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When We Found Home(64)



“And you wanted to wait until August,” she gasped. “Stupid man.”

He began to laugh and she joined in. As he drew her next to him and hung on as if he would never let go, she realized that sometime in the past few weeks, she’d given her heart to this man. After all she’d been through, she was happy to know she’d healed enough to fall in love. Life really was a miracle.





chapter twenty-eight

“Are you listening to me?” Paulo asked in frustration as they stood in the warehouse. “This is about work. You should care.”

“I care.” Sort of, Santiago thought with a grin. He did care about work but after last night it was hard to think about anything but Callie. Their time together had been incredible. She had been incredible.

“We caught the guy stealing,” his brother said. “There were a half dozen boxes in his truck. He says he was set up, but who admits they’re guilty even when they’re caught?”

“You’re right. Good work, Paulo.”

His brother stared at him. “What’s going on with you? There’s something. I can tell.”

“Nothing I want to talk about.”

Not with anyone. Callie was too special. He wanted to keep what had happened to himself. Not just that they were now lovers, but what it all meant. He’d known one day he was going to find the right woman and he had. She was perfect and he was going to do everything in his power to not screw up.

“You’ve always been weird, man,” his brother said. “But this is bad, even for you.”

“I can live with that.”

* * *

It had been a great week, Callie thought, treating herself to an Uber ride home from her driving test. Her first night with Santiago, followed by a second and a third. She’d taken last night off so she could catch up on sleep before her driving test today. Which she’d passed.

She pulled out her temporary license to stare at it again. The picture was grainy and not her best, but who cared—she had her license!

Until coming to Seattle, she’d pretty much given up on second chances, but here she was getting a do-over. She’d been blessed and she knew it.

The driver pulled into the driveway. Callie collected her backpack, thanked him and got out, only to stumble to a stop at the edge of the circular drive.

Right in front of the steps was a car she’d never seen before. It was blue and beautiful and there was a huge red bow on the front windshield. Even as she struggled to comprehend what it meant, her heart knew. It just knew.

The front door opened and Keira burst out.

“You’re here! You’re here! You passed, didn’t you? I know you did.” She raced over and hugged her. Malcolm, Carmen and Grandfather Alberto followed.

Callie tried to catch her breath. “You bought me a car?”

Malcolm shrugged. “Your grandfather, Keira and I bought it together. For you.”

“I picked the color,” Keira told her. “It’s called Lapis Blue Pearl. Isn’t it pretty? And the interior is brown and it has lots of safety features Malcolm can tell you about, but I picked the color.”

Her grandfather pulled her close, then passed her to Malcolm. Seconds later, Keira joined them and Callie found herself enveloped in a group hug that had her chest tightening to the point where she couldn’t breathe.

“I don’t understand,” she whispered as her eyes burned. Happy tears, she thought. When was the last time she’d had happy tears?

“It’s a car,” Carmen said with a laugh. “How can you not understand?”

“But...” It was too much. It was a wonderful gift. They’d thought about her and planned for her and she just had never thought anything like that would ever happen again.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Carmen and Grandfather Alberto went back inside. Malcolm had Callie sit in the front seat while he sat on the passenger side and Keira leaned over from the back.

“We’ll take this slow,” he told her, handing her the keys. “This is a Subaru Outback with all-wheel drive. You’ll be safe in all the rain we get around here.”

“And the snow,” Keira said. “We get snow sometimes and with all the hills, it’s really slippery. Tell her about the lane change thingies. It’s so cool.”

“You have a blind spot indicator. If you put on your signal to change lanes and there’s a car in the way, you’ll hear a beep. If you start to drift out of your lane, you’ll be notified. There are a lot of safety features you can read about.” He winked. “I paid for the first year’s insurance. After that, you’re on your own.”

She had a car. That was hard enough to grasp, but even more important, she had a family. She looked at Keira’s freckles, exactly like her own, and the smile she and Malcolm shared and wished desperately that her mother was still with her.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” she admitted. “This is wonderful.”

“Let’s go get mani-pedis,” Keira suggested. “That would be really fun.”

Malcolm shook his head. “Not for me.”

“Have you ever had a mani-pedi?” Keira asked. “You might like it a lot.”

“I’m willing to take the risk of missing out.”

“You’re scared.”

“Not that I’ll admit to you, munchkin.”

Malcolm explained the rest of the features of the car to Callie. Eventually Keira went inside to hang out with Lizzy until it was mani-pedi time. Malcolm insisted on accompanying Callie on her first drive and made her promise to let him know when she needed gas. He was going to show her how to fill the tank herself.

Later, as the nail technician applied bright green polish to her toes, Callie reached for her sister’s hand. Keira squeezed her fingers and laughed at her own purple polish.

“Thank you,” Callie whispered, acknowledging all the gifts she’d been given. Her family, Santiago and the promise of a new future. Finally, finally, everything was going to be just fine.

* * *

Delaney half expected Chelsea not to show. She’d texted her friend and invited her over for coffee. Chelsea had taken two days to get back to her, but in the end, she’d agreed. Delaney’s doorbell rang right at three o’clock on Saturday afternoon.

She felt more than a little apprehensive as she answered the door. They stared at each other for a couple of seconds before Chelsea walked in.

“I can’t remember the last time I was at your place. It doesn’t look all that different.”

“I painted a couple of walls,” Delaney said. “Otherwise, it’s the same.”

They went into the living room and sat across from each other. Their gazes met, then skittered away. Delaney knew she had to make the first move, only she didn’t know what that was.

“I’m sorry,” she began. “About us not being close anymore. I never meant to drift away. I’m still not sure what exactly happened. For some reason every time there’s a life change for me, I think I cut people off. I don’t know why. Guilt maybe? Fear of being judged. I don’t want to be that person, yet here I am.”

Chelsea looked at her. “I’m sorry, too. I could have tried harder to stay in touch. It’s just I was so jealous and angry.”

“What?”

“Oh, come on. You were always the smartest of all of us. You’re pretty and funny. You could have been anything or married anyone. You wanted a big, fancy career and you made it happen. I got married at nineteen and popped out a couple of babies. Even a stray cat can do that.”

“I’m not sure cats are allowed to get married.”

Chelsea smiled. “You know what I mean. I’m sorry about what I said about you not being good enough. That was about my insecurities, not anything you did.”

“But you have Isaac and the kids.”

“Sometimes I want to put on a suit and go to an office. Sometimes I want to be more than somebody’s wife and mother.”

Things Delaney had never considered. “Sometimes I want somebody to love me,” she admitted. “Tim wasn’t right for me. Not for a long time.”

“I know. I could see that. What I didn’t understand is why you didn’t let him go.”

“I don’t have an answer to that.” It was something Delaney had been wrestling with. Why hadn’t she just moved on? “I think maybe he was my only connection to the past. Without him, I didn’t have an anchor. When I moved out of the neighborhood, I left everyone behind. He kept me grounded.”

“He also got in the way of what you wanted.” Chelsea looked a little chagrined. “He talked to me some. I know he wasn’t very supportive of what you wanted. I was selfish enough to be glad at least your relationship wasn’t perfect.”

Delaney wondered what else her fiancé had said, then told herself it didn’t matter. Not now. He was gone and she was doing her best to figure out her life.

“Nothing about me is perfect,” Delaney said, trying to sound like she wasn’t breaking apart inside.

“Oh, I don’t know. My mom always held you up as an example of what I was supposed to be. Every time we went somewhere without you, that’s all I heard.”

Chelsea’s words sparked a memory—of Delaney standing on the sidewalk, watching her friend and her family drive away. It wasn’t that they were moving or anything that dramatic, it was just that they were going somewhere together and Delaney was being left behind.