Three months later
“Busy, look who’s here,” Frankie called out from across his backyard where we were having a barbecue.
Smiling, I turned toward the fence and laughed out loud at the sight of Kane.
“There’s my favorite redhead,” I greeted, scooping him up in my arms. His broken bones had long since healed and his bruises faded. He looked like the beautiful boy he always did.
“Hi, Greer,” he greeted, kissing my cheek. I smiled at him as he hugged me tightly.
“So?” I prompted as we sat down at the picnic table.
“What?” he asked, looking up at me with innocent eyes that glinted with mischief.
“So did you make the little league team?” I elaborated.
“Should I tell her, Ms Sydney?” he asked, looking up at his teacher and friend.
“I guess so. She’ll drive you crazy if you don’t,” Sydney answered, smiling.
Kane looked back at me with a broad grin and nodded his head. “I made it. I’m gonna play first base this season,” he admitted.
“That’s great, Red,” I said, hugging him again. “I’m so proud of you. I can’t wait to see you play.”
“Me either. You’re gonna help, right?” he asked, looking up at me.
“Of course, Kane,” I promised. “Of course.”
My mind drifted back to another man in my life that had asked for help, but I quickly shook the thoughts away. I still missed him, but my life was moving on.
“Greer, there’s someone here for you,” Jody, Frankie’s twelve-year-old called from inside the house.
“Coming,” I answered, standing up. “Be right back,” I promised Kane as I walked inside.
Dodging the dog and various toys, I made my way to the front door where a delivery boy stood with his back to me.
“Yes? I’m Greer Stone,” I said.
He turned to me with a fake smile and handed me a clipboard. “I need you to sign for these,” he said, holding on to a bouquet of forget-me-nots.
I signed the clipboard and handed it back as I took the bouquet. Turning, I headed back through the house.
“Wow,” Jody said as I past her. “Someone’s got a boyfriend,” she chanted, smiling.
“Yes and his name is Kane and he’s not hold enough to buy flowers,” I teased back.
As I walked back out to the yard I felt everyone’s eyes on me waiting.
“What?” I asked, looking up at all of them.
“Nothing,” Frankie answered, turning back to the grill.
I shrugged and walked back to the table to sit with Kane.
“Who are they from?” he asked, looking up at me.
“I don’t know,” I answered, smelling their fragrance. They were my favorite flowers but I had never told anyone that.
“No card?”
I searched the bouquet but couldn’t find one. “Nope, no card,” I said.
“Maybe this will help,” he said, pulling a tiny white card from his pocket.
I looked at him in surprise as I took the card and read it.
I looked up at the people around me and they were once again watching me. Kane looked up at me with a big smile.
“Am I the only one that didn’t know this was happening?” I asked.
“Just about,” Sydney answered.
“What do I do?” I asked my friends, my family. They were the people who created my heart, the ones I loved so very much.
Kane stood up on the bench and looked at me. “Go.”
“Go?” I echoed.
“Go,” he repeated.
“Go. All right, I’ll go,” I agreed.
“Go now,” he pushed.
“Now?”
“Now,” he repeated, laughing.
“All right. I’ll go now,” I said, standing up.
“Greer?” he called out.
“Yeah, Red?” I answered.
“Love you,” he said, smiling.
“Love you too, Kane.”
~~~~~~******~~~~~~
Half an hour later I was opening the door to the Lonely Star. It was dark and for a moment I thought it was empty. Till I heard his voice.
“Close the door,” he said, scaring me. But I did as he said and softly closed the door and being enveloped in the darkness.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Another chance,” was all he said before I heard him flip a switch.
The bar was suddenly lit up with white Christmas lights. It looked like a beautiful, elaborate spider web.
“Alex, it’s beautiful,” I breathed, looking around me.
“You caught me in your spider web. Now I’ve caught you in mine,” he answered, coming out of the shadows behind the bar.
The last three months had changed him drastically. When before he looked as if he stood on the edge of death he now looked alive and healthy. The color was back in him, he looked as if he had put on some weight, and in his eyes…. In his eyes I saw light.
“You look beautiful,” he said.
“You do too. You really look great, Alex,” I said, watching him as he approached me.
“I’m alive,” he answered as he stopped in front of me.
“Are you?” I questioned.
“I am. I sleep through the night, I go out, the guys and I have gone back into the studio, and I’m eating. And I have these memories of a wonderful woman that make me laugh and smile every time I think of her,” he explained, reaching a hand out and burying it in my hair.
“So Riley has found a place in your life without owning it?”
“Yes, but I wasn’t talking about her. I was talking about you. I miss you, Greer. I sleep through the night but my dreams are filled with you, the songs I sing in the studio are all about you. The woman that haunts me now is you. I miss you, spider web,” he said, moving closer.
“I miss you too, Alex, but I’m still not going to be a crutch for you,” I answered.
“I’m not asking you to be. I don’t need one anymore. I finally realized I kept holding on to Riley to hold on to you. As long as I was hurting for her you weren’t going to leave me. Then you left me because I wouldn’t let go. It took a little while before I figured it out but when I did it all made sense. I called the guys. We talked, we laughed, we argued and we cried. I took a few steps forward. I called my family. I took a few more steps. I went back to work. And a few more steps. I went and saw Kane. That one was about half a mile. Frankie was about two miles. Sending you those flowers was about a million miles but I’m hoping that in the process you’ll take my hand and walk the rest of them with me. Beside me, not behind me or in front of me,” he said.
He released my hand and moved toward the jukebox. I watched in silence as he hit it and a song I hadn’t heard on it before began to play. I felt a smile on my lips as I realized he could make the machine work like I did.
Then I realized what the song was, but there was no voice to the music as Collin Raye’s “Couldn’t Last A Moment” played. Then I heard Alex’s voice replace what should have been Collin Raye’s.
I thought it was over
I thought I could move on
But I was wrong
I woke up last night
Calling your name
Feeling the blame baby
Thought I could quit you but
I still miss your love
What was I thinking
Thinking I could still walk down the street
Without you by my side
Or make it through the night alone, I lied
I said a lot of things I didn’t really mean
How can I make you see what matters most to me
Girl I shoulda known it
I couldn’t last a moment without you
You’ve got every right
To turn around and walk away
I can’t make you stay
I broke your heart
That’s the bottom line
I wasted so much precious time baby
I see you with your friends
Wearing a smile again
What was I thinking
Thinking I could still walk down the street
Without you by my side
Or make it through the night alone, I lied
I said a lot of things I didn’t really mean
How can I make you see what matters most to me
Girl I shoulda known it
I couldn’t last a moment without you
I thought I could quit you
But I still miss your love
What was I thinking
Thinking I could still walk down the street
Without you by my side
Or make it through the night alone, I lied
I said a lot of things I didn’t really mean
How can I make you see what matters most to me
Girl I shoulda known it
I couldn’t last a moment without you
As the song faded he brushed the tears from cheeks and smiled at me. I found myself smiling in return.
“You told me once we get all the chances we need in life till we get it right. So I’m standing here under a spider web of lights in a bar that changed my entire life and I’m asking you for another chance to love you the right way,” he whispered.
“You love me?” I asked.
“How can I not love the woman who taught me what it meant to really love? I love you, Greer. I loved you before but I did it the wrong way. Give me the chance to love you the right way?”
“Are you sure it’s me you want and not just someone to take Riley’s place?”
It hurt to ask the question but I needed to know the truth. I couldn’t spend my life as a replacement for a dead woman.
I watched in silence as he pulled his wallet out of his pocket. He opened it and pulled out the pictures he carried.
“This was Riley,” he said, showing me a picture of a beautiful blonde who looked full of life and love and happiness. “I loved her more than I ever thought I could love another person. She was everything beautiful in my life and she taught me how to really live. I forgot her lesson though when she died. I let go of everything she taught me in the face of her death,” he said, turning the tiny booklet of pictures. “Then I found this woman,” he added, showing me a picture of myself with Kane. It was a picture he had no doubt gotten from Sydney. “She taught me how to love in spite of pain and loss. She taught me about living with the love and without the pain. She taught me how to laugh again and how to dream again. She taught me what it was like to love a person with every heartbeat and every breath and every dream. I love you, Greer Stone. Not you in place of a memory, but you body and soul and heart. Will you give me another chance to love you?”
“Jack Daniels, I will give you a lifetime of chances to love me as long as you’ll give me the same,” I answered, smiling through my tears.
“It’s a deal. I promise I’ll get it right this time, spider web. I promise,” he whispered as his lips brushed mine in a kiss of forever.
~~~~~~~******~~~~~~
Epilogue
A year later
“Alex, go tell Kane it’s time for dinner,” I called out to my husband as I waddled around our kitchen eight months pregnant.
I squealed in surprise when I felt the tiny arms make an attempt around my large stomach. I looked down into the beautiful green eyes of the little boy I had loved for so long, the little boy Alex and I had adopted shortly after our wedding.
“Go wash your hands, mister. It’s time for dinner,” I said, smiling as I signed to him.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Hamburgers. Now run,” I said, laughing as he took off.
“Something smells wonderful,” Alex said, wrapping his arms around me and kissing my neck.
“That would be your cologne,” I teased.
“How are we feeling?” he asked, rubbing my stomach.
“Like a beached whale about to give birth to a whole litter. How about you?” I shot back, laughing.
“Like the luckiest man in the world to have a woman like you as my wife and a boy like Kane as my son,” he answered kissing me.
“Flattery will get you no where but the bedroom, Mr. McLean,” I answered, kissing him.
“That’s exactly where I want to be with you, Mrs. McLean,” he responded.
“Ouch,” I cried out then smiled. “Feel,” I said, moving his hand to the side of my stomach.
“Wow,” he whispered when the baby kicked again. “She’s a strong one.”
“She better be to deal with her mommy,” I teased. “Because my guess is Daddy is going to be a pushover with her.”
“Well you know, you always said we get all the chances we need. I’ll just be sure she gets them,” he answered, kissing me.
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