Chapter 26

 

Whitney

 

A fierce storm has been pounding San Francisco mercilessly all morning, but even the dark skies and rain gusts buffeting my window aren’t enough to dampen my mood. Connor told his family yesterday. He finally made a decision for real and he’s staying. He’s really staying.

I’ve made a decision too. I don’t want to do the long-distance thing anymore. I should’ve been upfront with Connor about how I’m feeling. If it doesn’t feel like too big of a step for him right now, I’d rather try to find work in Swan Pointe than take the promotion here. I don’t expect him to make the “ultimate promise”, as he puts it, but I’m willing to take chances if he is.

I’ll call and talk to him about it after work tonight.

Meanwhile, I’m knee-deep in one of our influxes of paperwork as a new group of refugee orphans enter our program. The reason we have this new group is, as always, gut wrenching.

As much as I’ve loved working with these kids, I do think I need to find something less hands-on. Talking to Connor about things helped me feel better about the possibility of that, and as I’ve considered what it would be like to have a job like Manager of Resettlement, it’s made me realize there are other things I can do that will fit my personality better. Things in Swan Pointe, maybe.

So, all in all, that rain can pound on my window all it wants. I’m in love with Connor and at peace with myself.

What could be better?

Our receptionist sticks her head in my office with a strange look on her face. “Whitney, there’s someone here to see you. A Connor Rivers?”

“Connor Rivers?” I glance at my office phone, expecting to see a red light indicating he’s actually waiting on the line, even though she said he’s here and not on the phone. “He’s here?”

She nods. “In the lobby. He’s dripping wet.”

I pop out of my chair and follow her to the lobby. He’s by the front doors, standing like he’s too restless to sit, and is indeed soaking wet. I head straight for him as the receptionist goes back to her desk.

He sees me and breaks out into a smile. I smile too. “What are you doing here?”

He gives me a kiss—we forego what would be a very wet hug—but as we pull back and I get a good look at him, it only adds to my confusion. I’ve never seen this expression on his face before. There’s an intensity and anxiety there I can’t read.

“Are you okay?”

He glances at the receptionist. “Is there somewhere we can talk?”

In that one moment, Connor did what the storm had failed to do all day. “Sure.” I lead him to the small conference room with a terrible sinking feeling in my gut.

We go in and I shut the door. There’s an oblong table in the middle, surrounded by eight straight-back chairs. One wall is all windows with what’s normally a nice eighteen-story view of the bay. Right now it’s hidden by the dark rain.

Connor doesn’t sit. He takes to pacing, looking at the table, and at me, and out the window, and back at me again. I take in his drenched appearance. “How did you get here?”

“My boat.” He waves a hand dismissively, still pacing.

“In this weather?!” I look out at the bay again. It’s twice as ominous now.

“Yeah. Not the smartest thing I’ve ever done. Damn near capsized trying to come into the bay.”

“What?!”

“But I’m here,” he says, again waving a dismissive hand and still pacing. “I needed to talk to you. You know, I had to come here and talk to you. I had it all worked out how I wanted to say it, and now it’s all jumbled up.”

He’s still pacing. Aside from being terrified about whatever it is he wants to say, I’m concerned about the way he’s acting. He almost seems in shock. I think about him being out in this storm all morning, and his statement that he nearly capsized.

“Are you hurt?”

“Huh?” He stops and looks at me.

“Did you hit your head?”

His eyebrows shoot up and he blinks at me. Then he breaks out into a broad grin. Then he starts laughing. Like, really laughing.

“Oh my god,” I say, even more alarmed now and pulling out a chair. “Come sit down.”

But he shakes his head, still laughing, and walks right up to me. He puts his hands on my face, still chilled from being outside, and looks down at me. My hands and forearms are on his damp shirt. God, he has to be freezing, I think, but with the way he’s looking at me, all I can do is look back. “I love you.” As my heart lifts at hearing these words from him he plants a firm kiss on my lips.

Now I’m really confused, because something seems wrong but he’s telling me he loves me and I don’t know what to think. I kiss him back, out of fear and joy and love and desperation. I’m spinning.

We finally pull away. “I love you, too.”

He grins and exhales deeply. “You do?”

I nod. “But you’re scaring me.”

“I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t mean to scare you.” He kisses me again reassuringly. “I just… I just realized, I think I may have made a promise but I don’t know if I can keep it.”

I’m really panicking now. “I didn’t ask you to make a promise to me.” So please don’t go.

“No, honey, no.” He strokes my cheeks and kisses me again. “Not you. My family. Here, come here.” He sits on the chair and pulls me right into his lap with him.

I curl around him, hugging him and his cold, damp shirt, not caring.

He hugs me back. “God, I’m screwing this all up,” he says softly in my ear. “I don’t remember how I was going to say all this, so I’ll just tell you, okay?” He gently pulls me back so we can look at each other. “Just listen and I’ll try to explain it, all right?”

I nod.

“I told my family I would stay, but maybe I shouldn’t have. Because you’ve got this great job and this incredible promotion and maybe you aren’t going to want to leave that later, you know? What if you want to stay here and then I’m stuck down in Swan Pointe?”

He pauses, and I don’t know if he wants an answer or what, but my brain’s trying to work this out. What is he saying?

“So, I… okay, look, I’m not trying to get you to make a promise to me before you’re ready. And I had it all worked out how I was going to ask you this, but I forget it all now.” He’s back to looking intense and anxious, like he was out in the lobby. “But do you think there’s any possibility you might be willing to move to Swan Pointe in the future?”

My breath catches in my throat.

“You don’t have to say you will for sure,” he says quickly. “I don’t want to rush you. But if you know for sure you wouldn’t want to give up your job or your city, is it all right if you tell me that now? Because then I’ll know what to tell them and I’d rather they know now. I don’t want to blindside them later. Do you understand?”

No, I don’t. I don’t understand what he’s saying. “So, if I’m not willing to move there, you’ll go back to wandering?”

“No,” he says, urgently, shaking his head and holding my eyes. “No. If you don’t want to go there, I’d want to come here.”

I blink at him. “You’d come here?”

“Only if you want. God, I’m not trying to pressure you or move too fast. It’s just that I told them I’d stay and if there’s a possibility I could take that back, I want to tell them I made a decision too soon.”

“You’d come here?” I say again, my whole heart and body lifting as it sinks in what he’s saying to me.

“Maybe you don’t know where this is going yet, and that’s okay. I’m not asking you to make promises you’re not able to—”

“Yes.”

“Yes?” He blinks at me. “Yes, what?”

“Yes, I’d move to Swan Pointe.”

His face softens, and all the anxiety I saw on his face starts to drain away. He strokes my hair. “You would?”

I nod. “But…”

His hand freezes as he watches me.

“I’m…” I stop. Then I say the thing I’ve been afraid of all along. “I don’t want to be that leash tying you down.”

He strokes my hair again and smiles. “You’re not. That’s what I realized. You’re my anchor.”

Part of me relaxes, but another part of me is still nervous. “What’s the difference?”

He smiles gently. “It’s like the difference between good impulsive and bad impulsive,” he says, holding my eyes. “There’s always been this restlessness inside of me. It’s always, always been there.”

“The itch you can’t scratch.”

“Exactly!” His eyes light up the way they do when he gets to a fork in the road, or talks about his parents’ dream, or—I suddenly realize—looking at me. “I thought that itch was for adventure. But it wasn’t. It was the part of me that wanted more. Only I didn’t know what the more was, so I kept looking for it over the horizon and around the next corner.” He holds my face in his hands and gives me that tender look of his. “That thing I needed,” he says, “that more, it was you.”

He looks at the smile emerging on my lips and smiles too.

“Every time we’ve been apart, even just after Spain, I’ve felt something tugging on me. But it’s not the world that’s calling to me anymore. It’s you. I didn’t realize what it was until I was standing in the marina this morning, looking at my boat, and wanting to follow that tugging all the way here to you. I realized that for the first time in my life, I have something on the earth I’m anchored to. But it’s not a place or a job or even my family, even though I do love them and want to stay there. Only if you’re there though. Because you are my anchor now. You’re my home port. And God help you if you decide you don’t want me, because you see how persistent I can be.”

I laugh and put my hands on his face and kiss him again and again. “I love how persistent you are.” We both grin at each other. “And impulsive and amazing and, God, I just love you.”

“So you might come to Swan Pointe some day?”

“Connor.” I exhale gently. “I’d come to Swan Pointe tomorrow.”

“You would?” he says softly.

I nod. “I really, really wanted you to tell me not to take the promotion.”

“You did?” He grins and gives me a kiss. “I would have but I didn’t want to be a selfish ass.”

“I don’t want it.” I shake my head and thread my hands into the back of his hair. “I only want you.”