Unexpected Love (Jo's Story) (35 page)

Please remember that even though I am no longer here to hold you and kiss you, I am still watching over you.  I will always be there for you and our babies.  I bet they miss me like crazy don’t they?  I know I miss them.  God Jo, I have been given the best gift ever through my entire life.  I have had the best wife and life partner.  With that being said, please do me one favor.  Don’t be alone!  I know you, and you are going to think that you committed yourself to me.  You need someone to take care of you.  I know your strong, and bull headed, but please don’t stay alone your life.  I want you to be happy.  I don’t care if it is two weeks, or five years, but I don’t want you to be alone.  I know I know, you aren’t alone, you have the girls, and our families, but that isn’t the same.  Let someone in your heart.  Of course make sure he is worthy of your love, and he better treat all three of my girls right or I will haunt his ass.

Jodene, I love you!  I will always love you.  Bobby has no idea what is in this letter.  I will not tell him.  But I want you to listen to me…I am here…I always will be.  You look up at the stars and know that I am sitting there looking down on you and I approve of you being happy and in love again!

I love you, forever and ever!

Jarrod

Annie finishes reading and hugs me close.  I am bawling like a little baby of course.  How does he do that?  He knows my biggest fears and makes me feel better about everything.  “I always knew I liked him for a reason,” she tries to joke and hold back her tears.  “See Jo, I told you he would want you to be happy.  He made that clear before he even knew he wasn’t going to be here anymore.”

“He knew that he wasn’t going to be here though.”

“No, I don’t think so.  I think he just wanted you to know how he felt if something did happen to him.  He loves you, he always will, but he wants you to be happy.”

I'm in shock right now; I don’t know what would have made him write something like this.  Was it because we had the girls and he wanted to make sure all of us were taken care of?  “What do you think would make him write this?”

“Not sure, I guess maybe just because he knew it was always a chance.  Just like you do.  I think he just wants to make sure you are taken care of that is all Jo.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” my crying has just about stopped.  I hear my phone ping.

Hey Baby, sorry I didn’t answer when you called I'm with my parents right now at dinner and talking about some stuff.  I will call you when I'm done.

“Who is that?”  Annie looks at me.

“Jake, I tried calling him earlier; he was just letting me know why he didn’t answer.”  I set my phone down on the couch.

“Jo, he is your future you know that right?”

“We have only been together for like two weeks.”

“So what?  You two hit it off from the minute you ran into him.  Sometimes it works that way Jo.  Look at your mom.  She tells you all the time that she knew she was going to marry John on their first date.”

“Yeah, I know.  But I'm not my mom.”

“No, you aren’t, but you are in love with him.  So what’s going on?  Why aren’t you with him tonight?”

I look up at her, “he told me last night he wants me to move in with him.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Annie, we have been dating for two weeks.  I can’t just move in with him.  Besides I don’t want to move the girls out of this school district.  They already have friends here.”

“So let him move in with you.”

“Yeah, right.  This place isn’t big enough for all of us.”

“So tell him to buy something over here.  Obviously he can afford it.”

“Annie, I'm not going to tell him to buy a new house.”

“How do you expect to go anyplace in your relationship with him then?  If you won’t move to his house and he can’t move in here what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.  It is too soon to think about that.”

“Come on Jo, you know it’s going to happen.  He loves you and you love him.  Just let it go its natural course.”

“Annie, please just let me do this my way.”

“Alright, but do it right,” she laughs.  “Are you going to have him come over?”

“I don’t know.  I have a lot of stuff to do.”

“Jo, tell him to come over so you can talk to him.”

“He might have plans, I already told him this morning I would not be seeing him.”

“Sometimes I don’t understand you.”

“Yeah, I don’t understand myself so don’t feel bad,” I laugh.  “Listen thanks for coming over.”

“Hey no problem, I'm glad I did.  I'm gonna get going home though.  Michael should be home soon.”

“Ok,” I stand up and go to the door.

“Take care of you,” she smiles at me and gives me a hug.

“Don’t worry, I will,” I smile and shut the door once she is out.  I see the letter on the couch and walk over and pick it up.  “I don’t know why you do this stuff to me Jarrod.  But thank you,” I smile and stand up.  Just as I am about to go to the kitchen my phone rings.  I look at it and see it is Jake, “Hey,” I answer.

“Hey baby how are you?”

“Not too bad.  What are you doing?”

“On my way home.  I had dinner with my parents they wanted to talk about Lewis and all the crap going on with him.”

“Oh, I see.  So you just gonna go home and chill out?”

“Planned on it. Maybe watch some sports or something.”

“Want to stop here before you go home?”

“Do you want me to?”

“Well, I have something I want to show you and I thought we could talk.”

“Yeah, I would love to stop.”

“Ok, good.  How long before you get here?”

“Probably like five minutes.”

“Ok, sounds good see you in a little bit.”

“Ok,” he hangs up.  I go to the bathroom and look at myself.  Just as I suspected I look like I have been crying for the last hour.  I pretty much have, but I don’t need him to know that.    I wash my face and touch up my makeup a little bit then go back downstairs.  I look at the clock and it is 7:30.  This is going to be another long night.  I watch out the front window for him and I see him pull in.  He is dressed nicely I'm assuming he took his parents someplace nice for dinner.  He looks so handsome.  He has on dark blue jeans, a baby blue polo shirt and he looks amazing!  I open the door before he is there. 

“Look at you,” I smile at him.  He smiles at me and picks me up into a kiss once he gets to the door.

“I have been waiting to do that since you asked me to come over,” he smiles when he puts me down. 

“You plan it out like that too?”

“Sort of,” he laughs and follows me into the house.  “So what’s going on?”

I look at him and sit down on the couch and pat it so he sits next to me.  “So I got this today,” I hand him the letter from Jarrod.

“What is it?”

“Read it,” I tell him and sit there and watch while he does.  I see his expression change as he reads it.  I'm not really sure what he is thinking.  He looks up at me when he finishes.

“Why did you want me to read this?”

“Because I think this is sort of his way of saying that he approves of this.  Jake, Bobby just brought this over to me.  He has had it for four years.  He said he found it when he was going through some of his stuff.”

“You think it’s a sign?”

“Something like that.”

“Ok, so what does this mean then?”

“I'm done fighting it, I'm yours.  You have convinced my heart that you are the one that should be in it.”  I smile at him remembering the conversation we had about Jarrod being the only guy that would ever have my heart.  “Jake, I think I knew the night you met my parents and the girls, but I didn’t want to admit it yet.  I was scared.  I have not felt like this about someone since Jarrod.  This proves that even though he is no longer here, I am supposed to be happy.  He wants me to be happy.  You are the one that makes me happy.  And you take care of the girls and me even though you don’t have to.  I think that you would do anything for us.” I grab his hands.

“I would do anything for you Jo; you should know that by now.”

“Well, I think that I just became well aware of how stubborn I have been about this situation.  I love you, more than I thought I would.  I mean this is crazy, but we knew this already.  Who tells someone they love them after a week?  But its how I have felt, that is why I have said it.  I didn’t actually know if I believed it, until now.”

“Well I have felt it since we were in Virginia Beach.  You have done a lot for me and my family in the last week Jo that I would be crazy if I let you go.  I don’t plan on it you know that right?”

I look at him and smile, “yeah I think I am aware of that.  I think I would go completely crazy without you.”  He smiles that smile at me, and I think for the first time it doesn’t make me blush, but makes me realize that he truly loves and cares about me.  For the first time I think that everyone around me is right, this guy sitting here on my couch is the one that I have been waiting for.  The one that Jarrod wants me to be with. 

“What?”  He puts his hand on my cheek.

“Nothing, I just think that I have realized there is nothing that I could do to stop this from happening.  I think between you and Jarrod this is right where I am supposed to be.  I think this is his way of proving that to me,” I take the letter from him.  “He loves me, and I know that he wants me to be happy, and I am.  And I have you to thank for that.”

“I feel the same way about you Jo.  I think that it’s a good thing you got this today.  I'm happy that it helped you.” He kisses my hand.

“This isn’t the only reason I asked you to come over.” I put the letter on the coffee table and grab his arm and crawl closer to him and put his arm around me so he is holding me close.  “I want to talk about what you said last night.”

“What?  You moving in with me?  Jo, I told you I was kidding.”

“I want to talk about it.  Even though you say you were, I think you were testing to see how I would react.”  I can feel him start to rub my arm.  “I didn’t say that it wasn’t a possibility at some point.”

“I know that, but you said you don’t want to move the girls from this school.”

“Yeah that’s right, I don’t.  What about you moving in here?”

“I think this place is a little small for all of us Jo.  Besides, I don’t know that I could downsize this much,” he laughs.

“Yeah, I guess you do have a lot of stuff don’t you.”

“Yeah, that I do,” he laughs.  “There is another option you know.”

“What’s that?”

“I can sell my place and find something over here.  There are always places for sale by were Mark and Lisa are.  Plus there is land for sale up there, I could build.”

“Jake, I don’t want you to uproot and move just to be here.”

“What if I want to?”

“Why would you want to give up that amazing house?  I know I wouldn’t want to.  I can always just drive the girls; it isn’t like it is that far.”

“Jo, I only bought that house because it was cheap and for sale.  I wasn’t really looking for anything specific.  It isn’t really a family friendly house.  I mean the schools over there suck, and it is pretty far from anything.  I wouldn’t have an issue selling it.  I have put a lot of money into it and it is worth double what I paid for it I'm sure.  I bet it wouldn’t even be on the market for a week.”

“Jake, seriously you want to just sell your house?”

“To be with you, absolutely,” he pulls me closer and turns me a little so I am looking at him.  “If I could come home to you and the girls every day I would live anywhere.”

I smile at him, “well, I think we should wait a little bit for that.”

“Ok, I'm good with that.  I can buy some land and start on some house plans,” he smiles.

“You are crazy you know that.”             

“Crazy about you,” he gives me a stupid cheesy smile.

“Jake, how did I get this lucky?” I run my fingers across his cheek bone.

“Well, from the looks of it, we have Jarrod to thank for it.  I don’t usually believe in stuff like that but I don’t know Jo, it seems he has some pull in your life yet,” he smiles.

“It would seem that way wouldn’t it,” I kiss him.

“So, when are the girls going to be home?”  He backs away from me a little bit.

“I actually have to call Barb and see if she will keep them until Sunday.”

“Why?”

“Because we are doing a bust Saturday night,” I look up at him.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, if the information they gave your brother is right, they have a shipment coming in on Saturday and he is supposed to pick up Saturday night and we will be there to take them down.”

“Jo, are you serious?”

“Yes, I am.  I am still working details out, but we are going in.”

“You’re not going to be there are you?”

“Yes, Jake, I am going to be there, this is my case after all.”