Here to Stay (Where Love Begins Book #2)

by Melissa Tagg

  After so many seasons away, Blake had forgotten the way winter had of teasing its way over the landscape . . . and then suddenly pouncing and holding tight in an icy vise grip.

  The same cold that turned Lake Michigan to a bed of white stung his cheeks as his boots crunched over the latest round of snow. He burrowed his chin into the high neck of his warmest coat, its collar brushing against his stocking cap. At his side, Kevin bounded along—one of Christmas’s better presents. When he’d talked to the dog’s owners, they’d expressed only frustration about the hassle of a pet. Somehow by the end of the phone call, he had himself a permanent canine pal.

  Sunlight sparkled against the snow, off the surfaces of gravestones peeking through the cover of powder. His nose and cheeks were nearly numb. Probably would’ve been smarter to drive out to the cemetery, but he’d needed the time the walk provided. He’d put this off ever since coming home. It wasn’t an errand to fit in or a to-do to check off a list. But somehow he felt he owed it to Ryan—especially since he hadn’t stayed in town long enough after the funeral to even see the gravestone.

  His footsteps and Kevin’s paw prints marked a trail along the east edge of the cemetery, past the veterans’ memorial near the center, down to the curved black granite stone resting underneath a bare-branched maple tree.

  His steps slowed as he neared the stone. Snow covered the beveled surface of the gravestone and fell in a curtain over its face.

  Blake came to a stop. With one gloved hand he cleared the top of the stone, then brushed his palm over the front until the words came into view.

  Ryan Hunziker

  December 27, 1985-June 24, 2008

  Beloved Son, Brother, and Friend

  He’d expected the lurch of emotion—it’s why he’d put this off so long. But not this searing, gut-wrenching pain. “Ryan.” He whispered his brother’s name at first, and then repeated it. Louder this time. Almost a croak as his throat caught. “Ryan, why didn’t you tell someone?”

  The gravestone only stared back at him.

  “We would’ve helped you. I would’ve helped . . .” The rush of anger wasn’t anything new. But allowing it to soak in this time instead of pushing it away, that was new.

  “I’m mad at you. Do you hear me? So . . . mad . . .”

  If Ryan had only told someone.

  If Blake had listened to Autumn.

  If God hadn’t taken him away.

  Why did you take him away?

  Suddenly he was on the ground, knees digging into the snow as liquid pooled in his eyes. He was my best friend. My brother. And then his face was in his hands, the leather of his gloves catching his tears as sobs shook his body.

  He didn’t know how long he’d knelt there, hurt squeezing his lungs and wringing his heart, twisting until he was one giant open wound. Raw and emptied.

  Finally, he swiped the back of his glove over both eyes, tears forming icy flecks on his eyelashes. He squeezed his eyelids closed, waiting for the last shudder to peel through him. Beside him, Kevin nudged his nose into Blake’s arm.

  He took a long breath, reached one hand to touch the stone. “I miss you.”

  I miss him, God.

  A breeze sifted through the trees dotting the cemetery, carrying the whisper. “I know. I see you, and I know you.”

  Blake tipped his head back, letting the cold sweep over his cheeks. It was true, wasn’t it? He could run to any corner of the earth or escape to his lakeside home. It didn’t matter. God still saw him. Knew him. Intimately, even more than Ryan ever had. More than Autumn. More than his parents.

  You see me and you know me. You know the hurt I’ve been running from.

  He wiped his eyes once more and stood, brushing the snow from his knees.

  And you love me.

  He swallowed.

  “And I saw Ryan. And I knew him. And I loved him.”

  The assurance feathered through him. He’d spent years blaming himself for not recognizing the signs. Not seeing what was really happening with his brother. But Ryan had never been invisible to God. Oh, how he hoped Ryan had known that in the end. That somehow, even in a drug-induced haze, he’d felt God’s embrace in those last moments.

  “Son.”

  Blake jumped, snow squeaking against the soles of his boots as he turned. Dad strode toward him, his Ford sedan parked on the gravel road.

  “Dad, should you be out here?” It had been weeks since the heart attack, but Mom still barely let him out of her sight.

  “Somehow both you and your mother missed that part about it being a ‘minor’ heart attack.” Dad gave Kevin a pat. “Oy with the hovering.”

  Blake felt a smile surface as Dad reached him. He had no doubt his face betrayed his emotion of only minutes ago. In fact, for all he knew, Dad had watched the whole thing from his car. If he wasn’t so . . . hollowed, he might feel embarrassed.

  As it was, any need to hide the fact that he’d lost it moments ago just wasn’t there.

  “You came out to wish your brother happy birthday, too?”

  “Actually, I hadn’t gotten to that part yet.”

  Dad shuffled to his side, and they faced the gravestone together, his father’s palm on his shoulder.

  “Dad, how did you . . . heal? You and mom?”

  “Not quickly. That’s for sure.” Dad paused. “At first I threw myself into my work. Then the election. But at the end of the day, the only thing that really worked was just . . . forcing myself to trust God. Choosing to believe that He can bring good out of pain—that those aren’t just trite words people offer in horrible circumstances, but actual truth. And that there’s always hope—” Dad’s voice caught as he finished—“that I’ll see my eldest son again.”

  His grip on Blake’s shoulder tightened.

  “In my most broken state, God saw me. I believe He even grieved with me. And then He started putting me back together, slowly, piece by piece. His heartbeat pulsing inside me when my own was broken.”

  “Maybe if I’d stayed home, the same thing could’ve happened for me. I wouldn’t have wasted so many years.”

  Dad clapped his shoulder once more and then let his arm fall to his side. “They weren’t wasted years if they brought you back home. Especially if they brought you to your knees.”

  He met his father’s eyes then, and next thing he knew, Dad pulled him into a hug. The kind of father-son embrace Blake hadn’t even realized he’d been missing. And when he stepped back, he saw the emotion on his father’s face, etched into every line and written in his eyes.

  “Well, shall we sing?”

  Blake cocked his head. “Sing?”

  “To your brother. ‘Happy Birthday.’”

  “You’re serious.”

  “As a heart attack.”

  “Not funny, Dad.” But the laughter ringing through the cemetery said otherwise.

  “Mom, you promised!”

  An announcement over the Grand Rapids airport’s intercom system drowned out Autumn’s gasp, but surely the look on her face spelled out her shock. Her gaze flitted from face to face. Tim and Ellie with little Oliver, Betsy and Lucy, Harry, Jamie . . .

  “I promised not to throw you a going-away party. Didn’t promise we wouldn’t all show up at the airport to see you off.”

  “You all drove all this way without me knowing?”

  “It was only a forty-five minute drive, silly.” Betsy waved her hand in the air. “We carpooled in the inn’s van, by the way. I was a little worried you’d pass us along the highway. But thankfully your mom sent us on our way early enough.”

  “And then drove me here without so much as a word.” Autumn stepped aside as a group of students passed, what looked to be the only other large group in the place. The airport in Grand Rapids served just seven airlines and on its busiest day was a nap compared to Chicago—which is where she was headed next. Then on to Atlanta. And, finally, France.

  This was good. It was right. A dream finally coming true.

  And
all her friends had come to see her off.

  Well, almost all.

  She shouldn’t have expected to see Blake’s face among the group of friends. They hadn’t even talked to each other since that night at the festival. Not that she hadn’t pulled out her phone umpteen times since, fingers poised to tap out a text or even call him.

  Especially these last few days, as she’d placed her belongings in storage, packed her suitcases, said her good-byes one by one. But every time she ended up dropping her phone back into her purse.

  Maybe it is better this way.

  “Let me go get checked in and drop off my baggage, and then we’ll do another round of good-byes, okay?”

  She lugged the larger of her two rolling suitcases to the desk. Mom pulled the smaller one behind her. Autumn laid her driver’s license and passport on the desk, waited as the ticketing agent printed her boarding pass.

  Minutes later, she returned to her well-wishers and the hugs began. She’d already said good-bye to each of them earlier in the week, but this last chance meant the world. She hadn’t known she was this hungry for one more taste of home before leaving.

  “Nervous?” Mom whispered in her ear as they embraced.

  “Like crazy.”

  Another hug.

  Ellie burst into tears.

  Oliver followed suit.

  Harry tried and failed to hide a snicker.

  The security line awaited.

  “Well, bye again. And thanks so much coming, you guys. You don’t know how much it means.”

  She gave Mom one last smile and turned.

  He could still show up.

  Autumn closed her eyes, shook her head, nudging the thought free as she forced herself to make her way to the cordoned maze leading through security.

  “Autumn, wait!”

  Ellie’s voice pinged off the waxed floor, and Autumn halted, spinning to see Ellie hurrying her direction. “I can’t believe I almost forgot. I would’ve hated myself.”

  “Ellie, calm down. If you go into labor right now, you’ll scare the security guard.” As she’d doled out hugs minutes ago, she’d seen the guy at the entrance to the security line watch Ellie in her nearly-ready-to-pop state.

  “Hey, if he’s that freaked out by a pregnant lady, he might need a lesson in the realities of birth.”

  “Hmm, pretty sure none of us needs that lesson. Not in an airport anyway. Why the last-minute chase?” Back where she’d left them, the rest of the group watched.

  Ellie pulled a crumpled—and stained—envelope from her pocket. Was that jelly on the seal?

  “Sorry, Oliver got ahold of it at the breakfast table this morning. Anyway, Blake”—Autumn’s heart hitched at his name—“gave it to Tim, who gave it to me. I was supposed to give it to you and almost forgot.”

  A letter passed through mutual friends. “Kinda junior-highish, isn’t it?”

  Ellie shrugged and handed over the envelope. “I was thinking more along the lines of sweet, but make of it what you will. One more hug?”

  She leaned in for the embrace, then patted her friend’s stomach. “Don’t forget to name her after me.”

  “Of course.”

  Autumn stared at the envelope until the security guard’s voice poked in. “Miss?”

  She stuffed it in her pocket.

  Where it stayed as she moved through security, found her gate, waited to board her plane. It wasn’t ’til she’d stuffed her carry-on in the overhead compartment, settled into her window seat, and buckled the strap across her waist that she pulled it out again. Finally ready to read whatever he had to say.

  She slipped her finger under the envelope flap, tore it open, and reached inside, expecting a sheet of paper, maybe more.

  Instead she pulled out a photograph. The image was grainy, but it wasn’t hard to tell what it was. That stinking porcelain bathtub sitting on her crushed dining room table.

  And scribbled on the back:

  Told you you’d laugh about it eventually. Have the adventure of a lifetime, Red.

  Blake

  Only she didn’t laugh. More like snorted—a half-chuckle, half-cry. And there’d have been tears, too, she knew it, if not for the college-aged girl who plopped into the seat next to her just then.

  “Hey.” The girl bent to stuff her duffel bag under the seat in front of them.

  “Hey.”

  The girl lifted her head and held out her hand. “I’m Lindsay. Guess we’re seat buddies.”

  Autumn bent her arm at an awkward angle in the tight confines of the seat to shake the girl’s hand. “Autumn. Where are you headed?”

  She took a band from her wrist, then pulled her long blond hair away from her face and formed a ponytail. “All the way to Paris, baby. I’m studying abroad for the semester.”

  “That’s where I’m going, too.” A fresh round of nerves, but a little excitement, as well, whooshed in to take the place of her emotions over the photo.

  “This will actually be my third time there. Parents took me a couple times. But this is my first time on my own. Who’s that?” Lindsay pointed to Blake’s name scrawled on the back of the photo. “Boyfriend?”

  “Nah, just . . . a friend.”

  Only, if she was completely, brutally honest, there was no “just” about it, was there? In less than a month, the man had flat-out stolen her heart, whether she wanted to admit it or not. She could only hope the adventure, the excitement of her new life would eventually dull the ache she finally realized for what it was.

  She missed him. Already.

  Autumn slipped the photo back into the envelope. “So is Paris as amazing as everyone says it is?”

  Her seatmate’s eyes lit up. “Better.”

  19

  Surely a crepe was the perfect cure for the lingering melancholy even the park’s unobstructed view of the Eiffel Tower couldn’t shake. After nearly three months in France, her taste buds still hadn’t tired of the treat.

  “Bonjour, Freddy.”

  The older man with the Cary Grant chin and oversized metal spatula in his hand tossed her a smile as she approached. “Ah, my American friend. Your usual, no?”

  Autumn bit her lip, sun kissed by the warmth of an early April sun and stomach gurgling impatiently for her daily lunch. The sweet smell of the crepe stand flowed over her until she could almost taste the thing before Freddy had even prepared it. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll opt for out-of-the-box today.”

  Freddy’s forehead wrinkled in confusion. Apparently American clichés didn’t translate.

  “I mean, maybe I’ll finally try something different.”

  “You surprise me!”

  She could try berries and cream. Or apple and cheese. Her stomach growled again. If she ate this way at home, she’d have gained twenty pounds in her first week in Paris. Thankfully, here she walked everywhere. “Oh, never mind. The usual.”

  Freddy wagged his finger in the air before going to work. “Every day I think perhaps she will try something new. Every day it is the same.” How many times had Petey at the Snack Shack said almost the exact same thing when she ordered her usual ice cream cone?

  “Sorry, Freddy. What can I say? I’m a sucker for Nutella.”

  A minute later, he handed over the treat folded in white paper and accepted her four Euros. “Until tomorrow, my friend.”

  She bid him another “bonjour” and started toward the hotel, having lingered extra long at the Parc de Champ de Mars during her noon hour today. She bit into the crepe as she walked, willing the burst of sugar to soothe the prick of emotions. When she turned the corner and found herself facing the sun, she slipped the sunglasses from her head and tipped them over eyes puffy from lack of sleep.

  This couldn’t be homesickness, could it? Not after so long in Paris. After all, once the jet lag had worn off that first week, minor jitters had faded into pure excitement. She’d settled in. Learned her way around. Even discovered a little church that offered a service in English on Saturday eve
nings. Along the way, she’d found herself more and more craving alone time with the God she’d for so long assumed didn’t really see her.

  Maybe she’d simply needed the major life upheaval to realize she was the one who’d had her blinders on. However it happened, she was grateful for the slow unfolding of a new closeness with God, like the white flowers opening a little more each day on the trees in the park.

  Why, then, the needling undercurrent? Why the tossing and turning at night?

  Autumn waved at the florist arranging a display in the window next to the hotel, then pulled on the oversized gold handle to let herself in. The lobby sang with movement—bellboys rolling suitcases over the marble floor, a half-dozen concierges working with guests at the oblong desk lining one wall.

  Autumn wove through the busy room, slipped behind the desk and through a door marked Employés de l’hôtel.

  “So she shows up.”

  “Good afternoon to you, too, Sabine.”

  “Are you not sick of those yet?” Sabine gave a pointed glance to Autumn’s mostly demolished crepe.

  “Never.” Autumn took her final bite and tossed the paper in the garbage bin.

  Amazing how quickly she and Sabine had picked up where their high-school friendship had left off. Of course, it helped that Sabine spoke English better than some Americans. Autumn hadn’t realized how elementary her French vocabulary really was until her first day in Paris.

  “You didn’t go up today, I see.”

  Autumn stopped in front of Sabine’s desk and put her hands on her hips. “How do you know?”

  “How do I know? Your hair.” Sabine pointed a red-painted fingernail to her own. “If you’d walked or ridden up the Iron Lady, you’d have wind-blown hair.”

  Autumn groaned and plopped into her chair. Fine. So she still hadn’t gone up the Eiffel Tower. She’d stared at it plenty, had gone to see it her second morning in France, actually, and every day since. She’d memorized the look of it from every angle from every bench in the garden-bordered Champ de Mars.

  But every time, she stopped short of buying a ticket and riding an elevator to the top.

  “By the way, you were supposed to have a sixty-day review last week,” Sabine said now, pulling the pencil from behind her ears and squinting at the calendar beside her desk through red-framed glasses. “April second was your two-month mark.”