From One Night to Forever (29 page)

“I don’t care about the deal. I don’t care about the contract. I just want us to try to work things out.”

“Whatever. Where are you? Please don’t tell me you’ve had a few drinks and your guilty conscience made you call.”

“This is not my guilty conscience, and I’m far from drunk. I’m in Texas. I just saw Denise.”

“And that’s supposed to make me believe you.”

“Yes. Seeing her made me realize I messed up a good thing.”

“Not helping, Aaron.”

He gripped his hair and paced along the street. “I don’t want to mess up again.”

“So, I’m your consolation prize because Denise is getting married and you need to avoid the same thing happening with me?”

“No…yes, in a way, but not in the way you’re twisting things.”

“Sure. ’Bye, Aaron.”

“Wait, Kacey, dammit! Girl, I’m crazy about you. I don’t want Denise or any other woman. I was way too immature to settle down with Denise, and we both know that. But I’m not that guy anymore. I’m the guy who knows that being with you is more important than being with any other woman out there.”

No angry comeback. There was a lot of noise in the background, but he couldn’t make out what it was.

“Where are you?” he asked.

“I’m driving home from school.”

“What’s that noise?”

“It’s storming.”

“And you’re talking to me on the phone. Look, call me when you get home. Let’s talk. Better yet, I’ll come to you.”

“No, no, no, don’t. I’m not going to go there with you. I won’t let you lure me back in only for you to break my heart later. Or turn into another Brenda, staying with a man who’ll force me to put up with his mistakes.” Her voice raised with each word. “I’m not getting played by you again.”

“I’m not going to play you. Kacey, I love you.”

“Stop it, Aaron. Just stop right now, okay? We’re over, and we both can just mo—”

Her words abruptly ended. The sickening sound of metal and glass crushing and shattering replaced her words. Aaron’s stomach dropped to his knees. His suddenly cold fingers gripped the phone.

“Kacey?” His voice trembled.

Nothing. Aaron’s entire body shook. He looked around frantically, refusing to accept what he had just heard.

“Kacey, baby, talk to me.” Silence. “Kacey, please, please, Kacey, tell me you’re okay.”

Silence.

Aaron ran down the street toward his truck. “Kacey!” People stopped and stared. Others got out of his way. The silence on the other end of the phone made Aaron’s stomach heave.

The future isn’t promised. Anything can happen to anyone on any day of the week.

Denise’s prophetic words rang in Aaron’s head, bringing panic to his already overwhelmed heart. This couldn’t happen. He couldn’t lose her. He gripped the phone; tears burned his eyes. “Kacey!”

The door to the hospital room opened, but Kacey kept her eyes closed. Nurses had been coming in checking her vitals almost every hour since they had admitted her the night before.
Thank you, concussion.
The attending physician did say that she would probably go home today. But the sun had barely come up, and Kacey was pretty sure she wouldn’t get out of this place until well after noon.

“My vitals haven’t changed in an hour. My arm is still broken, and my body still aches but not enough for me to take more pain medicine,” Kacey said, even though she knew hoping the nurse would leave without taking her temperature again was a waste of a good wish.

The footsteps didn’t come closer. “Thank God, you’re alive.” Aaron’s voice, tired and hopeful, came from the direction of the door.

Kacey’s heart raced, and she jerked her eyes open. No, the concussion was not making her hallucinate. He was definitely standing at the door. His blue cotton T-shirt and jeans were wrinkled. Red rimmed his normally carefree eyes, and the curls on his head were askew.

“How did you get here?”

“I drove all night.” He rushed across the room to the bed. With a shaky hand he reached for her, then pulled back. “Kacey, I thought… When I heard the sounds through the phone, I thought you’d…” His voice cracked and his eyes turned glossy.

He drove all night? Was he seriously about to cry, over her? Her heart thumped behind her bruised ribs. Warmth spread through her body, something that hadn’t happened since she’d been admitted, no matter how many blankets she requested from the nurse. “I’m fine. Thank you for calling Reggie.”

When her family was at the hospital the night before, Reggie told her Aaron had called, frantic and half-crazy, to say he’d overheard the accident. The ambulance was already on the scene when Reggie and Camila traced Kacey’s route from the house to the school, but they were still worried. Kacey had to pretend the drugs had knocked her out in order to get her family to leave after she was admitted.

“Was it your tires?” Aaron asked. “I bet it was the tires. I told you to change them.”

“You’re seriously going to lecture me right now?”

“I’m sorry, I just—” He ran a hand through his hair, messing his curly fro up even more. “Everything ran through my head on the way here. Every mile I cursed myself for not changing those tires my damn self.”

 “It wasn’t the tires. Someone ran the red light and hit my passenger side.”

His body relaxed. “Thank goodness.”

“You’re happy someone hit me?”

“I’m happy it wasn’t the tires. Shit, Kacey, I’m happy you’re alive.” He sounded so overjoyed, she nearly melted. She was forgiving him again.

Kacey lowered her eyes to the thin white blanket on the hospital bed. “Thank you for coming, but you’ve seen I’m okay, and now you can go.”

“Oh, no. Hell, no. I’m not leaving.”

“Aaron, you’re emotional after seeing Denise and overhearing the rather dramatic accident while we were talking.”

“Yes, I am emotional, and who wouldn’t be? I love you, Kacey Randal. I realized that before your accident, and the second you left my parents’ place I knew I’d messed up a chance for a meaningful relationship. I’m not letting you go.”

“What if I want you to? I don’t want to be the stupid girlfriend always looking over her man’s shoulder.”

“If you did look, you wouldn’t see anything. I won’t make you another Brenda. I wouldn’t—
couldn’t
—do something like that to you. But no matter how messed up that situation is, I can’t be mad at your dad, or your mom, because their indiscretion made you. The woman I’m supposed to be with for the rest of my life.”

Why did he have to say things like that? It made hating him so damn hard. “Aaron, I’m not sure. I don’t know…”

“I know, but I don’t give up easily. I love you, Kacey. And even though you haven’t said it, I know you love me too.”

“Oh, really?” She scoffed to try and hide how right he was.

“Really. You love me, so don’t be pigheaded.” His carefree smile came back, and damn if she didn’t like seeing it.

“Are you serious right now?”

“Hell, yes, I’m serious. We are going to make this work. What happened yesterday proved we can’t take anything for granted. Our relationship might have started out as a one-night stand, but, damn it, I want forever. Forever to show you that I love you.”

She wanted to smile, wanted to laugh, but forgiving him seemed too easy. He made everything seem so easy. There was so much to overcome. His female “friends” who lived in different states. Though she’d never say the words out loud, she had serious trust issues with him.

“Aaron—”

“Stop, don’t turn me down yet. If you love me, you’ll tell me to go get you some Laffy Taffy, we’ll giggle at the bad jokes, and take things one day at a time. If you don’t, then I’ll walk out of that door, hurt, but accepting of your decision.”

Kacey stared into his handsome face, then down at her arm in the cast. She wanted him to stay, so badly, but she wasn’t sure whether she could. She searched her heart, and listened to the voice of reason in her brain, then met Aaron’s eyes and said what she had to say.

“Go away.”

“Hey, One Arm,” Monique called to Kacey behind the bar at Momma’s Kitchen. “You’ve got another customer.”

Kacey continued loading dirty glasses into the basin behind the bar. “I’m not taking customers, Monique.”

“I’d love to agree that you shouldn’t work with a broken arm, but I’m pretty sure this guy is here for you.”

Kacey stopped what she was doing and turned to Monique, who nodded her head toward the end of the bar. Aaron pulled up a stool and lifted his hand in an easy wave. Every day in the six weeks since the accident, with the exception of the one week he’d gone home to South Carolina, he had checked in on her. He’d made himself quite at home in Resilient during her recovery. So much so that Kacey was beginning to wonder if he planned to stay. Well, hope actually.

He’d lied—when she told him to leave her alone that day in the hospital, he’d gotten angry and stormed out, but he hadn’t let that be the end. He’d returned an hour later with flowers, Laffy Taffy, and a wrestling magazine. They did laugh at the jokes and argued about the greatness of King Rhames, but she didn’t say she loved him. She’d tentatively agreed to see if they could make a relationship work.

“I’ll deal with him.” She pulled the towel off her shoulder and made her way toward Aaron.

Monique took ahold of her arm in the cast, which was thankfully coming off tomorrow morning. Just in time for Kacey to present her thesis project.

“I know this is going to sound crazy coming from me, but I think he may really mean what he’s saying.”

“We don’t know that. He could just be trying to stay on Reggie’s good side.”

“He told Reggie the truth and took a punch for using you like that. Then he stuck around. Face it, this guy is really crazy about you. Don’t mess things up.”

Kacey frowned. “
I’ll
mess things up?”

Monique shrugged and grinned. “You have a tendency to ignore the obvious. Besides, I need to know you’re happy before I leave.”

Kacey pulled out of her sister’s grip, but gently pressed her side into Monique’s. “I’m talking to him, aren’t I?”

“Talking is one thing; you need to get laid.”

Kacey rolled her eyes and chuckled. “You’ll never change.” She walked down to the end of the bar. Aaron’s smile grew the closer she got to him. Memories of the first night she’d met him, when he’d given her that same smile and dared her to do something a little wild, filled her mind. Even now that smile tempted her to meet him outside and follow him to the nearest hotel room.

“How are you feeling?” Aaron asked when she reached him.

“I’m fine.”

“I really wish you would have waited until after the cast came off before working again.”

“We went over this already. I can handle office work with one arm.” She held up her good arm. “And doing a little behind the bar isn’t hard. Stop worrying.”

“I can’t help it. You know that.”

When he’d first come to see her in the hospital, she hadn’t let herself believe him. Now he was wearing down her defenses.

“I’m about to take off, anyway. I need to practice the presentation for my project.”

“Do you want me to take you tomorrow?”

Her car had been a total loss after the accident. It still gave her chills to think she’d gotten out of all that twisted metal with only a broken arm and a concussion.

“I can find a ride.”

“Let me rephrase that. I’d like to take you tomorrow.”

Honestly, she wanted him to take her. “Reggie’s taking me, but you can pick me up.”

He nodded. “Good. Now finish up and I’ll give you a ride home.”

Kacey wrapped up a few things and then followed Aaron out to the large SUV he’d recently purchased. She was surprised when he’d bought the vehicle shortly after the accident. Even more so when he said he’d need stable transportation a bit smaller than Bertha to get around town.

They pulled up to her house, and Aaron came around to help her out. His warm hand clasped her elbow and he walked with her to the front door. She unlocked the door and faced him.

“Thanks for the ride.”

“Anytime.”

His inviting smile popped up, and all of the longing she’d suppressed in the past six weeks bubbled to the surface.

“Do you want to come in?” she asked.

Aaron raised a brow. “Oh, so I finally get the invitation into the house.”

“You’ve been in here since the accident.”

“Yes, but only because your family let me in or you needed my help to do something. Not at the end of the day when there was no family or chore that requires two arms instead of one to distract us.”

Her face heated. “If you’re trying to make me beg, forget about it.”

“I’m not trying to make you beg. And believe me, Kacey, there’s nothing I want more right now than to come inside with you.”

“Then why don’t you?”

“Because I need to finish up some things at my place.”

She glanced at the stairs leading to the upstairs apartment. “What do you need to do up there?”

“That’s not my place anymore. I signed a lease on a house across town.”

“What? When? Why?”

“What, is I’m renting a place across town. When, is I signed the lease this morning. Why, well, that’s more complicated. First of all, I don’t need the prying eyes of your brother every time my shadow passes over your door. And second, because everything I want is right here in Resilient, so there’s no reason for me not to stay.”

She felt the goofy grin starting and tried to summon the thing into submission. Though her lips refused to frown. “Your business is headquartered in South Carolina.”

“It was, but now that both owners are in Tennessee, we’ve moved corporate. The South Carolina location is a satellite office.”

“Oh really.”

“Really. So tomorrow, after I pick you up, we’ll go to my place, okay?”

She nodded and bit her lip to keep the goofy grin under control. “Okay.”

He leaned over and gave her a soft, sweet kiss. “Good night, Kacey.”

She barely slept that night, her mind too busy going over the revelations that Aaron had just given. He was staying in town now.

Did that mean… Could they really… Did she want to…

Three questions with various endings that ran through her head as she prepared to present her thesis.