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Joselyn flew to her feet, her heart racing, adrenaline spiking. “I have to stop him. I have to tell him how much I love him.” She took two steps toward the door, then turned and took two steps toward the kitchen and her keys, her brain going in so many directions at once that she didn’t know where to go.
The room erupted in a flurry of action, a kicked-over beehive of twenty-five people in a small area.
“I’ll go get the kids buckled in,” Everett said, racing out the door.
“Come on, kids,” Oliver said, shooing them out the door. “We’ve got to hurry!”
“Macie,” Hannah said, “run upstairs and grab Joselyn something to wear that isn’t so...” her hand fluttered Joselyn’s direction, “sad. Then, Macie, you ride with Zach. Joselyn, grab your makeup bag and a brush, and I’ll find you a water bottle. Lia, you’re riding in the back of my parent’s car.”
“Zach,” Lia said, passing the baby to him, “go get our kids in the car.”
“Joselyn,” Hannah said, “you’re with me and Lia. We’re going to attempt to make it look like you didn’t just spend all day crying and getting dehydrated. Hurry, people! We have a relationship to save!”
Joselyn had never seen people vacate a house so quickly. As soon as she came out of the bathroom, make-up bag and brush in hand, Macie was standing there with her sky blue blouse—the one she always got compliments on when she wore it, and dropped the boots she had grabbed to the floor. Joselyn handed the makeup and brush to Lia, pulled off her shirt right where she stood, and had the new one on in less than three seconds, then grabbed the boots and raced outside where her dad already had the car pulled into gear.
Then all five cars pulled away, all heading toward Denver, the airport, and the man Joselyn was in love with.
twenty
MARCUS
After Marcus signed the last of the papers that the lawyer had drawn up to turn the business over to Joselyn, the paralegal slid them into a manila envelope. Marcus handed her the stack of papers he wanted to add to it, and the woman slid them in, too, sealed it, and said, “We’ll get this mailed out to Miss Zimmerman today.”
Marcus thanked her and grabbed his luggage, then headed out front and put it in the trunk of the waiting Uber. As the driver made his way through traffic across town, Marcus mentally ran through everything again, making sure he didn’t forget anything. He felt like a jerk leaving Joselyn to run the business by herself with the grand opening just twelve days away, but he also knew that his hanging around wasn’t going to be helpful, either. And Joselyn was more than capable of doing it on her own— she would’ve had no problem at all running a business herself if he hadn’t put in an offer on the building in the first place.
Still, though, he wanted everything to go as smoothly as possible for her, and he hoped that all the problems she was going to run into had already happened. He told the lawyer he wanted to just sign over his half with no compensation. It wouldn’t make up for him leaving her to pick up the slack on everything, but he hoped it would at least help.
Making ice cream wasn’t hard— it just took some practice. It was coming up with the perfect flavor combinations and knowing where to get the high-quality ingredients that were going to showcase those flavors best that was difficult. He had included in the packet that the law office was sending Joselyn all of the recipes for the ice cream flavors he had planned to make for the first month they were open, along with where and how to get the ingredients.
He included instructions on how to make it, too, and he was sure she would be able to figure it out. But he also included a list of people he had worked with before that he thought she might be able to entice to take his job— good people that he thought she would love working with. He had added his notes on which ice cream flavors he’d thought of using as their “flavor of the month,” too.
After the driver pulled into Denver International and drove him to his gate, he got out, grabbed his luggage, and stood on the sidewalk, taking one last look at Colorado. The sun was low in the sky and covered somewhat by clouds, the air cool enough that most people were wearing jackets, but not cold enough for him to.
He couldn’t see much of the city from where he was, but he didn’t need to; all of his memories of this place, especially the ones with Joselyn, were burned into his thoughts for life. It used to be that his memories of Joselyn were limited mostly to Nestled Hollow or Mountain Springs, but all they had done together over the past eleven weeks made everything in Denver colored with her, too.
Hawaii, though, was the one place he had lived that held no memories of Joselyn. The one place he had lived before he met her. He could go there and not see her in everything that surrounded him. The climate, the elevation, and the scenery were about as different from Denver as he could get, so maybe that would help, too.
Still, though, he didn’t know if moving there would fix his heart. When he had first moved to Denver to go to culinary school, he had longed for Joselyn just as much as when he’d been living in Nestled Hollow. Going somewhere that hadn’t held memories of her hadn’t helped him get over her at all, so maybe Hawaii wouldn’t help either. It didn’t matter where he was— he was going to miss her, and he worried it was going to be more than he could handle. He was going to miss the entire Zimmerman clan, too.
But maybe his moving would help Joselyn.
He breathed in the cool mountain air one last time, then turned and walked into the busy airport. The place had been busy every time he’d been there, but it still surprised him that it was so busy on a Monday night. He made his way to security and joined the long line of people dragging their luggage as they inched forward.
When he made it halfway to the front of the line, he thought about how good it was that he had gotten to the airport earlier than he had planned. By the time only a handful of people were in front of him, he glanced down at his watch, worried that he would be cutting it a bit close on time.
When a TSA agent waved for him to come to his stand, Marcus walked toward the man, his phone opened to his boarding pass, his driver’s license in hand, wheeling his luggage behind him. But a strange sound caught his attention, like a summer downpour on a metal roof, and he glanced in the direction it came from.
Oliver Zimmerman’s oldest, ten-year-old Larissa, sprinted around the corner and came to a halt, searching the crowd. He cocked his head, wondering why in the world she would be in the airport, looking like she was running for her life, when she spotted him and yelled, “Stop!” before bending over to put her hands on her knees, panting from her run.
Marcus glanced at the agent, who waved him off to the side, then yelled, “Next!” to the line.
A fraction of a moment later, the sound he now realized was dozens of feet pounding on the floor as they ran turned into a couple of dozen people rounding the corner. All Zimmermans.
Did they come all this way to say goodbye since he’d left without telling anyone?
Then he spotted Joselyn in the group as she walked toward him, separating from her family. Her breathing was quick and her face was flushed from running, pink spread across those beautiful cheeks of hers. Her hair was down and looking almost wind-blown, and he was sure she was the most beautiful sight in all the world. He ducked under the fabric strap of the security barrier, dragging his suitcase as he walked in a daze toward her.
She ran the last few steps to close the gap and when she reached him, she put her hands on the side of his face and kissed him on the lips. “Don’t go,” she whispered, the urgency in her words matching her kiss as she pressed her lips to his again. “Please don’t go.” Another kiss. “Stay.”
