Return to Sender, page 12
part #1 of Pine Falls Series
“I thought you would never ask. I’ve only eaten two protein bars since lunch.”
I looked down at Whitney, who was sleeping so peacefully on my lap. Such emotion swelled in my chest for her. “If I move her, will she wake up?” I had been afraid to move, which was why I was now well-versed in all things Egypt.
“She’s usually a sound sleeper,” he informed me. He reached over and lovingly swiped her bangs.
“We can move her to the couch while you eat,” I suggested.
He looked around the cozy fort, lit up only by the glow of my laptop. “I vote we stay in here.”
I was afraid he was going to say that. Like I said, the best date ever had happened under a blanket fort. “Don’t get any ideas,” I half teased.
“I have all the ideas,” he wagged his brows. “But those will have to wait until we are alone again.”
A thrill went down my spine. Deal with your past, Ariana, I had to remind myself before I did something we would both regret. I gently moved Whitney and laid her on a pillow next to me. I covered her with an old quilt my great-grandmother had made. “She’s lovely,” I commented.
“She is,” Jonah agreed.
I turned with the intent to exit the fort, but Jonah caught my hand. He held it up and traced the henna tattoo with his finger, sending tingles down my arm. “Do you still have the tattoo on your shoulder?” He trailed soft kisses down my arm.
I couldn’t speak or breathe, so I nodded.
His eyes locked with mine. “Can I see it?”
Before I thought about it, I pulled down the sleeve on my peasant blouse—I had decided against the sweatshirt since I was going to see Jonah. I wanted to look pretty for him. For me. When my bare shoulder was exposed, Jonah let go of my hand and moved closer. His finger began outlining my tattoo that said, Sometimes you have to fall before you can fly. A tiny bluebird was inked close to the quote.
“I remember the night you got this,” Jonah whispered in my ear. “I wished I was adventurous like you. I contemplated getting a tattoo to complement yours that said, I’ll catch you if you fall.”
“I wish you would have,” I said in hushed tones.
“I overthought it and I was too busy wanting to punch the artist for making you wince, but more because he was admiring you. I wanted to be the only man who looked at you that way. I still do.”
I felt not only his warm breath against my skin, but his desire. My own, as well, burned inside of me. “Jonah,” I breathed out.
“Please don’t push me away.”
“I don’t want you to go away, but I don’t want to hurt you again.”
His lips skimmed my shoulder, making goosebumps erupt. “You didn’t hurt me—”
“I didn’t?” I wasn’t sure if I should be relieved or offended.
“You didn’t let me finish. I hurt me . . . us.”
“No. You did the right thing. You got Whitney, and I got what I’d asked for—all fond memories of you and us.”
Jonah closed his eyes and sighed. “We could have had Whitney. We could have had lots of babies. We could have had more than memories if I’d just stayed and taken the residency position here,” he trailed off.
“What?” I was in shock. “You could have stayed?”
His eyes crept open. “Yes,” he said, ashamed. “I didn’t tell you because I thought if you were willing to go with me to Michigan, I would then give you the option of staying. I was offered an obstetrics and gynecology residency here, but it wasn’t my first choice. I didn’t want the kind of on-call hours an OB/GYN has. But you were my first choice, and I would have stayed if you had wanted me to.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I was flabbergasted by the news. I wasn’t sure if I should feel angry or sad. I wasn’t even sure I deserved to feel either way. I made him go.
“Would it have made a difference?”
I thought for a moment “No.” Maybe. We’ll never know.
“You’re wrong. I should have stayed and fought for you. Instead, I proved you right. I left you because you’d wounded my pride.”
“I told you not to ask me. I should have ended it before it went so far.”
He took my face in his hands. “Don’t say that. I loved every second. I would do it all over, even if I knew we would never see each other again.”
Tears filled my eyes and flowed over, dripping onto his strong, capable hands.
He leaned in, allowing me to breathe in his breath.
“I think you had more than protein bars,” I whispered.
He chuckled low. “You and Skittles are my weakness.”
“I don’t want to be someone’s weakness, I want to be their strength, but I don’t know if I can.”
“You are so much stronger than you think you are. You gave me courage to come back here. To change my life.”
“How?”
“First, because I missed this.” His lips swept mine, leaving me aching for more. So, for once in a very long time, I threw caution to the wind and pressed my lips against his until they melded into one. He groaned with pleasure before pulling me onto his lap. Once securely in his arms, his lips urged mine to part. I wrapped my arms around his neck, bringing us closer together. His hands trickled down my back like a waterfall of pleasure. His tongue danced between being entangled with my own and prodding as deeply and urgently as it could. Oh, how I’d missed the taste of Skittles on his tongue.
He kissed with such intensity, as if to assure himself this was real and it was truly me he was kissing. Finally, he sighed and the kiss slowed into a steady rhythm until his lips glided off mine, only to kiss the corner of my mouth. From there he planted soft kisses across my cheek, speaking beautiful words in between each kiss. “You are my hero, Ariana. After everything you’ve been through, you persevered. You make everything and everyone around you thrive. I’m more alive when I’m with you.”
My head fell against his shoulder. “How can I be your hero? I run from life.” I ran from you. I didn’t have the heart to say that to him.
“No, you run your life. From what Brock says, you run the studio better than your grandma ever did, and you helped Dani get Children to Love up and running. And . . . no one, not even me, could have gotten Whitney to eat ice cream in a blanket fort, except you.”
“Jonah, it wasn’t me. She only did it because I told her people who eat ice cream are happier and they live longer. She had to google that, of course, and what she found scared her. She thinks she’s going to die young because she doesn’t have any friends.”
Jonah stiffened. “Not even one?” His heart sounded broken.
“None. Didn’t she tell you?”
“She likes to talk about what she learned at school and her teacher, whom she seems to like a great deal. Whitney says she often sits with her at lunch,” he choked out. “I feel like I’ve failed at my most important job.”
I snuggled in closer to him. “Believe me Jonah, you’re doing a good job. The mere fact that you’ve provided her with a stable, loving environment puts her ahead of the game. And more importantly, you want what’s best for her. She’s a lucky girl to have you as her dad.”
He rested his chin on my head. “More than anything, I want her to be happy and well-adjusted. I want her to see past her own brilliance.”
“She did use a contraction tonight, and she asked for more chocolate cookies to go with her ice cream. She’s on her way to becoming a juvenile delinquent,” I teased.
Jonah’s muted laugh rumbled in his chest. “Thank you for taking such good care of her tonight. You don’t know how much it means to me. To have you both together is incredible.”
“I hope you don’t mind, I promised her I would take her to Dinosaur National Monument.”
“I don’t mind at all. We should make that a camping trip.”
“Maybe we should wait until it’s warmer for that. I love to camp, but not when it’s ten degrees at night.”
“I have ways to warm you up,” he groaned against my ear.
“I thought we were taking this a day at a time.”
He kissed the top of my head. “You’re right. We should take things slow. A lot has happened to Whitney and me this year. She knows I like you, and that her mom and I aren’t getting back together.”
“How does Whitney feel about that?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. She only repeats Eliza’s talking points back to me, as if it was all a sterile business transaction. I’m afraid for the time when she does start to feel the weight of the divorce. I think it hasn’t hit her because Eliza was gone more than she was at home. Honestly, things aren’t a lot different other than we live in a new house and she goes to a new school. A school of my choosing this time. I want her to have a normal upbringing.”
I drew circles with my finger on his taut chest. “I wanted nothing more than to be normal growing up, but now I’m not even sure if there is such a thing. Honestly, I don’t think Whitney is meant for normal, but there is nothing wrong with that as long as she’s safe,” my voice betrayed me and hitched.
“I’ll always do my best to keep her safe.” Jonah’s arms tightened around me. “I wish I could have kept you safe. I wish you would let me now.”
“That might be kind of hard considering the person you would be keeping me safe from now would be myself.”
“You are scary,” he joked.
I playfully smacked his chest.
“Honestly, though, you need to stop fearing yourself. If you could only see yourself like I do, you would know how amazing and capable you are. You would know you aren’t your mother.”
I desperately wanted that to be true. And more than anything, I wanted the truth. “Jonah,” I whispered, “my therapist thinks I should open my father’s letter this year.”
Jonah’s heartbeat ticked up. “Are you going to?” I knew he thought I should. When I’d told him about it all those years ago, he thought it was weird I never had. And he’d never trusted my mom’s motives. He was smarter than me.
“I’m thinking about it, but I’m scared. Dr. Morales said some things today that made me wonder if my entire life has been a lie. What if Roger Stanton isn’t my father?”
“It doesn’t matter who your deadbeat father is,” Jonah spewed angrily. “Your life isn’t a lie. Your life is your own. Now you just have to decide what do with it.” He paused. “I have some suggestions.”
“I bet you do.”
Chapter Fifteen
It was like déjà vu waking up in Jonah’s arms, except we weren’t on my old couch and his daughter was in my arms. I wasn’t sure how that happened in the middle of the night. The last thing I remembered was Jonah and me eating ice cream and watching Creed, which was part of the Rocky saga. I had no idea the storyline had continued.
I also had no idea what time it was because it was especially dark in the fort. But what I did know was I felt safe and warm, snuggled between Jonah and Whitney. It got me thinking about a lot of things, but especially about the qualities my therapist said my safe person should have—steady, nonjudgmental, trustworthy, willing. Most importantly, someone I felt comfortable with. I didn’t know why, but I’d never felt more comfortable than when I was with Jonah. And he certainly met all the other criteria. At least I thought so. Jonah was trustworthy. Wasn’t he?
“Good morning,” Jonah kissed my cheek. His morning scruff tickled and startled me. I didn’t know he was awake too, as my back was to him.
“Good morning, at least I hope it’s morning or we’re all late,” I replied.
Jonah lifted his arm and checked his watch. “It’s just after six.” He pulled me tighter against him. “I missed this.”
“Me too.” I took a deep breath and let it out at a snail’s pace. “Jonah, do you know what being someone’s safe person means?”
“Of course. Do you . . . need one?”
“Yes. Apparently, Dr. Morales thinks it would be good for me to relive all my bad memories on a daily basis and then share my feelings with my safe person. Me, not so much, but I promised her I would try. You know . . . there are things the safe person might not want to know about my past. It’s not pretty. It could make that person think twice about me.” Which I guess would make my decision about Jonah easy.
“Ariana, I meant what I said last night about wanting to keep you safe. I want that in every regard—mental, physical, emotional. There’s nothing you can tell me that will change how I feel about you.”
I kissed Whitney’s head before gently letting her go and turning toward her father. I needed to look in his eyes, try and gauge the truth if I could. That was one of my problems, though; I had major trust issues. Being lied to repeatedly for a good portion of your life will do that to a person. Especially when it was the people you’d loved the most. People like your mother and fiancé.
Jonah’s smile awaited me when I faced him. My fingertips brushed his strong jawline, enjoying the feel of the stubble that had grown overnight. “Jonah,” I whispered, “my mother did some pretty unspeakable things. Things I don’t like to think about, much less say out loud. And I saw things no child should. I even did things I’m not proud of just to survive mentally, sometimes physically.” Tears pooled in my eyes.
Jonah kissed my forehead and lingered there while tears trickled down my cheeks.
“Ariana, I know who you are. I don’t care about your past other than how much it pains you. I’ll do anything to help you overcome that.”
“You realize some of the pain of my past involves you, right?”
He drew me closer to him. “I know, and we’ll work through it together.”
I burrowed my head into his chest, wondering if we truly could. If perhaps there was hope for us, for me.
Jonah ran a hand slowly down my back. “As much as I would love to lie here with you all day, Whitney has school and I have patients to see.” He leaned away and tipped my chin before his lips came down on mine, pressing hard, but never parting them. It reminded me of the last kiss we shared before he left for his residency. He was trying to convey how he felt about me to the point of begging me silently to believe him. I pressed just as hard, hoping he knew how much I wanted to. That was enough of an invitation for him to part my lips—until a tiny body stirred next to us. We broke apart faster than a Nicholas Cage marriage.
I sat up and ran a hand through my hair. Jonah did the same as we watched Whitney stretch and come to life. When her eyes drifted open, she blinked them several times as if she were disoriented.
“Hi, sweet girl,” I said, hoping to jog her memory of where she was.
She popped up and looked down at her clothes. A look of great anxiety filled her tiny features. “I slept in my clothes and I did not brush my teeth. How could this happen?”
I guess she didn’t know that the year I’d known her dad he slept in his clothes probably every night. The life of a med student was anything but glamorous.
Jonah reached across me, picked up his little girl, and set her on his lap. “Good morning, Winnie.” He kissed her cheek.
“Father do not, I mean don’t call me that.” She flashed me a sideways grin.
Jonah wasn’t having it. He tickled her. “You will always be my Winnie.”
She giggled. I wasn’t sure she could do that, but it was a beautiful sound. “I am not Winnie,” she protested through her fits of laughter and wiggling.
Jonah stopped tickling her. “I’ll make you a deal. You start calling me Dad again and I won’t call you Winnie anymore.”
I’d wondered when she’d started calling him Father. Her mom probably told her it sounded more commanding. That came off snarky and maybe a little jealous in my head. I honestly didn’t think Eliza was a bad person—perhaps misguided and, let’s be honest, strange—but I think she had good intentions.
Whitney had to stop and think for a moment about Jonah’s proposal. “You promise to never call me that again?”
“I promise.”
“What if I accidentally call you Father?” She sounded like a miniature attorney.
“Then I might accidentally call you Winnie.” He gave her a squeeze.
“Okay,” she sighed “I agree.”
This girl killed me. But I found myself wanting to know everything about her. I wanted to ease her pain.
“We better get home and get you ready for school,” Jonah announced.
Her beautiful eyes widened. “I did not practice using contractions,” she cried. “I cannot, can’t,” she corrected herself, “go to school today. The kids will hate me.” She turned into her dad.
Jonah stroked her hair while his eyes begged me to know what to do.
How should I know? I didn’t have any children of my own and I was a mess myself. But just as I thought that, a memory slammed into me like a wrecking ball. A memory of me as a seven-year-old, wearing the same dirty outfit day after day because we’d run out of money again and we didn’t have a working washer or dryer in the hellhole we were living in. I’d begged my mom not to make me go to school. I had already been teased about wearing the same thing every day and about my greasy hair. All she told me was it was better if I wasn’t at home and I shouldn’t care what anyone said about me. There was no love or sympathy. But I remember being afraid about what she was doing at home while I was gone. I’d seen some strange men come and go, so I went to school for another day of humiliation. I wasn’t going to let that happen to Whitney.
“How would you like to come to work with me today? We’ll work on contractions all day.”
Jonah’s brows raised, as did the corners of his mouth. Maybe I should have asked him if that was all right first, but his facial expression said he could kiss me for it, so I think I was safe in assuming he was okay with it.
Whitney sat up and wiped her eyes. “Will you make me break glass and use a solder iron?”
“Not unless you want to.”
“I do not think I will.”
“That’s okay with me.”
“Can we eat salad with protein for lunch?”
“I think I can manage that.” I smiled.
“Then I will stay with you.” She looked up at Jonah. “We must go home so I can change and get my notebook.” She was the cutest old lady I’d ever known.
