I did it with uncertainty.
Because my heart was talking to me and I wasn’t old enough or wise enough to listen.
Now I was both.
And now, I was there. I let Sam kiss me and change my mind because right now, what I had with him was enough. I didn’t need it all.
Tomorrow that might change.
And until the final decision needed to be made, I would burn every moment into my brain, just as I promised. I might not need those memories. But I’d have them all the same.
I wrapped my arms around my Dad, held him close, pressed my cheek to his shoulder and whispered, “Thanks, Dad.”
Dad’s arms around me gave me a squeeze. “Anytime, Kiakee.”
Memphis, patient until now, yapped.
I pulled away and looked down at my dog. She jumped a few feet and strained the lead.
“We better walk Memphis,” Dad muttered.
“Yeah,” I muttered back.
Dad took my hand and the lead out of my other one that also held my coffee.
When he did, I took a sip of coffee.
Then I took a walk on the beach with my Dad.
An hour later, Sam still sweaty in his running gear, bags loaded in the car, Sam and I stood in the drive and waved as Kyle backed out.
My family waved back.
We stayed where we were until they were out of sight and I knew Sam hit the button on the remote because the gate started closing.
Now it was only Sam and me.
Oh man.
I felt the tears pool in my eyes, one slid over and trailed down my cheek.
Sam turned into me and with a hand at my jaw he tipped my head back so he could look at me.
His eyes moved down my cheek.
Then he whispered, “Seein’ that kills me.”
Right. There it was. The decision I made just over a week ago was the right one.
It wasn’t about Sam’s kiss.
It was about Sam giving me beauty just like that.
I closed my eyes and did a face plant in his sweaty-shirted chest. His arms closed around me.
“You’re gonna miss them,” he surmised.
I nodded, my face moving against his chest.
“Anytime you wanna go back, baby, you tell me and I’ll get you to your family.”
“Okay,” I whispered, my arms got tight around him and I pressed close.
“Kia, honey, I’m drenched with sweat,” Sam told me.
“I don’t care,” I replied.
That was when his arms got tight. Then I felt his lips brush my hair. Then he just held me until I pulled away. He turned me to his side, arm around my shoulders, mine around his waist and, with Memphis bouncing at our heels, Sam walked me to the house.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Do You Love Me?
Two and a half weeks later…
I watched Luci flip her phone closed as I worried my lip with my teeth.
“Well, that’s done,” she murmured, her eyes sliding away.
We were having lunch in Kingston at Luci’s favorite restaurant. It wasn’t the first time we did it but, after hearing her end of the phone call where she accepted an offer on her house, I feared it would be one of the last.
“You okay?” I asked quietly and her eyes slid back to me.
Then she pulled in a breath, I thought she would speak but her gaze drifted away again.
“Luci?” I called and she took her time but she finally looked at me.
“I’m having second thoughts.”
I pressed my lips together in order not to shout, “Yippee!”
This was because, since Luci realized she needed to come to terms with the loss of her husband and look to her future, I was never sure about that meaning she needed to move back to Italy.
This was partly selfish. She was my only friend in North Carolina and we’d grown super close.
This was partly because of what Sam told me about her before I even met her.
She was, of course, sultry, exotic, glamorous and beautiful.
But she wasn’t only the kind of woman who was just as comfortable drinking a beer on a deck as drifting in elegant clothes through posh events. She was actually more comfortable drinking beer on a deck than she seemed drifting in elegant clothes through posh events.
Sometimes home wasn’t where you grew up. Home was where you were meant to be.
And I sensed Luci was meant to be here.
She’d changed. The sorrow wasn’t gone but it was nowhere near the intensity it used to be. Her smiles were more genuine. Her laughter came more easily. She never tried to fake anything. And she seemed more at peace.
At the very least, I didn’t think she should shake up this process by moving to a different country even if it was the nation of her birth.
“Talk to me,” I urged, she pulled in another breath then she leaned into me and I was shocked to see it was with excitement.
“Okay, cara mia, I… it’s hard…” she trailed off, her eyeballs slid to the side then she looked back at me and declared, “Travis ruined me for other men.”
Uh-oh.
Were we back to this?
“Luci, honey –” I began but she shook her head and her hand darted out to capture mine.
“No, what I mean is… Kia, you know. They, men like that… you can’t find just any other man. You have to find a man like that.”
This was not good.
Carefully and gently, I said, “Luci, there isn’t another Travis.”
Her head tipped slightly to the side and she replied, “I know, Kia, I mean an American.”
I blinked.
“Italian men don’t wear baseball caps,” she went on.
What?
Baseball caps?
She kept going.
“Or say ‘fuckin’ this’ or ‘bullshit that’ or take so much pride in their pickup trucks you’d think they were their children.”
It was then I had to stop myself from laughing.
She wasn’t done.
“I mean, Travis wore baseball caps and had a pickup truck, though not as big as Sam’s, but I don’t need a man who wears a baseball cap or owns a pickup truck. I just mean a man who’s a man. And I know Italian men or French men or whatever can be men. But only American men can be, well… so… very… American.”
I couldn’t help it, I started giggling.
She let my hand go and sat back looking adorably disgruntled.
“I wasn’t being amusing,” she told me.
“Yes you were,” I replied. “But I can’t say you’re wrong. American men are the only men who can be American.”
She rolled her eyes.
I kept giggling.
Then I sobered and it was me this time who reached out and grabbed her hand. I held it tight and when her eyes came to mine, mine locked on hers.