Finding Home Again

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Her brothers must have mentioned something to her parents because her mother had called yesterday wanting to know if she was okay. In fact, she had been talking to her mom when Kaegan had shown up at her office yesterday. She had assured her mother she was fine and that her argument with Kaegan hadn’t been a big deal.

She glanced up at the sound of the doorbell and wondered who would be visiting her. Very few people knew where to find her today, since she usually would be at the café helping her parents and brothers.

She got up and headed for the door. Looking out the peephole, she saw it was a young man with flowers. Surely he had the wrong address since nobody ever sent her flowers.

Opening the door, she smiled at Paul and Samantha Jenkins’s oldest son, who’d graduated from high school last year and worked at his parents’ flower shop. “Hi, Mellon.”

“Hello, Miss Bryce. I have a delivery for you.”

“You sure it’s for me?”

“Yes,” he said, handing her the flowers. She looked at them and knew who’d sent them. Only one person knew the kind of flowers she liked, calla lilies. Kaegan. He used to sneak into old lady Lula’s flower garden to pick them for Bryce when they’d been teens. Once Ms. Lula discovered the mystery of the disappearing lilies, she would save him the trouble and have a bunch ready for him to give to Bryce each week. He’d said that he had wanted to make his last year in high school, the last year he would get to spend with her, special. There had been no doubt in either of their minds that once he graduated, he would be leaving town to join the marines.

“They’re pretty, aren’t they?” Mellon asked her, smiling.

“Yes, they are pretty.” And they were. An assortment of different colors, some fully bloomed, others not, made up the stunning arrangement, which was in a beautiful ceramic vase with a huge purple bow. Purple was her favorite color and Kaegan knew it.

“Have a nice day, Miss Bryce.”

“Wait. Let me give you a tip.”

“No need. The sender covered it.”

What she should do was tell Mellon that she wouldn’t accept them and give them back to him, but she would accept them. The arrangement was too beautiful for her not to. It didn’t matter if she didn’t like the sender—she did like the flowers.

She closed the door and went to place the vase in the perfect spot on the coffee table. They looked simply beautiful there. Then she pulled off the card that was attached and read it.

I hope that one day you will forgive me for not believing in you.

Kaegan

The message had been written in Kaegan’s handwriting, which meant he’d gone into the florist’s himself and written out the card. Bryce placed the card beside the arrangement and stared down at the flowers. Moments later she picked up the card again and reread it.

She fought back tears because, at that moment, she wasn’t sure if she could ever forgive Kaegan or not.

“KAEGAN, YOU HAVE a call on line three. It’s Samantha Jenkins from Jenkins’s Florist.”

“Thanks, Wil,” he said to his administrative assistant, Willa Ford. “Please put her through.”

When he heard the connection, he said, “Mrs. Jenkins, how are you?”

“I’m fine, Kaegan. I wasn’t here when you dropped by this morning. I had to do a bank run. Paul took your order and I want to make sure he jotted down the right instructions.”

Kaegan leaned back in his chair. “Okay.”

“You want a vase of calla lilies delivered every week to Bryce Witherspoon. Is that right?”

“Yes, that’s right. I pre-signed at least three cards already. When you run out I’ll come in to sign some more.” Not wanting anyone to know his and Bryce’s business, he had stopped by the florist’s himself, written out the messages on the cards and sealed the envelopes. For as long as it took her to forgive him, she would get the flowers and the card with that message.

“Well, all right. And we have your credit card on file, so there shouldn’t be a problem.”

“No, there shouldn’t be.”

“I’ll talk to you later and thanks for your business.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Wait! I just remembered something.”

“Yes?”

“I’m selling tickets to this year’s Catalina Cove charity ball. How many tickets would you like?”

In all the years he’d lived in the cove, not once had he attended one of those charity balls. He would support them by buying a handful of tickets for his employees, but he’d never felt comfortable attending those types of community functions himself. Kaegan wasn’t one who did a lot of socializing with people he didn’t know that well. Sawyer and Ray were the only men in the cove he spent any amount of personal time with. Reid had talked him into being a part of the cove’s zoning board a few years ago, and that was as far as he intended for his community involvement to go.

He recalled both Sawyer and Ray mentioning they would be attending the event with their wives. The dance was a month from now. It was probably wishful thinking on his part, considering how she felt about him now, to even assume Bryce would go with him to the dance. It would be a miracle to think that by then he would have gotten in her good graces enough to at least get a dance with her. He, of all people, knew how much she liked to dance. The few steps he knew were ones she’d taught him.

It was a long shot, but it was a long shot worth taking. That meant he had to step up his game. But first, of course, he had to get her to forgive him. That was the most important thing to him right now.

“Yes, I’ll take twenty tickets this year.”

“Wow! Twenty tickets! Your support is definitely appreciated, Kaegan. Thanks.”

He ended his call with Samantha Jenkins and went to the coffeepot thinking maybe he should go to the ball this year. There was a first time for everything. After pouring a cup, he moved to the window and looked out.

Kaegan knew Vashti was right. There was nothing wrong with sparking memories, but he and Bryce needed to get to know each other again to cultivate new ones, as well.

They were no longer in their teens, or young and in love. Now they were both in their thirties. It was time they saw things with new sets of eyes. Those belonging to mature adults. They couldn’t change the past, but they could control their future. It would be up to him to help her see that and get her to believe in them again.

He knew why the pain of what he thought was her betrayal had hurt him so much. Because he had loved her so deeply. He could honestly say that other than his mother, Bryce was the only woman he’d ever loved. He had loved her and had never stopped loving her. Even when he’d thought bad of her there was something that still pulled at him. And that something had kept him going to the Witherspoon Café every morning because he knew she would be there.

Kaegan also knew that no matter how long he lived in Catalina Cove, it would never be home to him without Bryce. When he’d lived here before he had considered it home because she’d made it so for him. He’d been back awhile now, but a part of him hadn’t truly thought of it as home. It would take Bryce to help him find home again.

She was the only one who could do it.

CHAPTER EIGHT (#u87cadfe7-46c4-56eb-b6b0-905922d3c32e)

“KAEGAN, THERE’S SOMEONE to see you.”

Kaegan looked at Willa, who’d stuck her head in the door. “Who is it, Wil?”

“Bryce Witherspoon.”

He looked at his watch. She would have gotten her flowers by now. The third arrangement he’d sent her. “Okay, send her in. And go ahead and take your lunch now.”

“I just came from lunch.”

“Take another one.” The last thing he wanted was his employees being privy to anything Bryce might say. Although he had his own office, he knew voices carried. Faith Harris, his other office worker, had taken the day off, and Toby Franklin was on vacation.

Willa smiled. “You won’t get an argument out of me. I think I’ll go back to that dress shop and buy me something to wear to a party I’m going to this weekend.”

“Do whatever rocks your boat,” he said, standing. “Please send Bryce in.”

He came around to sit on the edge of his desk and had to swallow twice when Bryce walked in. He reached behind him to grab his coffee cup and take a sip since his throat had gotten dry.

She’d walked into his office with her head held high, lips tight and a mass of hair around her shoulders. She didn’t look happy, he thought, as his gaze roamed over her. She was wearing a printed dress, with a stylish navy blue jacket and navy blue pumps. She looked so damn good.

He stood. “Bryce, this is a surprise. I missed seeing you at your parents’ café during lunch the last few Wednesdays. Your mom reminded me about those real-estate classes you started taking in New Orleans.” There—he’d let her know he noticed her absence, as well as the fact he’d asked about her.

She squared her shoulders. “We need to talk, Kaegan.”

“Go ahead, Bryce. I’m all yours.”

He doubted she knew just how much he meant that. In his heart he was hers and always would be. He’d had a few weeks to dwell on what he wanted out of his life and he’d decided he wanted Bryce. He was well aware accomplishing such a thing wouldn’t be easy. First, he had to earn back her trust, and he was working daily thinking of ways to do that. He wouldn’t rush her. As far as he knew, although she dated, she wasn’t involved in a serious relationship. He intended to make sure nothing changed with the latter. He would do whatever was needed to make things up to her. He knew now what he should have known all along. She was his past as well as his future.

“I want to talk to you about the flowers.”

“What about them?”

“They are beautiful and all, and I want to thank you for them. However, you don’t need to keep sending them. You’ve told me that you’re sorry.”

He nodded. “Yes, but you’ve yet to say you’ve forgiven me.”

She frowned at him. “Fine, Kaegan. I forgive you. Please stop sending the flowers.”

“So we’re friends again?”

“No. We could never be friends.”

He’d figured they could start with friendship while he proved that he was worthy of more. That he wanted more between them. “Why not?”

“I don’t want you as my friend. Friends trust each other. They believe in each other and they are there for one another. Samuel was my friend and you tried making it into something dirty.”

He sighed deeply. “I regret that and my only excuse is that I didn’t know the nature of your relationship with him.”

“I tried telling you, but even if I hadn’t tried, it should not have mattered. You should have trusted in the nature and depth of my relationship with you. My love. My commitment. Remember doing this?” she said, holding up the nick on the third finger of her right hand. “That should have told you how much I valued not only what you and I shared, but what you, me and Vashti meant to each other. But especially with what you and I shared. I would never have betrayed you. You should have known that.”

He rubbed his hands down his face as he leaned against the desk. “I know, but when I saw you wrap your arms around Samuel’s neck, I thought the worst.”

“I placed a kiss on his cheek and that was all.”

He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “I didn’t stay around to see where you would kiss him. I just knew that you would. When I saw you lean up toward him on tippy toes, I turned and walked away. I thought I had seen enough. Surely you can see how I could have misunderstood the situation.”

She shook her head. “No, I don’t see. You should have trusted me.”

“I didn’t know he was gay. He was a star athlete and adored by all the girls at school.”

“It was a front he put on for others. No one knew but me. When he found out you had broken off with me because of him, he felt guilty and told me to tell you the truth. That’s why I caught the bus to see you. But that’s all water under the bridge now because you didn’t want to hear anything I had to say. And then there was that woman...”

“I didn’t sleep with her that night, Bryce. I only left with her to make you think I would. I wanted to hurt you the way I thought you had hurt me.”

“You succeeded in hurting me, Kaegan. It took me years to get over you and move on with my life. And then you returned to Catalina Cove, still believing the worst about me.” She drew in a deep breath. “None of it matters anymore. I only came here today to say that I forgive you, so you can stop sending the flowers.”

She turned and walked out of his office.

“ARE YOU OKAY, BRYCE?”

Bryce looked over at her mother. “I’m fine, Mom. Why do you ask?”

“You’ve been quiet.”

Yes, she had been. After leaving Kaegan’s office, she had gone home and changed clothes and come to the café to help out. She’d known Ry had taken the day off to attend one of Lil Ry’s football games and her parents would be shorthanded with the afternoon and dinner crowd. Her father had worked with Duke in the kitchen, and Bryce and her mother had waited on tables.

It had gotten busy very quickly. This was the first chance they’d gotten to talk, but she wouldn’t tell her mother anything. The last thing she needed was her parents worrying about her...and they would. Regardless that she was thirty-two, she was still the baby in the family. Her family liked Kaegan, and because they didn’t know all the details of why she and Kaegan had broken up, they merely saw it as a communication problem.

She knew the way her parents’ minds worked. In Kaegan they saw the young man who’d looked out for their daughter while growing up. He’d appeared on their doorstep every morning to walk her to school and back, from the time she’d been in first grade to when he’d left town for the marines.

Then there was the time her father liked reminding her, and anyone else who cared to listen, how Kaegan had all but saved her life during a bad hurricane. Luckily the massive storm had deviated from its course, otherwise it probably would have destroyed the cove. But water surges had still impacted the town. And when she had gotten caught up in it, when she had been out helping others to evacuate, it had been a sixteen-year-old Kaegan who’d maneuvered one of his father’s boats through the streets of Catalina Cove to rescue her. Why was she remembering that now? She wasn’t sure, but she was determined to banish all thoughts of Kaegan from her mind.

Behind her she heard the café door open, alerting her of new arrivals. Her mother smiled at her and said, “I’ll let you take care of him, Bryce.”

She frowned, turned around and looked right into Kaegan’s eyes. So much for banishing him from her thoughts. She looked back at her mother. “No problem.”

She left and greeted Kaegan. “Hello, Kaegan,” she said, as if she hadn’t seen him earlier that day. As if she hadn’t told him that they could never share a friendship again.

“Hello, Bryce. Good seeing you.”