Preston Brothers The Complete Series Read online

He had to be there.

  14

  “Listen, I know this probably sounds crazy.” Stephanie’s voice shook, and she struggled to get it under control. This was crazy. This was a crazy phone call to make, but she had no other choice. She had to do it. “But could Jasper and I crash with you for a couple of weeks while I find a job and a place to live?”

  “Of course,” Penny Preston said, her voice so warm and kind that Stephanie felt comforted all the way across the ocean. A little. “Drew and I have plenty of room, and Logan would love the company.”

  “Are you sure?” Stephanie looked out the window of the SUV that had brought them to the airport in Barcelona. “It’s awkward between Charlie and me right now, and I don’t want to put you two in the middle. I just—” Her throat tightened, nearly closing, and tears shot into the corners of her eyes. “I didn’t know who else to call on such short notice.”

  “You don’t have to worry,” said Penny. “Are you getting on the plane right now?”

  “They’re waiting for me.”

  “Then we can talk all of this through when you’re back in California. Or not. No pressure.” Penny laughed. “I’ll have our guest suite made up for you. Don’t spend another minute worrying about what you’re going to do, okay?”

  “Okay.” Stephanie hated how her voice trembled. “Talk soon.”

  She slipped her phone back into her purse and leaned back in her seat. Caroline and Jasper were already on the plane—she could see him through the window, his face pressed up against the glass. Old habits tugged at her from the back of her mind. A few years ago, she would never have called Drew’s wife. She would have gone back east and disappeared into the routine of toughing out her life by herself.

  She couldn’t do that anymore.

  “Thank you,” she told the driver, sitting up in a rush and pressing a tip over the divider and into his hand. “For being so patient.” It was time to go. Time to get the plane in the air. Stephanie picked up her bag, hitched it over her shoulder, and jogged to the plane.

  Jasper dozed off after an hour in the air, sprawled out on the plush leather sofa on one side of the plane. Stephanie took his tablet—another gift from Charlie—turned off the Daniel Tiger movie, and covered him with one of the deliriously soft blankets stocked on the plane. When she straightened up, tablet under her arm, her sister was staring at her.

  “What? It’s creepy when you look at me like that.”

  “I’m wondering what’s going on in that determined little mind of yours.”

  “Ha.” Stephanie let herself fall into the seat next to Caroline. “My mind is not little. It’s very expansive, as minds go.”

  “Oh, okay. Is that why it took you our entire vacation to figure out that you’re in love with Charlie Preston?”

  “I’m not—” The words came automatically, but the instant she said them, she knew they weren’t true. They weren’t true by a long shot. She rubbed at her forehead. “I guess I am in love with Charlie.”

  “Uh, yeah. You’re way in love with him.” Caroline shook her head. “Why couldn’t you have come to that conclusion before you spent two weeks moping about him?”

  “Because it’s a huge risk.” Fear swelled in Stephanie’s chest, but she tamped it down. “Loving someone like that. Depending on someone…” She put her hand to her throat to calm her breathing. Time to settle down. She’d made the decision. “It’s not easy.”

  Caroline put a hand on her arm. “I know. I think you’re being pretty brave.”

  They sat in silence, listening to the steady hum of the plane’s engines. Air whooshed by outside the windows. For a few hours, at least, they were free from all their worries on the ground.

  Or they would be, if Stephanie could put her mind at ease.

  “Honestly…I’m surprised,” said Caroline tentatively. “You’ve been working without a safety net for a long time.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Aren’t you…” Caroline chuckled. “Aren’t you worried you might lose your touch?”

  “Lose my touch?”

  “Get too used to depending on someone else?”

  Stephanie laughed. “Are you trying to talk me out of this?”

  “No, I’m just…trying to talk. We’ve got a long flight ahead of us, so we might as well hash out the details.” Caroline’s eyes sparkled.

  “I don’t know all the details, and…I’m used to that. I can roll with it. The scariest part…” There were a million terrifying parts about going back to Charlie. The biggest pit at the center of her gut came from the looming chance that Charlie might reject her. He might already have moved on. Or, worse, he might not be willing to forgive her for leaving. It was true that he’d asked her to go, but lots of things could have changed while she was out of the country. “The scariest part is that he might not want to be in our lives anymore.” There it was, that obnoxious tremble in her voice.

  “Yeah, right. A man who’s over you doesn’t let you fly home on his private jet. What’s your second-biggest fear?”

  “Letting someone in.” It scared the hell out of her. Even the thought of it felt like letting go of the steering wheel in the middle of the freeway. Exhilarating. Dangerous. And, in this case…necessary. “But I need to do it.” The admission took some of the tension out of her muscles. Stephanie hadn’t realized how tightly she’d been holding her shoulders until the moment she let them relax. “I really need to do it.”

  Caroline nudged her with an elbow. “You really do.”

  They sat together for another quiet minute. Stephanie took in the jet, with all its creamy leather and gleaming wood paneling. The flight attendant, in her navy uniform, moved back and forth in the tiny kitchen, glancing up every so often to see if they needed anything. The sky outside the window spread out into infinity.

  “So, what we’re going to do,” Stephanie said softly, “is go back to California and face the music.”

  “Will you stay there? Even if the worst happens?”

  Stephanie took a deep breath. “Yes. I want him in Jasper’s life, no matter what.” The rest of the tension went out of her body. It was peaceful, up in the air.

  Caroline reached over and squeezed her hand.

  The jet sat on the runway, swarming with people from the airport. Charlie could see the cleaning crew moving around inside. He jogged up the steps, bouquet of flowers in hand, and poked his head inside.

  She wasn’t there.

  “Mr. Preston.” The pilot stepped out from the cockpit and shook his hand. “Are you joining us on our flight back to California? Our replacement crew should be here any minute.”

  “Flight back to California?”

  The pilot cocked his head to the side. “I was under the impression you’d cleared the change in travel plans.”

  “I did, but—” Charlie shook it off. “That doesn’t matter. Where is Ms. Sugarman? And, yes, I’ll be joining you, but I need to talk to her.”

  “She and her boy went inside to go through customs and get a bite to eat.” The pilot flashed him a smile. “I heard mention of a snack bar in the private aviation building.”

  Charlie shouted his thanks over his shoulder and rushed inside.

  He could see them.

  Stephanie sat at a table in the waiting area, facing away from him, and Jasper stood next to the table, saying something into her ear. Stephanie looked down at him. He lifted a smaller purse from on top of her bag. She did a double take.

  Charlie felt her gasp more than he heard it. Stephanie was on her feet in an instant. She took Jasper by the hand and the two of them took off in the opposite direction.

  At that moment, a cluster of people cut in front of Charlie. He hopped to the side, only to get cut off by two pilots, each pulling a wheeled suitcase.

  His pulse thundered in his veins. What if he’d just witnessed Stephanie deciding to leave the airport behind? If she got out ahead of him and got into a cab, that was going to be it. He wasn’t going to stalk her. If she didn’t
want to be with him, he’d let her go.

  But she wasn’t gone yet.

  “Excuse me. Excuse me.” He made his way through the stream of people, all of them seeming to go in the opposite direction. “Stephanie!” He didn’t want to yell too loud and freak everybody out, but up ahead, Stephanie didn’t break her stride.

  It took everything in his body not to break into a full-out run. How could Stephanie power-walk that fast? It was incredible. Any other time, he’d have been able to appreciate it.

  They outside, and he picked up his pace. Losing sight of her spurred him on. Thirty seconds. Thirty seconds at most, and they could be gone. He bolted through the doors and spotted her heading toward the commercial aviation terminal.

  Stephanie raised an arm, called out, then sprinted away from him, toward the taxi line.

  He broke into a run.

  “Stephanie!”

  Her name tore from his throat before he could stop it.

  There was a silence all up and down the taxi line, and Stephanie turned around.

  “It’s Charlie!” Jasper’s small voice carried across that silence, and then the boy was running for him. At the last second, Charlie dropped the bouquet on the concrete and caught Jasper in midair. “Charlie! You came to see us!”

  “I did, buddy, I did.”

  Stephanie was coming now, along with another woman who looked a lot like her—her sister Caroline, probably. A thousand emotions flickered across Stephanie’s face. He recognized most of them from inside his own chest. She stopped a few feet away.

  “Hi,” she said.

  He had never been so aware of another pair of human beings as he was right now. Jasper breathed hard against him, his hot face against Charlie’s neck, and Stephanie was so real and gorgeous and here.

  “Hi,” he said gruffly.

  “Hey, Jasper, come hang with me a second.” Her sister stepped forward and took Jasper gently from his arms. “I’m Caroline, by the way.”

  “Charlie Preston,” he said, shaking her hand around Jasper’s back.

  “You found us,” said Stephanie. She handed the smaller bag she’d been carrying to her sister. That was the cause of the frantic chase across the airport.

  He couldn’t bear being this close and not touching her. He reached one hand to her cheek and stroked his knuckles against her soft, suntanned skin. “I didn’t have a plan. I just got on a plane and came here.”

  She tipped her head back and laughed, and it was the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard. “I can’t believe it,” she said. “Only I can, because I love you that much, too.”

  “I love you,” he said. “I do.” He wanted to sweep her into his arms and carry her off into the sunset. “And I want to be with you. I’ve been miserable without you.”

  “So have I.”

  “All over Europe,” said Caroline. “But I’ll butt out.” She moved a few feet away with Jasper.

  “I can’t believe you’re here,” said Stephanie, and she wrapped her arms around his waist, as if she couldn’t stand to be so far away, either. “I was going to come back to California and stay with your brother.”

  “My brother?”

  “Yes.” She looked into his eyes. “I’m moving to California. I’ll find a new job. But the most important thing to me is that you’re part of Jasper’s life.” Her eyes shone with tears. “We’re not complete without you. So here I am. I want to do this together. I want you to be in this with me.”

  He kissed her then, so deeply that the rest of the world fell away around them. There was nothing but Stephanie—Stephanie tasting his tongue, Stephanie making a soft sound that he caught in his throat, Stephanie yielding to him.

  “Wait,” she murmured. “What’s your plan for after this? I know you have one.”

  “No. I was serious. I have zero plans.” She laughed again, and a joy that felt like sunlight raced up his spine. “I don’t even have a hotel reservation. I didn’t pack a bag. When I heard you were coming back early, I ran out of my apartment and booked the first flight out. All I have is a private jet to take us wherever you want. And I mean it. Anywhere in the world, as long as we’re all together.”

  “You’d do that?” Stephanie breathed. “Can you live a life that doesn’t have a clear path? Will that…will that be too much for you, when it comes to your sobriety?”

  “The only thing that matters is being with you. I can handle anything else the world will throw at me. And…listen.” Stephanie’s eyes searched his. “I had an idea for a huge proposal with an orchestra and maybe even a flash mob, but forget all that.” He got down on one knee, right there on the concrete by the taxi line. “I love you to the ends of the Earth, Stephanie, and I want you to be my wife. Will you marry me?”

  “Yes,” she said, covering her mouth with her hand. “Yes!”

  He did sweep her off her feet then, and Caroline was back, and Jasper had his arms wrapped around both their legs. Stephanie lifted him up so that the three of them were on the same level.

  “Are we going to stay with Charlie again?” Jasper asked.

  “Yes, bud, we are. And you know what?” Stephanie cast a look at Charlie, a question in her eyes. He nodded without hesitation. “If you want, you can call him Dad. This is your dad, Jasper.”

  “I know,” said Jasper with a little shrug. “Hey, Dad? Are you going to get back on the plane with us? I want to see the clouds again. They look so cool.”

  “Of course we can,” Charlie said. “Let’s go right this minute.”

  Epilogue

  “That kid.” Stephanie stood outside the fence at the baseball field, arms crossed loosely over her chest, looking absolutely gorgeous. Charlie couldn’t take his eyes off her. “Reading a book in the dugout.” She pursed her lips, and he could tell she was thinking about calling out to their son, but then she shrugged. “If that’s how he plays T-ball, then so be it.”

  “He’s not technically playing T-ball,” said Charlie, putting a hand on the small of her back. It still thrilled him, even though they’d been back from their vacation for a month, that she was standing here next to him. It thrilled him every day. Every hour, even. “Plus, when he is playing, he’s getting so much better.”

  “Is our boy up to bat?” Drew’s voice came from over his right shoulder. He and Penny came to stand at the fence, Logan bouncing on the balls of his feet between them.

  “No!” cried Logan. “I’m not up to bat.”

  Penny ruffled his hair. “Our other boy. Your cousin. Steph, when are you going to send me your latest? You left me on a massive cliffhanger with that chapter last week.”

  “Soon,” Stephanie said, her smile even wider. She’d been writing lately, and Penny was her biggest cheerleader. Aside from Charlie, anyway.

  “He’s up!” Logan pointed.

  “Almost,” said Charlie.

  He’d taken Jasper to that first T-ball practice, but it was still a surreal feeling to watch his son take some practice swings under the guidance of the coach. His son. Playing T-ball.

  “I don’t think he’s having fun,” said Logan.

  “Shh.” Penny blushed. “He’s concentrating.”

  It didn’t matter at all that Jasper’s swings were still this side of timid, and that he didn’t seem to have the greatest control over the bat. He was out on the field, his book abandoned in the dugout. Charlie had never been prouder. His chest could hardly contain the feeling.

  “Nice job, buddy!” he called. Jasper didn’t look over, but he did smile down at his shoes.

  He whiffed his first swing, missing the ball entirely. The coach bent down and said something into his ear, and Jasper screwed up his mouth. He stepped forward, then back again, trying to line himself up, and then he took a mighty swing.

  The bat connected with the ball, the clear ping bright in the air, and Stephanie burst into applause and cheers. Jasper looked shocked. The coach, a grin on his face, pointed in the direction he was supposed to run. It took Jasper several beats to re
gister the instructions and then he tore off toward first base. He tripped halfway there, caught himself in mid-stumble, and shuffled the rest of the way. Once he got there, he looked back into the dugout.

  Stephanie laughed, her voice full of love and humor. “He’s already looking for his book, isn’t he?” She came down from the laugh with a sigh. “Not everybody’s a natural athlete. That’s okay.”

  “I might need to come up with a different plan if he’s not going to be a baseball star,” Charlie joked.

  “You and your plans,” said Drew. “Stephanie, are you aware of his spreadsheet?”

  “Which spreadsheet?” Stephanie still hadn’t taken her eyes off Jasper, and Charlie couldn’t blame her. “When it comes to Charlie, there are many, many spreadsheets.”

  All of them stopped to clap for the next kid up at bat.

  “I’m referring to the honeymoon spreadsheet. I caught him working on it at the office,” Drew said good-naturedly. “I’m sure he’s got it planned down to the second.”

  “Throw it away,” said Stephanie.

  Charlie whipped his head around to look at her. “What?”

  “Toss your honeymoon spreadsheet in the virtual garbage,” she said. “It’s hands off the honeymoon for you, buddy.”

  “I don’t know if I like the sound of that,” said Charlie with a laugh. “I’ve already done extensive research into—”

  “Nope.” Stephanie was adamant. “Plan the wedding if you want to. You can even choose my dress.” Penny interjected with a soft oooh. “But the honeymoon adventure is mine, all mine.”

  Charlie considered this. “I do want to plan the wedding so that—”

  “It all goes according to plan,” said Stephanie. “I know that about you, my love.” She rose on tiptoe and kissed his cheek, and he slipped an arm around her waist. He buried his face in her hair, breathing deep, and pulled his focus back to the game. To Jasper, who was on third base now and looking in the wrong direction. He’d get it someday, or he wouldn’t, and that wouldn’t change how Charlie felt about him in the least.