Forgiving You: A Bluebell Valley Novel (9 page)

But he hadn’t won anything. He’d only made himself miserable.

“This one’s my favorite,” Austin said as he grabbed a frame in the middle. The picture was of him and Sam, with their faces painted for the Fourth of July festivities. “Our parents bought us ice cream and I dropped mine, so you shared yours with me.”

“You looked so sad, I couldn’t have done otherwise,” Sam replied with a smile.

“You’ve never been able to resist me,” Austin said as he grabbed Sam by the waist, turning her so she was facing him. He kissed her on her forehead, her nose, and finally, her lips.

Maybe dinner was going to have to wait a little while…

Sam

Constance Cole was a woman that Sam admired. Even if she was the same age as her own mother, there were a lot of differences between both women. Constance was a warm and protective mother, but she also knew how to let people breathe in a way that Gemma never learned. That was one of the reasons Sam always loved to hang out in the orchard, so she could spend some time with Constance.

After Austin had left for college, she’d tried to get an explanation of his behavior from her, but she hadn’t been much help; she was getting the same treatment. Sam had stopped coming to the orchard after that. It had become too hard for her. She had to forget Austin, and to do that, she couldn’t spend all her time at the farm where she’d made so many memories with him.

But that hadn’t stopped her from seeing Constance in town. She often came to the bakery, and Sam could see how hurt she was from Austin not giving any news, which had made Sam even angrier at him. How could he do such a thing to a sweet woman like his mother?

But today, as she looked at Constance's face, she only saw pure joy. She was glowing with something that hadn’t been there in a while.

“Sam, do you remember when the two of you wanted to build a treehouse in the willows by the water?” she said, bringing Sam back to reality. Everybody was done eating already, but nobody had left the table yet. Remembering the past was a lot more exciting than washing the dishes.

“Yes! Benjamin tried explaining to us that there wasn’t any good spot in the tree, but we wouldn’t listen,” Sam replied with a smile, remembering precisely that moment.

“So we stole some wood from the barn and decided to prove you wrong, except we didn’t have a clue what we were doing,” Austin added, glancing sideways at Sam. He grabbed her hand under the table and she held it tight, grateful for all those precious moments they’d experienced together.

“I told you it was dangerous, and when you fell from the tree and broke your arm, we let you cry a bit longer than we should have so you would learn your lesson,” Benjamin laughed. “But two weeks later, you were back in that damn tree already.”

Sam laughed too, remembering how stubborn Austin could be when he really wanted something. Usually it was a positive trait, but it had also driven him out of her life before.

Looking at Benjamin, Austin’s father, Sam was happy to see him smile and talk with them. He’d always been a shy man, but she knew how many stories he was hiding behind his shyness. He had so much knowledge about so many things, and Sam was in awe of him. Most people would just walk past him, not even noticing that he was there because he was usually so quiet, but Sam had been intrigued by him since the first time she’d met him. As a child, it was easy to make the man talk, as he wasn’t afraid of her. As she grew up, though, it became harder and harder, but with perseverance, she had found a way to get into his heart and they’d been very close. That was, of course, until Austin had disappeared from her life and she had stopped coming to the farm.

But that was all part of the past. Even if she wished she could have stayed in contact with the couple more, she knew she couldn’t do anything about it now. She couldn’t change the past, but she could certainly enjoy her present.

“Do you guys remember that one―” Sam started saying, but was interrupted by the phone ringing.

“Give me a minute,” Constance said as she stood up, going to get the phone. She disappeared into the kitchen, but came back a few seconds later.

“Honey, it’s for you,” she said as she handed the phone to Austin. He looked at her, confused.

He took the phone and left the kitchen table, leaving everybody wondering who was calling. When Sam looked at Constance, she said, “He didn’t introduce himself. He just said it was urgent and he needed to talk to Austin.”

Sam sighed as the woman stood up, gathering the plates on the table. Their magical moment was gone.

“I’ll give you a hand,” Sam said as she grabbed dishes on the table and followed Constance in the kitchen.

A few minutes later, the kitchen and dining room were clean. Constance joined her husband in front of the TV while Sam looked around for Austin. Was he still on the phone?

The only explanation for that phone call was work.

She realized by now that Austin hadn’t received any other calls while they’d been together. She never even saw him check his cellphone, because he didn’t seem to have one on himself. But he obviously had one
somewhere
.

After a long search, Sam still couldn’t find Austin. She was starting to get worried when she finally saw him through the window, sitting on the grass at the back of the house. He had his face in his hands. He didn’t seem to have gotten good news.

Sam went downstairs as fast as she could, heading to where she’d seen Austin. When she arrived, he was in the same position. She sat down on the grass close to him.

“Is everything okay?” she asked.

“I have to go back tonight,” he finally replied.

The words took a few seconds to register in Sam’s mind. But when she understood what he meant, she couldn’t help not believing it.

“Why? What happened?”

“Everything I’ve done, it’s all failing.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Thirty people…” Austin said, shaking his head. “The solar panels. There was an explosion on the top of a Chinese building and it killed thirty people. Three children and eleven women.”

Sam couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Austin had grown his company so well. She couldn’t understand how something like that would happen.

“I’m so sorry,” she said as she wrapped her arms around him. She wanted to tell him it wasn’t his fault, but she knew it would fall on deaf ears. Knowing Austin so well, she knew he felt guilty about that incident and there was nothing she could say that would make him change his mind.

They stayed in that position for a while. Sam couldn’t tell what was going on in his mind and doubted she could ever guess it.

“I have to pack,” Austin finally murmured. He sighed and stood up, freeing himself from Sam’s arms. “You should go.”

“But―” Austin’s sudden shift in moods was starting to scare her.

“You don’t get it, do you?” he snapped as he started walking toward the house again.

“Get what?” Sam yelled as she ran after him, determined to not let him bully her and push her away again.

“I can’t do this!” Austin yelled back as he stopped and turned around, facing Sam again. “I have
responsibilities
. People can die when I’m not there. I can’t be here, fooling around with you, and… and just forget about everything else. About everybody else.”

The last thing Sam wanted was to cry in front of him, but she could feel tears burning her eyes. What had happened to the man she had fun with an hour ago?

“We’ll get through that, Austin. It’s going to be okay,” she said, trying to approach him.

“No, it’s not Sam. I can’t do this. It was a mistake,” Austin replied as he started walking away. It was too much for her, seeing him push her away like that. If Austin didn’t want her in his life anymore, she didn’t want him in his.

“Go, then!” she yelled at him. “Go be miserable.”

“What I do is important,” he hissed. “I help people. What do you do?”

She took the blow, wishing she was in her car, driving far away from this house.

“You think I don’t care about people? I care about those around me. I care about the people that are in my life already. Why do you think I’ve never left Bluebell? Because. I. Cared.”

“And I don’t? I cared about me. I wanted to be the best person I could be, because that wasn’t something that was going to be handed to me. I had to do it.”

“Look where that got you,” Sam said in a low voice as she started walking toward her car. She’d had enough of this. She just wanted to go home.

“I have to do this. I don’t have any other choice,” Austin said as she left.

“It’s not about choosing to go back to New York or stay with me, Austin. It’s about not even given us a chance when things get tough,” Sam added as she turned around for good.

Austin

Austin looked outside his airplane window, but all he could see was the darkness. He was already hours away from Bluebell Valley and Oregon, but he couldn’t forget his conversation with Sam.

When he’d received the phone call, he felt like his life was crumbling. Everything that he’d built during the last decade was slowly dying because he wasn’t there to take care of it.

There wasn’t much he could do, and he knew it, but his brain had a tendency to put the blame on him.

After the accident in India, he’d made sure a special team would investigate the products and find the cause of the first explosions. But now that it had happened again, he felt like it was his fault. He should have been in his office. He should have supervised the team. Hell, he should even have inspected the products himself! But he hadn’t been there…

He’d been having
fun
with Sam. How could he ever enjoy his life again when he knew that his products, which were supposed to
help
people, actually killed and injured them?

Austin sighed and leaned back in his seat. He felt guilty for not being in his office, but he didn’t have any right to take it out on Sam. Why had he done that? Thinking back on their conversation, he regretted everything he’d said. There was nothing that he meant, really. He was upset and she happened to be there. It wasn’t her fault he hadn’t been in New York. It was his decision…

“I’m going to have to ask you to put your seat up, sir. We’re landing in New York soon.”

He looked at the flight attendant’s face, recognizing her blonde hair, small nose, and green eyes. It took him a few seconds to realize that the woman wasn’t actually Sam, which made his heart sink.

He wanted to apologize to Sam, but didn’t know how to do it. This was probably a mistake that was going to cost him his chance with Sam. He wouldn’t get another one. He’d screw up, doing exactly what he hadn’t wanted to do.

Austin put his seat back up and watched the flight attendant leave, wondering when he’d become such a jerk. Sam mattered to him. She mattered more than most things in his life. So then why had he acted that way?

Was he scared of being in a relationship? He couldn’t understand his behavior. All he knew was that he wanted to go back to this afternoon, when everything felt right between him and Sam. He wanted to forget that phone call he’d received and the way he’d acted after.

He had been happy for a while, and now he was miserable again. Sam had been right: he was going back to his miserable life.

“How’s the press release going?” said one man.

“I’m almost done,” a second one replied.

“What about the conference room?”

“It’s been taken care of,” a third one answered.

Austin sat back in his chair at the end of the table, watching everybody run in circles, trying to contain what had happened. There were four people on their cellphones, contacting the media and attempting to keep the story from getting blown out of proportion.

This was the urgent meeting he had to attend right after he landed in New York, but he felt like he didn’t have a place in it. People knew how to handle such a crisis, they’d done it already. They wanted him to read the press release and answer questions at the conference, but he didn’t feel like it.

Austin was blaming himself for what had happened, and he just felt like meeting the families of the people who’d died and doing whatever they wanted him to do.

He didn’t want to deal with the media. That wasn’t something he’d signed up for, and he knew he’d only get his words twisted.

Since he’d arrived in the room, his employees had barely noticed him. They were already so busy. Austin hadn’t even had the chance to help anyone. But this was his job, wasn’t it? Delegating work to people and overlooking how things were going? But he had a guy for that, too.

When he’d built his company, he wanted to work on prototypes and be the engineer he’d studied to be. But as it got bigger and bigger, he kept getting pulled farther away from the labs.

This wasn’t what he wanted, he realized. He wanted to be in Bluebell Valley, close to Sam. He didn’t want to be in this glass tower with all these other men dressed up in uncomfortable suits. This wasn’t the life he was meant to live. Not anymore.

He didn’t want to stay here. He had to find a way out. Looking around, nobody was paying attention to him. He snuck out of the meeting room before anyone even noticed.

Stepping out of the building, Austin started walking down the street, needing some fresh air. It was already late, but he couldn’t stay inside any longer. As he took a breath in, he was deceived by the quality of it. Yes, he was close to Central Park, but he wanted fresher air. He wanted the air he’d been breathing in Bluebell Valley.

Everything he did, everywhere he went, all he could think about was his hometown and Sam. Without him even realizing it, they’d changed his life. He wasn’t the same man anymore. He’d changed back to the man that he was before.

He didn’t want this: the wealthy life and the office in a glass tower. He wanted to help people in a way that mattered. He didn’t have to help the whole world either, he realized.

As he kept walking, he stumbled upon a grocery store that was still open. He stepped inside, hearing his stomach grumble. He hadn’t eaten in a while, and if he wanted to clear his mind, he needed to fill his belly.

He walked down the aisle, his mind still focused on Sam and how he’d broken her heart again, when he knocked his knee into a low table he hadn’t noticed.

He let out a quick growl as he looked at what was on the table. Peaches. They’d stacked a mountain of peaches. Grabbing the top one, Austin knew what he had to do.

It was his life, and he was going to make the right choice this time. He’d had enough of having his life dictated by others and what he thought he
should
do. From now on, he was only going to do what he
wanted
to do, and what his heart told him to do.