Longing for Home (21 page)

Her head jerked up at the sound of a familiar voice. She vaulted out of the chair and flew into the circle of Abby’s arms.

Chapter Twenty-Two

“H
ow is he?”

“Stable.” Kate choked out the word.

“We caught an earlier flight after Matt called.” Abby managed a watery smile. “Now I know why they call it the red eye.”

“They kept him overnight for observation, but the nurse said he should be able to go home late this afternoon.”

Home to Chicago, now that Abby and Quinn were back.

Kate shook the thought away. It was where Alex belonged. Where he
wanted
to be.

“I had no idea that Alex was allergic to bees,” Abby murmured. “He got stung a few times when we were kids, but other than a little swelling, he was fine.”

“The doctor said it can happen like that sometimes.” Kate suppressed a shudder. “I don’t think Alex would have made it to the hospital if Grace hadn’t found us when she did.”

Kate had already dialed 911, but the nearest hospital was twenty minutes away and it would take the volunteer rescue squad at least that amount of time to arrive.

She was on the phone with the dispatcher when Grace, drawn to the cabin by the children’s screams, had burst through the trees and found Kate bent over an unconscious Alex.

The social worker had taken one look at him and pulled a small cylinder from her bag.

“Grace carries an EpiPen with her because her nephew is extremely allergic to bee stings,” Kate told them. “It prevented Alex’s airway from closing completely until the ambulance arrived.”

“Praise God,” Abby said, tears welling up in her eyes.

Quinn zeroed in on the ridge of welts on Kate’s arm. “How are you?”

“The nurse insisted on giving me a shot of Benadryl to reduce the swelling.” And calm her jangling nerves.

“Logan and Tori?”

“They spent the night at the inn with Grace and their aunt. Grace is bringing them to the hospital after breakfast. They need to see for themselves that Alex is okay.”

“I’ll bet he gave them quite a scare.”

All Kate could do was nod.

In her mind, like a video that played the same footage over and over, she could see Alex running toward the lake, Tori clasped against his broad chest as a delegation of bees followed in aggressive pursuit. But then he’d stumbled and released his grip on the little girl. Gave her a gentle shove in Kate’s direction before he’d collapsed.

“I want to see him,” Abby said, her smile tremulous.

Quinn took her hand and together they walked out of the waiting room.

Kate stayed put.

Abby glanced back, a question in her eyes.

“Aren’t you coming with us, Kate?”

“I’ll stay here. I don’t want to miss Grace.” It was thin as far as excuses went, but Kate wasn’t ready to face Alex at the moment.

Or was it her feelings she wasn’t ready to face?

Kate wasn’t sure.

All she knew was that when Alex had stopped breathing, so had she.

The anger, the disappointment, it all disappeared. It no longer mattered if she lost the café or her apartment.

What mattered was that Alex was all right.

“I colored a picture for you.” Tori clambered up on the bed and handed Alex a piece of paper.

He tried not to wince when the sheet scraped across his skin.

“I’m…blue.” With red polka dots.

“Uh-huh.” Tori nodded solemnly.

Logan sidled up to the side of the bed. One eye was swollen shut and his bottom lip puffed out, but the majority of the bee stings had landed on his hands as he’d attempted to protect his sister.

“You have polka dots, too, bud.”

The boy’s expression didn’t change. “Are you…okay?”

“I will be when I can eat a cheeseburger instead of green Jell-O.”

That comment earned a tentative smile.

“You have another visitor, Mr. Porter.” Alice, the nurse who’d been peddling the lime Jell-O, poked her head in the room.

Alex’s heart flipped over.

Kate?

He knew she was still in the hospital. Abby had told him that she was waiting for Tori and Logan to arrive, but here they were, accompanied by Grace Eversea.

Alex had been a bit taken aback when he’d met the woman. Kate had mentioned that she and the social worker were friends; but, for some reason, Alex had pictured an older woman, world-weary and as pale as the fluorescent light bulb in her cubicle. Not someone in her mid-to-late twenties whose laughing, espresso-brown eyes matched the leather cowboy boots on her feet.

“There he is!” Mayor Dodd marched in and came to a halt at his bed side. “You look terrible, Mr. Porter. Stopped by the Grapevine and picked up a few of Kate’s cinnamon rolls. They’ll cure what ails you.”

“Thanks.” Alex forced a smile.

The reminder of what he’d done to Kate hurt more than the welts covering his body. More than his throat, scratched and tender from the tube the E.R. doctor had inserted into his airway.

The fact Kate hadn’t come to see him was proof that she hadn’t forgiven him.

Alex didn’t blame her. He hadn’t forgiven himself.

“I have to make a phone call, Mr. Porter.” Grace backed toward the door. “Tori? Logan? We can come back in a few minutes.”

“They can stay here.”

“Are you sure?”

Alex nodded and handed Logan the remote control. “Anything but the nature channel.”

The siblings wedged themselves into the vinyl chair by the window while the mayor opened the box of cinnamon rolls.

“Something smells good.”

Alex saw Matt Wilde framed in the doorway, Zoey at his side.

“Help yourself,” the mayor said. “There’s more where this came from.”

Alex didn’t have to wait long to find out what he meant.

As the morning wore on, people began to stream into his room like ants at a picnic—to see him.

Delia Peake and Liz Decker. Jake Sutton, Emma and Jeremy.

The Davis brothers and a few other teens from Kate’s youth group.

Even Grady stopped by.

Alex could barely look the old cook in the eye. He could only assume that Grady hadn’t heard the news yet. But right before the man left, he leaned down and looked Alex straight in the eye.

“You’ll make it right.”

He knew.

Alex’s throat had tightened then, only this time it had nothing to do with a swarm of angry bees.

He wished he had the confidence Grady did.

By the time lunch rolled around, Alex’s pillows had been fluffed and thumped and he’d been patted, cooed at and smiled upon more than one of the newborns on the maternity floor.

People who had been strangers two weeks ago waltzed into his room, bearing gifts of food and bouquets of flowers, as if they’d known him for years.

He’d never felt so vulnerable.

So…humbled.

“A little overwhelming, isn’t it?” Matt, the only one brave enough to ignore Nurse Alice’s not-so-subtle hint that Alex needed to sleep, smiled as he pulled a chair closer to the bed. “But you’ll get used to it. You’re part of the family.”

“Family?”

“When you accept what Jesus did for you on the cross, you’re born into God’s family. You’re one of His children.”

Matt made it sound so easy.

“I don’t deserve this. Any of it.”

“None of us do. That’s why it’s called grace.”

“I gave Mr. Porter something to help him sleep.” The nurse, Alice, put a finger to her lips as Kate approached. “He kept muttering something about ‘only a few more hours.’ I assume that means he’s anxious to leave. Some men are like that. Terrible patients because they hate feeling out of control.”

“I won’t stay long. I just want to…see him.”

“You and everyone else,” Alice muttered. Her eyes twinkled. “Not that I blame you. That man is quite easy on the eyes!”

Easy on the eyes, not so easy on the heart, Kate thought as she slipped into the hospital room. The curtains were drawn but she could see the outline of Alex’s form in the narrow bed.

Gingerly, she perched on the edge of the chair and leaned forward to study him.

Raised, scarlet bumps disfigured the angular jaw. The sable-tipped lashes fanned out in the hollow shadows below his eyes.

He was still the most handsome man Kate had ever seen.

Unable to stop herself, she curled her fingers around his. Squeezed her eyes shut to staunch the tears that threatened to spill over.

“Kate.”

Her head jerked up. She hadn’t wanted to talk to Alex—only see for herself that he was all right.

“I didn’t mean to wake you up.” She rose awkwardly to her feet.

“Didn’t.” Alex blinked up at her, looking strangely vulnerable in the blue hospital gown.

“How are you feeling?” Kate’s hand itched to smooth a swatch of hair off his forehead.

He gave her a lopsided smile. “Only slightly better than I look.”

“The nurse said you’ll be released in a few hours. I should let you get some rest.” Kate would have moved away from the bed but Alex caught her hand.

He frowned when he saw the welts on her arm.

“You got stung.”

“Only a few times.” Kate had stopped counting at seven. She tried to tug her hand away but Alex held her fast. “Not as many as you.”

“Abby always said I have to be first at everything.”

How could Alex joke about it? When Kate closed her eye she could still see that cloud of bees. Hear the children’s cries for help.

“I should leave.” Kate’s thumb drew a circle on the back of his hand before she released it.

“What time is it?”

“Three o’clock.”

Alex struggled to sit up. “Why are you here?” he rasped. “You only had twenty-four hours.”

Twenty-four hours to come up with the money to buy the café.

Was that what Alex had been talking about when the nurse mentioned that he’d seemed agitated?

Tears stung Kate’s eyes as she gently pressed him back down. “Stay put or I’ve have to call Nurse Alice.”

The sheets hissed as Alex shifted restlessly beneath them. “You went to the bank, though.”

He saw the answer in her eyes.

“Kate.”
He groaned her name as if he were in pain. “Why not?”

Because she’d followed the ambulance to the hospital and she’d been there ever since.

“It wouldn’t have mattered. They wouldn’t have given me a loan. Not for that amount.” Kate tucked the blanket around him. “Do you need anything before I leave?”

“Yes. I need you to forgive me.”

Even though Kate didn’t move, Alex felt her retreat.

She’d let the café go.

No, she’d
lost
it. Because of him.

Alex’s throat began to swell again, but this time he couldn’t blame it on the bees.

“I’m sorry. For everything.” The words sounded so empty but Kate accepted them with a nod simply because that’s the kind of woman she was.

“I forgive you,” she said quietly. “It wasn’t your fault that Jeff made the decision to sell.”

A space of only three feet separated them and yet it felt like a chasm.

With a flash of insight, Alex realized that it wasn’t Jeff’s decision to sell the café that had damaged their budding relationship, it was
him
. Believing he knew what was best for her.

I changed the family motto. Don’t settle for anything but God’s best.

Alex wanted to find out what that was, even if it meant stripping everything in his life down to its foundation and building something new.

Something better.

“Kate, I have to tell you—”

“
Don’t
. Please.” Kate scraped up a smile. “I don’t want you to apologize. Or try to fix anything.”

She knew him too well. But Kate had been right when she’d claimed that he didn’t know her at all.

“What you did for Tori and Logan…thank you,” she said softly. “And I’m glad—I’m glad you’re all right.”

Kate walked toward the door and Alex couldn’t do anything—say anything—to stop her.

Regret sliced through him.

She might have offered her forgiveness, but Alex wasn’t sure she would ever trust him with her heart.

Chapter Twenty-Three

F
rom her rooftop garden, Kate watched the sunlight shimmer on the water, teased by a light breeze.

Her guests were running late today, so she’d taken advantage of the moment to curl up on the chaise longe and soak in a few moments of quiet.

Lucy and Ethel were draped over her feet, happy to have her home.

Kate wasn’t sure how long she would be able to call it that. When the café sold, there was a good chance she would lose her apartment, too.

She’d spoken with Jeff Gaines’s secretary and the woman politely informed her that Jeff was out of the area on business but she should carry on “as usual” until he returned.

Easier said than done; but Kate was trying.

She had convinced Jenna Gardner to spend a few days at the inn while she became reacquainted with her niece and nephew. She’d hung out with the girls from her youth group. Looked at the photos of Europe that Abby and Quinn had taken on their honeymoon.

The only thing Kate hadn’t done was say goodbye to Alex before he’d left for Chicago.

Abby had told her that he’d packed up and left within hours of being released from the hospital.

What had she expected?

They not only lived in different states, they might as well live in different galaxies.

This was real life, not one of the romantic comedies the girls in her youth group loved to watch.

Alex wasn’t going to ride in a white horse and tell her that he loved her…even though she’d fallen irrevocably in love with him.

And just because Kate had spent an hour the night before surfing the internet for pictures of the Porter hotels—Porter Lakeside was her favorite—didn’t mean she would ever leave Mirror Lake.

Not that Alex had asked her to.

Unfortunately, accepting the truth didn’t make Kate miss him any less. She missed his smile like she missed green grass in the winter. She missed seeing him every day. She missed arguing with him…

Downstairs, she heard the door of her apartment open and close.

“I’m up here, Mr. Lundy!”

The breeze sifted through the stack of napkins, lifted them up and sent them cartwheeling off the table. With a squeak, Kate tried to chase them down before they reached the wall and fell like confetti onto Main Street.

“Gotcha!” Kate dived for the last one and held it up, a triumphant smile on her face. “If only Coach Dickens could see me now. I’ll bet she would have let me run the fifty-yard dash instead of filling up water bottles…”

“I’ll bet she would have, too.”

The world suddenly tilted on its side.

Alex stood at the top of the stairwell.

Say something, Kate. You were talking in complete sentences when you were one year old!

“I—I thought you were in Chicago.”

“I was. But now I’m back.”

“Why?” The word slipped out before she could stop it.

“It’s Sunday, right?”

“Yes.” Kate watched Alex warily as he padded toward her, his gaze intent on her face.

“I’m here for dinner. It smells good, by the way.”

“Irish stew,” Kate murmured. “But no one else is here yet.”

Why wasn’t anyone else here yet!

“I know.” Alex stopped a few feet away from her but the traitorous breeze carried the scent of his cologne right to her nose, which somehow sent a message to her knees to start shaking. “I asked them to wait awhile.”

“You asked them—” Kate licked her lips. “Why would you do that?” And even more disturbing, why had her friends listened to him?

“I wanted to talk to you. Alone.”

The words hung in the air between them.

Alex pulled an envelope out of his pocket and handed it to her.

“What’s this?”

“You’ll have to open it and find out.”

Kate unfolded several sheets of paper and found herself staring at what looked like the deed to the café.

“This is in my name.”

“It belongs to you now. Jeff and I came to an agreement.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“I could tell you, but I made a promise to myself I wasn’t going to do that anymore.”

Kate almost smiled.

“I can’t accept it, Alex. It’s too much. If this is some sort of apology—”

“It’s not.”

“But—”

“We can talk about it after you open this.” Alex handed her a small box wrapped in tissue paper.

Kate’s fingers tangled in the colorful topknot of curling ribbon. “Should I open it now?”

Alex nodded. It almost looked as if he were…nervous. Very un-Alex-like.

Kate slid into a chair at the bistro table and peeled off the wrapping. Wading through several more layers of tissue paper, she unearthed a porcelain trinket box. A bee skep, complete with one of the tiny winged assassins perched on a delicate lavender blossom.

“You mentioned that sometimes you bought one of these to match with a memory.”

Kate swallowed, reliving those horrible moments when Alex had collapsed on the ground.

“You want me to remember the day you almost died?”

“No, I want you to remember this one.”

Alex knelt down beside her and opened the lid.

A diamond solitaire winked up at her. Now it was Kate’s turn to stop breathing.

“I love you, Kate, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Right here, in Mirror Lake.”

Kate didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer.

“You want to
live
in Mirror Lake?” Kate could hardly comprehend it.

“It grows on a person.”

“You’d be giving up everything.”

“I’d be gaining everything. ‘What good is it for a man to gain the world yet lose his very self,’” Alex quoted softly.

“Everything I want is here. I want Mr. Lundy to beat me at chess every Sunday. I want to help Jeremy and Cody finish that tree fort before winter. I want to make sure Tori and Logan are all right.

“I want to sit on the porch and watch every sunset with you.” He touched her cheek. “And every sunrise.”

Kate slid off the chair and backpedaled away from him.

Alex’s initial panic subsided a little when he saw the diamond ring still cradled in her hand. She hadn’t thrown it at him—or over the side of the roof. He figured that was a good sign.

“You almost died,” she stammered. “You aren’t thinking clearly. People say that kind of thing can change a person.”

“I’m sure it can, but the change happened
before
that. I had a long talk with Matt that day…and then a long talk with God. He’d been trying to get my attention for two weeks. Post-It notes and sand castles and potluck dinners.

“If that crazy bee attack taught me anything, it’s that God is in control, not me. We don’t know how many days we have on this earth, but I know I want to spend them with you.”

Kate sniffled and Alex tilted his head toward the sky.

“Can you believe this? I’m getting all mushy and she still hasn’t said yes.”

A ghost of a smile touched Kate’s lips. And then just as quickly, it disappeared.

“What about your hotels? Everything you worked so hard for. You can’t just walk away.”

“I don’t expect you to move to Chicago but I’d like to keep Porter Lakeside. It’s the first hotel my parents owned and I think you’d like it. Very charming and old-fashioned. Tony and Jessica even said you can mess around in their kitchen when you visit. The rest…I’ll sell. Abby already gave me her blessing.”

“What if you get…bored?”

“Not gonna happen,” Alex said instantly. “Mayor Dodd already signed me up to help with Reflection Days and we’re going to be busy with the house.”

“What house?”

“The one we’re going to build. The one with the really nice kitchen,” Alex added because this was taking a lot longer than he thought it would and he wanted to kiss her again.

Kate looked away. “I didn’t mean you’d get bored with the town. I meant…you might get bored with
me
. I’m not beautiful and sophisticated and worldly and, well…look at my watch!” She held up her wrist.

Alex bit back a laugh when he realized Kate was serious.

“You are beautiful,” he said softly, advancing on her. “And I don’t want sophisticated and worldly, Kate. I want you.”

“We argue all the time.”

“Think about how much fun we’ll have making up.”

Kate’s cheeks turned fiery red but she didn’t protest when he slipped his arms around her waist.

“I don’t want you to change your life, Kate. All I’m asking is that you make room in it for me.”

Kate closed her eyes, certain that when she opened them again she would be lying on the chaise longe with a sunburned nose and a houseful of people who were wondering why she was taking a nap when she was supposed to be making dinner.

It was a dream, she didn’t want to wake up. And if it wasn’t…

She opened her eyes a crack. Alex was looking down at her.

Waiting.

She took Alex’s hand and carefully set the ring in his palm.

The look of pain—and disappointment—that flashed in his eyes arrowed straight through her.

“Is there anything I can say to make you change your mind?” he said tightly.

“No.” Kate put out her left hand. “Because I love you, too.”

When Alex realized that she was accepting the ring, not giving it back, he groaned.

“What you do to me, Kate.”

Kate flashed an impish smile. “What do I do to you, Mr. Porter?”

“You make me want to be one of the good guys.” Alex slipped the ring on her finger and drew her into his arms again.

You already are, Kate wanted to say. But she decided to wait until after he kissed her…

“Did she say yes, yet?” A voice floated up the stairwell.

“’Cause we’re hungry!”

Kate gasped.

“Who’s down there?” she whispered.

“Everyone,” Alex whispered back. “If you said no, they were going to help me convince you.”

Kate clucked her tongue in mock disapproval. “I thought you promised to change your ways. You obviously had this all planned out.”

“No, but I’m pretty sure God did.”

“I’m pretty sure He did, too,” Kate said softly.

“Something we agree on,” Alex teased. “It’s a start.”

Kate stepped into the shelter of his arms and right before his lips claimed hers, she smiled.

Yes.

It was a
very
good start.

* * * * *