Coming Back To You (16 page)

“It could be.” But Karma wasn’t convinced.
Her anger toward Mark felt more like a defense mechanism than a
rational reaction. Then again, her response to him could have been
as strong as it was because she had repressed her anger for months
instead of experiencing it. That argument held merit, too.

But she thought she’d worked through the five
phases and found acceptance months ago. If the anger she felt now
was part of the five stages of loss, did that mean she still hadn’t
found acceptance?

As she processed the last six months to see
how they fit into the five stages, her mind returned to the night
of her first date with Brad and she sucked in her breath.

“What?” Jan tilted her head to the side.
“What just came to you?”

“I think…” Had she used Brad to force Mark
out of her thoughts? And if she had, wasn’t that a form of denial?
God, she hoped that wasn’t why she’d started dating Brad, but the
more she considered it, the more likely it seemed.

“What, Karma?” Jan prompted her to go on.

She told Jan about how she’d tucked all the
things that reminded her of Mark into the back of her closet the
night of her first date with Brad, as well as how she’d made her
final decision to go out with Brad right after seeing the picture
of Mark with that woman on New Year’s Eve.

Jan’s face remained serene.

“What if that was denial?” Karma sighed and
looked down at her hands. “What if I used Brad to force out the
pain of Mark’s memory?” If that’s what she’d done, then she’d
circumvented the grieving process and hadn’t allowed herself to
fully work through her feelings. “By tucking away everything that
reminded me of Mark, I denied what I was still feeling for him and
channeled my energy toward forcing him out of my mind by replacing
him with someone else.”

Jan set down her stylus. “And now you’re
worried that you delayed the healing process by removing the
necessary stimuli. Is that what you’re thinking?”

“Yes. I didn’t allow myself to fully reach
acceptance because I shut off my anger and depression.” Karma shook
her head at herself. “And now both have shoved themselves front and
center.”

Karma glanced out the window. The days were
growing shorter and colder. Soon, it would be autumn. The leaves
would begin to change within weeks, and then it would be the
holidays again.

She smirked to herself. It had been a year.
Almost exactly to the day. Mark had been gone an entire year. She’d
just made the connection.

“You know,” she said, turning toward Jan.
“It’s been exactly one year that he’s been gone.” She looked down
at her hands…at the square diamond sparkling on her finger.

In the beginning, it had been hard to go
about her day-to-day activities, but after she started working with
Jan, she’d begun to get back out there. She’d started cooking. Then
she took up running again. Next came cross-training. Before long,
she’d been filling all her spare time to the point that she often
collapsed in an exhausted heap every night only to get up and do it
all over again the next day. Of course, Brad was in the picture by
then, too. Hell, he’d been involved in most of all that busy stuff.
And Jade. She couldn’t forget Jade. That girl gave Karma
nightmares.

“You know, I met Brad and things got crazy. I
thought I had moved on.” She shrugged. “I thought I’d reached
acceptance, but I was only fooling myself.”

Jan scrutinized her. “Why do you say
that?”

“Because, clearly, I haven’t accepted that
I’m over Mark. Otherwise, why do I feel the way I do?
Angry…sad…all-around upset.” She clucked her tongue. “I’ve been
hiding behind Brad. Using him to keep my mind off Mark.”

“And now Mark’s back, and you can’t ignore
him anymore, can you?” Understanding flashed across Jan’s
expression.

“Exactly. I can’t ignore him anymore. I have
to face him. And I have to face what he did and how it made me
feel.”

Sweeping him under a rug had been easier when
he wasn’t around. Now it was time to lift the rug and face the
dirt. A nagging voice inside her head told her that would be easier
said than done and that there was a lot more to Mark’s reappearance
and her reaction to him than she wanted to admit.

Patient benevolence projected from Jan’s
expression. “Maybe this is what you need to finish working through
your grief.”

“Maybe.”

Either she would finally find true
acceptance…or Mark was about to turn her world on its head
again.

Why did she fear it would be the latter?

* * *

Her session with Jan still echoed through Karma’s
thoughts two hours later as she climbed out of Brad’s shower. She
and Brad had gone running tonight, which left her drenched in
sweat. September in Indiana was notorious for stagnant heat and
humidity. The dog days of summer, as they say.

She dressed in capris and a T-shirt and
joined him in the kitchen. His hair was still damp from his shower,
and he smelled like Dial shower gel, which always made her
sneeze.

“Whatcha making?” she said, stepping up
beside him at the stove as her nose tickled.

An empty spaghetti sauce jar sat to the
side.

“Spaghetti and salad.” He grabbed the
colander from the cupboard.

She gazed at the pan of generic sauce
bubbling on the stove. Mark had made her spaghetti once. With
homemade sauce and meatballs that had rocked her world. They’d made
love the first time that night.

Brad wasn’t the best cook in the world, but
as a single man he did the best he could, and when it came to
cooking for Jade, he bent to her tastes. Jade was a picky eater.
The girl ate out of a jar or a box for every meal.

“All those cooking classes at Single
Servings, and we’re eating jarred sauce?” She gave his arm a
good-natured nudge.

“I’m doing the best I can, Karma.” His voice
clipped.

Sometimes she never knew what to say around
him. He got so short-tempered when his work stressed him, but she
never knew when that was until was too late.

“I was just joking,” she said defensively,
shying away. She took plates out of the cabinet as he drained the
spaghetti.

Mark never would have snapped at her like
that. Even when his job at Solar had reached intensely stressful
levels, he’d always shown Karma nothing but tenderness and
patience. He had always been able to separate work from life. Brad
got short with her at least a couple times a week. Would that
worsen once they were married?

Brad sighed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to
snap.” He set the colander in the sink and took her hand. “I’m just
tense over work. We’re behind on a couple of projects and
corporate’s putting on the pressure.”

Brad didn’t handle stress well. He liked
projects to run smoothly but had a couple of problem employees who
notoriously dragged their feet and let projects fall behind. He
needed to cut them loose. Instead, he took on more of the burden
and worked longer hours, which enabled the slackers to continue
dropping the ball. Mark never would have allowed that to happen,
but then, this was Brad. Her fiancé. He had a golden heart and
believed in second chances. And third chances. And fourth. Okay, so
the guy was a pushover at the expense of his own mental and
emotional limits, as well as hers, because longer days in the
office usually meant a shorter temper at home.

She wrapped her arms around his waist,
feeling a sneeze well up in the back of her nose. “Well, after
dinner, maybe I can help take your mind off it.”

He patted her hand. “I’d like that, but I
really have to work. Rain check?”

Another rain check? For sex? They’d been
engaged a week and hadn’t had celebratory sex, yet. This was the
third rain check this week. She was beginning to resent those damn
slacker employees of his. Not that the sex was stellar. Brad was an
engineer in every sense of the word, including in the bedroom. He
was methodical, always following the same script. First came
kissing then heavy petting. Then they went to the bedroom—sex
always took place in bed—and got undressed. Most of the time, he
was on top, but occasionally, he let her be on top. But he never
took her from behind, and he couldn’t come unless they were in
missionary.

The straight and narrow sex was her own
fault, though. She’d never spoken up about what she wanted. She’d
never suggested they try other things or experiment with other
positions. Maybe she would have to do that next time they had sex.
If and when she got the chance to cash in her rain checks.

“Sure, okay.” She let go of him, sniffled
back her sneeze, and carried the plates to the table while he mixed
the sauce and spaghetti together.

“I was thinking,” he said. “I’ve got Jade
this weekend. Why don’t we all go to the zoo?”

“Ah-choo!” What a perfect time to let loose,
because she could swear she was allergic to Jade as much as to the
smell of Brad’s soap.

“Bless you.”

“Thanks.”

“So, how about it. Us. Jade. The zoo this
weekend?”

Karma’s heart rate spiked at just the mention
of Jade’s name. If she and Brad were going to make it as a couple,
she really needed to find a way to get along with that girl. Maybe
now that she and Brad were engaged and it became clear Karma wasn’t
going anywhere, Jade’s cold shoulder would warm and she would stop
being such a brat. Then again, in light of tonight’s session with
Jan and all the surprising revelations she’d had, maybe Jade was a
symptom of a far bigger problem. Maybe she and Brad didn’t belong
together and she was forcing something that wasn’t meant to be, all
in the name of denial.

“Sure,” she said, pushing her concerns aside.
She wasn’t ready to deal with the possibility that she and Brad
weren’t meant to be together. “Sounds like fun.”
It sounds like
a disaster.

“I want to tell her about us.” He
unceremoniously dumped a clump of spaghetti on her plate then
his.

Announcing their engagement to Jade would
either bring peace or go over like the coming of the Antichrist. As
much as Karma hoped for the former, she feared it would be the
latter.

“Good idea.” Bad idea, but they had to tell
that devil child sooner or later.

Brad set the pan back on the stove and took a
seat. “I know things are tense between the two of you, but sooner
or later she has to accept that we’re together.” He took her hand.
“And I can tell you’re trying.”

Yes, Karma was trying, but her patience was
wearing thin. Jade was so damned hardheaded. Observing Brad with
Jade, and hearing how he talked about her after the divorce, made
it clear that he was overcompensating for no longer being a
full-time dad by giving in to all Jade’s demands. And it sounded
like Brad’s ex had tried to make a contest out of who could show
Jade they loved her more by buying her tons of toys and accusing
Brad of ignoring their daughter and laying on the guilt any time he
got involved with another woman. Was this what Karma wanted to sign
up for? Did she really want to be forced to deal with this
uncomfortable, dysfunctional dynamic every day for the rest of her
life? She already struggled to keep her own emotions and behavior
in check when it came to Jade and Brad’s ex, and they had only
officially been together less than six months. What would happen
after a year? Two? Five?

Brad’s and his ex’s behavior had already led
to one very angry, very spoiled, and extremely entitled little girl
who didn’t have a brain-to-mouth filter. What Jade thought, no
matter how rude or disrespectful, Jade vocalized. Was Karma setting
herself up for failure right out of the gate?

And since Jade was preteen, Karma was going
to get to experience Jade’s rebellious teenage years immediately
after saying, “I do.” This could end up being an eight-year
migraine in the making.

After dinner, she helped Brad clean up then
went home so he could work.

Back inside her apartment, she plopped down
on the couch, clicked on the TV, and snagged the bridal magazine
off the coffee table.

All her life, she had dreamed of being a
bride. Of wearing the white dress, walking down the aisle, and
taking vows with her soon-to-be husband. Of starting a family and
living the proverbial happily-ever-after.

And here she was, finally engaged. Her dream
was coming true. She should be happy. But as she flipped through
the magazine, admiring one dress after another, she felt like the
dream was slipping away. There were so many arrangements that
needed to be made, but instead of excitement, she felt apathy. It
was as if the last thing she wanted to do was plan her wedding.

She closed the magazine and tossed it on the
coffee table. Feeling weighed down, she pushed off the couch and
went to her bedroom, where she flicked on the light in the closet,
crossed her arms, and leaned against the doorframe. Her keepsake
box stared back at her from the back corner.

Damn Mark. He’d come back and wrecked
everything.

She snapped off the light then flopped down
on her bed and stared up at the ceiling as she tried to imagine
herself walking down the aisle. Maybe imagery would help get her
head straight and help her find the excitement she’d felt right
after Brad proposed.

But as she imagined herself walking toward
the front of the church, to where her groom waited for her, it
wasn’t Brad’s face she saw on her husband-to-be. It was Mark’s.

She didn’t need Jan to tell her she was in
trouble.

Chapter 20

Three weeks later, Mark officially started at Solar
as the new director of operations. The time in Chicago—all the
packing, preparations, reassigning his projects at Carter Mitchell,
the good-bye dinners with his coworkers, friends, and family—helped
sidetrack his mind from dwelling on his Karma dilemma. But the
moment he turned the corner and saw her as he began the familiar
walk down the hall, which led to his new office, his desire to have
her rushed back.