Between the Seams (19 page)

Chapter Twenty-One

Jo sat back in her chair, rubbed her eyes and looked at the clock in the bottom right corner of her laptop screen.

2:47 a.m.

How had it gotten to be so late?

Yawning, she stood up and stretched, trying to remember how long she’d been sitting in front of the computer. It seemed like only a couple of hours, but felt like centuries.

Tired, she walked around her house, turning out lights, checking to make sure doors were locked and the alarm system was armed. She’d been back in Austin for a week, and hadn’t heard from Chase since the night he’d broken up with her just over a week ago.

Of course that meant she’d thought about him every second of every day. And of course, she was up way too late, especially considering the school year officially began tomorrow. Once again, though, she’d gotten sucked in to the online world of CKD, ESRD, dialysis and transplants.

In an effort to better understand just what Chase was dealing with, she’d taken to Google every night since she’d been back home. The amount of information available was unbelievable, from research studies to online cookbooks to forums. She’d learned that while Chase’s condition was incurable, it was treatable and he could have a pretty normal life even if he had to be on dialysis until he was able to get a transplant.

He just had to choose to have that normal life.

Apparently vesicoureteral reflux was rare, affecting only about one percent of children. Developing later problems in life was even less likely. In other words, Chase had won the childhood illness lottery.

She’d also found that transplanted kidneys were lasting longer and longer these days, thanks to modern medicine and better anti-rejection medications, but the chance of rejection or failure was always there. Most transplant recipients lived a completely normal life, going to work, having children and going on vacation.

Obviously, there were no guarantees, but from everything she’d read over the past week the road ahead for Chase wasn’t necessarily easy, but it sure as hell wasn’t hopeless, either.

Sighing, she climbed into bed, made sure her alarm was set and pulled the covers up.

The online forums had helped to shed some light on Chase’s behavior and emotional withdrawal. Reading about the experiences of others who had gone through this before, or were currently living with End Stage Renal Failure and were on dialysis or waiting for a transplant, made it slightly easier for Jo to see things from Chase’s point of view. Perusing the caretaker forums made it obvious that she wasn’t the only one who’d been pushed away by the sick person.

Knowing those things, though, didn’t make her heart ache any less. She closed her eyes, words and phrases dancing against the backs of her eyelids as she settled in to go to sleep, hoping that maybe tomorrow would be the day that Chase broke his silence.

~~*~~

A knock on Jo’s office door the next morning pulled her attention away from the email she’d been reading to the unexpected interruption. When she looked up, she saw Rita, the school’s receptionist standing at her door, flowers in her hand. Jo raised an eyebrow.

“Hey there. Come on in.”

Rita walked in and set the flowers on Jo’s desk. “These just came for you.”

“For me?” Who the hell would send her flowers?

Chase, maybe?

But no, that wouldn’t make any sense, considering he’d broken up with her.

Jo mentally shook herself and smiled, “Thanks, Rita.”

“No problem,” the older woman said before leaving her office.

Jo counted to ten before walking around her desk to get a better look—and to find the card.

The arrangement itself was beautiful; fat sunflowers and miniature orange roses in a squat, clear vase. It was simple and cheerful and pretty—exactly the kind of arrangement she would have been drawn to if she were buying them herself.

She searched and searched for a card, and couldn’t find one, just a business card for the florist. Maybe she should call the florist, see if they’d accidentally not included one?

Jo rolled her eyes, situated the flowers just right on the corner of her desk and sat back down. The florist was a reputable one in the Austin area, so she was pretty sure the card hadn’t been dropped or forgotten. She wanted to believe Chase had sent them, but if he had, why the anonymity?

~~*~~

The flowers were not the only anonymous delivery Jo received her first week back to school.

Tuesday she received a box of cookies from Tiff’s Treats, which she’d shared in the teacher’s lounge after stealing a few for herself.

Wednesday she received a dozen red velvet cupcakes from Hey Cupcake!

Thursday was a bottle of what an internet research revealed to be a very expensive bottle of wine.

And Friday? Friday was a little box in a gift bag from a local jeweler, with a note. Finally, a freaking note. Except, no, her mystery gift giver didn’t finally reveal himself (because, seriously, who else would send her gifts other than Chase?). Instead, he just gave instructions.

“Do not open until 5:00 p.m.”

So now she was sitting at her desk, staring at the gift bag rather than answering emails and getting any work done. Granted, she was on her lunch break, but still, she hadn’t been able to work all morning because of that silly gift bag.

“So who do you think it’s from?”

Her closest friend in Austin and teacher of tenth-grade English, Heather, sat on the other side of Jo’s desk and nodded towards the gift bag. Jo swallowed the bite of the sandwich she’d just taken and sighed.

“I think it’s from Chase. I think everything this week has been from Chase.”

Jo had told Heather about her summer romance the first day of teacher in-service. Heather, being a hopeless romantic, had been both jealous and sympathetic, and had even cried when Jo had told her about the break up. No doubt the perky teacher was even now getting romantic notions in her head about happily ever afters.

Heather popped the lid on to the now empty plastic container that had held homemade spaghetti. Her brown eyes twinkled as she asked, “What do you think it is?”

“Well, it’s obviously jewelry.”

Heather balled up her napkin and threw it at Jo. “No shit, Sherlock. But what kind of jewelry?”

Jo shrugged, but her heart was in her throat and her stomach was a nervous mess. She put down what remained of her sandwich, suddenly unable to eat any more. “I have no idea. I can’t imagine it being what you’re thinking it is, though, considering we haven’t even spoken in three weeks. It’s probably just a bracelet, or earrings or something.”

Heather peeked into the bag. “Considering the size of the box, it’s not a bracelet. That, my friend, is either a ring or earrings.”

“Or a necklace, maybe a charm for a necklace or bracelet.”

“Except you don’t have anything you would need a charm for.”

“That’s beside the point.”

Heather snorted and tucked a lock of outrageously curly black hair behind her ear. “Well, I hope it’s a ring and that he’s come to his senses and realized how lucky he is to have you.”

Jo felt the sting of tears and blinked rapidly.

“Oh, hell. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

She practiced deep breathing for long moments until she got her emotions somewhat under control. “It’s okay. I’m pretty much an emotional mess these days. Thank God it’s been a pretty light week so far.”

“Knock on wood, my friend. It’s Friday afternoon and the first week of school—shit could still hit the fan.”

“You don’t teach with that mouth, do you?” Jo teased.

Heather snorted. “Only in my dreams.”

~~*~~

Luckily shit did not hit the fan that afternoon, and Jo found herself breathing a sigh of relief as the last voices of students faded down the halls. Her gaze once again fell on the gift bag on her desk. It was just after 4:30, and she still had some paperwork to wrap up and emails to respond to before she could leave for the weekend.

Not to mention almost thirty minutes until she could open that damned box.

She looked around, and then back at the bag. Wait a second. Why was she even waiting to open the stupid thing? It wasn’t like he would know if she’d opened it before 5:00, considering he was in Del Rio.

Ugh.

She reached for the bag, withdrew the box. Hands only slightly shaking she made quick work of the gift wrap.

It was definitely a jewelry box.

Not that she’d expected anything else considering the name written in elegant script on the gift bag.

She took a deep breath, wrapped her hands around the velvet container, and cracked it open.

“I thought my note said not to open that until five?”

The box snapped shut, pinching Jo’s finger. She yelped and turned towards her office door and the voice she’d missed more than air itself for the past few weeks.

She sucked on her pinched finger before glaring at Chase. “So it was you.”

His smile was unsure, and she wanted to leap over the desk and wrap herself around him, but she wasn’t going to make things that easy for him.

Oh, no, it was his turn to apologize and grovel for making a stupid decision.

Not that he’d ever really made her grovel, but still.

Payback was a bitch.

Or something like that.

“Can you leave yet?”

His hands were in his pockets, and for the first time Jo really took note of how he was dressed. Charcoal gray trousers, blue button down shirt and a black jacket. This was Chase all grown up, looking every bit like a confident, self-assured businessman.

It was kind of hot.

She nodded and said, “Let me just shut everything down and we can go somewhere private to talk.”

A part of her wanted to make him wait and squirm, but she just didn’t have it in her.

He nodded, and she went through the motions of shutting down her computer, turning off her desk lamp and the Scentsy warmer she had on the bookshelf behind her. She straightened up her desk, made a couple of notes to herself for when she came back in Monday morning, grabbed her purse out of her desk and was ready to go.

She took a deep breath to calm her nerves. “Okay. We can get out of here.”

She walked towards him, and he smiled and asked, “You forgetting something?”

She was close enough now to smell him, that unique combination of sunshine and warm skin that was Chase, and her senses were just enough on overload that she had to stop and think about what he was saying. “Forget what?”

He reached around her, grabbed the jewelry box off her desk, and said, “This.”

“Oh, yeah.”

He shoved it into a pocket and gave her half of a grin. “Let’s get out of here.”

~~*~~

Chase followed Jo towards the back of the school, barely noticing his surroundings he was so engrossed in the woman in front of him.

He was having a hard time reading her mood, but he was man enough to admit that that was all on his shoulders. He’d been the one to shut her out then push her away, and considering how bad he’d felt when she’d done that to him back in high school, he could only imagine what she was feeling now.

Her palm hit the release on the door, and they stepped out into bright sunshine and sweltering humidity. Just being back in Austin for a day had made him appreciate the relatively lower humidity in Del Rio.

She stopped short just in front of him before pointing at the black Cadillac sedan idling in the parking lot and asking, “That yours?”

“Ours, if you’re willing.”

She slid him an unfathomable look before shrugging. “Well, I’d hate for you to have gone to all this trouble for nothing.”

Chase bit back a grin as they headed towards the vehicle. The driver stepped out and opened the back door, Jo slid in and Chase followed. The door closed behind them and they were ensconced in cool air and leather.

As the driver pulled out of the high school’s parking lot and headed towards Highway 71, Chase searched for something to say to fill the space between them.

Jo finally broke the silence by asking, “So where are we headed?”

“It’s a surprise.”

She raised an eyebrow. “A surprise? You think you can just waltz into my office after not speaking to me for three weeks and whisk me away for some ‘surprise’ I may or may not enjoy?”

“I’m sorry, Jo.” He sighed. He wasn’t about to force her to go somewhere with him if she didn’t want to. “We can turn back around and you can get in your car and go home.”

Okay, so that sounded a bit more defensive than he’d intended.

She snorted. “I’ll play along with this surprise thing for now, cowboy.”

Chase smiled, for the first time in weeks feeling like everything was going to be okay. “Fair enough. I think you’ll enjoy what I have in mind, though.”

She glanced towards the driver and back at him, a blush staining her cheeks.

He leaned forward and whispered in her ear, “Get your head out of the gutter.”

She laughed but didn’t respond, instead turning towards the window to look out of it. “So, seriously, where are we going? It looks like traffic’s a nightmare.”

“Austin traffic’s always a nightmare.”

“You have a point.” She paused. “So you’re really not going to tell me where we’re going?”

He sat back and grinned. “Nope. Just enjoy the ride.”

~~*~~

An hour and a half later they passed a huge stone sign that read “The Reserve at Lake Travis,” and Jo turned to Chase, confused. “What are we doing out here?” As far as she knew, The Reserve was a luxury home community with real estate prices beginning at three times what she’d paid for her little house in south Austin.

“Just a couple more minutes, counselor. We’re almost there.”

She rolled her eyes and turned back towards the window, watching as sprawling homes that could only be called mansions flew past them. Tennis courts on the right. More homes with lushly manicured lawns. They rounded a bend in the road, turned left and came to a stop. She peered out of Chase’s window and saw a scattering of small, high-end cabins. Behind them, she could just make out the waters of Lake Travis.

Chase’s door opened from the outside, and he stepped out. Jo followed, grabbing on to his hand for stability. He pulled his wallet out, handed a few bills that Jo couldn’t see to the driver and said, “Thanks, Mark. I’ll see you again on Sunday.”