Return to Sender, page 5
part #1 of Pine Falls Series
I turned from staring at Jonah’s picture and faced her.
“But, on the other side of those feelings you would have found a deeper, more passionate love than you could have ever imagined. The only way to get that love is to endure the hard times, the times you don’t feel like you love him. Choosing to love and stay in love is far more rewarding than falling in love. Remember that. Now let’s go.”
I didn’t want to let her words sink in. I felt too much truth in them on the surface. Enough for them to make my insides squirm.
“Just so you know, this doesn’t mean I’m changing my mind.” Yes, be defiant, I told myself. “I’m only doing this because I’m a mature adult, and I’m going to ask Jonah about what it will take for me to get you deemed mentally incompetent and committed.” I smirked.
“Kiddo, if that’s what it would take for you to see how misguided you’ve been, I’d check myself in this minute.”
Oh. I wasn’t expecting that. I expected sarcasm. My eyes watered. “I love you,” was all I could say.
“I love you more. Now let’s get your cute butt in there. It’s nice to see it again, by the way.”
I let out a deep breath and took her arm. Maybe I was an adult, but I needed someone to hold on to.
We walked across the lobby, Grandma pulling me along to the door that led to the waiting area. While Grandma checked in, I texted Dani and Kinsley. You are both dead to me. I couldn’t believe they had been conspiring against me. P.S. If you threw away my Hold On, Let Me Overthink This sweatshirt, payback will be hell.
The brats texted me back with pictures of my closet full of, I hated to admit, beautiful clothing. Everything from jeans and sweaters to slacks and dresses. They all looked formfitting and expensive. Definitely not my usual Wal-Mart sale items. Grandma must have done a lot of bartering with Shelby. It made me feel guilty. But that feeling was quickly replaced with ire when I received a series of pictures of them gleefully cutting my sweatshirts into several pieces and tossing them into the garbage.
Be afraid, be very afraid. I texted back.
In return I received two texts that each said the same thing. I love you.
Ugh. I turned off my phone and tossed it in my bag. My old ratty bag. Crap. Maybe I could leave it here in the waiting room. For now, I shoved it next to me in the seat. Perhaps I should have paid more attention to the way I looked and presented myself the last few years. It wasn’t like I got up one morning and decided to be a slob, as my grandma put it. It was a gradual descent toward being grungy. It worked really well though. Hardly any men paid attention to me.
Grandma sat next me, grinning from ear to ear. “It should only be a few minutes.”
My hands started getting sweaty. I couldn’t believe I was going to see Jonah. I wasn’t sure why he wanted to see me. Maybe he’d heard I’d let myself go and he wanted to get an up-close view of why he was thanking his lucky stars. Except he wasn’t that kind of person. But people changed, as I very well knew. Or was it that people like my ex-fiancé, Kaden, never changed, they were only better at masking who they really were for certain periods of time? I leaned forward and put my face in my hands. I was so confused.
Grandma rubbed my back. “It’s going to be all right. You can do this.”
What if I couldn’t? I felt like I was in a no-win situation. If Jonah truly was as good as I hoped him to be, as he had proved to be when we were “friends,” that meant I’d lost out on years. I’d lost him. My worst fear would have been realized and shoved in my face. But if I was right about how we would have ended up? Seeing him now would ruin our memories. The memories I’d cherished and made sure to keep intact. I’d never loved anyone the way I’d loved him.
Sometimes in the middle of the night I would still wake up and think I’d heard him knock on my door just so he could see my face. So he could hold me while he slept. In his arms, I’d never felt such peace. It was if our bodies were contoured precisely for each other. Not once did I ever wake up in those arms and feel repulsed by him. In fact, I’d loved to smell the Skittles on his breath or to hear his heavy exhales. Sometimes he talked in his sleep. It was mostly medical jargon I didn’t understand, but sometimes it was about me. I knew he loved me long before he said it while conscious. He’d told me in his sleep a few times. I should have walked away then, but I couldn’t. I told myself it was only in his dreams, even when I knew the truth. The way he treated me when he was awake spelled it out for me.
“Kay Kramer,” a nurse called out, interrupting my thoughts.
I slowly let my hands drop away from my face and sat back.
Grandma had already jumped up. She was awfully spry for being sick. She gave me a sympathetic look and held her hand out to me.
I wasn’t a child, but you know what, I took her hand. Perhaps if I’d had one to hold more when I was a child, I wouldn’t be so screwed up. Maybe Dani was right, maybe my mom had emotionally abused me. I should probably read the pamphlet about it that Dani had left on the couch.
“Are you ready, kiddo?”
Um. No.
Chapter Five
I paced around the exam room after the nurse took Grandma’s vitals and asked her to describe her symptoms that probably a throat lozenge and some water would cure. But she was a good little faker and hacked enough for the nurse to be anxious over her non-condition. The nurse’s final words were terrifying. “Dr. Adkinson will be in momentarily.”
While I paced, I read the posters on the wall. The one about smoking particularly caught my attention. I was always surprised when I saw people smoking. It was clearly bad for you, as in it would kill you bad. But who was I to judge? I had my own addictions—they were all emotional. At this moment my lungs felt as if I had been smoking five packs a day for years. Not a lot of oxygen was getting in and out.
Then I stared at the stirrups attached to the exam table Grandma was sitting on. It was a sad day when I would rather be at the gynecologist with my legs up in those babies waiting to be tortured with a cold metal speculum.
“Relax,” Grandma said.
I scowled at her. It was her fault I was here in the first place.
She laughed at me. Amid her laughter a knock came on the door, and I practically jumped out of my skin. I flew into the seat where my grungy bag was, and, of course, I sat on it like an idiot. I was probably going to have to buy a new cell phone after this, and my keys were poking my butt.
Then Jonah appeared. We locked eyes immediately. His green jewels were as bright as I remembered them, his smile just as warm. Maybe his teeth were a tad whiter. Someone had obviously been using some teeth whitening strips or maybe he’d visited his dentist parents recently, but all the same, it was beautiful. He was beautiful. He wasn’t necessarily the most physically attractive man ever, though he was handsome. It was his aura.
His eyes were assessing me. I tucked some of my hair behind my ear. Grandma had made me wear it down and styled. Which meant I spritzed some curling spray in it.
He looked well in his khakis and dark blue button-up, accented with a stethoscope. I smiled at the stethoscope, thinking about how many times he had listened to my heart with the one he owned long ago. He used to say, “I’ve never heard anything more beautiful than the sound of your heart.” Then he would put his stethoscope aside and rest his head on my chest. I would stroke his hair until he fell asleep to the sound of my heart beating loudly for him.
“Ariana,” he said as if he was catching his breath.
“Hi,” I managed to say.
He shut the door and focused on Grandma. “Mrs. Kramer, it’s good to see you.”
Why didn’t he say that to me? Maybe he didn’t really want to see me. Maybe Grandma lied about this too. Or perhaps he still hated me for refusing him.
“Call me Kay. It’s good to see you too,” Grandma responded.
He approached. “Kay, tell me what brings you in today,” he stuttered.
Grandma narrowed her eyes at him, annoyed. “Wouldn’t you like to catch up with Ariana before we get to business?” Her tone said not to cross her and to stick with whatever plan they had hatched up.
“No . . . I mean, yes . . . I mean…” His ears burned bright. He took a deep breath in and exhaled loudly. “Wow.” He ran a hand over his thick sandy hair that feathered back neatly and turned toward me. “I’m sorry. You still get to me. I wasn’t expecting to feel like a schoolboy around you, not knowing what to say.”
I’d always loved how honest he was. I loved that I still got to him. I offered him a smile. “How are you?”
“Better now.”
What did that mean? Better now that he’d seen me? Better now that his ears weren’t red anymore? Or was he referring to his divorce? I hoped it hadn’t been overly painful for him. But if he was still the Jonah I knew, I would imagine it had been hard on him. Family meant everything to him. He had talked often of wanting a wife and children.
“I’m glad,” I replied, though I wasn’t sure what I was referring to. But that didn’t matter, I was glad he was better.
“How are you?” he responded in kind.
“I’m not really sure.” I was always more truthful with him than I wanted to be. There was something about him that brought that out.
He stepped closer. His clean scent tickled my nose and made my pulse tick up. “Anything I can help with?” he asked.
Oh, how I wished he could. I bit my lip and shook my head. “Just make sure my grandma is all right.”
He said nothing for a moment. His attention had been drawn to my lips. Did he ache as much as me to feel our lips tangled together? Did he replay the memory of our first kiss over and over in his head as much as I did? It felt like yesterday we were in his car after Thanksgiving dinner at my grandparents’ house. Several years before, I had started a tradition of playing hide-and-go-seek with cars. That year, Jonah convinced me we should be a team. We had been flirting a lot, dancing on the edge of our attraction. That night, though, he acted on his feelings while we were hiding behind the grocery store. He’d been staring at me for minutes before he said, “I want to kiss you.”
It wasn’t a good idea, even though I wanted to kiss him. I knew if we kissed my world would never be the same. I tried to deter him, to keep from deepening the connection I’d already felt with him. “You can kiss me if you strip down to your underwear and make a snow angel in the parking lot,” I’d teased him, never thinking he would actually do it. But he hopped out of the car like it was on fire.
He stripped down and stood outside in plaid boxer shorts—his skin whiter than the newly fallen snow—showing off how truly tall and skinny he was. He flashed me a smile before he lay down in the snow and made not one, but three snow angels as a few of the grocery store employees looked on.
When he jumped back in the car, he threw his clothes in the backseat and wrapped me in his cold, wet arms. While he shivered from the cold, I shivered from his embrace, which warmed me in a way I had never felt. When his lips brushed mine, I knew then I was in trouble. From that moment on, we found any excuse to see each other. We snuck around like he was a Montague and I a Capulet. Two star-crossed lovers destined for a tragic ending, even though he believed in happily ever afters.
Now here he was, staring at me like he had that night. Though his shoulders were broader and his facial features more defined, he had the same look in his eye. The look that said, I would do anything for you, even strip down to my underwear.
He swallowed hard and blinked a few times. “What did you say?”
Grandma laughed. “Do you two need a minute alone?”
“No,” I was quick to say. I had a feeling if given a minute alone, I would find myself right back in his arms, wishing I could always remain there.
My abrupt answer made him flash me a look that said not to expect him to go away before he turned back to Grandma. Crap. I was afraid of that.
While Jonah played doctor, I shifted uncomfortably on my keys. I had to stop myself from wincing. While I had a sharp object poking my butt, something else was stabbing my heart. It felt a lot like fear. Dani was right, living in fear was the worst kind of terror. That, and worrying about my keys poking a hole in my jeans in front of my ex, who was never technically my boyfriend because I’d refused to let him give us a title. He used to call us cuddle buddies. I’d found it charming.
Jonah did all the doctor things, from listening to Grandma’s heart to checking all her orifices above the neck. Then I heard something disturbing.
“Have you decided if you will be joining us for Thanksgiving or not?” Grandma asked.
I gripped the chair, hoping I’d heard her wrong.
“Are you sure you don’t mind if my wife—I mean ex-wife—joins us?” Jonah replied.
What? Did he say his ex-wife was invited too? And when was he invited? I shifted too far in my chair and the keys had their revenge. “Ouch!” I involuntarily popped up.
Jonah and Grandma both whipped their heads my way.
Jonah gave me a pained look. “It’s not what you think.”
No. It wasn’t what he thought. I wasn’t jumping up in pain because he was obviously still very much connected with his ex-wife. Maybe even in love with her. Wife he’d called her. And did exes typically spend holidays together? Yes, the thought of him still being in love with his wife hurt, but it was also good. It meant no one could put any pressure on us to throw kindling on the fire we’d doused. Okay, the one I’d taken the fire extinguisher to.
But if Grandma knew about him and his ex-wife—enough to invite them all for Thanksgiving, which I was now no longer attending—why did she go to all the trouble to get me here?
I pointed at the chair and my ratty old bag. “I was sitting on my keys and . . .” And I was an idiot. “I’m going to go wait . . . uh . . .” My mind went blank. “You know, in the waiting place, I mean, the waiting room.” I headed toward the door, forgetting my bag.
Jonah stepped in front of me, giving me an up-close view of him. Even wearing clothes, I could tell he was more muscular than he used to be.
“Please don’t go,” he begged. He put his hands out like he wanted to touch me, but he didn’t. “There are rules about the kind of contact I can have with anyone in our exam rooms.”
I was grateful for that at the moment.
He stepped back. “Let me explain.”
“You don’t owe me an explanation, other than why you conspired with my grandma to get me to come here in the first place.” I gave her the stink eye.
“I thought that would be obvious,” he replied.
“It’s not.”
The corners of his mouth ticked up. “You haven’t changed at all. Still beautiful and stubborn.”
“There has to be a rule against saying that.”
“Probably,” he smirked, “but I don’t really care. The truth is, I wanted to see you, Ariana.”
Yeah, I was afraid of that. “You know where I work.”
“I also know you work with sharp objects and solder irons. I thought it best not to surprise you there.”
“Okay, I’ll give you that one, but you could have just asked to see me. Or called.”
“This was more fun, and I need some of that in my life.”
I tilted my head. His melancholy tone caught me off guard. “Have you had enough fun yet?”
He leaned forward and without touching me whispered, “Not even close.”
Shivers erupted. I stepped back, nervously swiping my bangs.
Jonah wasn’t backing off. “There’s nothing going on between Eliza, my ex-wife,” he clarified, “and me. She’ll just be in town, and for our daughter’s sake, we want to have holidays together as much as possible.”
“That’s nice.” I wrung my hands. Maybe he wasn’t hung up over his ex.
“I want you to meet Whitney, my daughter.”
“Why?”
“Because we both need some fun in our lives.”
Didn’t we all?
Chapter Six
“I’m still not talking to the two of you.” I slammed a roll of copper tape down on one of the tables in the studio. I was setting up for Sip and Solder night. We were expecting a big crowd. Our Tiffany-style ornaments were all the rage this time of year.
Kinsley and Dani laughed at me.
I hadn’t said a word to them since telling them off yesterday when I got back from taking Grandma to her appointment. You know, after I did a fashion show for them with all my new clothes. But after that I’d been giving them the cold shoulder. I didn’t care how good I looked.
Kinsley started nibbling on a chocolate cookie.
“Those are for my customers,” I growled.
“I made them.” She took a large bite and chewed dramatically, making Dani and me laugh.
“Fine, you have a point,” I conceded.
Dani reached out across the table and took my hand. “Don’t be mad at us. Everything we did was out of love. And see how cute you look?”
I stared down at my form-fitting, soft gray tunic and black leggings that left no doubt I had long slender legs. I even had on some stylish leather booties. My feet weren’t loving the constrictive nature of them, but when I was in the studio it was the price my feet had to pay for protection. Glass and heat were a painful combination.
“So how was it seeing Jonah?” Kinsley asked after swallowing. “You never told us yesterday.”
“What makes you think I will now?” I suppressed a smile. It was hard to stay mad at them.
“Oh, come on,” Dani begged. “If you tell us, I’ll tell you what Jonah told Brock about seeing you again.”
I grabbed on to the table for support. I wasn’t sure how I felt about Jonah talking about me. “What are we, in high school? Do you want me to tell Brant to tell Brock you think he’s fine and you would say yes if he asked you out?”
Dani bit her lip. “Please don’t.”
Ugh. Now I felt bad. I sat next to her on one of the stools and rubbed her leg. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t tease you about him. Is he really bringing a date tonight?”
