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What if she’d made the wrong one? What if her one chance at love and family was behind her in a dilapidated farmhouse on the outskirts of Independence Falls?
Impossible. The numbers didn’t add up. It took more than a few days to find a love that would last forever. And she’d already had her fill of fleeting feelings.
Chapter 20
TWENTY-FOUR HOURS LATER Kat stared at her bedroom ceiling wishing for jet lag. She wanted to disappear into sleep, leaving her empty apartment behind. This space—her space—had never felt so lonely.
It’s your own fault for picturing Brianna in the spare bedroom.
Pushing that thought away before the tears started flowing again, she closed her eyes and focused on the familiar sounds outside her window. Taxicabs honked and sirens echoed against the tall buildings. But the noise felt distant, so unlike the warm, bustling feeling of the Summers family farmhouse. There was always someone coming or going, the door slamming behind the siblings as they moved through the large kitchen.
“I don’t miss the noise,” she said, throwing back the bedding in disgust. When she’d first moved to this apartment, she had loved the quiet, empty space. And the fact that it was all hers. After sharing other people’s bedrooms and living in dorms during her long years in school, she’d craved space.
She’d wanted this life. She’d worked so hard to build it.
And now it felt empty.
The wall-mounted phone in the hall rang, interrupting her pity party. Grateful for the interruption, even if it was the doorman mistakenly calling her apartment to let her know the neighbors’ food delivery had arrived, she raced to the hall.
“Dr. Arnold?” the doorman said. “Brody Summers is here.”
“What?” Kat leaned her back against the wall, the phone cord wrapping around her front. “Brody is here?”
“Yes.” The doorman hesitated. “Should I send him up?”
Her back ran against the wall as she sank to the ground, still clutching the phone. It wasn’t possible. No one had ever come after her. Foster parents, friends, the men she’d casually dated—they’d all let her go, allowing her to gather her fears and run away.
Everyone except Brody Summers.
Kat stared at her bare legs in shock. Brody Summers had flown across the country to see her.
“Dr. Arnold?” the doorman said, his tone uneasy. “I can send him away—”
“No.” Kat scrambled to her feet, picturing her sixty-something doorman eyeing tall, broad-shouldered Brody and wondering how he was going to get him out of the building lobby. “Send him up.”
“He’s on his way.”
Of course. Brody had probably headed for the elevators the moment her doorman revealed her floor number. Kat dropped the phone and raced to her front door. Hand on the knob, she glanced down at her gray tank top and underwear.
A knock sounded on the door. “Kat?” Brody’s deep voice reached through metal barrier. She turned the dead bolt and cracked the door open.
Brody. Seeing him standing in her hall, filling her doorway with his I-can-save-you muscles, her hope rose up, thrusting her fears aside. His intense brown eyes met hers through the narrowing opening.
“You’re here,” she said, unable to mask the awe in her voice. “In New York.”
“I took the red-eye.” He smiled, but the intensity in his brown eyes didn’t falter. Not for a second. She saw the wanting, and the relief, as if he’d been counting down the minutes until he could see her again.
He rested one hand on her door frame. The other held a small duffel. “Are you going to let me in?”
“I don’t have any pants on,” she said.
“Good,” he said. “I’ve been picturing you without them for the last six hours. It made the flight damn uncomfortable.”
“I can imagine.”
“Let me in, Kat.”
Stepping back, she opened the door. Brody stepped into her narrow hallway, dropped his duffel on the floor and gathered her in his arms. And just like that the loneliness that had permeated her apartment since she’d arrived home slipped away.
