Page 83 of Keep On Loving You

Kat woke just after four in the morning and reached over to Andy’s side of the bed, but it was empty.

Slipping out of bed, she crossed the hall to the guest room where he’d only slept that last week while they’d been fighting. But the bed hadn’t been slept in.

They’d been fighting because she was afraid to tell her family about them. “See?” she said to the empty room. “This is why I didn’t want to tell them.”

But wasn’t it inevitable that it would happen eventually anyway? She’d always known that they could never be together. They’d only been delaying the inevitable.

She retrieved her phone from the bedside table but there were no messages. She tried calling him again, but her call went straight to voicemail.

There was no way she could go back to sleep, but it was too early to do much more. She made her way downstairs and stopped in front of the hall table where the package from her father still sat waiting.

Kat picked it up and held it. “What do you have for me now, Dad? What more do you need from me?”

She blew out her breath and put the package down again. She was being unfair. Her father had never demanded much of her. As the baby in the family, she’d always gotten away with more than the others. Their dad always let her off the hook if there was something she didn’t want to do.

Except for this.

Kat stared at the package and her ready pack that was propped up against the wall next to the table.

“Okay, Dad. You win. Let’s go hiking.”

It had to be better than sitting around, waiting for another fight.

Or worse, having to admit that she screwed it all up and had lost Andy for good.

“Thanks for letting me crash here.”

The kitchen in Symon and Charli’s kitchen was bright and welcoming, full of plants. A tabby cat hopped off the counter when he walked in and threaded herself through his legs. He bent and scratched the cat’s ears.

“I know that probably didn’t make you very popular with the rest of the family,” he said to Charli when he looked up.

“Don’t worry about them.” She handed him a cup of coffee, which he accepted gratefully. “They’ll calm down.”

He noticed she didn’t say that they’d get over it, or come to accept his relationship with Kat.

“I hope so.” He sipped at the coffee and sank into a chair at the table as Symon walked in with the baby on his hip.

“Did you get any sleep, man?”

With nowhere to go after leaving the big house the night before, Andy had been beyond grateful when Symonfollowed him outside and offered him a bed for the night. He could have gone back to the apartment; everything inside him wanted to, but there was a time to push the issue and time for a little space. He was smart enough to know that a little time for everyone to cool off, him and Kat included, was probably a good idea. Besides, she’d made her choice clear.

Andy shook his head. “Not much.” He watched while Symon strapped the baby into her highchair next to him and tossed a handful of tiny fish-shaped crackers on the tray. She was such a happy baby, it was hard not to smile just watching her. “Someone looks like she got a good night’s sleep.”

“Ha.” Charli laughed from the counter where she was whipping up a bowl full of eggs. “I swear, that child gets by on only fifteen minutes a night. I’m exhausted. It’s my natural state by now.”

Andy leaned over and handed Poppy a cracker that was just out of her reach. “If I’d known, I could have sat up with her. I don’t think I slept more than fifteen minutes myself. But I probably wasn’t very good company.”

He sat back in his chair and lifted his mug of coffee.

“So.” It was all Symon said as he sat across from him at the table.

“So.”

“I had an inkling that’s what was going on.”

“You knew?” Charli appeared and smacked him with a tea towel. “How could you know about this and not say anything?”

“Whoa.” Symon held his hands up. “I said I had aninkling.That’s like barely even a guess.” He raised his eyebrows in Andy’s direction, but Andy wasn’t going to be much help. “Nothing was confirmed.” He winked at Andy, who only shook his head and looked back at his coffee.

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