Chapter Thirty-Nine
LEE
Present Day
After the meetings ended on Friday afternoon, we scattered off in separate directions. A few guys rushed to catch flights home but there were still four of us who had later departures and I wasn’t leaving until tomorrow morning. We decided to go back to The Pub for a late lunch, still in our flight suits and starving because we hadn’t had anything since 9’oclock this morning. Since it was nice out, we sat outside at a patio table. We watched as locals scurried about their daily errands, going in and out of the small businesses in the town square.
Okay fate, if you were ever going to play a part in this, now is the time. I look around me and laugh at myself. I don’t know who I was kidding, there’s no such thing as fate and I’m not going to just run into my long lost love. It was a ridiculous thought.
Egin taps me on the arm when he hears my song playing over the restaurant’s outdoor speakers and Davis asks if they could turn it up. He tells the waitress that I wrote this song, and she looks over at me with wide eyes, “No Way! Are you serious?”
Heat rises to my face, and I can feel my cheeks redden as I smile at her and shrug my shoulders with a nod. She turns up the volume and gives us a thumbs up as she darts away to clear an empty table.
I’m caught up in the moment, the guys are singing the song and laughing, and I start singing it along with them until something no, someone, caught my eye.
AND
I’M
SLAMMED
A waitress from The Pub stops a woman on the sidewalk right outside the roped off section of our patio area. I can just barely hear their conversation. I’m watching them, leaning in further and listen: the waitress tells her she wants to make an appointment to discuss a renovation on her house when she has time. The woman nods and lets her know she’ll be back in the office next week. Then she glances quickly over at our table and back to the waitress. She asks what’s the occasion; why are there military guys out here. The waitress tells her we’re a group of guys here on business in the city, that we just finished with our meetings and got together for lunch and drinks before heading to the airport.
It can’t really be her, can it? She has the same look about her as Ellie did and I could be mistaken, but I think it might actually be her!
They finish talking and my eyes follow the woman to a shop that’s next door to where we’re seated. She unlocks the door and walks in, the closed sign swaying as it clicks shut.
I stop the waitress, grabbing her wrist, and she’s startled. I let go quickly and say, “I’m sorry, but do you know the woman’s name that you were just talking to?”
The shock dissipates, and she smiles, looking back at the shop.
“Yeah, everyone knows Ellie Michaels, she’s pretty big in our small town.”
I knock over my beer but pick it up before it spills.
“I’m sorry, excuse me.”
I jump out of my chair and Egin catches my arm.
“Dude, you okay? What has you spooked all of a sudden?”
“It’s her." I tell him and he lets go of my arm.
“Her, her? The song her?”
I nod.
“Well don’t just stand there, go!”
I jog over to the shop door and without hesitation, open it and walk right in. The door chimes and I hear her from the back of the shop,
“I’m sorry, we’re closed.”
I followed the direction of her voice and pushed through a warehouse door, stopping in my tracks as she turned to face me.
Like two stars in the summer night
Lost on their own, but shining bright
Together once more, in boundless flight
Our eyes locked and there was nothing else. She gasped and backed up into a table of lamps, knocking one over as it shattered on the concrete floor. I took a step toward her, and she shook her head, tears already streaming down her face. She removed the hand from her mouth and exhaled; my name was a whisper from her lips, “Lee?”
“Ellie Belly.”
I smiled and she rushed into my arms, sobbing, and shaking. I held her, breathing in the scent of her – she still smelled like watermelon and summer. God, it’s her, it’s really her!
“How? Is this real? Are you real?”
she pulled away from me, keeping her arms locked around my neck. My hands gripped her waist, and my legs shook, threatening to give out from the volume of blood coursing through my body as my heart pounded.
“It’s real, Ellie. God, you’re real. I’m here. I found you!”
My hand brushed the hair away from her eyes and I let my thumb graze her cheek. Her hand came up and pressed over mine, against her cheek and she closed her eyes. I leaned my forehead into hers and she looked up at me. The emotions flooded and her lips met mine, soft at first then hard and messy with need. We kissed and pushed and pulled against each other as if there hadn’t just been eighteen years between this moment and the last time our lips had touched.
It was fate. It was fate after all – Dane was right, the world wanted us to be together and this trip was a sign.
I had her backed up against the wall and her voice was quiet as she broke our kiss, “Lee,”
she whispers it against my lips and searched my eyes.
“I have to tell you something.”
Her fingers thread through my hair and I pull her against me, aware of every inch of her, the curves of her hips, the heat of her breath, the hitch in her voice as if something is wrong, something… God, don’t play this trick on me, don’t let her tell me she’s married.
I exhaled a rough, shaky breath and pulled my hips away from her, dropping my head so that my eyes were looking at our feet. She had gold sandals on, her toenails were painted pink. My eyes drifted up, and I shook my head.
“Please don’t tell me you’re married. Ellie, I don’t think I could bear to hear that.”
“I’m not married.”
I blew out a puff of air and she smiled.
I remember her smile.
Her smile still makes her eyes twinkle.
Her smile still makes me weak.
“But I do need to tell you something.”
She brought her hands down from my neck, lacing them into my mine between us and pulled me through the warehouse door. She led me into a small office, looking at me the whole time, while she walked backward. My eyes drifted to her hand, flickering in recognition of the silver ring I had given her that summer. It was there on her thumb – she kept it all these years. She picked up a picture frame from her desk, holding it in front of her, hesitating before turning it around and placing it into my hand where hers just was. She didn’t say anything while I looked at the picture.
It was a boy.
It was that boy.
The boy from the restaurant.
I looked at her and she could see the question playing on my face before I asked it.
“He’s yours, Lee. Dylan. He’s … our son.”
My fingers traced his face in the picture. That was why I thought I knew him. I have a son!
“We have a son?”
I ask her, the smile spreading as the realization hits me and she nods.
“He’s seventeen. He’s amazing. Oh my God, he’s so you!”
She’s laughing and she’s crying, and I put the picture of my son down and bring her to me.
My chin rested on top of her head as she laid her head against my chest, “I missed a lot. I’m so sorry, Ellie. There’s so much I need to tell you.”
She lifted her head and for the first time, noticed my flight suit. Her eyes flitted to my name patch, and she used her fingers to trace the letters – the letters of my fake name.
“McCormick?”
she asks, looking up at me.
“Part of the long story I need to fill you in on.”
I tell her, bracing myself for the explanation I had been holding onto for so long.
“Not yet.”
She shakes her head softly and lifts onto her tiptoes to kiss me again, sucking in my bottom lip and reinforcing the chemistry that once set me on fire.
I pinned her against the desk, my body pressed into hers, and I kissed a trail down her neck while her fingernails dug into the back of my suit.
“Tell me to stop, if you don’t want this.”
I tell her, nipping at her earlobe.
“Don’t stop.”
She breathes.
“Good. I’ve been waiting years to do this again.”
My voice is rough, dry as I swallow down the sight of her. My hand makes its way to the hem of her sundress, pushing it up to reveal her thighs and I kiss her hard.
“That’s all?” she says.
“Not even close.”
I trace my fingers across the lacy edge of her panties, and I’m suddenly brought back to that summer and our crazy, reckless love but this is more. It’s so much more.
She moans and pushes her hips toward me, giving me the permission I wasn’t asking for. Moving the bit of fabric out of the way, I swept my finger down the center of her, and she gasped. It was all I needed to hear, all I needed to know that we were wanting the same thing. My fingers found their way to her slick opening, and I watched her as I gradually drove them deeper and deeper until she broke, and I could feel that familiar tightening as I pushed her over the edge. My mouth covered hers until she came down, shuddering against my chest and I whispered in her ear, “I’ve got you, Ellie.”