31
(Cara)
My phone buzzes as the nail tech finishes applying my top coat, and I groan. This will inevitably be when one of the two magazine editors I’m freelancing for will have decided to send over revisions on the articles I’ve submitted, I’m sure of it. Both of them, coincidentally, have impeccable timing and short fuses. And I currently cannot reach into my spa robe to extract my phone without screwing up my nails.
They’ll have to wait. It’s Sunday afternoon, after all—the day of special spa time.
Still, when the reminder sounds two minutes later, I nearly give in. Amie strides into the room at that moment, with a serene post-massage look on her face.
“Amie Jane, please grab my phone for me. It’s buzzing and making me feel guilty.”
She puts her hands to her hips. “No working. It’s our day. With my honeymoon and you all nose-to-the-grindstone, we’ve barely seen each other.”
I tip my head and paste on a pleading expression, knowing she’s right, because even with those two freelance writing assignments submitted and awaiting approval, I’ve also contracted with three online journals to write monthly features and book reviews, upping my workload substantially—but also satisfyingly.
“I’ll make you a deal. If it’s work-related, I give you full permission to send a reply that politely advises I’m unavailable until tomorrow. I just don’t want it to look like I’m ignoring them.” I lift one arm up and scoot my hip her direction so she can reach the pocket.
“Promise?” I nod. Amie slips the phone out, unlocks the face, and scans it with narrowed eyes. She peers closer. Then her jaw drops open.
“What?” Amie makes an odd gurgling sound, like she’s trying to say something but doesn’t quite know what. “Is it bad? Why are you making that face? Tell me!”
She thrusts the phone face my way.
A picture of Garrett’s truck, parked in front of Gerald Ramsey’s little house, with a Kansas sunset glowing softly in the background.
I read the text—the invitation in it—and my heart is there before my breath can catch up.
He did it.
Amie lets a grin spread over her face, and when my widened eyes meet hers, she’s already yanking on the sleeve of my robe to encourage me from the chair. Before I know it, I’m in the spa locker room, using my now shaking hands and screwed-up nails to yank on my jeans, tug on my tank top, and grab the rest of my things from the walnut-wood locker.
“Cara.”
I groan inwardly. My mother, inconveniently along for today’s Sunday spa day, a ritual normally reserved for Amie and me alone, but hijacked by Mom under the guise of wanting to discuss with us the fete she’s putting together for Dad’s upcoming birthday. Today of all spa days, when everything in my world has turned on a dime and I’m now hell-bent on nothing but getting to Kansas so I can have all of what I’ve been hoping for.
I toss my bag on the floor and set about pulling on my sandals, casting another glance at the gouged and marred polish on my nails. “Mom, I have to go. I’ll call you next week about Dad’s party, but right now I—”
“Cara. Jane. Cavanaugh.”
Uh-oh. She’s taken on her chiding voice. The one that plagued my adolescence and is best dealt with by giving in. My shoulders sag and I turn her way, expecting to see the expression that usually accompanies that tone—exasperation mixed with disappointment.
But instead, my mother is standing there looking entirely unlike her normally composed self, her posture slack and her gaze almost distressed. Her eyes dart to my nails.
“Your nails are a disaster. Come here, let me fix them.”
She waves a hand toward the long countertop decked out with complimentary spa products and tools, sets about plucking out a cotton ball from a huge apothecary jar and searching for the polish remover. Because God forbid we risk my leaving here looking anything less than perfect. I follow her hesitantly, determined to find a way to clear out of here as quickly as possible. Stepping in behind her, I see her reflection in the large mirror above the countertop, her brow furrowed until she finds the bottle she’s looking for.
“It’s fine, Mom. Please, I really need to go. Garrett just texted me and—”
“Please, Cara,” she implores. Her eyes raise and our gazes meet in the mirror. “He gets to have you forever. Let me have this moment before that happens. I just want to fix your nails before you go. Please.”
Her eyes are watery and weary, and for the first time I see in my mother’s face what I was convinced for so many years wasn’t particularly present for me.
Love. Fondness. Feeling.
My eyes start to sting. Because the sight is so unexpected, because this moment is a reckoning of all those years we spent at odds. Because I know that, in a strange way, she’s offering her approval—to the life I want to live and the man I want to live it with. I thrust my hands out, offering them up to her, entirely grateful for what she’s trying to say—in the only way she knows how.
“I’d like that.”
Maybe this was a mistake.
Maybe bolting out of the spa doors, driving home in a rush, and taking just enough time to shove a few mismatched things in a bag and take off on an eastbound interstate . . . was a mistake.
Surely showing up on Garrett’s doorstep a mere fourteen hours after he sent his text would look a little crazy. I flip down my visor to assess my hair (a rat’s nest) and my face (even worse), and then flip it shut and peer at my bare nails with a resigned sigh. I’m a mess. Five months apart and I show up looking like this.
I scan the area—noting that his truck is nowhere to be found—and contemplate my next move, drumming my nails on the steering wheel, exhausted and jittery all at the same time. He did say the door would be unlocked. I could, technically, scoot in the house and do some damage control, then set myself on his doorstep and wait. Except his caution about sneaking into a redneck’s house seems relevant here, given that I’m showing up unannounced.
Decisions, decisions.
PRO: A bathroom sink, a splash of cold water, and a hairbrush would do wonders at the moment. All three are sure to be behind that front door.
CON: Garrett could show up while I’m in there—looking like a vain, beauty-conscious home invader.
PRO: The ability to see Garrett for the first time in five months without looking like a sea hag.
PRO: Bathroom sink, cold water, hairbrush.
Done. I throw the car door open and step out, peek around to be certain Garrett’s truck isn’t parked somewhere I haven’t noticed. Then I scoot up to the front door and give the handle a wiggle. Unlocked, just like he said.
I give the handle a twist and start to open the door, slowly. Exactly like a home invader.
“Haven’t I told you about the dangers of sneaking into a redneck’s house, City?”
Shit.
I turn slowly. And there’s Garrett—just like I left him. T-shirt and jeans, ball cap and boots. Standing there with a pair of work gloves in his hands and a huge grin on his face.
“I’m sorry. I wanted to brush my hair, and I didn’t see your truck, so—”
“You came,” Garrett interjects. “And fast. Like, really fast.”
The double entendre in what he just said—unintended, I think—means my already frazzled mind conjures up a hundred different puns in response, but I decide to save them for later.
“I drove straight through.” I thrust my hands out and proceed to jabber on with information I’m sure he couldn’t care less about. “I was at the spa but messed up my nails trying to get dressed. I had to take the polish off.”
Garrett looks quizzically at my nails, then takes in the rest of me, scanning my length, and I can’t tell what he’s thinking when he does. “But you’re here.”
I drop my hands. “Of course I’m here. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you’d moved on.”
“I didn’t.”
We both go quiet. Garrett lets his gaze fall to the ground as if he’s regrouping, then straightens his posture and looks right at me. “I’m just going to put this all out there, right now. No small talk or beating around the bush. So you know where I stand and what I want. OK?”
And like the day we said goodbye, my heart starts to rush full of hope. I try not to let it, but it happens without my permission. I give Garrett a nod and do my best to stand entirely still, without locking my knees, in case they decide to give out.
“I’m so in love with you, Cara. You made me want more, then created this amazing opportunity for me to have everything I ever wanted and gave me a swift kick in the ass when I needed it. You told me to do this for me and for us. I did. The only thing that’s missing now is you.”
He pauses long enough for me to think it’s my turn, the moment when I toss myself off the stoop and into his arms and Pavarotti shows up side stage to send us off into the sunset with the proper libretto accompaniment.
“But . . .”
My plan to toss myself his way starts to fizzle. What? No “buts.” Is he crazy? You can’t declare yourself like that and then get a bunch of “buts” up in there.
“But I want you to want to be here. For yourself. I don’t want you to give up anything to be with me. I want you to be you, and me to be me . . . just like you said. This won’t be easy, this life. I need you to promise me you’ll think about that and whatever you decide, you’ll do it knowing you’ve been honest with yourself.”
Garrett’s shoulders release on a long exhale. Speech over, I think. I cock my head and level him with my best straight face. I’m guessing grinning like a goofball will negate what I’m about to say and he’ll think I’m being impulsive, which I’m not. All of what he’s worried about—the work, the choices, the truth—I’ve already thought through all of it. For months I’ve imagined the best- and worst-case scenarios of a life with Garrett, and in the end, there was no question in my mind. I know that all our worst days together will always outweigh any of my best days without him.
“OK.”
His brow furrows up. “OK?”
“Yes. OK. I didn’t bring my stuff with me, obviously, so I’ll need to head back to deal with those things, arrange to have my things shipped out, decide what to do with my condo, but . . . OK.”
“But you didn’t think about it,” he sputters. “I know you, Cara. You have to work this over in that beautiful mind of yours. Pro and con the shit out of it. You haven’t done that.”
I make my way down the stoop, head slowly in his direction. He looks nervous.
“You’re wrong. I’ve had five months to think about it. I have an entire spreadsheet of pros and cons on this topic. The pros win. I’ve just been waiting on you.”
Everything about him—his body, his expression, the grin that’s quirking on his lips—returns me to the day when we met on the side of that county road in Hotchkiss. When he thought I was just a lost rich girl from the city and I thought he was just a guy with washboard abs, bedroom eyes, and directions.
When I reach him, my hands slip to his chest, pressed to his shirt, which is covered in dust, and I love the smell of him, the way he feels, the realness of him—just like this. Garrett as he’s always been, the Garrett he’ll always be.
And when his arms wrap around my waist, I know he sees me, just the same. Cara, as he’s come to know me, as he’s always loved me.
Garrett tips his chin down, sets his eyes on mine.
“I hope you’re ready for this, City.”
Am I ready?
Hell yes.