Read, Write, Love at Seaside(86)
“No. It’s my turn to talk.”
His serious tone caught her off guard. She closed her mouth.
“You are my apple cart.”
He said it so seriously that she thought she misunderstood him. What was it with food analogies all of a sudden?
“What?”
“You are my apple cart. You haven’t ruined anything. You’ve made my life better in every way. I told you I’m not going anywhere, and I’m not.”
“But being apart is hard.” So hard I can’t stand it.
“Most things in life that are worth anything at all are hard.”
She narrowed her eyes and couldn’t suppress the lascivious thought or the smile that accompanied it. “Well, I know at least one thing that is…”
“There’s my dirty girl,” he said in a seductive voice.
“Ugh! Not helping. Now I miss you even more. This is totally sucky.” She drank in everything she could see. His dark eyes, so full of want and love she could practically taste it, the peppering of stubble along his jaw and above the swell of his upper lip. The way his dark brows knitted together—just a little—when he spoke. She wanted to touch his face, to feel his lips on hers. She wanted to hug him and sit beside him while he wrote. She wanted to see him plotting and creating, too deep in thought to look away from his computer.
“Leanna.”
His voice pulled her from her thoughts.
“Right this very second I can see your face. I can hear your voice.” His voice was sweet and patient. “This moment is anything but sucky. You know what’s sucky? Losing the person you love.”
“Yeah, that would really suck. I guess perspective is everything.”
“You know what else?”
Pepper ran to the screen door and began pawing at it and barking.
“Pepper, shush.” Leanna turned her attention back to Kurt. “Sorry. He’s going bonkers. I don’t know how you got him to listen.” She turned her back to Pepper to try to hear Kurt better.
Pepper whined, scratching at the door.
“I’ve got to let him out. Pepp—” She spun around. Her eyes filled with tears at the sight of Kurt standing on the other side of the screen door, a bouquet of wild roses in one hand, the phone in the other.
“Hey, babe,” he said casually, as if he’d just come back from walking Pepper and not just walked back into her life from halfway across the United States.
She burst through the door, jumped into his arms, and wrapped her legs around his waist. “You’re here. You’re rea—”
He dropped the phone and the flowers, cupped the back of her head and took her in the sweetest kiss she’d ever tasted. Pepper ran around them in circles, barking and whining and pawing at Kurt’s legs.
“You are my moment, Leanna. If you’re here, I want to be right here with you. Every minute of every day.”
“Here?”
He kissed her again. “Here.”
“But New York?” She couldn’t believe he was there. He looked so tired, and he held her like she was light as air.
“Would be torture without you.”
AN HOUR LATER Kurt lay on his back in Leanna’s bed. Her head rested on his chest, her arm was draped over his stomach, and he’d never felt happier in all his life. A gentle breeze swept the curtains away from the window.
“Uh-oh,” he whispered.
“What?”
“We left the window open again.” He kissed the top of her head.
“Tony’s not here. He went to Nantucket.” She leaned up on her elbow. “So we can be as loud as we want.”
“Does that mean we can chunky-dunk, too?”
“Only if you’re very…” She kissed Kurt’s chin. “Very.” She kissed his lips. “Good.”
“That sounds like an invitation to me.” He touched his lips to hers again, intending to be far better than good. Again.
Chapter Thirty-Two
MONDAY MORNING GREETED them with sunshine, a warm breeze, and surety. Kurt felt invigorated. Alive. He knew without a shadow of a doubt that he’d made the right decision coming back to the Cape. Coming back to Leanna. He’d thought writing was everything, and he’d been so wrong that it was almost embarrassing. He had a lot to learn about life, and he looked forward to experiencing and learning it all with Leanna.
He called Jackie and scheduled a Skype meeting instead of a person-to-person meeting. Jackie told him he was the last of the holdouts, that she met with most of her clients via Skype, and not to worry about moving out of New York. It wouldn’t have mattered what she said. He’d made up his mind, and his life was with Leanna, wherever that may lead them, and at the moment it was leading them to his cottage.