Just Let Me Love You (16 page)

When he glances over at me, I give him what I hope is an encouraging smile. “Yeah, sure, Will. I’ll wait here. But no rush, Take as long as you need.”

Once Will is in the house, I hunker down in the driver’s seat, prepared to wait it out for the long haul.

Who knows how long this could take
, I think.

Imagine my surprise when Will returns only ten minutes later.

“Hell, that didn’t take long,” I remark as he jumps into the front seat and tugs on the seatbelt.

“Can we just go,” he rasps, his head turned away.

“Are you okay?”

Digging the heel of his hand into his eyes, Will says in a muffled voice, “No, I’m not okay, Chase. But please, please, just drive. I need to get out of here.”

“No problem, bro.”

I reverse out of the driveway, but before we can make a clean getaway, I catch a glimpse of a crying Cassie in the window. She’s partway hidden by the long curtains, but I see her. She’s crying and watching, watching Will leave her house, watching my brother leave her life.

“Hey, I know this is hard,” I say softly. “But let’s go home and—”

“I don’t want to go home,” Will snaps, cutting me off. “Can we just go somewhere other than home? Anywhere but there is good. Please, Chase.”

“Is there somewhere you think you’d want to go?” I ask.

“Yes.” Will looks over at me with watery and soulful eyes. “Can you take me to where Dad is buried?”

His request floors me, and I can’t find any words to reply for a few seconds. When I get a grip on the emotions his request has dredged up, I ask, “Have you ever been to Dad’s grave?”

“Yeah.” He blows out a breath. “But it was a long time ago.”

“Did Cassie drive you there?”

I am curious as to who took Will to Dad’s grave.

“No,” he replies. “I went there with Mom.”

Whoa.

“Mom went to Dad’s grave?”

I am stunned by this admission, but Will confirms, “Yeah. Sometimes she’d be feeling all nostalgic and shit. That’s when she’d ask me to go to the cemetery with her.”

“Huh,” I utter, while thinking,
Wow,
Mom is full of surprises…even now
.

But I don’t have time to lose myself in trying to figure out my mom. I promptly take my brother to where he wants to go—our father’s grave.

“When was the last time you were here?” Will asks once we’re standing side-by-side at Jack Gartner’s final resting place.

The stone angel is casting us in her long shadow, as if she’s watching over all three Gartner men—two for just a little while, and one for infinity.

“I was out here a couple of weeks ago,” I reply to Will, my eyes flicking from the angel to my brother.

“Seriously?” he says, sounding surprised. “Did you come out here all by yourself?”

“No. I was with Kay.”

Will opens his mouth, but then pauses, until at last, he says, “You really love Kay, don’t you?”

“More than anything, bro.”

“Wow,” he says with no irony. “I sure hope I find something like that someday.”

I put my arm around him, and he leans into me. “You will,” I assure him, “you will.”

I’m hopeful my brother will someday find a love like the one I have with my wife. He deserves that much in life.

We spend the next hour—or maybe it’s two—at our father’s gravesite. My brother and I don’t say a hell of a lot when we first sit down next to the stone marker, the sandy earth cool in the shadow of the angel.

But eventually Will starts opening up.

“My therapist thought it’d be a good idea for me to come out here.”

“Oh, yeah?” I reply, pulling my knees up to my chest. “Is that so?”

“Yeah.” Will mirrors my posture, and with his chin resting on one knee, he says, “She wanted Mom to bring me out, but”—his eyes slide meaningfully over to me—“I’m glad you’re the one with me here instead.”

I want Will to keep talking; it’s not just his therapist who thinks this is good for him.

So I carefully reply, “I’m glad I’m here with you, too.”

“I don’t know how I feel about Dad,” Will continues after a beat. “I mean, I still love him, Chase. Like, a lot. Is that crazy or what?”

“It’s not crazy at all, Will.”

“Do you still love him?”

I rub the palm of my hand across my forehead, where sweat is beading. “Yeah, bro, of course I still love him.”

“You were mad at him, though,” Will says in a tone that is far from accusing, just matter-of-fact. “For a long time, you were really pissed at Dad.”

“I was,” is my simple response.

I haven’t completely made peace with my dead father, but I’m closer to it than ever before. Still, how do you put feelings like that into words?

I don’t have to, I soon discover. It is Will who needs to talk.

And talk he does.

“I was angry like you, Chase,” he says, “For a long time, too.”

“What about now?” I ask.

He shrugs. “I don’t know. I feel bad that Dad gave up on us so easily. And I sure as hell don’t want to end up like him. That desperate, you know?”

I nod. “I hear what you’re saying.”

After a long pause, he says, “I guess, mostly, nowadays, I just feel kind of sad about it all. Sad and disappointed that it went down the way it did.”

He’s not kidding.

Sighing, I agree. “I know, Will. I feel pretty much the same way as you.”

We sit and soak on that for a while, and then, out of the blue, and rather fervently, Will proclaims, “I won’t let you down, Chase, I won’t. I’m not Dad. No more bullshit from me, I promise. I am always going to be here for you,
always
.”

Shit, my kid brother is making the promises I should be making to him.

“Hey, don’t worry about me.” I drape an arm around him. “I love you, Will, no matter what. It’s not
your
responsibility to make up for what we’re missing thanks to Dad taking his own life.”

“It’s not yours, either,” Will says. “Still, isn’t that exactly what you’ve been trying to do?”—Will knows me far too well—“You’ve been trying to fill the void Dad left for years.”

I laugh. Not a happy laugh, just one of acceptance and resignation.

“Yeah,” I concede, “I guess you’re right. Maybe I was always trying to fill the void left by Dad. I guess I still am.”

“No maybes or guesses about it, dude.” Will nudges me, smiling.

“I don’t know if that will ever change,” I admit.

“Not with me, either,” Will states.

“Guess it’s not such a bad thing, eh?” I nudge Will. “This watching out for each other thing.”

Smiling, he replies, “Not a bad thing at all, big brother.”

In the hot Nevada desert, shaded by a stone angel that impacted me so much I had her likeness inked on my back, I come to the realization that Jack Gartner may be dead, yes, but he lives on in Will and me. And while we will always feel the loss of our dad, we have each other to pick up the slack.

Maybe what I’ve been searching for all this time has been here right in front of me all along.

In that moment, because of my brother, because of where we are today and how far we’ve come, I find true peace with my dad.

Kay

H
ome—Harmony Creek. It’s not home, though, without Chase.

He told me at the airport in Vegas that I am his home. Well, he is my home, too. That fact is never clearer than when everywhere I turn, and everywhere I go, I am faced with reminders of the man I love, the man I now call my husband.

At the farmhouse, Chase is there. He invades my every thought.

When I return home from work and stand on the porch, I hesitate before opening the door. I picture Chase behind the screen door, as he was one late June night when I needed him, when he was there for me. His blue eyes were filled with so much sadness for me that night…and so much anger for the man who assaulted me.

Inside the house, Chase’s presence is there, too.

I see him in the bathroom, standing in front of me as I sat perched on the counter. He’s holding ice to my cheek, and he is kissing me. Again, it’s the same fateful night I ended up at his door. As he fitted his body to mine, I wanted him–oh, how I had yearned.

But Chase made me wait.

And the waiting was so worth it.

Downstairs, there’s little reprieve from my onslaught of memories. Chase is in the kitchen, he’s in the living room. He’s in the dining room, sketching at the table.

But I miss his presence most in the room where we share a bed.

I smell Chase in the sheets; I feel his warmth. And when I roll to my back and peer up at the wall behind the bed, I am met with the Eiffel Tower oil pastel Chase drew for me. The sketch shines with my man’s heart and soul.

Late one night, waking from a fitful sleep, I feel empty and alone. I reach for Chase.

But he, of course, is not there.

I seek solace at Holy Trinity, both the church and the school, and I find some relief. On the first day of school, I am kept busy, so there’s no time to dwell on Chase. A fresh set of bright-eyed, eager first-graders require my attention and keep thoughts of my missing love at bay.

But when I’m not busy with the kids, I realize, Chase, like how it is at home, is all around the school. His work is everywhere—in the bright walls he painted this summer, in the newly replaced lighting, even in my own classroom I can’t get away from the onslaught of memories.

I stare at the bright red ceramic apple on my desk, remembering how Chase picked it up the day I took him on a tour of the school. He couldn’t quit fiddling with things—like the apple—that day. I found him to be very “hands-on,” and, consequently, I couldn’t wait for his hands to end up on me.

And they did. Oh, how they did.

Chase’s hands have left invisible marks; his skin is seared to mine. I’m branded by him, by his love, by his intensity.

At the end of the day, as I’m leaving the school, I am again reminded of Chase.

On the wall across from the front doors, the mural he and Will painted in July glows in full glory, bathed in the slant of the late-day sun.

Out in the parking lot, I’m still thinking of Chase. So much so that when someone calls my name, it takes me a minute to respond.

I’m almost at my car, and when I stop and turn around, I discover it is Missy Metzger who is trying to get my attention.

Taking a step in her direction as she hurries over to me, I wave. “Hey, Missy.”

She waves back. “Kay, wait up a sec. I want to talk to you.”

“Okay, sure.”

Before she reaches me, I note that Missy looks good. She appears to be fully recovered from the car accident and the subsequent miscarriage she suffered. When I left Harmony Creek a few weeks ago, Missy was in a bad depression. She didn’t want to see me or anyone, really. But today, dressed in a dark floral dress with her ashy-blonde hair flowing down her back in bouncy curls, she looks great.

I smile when she reaches me. “Hey, girl, how’ve you been?” I touch her arm.

“I’ve been good.” She places her hand on her chest to catch her breath. “Oh, my goodness, I’m so out of shape. Anyway, I didn’t want to miss you. It feels like forever since we talked.”

“It has been a while.” I agree.

“Too long,” she says.

There’s a moment where our eyes meet. We both seem to be pondering whether to bring up the accident, but the point becomes moot when Missy instead says, “So…how was Las Vegas?”

“It was good.” I lean against the side of my car, preparing to spend some time catching up. Truthfully, I’m happy to see Missy, and I’m relieved she’s all right.

Glancing around, brow creasing, Missy asks, “Hey, where is Chase? Is he not working today?”

“Uh, actually…” I clear my throat. “He’s not here. He decided to stay an extra week out west.”

Missy shoots me a look of concern. “Is everything okay, Kay?”

“Yes, yes, everything is fine.” I wave my hand in the air dismissively. “Will just wanted a little extra time with his brother, that’s all. And, well, I knew I’d be busy here with the first week of school.”

Missy nods and replies, “Oh, that’s good,” but I can tell that her hearing Will’s name is a reminder of his friend, Jared.

Jared was the one who ran into Missy’s car, with his parent-funded Jaguar. Sadly, Missy’s cheap little car was no match. Jared walked away unharmed, but Missy…well, she didn’t fare so well.

Quietly, I ask her how she’s been, like how she’s
really
been.

“I really am okay, Kay,” she insists. “I’ve accepted what happened if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“That’s good, I guess,” I quietly reply.

“It is,” she says. “But Kay, can I tell you something?”

“Yes, absolutely.”

“I haven’t had to go through all of this alone. Someone, someone you’d never expect, has been a great help.”

Curious, I raise a brow. “Oh? Who’s been helping you?’

Missy smiles surreptitiously. Whoever it is, he or she is making her happy.

“Believe it or not,” she says, at last, “Nick has come back into my life. He’s really been there for me, and it’s made a world of difference.”

Well, he was the father
, I think.

“That’s great Nick has been there for you,” I say, truly happy for Missy. “He’s a good guy.”