’ve found.”
“Isn’t that the truth?” She let out a deep sigh. “Ralph flew down to spend a couple weeks with us for the Fourth of July. The day before he was scheduled to fly back, we all went out to eat. It was such a perfect day—hot, sunny, breeze blowing off the ocean.
“We were so happy. I was seven months pregnant, but I had really started to feel hopeful that things would be okay. I’d be able to return to Indiana after I had the baby, and I could go on with my life. I had even started to get past Rafe’s abandonment, or at least see it with less emotional eyes. It still hurt, but it had grown to more of a dull ache, you know?”
“I do know.” He tenderly pushed a curl off her forehead. “So what happened?”
“We were scheduled to meet with prospective parents a couple of days after Ralph left, and we all decided to make an early night of it. Mom and I were staying at Ralph’s cousin’s house, and since we wouldn’t see him again until the baby was born, they wanted to spend some time together. So we headed back to the house… we never saw the other car coming. One minute we were laughing, and the next thing I knew, it felt like we were flying.”
Chase frowned. “You wrecked?”
“Mm-hmmm. Guy ran a red light, slammed straight into us. Two seconds sooner, he would have hit the front passenger side and Mom would probably have been killed. Two seconds later, and it would have been a close call or a fender bender. As it happened, he hit the car right where the right rear wheel well meets the back door frame.
“There are so many what-ifs. If I had been sitting behind Mom like I usually did, I’d be dead. But we’d bought an antique chair, and it had to go behind her seat because Ralph is so tall. That stupid chair saved my life. Mom still has it. She glued it back together and says she’ll never get rid of it.” He tightened his arms around her, and Annie hugged him back. “Aside from a few cuts and bruises, we thought we were all okay. The guy who hit us wasn’t so lucky. He was killed on impact.”
Chase cleared his throat. “I take it things weren’t okay?”
“No. When he hit us, he pushed us into another car parked near the intersection. I couldn’t get my door open, and we had to wait for the EMTs. They got there and cut the door open, and of course, everyone was freaking out because I was pregnant. I remember the paramedic asking me over and over again if I felt okay. I was a little nauseated, but I felt fine. They put a collar on my neck and laid me on a backboard before trying to get me out of the car. The next thing I remember was being in the ambulance and Mom looking down, white as a sheet. Then it all faded away.
“When I woke up, it was late the next day. I was in the ICU, and the baby was gone. I didn’t get too anxious. I remembered the wreck and figured they’d probably had to take him early, but he was really gone. He never even had a chance.”
Chase felt the shock down to the soles of his feet. “Oh God, I’m so sorry.” He buried his face in her hair. For several minutes, they simply held each other, not speaking.
She drew in a long breath. “It doesn’t end there. There were complications. I was hemorrhaging. They had to do a hysterectomy in order to stop it, or I would have bled to death right there on the operating table. Even so, it was close.” She turned away from him. “So you see, whether to have children or not isn’t really an option for me anymore. I’m okay with that. I only wish I’d been given the choice instead of having had it made for me.”
Chase wasn’t sure what to say or how to react. He tipped her face back to him, then wiped her tears away with his thumbs and pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead. “I’m sorry for all of it. Life isn’t fair sometimes, is it?”
“No, but we get what we get. It isn’t always what we want, but if we’re lucky, sometimes it is.”
“What if I said all I want is you?”
With trembling fingers, she traced his lips. “Why?”
“There are so many reasons, but basically, in a nutshell, being with you makes me happy.”
“You’re very odd, Counselor. Has anyone ever told you that?” she whispered, though her soft smile tempered the words.
“Because being with you makes me happy?”
“Mm-hmmm.”
He gave a rough laugh and tipped his head back against the wall. “We have to talk about us, you know.”
Annie rested her head on his shoulder. “I know. But not right now. Soon.”
Chase rubbed her back. “We should probably pack things up here. As much as I love holding you—and believe me, I do—I can’t sit here any longer. This floor isn’t the most comfortable seat in the world.”
With a reluctance that warmed his heart, she eased out of his arms and started packing the cooler. As he joined her, she paused to study him.
He shot her a questioning look. “What?”
Annie shook her head. “Nothing.”
Chase didn’t press the issue, and they finished cleaning up the picnic in silence. After a quick walk through the house to make sure it was secure, he carried the cooler out to the car and loaded it in the trunk. “I guess I’d better get you home.”
“I guess so,” she replied, a wistful tone creeping into her voice. “I do have to do laundry this weekend, and I was going to paint my toenails, wash my hair, something like that.”
“Um, well, not that I want you to have dirty laundry or hair or, heaven forbid, unpainted toenails, but I happen to know this guy who has a big TV, a semisweet, semi-possessed cat, Chinese food on speed dial, and an extremely comfortable couch. If you were interested, I’d say I could probably convince him to rent a movie or two.”
Annie laughed. “I figured you would probably be ready for a break from me by now.”
He scowled. “Why on earth would you think that? Don’t you realize that I enjoy being with you? Or is it that you need a break from my company? If that’s it, don’t worry about hurting my feelings.”
She touched his hand and grimaced. “No. Look, I… can we go back five minutes? Ask me again?”
Somewhat warily, he watched her for a moment. Speaking as casually as he could manage, he asked, “How would you feel about a movie or two and some takeout at my place?”
“I would love to spend the evening with you.” Her voice was soft, and when she held out her hand, he carefully took it, sliding their fingers together in a solid grasp. “As it turns out, you make me happy too.”
He felt the butterflies in his stomach settle, and he grinned, relieved beyond words. “Then I would say we have a date.”