Always Was

by Amabel Daniels

  She quickly bobbed her head again. “Me too.” She scooted closer to him, still cradling his face, and kissed him.

  Tension fled his body as she showed him her love more than her short reply could tell.

  He could taste the saltiness of her tears and the zing of… Vodka? “How did you survive the flight?”

  She snorted something like a laugh, snuggling into his embrace. “As soon as I called the hospital back and they told me, I was numb. Worse than a zombie. I can’t even remember filling out the paperwork to clear Ink to fly with me. I can vaguely see the face of the lady who booked my flight. I’m sure it’ll hit me clearer when I check my card statement. Only had a first class seat available, and I was lucky enough to sit across from a woman who saw I needed something stiff. She persuaded the attendant that all those travel-sized shots were for herself. Let me use her phone, too, and distracted the attendant so I could break the rules and make my call midair.”

  Adam smiled at her.

  “Clare’s gone, Adam. She’s really gone.”

  He closed his eyes, resting his forehead to hers. “But never forgotten, babe. She’ll be right with you when you need her. In your heart.”

  Her body shook with the force of her sigh. And eventually, they succumbed to sleep again.

  ****

  Clare had no living relatives, other than that distant son-in-law who was “stuck at home with a sprained ankle and therefore not able to leave his house,” so Sammy was the only individual to tend to her funeral wishes. A simple casket which Clare had picked out years ago, never wanting to leave the task to a stranger, and an already purchased plot in the cemetery.

  Sammy, her agent, Pablo, and Adam—and Ink—were the chief attendants for the simple, brief ceremony of farewells. Volunteers, parents of children who used to attend storytime, and all the workers from the library Clare used to read at also came for the wake service. In the bleakness of mourning, Adam tried to help as much as he could, which at most times simply seemed like the role of holding Sammy’s hand and listening to her conversations with others. Space, he could grant her, but he refused to leave her side.

  The apartment, Clare’s finances, everything, was all willed to Sammy, son-in-law be damned. Adam wasn’t surprised. Two strong-willed women had found each other and formed an impenetrable kindred bond despite the difference of decades in age.

  Landy, too, could live on in Sammy’s name, as Clare copyrighted and willed the six spiral-bound notebooks of over a hundred handwritten Landy stories.

  Two weeks after the funeral, on the night after they’d received word of Clare’s last will, Sammy ran a bath and insisted he share it with her. They made love slowly, delicately—without Ink watching. Adam recognized it was a monumental step for Sammy’s healing after such a profound loss, closing a complete circle of mourning death, but still persisting in love and life. However she needed his assistance in moving on from the loss of Clare, he’d gladly be there for her.

  “Did you know she was leaving it all to you?” he asked, rubbing her arms under the water as she sat in front of him in the tub.

  She shrugged. “I never wanted to think about it. But I’m not surprised. She had no family otherwise.”

  He kissed the nape of her neck.

  “So ironic, though, the timing,” she said.

  “How so?”

  “It was unexpected, her death. She was reasonably healthy for her age. No issues or chronic problems. Just an infection more stubborn and potent than her body could handle. And it came right when…” She shook her head. “It happened right when I’d been meeting with Edgar.”

  Edgar. The trust fund. He hadn’t even thought of how the meeting had gone. She’d gone all that way to secure a happy future for Clare at her home, only for it not to matter in the end.

  “I shouldn’t have even…” She took a deep breath. “It was a waste. Going all the way to meet with him when I should have stayed home with her while she recovered.”

  “Clare would have understood.”

  She almost smiled, her cheek nearly rising against his chest. “Actually, she would’ve been mad that I did that for her. She never was one to accept charity, giving it instead. Just salt in the wound. I made that trip for her, and I lost her. I drove all the way out there only to turn him down when I should have stayed here and thought of a Plan B.”

  He suspected it would be a long time until Sammy would release herself from the anger for not having been with Clare when she passed away. Guilt trips sank deep claws into her.

  “I lost her, but I found you, for now,” she said, turning her head to press her lips to his skin.

  He tightened his arms around her, kissing her hair. And I’ll do my best to make sure we never lose each other in this lifetime.

  Sammy relayed how her meeting with Edgar had panned out, something like the high noon face-off Adam had imagined. The senior Millson wanting to manipulate her with her books, the fucking asshole who’d nearly raped her a player in the merger. Of all coincidences, that one was rotten.

  He hugged her even tighter when she told him that she’d knocked the bastard out for a few feet. “You did the right thing,” he said.

  “You could’ve warned me punching a human head hurts like hell.”

  He smiled. “You did the right thing in turning them down.”

  “Oh. Of course. I finally figured out how to hold onto my integrity.”

  “And if you ever decide to get back into the Landy stuff, you can without any contamination of either of them.”

  “Not if, when,” she said, leaning her head back to him. “Clare wouldn’t want it any other way. She gave me those stories to share, to spread her love of simply telling tales. It would be a crime to deny her last wishes. Maybe not just yet. Still so much to wrap up with her belongings, and, well … I’ll give Landy his time and attention when the shock of losing her is a little more absorbed.”

  She lifted her arm so she could caress his jaw behind her. “But I’ve already arranged to sell the townhouse. Too many memories here.”

  “I understand,” he said.

  He hoped she’d continue after such a comment, because, well, he aimed to be wherever she moved to next. Like Dad waiting for instruction from his superior. His grin was private. Sammy wasn’t Adam’s boss. Nor was he hers. They were partners in the truest sense, in matters of heart and mind.

  “Then what?”

  She laid her cheek on his chest. “Thought that was my line. Isn’t it supposed to be me badgering you with what you’re going to do with the rest of your life? Do you know if you’re”—she sighed—“reenlisting?”

  “Little late to ask. Deadline was three days ago.”

  She stiffened. “Are you— When do you ship out?”

  “Nope.”

  “Nope? So, now … what?

  “You won’t need to ask ever again. It’s simple. I plan to drive you crazy for as long as you’ll let me.”

  “Sounds a lot like settling.”

  It better.

  The minute he’d woken up at the cabin and saw Sammy absent from the bed they shared, his destination smacked him in the face.

  She was his future. Not a deployment in Kuwait. Her sage words of reprimanding him for comparing himself to his parents’ incompatibility had finally penetrated his thick skull.

  Sure, his father grew aggravated when Adam’s mom complained about another move, again. And his mother cried and stressed whenever Adam’s father reported to duty in locations of actual warfare and active fighting, fearful her loved one wouldn’t come home outside a box.

  Just as certain, Adam respected that his parents lacked the one tool, the one necessity he and Sammy thrived on. They could talk. They could compromise. And as long as he knew she was there to complete him, he would never lose focus on the work they both would need to invest in a happily ever after, namely communicating with each other.

  “You game?” he asked.

  “To be with you?” She craned her neck
to meet his gaze. “Always was. But where?”

  It was his turn to shrug. “Wherever we are. It’s only the ‘with you’ part that I care about.”

  “I can work anywhere. As long as I can paint and if there’s Internet, I’m golden. How about the cabin? In Vermont.”

  “If it’s still available,” he said.

  She pouted. “That was such an awesome little hideaway. You put it up for sale after all?”

  “Not exactly…”

  Epilogue

  Destin, Florida

  Six months later

  Adam entered the living room where Sammy sat in front of her easel, debating between lime or guava paint. “How about we try something in Mexico next?” he asked, wiping his hands on a rag.

  “Right or left?” She put off her reply with her own question, holding up the two shades of green, one in each hand.

  He crouched down to pet Ink at her feet. “They’re the same thing.”

  Hardly. She rolled her eyes, smiling as she set the paint on her tray. “Mexico? Eh, maybe. I was kind of hoping for something in the northwest for a change.”

  Adam shrugged as he stood. “We’ll figure it out. We still have a good month left here.” He came closer until he was behind her, massaging her shoulders.

  Moaning, she let his hands erase some of the tension she was imposing on herself.

  A month here, and then … how many months at their next renovation?

  It still seemed like a dream she’d wake up from, living with Adam, moving from one new destination to the next while he purchased and flipped vacation properties. The rustic, Goldilocks cabin in Vermont was his first in what she considered his rapidly growing business. He now owned and rented numerous vacation lodgings, each one unique, in thirteen states. And she continued Clare’s legacy, illustrating the panels for the books wherever she and Adam ended up at the time.

  She covered his left hand with hers, her single, flat, titanium wedding band clinking against his. “Then what?”

  “I thought branching out might be interesting. International rentals.”

  “In any other circumstances, I’d be all for it.”

  “What circumstances?”

  She spun on her stool to hug his waist, burying her face in the solid muscles of his lower abdomen. Her secret to spill shouldn’t matter. He loved her, and she him. For better or worse, as Elvis had decreed. They’d carved out an unconventional but successful life together, she a mobile artist, and he a rental genius.

  They’d eloped in a whirlwind weekend, Jake and Reese their only witnesses at a chapel in Vegas, the King officiating. But given Adam’s previous commitment phobia, Sammy wondered how he’d take this news—the ultimate commitment.

  “The circumstances of if you want our child to have dual citizenship.”

  His hands froze on her shoulders. “Child?”

  She leaned back, unable to hide a smile. “A baby.” She pointed to her still flat tummy. “In here.”

  His jaw dropped. “How?”

  “Well, when a man—”

  He growled.

  “Remember when I had that sinus infection? And took antibiotics? That’s the only time I could have compromised the strength of the pill. And … the timing kinda adds up to about then too.”

  Dropping to his knees, he draped his arms around her waist this time, coming to eye level. “A baby.”

  “Yes.”

  “Mine?”

  She smirked and shoved at his shoulder.

  “And yours.” His lips curved.

  She glanced to the ceiling. Argh. Say something serious. “Obviously.”

  “We’re having a baby. You and me.”

  “Ta-da!”

  He frowned. “You don’t seem too happy.”

  She was over the moon. “I’m just curious how you feel about it. I know we briefly mentioned kids someday. And we sorta agreed it’s too soon…”

  “You’re rambling on about plans? We both know how those turn out. Sammy, we’re having a baby.” He pointed to her stomach. “In there. Our baby.”

  Tears swelled in her eyes at the awe in his voice. And as he pulled her closer to kiss her, she lost all threads of doubt and remembered the things most worth waiting for in life would come when they were damn well ready—regardless of best laid or least constructed plans.

  The End

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