Accepted Memories (Sycamore P.D. Series Book 2)

by T. E. Killian

  Right now, she was sitting on the other side of his truck cab staring straight ahead while fiddling with her purse in her lap with both hands. He liked what she was wearing tonight. She usually wore stylish pantsuits, which looked great on her, but tonight she had on a black summer dress that came to a few inches above her knees, and it looked great on her, making her shiny golden hair almost sparkle like real gold. He was glad that he had chosen a charcoal dress shirt and black slacks. Even without matching clothes, he thought that he and Alison looked good together. His dark blond hair complimented her golden blond hair and their blue eyes were close to the same except hers were so big, framed with that glorious hair.

  He wanted this evening to be special. What could he do to make it so for both of them? As he thought about it, he realized that for him, it already was the most special night of his life. Just being with Alison on a real date made it special. He sure hoped she felt the same way.

  “Alison?”

  She turned her head toward him without speaking.

  “Have you thought about what I said this afternoon at your house?”

  She pretended not to know what he was talking about, giving him a puzzled look, but he wasn’t buying it. “You know what I’m talking about.”

  He was going to prompt her more, when she blurted out, “Oh, Stan, could we just go on like this for a little while without trying to analyze everything? I’m so confused.”

  He thought about that for a moment. He knew from experience that a confused Alison did not usually bode well for him. She also had a look of panic on her face. That wasn’t good either. “Okay, Alison, I’ll play along . . . for a while. But we will discuss this . . . and soon.”

  She looked relieved and neither one said anything more until they were seated in their booth at the restaurant. Stan could see that Alison wanted to say something but kept opening her mouth to do so then closing it before any words came out. He knew it would be best to wait.

  After a moment, she said, “Stan?” He looked up from his menu and almost drowned in her big blue eyes. “How well do you know me?” She blew out an exasperated breath. “I mean really know me.”

  He sure wasn’t expecting that one. What did she mean? Where was she coming from? Better yet, what could he say? No, what did she expect him to say?

  He grinned and said, “Sure Alison, we’ve known each other for twenty years. Don’t you think that in that amount of time we would know each other pretty well?”

  She shook her head so vigorously that her long blond hair flew from side to side the way he loved to see it do. As usual, she had to pull a strand of hair out of her mouth before she could speak. “That’s not what I meant.” She clamped her teeth together and Stan prepared himself for the worst.

  She seemed to hold her breath and relax before she spoke again. He could tell that it had been a struggle for her. “Stan, look at me.” He did. “Am I really the same person you claim to have loved for ten years?”

  Before he could respond, she held up both hands, palms toward him. “No, don’t answer that too fast. I want you to think about it.” She waved her right hand between them. “Stop right now and look at me . . . as if you just met me.”

  Now she had his attention! So, he figured he’d better try to do what she said.

  “When you look at me that way, what do you see?” With a serious face, she added, “I hope you don’t see your best friend’s bratty little sister anymore. But what do you see?”

  Now, he was in tune with what she wanted. He paused as long as he dared to form his next words carefully.

  “Alison, I see a mature woman.” He paused. “I see a successful businessperson.” He scratched his head. “I also see a beautiful person, not just on the outside, but on the inside as well.”

  When she didn’t comment, but just sat there staring into his eyes, he added, “You’re right, I don’t see the same person I saw not too long ago. But you know what? I’m not the same person I was before either, and I think I love you even more now.”

  There, he’d said all he could think of to say on the subject. He just hoped they were the right words, the words she wanted to hear.

  They sat there just staring into each other’s eyes for the longest minute of Stan’s life before he noticed tears filling her eyes then beginning to run over and down her cheeks. Oh boy, he’d really messed up this time. He had her crying now. Great!

  He placed both hands on the table in front of him ready to try to dig out of whatever hole he had just dug himself into.

  Just as he opened his mouth to speak, Alison leaned forward and placed both of her hands on top of his. “Isn’t Kelly the most wonderful person you’ve ever met?”

  What? Where did that come from? What did Kelly have to do with any of this? Was Alison still mad at him or what?

  Alison looked at the puzzled expression on Stan’s face and tried to laugh but it came out rather watery. “I guess I need to explain that statement for you Stan.” She pulled a tissue from her purse and dabbed at her cheeks and eyes. “You see, I had lunch with Kelly yesterday. That’s how she was able to talk me into helping Sarah . . . Mom move.”

  Stan didn’t want to interrupt her, but he wanted to celebrate for another reason. Alison had just called Sarah Mom! Now if she’d just call her that to her face.

  “Well, that’s exactly what she had me do. She told me to look at you as if I had just met you.” She giggled or snorted, he wasn’t quite sure which. “She said that like the beautiful scenery around us here in this valley, we take people we see all the time for granted. Therefore, we don’t really notice when they change.”

  He was waiting for her to finish. He had a stray thought to thank Kelly the next time he saw her. Now he was curious as to what Alison saw when she looked at him like Kelly had suggested.

  She gave him a wobbly smile. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “But I saw a different person than I had expected and I really liked what I saw.”

  She let that bomb drop and leaned back in her seat as if to watch his reaction. Was that him, Stan Becker, police detective, grinning like a baboon? She wanted a reaction, well she got one, big time!

  The only intelligible thing he could think of to say was, “That’s great!”

  * * *

  Alison couldn’t help but grin right back at Stan. His grin sure was contagious. She didn’t think she’d grinned this way since she was a teenager, if then. And big surprise to herself, it felt good. No, it felt great! “Where has this Stan been hiding?”

  She didn’t realize she’d said that aloud until Stan busted out laughing loudly, causing other diners to turn and stare at him. She knew her face was red again.

  He sobered up quickly and reached his right hand across the table, placing it palm up on the table between her hands. She looked down at his hand and before she realized what she was doing, she placed her hand in his.

  As he closed his fingers around her smaller hand, she marveled at how good, how right it felt to have her hand in his.

  The special moment was interrupted when their waiter brought their steaming plates of food. They didn’t talk much for the next few minutes as they enjoyed their meals. Alison wondered if her meal was that great, or was it her joyful mood making it seem that way.

  Stan was staring into her eyes right now and her appetite disappeared when she began to recognize the raw emotions she saw there. She pushed her half-full plate aside and stared right back at him, trying to put all of her feelings on display the same way he was. That was the best she could do right then, because she couldn’t have put them into words if her life depended on it.

  Chapter Eleven

  Alison awakened the next morning feeling great after another good night’s sleep. She felt more rested than she had in weeks. Why? She knew why. She was in love . . . with Stan! The thing that puzzled her most though was that right now it seemed like she’d loved him forever. That brought up the question, when did sh
e start loving Stan? And she knew it wasn’t last night.

  She thought about that through a breakfast of toast and coffee with Grant and Kelly. They had been deep in a discussion when she walked into the kitchen and she was thankful. That way, they might not quiz her about last night.

  Then she started listening to what her brother and his wife were talking about. It was something she hadn’t thought about. Babies! Sure, she knew that Grant and Kelly had agreed before they got married that they wanted at least a couple of kids. But now they were talking about having one soon. That scared and thrilled Alison all at the same time.

  But then, the more she thought about it, the more she realized that she really wanted to be an aunt. She liked kids. She loved babies. All of a sudden, she couldn’t wait to have one of her own. Whoa, where did that thought come from? How did she make the leap from wanting to be an aunt to wanting to be a mother? But she now knew that she did want a baby too, more than anything in the world.

  When Kelly came back into the kitchen after walking Grant to the door, she sat across from Alison with a dreamy look on her face.

  Alison giggled. “Earth to Kelly!”

  Kelly giggled along with her. Then the dreamy look came back. “I want to have a baby Alison, and soon. Did you hear Grant? He does too! After all, he’s thirty and I’m twenty-nine. We don’t want to wait much longer.”

  Alison almost fell out of her chair. What Kelly was saying reinforced the thoughts she’d just had. Added to that, she now picked up some of the urgency that Kelly was feeling. She was twenty-eight. If she was ever going to have kids, she’d better do something about it, and soon. After all, Kelly was at least married. That put her ahead of Alison, in her opinion at least. She considered herself a modern woman, but not that modern!

  Kelly seemed to snap out of her dreamy state and turned to Alison. “So, how did your big date with Stan go last night? You’re not refusing to call it a date like I did on our first one, are you? I don’t even need to ask if he kissed you. It’s written all over your face this morning. It must have been some kiss.”

  Alison had waited for Kelly’s barrage of questions to end. Now it was her turn. She knew she must have that dreamy look on her face just like Kelly had earlier. She grinned again. This was becoming habit forming. “It was amazing. I never thought I’d be going out on a date with Stan Becker, much less thoroughly enjoying myself . . . and kissing him too.”

  Kelly smiled back. “Is that all you’re going to tell me about it? I mean, here you two are, friends for twenty years, and all of a sudden you realize you love each other. Come on, there has to be more, much more.”

  Alison only caught one word that Kelly had said. “I didn’t say I loved Stan.”

  Kelly laughed aloud this time. “You don’t have to say it with words. It shows all over you, in your eyes, your movements, but especially in what you aren’t saying.”

  She wasn’t quite sure she knew what Kelly meant by that last, but she couldn’t really argue. “Yeah, I guess I do love him.” She shook her head. “But I just can’t figure out exactly when I started loving him.”

  Kelly reached out and patted her arm. “Love has a way of sneaking up on you like that. You don’t see it coming, but all of a sudden, you say, yes I love him. I know that’s the way it happened to me with Grant, and I didn’t even know him for very long before it happened. I’m sure with the amount of time you’ve been around Stan, it was much more difficult for you to see it coming.”

  That, at least, made sense to Alison. “But Stan says he’s loved me for ten years. How do you explain that?”

  “I’m not sure I can. But it seems that some people are more capable of recognizing their love, at least better than others.”

  “Then why didn’t he say something sooner?”

  Kelly laughed again. “Do I really need to answer that question?”

  Alison laughed with Kelly. “No, I suppose you don’t. As he said last night, I guess I would have either laughed at him or told him he was crazy.”

  “That’s right, and I’m sure it hurt Stan to watch you date other guys, but he had to wait for the right timing. Don’t you see how special that makes him?”

  Alison knew that the dreamy look had come to her face now. “I’m glad he waited. Right now, Kelly, it scares me, but I want to marry Stan as soon as possible.” She paused to think. “Do you think he feels the same way?”

  “I’m sure of it. In fact, I think that if he knew you wanted to get married, you’d be married within a week.”

  Alison thought about that for a long time. Then the doorbell rang. Stan was here to pick her up. No more talk. She needed to go to work.

  Before they reached the door to let Stan in, Alison touched Kelly on the arm, causing her to stop and turn toward her.

  “Will you be my matron of honor?”

  Kelly reached out and hugged her. “Yes, of course. I would be honored and thrilled.”

  With that, Kelly opened the door to let Stan in. He took one look at the two women and said, “I’m not sure what’s going on here, but it doesn’t look good for me.”

  Both women ignored his comment but shared a knowing look and smile before Alison went out the door with Stan.

  On the way to her office, Alison was still deep in thought about all that Kelly had helped her to crystalize in her mind. Did she want to get married? Did she want kids? Did she want to get married right away? Yes! Yes! Yes! She wanted kids right away. She had the man she wanted to marry sitting across the car seat from her. Why not? Why not soon?

  It was almost humorous the way Stan kept darting puzzled looks at her all the way to the office, but she wasn’t quite ready to talk to him about it yet. She needed to talk to Sybil.

  Just as she and Stan were walking through the door, Mary smiled, greeted them and said, “Alison, your Aunt Sybil is on line one.”

  She laughed, causing Mary and Stan both to give her puzzled looks. Her aunt always seemed to know just when Alison needed to talk to her. She still needed to talk to Stan but not right now though. She needed to talk to Sybil first.

  Stan sat down at the desk he was using and Alison went into her office. She could see surprise on Stan’s face as she closed the door. She’d have to deal with that later.

  She sat down and grabbed the phone right away. “Hi Sybil, how are you today?”

  “Don’t give me that ’how are you today’ stuff Alison Marie Thompson. I want to know everything about last night and I mean everything.”

  Alison tried to compose her thoughts but instead she was suddenly so overwhelmed by everything that she burst into tears.

  Sybil was shouting now. “I’ll be there in ten minutes. Don’t you dare go anywhere. We need to talk . . . now!”

  * * *

  Sybil sure didn’t waste any time getting to Alison’s office. She watched as Sybil rushed through the outer office and past an open-mouthed Stan. Alison had opened her door but Sybil closed it again as she stormed into the room and leaned over the desk as close to Alison’s face as she could get.

  “Okay, give. What happened? Did Stan do something? If he did, he’ll regret it very soon. Why did you cry the way you did?”

  Alison, who had composed herself somewhat while waiting for Sybil to arrive, had to smile at Sybil’s stream of questions.

  “First of all, Stan was wonderful. So get that thought out of your mind.”

  Sybil relaxed a little and turned to sit in a chair but perched on the edge leaning toward Alison.

  “Second, the whole evening was simply terrific. I had the best time of my life.”

  Sybil shook her head and slid back in her chair. “Then why were you crying your eyes out just a little while ago?”

  Alison looked down at her desk where her hands were twisting and turning about. “I’m not sure, but when you asked me how things went, everything just came to the surface. I guess you could say I was overwhelmed all of a sudden.”

  Sybil nodded.

  Alison looked
into Sybil’s eyes. “Sybil, Grant and Kelly are going to try to have a baby right away.”

  Sybil relaxed some more. “Is that all that’s bothering you. I’m not surprised though. I knew they wouldn’t be able to wait very long.”

  “Yes, but that made me want one too.” She saw the panic on Sybil’s face and said, “I want to get married, Sybil . . . to Stan.”

  Sybil held up her hand and reached for Alison’s phone. “Hold everything. I think your mother should be involved in this discussion from now on.”

  When Alison didn’t protest, Sybil called Sarah at work who after checking with Kelly said they would both be right over.

  Sybil talked the whole time while they waited for Kelly and Sarah. But she talked about everything but marriage for fifteen minutes. It was so typical of Sybil that Alison wanted to laugh. Sybil was talking so fast that Alison wouldn’t have been able to get a word in if she’d wanted to.

  When Kelly and Sarah came into the room, Sybil closed the door again. Alison smiled. Of course, they didn’t want Stan to know what they were talking about . . . yet. The amusing thought also hit her that he must be out there wondering what in the world was going on in here.

  When everyone was seated, Sybil gave Alison one of her looks and began. “Alison Marie Thompson.” She waved a hand at Sarah. “Do you accept Sarah as you mother or not?”

  All three of them were staring at her now. That one sure surprised her. They were here to talk about her and Stan, not her and her mother. ‘Her mother!’ Is that how she thought of Sarah now? Yes! She did think of Sarah as her mother now. She’d fought it for almost a year, but couldn’t fight it any longer. They were too much alike and Sarah was innocent of all that had kept them apart for twenty years.