Never Stopped Loving You (27 page)

Chapter Thirty-Two

Kara stretched her back and a satisfying string of pops went up her spine. She’d only stopped once on the way to Texas, fearing she’d get there too late. It was close to ten now, but the light in the front window of the house was on. Kara stepped closer and voices from what she hoped was a TV filtered through the windows. She’d almost stopped at a hotel for the night, but now she was glad she’d come straight here.

She rubbed her hands down her hips and rang the bell. There were footsteps and then the door pulled open. Behind the glass door stood Mrs. Jana, looking exactly as Kara had always remembered.

Her brown eyes were the exact shade as Wade’s and misted under the glow of the porch light. Her hair was short and light brown with blond highlights. It was late, but she still had on mascara with her matching pajamas of dancing wine bottles. “Kara?”

She waved, not sure what else to do. “Hi, Mrs. Jana.”

Mrs. Jana opened the door and stepped out on the porch in her tan house shoes and brought her in for a hug. Her hands rubbed circles on Kara’s back and then patted. “I haven’t seen you in years.”

She blinked off tears. “I thought I’d drop by.”

Mrs. Jana’s chuckle was broken as she cleared her throat. “Come in, come in.”

She pulled her inside. The TV flickered from a corner, the living room was set with thick white padded furniture. A throw blanket was over the end of the couch and pillows at the arms. It may be south Texas and warm, but Mrs. Jana always liked her blankets.

“Come on to the kitchen. Let’s get you a snack.”

Kara couldn’t stop the chuckling coming up her throat and she followed her through the hallway into the kitchen. Unlike Chester House’s brown tones and warm kitchen, this one was all white. Seashells were on the walls and sheer blue curtains hung over a sliding glass door.

As Kara turned through the room, she found Mrs. Jana already sitting down at the breakfast nook with a plate of what smelled like pumpkin bread and a glass of chocolate milk.

Mrs. Jana’s hand was more slender than Kara remembered as she patted the glass tabletop next to her. “Sit down, tell me what you’ve been up to.”

Kara eased in the chair and smoothed her thumb along the napkin. “Whitney’s probably told you I’ve been on the farm.”

Mrs. Jana nodded. “She did! She sent me some of your strawberry jelly. It was amazing and exactly like what I remembered your grandmother sending me.”

Warmth touched her again. There was that one time her grandmother had visited, but Kara didn’t realize they’d stayed in touch. Or at least in touch enough that she would send jars of jam to her. “Thank you. And thank you for letting me in tonight, being it’s so late.”

Mrs. Jana flicked her hand at her. “My door is always open to you. You know that.”

“I know.” She breathed and looked at Mrs. Jana. Just sitting at this table, and already Kara felt better. “Thank you for that.”

Mrs. Jana reached across the table and patted her hand. “What’s on your mind?”

“I don’t know.”

“Something has to be for you to have just disappeared from the farm, not answer your phone, and come straight here.”

Kara winced. “I didn’t mean to do that. I wanted to see you and I just took off. I wasn’t sure what I wanted or how to explain what I was doing, so I shut my phone off. I guess Whitney called you?”

“They’re worried.” She tipped her head. “Wade especially.”

Just hearing his name made her smile. “She mentioned we were dating?”

“She said something about it, oh, four or five hundred times in our emails and phone calls over the summer. Sounds like it could be serious. By the smile on your face, I’d say it is.”

“It is. Could be more, I think. He’s part of why I’m here too.” She sipped from her chocolate milk, still trying to figure out what she wanted. “I was hoping you could tell me what to do. You always knew what to say.”

Mrs. Jana smiled. “I’ll try, but you have to give me something.”

“I’ve been trying to fit back in at Bella Warren.”

“That’s your first problem.”

Kara chuckled. God, how could she forget how candid Mrs. Jana could be. “Well, I wanted to earn my reputation back, I guess.”

“No point in doing that. The only people who would have a problem with you weren’t friends to begin with and I wouldn’t waste my time on them.”

True. She stared toward the pumpkin bread. A thick layer of sweet cream beckoned to be eaten, but she really didn’t have the stomach for it. When Mrs. Jana said it, it seemed so easy. But somewhere inside Kara’s head, it got messy. “It felt like the right thing to do. And I was ready for it. Then I got to town and I found out Mom got a little crazier than I was aware of. Sue won’t look at me. Mrs. Marabel won’t look at me. I swear half the town is either afraid of me or hates me.”

“What about the other half?” Mrs. Jana’s smile was soft, her eyes sparkled at the corners.

Kara lifted a shoulder and relaxed at the table. “Indifferent. Or they act pleased to see me. I think if Maddy Booth and all her rabid friends would stop, that would help.”

Mrs. Jana huffed. “Stop wishing on that. All those girls know is gossip and causing trouble for someone else. Runs in the family.”

She shook her head. “I don’t remember them being that way when I was there before.”

“Because you were creating the news before they could tell it. Why is their opinion of you so important? You didn’t used to worry about what other people thought.”

True too. Again, but... “I didn’t want to be the embarrassment I was when I left. I was coming to work at Chester Farms and I didn’t want all that coming with me. And I wanted to fit in at Chester House again. Like I used to.” She looked down and shook her head. “I just wish I could go back and do everything different.”

“Whitney said you looked happy.”

She nodded. “I am. I really am happy.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“That’s the part I don’t know. It seems like when I dream and want for something, that’s when it all falls apart. I don’t want to become my mom who got so wrapped up in a daydream and the future she had in her head, she forgot everything else.”

“Honey, everyone gets wrapped up in their dreams at some point. Most of us stay grounded in reality while we’re chasing them too. Your mom couldn’t do that. If she didn’t have the dream, then she didn’t want anything.” She sighed. “Have you ever heard the story about why I wanted Chester Farms to be what Whitney so eloquently calls a halfway house?”

She shook her head and fought the smile, but it was a useless battle. “No, ma’am.”

Her smile got bigger. “Let me grab some more coffee.”

Kara picked at the cake left for her and moaned at the vanilla sweetness and the cream filling between the layers. Maybe she had a little bit of a stomach for it.

Mrs. Jana returned to her seat and stirred sugar in her otherwise black coffee. When I was sixteen I met the handsomest boy I’d ever laid eyes on.”

“Sam?” Kara asked.

Mrs. Jana nodded. “Yes. He was seventeen and three-quarters. A couple months from graduating high school and we were...” She breathed. “We were quite taken with one another. It could be said that Sam and I were seen around town much like you and John were back in the day.”

Kara winced.

“Only, a little different back then. People were a little more modest then in their thinking, so when I turned up pregnant shortly after Sam graduated, it didn’t go over well with my family. They wanted me to go away for a while and spend some time in the north with my aunt and come back without the baby, if you catch my meaning.”

Her heart broke a little. In the years she’d known Mrs. Jana, she could never imagine the woman turning out a baby lizard, much less her own child. “Horrible.”

“Yes. My other option was to leave home. Mom was mortified her only daughter had gotten pregnant at sixteen. If that was my only choice, I was gone. I couldn’t make the decision to leave without talking to Sam, though. He was shocked. He wasn’t exactly expecting that sort of graduation gift.” Her eyes widened as she stared at her coffee. “And neither were his parents. They were a little more supportive than mine, but Sam came from money. They had more options and offered us a deal. They sent us to some backwoods town called Bella Warren, Arkansas. It had been the home of Sam’s great-grandmother. They decided we got ourselves in that mess, that we should do something about it.”

Kara felt her eyes widening on her face the more Mrs. Jana talked. She was positive they were about to pop out of her head. “I had no idea.”

She flicked her wrist. “It was all anybody ever talked about for months. That old bat Marabel was always at the front of it, saying something.”

“I see where Maddy gets it from.”

“Exactly. Anyway, we made do with what we had. The farm land hadn’t been plowed in ages, but Sam was a Chester and they knew more about farming than anybody. There was a rusty old Chester tractor there. He got it running. He got the fields plowed. His mom and dad sent Chester seeds and we grew a farm. Tate came and we kept growing our vegetables. Every year we got a little bigger and we earned the respect of Sam’s parents. They offered us a better place to live, but by then we were doing well on our own. That old house was our heart and home. We couldn’t bear the thought of leaving. About that time a girl in town named Opal found herself in a place similar to like I was. We barely knew each other, but I had just been through what she was going through and she came to me.”

Kara’s mouth was now in her lap. “I had no idea. I gave Ms. Opal your frosting recipe. Sounds like that was okay.”

She flicked her wrist. “Oh, that’s fine. Opal’s a sweetheart but she’s about as featherheaded as they come. I’ve given her that recipe at least two times before. Anyway, Sam and I of course took her in for a few days. Anybody who had something to say about it, had to say it to us too. With the wealthy Chester name behind us by that point, well, nobody was opening their trap about anything.”

Kara chuckled. She was taken back to that day in the ice cream shop when Whitney hadn’t taken two seconds to come to her defense. “Whitney is so much like you.”

Mrs. Jana beamed. “From then on, people who had problems, needed a friend or whatever, seemed to flock to the house.” She smiled at her. “Even you.”

Kara rubbed her arms. All the happy memories she was nearly reliving by the way Mrs. Jana could tell a story seeped out of her. “But I turned away from Whitney in the end. I felt like I needed to earn my place back.”

“Honey, you’re still missing it. You don’t earn nothing about Chester Farms. It’s there when you need it, for whatever you need. It was always that way. Teenagers are going to be young and do stupid things. We grow up, we get over it, and become adults. Unless you’re Marabel Booth and her horrible daughter, that is. If anyone has anything to say about it, then I imagine they’ll have to go through Wade and Whitney first and not too many are going to cross them.”

Kara fidgeted with her fingers. “All this time I’ve been worried to death I was going to hurt the Chester name and everything you wanted to make the place into.”

“As far as the Chester name in Bella Warren is about, you’re exactly what I wanted that place to be. I was tired of being looked at cross sideways because I had sex. They were doing it too, I just got caught young.”

Kara smiled across the table. “I saw my mom not too long ago. It reminded me all over again how much I could be like her, if I wasn’t careful.”

“Is living behind your fear of being your mom any different than not living because you’re afraid of being her? Your mom at her best was a delightful woman, but you’re not her. You’re so much more. If she was in her right mind, I know she would be proud of you.”

That cold knot in her chest left behind by her mom kind of fizzled. Warmth filled it as she looked into Mrs. Jana’s eyes.

She saw the mom she had all along and she also saw the shape of Wade’s eyes. Her heart skipped a beat and she smiled. “One day I’m going to marry Wade.”

Mrs. Jana blinked and then smiled. “I think that’s a fine idea.”

She nodded. It was. It was a fine idea. It started maybe sometime earlier today when she faced John and when she told off Maddy and it ended at this table. She was tired of living up to what other people wanted. She was ready to be accepted in the home she was already nestled in.

It was time to go home and make the place her home.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Wade eased up another step and tapped another baseboard in place. His home was getting closer, though what in the hell he was going to do in it, he didn’t know. One thing was for sure—since yesterday, he was alone again. He called over two dozen times and she didn’t answer. Didn’t call back. He’d waited enough. He tried to be at peace with his decision. He tried to accept that she was gone again and that he was done with her.

Was damned hard to do when anytime he just thought her name, his heart rolled over in his chest like a puppy showing off his belly to be rubbed. He hammered the board in, then pieced another in next and reached for a finishing nail.

“Both of the white paint colors are fine for the living room.” Her voice echoed through the house and he straightened. “They’re practically the same, though I would have picked the one you painted on the walls since there’s not even a dot of red in that color to tint the walls pink against the sun.”

Wade looked over the stair railing. Kara stood in the middle of his would-be living room, her hands on her hips. His heart did that puppy thing, but he stayed on his ass on the stair and kept his distance. “Where have you been?”

She pulled in a breath and licked her lips. “While that color is nice for the bedroom, I would never put it in the living room or kitchen. The outside is rustic and still looks like a barn. A pretty, red rust would be perfect in here.”

He couldn’t stand it anymore. Still a moth drawn to that flame, he trotted down the stairs and followed her as she walked in the kitchen. “Kara?”

She spread her arms over where the stove would go. “And you need a stove worth having here. A gas stove with six burners and a convection oven. With a big vent hood on it. I need something to cook on.” She turned around and faced the center of the room. “And I don’t know what your plans are, but there needs to be a big kitchen island right here in the middle of the room, just like in Chester House. It’s not a bar for sitting at, it’s a countertop for function to cook on, so smooth countertops, please. No tile tops.”

He wasn’t sure why, but he was smiling. He was supposed to be furious with her. He should be yelling or he should walk out the door, but she was rubbing all the parts of his chest that needed it most. “Anything else?”

She turned again. “A double oven here so I can cook a proper meal. And the biggest refrigerator we can find over there. Possibly a backup refrigerator somewhere else would be a good idea too.”

He liked the sound of that “we.” “Should I be taking notes?”

She nodded, then shook her head. “I can write it all down later. I’ve thought about it a lot. And we also need a big upright deep freezer. We need space in a kitchen, Wade.”

“Okay.” He moved closer to her. This couldn’t be real. In fact, he was pretty sure he’d wake any minute. The Kara Duncan he knew would never walk in and do what she was doing. “Anything else?”

“That’s all I can think of offhand.”

“Good, now tell me where in the hell you’ve been.”

She smiled. “I went to see your mom.”

He couldn’t have been more shocked. “In Texas?”

She nodded. “I got there late, but she was up. We had a long chat and I drove straight back this morning.” Her head tipped to the side. “Did you miss me?”

He shook his head. “I thought you left.”

“Just for a couple days. Or really, a day. I thought I needed to talk to your mom. And I did.”

He shook his head. So she was back? For good? Or not. She was talking about the future—did that mean they could move on and she’d stop leaving him in the morning? He rubbed his temples. “No, Kara. I thought you left. Like before. I thought you left without saying anything.”

Her hand covered her mouth as she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him. “No. Never. I’m sorry. I should have left a note. I had the idea to talk to your mom to figure something out and I just took off.”

“You could have called!”

“I didn’t know what to say on the way down there. So I didn’t answer. On the way back I knew the first time I talked to you, I’d spill everything I was thinking. I didn’t want to do that over the phone.”

With her standing there hugging him, he couldn’t help it and wrapped his arms around her waist. “Well?”

Tears were in her eyes, but by the big smile, they were happy. “We talked about the farm and how she met Sam.”

“I could have told you that.”

She swallowed. “I know. I wasn’t sure what I was going after until I got there. Your mom always talks and seems to solve problems. Just listening to her really helped me figure out what I wanted.”

“Which is?”

“A lot.” She glanced around the room and skirted her fingers along the walls. “Do you know why I read the paper in the morning and make all those notes in the margins?”

“For the news?” He resisted grabbing her and asking what she would’ve spilled on the phone if they had talked. He had questions about that big smile and what made her change her mind and announce everything she wanted in the house.

She sniffed and swiped her finger under her nose. She twisted around and faced him. “Not how you’re thinking. When I ran to Dad’s, he made me read the paper every morning and take notes so he’d know I wasn’t losing my mind like Mom did.”

“Kara.” He rubbed a hand down her back and the impatience he’d been feeling phased out a little.

She took a deep breath. “So that’s why I read the paper. Because for two months, I became so focused on getting what I wanted, I became her. That thought terrifies me every time I’m faced with it.”

“You’re not her. You’re nothing like her.”

She nodded. “I wasn’t leaving you in the mornings because I wanted to. I went back home so I could see that empty, old house to know what I’m risking if we don’t work out. I also needed to go back and remind myself not to dream too big or hope for too much and end up lost in my head like she was. Like
I
was all those years ago.”

“There’s nothing wrong with dreaming.” He rubbed her arms. “I’m right here and I’m telling you to dream about whatever you want.”

“When I visited Mom, I didn’t tell you everything. Just before I left she said I was a dreamer,
just like her.
”

“You’re nothing like her.”

She smiled and cupped his cheeks. “Actually, I am. I have tried to stop dreaming about things and how I want the future, but I can’t. I see you and I’m taken right back to my daydreams.”

He liked the sound of that.

She left a quick kiss on him. “You are right, though. I’m also nothing like her. Because when I lost myself and ran away, I came back. I faced the times I was ashamed of. I faced my life choices that I didn’t like. She couldn’t do that and instead chose to forget. I couldn’t forget. When I left your mom’s, I felt so much lighter and happy. As I turned down that winding road and passed that population sign to Bella Warren, all of this hit me then. I am nothing like her and that fear is not going to hang around my neck any longer.”

She pressed another fast kiss on his lips and lowered to her knees. He frowned. This was hardly the time to be getting in his pants, but he wasn’t sure he’d argue.

She grabbed his hand and took a quick breath. “Wade Chester, will you marry me?”

He blinked. “What?”

Her smiled was broad and a sparkle touched her eyes. “Will you marry me?”

“You won’t even keep a pair of shorts in my drawer and you’re asking me to marry you?”

She laughed and nodded. “Yes. I have my things in my car. I came prepared to fill that drawer and the closet space you gave me and anywhere else I can wrangle some space. I am here and I’m not leaving.”

He lowered to his knees to be eye level with her. “I love my mom. You should get advice from her more often than Tasha.”

Laughter spilled out of her and she cupped his cheeks. Her fingertips were cool and soft against his face as she held him to her. “Tasha was right too, though. I can’t imagine leaving you, but you haven’t answered my question.”

He dropped his forehead on hers. “You weren’t supposed to ask me that.”

She frowned. “Why?”

He dug in his shirt pocket. He hadn’t been able to give the box back to Tate. In part because he hoped she would be back. Another part to remind him what she did to his heart every time she was in and out of his life. And right now she was in it, and she was going to stay that way. He pulled out the small gold band and slid it on her finger. A big ruby was in the center and two white diamonds topped it off. The band was carved like vines. He’d told Tate to create something like a strawberry since that was her favorite. “Because I wanted to ask you, but you took off to Mom’s house too fast. Marry me, Kara.”

Tears filled her eyes and she threw her arms around his neck. He was pretty sure
he
was dreaming and that was okay with him. He kissed her and they fell to the floor. She was trapped under him and he twirled a lock of her hair around his finger. “You know I can never resist you, Kara.”

She smiled. “Good. I’ve wanted you since before I knew what wanting was.”