Chapter 20
MAKE ROOM FOR ME
Kenzie made her way to get her luggage. Two large bags that didn’t match that she’d bought secondhand.
With no income, her credit cards couldn’t afford to take another hit.
The past few days she kept asking herself if this was the right thing to do.
There was a tiny part of her that felt trapped with no way home if it didn’t work out.
She couldn’t tell her parents that. They didn’t have the means to give her anything and she wouldn’t ask either. Not after spending a few days there and seeing what she had.
She had so many burdens on her mind, but the biggest was what she’d discovered while packing up her life.
She’d gone into her father’s office to get some tape. She opened a few drawers, found some papers she shouldn’t have looked at and saw the second mortgage he’d taken out on the property years ago.
After her mother started working at the church.
It might explain her father’s comments about debt and chasing the dollar.
Why he was working so hard.
There was no way her mother knew about this. She was the one more obsessed with debt than him.
He’d never tell her and worry her more.
Kenzie supposed she got her pride and stubbornness from her dad.
And it just reaffirmed her decision to push that pride and ego aside and try to make this work with Nelson.
She wouldn’t take his money. Never. But letting him “take care of her” gave her some freedom with her income to help her parents. Somehow.
One conversation she’d have to have with Nelson. She’d be honest and upfront when the time came.
Nelson paid for her flight and even that irked her, but she knew he worried she’d change her mind if he didn’t take care of everything.
Even down to her dropping off the rest of her possessions to be shipped yesterday. She’d been told they’d be at Nelson’s on Saturday.
Her first bag came around the turntable, then the second two minutes later.
She elbowed her way through the crowd and hoped not to run anyone over while she tried to find her husband.
She came to a dead standstill to see him standing there with a sign over his head that said, “Welcome home, wifey.”
She hadn’t been positive anything could make her smile after this trip. Or even laugh.
But that did both.
He set the sign against the wall, stepped toward her, lifted her into his arms, and kissed her hard. Then he spun her once making her feel as if she’d been gone for years, not just five days.
“I didn’t expect this kind of a welcome,” she said, returning his hug and kiss. “It makes me think you thought I wouldn’t show up.”
“I knew you’d be here,” he said. “I’m too irresistible.”
“You are,” she said. Her heart, which had been pounding all day as she faced the shifting of her life, quickened once more. Not with fear, but with a surge of happiness, excitement, and maybe, just maybe, a flicker of hope.
“You’ve got to be tired and hungry,” he said.
“I ate on the plane. You didn’t need to buy me first class. What a waste of money.”
“It’s my money to waste. Stop. I know how long and hard of a flight it is and I wanted you to be comfortable.”
“I appreciated it.”
She’d confessed that she’d never flown before. Just one more fear that she had. Her first flight being so long.
He grabbed both of her bags, but she snagged one back. The last thing she wanted was a tug of war in the airport, but he let her go.
The walk to his car was long and somehow she wasn’t surprised to see him getting into a Mercedes sedan.
“I don’t want you to feel as if you’ve got to do anything tonight. Like unpack much or anything. We’ve got all day tomorrow and the weekend. I’ve got everything you need in terms of bathroom stuff.”
She wanted to argue with him when he asked for it, but it would be stupid to pack those things up. Open and used, making a mess in her luggage if they spilled. Heck, she didn’t even know if she would have been allowed to pack it.
There were things she had to tell herself not to argue about and that was one of them.
They hadn’t talked about finances once and her parents got in her head some. She was wondering if maybe he was in debt. Or he was living beyond his means.
Then she had to remind herself who his brother was and that he worked for the guy.
It’s not as if she felt she could ask him how much he made, what was in his savings, or anything like that.
It wasn’t her place and it’d sound greedy, as if she had some end game she professed wasn’t in her plans.
The drive to Nelson’s took over an hour and she got her first taste of big city traffic.
“Driving here is going to take some getting used to,” she said.
“It does. Don’t feel you’ve got to. I can drive us, you can take the subway, a taxi, Uber or one of West’s drivers. He’s got two. One is for him and Abby and the other is for any of us that need it.”
“That’s very generous of him,” she said. “But I doubt they want to go to New Jersey for us.”
“Laken and Jamie live about ten minutes further away from me. They use it a lot, or Jamie has another service. Sometimes they use Jamie’s service to get into the city, then West’s driver to get home.”
She knew all of his siblings now. Who everyone’s significant other was on top of it.
Jamie Wilde was the most well-known, and the thought of meeting them this weekend was making her nervous.
She had days yet to worry about that, with West, Braylon, Foster who was coming in from Merrick Bay and everyone’s spouses.
Her brothers- and sisters-in-law.
Just the thought of that had her giggling in the car.
“Sorry,” she said when Nelson looked at her.
“What’s funny?”
“Just thinking that I’ve got all these in-laws. It’s a lot for someone who is an only child.”
“It’s loud and crazy. Most of the significant others have small families.
Braylon’s wife has three siblings, but no one who lives close by and she’s really only close with her sister in Lake Placid.
Abby has one sister, Jamie has a sister somewhere in the south, I forgot.
Charlotte has a sister on Amore Island, Phoebe has two brothers in Charlotte, Saylor has a sister in Tucson, and Jace has two sisters in Fayetteville. ”
“Still a lot more than me. No one is an only child who grew up on a small farm. I keep wondering what I got myself into.”
He reached his hand over. “Hey. It’s going to be fine. Trust me. We don’t judge. No one does. I know it’s a lot to take in, but I don’t want you to feel that way.”
Easier said than done, but there wasn’t much more to say or even worry about tonight.
Talking to Aileen Carlisle on Sunday had actually calmed her more than she thought. Nelson later confessed his mother wasn’t thrilled about the news, but she was more upset that three of her other children had kept it from her.
And that his mother would be nice and accepting at first, because she’d want to see it work.
That only meant that maybe other things were said behind closed doors she wasn’t supposed to know or hear.
Nelson pulled into a complex of rather large modern townhouses. This was where she was going to live?
They each looked bigger than the farmhouse she grew up in.
The garage door opened and he parked inside, then shut the car off.
She unbuckled and got out, her nerves gathering steam over her new home.
The minute he opened the door into a mudroom, she closed her eyes and let out a sigh.
It didn’t really look as if a single dude lived here.
Well, he wasn’t single anymore. Not that either of them had their wedding bands on, but hers was in her purse.
It had no monetary value, but she couldn’t leave it behind.
“This is nice,” she said.
She’d taken her shoes off and moved into the hall some more and out into a kitchen that was open and wide, leading past a table with six chairs, and into a family room with the biggest sectional she’d ever seen facing a fireplace and a massive TV off to the side on the wall.
“Thanks. It was new when I bought it. I got to pick the colors. It’s kind of boring to some.”
“I like it.”
Everything was gray and white. Modern. She’d never lived in anything modern in her life.
This felt clean, fresh, and almost... calming rather than sterile.
An odd thought, but maybe it was because she hadn’t known what to expect.
Her mind went to dark browns, black leather, dartboards, maybe even a pool table in place of a table in a dining room.
He pulled her luggage on the hardwood floors as he had them both now. She was spending more time looking around.
“Half bath there,” he said. “Laundry past it.”
She popped her head in and then saw the door on the other side. “So you go through the bathroom to get to it.”
“Yeah. I thought it’d be neat and then wished I didn’t do it that way. It’s fine.”
“It’s only you.”
“No. It’s you too,” he said, leaning down to kiss her quickly.
“It is,” she said.
“My office is here,” he said. “You’re going to want a place to study and work, so I put a desk in the spare room upstairs. Do what you want to it to make it comfortable.”
They went up the stairs, him carrying one bag, while leaving the other downstairs. Probably didn’t want it bopping on the stairs.
Her head went into the spare room. It was huge. “Does it have its own bathroom too?”
“Yep,” he said. “Check it out.”
She moved in and looked at the full bath. It had a shower and tub combo unit with pretty blue and white tiles on the walls in the tub.
The walls were gray, the vanity a dark blue like the tiles, the counter the same gray and white stone as on the kitchen island. She wasn’t fancy enough to know if it was quartz or granite. She didn’t even care.
All she knew was it wasn’t old laminate like her apartment or scarred butcher block like on the farm.
“The colors are calming in here. I’m surprised you picked it out.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be that dark of a blue, but I went with it. Just wanted something different from the gray.”
“It’s pretty. I like the colors.”
His lips twisted some. “Then you’re not going to like our room.”
She liked how easily he said “our” rather than his room.
A few more steps brought her into their room. Dark green on the walls. More like an olive color, which she had to admit she hadn’t expected.
“This is nice,” she said. “It’s not dark as much as moody. Might fit if you’re a moody person.”
He put her bag on the floor. “I can be. Or so I’ve been told. Closet through there, then bathroom.”
She popped her head into the walk-in closet and saw one wall completely bare. “Did you make room for me?”
Talk about super sweet.
“Of course. I moved stuff I don’t wear as much into the other room. There is space in there for you too.”
She moved over and put her arms around him from behind. “Thank you. I know you’re trying to make it as comfortable as possible. But I don’t have nearly the clothes that you do.”
“I want you to feel at home here. I mean it.”
“I worried, but I already do.”
He turned so that she had her head against his chest. “Don’t worry. I know it’s easy for me to say. I’m used to living here, in this city, moving around the area, even in this space. But I want you to feel the same ease as I do. The same comfort level as me.”
“I want that too,” she whispered and closed her eyes, then just held on.
This was where she belonged. Pressed against him, wrapped in the strength of his arms where the world fell away and everything felt right.
The knowledge of that scared her more than this move ever could.