Just Let Me Love You (24 page)
“Jesus, Kay.” He rakes his fingers through his hair. “What do we do first?”
“We should probably go to the hospital,” I offer.
It’s funny—for as panicked as Chase is, I am remarkably calm.
“Yes, yes, good idea.” Chase starts to help me up but then stops and reaches into his pockets.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“My keys,” he says. “Where are my keys? Shit, damn. I forgot where I put them.”
Nick comes out with his baby girl, and he and Missy help calm Chase down. They help him find his keys, which are still on the table, and then we are ready to go.
Chase and I head to the truck, while Missy and Nick prepare to follow.
“I’ll get her bag!” Missy calls out as she heads back into the house.
“We’ll be right behind you,” Nick adds, turning away as Chase helps me into the truck.
Chase and I don’t reply since we’re in too much of a frenzied hurry.
My husband does slow things down for a minute, though, as he takes the time to whisper, “I love you, Kay,” before he buckles my seatbelt for me.
“I love you, too,” I reply, just as another contraction hits.
“Shit,” Chase says. “We better go.”
“Yep, we better hurry,” I agree.
Fifteen hours later, our son is born.
Chase
Six years later…
“D
addy, I wanna thee a ga-raffe.”
“You will see a giraffe, sweetheart,” I reply to Sarah, my precious four-year-old girl. “There are a lot of giraffes at the zoo.”
“Are there bears at the zoo too, Daddy?” my six-year-old son pipes in from the back seat.
“Yes, Jack. We’ll see lots of bears there, too.”
There has been a barrage of questions from my curious children since we left the farmhouse in Harmony Creek.
And these kids of mine are not done yet…
“Daddy, where’s the zoo again?” little Jack asks.
“It’s in Pittsburgh,” I reply.
“Where ith Pithburg?” Sarah wants to know.
I laugh, and Kay twists in her seat to say to our children, “Jack, Sarah, please let your father drive in peace.”
Her tone is scolding, yet gentle. We are such softies with the kids. Kay catches my eye as she twists to face forward, and I know she is thinking the same as me—we adore and love these two little blessings more than life itself.
A ruckus suddenly ensues over who gets to hold which stuffed animal and our sensible family sedan is filled with the sounds of screeching, indignant children for a good five minutes.
Kay gets them calmed down after a while and again settles back in the passenger seat.
“Just think, Chase,” she says, grinning. “This is just the start of the drive. Jack and Sarah will probably get into a dozen more battles before we get to the zoo.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way, babe.” I tell her as I place my hand on her warm knee.
The summer sun shines in on her lightly tanned skin, just below the hem of her dress
,
and I think to myself:
This woman is so beautiful
.
Eyes back on the road, I smile and hit the gas to continue on our trek from Ohio to Pennsylvania. Ironically, the road we’re on is the same path I traveled over a decade ago, and many times since.
But it’s that long-ago June night that fills my thoughts today.
How different my life was back then. Fucked-up on a cocktail of drugs and seated next to my then-friend Tate, I had allowed myself to be poisoned by my past. I was bogged down in so much anger and resentment that I couldn’t move forward.
The sedan cruises right over the spot where I was busted that night, the spot where my face hit the pavement. My actions that night led me to prison.
I usually feel sick to my stomach when I drive past this point, but today I feel nothing.
I have fully moved on.
I think again of Tate, the kid I was with that night. He’s been dead for several years now. He never moved on, and the same shit that sent me to prison ended up killing him.
But my memories of him live on.
Tate used to like to say, “It’s all about the numbers, man.”
And I guess, in some ways, he was right—it is still all about the numbers.
It is one man, who once stood before one woman, seven years ago this month. It is numerous efforts—some failed, some successful—to get past everything, to reach zero judgments, zero doubts. It is eleven years after one big mistake, seven years after falling in love. It is two kids later. It’s about two lives, who became four lives. All bound by one thing—love.
And that, my friends, is one pretty damn good life.
The End
First, so much gratitude and appreciation goes out to my family and friends who have supported me along this journey with Chase and Kay. The first grain of an idea for a story like this came to me along a back road in Ohio. In my mind, I envisioned a young man, lost, forlorn, a guy who’s done bad things…but is good at heart. I always wanted the Judge Me Not series to be about finding redemption through love, and I hope I’ve accomplished that.
Next, as always, thank you to all the readers and fans of my novels. Without you, I’d have nothing but an unheard voice. Thank you for your continued support, especially to those of you who have stuck with Chase and Kay from the very beginning. Many thanks to the awesome team at Hot Tree Editing, as well. Your input and feedback on this final novel of the trilogy was invaluable. To Ari at Cover It! Designs and E.M. Tippett’s formatting team, thank you. And finally, to everyone who works so hard to get my name and novels out to the world, thank you so much. Every time I see a post regarding my books on a blog—or anywhere in social media—I am humbled. Thank you to every single one of you. Your efforts are amazing. Additionally, a huge, heartfelt thanks goes out to my amazing street team—Team S.R. Grey. You ladies are more than a street team to me, you are my dream team.
Finally, love and thanks to Tom.
S.R. Grey is an Amazon and Barnes & Noble Top 100 Bestselling author. She is the author of the popular Judge Me Not series, as well as the Inevitability duology and A Harbour Falls Mystery trilogy. Ms. Grey’s novels have appeared on Amazon and Barnes & Noble bestseller lists in multiple categories, including #1 on the Barnes & Noble Nook Bestsellers list last year.
Ms. Grey resides in Pennsylvania. Her background is in business, but her true passion lies in writing. When not writing, Ms. Grey can be found reading, traveling, running, or cheering for her hometown sports teams.
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Read the first chapter of S.R. Grey’s newest New Adult/Romantic Suspense novel, Inevitable Detour…
I
stare at the computer screen. It’s my last exam of spring semester, and there are only five questions left on the Strategic Management final before me.
My eyes are glued to words, forming a single question. I know the answer. Yes, I do. But then my vision blurs, and I think,
ugh, whose idea was it for me to major in business
?
Not mine.
The cursor on the screen blinks over answer choice B. Like I said, I know the correct answer, and it sure as hell isn’t B.
What to do…what to do…
With a sly grin, I choose B and hit next.
I am feeling particularly defiant today. My parents left me a voice mail this morning, telling me in no uncertain terms that any thoughts of heading up to New York City this summer with my best friend and roommate, Haven Shaw, are best put to rest. So much for thinking it’d be fun to hang out in the Big Apple with Haven while she worked on finding an agent, making acting contacts, and generally just doing whatever it is a person needs to do when preparing to land a part in a play someday.
And not just any play.
“Broadway, here I come,” Haven said the other day when we were discussing her big-city dreams.
She’s a bit theatrical, but that’s to be expected. She’s a theater major, after all. Her goal is to eventually make it as an actress on the Great White Way.
Conversely, my dreams are much smaller. My primary longing lately is for something—
anything
—to happen in my mundane life. I thought New York would be a promising start. Guess not. Thanks to my parents and their aversion to anything fun for Essa, there will be no excitement in my life this summer. Nope. Just like the two previous summers, I’ll be lulling away the time here at Oakwood College. Excitement for me will consist of chilling in the coffee shop on the edge of the tiny Pennsylvania town my small college is located in. My after-class afternoons will include exciting activities like staring out at cows and farmland, sipping on a mocha, and wishing and hoping for something more.
And that’s just not right.
I’m a damn straight-A student, for God’s sake. I don’t need to spend the summer at Oakwood, taking stupid summer classes. Unfortunately, my parents don’t care about my wants and needs. They believe their only child should apply herself year-round. Forget that I’m already a model daughter.