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“Since I’ve been gone, all I could think of was being with you—wanting you, needing you—until I couldn’t take it anymore, and I walked out on everything. I came back with a plan to start over and get you back. If it takes years for you to trust me again, so be it. I’ll do anything.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, “You’ll do anything?”
“Anything.”
“Okay,” I eyed him, thinking of the perfect way to torture him. “Fourth of July.”
He eyed me and grinned from ear to ear, “My favorite holiday.”
“You’re way too confident,” I said with a smile.
“I’ve missed that smile,” he said, eyes moving to my lips and meeting mine again.
“I’m taking a week of vacation and flying to my family in Tennessee.”
“Ah?” he said as I saw the wheels starting to turn in his head.
“Indeed,” I said. “And while most women wouldn’t dare to bring a guy with your background around my family, if anything will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, it’ll be that.”
“Huh?”
“Well, your parents didn’t succeed in keeping you away from me, so we’ll let my family step in and convince you that we aren’t right for each other.”
“You think I’m afraid of your parents? You’ve met mine, correct?”
“That’s my point. If your parents failed to convey that we live in two separate worlds and it’ll never work, perhaps my family can do the trick.”
“I’m down,” he said, accepting the challenge.
“You have no idea what you’re signing up for. It’s not just my parents back there. It’s a full-on family event. They go all out for the Fourth.”
“Should I be scared?”
“I don’t know. Should I have been scared when you flew me to Monaco for your brother’s failed wedding ceremony?”
“Shit, okay,” he cringed. “Before I haul all these novelties out of here, can I ask a question?”
“Anything,” I said, knowing he’d be backing out of this idea before the sun rose at the end of my shift tomorrow morning.
“Is there going to be a human sacrifice or something like that?”
I covered my smile, “Well, my dad knows you broke his daughter’s heart, so that can be arranged.”
“Oh, fuck,” he answered. “Well, at least you’re giving me a chance. That’s all I care about.”
“Who said this is a chance?” I asked, trying my hardest not to melt under his gaze. “I’m allowing you to realize what your parents were saying, and what I’ve come to understand, is true. You and I can’t work.”
He was so irresistibly handsome, and I’d missed him so much, but I would be a fool to take him back because he sent me flowers and goodies. I wasn’t convinced by anything I’d seen or heard that things were different, and if I let my guard down and he broke my heart again, I don’t think I could stand it. I wasn’t setting myself up like that.
At long last, my plane touched down at the Memphis airport, not far from my hometown of Collierville, Tennessee. Collierville was positively straight out of a Hallmark movie, and everything about this town of fifty-thousand people was charming. The familiar smells, sights, and sounds were everything I needed after this long year filled with ups and downs and unexpected surprises.
Dad picked me up from the airport, and after a thirty-minute drive, we pulled up to our home. It was a two-story red brick farmhouse, surrounded on all sides by hundred-year-old oak trees.
“Oh, honey,” my mom said, stepping out of the front door as the wooden screen door snapped shut behind her.
“There’s nothing like being home and hearing the sounds of wooden screen doors slam shut,” I chuckled as I embraced my mother’s consuming hug.
“How was the flight? The drive?” she looked at Dad, grabbing my suitcase from the trunk of the Lincoln Town Car my parents had owned since ‘94.
