Back Where I Belong: A Wonderfully Witty and Completely Absorbing Love Story (Susan Wade Series Book 3)

by Virginia Gray

  I pulled into Oceana’s empty parking lot and staggered to the end of the pier. I knew I shouldn’t be out here without a coat, but I could barely feel the chill. I could barely feel anything other than a sickening numbness. I stared into the abyss as rain pelted me. Our life here was over. I laid my head on the railing and sobbed.

  47

  The Extent of Love

  Pete and Audrey came to Raleigh to see me off. I stopped short of security, my heart aching. “I’ll be back in just a few days. It’ll seem like I wasn’t gone at all,” I whispered, kissing them both. A vegetable stew of emotions, I boarded the plane.

  If I ever thought I’d been cold, I was sorely mistaken. In fact, I was fairly certain we’d accidentally landed on the polar ice cap. Approximately six million people lived in Minnesota, four million of whom huddled shivering in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metropolitan area. I assumed the rest lived in random igloos spread out over the frozen tundra. Icy tentacles slithered through every crevice of the corridor as I disembarked, causing goosebumps to explode over my body.

  John Brody, Minnesota’s current DM, met me at the top of the escalator with a warm smile and firm handshake, his parka stuffed with the feathers of several hundred geese. I followed him through the glass breezeway connecting the airport and parking garage. Rattling fiercely, its outer walls were caked in so much snow and ice I feared under the added weight, the raging winds might blow it away with us inside.

  Though midafternoon, the northern sun—wherever it was—was near setting, its light dimming by the moment. The highway was as white as the fields on either side, and I had no idea how John could even tell the difference. A sudden curtain dropped across his windshield, rendering us completely blind to the cars ahead. “Holy shit,” I gasped, sending up a prayer for our lives.

  John chuckled. “Relax, Susan, whiteouts are completely normal. You’ll get used to them.”

  I could get used to anything, I suppose. Pete? He was going to flipping hate it here. “What are summers like?” I asked, hoping for good news.

  “Well, other than mosquitos large enough to bleed small children dry, they aren’t too bad. There are lakes everywhere. It’s very pretty.”

  Lakes. We wouldn’t have to sell Bessie. That would make Pete happy. “How’s the fishing?”

  “I’ve heard it’s outstanding. I’m not the outdoorsy type, but the guys who are, love it.” He glanced at me with a curious expression. “You fish?”

  I laughed. “My husband’s Captain Ahab.”

  “Ah. If that’s the case, ice fishing is big here. I mean, you couldn’t pay me to do it, but if he doesn’t mind the cold, it’s supposed to be great. My last district was Arkansas. It’s taken me a while to adjust to the climate here, but Hong Kong is basically tropical. I can’t wait. Oh, and I’m selling my snowmobile and removal equipment if you’re interested.”

  I glanced around at the white on white on white and nodded. “Consider it sold.”

  ♥

  The office was quite nice. Nested in a downtown St. Paul high-rise, the staff was friendly and very…blond. Primarily of Scandinavian descent, every other person’s surname seemed to be Anderson—or –sen, or some other variation. I’d have to get used to the accent, too, but I suppose they would mine as well. And especially Pete’s.

  Of course, my first action as their new commander-in-chief was to let seven people go. The orders came directly from Frank. I felt Mona’s pain acutely. Plus, it was a hell of a way to make an entrance. Hi, I’m Susan Walsh. Nice to meet you. Oh, and by the way, you’re fired.

  John and I spent the morning making introductions. Over a late lunch at a fairly fantastic bistro, he took a sip of beer and casually said, “Frank wants me to negotiate the budget. I know what we need.”

  I gaped. “Does he not trust me?” I hadn’t worked for him before, but dammit, I knew how to do my job.

  He shrugged. “He’s probably trying to be helpful. I mean, you did just have a baby.” Then he smiled playfully. “We’re not all assholes, Susan. There is a little chivalry left in the world. I’ll make sure you’re well-funded.”

  Day three and I had yet to actually step foot outside. It seemed all the downtown buildings were interconnected, their parking decks attached like papooses. So used to the freedom of roaming at will, I was starting to feel like a caged gerbil.

  I met with a realtor named Trisha—you guessed it—Anderson. A condo would do for the time being, but if my commuting scheme didn’t work out, we’d soon need a house. And though the city’s school system was infinitely better than anything at home, we’d want Audrey in the best possible district. Trisha drove me through a plethora of snow-blanketed neighborhoods, extolling the virtues of each. They all looked the same to me: white.

  “When does it actually stop snowing?” I asked.

  “Oh, ya know, May, occasionally June. And fall comes quick. Starts snowing again by mid-September—lots of cross-country skiing and hockey. We get ’em on skates before they can even walk. Your daughter will love it.” At my frown, she began back-pedaling. “Summers are wonderful, too. My favorite season. The high sixties mostly, ya know. Perfect. Now last summer we did have a heat wave. It got up to nearly eighty a couple of days in August.” She must have misread my pained expression. “Oh, but don’t worry, Susan. That was a fluke.” I smiled tightly.

  She took me to dinner in one of the hottest sections of town. Sipping a gorgeous drink, I admired the warehouse ceiling and naked glass lights. The food was amazing, brilliant even. Microbreweries and gifted chefs. Pete would love this part, I thought. It was urban and hip and it called to me—the Philly part. I could definitely get used to living in this metropolitan sprawl. Pete had conquered Los Angeles in his twenties. He could survive here. He could learn to like this, I reasoned.

  That was until we stepped outside, and a blast of purely cold and terribly vicious wind quite literally knocked the living breath out of me. I struggled for air, the moisture in my lungs turning to frost. Trisha rushed me back into the restaurant. “Breathe through your nose, dear,” she said, laughing. “I keep forgetting you’re not used to this.”

  ♥

  “There’s my angel,” Mona cooed, barely making eye contact with me as she wrenched Audrey from my arms.

  I sighed in frustration. She was angry. I’d dropped the bomb on her yesterday, leaving her literally gasping. “And good evening to you, too, Mona,” I said with an edge.

  “Hey, Susan.” Her smile—if you could even call it that—was brittle.

  “Pete, could you take Audrey for a few minutes?” I asked.

  Once the ears of the innocent were upstairs, I crossed my arms over my chest and said, “Go ahead.”

  “Susan, I’m speaking for myself and the family.” I raised my eyebrows in surprise. “We—I—think you’re making a big mistake goin’ back to work right now. I know how much your job means to you, but Audrey’s got to mean more, and Pete—”

  “Unh uh! You will not lecture me about my marriage. That is private, and none of your business. And especially none of the ‘family’s’ business! They are not the mafia, and they don’t have a say in how we live. They can talk about me all they want. They can hate me, for all I care, but you?” My throat constricted. “You’re my best friend. You should be supporting me.”

  “I am. But it’s also a best friend’s job to tell you when you’re wrong. And you are wrong, Susan.”

  My jaw dropped. “I can’t believe you’re not backing me on this. After all we’ve been through together, and this is how you treat me, this is your idea of sisterly love?”

  “You’re just not thinking straight right now. You’ve got hormones,” she said softly.

  “Thanks for dropping by,” I said, breezing by her. “I’ll show your judgmental self out. Oh, and as emissary, you can tell ‘the family’ I said to piss off!”

  “Susan—”

  “Good night.” My chin quivered as I slammed the door in her face; my only ally lost to So
uthern expectation.

  Pete’s expression was kind. He wrapped his arms around me and we rocked as I dampened his sweater. “She meant well,” he whispered, kissing the top of my head.

  I pulled away and held up my finger. “No.”

  With Mona’s words still ringing in my ear, before leaving for the airport Sunday, I said, “Let’s give this commuting thing a few weeks just to see how that goes. I’ll try working four days a week there. Fridays I’ll work from here, and then we’ll have weekends to spend together.”

  Before we made any drastic changes, I needed to figure out my job, and more importantly, I wanted Pete to enjoy his family and the area for as long as possible. Perhaps, if I kept things moving smoothly, I could work from home a few days a week and we wouldn’t have to move at all. Surely that was doable. Surely.

  “Sweetheart, I don’t want this to be our lives. I don’t want to go days on end without seeing your face. I don’t like sleeping alone. I miss you. Movin’ up’s the only realistic solution.”

  “A few weeks. Let’s just try it.”

  Pete grudgingly conceded, and we convinced Charlotte, Jimbo’s mother, to keep Audrey while Pete was at the office. It was a temporary solution fairly agreeable to all parties.

  ♥

  Though somewhat distracted by the process of onboarding, by Thursday of the following week, I was morose. I launched myself at Pete, wrapping both arms and legs around him. Breathing in his very essence, I kissed him thoroughly, and then Audrey’s face until she squealed. The following week was no less painful.

  Saddled with longing and bitterness, as January bled into February, I’d become fairly unpleasant at work, yet coming home was providing increasingly less solace as well. Fridays and Saturdays were filled with warmth, but Sundays left me in tears. Pete wasn’t any better. We’d ended the last two weekends with arguments about nothing in particular, the heavy cloud above us sparking with energy.

  “I thought this would be like going to Quarterlies. I’d miss you, but I’d be so busy with work that I’d survive. It’s not, though. Every time I leave, it’s like something’s tugging on my heart—like a chain on a drain. And I’m afraid one day the plug’s going to pop right out. It’s getting harder for me to focus on my job because you and Audrey aren’t there, and, and…it’s killing me,” I sobbed.

  “It’s no better on this end.” Pete’s eyes swept over me critically; I was down to my premarital weight, though I wasn’t working out. Even though my condo was in food mecca, I didn’t venture to the restaurants. “You’re not takin’ care of yourself either.” He kissed my head and squeezed me tightly in his arms. “That’s gotta change, darlin’.”

  A shell, battered and beaten by the relentless surf, I nursed a gin and tonic while wallowing in self-pity in Atlanta’s business lounge. It was my third. When I trudged into my apartment, I threw my weekend bag against the wall violently. I hated this. I hated it, and I pitied the office staff on whom I’d take out my frustrations tomorrow.

  These were not stupid people, and I’d already noticed Monday mornings were museum quiet. No one knocked on my door, and chatter was kept to a minimum. I was Kirsten. I absolutely was. I took Monday to wallow in that revelation as well.

  The week actually did fly by less painfully. I was busy preparing for Quarterlies, scouring reports. By Thursday, though, I was grappling for breath, and the pull home was physically painful. Arriving at the airport earlier than necessary, I soon discovered that Atlanta was shut down due to a freak ice storm. Freezing rain in the South constituted a federal emergency for the six-hour period it remained actually frozen. I rolled my eyes.

  “Isn’t there another connection?” I asked, muscling my way to the front of the long line.

  “We’re rerouting people as best we can, ya know, but there are only so many planes.”

  “I’m a diamond medallion member, for heaven’s sake. Route me through Canada or something. Just get me home!”

  She looked at me and shook her head. I was about to go all gangsta on her when she laughed. “Wow, I actually found one. I have one first-class seat on a direct flight to Washington DC. Does that help?”

  I pulled up Google maps. A six-hour drive home… “Yes, I’ll take it!”

  ♥

  Pete kissed the top of my head and closed my laptop.

  “I just needed a few more minutes.”

  “You said that an hour ago. We’re gonna be late for dinner over at Jimbo and Mona’s. Why don’t you change and we’ll go.”

  I opened the lid on my computer again. “Take Audrey, and I’ll meet you there.”

  “Susan, is work your master, or are you its?”

  I looked at him sternly. “I’ll be over soon.”

  Pete walked back in the door a short while later, carrying a sleeping Audrey in his arms. “You just left. Is she ill?”

  His eyes were piercing. “Mona saved you a piece of cobbler. It’s in the car.”

  “You guys ate without me? I told you I’d be over in a little while.”

  “Look outside.”

  It was pitch black. I glanced at the wall clock. “Holy crap!”

  “Yep, that’s what I was thinking.”

  I snatched up the phone and called Mona. “I am so sorry. I’m in the middle of a big project and lost track of time.”

  “You’re workin’ too hard.” That’s all she said before disconnecting. I’d barely had time to find the right expletive when she called back. “I’m sorry, Susan, that was rude of me. You want to have lunch tomorrow before ya go? We could meet ya at—”

  “I’m taking an early flight out, so I’ll be long gone before lunch. Can I have a raincheck?”

  Her voice brightened slightly. “Next weekend. I’ll cook you somethin’ special.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  I looked up at Pete, whose jaw was literally dangling. “You’re leavin’ early in the morning?”

  “Quarterlies are next week. I’m going directly to the office as soon as I land.”

  “When were you plannin’ on telling me this?”

  “I…well, I just did, I guess,” I replied in a small voice.

  He arched a brow. “It wasn’t like this when you took over North Carolina.”

  “At first…a little bit. But I already knew my people and the territory.” He gave me a disparaging look, and I pushed my chair back and stood. “It was exactly like this in Ohio—worse, even, because I didn’t know the job at all then. I spent every waking hour at work. I need to do some of that now. These long weekends aren’t getting it anymore. I’m losing an entire day of work to travel alone.”

  “So, it’d be better if ya didn’t have to come home at all. Is that what you’re saying?”

  “I’m not saying that. No! I’m just asking for your patience and understanding. Once I get the district under control, my time will be freed up.”

  He made a scoffing sound as he headed for the stairs. “I’m goin’ to bed.”

  ♥

  I landed in Raleigh, thoroughly frazzled and slightly troubled. I’d skipped out as soon as the Quarterlies DM meeting ended. The atmosphere had been off. Something was amiss, though I had no idea what. There’d been no transfers or promotions. In fact, the meeting had only lasted an unprecedented fifteen minutes.

  When I made the turn into our driveway, I nearly crashed into the For Sale sign prominently displayed beside our mailbox. Our beautiful house, the one into which Pete had poured his full heart, the one that had taken him years to design would be sold to the highest bidder. A deep chill ran through me, its temperature making Minneapolis seem balmy.

  “Don’t you want to come up and visit first, to make sure?”

  He snorted and rolled his eyes. “Do you really think the looks of the place will stop me from being with my wife?” He kissed Audrey’s nose and placed her in my arms as we wandered to the sound’s shore. Sweet light bounced off the ever-moving wavelets.

  I sighed. “I’d hoped it wouldn’t come to
this.”

  His lips turned up in a half-smile. “We shouldn’t have let it go on this long.”

  “I love you.”

  “You’d better,” he replied with a chuckle.

  Sunday was so very different. The oppressive emotional cloud above us had fled, the thrill of excitement chasing it away. Spring now in the South, we looked foolish piling our massive parkas on the seat beside us.

  The flight from Raleigh was bittersweet. Pete paid more attention to Audrey than was necessary. It was as if he was hiding from the truth of it all in her bald innocence. His eyes were slightly sad, and I wanted to weep. I grabbed his arm as Atlanta’s plane lifted from earth. We stared at each other—just stared, our eyes speaking volumes. Eventually, he squeezed my hand and looked out the window, watching our world fall away.

  48

  Parents Anonymous

  “You’re going to love it. There are parks and lakes everywhere, professional football, basketball, baseball—hockey. We’ll get season tickets to everything. There’s a huge amusement park and a great zoo for Audrey. Minnesota’s ranked fifth in the nation in education, and the restaurants are world class. This city is brimming with life.” I had studied every fact to soften the blow and in many ways to ease my guilt. And I’d repeated this information at least five times already.

  What I couldn’t bring myself to say was new home construction was near an all-time low. He’d have to get in with a big firm to survive—if they were even hiring. The thing with Pete, though, was he was no dummy. I’m sure he’d already done his own analysis and was keeping quiet for my sake. His personal freedom as an independent business owner was no more.

  He offered me a wry smile. “So how long exactly are these lakes actually liquid?”