Here to Stay (Where Love Begins Book #2) (33 page)

You see me and you know me. You know the
hurt I’ve been running from.

He wiped his eyes once more and stood, brushing the snow from his knees.

And
you love me.

He swallowed.

“And I saw Ryan
. And I knew him. And I loved him.”

The assurance feathered through him. He’d spent years blaming himself for not recognizing the signs. Not seeing what was really happening with his brother. But Ryan had never been invisible to God. Oh, how he hoped Ryan had known that in the end. That somehow, even in a drug-induced haze, he’d felt God’s embrace in those last moments.

“Son.”

Blake jumped, snow squeaking against the soles of his boots as he turned. Dad strode toward him, his Ford sedan parked on the gravel road.

“Dad, should you be out here?” It had been weeks since the heart attack, but Mom still barely let him out of her sight.

“Somehow both you and your mother missed that part about it being a ‘minor’ heart attack.” Dad gave Kevin a pat. “Oy with the hovering.”

Blake felt a smile surface as Dad reached him. He had no doubt his face betrayed his emotion of only minutes ago. In fact, for all he knew, Dad had watched the whole thing from his car. If he wasn’t so . . . hollowed, he might feel embarrassed.

As it was, any need to hide the fact that he’d lost it moments ago just wasn’t there.

“You came out to wish your brother happy birthday, too?”

“Actually, I hadn’t gotten to that part yet.”

Dad shuffled to his side, and they faced the gravestone together, his father’s palm on his shoulder.

“Dad, how did you . . . heal? You and mom?”

“Not quickly. That’s for sure.” Dad paused. “At first I threw
myself into my work. Then the election. But at the end of the day, the only thing that really worked was just . . . forcing myself to trust God. Choosing to believe that He can bring good out of pain—that those aren’t just trite words people offer in horrible circumstances, but actual truth. And that there’s always hope—” Dad’s voice caught as he finished—“that I’ll see my eldest son again.”

His grip on Blake’s shoulder tightened.

“In my most broken state, God saw me. I believe He even grieved with me. And then He started putting me back together, slowly, piece by piece. His heartbeat pulsing inside me when my own was broken.”

“Maybe if I’d stayed home, the same thing could’ve happened for me. I wouldn’t have wasted so many years.”

Dad clapped his shoulder once more and then let his arm fall to his side. “They weren’t wasted years if they brought you back home. Especially if they brought you to your knees.”

He met his father’s eyes then, and next thing he knew, Dad pulled him into a hug. The kind of father-son embrace Blake hadn’t even realized he’d been missing. And when he stepped back, he saw the emotion on his father’s face, etched into every line and written in his eyes.

“Well, shall we sing?”

Blake cocked his head. “Sing?”

“To your brother. ‘Happy Birthday.’”

“You’re serious.”

“As a heart attack.”

“Not funny, Dad.” But the laughter ringing through the cemetery said otherwise.

“Mom, you promised!”

An announcement over the Grand Rapids airport’s intercom
system drowned out Autumn’s gasp, but surely the look on her face spelled out her shock. Her gaze flitted from face to face. Tim and Ellie with little Oliver, Betsy and Lucy, Harry, Jamie . . .

“I promised not to throw you a going-away party. Didn’t promise we wouldn’t all show up at the airport to see you off.”

“You all drove all this way without me knowing?”

“It was only a forty-five minute drive, silly.” Betsy waved her hand in the air. “We carpooled in the inn’s van, by the way. I was a little worried you’d pass us along the highway. But thankfully your mom sent us on our way early enough.”

“And then drove me here without so much as a word.” Autumn stepped aside as a group of students passed, what looked to be the only other large group in the place. The airport in Grand Rapids served just seven airlines and on its busiest day was a nap compared to Chicago—which is where she was headed next. Then on to Atlanta. And, finally, France.

This was good. It was right. A dream finally coming true.

And all her friends had come to see her off.

Well, almost all.

She shouldn’t have expected to see Blake’s face among the group of friends. They hadn’t even talked to each other since that night at the festival. Not that she hadn’t pulled out her phone umpteen times since, fingers poised to tap out a text or even call him.

Especially these last few days, as she’d placed her belongings in storage, packed her suitcases, said her good-byes one by one. But every time she ended up dropping her phone back into her purse.

Maybe it is better this way.

“Let me go get checked in and drop off my baggage, and then we’ll do another round of good-byes, okay?”

She lugged the larger of her two rolling suitcases to the desk. Mom pulled the smaller one behind her. Autumn laid her driver’s license and passport on the desk, waited as the ticketing agent printed her boarding pass.

Minutes later, she returned to her well-wishers and the hugs began. She’d already said good-bye to each of them earlier in the week, but this last chance meant the world. She hadn’t known she was this hungry for one more taste of home before leaving.

“Nervous?” Mom whispered in her ear as they embraced.

“Like crazy.”

Another hug.

Ellie burst into tears.

Oliver followed suit.

Harry tried and failed to hide a snicker.

The security line awaited.

“Well, bye again. And thanks so much coming, you guys. You don’t know how much it means.”

She gave Mom one last smile and turned.

He could still
show up.

Autumn closed her eyes, shook her head, nudging the thought free as she forced herself to make her way to the cordoned maze leading through security.

“Autumn, wait!”

Ellie’s voice pinged off the waxed floor, and Autumn halted, spinning to see Ellie hurrying her direction. “I can’t believe I almost forgot. I would’ve hated myself.”

“Ellie, calm down. If you go into labor right now, you’ll scare the security guard.” As she’d doled out hugs minutes ago, she’d seen the guy at the entrance to the security line watch Ellie in her nearly-ready-to-pop state.

“Hey, if he’s that freaked out by a pregnant lady, he might need a lesson in the realities of birth.”

“Hmm, pretty sure none of us needs that lesson. Not in an airport anyway. Why the last-minute chase?” Back where she’d left them, the rest of the group watched.

Ellie pulled a crumpled—and stained—envelope from her pocket. Was that jelly on the seal?

“Sorry, Oliver got ahold of it at the breakfast table this morning. Anyway, Blake”—Autumn’s heart hitched at his name—“gave it to Tim, who gave it to me. I was supposed to give it to you and almost forgot.”

A letter passed through mutual friends. “Kinda junior-highish, isn’t it?”

Ellie shrugged and handed over the envelope. “I was thinking more along the lines of sweet, but make of it what you will. One more hug?”

She leaned in for the embrace, then patted her friend’s stomach. “Don’t forget to name her after me.”

“Of course.”

Autumn stared at the envelope until the security guard’s voice poked in. “Miss?”

She stuffed it in her pocket.

Where it stayed as she moved through security, found her gate, waited to board her plane. It wasn’t ’til she’d stuffed her carry-on in the overhead compartment, settled into her window seat, and buckled the strap across her waist that she pulled it out again. Finally ready to read whatever he had to say.

She slipped her finger under the envelope flap, tore it open, and reached inside, expecting a sheet of paper, maybe more.

Instead she pulled out a photograph. The image was grainy, but it wasn’t hard to tell what it was. That stinking porcelain bathtub sitting on her crushed dining room table.

And scribbled on the back:

Told you you’d laugh about it eventually. Have the adventure of a lifetime, Red.

Blake

Only she didn’t laugh. More like snorted—a half-chuckle, half-cry. And there’d have been tears, too, she knew it, if not for the college-aged girl who plopped into the seat next to her just then.

“Hey.” The girl bent to stuff her duffel bag under the seat in front of them.

“Hey.”

The girl lifted her head and held out her hand. “I’m Lindsay. Guess we’re seat buddies.”

Autumn bent her arm at an awkward angle in the tight confines of the seat to shake the girl’s hand. “Autumn. Where are you headed?”

She took a band from her wrist, then pulled her long blond hair away from her face and formed a ponytail. “All the way to Paris, baby. I’m studying abroad for the semester.”

“That’s where I’m going, too.” A fresh round of nerves, but a little excitement, as well, whooshed in to take the place of her emotions over the photo.

“This will actually be my third time there. Parents took me a couple times. But this is my first time on my own. Who’s that?” Lindsay pointed to Blake’s name scrawled on the back of the photo. “Boyfriend?”

“Nah, just . . . a friend.”

Only, if she was completely, brutally honest, there was no “just” about it, was there? In less than a month, the man had flat-out stolen her heart, whether she wanted to admit it or not. She could only hope the adventure, the excitement of
her new life would eventually dull the ache she finally realized for what it was.

She missed him. Already.

Autumn slipped the photo back into the envelope. “So is Paris as amazing as everyone says it is?”

Her seatmate’s eyes lit up. “Better.”

19

S
urely a crepe was the perfect cure for the lingering melancholy even the park’s unobstructed view of the Eiffel Tower couldn’t shake. After nearly three months in France, her taste buds still hadn’t tired of the treat.

“Bonjour, Freddy.”

The older man with the Cary Grant chin and oversized metal spatula in his hand tossed her a smile as she approached. “Ah, my American friend. Your usual, no?”

Autumn bit her lip, sun kissed by the warmth of an early April sun and stomach gurgling impatiently for her daily lunch. The sweet smell of the crepe stand flowed over her until she could almost taste the thing before Freddy had even prepared it. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll opt for out-of-the-box today.”

Freddy’s forehead wrinkled in confusion. Apparently American clichés didn’t translate.

“I mean, maybe I’ll finally try something different.”

“You surprise me!”

She could try berries and cream. Or apple and cheese. Her stomach growled again. If she ate this way at home, she’d have gained twenty pounds in her first week in Paris. Thankfully, here she walked everywhere. “Oh, never mind. The usual.”

Freddy wagged his finger in the air before going to work. “Every day I think perhaps she will try something new. Every day it is the same.” How many times had Petey at the Snack Shack said almost the exact same thing when she ordered her usual ice cream cone?

“Sorry, Freddy. What can I say? I’m a sucker for Nutella.”

A minute later, he handed over the treat folded in white paper and accepted her four Euros. “Until tomorrow, my friend.”

She bid him another “bonjour” and started toward the hotel, having lingered extra long at the Parc de Champ de Mars during her noon hour today. She bit into the crepe as she walked, willing the burst of sugar to soothe the prick of emotions. When she turned the corner and found herself facing the sun, she slipped the sunglasses from her head and tipped them over eyes puffy from lack of sleep.

This couldn’t be homesickness, could it? Not after so long in Paris. After all, once the jet lag had worn off that first week, minor jitters had faded into pure excitement. She’d settled in. Learned her way around. Even discovered a little church that offered a service in English on Saturday evenings. Along the way, she’d found herself more and more craving alone time with the God she’d for so long assumed didn’t really see her.

Maybe she’d simply needed the major life upheaval to realize she was the one who’d had her blinders on. However it happened, she was grateful for the slow unfolding of a new closeness with God, like the white flowers opening a little more each day on the trees in the park.

Why, then, the needling undercurrent? Why the tossing and turning at night?

Autumn waved at the florist arranging a display in the window next to the hotel, then pulled on the oversized gold handle to let herself in. The lobby sang with movement—
bellboys rolling suitcases over the marble floor, a half-dozen concierges working with guests at the oblong desk lining one wall.

Autumn wove through the busy room, slipped behind the desk and through a door marked
Employés de l’hôtel.

“So she shows up.”

“Good afternoon to you, too, Sabine.”

“Are you not sick of those yet?” Sabine gave a pointed glance to Autumn’s mostly demolished crepe.

“Never.” Autumn took her final bite and tossed the paper in the garbage bin.

Amazing how quickly she and Sabine had picked up where their high-school friendship had left off. Of course, it helped that Sabine spoke English better than some Americans. Autumn hadn’t realized how elementary her French vocabulary really was until her first day in Paris.

“You didn’t go up today, I see.”

Autumn stopped in front of Sabine’s desk and put her hands on her hips. “How do you know?”

“How do I know? Your hair.” Sabine pointed a red-painted fingernail to her own. “If you’d walked or ridden up the Iron Lady, you’d have wind-blown hair.”

Autumn groaned and plopped into her chair. Fine. So she still hadn’t gone up the Eiffel Tower. She’d stared at it plenty, had gone to see it her second morning in France, actually, and every day since. She’d memorized the look of it from every angle from every bench in the garden-bordered Champ de Mars.

But every time, she stopped short of buying a ticket and riding an elevator to the top.

“By the way, you were supposed to have a sixty-day review last week,” Sabine said now, pulling the pencil from behind her ears and squinting at the calendar beside her
desk through red-framed glasses. “April second was your two-month mark.”

Two months on the job. Almost three in the country. The time had flown.

The time had dragged.

Oh, Lord, what is wrong with me?
This is
France.
France.
The adventure she’d dreamt about, prayed for, for years. She should be exploring Paris to her heart’s content, booking weekend trips to other European countries, planning a summer vacation on the Mediterranean coast.

Instead, she walked through the same park every morning. Bought the same crepe at the same crepe stand. Worked in a hotel office not all that different from back home.

Her gaze darted to her desk. It looked as if she’d worked there two years rather than two months. Files and notebooks, a computer screen she rarely used because she was so busy working with guests. Framed pictures of Mom and Dad, Ava. Little Oliver and his new baby sister. A photo of Betsy and Philip in front of their house. Cards from Lucy and Fletcher and others from her old reading group at Hope House.

And that photo from Blake, note side facing out. “
Have the adventure of a lifetime, Red
.”

“Autumn, did you hear me?”

She glanced up.

“I said, as far as I’m concerned, you’ve been an amazing asset to the hotel.” Sabine perched on the corner of her metal desk now. “Consider this the review. I just need you to sign the evaluation I’m required to fill out. Also, I’m supposed to give you an opportunity to voice any concerns about the position and whether or not it suits you.”

The position? It suited her perfectly. An office in a beautiful hotel, working with travel agencies to book rooms and coordinate tours for guests from all over the world. No more
playing amateur handywoman like back at the Kingsley Inn. No leaky roof to fix or cracked siding she couldn’t afford to replace.

No, if she had any concerns, they weren’t about the job, but about the feelings pricking her from the inside. The loss of the inn still weighed on her, even though she’d told herself it was just one more sign she was meant to leave Whisper Shore.

But it was more than that. It was leaving Mom so soon after they’d finally found some common ground.

It was a twinge of disappointment that her grand adventure didn’t seem to be living up to her imagination. It was annoyance that it was probably her own fault for letting silly emotions dictate her enjoyment of her new life.

It was missing Blake.

Oh, she could deny it all she liked, but in her most honest moments—tucked under the quilt in Sabine’s second bedroom, sitting in the pew of that little chapel on Saturday nights, staring at the Eiffel Tower alone in a crowd of tourists—she had to admit it. Even all these months later, any thought of Blake, the man who sheltered a compassionate heart and craving for purpose underneath an adventurous exterior, still dissolved her into a pool of yearning.

And it always left her with the same question: Had she followed the wrong dream?

But why would you give me this dream
to travel, God, only to replace it when it’s
finally come true?

“I think that crepe put you in a sugar coma, Autumn.” Sabine’s voice crept in. “Your eyes are glazed.”

“Sorry.”

“Thinking about home again?”

That and something else. Someone else. “I’m that obvious?”

“You talk about that inn you own all the time.”

Owned.
Soon the bank wouldn’t own the inn anymore, either. Grady Lewis had e-mailed that a developer had shown strong interest in the property. “Sorry. Again. Guess I miss it more than I thought I would.”

“Excuse me.” One of the English-speaking concierges poked her head in. “There’s someone here to see Ms. Kingsley.”

Autumn acknowledged Sabine’s curious glance with a shrug. She stood. “Maybe the Tottenheimers? They had questions about a riverboat tour and—”

A figure pushed past the concierge. “Yes, I’m at the right hotel!”

Shock propelled Autumn forward at the sight of her sister, duffel bag over one shoulder, clothes wrinkled, and blond hair pulled into her usual ponytail. “Ava, what are you . . . Why . . .” She abandoned the questions as Ava pulled her into a hug.

Blake wouldn’t have blamed Shawn Baylor if he slammed the door in his face.

But instead his old friend offered only a wary “Oh, it’s you.”

Better than a punch, at least. The bruises might have faded, but the memory of their public fight hadn’t.

He hadn’t exactly been looking forward to this encounter. But in the four-plus months he’d been home, there hadn’t been a day he didn’t think at least once of Shawn. And after today’s meeting with the city council, with all about his life that felt up in the air and uncertain, maybe this was one thing he could resolve. Or at least attempt to.

Shawn’s bulky frame guarded his doorway, but the fact that he still stood there offered a glimmer of hope.

The smell of cigarette smoke mingled with a flowery air
freshener in the apartment complex hallway. “So . . . can I come in?”

Shawn shrugged, something close to curiosity hovering in his eyes. “I guess.” He moved aside to let Blake enter.

The inside of Shawn’s apartment smelled better than the hallway, but its sparse décor and bare walls begged for attention. The only hints of hominess were the couple framed photos sitting on what looked like a hand-me-down end table. One held a photo of Shawn and his family. The other . . .

Wait a sec . . .

Blake brushed past Shawn to pick up the photo.

Four faces ogled the camera—Shawn, Tim, Ryan, Blake. Goggles in place, in their skydiving gear. This had to have been taken on one of their college breaks. He glanced up at Shawn.

His friend wore a “So what?” expression. Arms crossed, lips pressed.

Blake replaced the photo. “Nice place.”

“It’s a junk heap.”

Oo-kay.
“Well, I don’t see rats scurrying across the floor or anything, so that should comfort you, at least.”

And like he’d hoped it would, the words caused the tiniest chink in Shawn’s demeanor. His friend was notoriously spooked by rodents. He, Ryan, and Tim used to mock Shawn mercilessly about it.

“Haven’t seen one yet,” Shawn acquiesced.

See, they could do this. Have a normal conversation. And when the moment was right, Blake would say what he’d come to say. He’d practiced the words in his head on the drive from the city offices to Shawn’s place.

“So, what’re you here for?”

“Not into the small-talk thing, huh.”

Shawn’s arms dropped. “I would’ve thought you and I were past small talk.”