Coming Home (4 page)

"Did you give my business card to Cindy?"

"Mm-hmm,” Susan said finally looking at the man next
to her and felt her breath catch in her throat. Even his profile was handsome:
nice nose, firm mouth, and strong chin. She cleared her throat and forced her
mind onto the conversation, "She said she will have her boyfriend call
you."

"Do you know her boyfriend's name?"

"I think she said his name is Sam."

Craig nodded his head. "That will help me to know who
he is when he calls." He swiveled his head to smile at her.

Susan blushed and hoped against all hope that he hadn't
seen her staring at him. Gracious but the man was intoxicating. She turned to
look out the side window again. That was a much safer place to look with her
mind acting the way it was.

"Here we are," Craig said a few minutes later as
he pulled into the parking lot of Phil's. "Don't get out," he told
her as he hurriedly got out of the car quickly walked to her side and opened
the door for her.

"I can open a car door."

He gave her a heart-stopping smile, "And deny me the
honor of doing it? That wouldn't be very nice. And if nothing else, we are
going to be nice to each other tonight."

"Whatever,"  she said with a small smile and
stepped out of the car.

There was a long line of people waiting to go into the
restaurant and they looked at each other a little disappointed.

"I have an idea," Craig said as he pulled out his
cell phone and looked up the number for Phil's.

He dialed and placed their order. He put his phone back in
his pocket and smiled at her, "It will be ready in fifteen minutes."

"Okay, but where will we eat it?"  She asked
skeptically.

"Can you trust me?"

She nodded her head slowly. He had never given her a reason
to not trust him.

They walked around the strip mall until it was time to pick
up their dinner then they got back into the car and headed toward Sunset
Cliffs. She looked at him. "I should have known. This was always one of
your favorite places."

He smiled at her again, "Some things never
change."

And some things change too much, she thought to herself,
thinking of his religious beliefs. When they had been living together they had
been on the same page about everything, except for maybe how many kids they
wanted. Then he started going to church and they seemed to have different views
about everything. She stifled a groan; she hoped this wasn't a bad idea -- this
eating dinner with him. She knew he still held a place in her heart. Why else
would she feel the way she did every time she was around him?

Craig parked the car and hurried around to her side to let
her out again. She rolled her eyes;  she didn't remember him being like this
when they had been together.

He handed her a couple of jackets and a blanket out of the
trunk then gathered the bags of food and locked the car.

Susan looked at him skeptically, "You didn't happen to
plan this did you?"

Craig shook his head, "No, I always keep these things
in my car. You never know when you will need a jacket or two and a
blanket."

"Hmmm."

"Honest," he said trying to make the Cub Scout
honor sign, but not succeeding with his hands full of the things he was
carrying.

They walked together toward a spot that they both
remembered. They had spent countless evenings watching sunsets here.

"Do you come here very often?" He asked her as he
spread the blanket on a bluff overlooking the ocean.

Susan looked out over the ocean toward the horizon where
the sun would be setting in about an hour or so. A wave crashed against the
bluff and she felt a little salt water spray on her face. "No, not very
often. I'm really busy with my restaurant."

He nodded his head.

"How about you?"

"Just about every day."

She looked at him in surprise.

He shrugged his shoulders, "I live not too far from
here. I like to come running here with my dog."

"You have a dog?" She asked in surprise as they
sat on the blanket and started organizing their impromptu picnic. 

"I know, weird, huh?"

"Yeah, I was always the one who wanted a pet and you
always said they were too much hassle."

He had the grace to look sheepish, "I've changed
some."

"I think you've changed more than you think."

He looked at her, "Change can be a good thing."

"Yes, but with change comes pressure. Some people
can't handle the pressure."

Craig looked at the woman next to him speculatively,
"Are you talking about you or people in general?"

She shrugged her shoulders, "Both, maybe. I hate
change. I like things to remain the same."

He nodded his head as he chewed on a succulent bite of BBQ
ribs. "So do I, to a point. But take my job for instance. The change that
occurs as we follow the architects plan for a building is amazing. Every day
there is something new to see and do. The building changes and grows until one
day we are finished and everyone can enjoy the hard work that went into
building it."

"I was really talking about people and
relationships."

He set down his Styrofoam carton of food and wiped his
hands off with a napkin as he turned to look at her, "I was too, in a way.
People change, whether we notice it or not, we change. You've changed."

She raised her eyebrows at him.

"You have; your hair is short."

"I got tired of it being long, plus it is easier to
take care of."

He nodded, "And you are more sure of yourself."

"You think so?"

"Yeah, I think owning your own business has been a
great thing for you."

"But I haven't changed the basic way I view life and
the world in general."

Craig knew she was talking about his faith and wondered if
he should talk to her more about that, but the way she had bit her lip and turned
away from him made him think she was wishing she hadn't said anything.

"I understand," he said simply and tackled
another mouth-watering rib.

After a minute Susan looked at him with a look of slight
surprise on her face. "Thank you," she said.

He just smiled around a bite of corn-on-the-cob.

Craig prayed for God to help him say what he needed to say
to Susan. They were about finished with their dinner and he felt like time was
slipping away but he didn't know how to bring up the subject. He could have said
something when they had been talking about change, but it hadn't seemed like
the right time.

They started picking up their trash and Craig looked toward
where the sun was going to set in about fifteen minutes. "We need to stay
for the sunset. Let's leave the blanket here and walk a little."

Susan nodded her head. They silently walked and Craig was
wishing he could hold her hand. But he didn't think she would let him. He
glanced at her and she was just looking at the ground in front of where they
were walking.

"Susie?"

"Yeah?"

"I need to apologize to you."

She looked at him quizzically, "For what?"

He took a deep breath, "For the way I treated you when
we were dating."

She lifted up her shoulders in confusion, "I don't
understand."

"Well, I didn't treat you the way you deserve to be
treated."

She shook her head, "You treated me fine. You never
hit me or yelled at me."

"I don't mean like that, I mean, I didn't treat you
like I cherished you."

She raised her eyebrows like she didn't know what he was
talking about.

He stopped and turned to face her. They had reached a quiet
part of the cliffs and he felt he needed to say this now or never. "What I
mean to say, is that I apologize for taking advantage of you."

"You are really confusing me, Craig."

"When we lived together and were intimate with each
other, I apologize for that. You deserve better."

Susan turned away from him with a look of disbelief and
hurt on her face. Craig felt like he needed to say something to explain what he
meant. He reached out to touch her shoulder, but she jerked away from him.

"Susie..."

"Please, don't call me that anymore. I don't like
it."

Craig felt a stab in his heart. God, I'm trying to make
this better, but I seem to just be making it worse. "I'm just trying to
say I'm sorry."

"Sorry for what? Sorry for what we shared? Sorry for
having been my boyfriend? Sorry for asking me to marry you?" She shook her
head in disgust, "Thanks a lot." She said and stalked off, away from
the brilliant sunset.

Craig looked out over the ocean then lifted his head to
look up to the heavens, "Lord, that did not go well."

Susan slammed the file drawer shut. She was still angry
with Craig. How could he say that their time together all those years ago had
been a mistake?  How could he be sorry for what she considered to be one of the
best times in her life? At least it had been until he went and ruined all those
memories with his stupid apology.

Their ride home from the cliffs had been made pretty much
in silence. He tried to talk to her a couple of times, but she just ignored
him. Then Saturday and Sunday he tried to call her a few times, but she didn't
answer her phone at all, not even when her Nana called. She would have some
explaining to do with that, but she didn't care right now. What she wanted to
do right now was throw something. Throw it hard and fast and hear it shatter
into a million pieces the exact same way she felt she was shattering. She
looked around her office and tried to remember what she had been doing. She
shook her head in disgust, she wasn't accomplishing anything this morning,
really all day considering it was afternoon. She had been in a foul mood all
day and her employees were keeping a safe distance away from her. She rubbed
her temples with her fingers.  She had had a dull headache all weekend and it
was still there, just on the edges like if she moved in just the right way it
would go completely away or rage into a full blown flat-on-her-back
debilitating migraine. Of course, slamming the file drawer hadn't helped any.
She groaned, How could one man affect her life so much?  She tried to tell
herself that it was just his religion talking, but she felt that it went deeper
than that. She had a feeling that if he had got religion before they had met
that they would never have hooked up. Literally and figuratively. "So does
that mean he thinks I'm not good enough for him?" She asked the empty room
and let the thought percolate in her brain for a moment; but it didn't mesh
with the way he had treated her the few times that they had seen each other. He
had treated her like she was special; not like she was beneath him. "So
what then?" she asked out loud and the incredible mind boggling-ness of
that question just about made her headache go the way she didn't want it to
go.  She grabbed her purse, turned out the light and locked the door to her
office.  She needed to talk to Nana.

"What has you all in a tizzy, Susan?" Nana asked
as they sat out on her front patio with lemonade and cookies, making Susan feel
like she was back in Junior High rather than a woman in her thirties.

"How can you always tell when I'm 'in a tizzy',
Nana?" she asked as she lifted one of her Nana’s flaky Pecan Sandies off
the flowered china plate.

"Your eye twitches and you get goose bumps,
Sweetie." Nana said with a twinkle in her eye.

Susan smiled, "I should have known better than to
ask." She closed her eyes as the cookie literally melted in her mouth. "You
make the best cookies, Nana," she said around the cookie in her mouth.

Nana smiled, "Thank you dear. Now tell me, what is
wrong?"

"Craig."

Nana looked at her blankly for a while. "Care to
elaborate?"

"Do you remember my boyfriend from college? We lived
together for about six months."

"Ah, yes, I always felt you still had feelings for
him," she nodded her head as she took a sip of lemonade. "What about
him?" She asked after a minute.

"I saw him."

"Hmmm... did he see you?"

"Of course,"  Susan said with a strange look.

Nana set down her glass of lemonade the ice tinkling
invitingly against the sides of the glass. "Susan, I realize you are upset
about this, but am I going to have to drag the story out of you word by word,
or are you going to just spill the beans so we can work on a solution?"

"I'm afraid there is no solution."

Nana shrugged, "Time will tell. Now spill the
beans."

Susan told her everything, except for how the man made her
feel. "So that's it," she finished after a few minutes.

"And you do still have feelings for him," Nana
said insightfully.

"How in the world do you know that I have feelings for
Craig?" Susan asked a little miffed.

"Your other eye is twitching," Nana said with a
chuckle.

"Nana!"

"You blush every time you talk about him. You blushed
just now when you said his name."

"I think it was a flush of anger, not a blush of
love."

"So you do have feelings for him," Nana said
smiling.

"Nana!" Susan said, getting a little upset with
this grandma that she loved so much.

"Right a solution. Well, it was gentlemanly of him to
apologize."

"How can you say that? He is sorry we were ever
together."

"Did he say that?"

"No, I told you, he said he didn't treat me the way I
deserve to be treated."

"That doesn't sound like a man who is sorry you were
ever together. It sounds to me like a man who would like another chance to
prove he knows how to treat a woman."

"Are you kidding me?"

"No, I'm being completely honest. Why would I kid you
about that?"

"I don't know. I just didn't expect you to come up
with that."

Nana shrugged, "Why not? I think he is just sorry for
some things he allowed to happen in your relationship, not the relationship
itself."

"I allowed those things, too, Nana," Susan said
still a little put out.

"Well, of course you did."

Susan looked at her Nana like she had grown another head.

"What, child?"

"I'm not a child."

"No, and I'm not completely ignorant of what goes on
these days behind closed doors."

"Okaaay."

"All I'm saying, Susan, is let him say what he needs
to say. You may not agree with him, but that doesn't make him wrong."

"Okay, but I don't like it. If he had never got
religious on me, we would probably be married today."

Nana lifted her shoulders, "Maybe, maybe not, we will never
know. But we also don't know what the future holds. Just give him a chance.
Maybe you will have a change of heart."

"Maybe," Susan said doubtfully.

"Bring him over sometime, child. I always liked
him."

Susan kissed Nana on the cheek as she got up to leave,
"I probably won't even see him again."

"I have a feeling you will be seeing quite a bit of
your young man."

Craig wondered if he were being extremely knuckle-headed
coming to Susan's restaurant. She hadn't answered her phone for the past five
days but he didn't like leaving their relationship where they had left off on
Friday night. So here he was making his way to Nana's Bakery in an effort to
clear the air between them. The question was, would she even speak to him? He
sincerely hoped so. But even if she didn't, at least he was making the effort.
That was all he could do; the rest was in God's hands.

A part of him wished that Susan had become a Christian
during the years they had been apart. Actually a big part of him wished that.
He wasn't sure if he had actually thought about love when they were together.
He had asked her to marry him because it was the obvious next step. But now
that he had seen her again, he was sure that, if the circumstances were right,
he could love her. The problem was, the circumstances weren't right and he
wondered again why God had brought her back into his life. Only You know the
answer to that, Lord. Please help me to do what You want me to do.

He pushed open the door to the bakery and a little bell
jingled. He smiled at the lady behind the counter, "Excuse me, is Susan
available?"

"Let me check,” she said as she went through a door
leading to the back of the building. Craig pursed his lips as he debated on
whether he should follow her or not. He knew which office was Susan's. It would
probably be better to wait, but he decided to follow her as he stepped through
the door she had gone through.

"Who is asking for me, Beth?" He heard Susan ask
as he approached the door to her office.

"The man who was here last week."

"That could be any number of people. Next time ask for
a name. Tell him I'll be out in a minute."

Craig stepped through the doorway, "No need, I'm here
already."

He could have laughed at the expression on Beth's face if
he weren't so concerned about the expression he saw on Susan's. "I knew
where your office was..."

"So you just took it upon yourself to come back
here?" Susan asked sarcastically as she looked at him from where she was
seated behind her desk.

"Well, yeah. I hope that's okay."

"What if I said it wasn't?"

"I would say that I've been trying to call you every
day and you haven't been answering my calls so I thought this was the only way
to get you to talk to me."

Susan looked over at Beth who hadn't taken it upon herself
to exit the room, "Is there a reason why you are standing there with your
chin on the floor, Beth?"

"What? Oh, nope, none at all. I'm leaving."

She puffed out a sigh and looked back at Craig, "Fine,
well now that you are here do you want to sit?"

"Thanks," he said as he took the same seat he had
occupied just a week ago. A week that seemed almost like a lifetime. He watched
Susan to see if he could gauge her level of anger. She just gazed back at him
coolly raising her eyebrows slightly when he didn't say anything. He cleared
his throat, "I didn't mean to hurt you or make you angry when I
apologized, Susan."

He waited for her to say something, but she just continued
to stare at him with those blue-green eyes of hers. Eyes that he felt he could
get lost in. Eyes that could make him forget why he was here. He looked down at
his hands then back up at the middle of her forehead, "I never meant that
I regretted our relationship. I just wanted you to know that I'm sorry for not
treating you the way a man should treat a woman."

"So what does that make me?"

He shook his head in confusion, "I'm not sure I
understand."

"I allowed you to 'treat' me like that, so what does
that make me?"

He scooted forward in his chair, "It doesn't make you
anything Susan. You are a wonderful person and you deserve the best."

"Which you can't offer."

"Well, I didn't."

"But now you can?"

"I would at least try."

"Are you saying you want to try?"

Craig felt his palms get sweaty. This conversation was
getting out of control. How did they get from him apologizing for the way he
had treated her to him wanting to try to treat her the way she deserved to be
treated? "I'm saying I'm sorry," he said simply.

"But you don't want to show me how a man should treat
a woman."

"Susan..."

She chuckled, "Sorry, I couldn't resist that.  I
forgive you, Craig. And for the record I don't regret the time we spent
together. You are one of the nicest gentlemen I have ever met."

Craig slumped back in his chair. "Thank you, Susan.
You don't know what that means to me."

"I think I might."

"You still have a wicked sense of humor."

Susan tilted her head in acknowledgement, "I get it
from my Nana. You are still gullible."

"I'm not gullible."

"Extremely tease-able, then."

Craig shrugged his shoulders, "I like to think of it
as trusting."

"Well, all I can say is be careful who you
trust."

Craig smiled as he stood and held out his hand, "Will
do. Friends?"

Susan took his hand, "Friends."

Craig looked into her eyes against his better judgment and
caught his breath. "Maybe I'll see you around."

"Maybe. Hopefully it won't be another twelve years
though."

Craig looked at her and felt his heart break just a little.
"I sincerely hope not." He stepped toward the door then looked back
at her, "Take care, Susan. I will continue to pray for you."

Susan plopped back down into her chair as she watched him
walk out the door.
Continue to pray for me? Does that mean he has been
praying for me? Shouldn't I be offended at that?
She wondered, but
strangely she wasn't offended.  She actually felt something akin to pleasure at
the thought of him praying for her.

 She frowned a little as she realized she may never see him
again. She felt her heart break again at the thought. Whoever he did eventually
marry would be one very lucky woman.