by S. E. Lund
I turned around and strode down the hallway, hoping against hope that she didn’t follow me, but my hopes were dashed.
“I’m coming to the US to do a residency in neurosurgery,” she said, walking briskly beside me.
“What?” I said, frowning. “You never said anything. I thought you were going to return to Johannesburg to do your residency next week. Where are you planning to study?”
“I applied to a number of medical colleges for my residency. Johannesburg was only one of the options and I had several offers. I may accept a residency in Baltimore. Johns Hopkins. Your dad’s old stomping grounds?” she said with a laugh.
I stopped abruptly. “Johns Hopkins?” I felt immediate relief that she wouldn’t be coming to NYU.
“Why Johns Hopkins and not Johannesburg?” I said, trying to keep my voice under control. “I thought your family was there.”
“How could I turn down a residency at Johns Hopkins. Besides, I have dual citizenship.”
I sighed. “Good luck,” I said and forced a smile. “You’ll do well. You’re a talented surgeon.”
“I am. Who knows? We might work together again since I plan on specializing in pediatric neurosurgery. We work well together.”
I turned and began walking again, fighting to control my anger. “Nothing is ever going to happen between us, Sam. You have to understand that.”
“Not everything’s about you, Drake,” she said as if indignant but I didn’t believe her for a moment. “I happen to want to live in the US.”
I made it to the exit and stopped, not wanting her to follow me to my car. There were many people in the hospital and I didn’t want to give her any excuse to try to kiss me goodbye or hug me.
I bit my tongue. “Goodbye, Sam,” I said and touched my forehead as if in salute. I turned and went through the exit, hoping she got the message and left me alone.
At least she wasn’t following me.
“No kiss goodbye?” she called from the door.
“Not a chance,” I said without looking back.
“See you later, Drake,” she called out when I reached my car, which was parked a few slots away. “Doctor Delish.”
“Not if I can help it,” I muttered under my breath. I entered the BMW and slammed the door a little too hard. I turned on the engine and fastened my seatbelt. Then I sat for a moment with my hands gripping the wheel and took in a few deep breaths, trying to calm down.
She’d be close but not too close.
I drove off, checking in the rearview mirror only to see her standing in the doorway watching me. She actually waved goodbye.
Did she really think I’d wave back?
I shook my head and drove back home, determined not to let Sam ruin my peace of mind.
When I arrived at the house, the movers had already begun to load boxes and furniture into the van. The house was beginning to look deserted, and a sense of sadness filled me. Kate and I had spent almost five months in the house, learning more about each other and ourselves. I had never thought I would be the type of man to look forward to coming home to the same woman every night, but I did with Kate. I looked forward to seeing her face when I arrived home each evening. Her eyes would light up and a smile would spread across her lips when she saw me.
I had become very domestic with her in Africa.
It felt great.
I found Kate in the back of the house, checking out the cupboards to make sure everything was packed. When she saw me, she smiled and came right over.
“There you are,” she said and stood on her tiptoes to kiss me.
I pulled her into my arms and kissed her back, squeezing her tightly, realizing once again how lucky I was to have her.
“How did your morning go?” she asked and brushed hair back from my eyes. “Was it hard to say goodbye to Michael?”
“It was,” I said and smiled.
“Did you see Sam?”
“Yes, but I was actually rude to her, and thwarted her attempts to make our goodbye meaningful in any way.”
“Good,” she said and straightened my collar. “She’s got to get a clue that you’re mine. She had her chance and lost. End of story.”
I smiled. “I never did get to watch a catfight,” I said with a chuckle. “You know it’s every man’s secret dream… two beautiful women, practically naked, wrestling with each other in a tub full of whipped cream, funny business ensuing…” I wagged my eyebrows suggestively.
“There’d be no funny business between Sam and me,” Kate said with an exaggerated frown. “I’d punch her lights out.”
I laughed and hugged her again. I didn’t want to say anything to her about Sam moving to Baltimore. As far as I was concerned, Sam was now officially out of my life.
“Well Ms. Bennet, future Mrs. Morgan, are you ready to leave Nairobi and return home?”
She slipped her arms around my neck and leaned back so she could look in my eyes.
“I’m ready,” she said. “I’ll miss this paradise. I’ll miss the food and the people, but I’m happy to be going home.”
We kissed once more and then went to work.
For our last night in Nairobi, I’d made reservations at the Hemingway so we could leave Kenya the way we arrived. After a long day of supervising the movers, and dropping off the keys with our real estate agent Jan, we drove to the hotel and after getting settled, we ordered in supper. We had a different suite but it was almost identical to the one we had the first time we stayed. I’d arranged for someone from the car dealer to pick up the BMW. In the morning, Jomo would pick us up and drive us to the airport so we could catch our flight.
After we ate, we sat on lawn chairs on the lanai and watched the sun set and the stars appear one by one.
Kate turned to me and took my hand. “I wish you and I could have gone to the lodge and slept under the stars.”
I kissed her knuckles. “We can come back anytime we want, when the semester’s over or next summer when you’re off.”
“Good,” she said and turned back to the sky. “It’s something I wanted to do ever since I first came to Africa. Plus, you and I didn’t get to go on safari. I saw a lot of animals on the art safari, but I’d like to do it all with you. Maybe go on an archaeological dig.”
“One day we will,” I replied. “We have our whole life ahead of us. Besides, I don’t want Sefton’s painting to be your main memory of safari. I want a chance to make some with you.”
She smiled and turned back to the horizon, which showed a rising moon. “I don’t like the idea of delaying things too long. None of us know what can happen at any time. Think of my mother.”
I squeezed her hand and nodded. “And my father,” I said ruefully. “I’d meant to come to Africa and spend time with him and then he died.”
I heard a heavy sigh from her and felt the same deep sadness. Despite my father being absent a lot of my childhood due to his career and involvements, he was the central figure in my life. Kate was very close to her mother and I’m sure, like me, she still felt her loss every day.
“You’re right,” I said, determined to never take anything for granted again. “As soon as we can, we’ll come back to Africa. We’ll go on safari, go to a dig in Oldupai, and sleep under the stars.”
She turned to me and met my eyes, smiling. “I love you,” she said softly.
I leaned over the gap between us and kissed her gently. “I love you.”
The next morning came all too soon and I yawned when my cell’s alarm went off. Kate was nestled in the covers beside me, her cheek pushed into her pillow, her hair covering her face.
I rolled over and put my arm around her, kissing her forehead. “Time to get up, sleepyhead.”
She frowned and covered her face with her hand. “Already?” She cracked one eye open and stared at me. “You kept me up late with your dirty mind and wicked tongue.”
“I did, didn’t I?” I said with a laugh. After getting out of bed, I strode to the bathroom and started the sho
wer. “I let us sleep in a few extra minutes because I’m such a benevolent dictator.”
I glanced back in the bedroom and Kate now sat on the edge of the bed, her skimpy nightgown barely containing her delicious curves. She’d smoothed her hair, but her eyes were still sleepy and she looked completely ravishing. I planned on ravishing her before our flight and had made sure we had enough time for a quickie before we left for the airport. When we were first together, I didn’t want to start something I couldn’t finish, and preferred to wait until we had lots of time for a lengthy session of B&D. Now, I wanted her anytime, anywhere.
“Stop looking so desirable,” I said with a smile. “We have customs to get through and a plane to catch.”
“You better have your own shower. Who knows if you might not be able to control yourself and we’ll miss the plane?”
“Me, not control myself?” I said, and quirked an eyebrow. “Never. Self-control is my thang, baby.” I waved to her. “Now, come and share the shower with me so we get this done faster.”
“If you insist,” she said. She stripped off her nightgown and stepped into the shower, turning her back to me and pushing her face in the stream of water.
I took soap and lathered my hands and then started soaping her up. After I finished her back, I turned her around and washed her breasts, taking time on her nipples, which puckered under my touch.
“I thought you said we have a plane to catch?” Kate said, raising one eyebrow.
“We do.” I ran my soapy hands down her belly to her pussy and slipped my fingers between her thighs to wash her there. Of course by then, my erection was hard as granite and jutting out at the ready. When I bent down and took one of her nipples in my mouth, she gasped.
“Won’t we be late?” she said breathlessly.
“Shush,” I replied and sucked on the other nipple. Finally satisfied that I’d given each breast its due, I knelt down and tapped her thigh. “Over my shoulder and do it fast,” I said. “We’ve got a plane to catch.”
She complied, a slow grin spreading on her lovely face.
In the end, we still had time to spare and sat in the lobby with our bags around us, waiting for Jomo to arrive. He drove up while Kate and I sipped one last coffee, and came inside the hotel lobby.
“Hello, Mr. Drake,” he said with a wide smile. “Here to take you to the airport as requested.” He turned to me. “Miss Katherine.”
We both said hello and watched as Jomo carted our suitcases into his taxi.
While we drove to the airport, he filled us in on his plans for the fall semester and we promised to call him if we were ever back in Nairobi. He loaded our bags onto a cart and I gave him a big tip. Then, we shook hands and said our goodbyes.
After customs, we sat in the waiting area and Kate texted her parents that we were on our way. Kate put her iPhone away and turned to me, excitement on her face.
“I’m sad to go, but I’m so excited to get back.”
I took her hand in mine and squeezed. “Me, too.”
Finally, they announced our flight and we boarded, taking our seats in first class. Kate sat in the window seat and as we took off down the runway, we held hands and watched out the window as the plane lifted off.
The day was perfect, cloudless, the sky clear, the rolling Ngong Hills in the distance almost violet against the far horizon.
I had suggested that we stop off in Amsterdam for a few days, but Kate was anxious to get home to see her father. We flew right through, with only a few hours layover in Amsterdam before our connecting flight to JFK. It would be a grueling sixteen plus hours of flying but we’d be in Manhattan before too late on Tuesday night and at Ethan and Elaine’s in time for a cup of hot tea and a brief visit before bed.
“We’re here,” Kate said as we made our approach to JFK. Beneath us the coast of the USA passed, the ocean giving way to Long Beach. It was early evening and the sun was still high in the sky so we caught the glint of sunlight off the water and then on the buildings and windows of the airport.
The touchdown was smooth and we finally turned on a taxiway and continued on to the terminal. Kate squeezed my hand and I knew how excited she was to be back.
After we disembarked and collected our baggage, we were met by a driver from Ethan’s limo service, holding out a card with Morgan printed on it.
He took our bags and loaded them into the limo while Kate and I took our seats in the back. I sighed with relief that the long flight was over and now we could relax and then sleep.
Kate fastened her seatbelt beside me and then she sighed as well. “I’m so looking forward to going to bed tonight,” she said and leaned her head back, closing her eyes.
“I feel like I could sleep for a week.”
We clasped hands and were silent as we drove from JFK to Manhattan and Ethan’s Park Avenue penthouse.
“It feels so strange coming home,” Kate said as she watched out the window. “Whenever I travel, I always feel like a new person. I see things differently. Everything’s familiar, because I’ve been on this route so many times before, but it feels different each time.”
“I know what you mean,” I said. I felt the same way. For a brief time, the old was new again and you appreciated it in a way you can’t when you’re immersed in it everyday.
I’d spent the better part of my adult life in Manhattan, in a narrow strip of real estate between Chelsea, Columbia University and New York Presbyterian. My life in Baltimore barely registered in my memory. I loved New York, and couldn’t imagine not living there with Kate. Our children would go to the best private schools, and perhaps go to Columbia as both Kate and I had before them.
Before I met Kate, I saw only work and more work ahead of me, with my band and my charity the only thing that lay in my future.
Now, I saw a real life filled with love and family. Only ten months had passed since that night at the bar when I bumped into my fate.
So much had changed. For the better.
While I had been satisfied with my life before I met Kate, I hadn’t been happy. In fact, I barely remember a time when I’d been as happy as I was now.
I pulled her hand to my lips and kissed her knuckles. “We’re home,” I said.
She turned to me, smiling, her cheeks flushed with excitement. “We’re home,” she repeated and leaned over for a kiss.
Who was I to deny her?
CHAPTER SIX
Kate
I’d forgotten how much the stroke had disabled my father until the moment we arrived in the Park Avenue penthouse and he was waiting at the door in his wheelchair, his face still slightly droopy on the one side, his hand sitting rather lifeless in his lap. He had an electric wheelchair and controlled it with his good hand, driving up to the front entry with a big smile on his face.
It sent a jolt of fear through me at the thought of how close he had come to dying while I was so far away across the ocean, but I tried not to show how bad he still looked in my face or demeanor.
“There you are, my girl,” he said, tears in his eyes.
“Daddy,” I said, my voice catching. I bent down to kiss him on the cheek and as I did, I vowed to myself to never move away again.
I kissed Elaine and Drake said his hellos. As we rolled our bags into the front entry, I thought to myself that Manhattan was my home. It had been my family’s home for years. I loved it there and felt no need to go away. Drake and I would go on a honeymoon, of course, and maybe a holiday in Africa at some point, but I wanted to start my own family and put my own roots down in the city. I lost my mother far too soon to cancer. I couldn’t imagine losing my father and being so far away, regretting that I hadn’t spent more time with him. That was one of Drake’s biggest regrets – that he and his father hadn’t been closer.
I didn’t want to make the same mistake.
“Let me get that,” Drake said and took my suitcase, wheeling it down the hallway to the bedroom I’d grown up in.
“Come dear,” Elaine said and motio
ned to the living room. “I’ll make some hot tea and we can visit before you two go to sleep. You must be exhausted after that flight. Sixteen hours! I can’t imagine…”
At that moment, I felt completely exhausted. It would be an effort to sit with them and socialize but I did want to see how my father was doing, listen to him speak and watch him.
I plopped down onto the sofa and my father parked his wheelchair beside it, turning to face me. Drake must have been using the washroom for he didn’t return right away. My father and I spoke together while we waited for Elaine to bring the tea.
I filled him in on the flight and he told me about his latest round of rehab and how they were building up strength in the side of his body that had been partially paralyzed.
“It will take some time, months or so I’m told, but I should be able to walk again with a cane or walker. I’d prefer a cane, but I’ll take what I can get.”
“I’m just glad to see you getting around. You look good, Daddy. How do you feel?”
He stuck his chest out and hit it with a fist. “Like a million bucks. Us old Marines don’t give up so easily. It’ll take more than a stroke to do me in.”
I smiled and finally Elaine brought in the tea and Drake returned from whatever he was doing. He held out a small gift bag and handed it to Elaine.
“For you,” he said and smiled. “Just a little something from Nairobi I bought before we left.”
I was as surprised as Elaine for I hadn’t seen him buy the gift but he must have done so on the way home from the hospital.
“Oh, Drake, how thoughtful,” Elaine said and opened it. Inside was a bottle of curry spice from one of the markets we used to visit. She held it up for us all to see.
“It’s a special mix of tamarind, cumin, coriander and cardamom. Especially good with beef and rice, or so I’m told.”
