“Is that what happened to you?”
“Andy.” His mother tugs his arm.
I raise my hand and head to peer up at her. “It’s okay. He’s just curious.” Looking back to the young boy, I answer, “No. I was able to walk until I took a pretty nasty fall over a staircase.”
His face drops. “I’m sorry.”
I shake my head. “Yeah, it sucked for a while and took a long time to get used to, but I’ve got a great life. You see this woman right here?” I wrap my arm around Jackie as she’s moved next to me. “This is the woman who saved my life that night. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for her.”
Pausing, I turn my head to look up at Jackie, whose watery eyes connect with mine. “And I’m gonna marry her one day soon.”
Her mouth opens, and her eyes bulge. There’s fear and hesitation in her expression, but I can also see love. I can read her emotions like an open book.
I turn back to the boy. “You enjoy your holidays, kid.”
He smiles wide. “You too, mister. Bye.” He waves and runs off ahead of his mother.
She gives me a smile and a nod of gratitude before trailing behind her very active son.
“You were so patient with him.”
“I have all the patience in the world when something matters to me. That includes you, too.”
She shakes her head, looking down at the ground. “I don’t know that I’m deserving of your patience, Mark.”
The words are said so low, and I can’t quite hear them over the growing music and the people around us.
When I finally do make out what she’s said, I tell her, “You’re lucky as hell I can’t walk because I might go searching for the son of a bitch who put those thoughts in your head and beat his ass.”
She huffs. “Even if he’s dead?”
“I’d find some way to bring him back to life so I can send him to hell again.”
She shakes her head at the same time I pull her onto my lap.
Jackie sighs as she rests her arm around my shoulders. “You’re a little insane. You know that, right?”
“I do.”
She presses her lips to my cheek. I warm in every part of my body where there’s feeling. Being around her always has that effect on me, yet I know there’s still an elephant in the room. And though I know it’s our destiny for us to be together, we can’t move forward, not truly, until it’s out in the open.
Chapter 15
The same dreadful feeling that I woke up with this morning has been with me all day long. It’s approaching five-thirty in the evening, and as I sit across from Mark in this all too familiar Townsend Industries boardroom, I can’t stop my eyes from searching him out.
He’s always had a pull on me. Whenever we were in a room together, I’d easily find him. All these years later, it’s still the same way. However, now, it’s as if he’s my anchor when things start feeling out of my control. Or maybe, it’s just the feeling of anxiety that comes when you’re nearing your end goal. Something you’ve worked hard for and planned. The end is in sight, and freedom approaches, and yet, time still stands between you and it.
My mind has taken to imagining all of the things that could go wrong in the next few days. How Aaron Townsend could suddenly decide to pull out of this merger. How Cypress management could choose to forego the bonus they promised me at the start of this job. Or worse than the previous two, my uncle or the wrong person finds out about my relationship with Mark, and everything could be snatched out from underneath my feet.
I keep thinking about Mark’s words the previous weekend. About him marrying me and us having a family. Standing there, facing him with the Christmas lights streaming all around us, families walking about, and that look of adoration on his face, I wanted to yell out, “Yes!That’s what I want, too, and you’re exactly who I want it with.” But I had to bite my tongue. I had to keep from saying the words I wanted to shout from the rooftops. Exactly as I’d done for most of my life out of fear of retribution.
Our first time around, I promised Mark things that I was too young and naïve to realize I couldn’t keep. It almost broke me in half when I had to break those promises. I can’t do that a second time around.
“Penny for your thoughts.” His deep voice pulls at me, tearing me away from my thoughts.
I grin. “Not sure my thoughts are worth that much.”
His smile drops, and my belly turns, knowing I’ve said the wrong thing.
