Chapter 17 #2
Taylor wasn’t sure she’d ever seen so many stars. Or maybe it just seemed that way because everything seemed brighter and better when she was with Justin.
“Do you remember that night we snuck past the fence at the Dish and spent the night gazing at stars?” The hiking trails on the edge of the Stanford campus had been named for the massive high-powered antenna that had been installed at the top of the hill in 1962.
“I was just thinking the same thing,” he said, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “I nearly told you that night.”
She shifted to look at him. “Told me what?”
“That I loved you. That I’d always loved you. That I always would.”
Her heart melted, and when she kissed him, she couldn’t hold back. Before she knew it, she actually had started to climb into his lap, family-friendly trip be damned.
The sound of a throat clearing had her jumping back into her seat, cheeks flaming. Justin, on the other hand, looked extremely pleased with himself.
The waiter did an impressive job of keeping a straight face. “Everything we will be serving you tonight is made from local ingredients. To begin, an amuse-bouche made of local butternut squash and zucchini.”
Taylor’s stomach growled, and she realized she’d barely eaten all day.
She usually ate breakfast after her guests in the morning, but with her mother and Bruce there, she’d been in a rush to get things worked out with them.
And then they’d gone to meet with Debra in Yountville before coming back to put on tea for her guests.
Altogether, she’d nibbled only some scrambled eggs in the morning and then half a cookie in the afternoon.
Having promised everyone from Justin to her mother to her doctors that she would take good care of herself, she should dig in. But first she needed Justin to know something. “I nearly did the same thing that night up at the Dish. I was this close to blurting out my feelings for you.”
“You were?” He looked stunned. “How the hell could I have been so blind? If I’d had even the slightest inkling that you felt the way I did…”
“I’ve always been good at hiding my feelings, at pushing them away when they feel too big or too hard to deal with.
” She swallowed hard. “Sometimes, I’m afraid I’m going to fall back into that pattern.
Even this afternoon, I was so ready to escape reality that I made you promise to act like none of it is happening, to pretend that everything is sunshine and butterflies and rainbows. ”
He lifted her hands to his lips and pressed a kiss to each of her palms. “I agree that we shouldn’t hide our feelings, and we shouldn’t pretend we’re not dealing with some massive decisions.
But I don’t want us to stop seeing sunshine, butterflies, and rainbows either.
That’s what happened to my dad after my mom died, and I know she wouldn’t have wanted to see him like that.
And, if I’m being totally honest, that’s what happened to me in Frankfurt. ”
Before she could ask what he meant, the waiter returned with their salads. As soon as they were alone again, she said, “You haven’t talked much about Germany, but I thought it was good for you. I thought you were doing work you wanted to do.”
“I was. I am.” But that spark she was so used to seeing in his eyes dimmed as he told her, “I let it consume me. I was more than happy to let my work, my research, take the place of everything I no longer had. My colleagues were pleased by my fervor and endless energy, at least in the first couple of years.”
“Then what happened?” She could see this wasn’t easy to talk about, and she was proud of him for doing it anyway.
He stared out the window, but she knew he wasn’t seeing the Napa Valley night. “It crept up on me, how tired I felt. How uninspired.”
“But you didn’t take a break to recharge?”
He shook his head. “My colleagues kept inviting me to join the local soccer team, or to meet up with them at the biergarten. But I couldn’t stop thinking about all the work that wouldn’t get done.
And I kept telling myself we were almost there with our research, that we’d nail it if I just spent a few more hours every day.
So I blocked myself off from everyone and everything but the lab and my research and ended up getting grouchy and short with everyone.
Sleep eluded me more and more too, and even the things I used to enjoy doing, like hiking and woodworking, lost their pull.
My goal to find a cure for breast cancer became my only reason to get up in the morning and the reason I wouldn’t let myself go to sleep at night.
” His expression was grim as he said, “The thing is, it wasn’t just about the work.
About finding the cure. It was about hiding.
From my feelings about losing my mom. And from my feelings about you.
Because I knew you would never be mine…and I couldn’t stand the thought of a life without you. ”
“I was hiding too,” she admitted. “In my relationship with Bruce. In a job I didn’t want. In a life my parents had mapped out for me because otherwise they would worry. It wasn’t until I got sick that I had to stop making them my excuse for always playing it safe and being a coward.”
“A coward?” He said it as though nothing could be further from the truth.
“Do you know what my mother always used to say about you?” When she shook her head, he smiled.
“She thought you were the bravest woman in the world to throw yourself into the mix with us Morrisons. And then later, when you would spend all those hours with her in the hospital, she would say it again and again—that you were the only person she wasn’t related to who had the guts to come and be with her.
” Justin lifted his hand to Taylor’s cheek.
“You were never afraid. And we all loved you more than ever for that. For being there for her when everyone else fled.”
“I loved your mom.” There were tears in Taylor’s eyes, and she had a big lump in her throat. “I wanted to be with her.”
“I love you.” Justin’s words were as sincere as any she’d heard him speak.
And then, before she realized it, he was slipping out of his chair, getting down on one knee, and reaching into his pocket for a small, velvet-covered box.
“Taylor Cardenes, I’ve known from the first moment I met you that I wanted you to be mine. Will you marry me?”