Chapter Thirty-One
JENNA LEFT EARLY Sunday morning with her car packed to the hilt. Leanna and Bella waved to Amy as she drove out of the complex two hours later.
“I guess that just leaves you,” Leanna said to Bella.
“Tony’s here.”
“No. He went out surfing this morning, and he’s going to Nantucket for the week with friends. Once you leave, it’ll be just me and Pepper.” She crouched and pet Pepper. He panted up at her. “I’m going to miss you guys.”
Bella had on a sundress and flip-flops. Her hair had lightened in the sun since she’d arrived earlier in the summer. She hugged Leanna and reassured her. “You’re doing the right thing.”
“It feels like the absolute wrong thing. Everything that I was so excited about feels empty now. It’s like when Kurt left, he took a little—”
“Piece of you with him? I know. I can see it in your eyes.” Bella hugged her again. “Listen, we women are like ice cream. We’re just fine without our freezers. Even melted, we still taste good. We’re still sweet and delicious, but somehow when we have that freezer wrapped around us, we bloom into something more. Something better.”
Leanna rolled her eyes. “What is it with you and ice cream this summer?”
Bella tapped her chin. “I’m not sure, but I think it’s a good analogy. Without Kurt, you’re still smart, fun, beautiful, capable, and…You’re you. And we love you. But with Kurt, you’re more.” She shrugged.
“So why did you tell me to stay here? Why didn’t you push me to go to New York? Come on, Bella. Am I making the biggest mistake of my life?” It sure felt like it.
“Because you need both. You need this business and you need Kurt.” They walked over to Bella’s car. “And I have faith in ice cream. I told you that. Get this business going. Ice cream fate will take care of the rest.” She kissed Leanna’s cheek and hugged her one more time. “I gotta run before traffic gets bad. I love you. Call me and text me. Let me know everything that happens.”
“You know I will. Drive safely.”
Bella pulled her car out of the driveway and waved. “Have faith in all things sweet, Leanna.”
What does that even mean?
Leanna’s phone vibrated with a text from Kurt on the way back to her cottage. FaceTime?
A few seconds later Kurt’s face lit up the screen. She walked into her cottage, feeling the emptiness press in on her.
“Hey, babe.” His low, gravelly voice raked a chill down her spine.
“You sound tired.” His eyelids looked heavy, sleepy.
“A little. I didn’t sleep much last night. How are you? How’s Pepper?”
I love you. She crouched down and showed him Pepper.
“Hey, Pep!”
Pepper barked and whined. His tail wagged as he pressed his wet nose to Leanna’s phone. Kurt laughed, and it chased the chill right back up to her heart. She turned the phone back toward her.
“I miss you so much.” She could fall into those blue eyes of his. She wanted to fall into them. There was no way she could do this. No way. Her friends were wrong. She had to go to New York. She had to be with him. There would be other contracts, or maybe there wouldn’t, but there could never be another Kurt.
“Me too. I had to see you. What are your plans today? Are you going to the flea market?”
“The girls just left, and I was considering skipping the last day at the flea market and taking Pepper to the beach. I haven’t gone much this summer and…” She couldn’t act like everything was okay. She couldn’t talk about her day like she wasn’t pining for him every second.
“And I miss you like crazy, Kurt. I can’t help but feel like I’ve ruined everything. We had a plan, and you’re a planner. You live by your schedules, and when you left, we had a schedule that we were both happy with, and now…Now it’s all messed up because of me and my stupid business. And you know what? I’m just flighty enough to decide in two months that this business isn’t what I want.” That was a lie. That was who she thought she used to be, but Kurt helped her to see that she hadn’t been that person at all. She just hadn’t found her calling and there was nothing wrong with taking her time. After all, not settling had brought her to Kurt.
“Stupid business?” He shook his head.
“Wait. Don’t say anything. That’s not true. I won’t change my mind about the business, but I did mess everything up, and I’m sorry.”
“Leanna?”
She saw his lips move, but couldn’t hear past her need to get her feelings out once and for all. “You’re probably rethinking everything about us by now. I’m sorry I ruined our plans and upset your apple cart.”
“Leanna. Take a deep breath. Please.”
“Kurt—”
“No. It’s my turn to talk.”
His serious tone caught her off guard. She closed her mouth.
“You are my apple cart.”
He said it so seriously that she thought she misunderstood him. What was it with food analogies all of a sudden?
“What?”
“You are my apple cart. You haven’t ruined anything. You’ve made my life better in every way. I told you I’m not going anywhere, and I’m not.”
“But being apart is hard.” So hard I can’t stand it.
“Most things in life that are worth anything at all are hard.”
She narrowed her eyes and couldn’t suppress the lascivious thought or the smile that accompanied it. “Well, I know at least one thing that is…”
“There’s my dirty girl,” he said in a seductive voice.
“Ugh! Not helping. Now I miss you even more. This is totally sucky.” She drank in everything she could see. His dark eyes, so full of want and love she could practically taste it, the peppering of stubble along his jaw and above the swell of his upper lip. The way his dark brows knitted together—just a little—when he spoke. She wanted to touch his face, to feel his lips on hers. She wanted to hug him and sit beside him while he wrote. She wanted to see him plotting and creating, too deep in thought to look away from his computer.
“Leanna.”
His voice pulled her from her thoughts.
“Right this very second I can see your face. I can hear your voice.” His voice was sweet and patient. “This moment is anything but sucky. You know what’s sucky? Losing the person you love.”
“Yeah, that would really suck. I guess perspective is everything.”
“You know what else?”
Pepper ran to the screen door and began pawing at it and barking.
“Pepper, shush.” Leanna turned her attention back to Kurt. “Sorry. He’s going bonkers. I don’t know how you got him to listen.” She turned her back to Pepper to try to hear Kurt better.
Pepper whined, scratching at the door.
“I’ve got to let him out. Pepp—” She spun around. Her eyes filled with tears at the sight of Kurt standing on the other side of the screen door, a bouquet of wild roses in one hand, the phone in the other.
“Hey, babe,” he said casually, as if he’d just come back from walking Pepper and not just walked back into her life from halfway across the United States.
She burst through the door, jumped into his arms, and wrapped her legs around his waist. “You’re here. You’re rea—”
He dropped the phone and the flowers, cupped the back of her head and took her in the sweetest kiss she’d ever tasted. Pepper ran around them in circles, barking and whining and pawing at Kurt’s legs.
“You are my moment, Leanna. If you’re here, I want to be right here with you. Every minute of every day.”
“Here?”
He kissed her again. “Here.”
“But New York?” She couldn’t believe he was there. He looked so tired, and he held her like she was light as air.
“Would be torture without you.”
AN HOUR LATER Kurt lay on his back in Leanna’s bed. Her head rested on his chest, her arm was draped over his stomach, and he’d never felt happier in all his life. A gentle breeze swept the curtains away from the window.
“Uh-oh,” he whispered.
“What?”
“We left the window open again.” He kissed the top of her head.
“Tony’s not here. He went to Nantucket.” She leaned up on her elbow. “So we can be as loud as we want.”
“Does that mean we can chunky-dunk, too?”
“Only if you’re very…” She kissed Kurt’s chin. “Very.” She kissed his lips. “Good.”
“That sounds like an invitation to me.” He touched his lips to hers again, intending to be far better than good. Again.