Chapter Fifty Lucky
Chapter Fifty
Lucky
The next afternoon I took Chauncy for a long walk. I had waited all day for Hunter to send back something. I would have been happy with even an emoji. But total radio silence.
I worried that he might have blocked me. I couldn’t imagine him doing that, though. I didn’t let myself get sucked into a spiral. Things would work out the way they were supposed to. And if Hunter and I were over, well, my heart would be broken but I would pick myself up and keep going. I had a new and improved relationship with my sisters and the bakery to look forward to.
It didn’t stop me from wanting him to be a part of it.
My brain tried to fixate on the fact that I deserved not to hear from him. That I had basically abandoned him and accused him of terrible things and now he didn’t want to talk to me. I was not going to allow myself to go down that path. If nothing else, I had learned to redirect myself to more positive thoughts.
Losing Hunter was an awful price to pay for that internal change.
When I entered the apartment, I called out, “Lily? I’m back.” I put my keys on the ring and undid Chauncy’s leash. He ran into the living room. “I found a recipe for that babka you asked me to make. Of course, first I had to read through thirty paragraphs of the baker’s autumn in New York in 2010 right after her boyfriend ended their relationship and how she made this to—”
I came around the corner and saw Hunter standing there.
“Hello, Lucky.”
For a full ten seconds, I thought I was hallucinating. That I had missed him so much that my mind was imagining him being here.
But no, he was standing next to Lily, who was on her crutches. He looked scruffy, tired, worn down.
“Hunter?”
He smiled at me and I put a hand over my fluttering stomach.
“So I was just going to take Chauncy for a walk,” Lily announced loudly.
I held up the leash. “I just—”
“Come on, Chauncy! Let’s go to the park.” She took the leash from me, got it on Chauncy, and then hobbled out of the apartment.
Hunter was here. Rodney must have given him the address.
When she closed the door, I said to him, “I thought you didn’t want to talk to me. You didn’t answer my text.”
He put his hands in his pockets. “How could it be a romantic surprise if I gave you a heads-up?”
“Romantic?” I echoed, unable to help myself. My heart surged with hope. It was a good thing that he was here. He wouldn’t have flown halfway around the world just to end things, would he?
But if he was here and not on the Mio Tesoro ... “Did you quit the ship?”
“When I got your message I told the captain that I quit, effective immediately. Then I flew home to New York to talk to my parents, and then I came straight here. I haven’t slept in like, two days.”
He looked like it. “What did you say to your parents?” I was so worried for him and his future. This was the last thing I had wanted him to do.
“I explained everything to them. I told them that you meant more to me than their offer and I left.”
“But your dream,” I protested softly.
“You’re my dream,” he countered, his words filling me with lightness and hope. “I told them that if the only way they were willing to fund the center was if I stayed on the boat, I would figure out a way to do it on my own. Plus, I know lots of rich people who are looking for tax breaks.”
He was right. I had once sworn that I’d never take out a loan or work with a rich person and yet here I was. There could be another path for Hunter, too. “I happen to know one who has decided he’s in the business of helping people achieve their dreams,” I said.
He nodded, since he knew exactly who I was talking about, given that he was the one who had sent Rodney to me.
“Thank you for that,” I said. “Sending Rodney here.”
“You deserve to have your dream, too,” he said. “I wasn’t going to let you lose that.”
I loved him so much.
“Back to what I was saying, when I talked to my parents, my dad accused me again of not finishing what I started. And this time he’s right. I don’t want to finish what I started with you. I don’t want it to ever be over between us.”
That fluttering in my belly increased to full-on flapping. “Oh.”
“When I first met you,” he said as he took a step closer to me, “I could see how hard you were fighting, how you wanted to be stronger than the panic attack, and I admired you for it. I still do admire you. I think you’re one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met. Sometimes I think you can’t possibly be real and that I must have made you up.”
“I know exactly what you mean.”
That earned me a tired but hopeful smile. “You took my breath away that first day and I felt like I haven’t caught it since. I also knew that you deserved better than me. But I didn’t want to see you with someone else, so I tried to become better for you. Even when you left, I thought I had to open the center and become successful to be good enough for you. But then I realized that the only thing I wanted from you was you. And I hoped that just me would be enough for you.”
How could I have ever doubted this man?
“That night I saw you sitting with Rodney ... it did something to me,” he went on. “You are so kind and caring, and even though I’d already been falling for you, that was when I completed the journey. I realized that I was in love with you. You are the kind of person I want in my life. The kind of person I can see building a future with.”
This was so much more than I had expected him to say.
Another step closer. “I have a lot of regrets in my life, Lucky. After I lost Harper, I discovered that I have this tendency to hold on too tightly to things that matter to me. I was worried that I was doing that with you, which was why I backed off and didn’t chase after you. Made sure to give you space. I wish that I had walked off the boat with you. I hope you’ve figured out whatever you need to because I want to be with you. And I’m afraid this time I’m going to hold on as tight as I can.”
Again Hunter was being honest and up front about what he wanted. He wasn’t playing games or making me be vulnerable first. He was putting his whole heart on the line for me. That was how much he loved and trusted me. I had been the worst kind of fool.
“You know nothing happened with Emilie, don’t you?” he asked.
“Yes,” I immediately responded. I had to take a step back because he was close enough now that it would take very little for us to be touching. And the second he touched me, this would all be over. There were things that I needed to say first.
“I don’t like how I reacted,” I confessed to him. “I should have immediately believed you. I know who you are and I know that you wouldn’t cheat on me. I’m sorry that I didn’t realize it right away. That’s not how you should treat someone you love.”
He startled slightly, as if my words surprised him.
“You gave me your trust so easily and I held back,” I said. “Some part of me didn’t want to believe in you, in us, and I expected to get hurt. I was always trying to protect myself instead of opening up to what you offered. And so when the worst happened, it was like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Which wasn’t fair to you.”
I let out a deep sigh, feeling ashamed of my actions where he was concerned. “I wouldn’t blame you for being angry with me.”
“I was never angry with you,” he interjected.
“Georgia accidentally got in my head,” I said. “I think she was trying to be helpful, but she made me second-guess everything, including myself. She suggested that the only reason you liked me was because you’d had to chase me, and it messed with my head.”
“Lucky, if you’d pulled me into your bed the first night, I would still be here, wanting you. Loving you. I didn’t fall for you because you made me pursue you. I love you because of who you are.”
My throat went tight, and my chest ached. I wanted to cry. “Well, I need for you to know that I won’t do something like that again. I want you to be able to trust in me the way that I trust you.”
“I know that’s hard for you,” he said. “To trust someone else.”
“When it comes to you? It’s not. I’m sorry that it took me this long to figure it out. I should have met you in Portofino. I shouldn’t have doubted you. I’m sorry that I did.”
“Your sister told me about them telling you to come home. I know you needed a safe place to land and to think. I’m glad you have them back in your life. I would have come with you if you’d asked. I have missed you so much these last two weeks.”
I had missed him, too. “I didn’t want you to lose your job, and I think deep down I knew you’d come with me, too.”
“My Lucky,” he said, reaching for me, and this time I let him. He held me to him tightly, like he was never going to let me go again. “Always sacrificing for the people you love. You don’t have to do that for me anymore. I will always be there for you.”
I spoke into his shoulder. “We’re going to fill in each other’s gaps, remember? You sacrifice for me and I’ll sacrifice for you. Because we love each other.”
His arms tightened around me. “I’ve been worried for the last couple of weeks that you would realize you didn’t love me. You don’t know how relieved I am to hear you say it.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “How could I not love you, Hunter Cartwright? You are practically perfect. Plus, you shouldn’t be catastrophizing things and imagining the worst-case scenario.”
“You’re right,” he said in that teasing tone I loved.
I pulled my head back so that I could gaze into those bright blue eyes of his that I loved so much. “I know I’m a messed-up chocolate chip cookie, and I’m hoping that’s good enough for you. Or that we can start the recipe over again.”
“You are the best chocolate chip cookie ever,” he insisted, kissing the tip of my nose. “There’s no reason to start over when you came out perfect.”
Neither one of us was perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I supposed that was what love did. It polished over the rough spots so that even good enough chocolate chip cookies seemed like the absolute best.
“I just wish that my heart didn’t have so many dents and bruises,” I said. “I wish I could have been more open from the beginning.”
This time he kissed my forehead. “Those dents and bruises make you who you are, and I love who you are. And I don’t ever want to be apart from you again. This was ...”
“Torture?” I finished.
“Yes,” he said. “I hated it.”
“Me too. So now what?”
“Right now or in the near future now?”
“Near future now,” I said.
“East Haven is not too far from some great places where I could set up the center. Plenty of acreage and farmland.” I knew he wanted a lot of land for horses, another thing his sister had loved.
“You’re staying here?”
He gave me a funny look. “I’m staying wherever you are and we’ll figure the rest out.”
“I love you,” I said, the feelings washing through me all over again.
“And I love you,” he said, grinning. I had missed his smile so very much. It was like the sun returning after a week’s worth of rain. “So as far as grand romantic gestures go, how was this one?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I think it was a little lackloyster.”
“Lucky! An oyster pun?”
“I’ve been saving it for a special occasion.” And things didn’t get more special than this moment with him. “And I can explain why it was hilarious in case you didn’t catch it.”
“Are you going to clamsplain your jokes to me now? Or should we just shellibrate the way I’ve converted you?”
“I’m so lucky that I get to love you,” I said.
He nodded, serious. “I am something of an expert on love, did you know that?”
“You are?”
“Yes. And this, right here, is love.”
I laughed and shook my head. “Since we’ve got the near future now sorted out, what about the right now, Mr. Expert?”
“It depends. How long are we going to be alone for?”
My heart sped up, my skin tingling with anticipation. “Rose is at work and Lily walks really, really slowly. So we have time.”
A wicked grin. “Good. Because I need to show you just how much I’ve farfallen for you. I’m tortellini in love with you, Lucky Salerno.”
Then he had me flat on my back on the couch so quickly that it took me a second to catch my breath. “I’m setting myself up for a lifetime of nothing but puns, aren’t I?”
He nodded as he settled himself on top of me, kissing me slowly, in a tantalizing way that made every cell in my body light up with joy. “You are.”
“I guess that makes me the luckiest girl in the world.”
Hunter kissed the underside of my jaw. “I’m happy that I’m finally allowed to say that I’m getting Lucky.”
That made me laugh again. “I love you more than pasta and sugar.”
He stopped and stared down at me, the delight in his eyes evident. “Now that’s true love.”
“I also love your puns,” I said, stroking the side of his face.
He turned to catch my palm and put a kiss there. “I know.”
Then he proceeded to kiss me and throw every pun he could think of at me. “Bouy meets gull, harboring strong feelings, setting us up for a true row-mance, after we’ve been through hull and back. It’s been quite an oar-deal, but we both know that you bow-long with me.”
“I think you’re the only man in the world who could make puns sexy.”
He kissed me thoroughly, deeply, leaving me lightheaded. “Are you sure you don’t want me to stop?”
“Never,” I said. “Because our story has a ferry-tale ending.”