by K. Ryan
I drank her in, my eyes roaming up and down her beautiful curves and all I could think was, Mine.
"I love you," she murmured and closed her eyes as my lips started a trail down the base of her neck.
"I love you, too," I smiled into her skin. "I'm never leaving you again."
"I know."
I believed her, too. I believed this was forever. That my life hadn't really started until now. That the future had never felt so tangible or so bright. That my happiness was forever intertwined with hers.
The worst was behind us and now the rest was easy.
My hands skimmed along her sides, squeezing and lifting her up so she could wrap her legs around my waist. We collapsed on the bed, the same bed we'd spent the last few nights in together, but this time was different. I planted my hands on both sides of her shoulders and propped myself up, eager to savor this moment for as long as I could stand it.
"You okay, Caleb?"
I grinned down at my wife with her hair fanned out on the comforter and her legs wrapped around my waist, pulling me in and tugging at my belt.
"Trust me, Iz," I whispered hoarsely. "I've never been better."
Maybe I didn't completely deserve to have her in my life. All the things I'd done, the things I'd tried and failed to forget, some of them were bad enough to justify a lifetime of pain and loneliness and regret, but the way she looked at me, the way she trusted me, the way she loved me, it was enough to wash away everything ugly in my past. It was enough to give me a clean slate.
The moment I finally found what I'd always been looking for the day I decided to leave the club was finally here. I'd finally found the better life I never thought I'd get to have.
And hell, I was going to take it.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Best Laid Plans
Isabelle
My dad died on a Thursday.
We found him, warm in his bed, a few days after the wedding and that was it. He was gone.
All this time I'd had to prepare and it just didn't matter. Nothing can ever prepare you for the death of a parent and all the emotions surrounding it hit me like a tidal wave. They were all there: relief that his suffering was finally over, devastation from the blow, happiness that he was with my mom again, heartache at the thought of never hearing him laugh again. Each emotion hit me harder than the one before it and sometimes they hit me all once, suffocating what little control I had.
Every time that happened, though, Caleb was there. Calling our hospice nurse, filling out all the necessary paperwork, watching him get wheeled away, the funeral and all the arrangements that went with it, every time I broke down...Caleb was right next to me, lifting me up and helping me through it. I never would've survived an hour without him.
With each day that passed since the funeral, it got a little easier. Of course, it helped that we had a lot of work in front of us between the house and the shop and I was all about distractions right now.
"Hey, Iz?" Caleb's soft voice jerked me out of my thoughts and I jumped a little in my chair.
He shifted next to me on the desk and the worried lines that seemed to be ever-present these last few days crossed his face yet again.
"We can take a break," he gestured down to the paperwork scattered across his desk and then glanced back over to me with uncertainty creeping into his eyes. "We don't have to look at all this right now anyway."
I just batted a hand his way and lifted the mortgage paperwork for my dad's house off the desk. In an effort to get me out of the house, he'd gathered up all the business that had piled up at our feet since our wedding and brought me to his office in the shop instead. A change of scenery, he'd said, but it was also more neutral territory for us now, especially since we were currently discussing when and how to sell my dad's house.
"We don't have to sell it right away, you know," Caleb murmured to my right. "We could just keep making payments like I've already been doing. There's no rush, Iz."
My eyes drifted to the numbers and figures littered on the desk and shrugged. At this point, hanging onto the house didn't really matter. I had a feeling the house, at least as far as my dad was concerned, had already served its purpose. Sooner or later, I would've found that contract he and Caleb had signed eventually—he hadn't exactly made it difficult to find either.
"He wanted us to sell it," I sighed and let the mortgage papers fall back down. "I don't think he really wanted us to live there, you know? I think he wanted us to just take the money and run. Besides, we need our own place, our own life. The sooner we can move on, the better."
There was another issue we needed to talk about, too, and since we were already on the topic, I figured now was as good a time as any.
"What about my brownstone in New York?" I asked quietly and chewed on my bottom lip.
"What about it?" he frowned back at me.
I could see exactly how this was going to go because neither of us wanted to be the one to say it first. It probably would've been a good idea to have this conversation before we got married, but it was a little late for that now.
"Ugh," I groaned into my hands and rubbed my eyes as Caleb's fingers found the back of my neck. "We kinda rushed into all this, didn't we?"
Caleb blew out a deep breath and his hand dropped to my shoulder. "Don't worry about it, okay?"
Worrying about where we were going to live, how that would impact both my career and his business, and ultimately, how that would impact our married life didn't seem too irrational. In fact, it sounded pretty practical to me. Now my head was spinning. My career was in New York, but his shop was here. How were we going to make that work?
His lips just dipped downward like he could read my thoughts and just as his mouth opened, most likely to reassure me once again that everything was going to be okay, my phone buzzed in my purse.
I slipped my phone out of my purse and froze when I got a good look at the caller ID.
"What's up, Iz?"
"It's my PR rep," I told him quietly. This call was a long time coming and to be honest, I was sort of surprised she hadn't called sooner.
Caleb nodded, his forehead still furrowed in a deep line as I swiped across my screen to answer.
"Hey, Jen."
"Isabelle!" my ever-cheerful gallery-assigned PR rep chirped into the phone and I felt my teeth grinding already. I loved this girl, I really did—she was helpful, knowledgeable, efficient, and damn good at her job, but the peppiness had gotten old fast. "It's so good to hear from you!"
"Yeah, you too," I rolled my eyes a little at Caleb and he gestured to the door with his head, letting me know he was going to step outside. In light of all the conflicting thoughts roaming around right now, a little space while I had this inevitable conversation seemed like a good idea. I waved to him as he made his way out of the office with Cooper right on his heels.
I blew out a deep breath and nodded into the phone as I listened to the invevitable. "Okay. I think I can manage that. Can you give me until the end of the week?"
When I swiped across my screen again to end the call, I sat back in my chair, tilted my head up to the ceiling, and squeezed my eyes shut. Reality had finally reared its ugly head, as if it hadn't before. My eyes fell to some of the papers strewn around the desk and flipped open the folder marked, Expansion and Marketing. All the plans were lined out in painstaking detail, point for point, on the exact areas Caleb wanted to expand the shop, specifically staffing, a new addition on the building, and newer, more state-of-the-art equipment that would allow the shop to take on bigger and possibly more high-profile projects.
The dotted line, of course, was money. His insurance check from the break-in would only cover what he'd lost and would need to rebuild, not what he wanted to add. Who knew how long that would take?
Now, as I thought about all the sacrifices he'd made and how hard he'd scraped and fought to build this place from the ground up, I had to swallow back tears.
He needed the shop and I wanted him to have
it.
I just didn't know what that meant for me in the long run. We'd stay here, buy another house, and I could work from home and send my paintings to the gallery for shows. Sure, I'd have to travel a few times a month for meetings and promotion, but what other options did we really have? I could really work anywhere...Caleb, not so much. His shop was here, so we needed to be here, too.
I swallowed hard at the thought of losing New York—the bustle of the city, the acceptance of my talent I'd found there, walking through Central Park with Cooper, vibrant, earthy fall colors and all that snow, the food—oh my God, the food—my cozy brownstone, the complete unpredictability of each day there, and I squeezed my eyes shut. I had a good life there, but it was an incomplete one without him.
My head jerked up when the door opened again and I smiled when I saw he had two Mountain Dews in his hand. He threw me that sexy, crooked grin he knew could make me do just about anything he asked as he set a can in front of me and leaned up against the desk.
"Everything okay?"
"Yeah," I sighed. "They're just a little anxious to get my next show scheduled."
"That's great, Iz," Caleb grinned and then that grin slipped away, probably because he saw the dejection on my face. "Isn't it?"
"No, it is," I leaned forward in the chair and rubbed my face with both hands. "It's just that I'm probably going to have to be ready in about three months just to keep them happy and I have nothing done. Nothing new I can actually show and thinking about getting ready for that...I don't even want to think about it right now."
"So don't," he shrugged and I just huffed out a laugh.
"Come on, Caleb," I shook my head at him and cracked open the can just for good measure. "It's not that easy. They've been pretty patient with me the way it is and that's money in our pocket, you know? It's stupid to push it any longer just because of that alone."
He nodded quietly and folded his arms across his chest. Reality was apparently setting in for him now too. I took a deep breath and decided to just dive right in. We had to talk about this sooner or later and it was better late than never.
"I can work here, but I'm going to have to go back to New York at some point to prep for the show...ugh. There's so much to do here at the shop and then we still have to—"
"Iz."
"—pack up the house and figure out what we should keep. I don't even know where to put everything and then we have to figure out where we're going to live. I mean, we can't live in your apartment here. That's just not going to work—"
He grabbed my left hand to get my attention and brought it up to his lips. "Iz, stop talking."
My mouth opened to protest, but the glimmer in his eyes stopped me short.
"I was going to wait a little while to talk to you about this because I figured you'd want to get the house straightened out first," Caleb told me, rubbing my knuckles as he spoke and straightened my wedding ring a little. "I've been doing some thinking and I think maybe we should reopen the shop in New York."
My mouth dropped open, but I couldn't find the words I needed. That must've been the opening he was looking for because he swooped in to take it.
"I figure I'm already getting enough insurance money to cover everything I already have to replace and I can either sell the building or rent it out. Either one would still open me up to getting a new building where you are."
I inhaled sharply as the true meaning of his 'idea' washed over me: where you are.
"What about your staff?" I protested quietly as my mind screamed. This wasn't what I wanted. I didn't need him to give this up for me. "They're like family to you and what about everything else? Can you really just pick everything up and start over? There's marketing and word of mouth and everything else that goes with it."
His lips curled up and his fingers twirled my wedding band around my finger again. "I have to pretty much start from scratch again anyway. There's no way business will ever be the same again after what happened and a fresh start somewhere else is probably the best thing I could do for the shop at this point. I did it once before and I can do it again. It's not easy and it's work, but I can do it. And my guys...I'll miss them, sure. Maybe I'll even be able to talk a few of them into coming with me, but Iz, none of that matters because it just doesn't make any sense for us to live here in Claremont when your life's New York."
"What about—"
He cut me off again, but this time he leaned forward to catch my words with his lips. I didn't let him get away with that distraction tactic for too long and pulled away as soon as I had my bearings again.
"Wait a minute," I jabbed a finger in his chest. "You can't just make a decision like this without talking to me about it first. This is huge, Caleb and I can't ask you to give up everything you've built here."
"First of all," he grinned back at me and all that did was just piss me off even more—he knew it too. "I am talking to you about it first. I haven't made any moves to get my shop to New York yet."
Shit. He was right. He had said something about that before I flew off the handle. And he grinned broadly, like he knew he had the advantage now.
"The only thing I did ahead of time was run it by Saul," he went on and held his hands up in defense. "Just the financial part, nothing else."
I cocked an eyebrow at him. "And what did Saul say?"
"He said it wouldn't be easy, but that it wasn't completely financially irresponsible either, considering the money I'm getting from my insurance," Caleb shrugged.
Of course that was what Saul would say, not like I was all that surprised. I blew out a deep breath and before I knew it, my hands were wringing together in front of me.
"And I'm not giving anything up because the reality is if we stayed here, you would be the one having to make all the sacrifices and I'm not just talking about traveling back and forth from New York. Let's face it, if things had worked out for us the first time, you would've been lucky to even finish school, let alone actually have a career doing what you love to do. You would've ended up working at the desk in the club's shop and taking care of our family and both of us would've been stuck—me in the club and you here in town. And all that talent you've got, Iz, it would've been wasted here. I would've let it happen then because I was an idiot, but I'm not letting it happen now."
He leaned forward to brush his thumb over my cheek and I squeezed my eyes shut. I didn't know how to argue. I didn't know if I wanted to argue.
"You need to be in New York, Iz," Caleb told me, his eyes glittering with love and excitement. "That's where your career is and it wouldn't be the same if we stayed here. There's no good reason to stay anyway and nothing really keeping us here anymore. Besides, the rest of it doesn't matter. The shop is just a building, Iz. I can do all the rest of it anywhere. But you...you're home to me. Wherever you are, that's where I need to be."
Tears stung my eyes and he caught them with his thumbs as he leaned in to press his lips to mine.
"Are you sure?" I whispered. The last thing I wanted was for him to make a decision like this because this was what he thought I wanted—this had to be the right decision for both of us, not just one of us.
"Compromise, Iz," he murmured into my lips. "That's what marriage is supposed to be about, right?"
"Yeah," I laughed. "I guess."
"So I think we should move to New York when you need to go back for your show. Until that insurance money comes through I can't do much anyway besides scout locations and start looking into a new staff. And hey, you know what? Maybe we can use this time off to work on something else too..."
He waggled his eyebrows and his fingers skimmed down my shoulder, playing with the strap of my tank top a little until I batted his hand away.
"I think we may be getting a little ahead of ourselves here," I laughed.
"What?" he frowned. "Is it so wrong that I want to see you knocked up with my kid like yesterday?"
"No," I grinned, shaking my head as I had to bat his hands away yet again. "It's not. But
how about this? Let's get to New York, get through my next show, get the house ready to sell, and figure out how you're going to reopen the shop, okay? Besides, we need to go on a honeymoon somewhere in between all that and I don't know about you, but I really want a honeymoon."
His eyes glimmered with mischief. "You don't have to tell me twice."
"And once we've done all that," I smiled back at him and brought a hand to his face. "I think we should revisit this conversation."
"Maybe during our honeymoon?" he cocked an eyebrow at me.
"Maybe," I shot him a hard look and shoved him away, but I didn't struggle too hard when he pulled me right back to him again.
. . .
A few hours later, Saul pulled into my dad's driveway and I shot him a quick, grateful smile. He wasn't necessarily going out of his way by driving me back, but I still appreciated his kindness nonetheless. Now that the plan to move to New York was underway, Caleb threw himself into research, touching on just about everything from buildings within a 30-mile radius of my brownstone to how in the world he was ever going to get rid of the building he had now.
The actual building itself wasn't the problem—it was what had happened there that might be an issue to any future renter or buyer. Getting over that hurdle might mean we'd lose some money, he'd told me, and we might have to take out another loan to expand in the new location the way he wanted to, but I already had an idea about how we could make that happen. In fact, it was already shaping up to be a pretty good business plan, at least with the little knowledge about business I had.
And because he'd been so engrossed in the details, I finally had to call in a ride to get back to the house. After all, I had some serious work to do too.
"Thanks for this, Saul," I told him as I let Cooper out of the backseat. "I really appreciate it."
