There were two items on the agenda this evening, but one couldn’t happen without the other. As Kate took his hand, Rick led her to the place they had spent one of their first dates together. It was close enough to their entrance so Rick wouldn’t get lost, but far enough away from the street so they didn’t hear the noises of the city. But more than that, it was the perfect spot. There was this little knoll in a small clearing that overlooked one of the smaller ponds in the park. It was more beautiful in the fall when the leaves were colored yellow, orange, and red, but it was still perfect to Rick as he sat them down and looked at the surrounding, leafless trees. His gaze ended on the beautiful figure before him. He would never tire at the sight of her. Her eyes, her nose, her hair, her lips, her body, her hands. None of it. Though today, much like the day she’d stood on his doorstep after Raglan died, he focused on her eyes. And she let him. The door was open to him now, a year and a half of constant “I love you”s and “Always” had broken down each defense she’d once laid against him. There had been sleepless nights where they’d stayed up on her couch just talking and sharing and processing. She’d shared a lot about what she went through with her dad after her mom died, but only a little about herself. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to tell him, Rick knew that. It was just that Kate was afraid to let it out, afraid of what that darkness would do to her again. But Rick had a question to ask her and he needed to hear the rest of her story before he could ask it.
When her gaze turned questioning, Rick took a deep breath. But the words wouldn’t come. After a few moments Kate smiled and nuzzled into his side. “My mom and I always used to go to the bookstore together,” she began. Rick leaned his cheek on the top of her head. Of course she knew what he wanted to ask. “One day, she found Storm Season and finished it in a couple nights. The day after she laid it on my nightstand and told me I had to read it. After that we were hooked. We just traded on and off as we read the next six books. Sometimes we would curl up on a couch at the bookstore and read them together until suddenly ten chapters had passed and we realized we needed to buy the book and go. Other times we would buy two at a time and read a book behind the other with a blanket and hot coco. Dad would grumble that she loved you more than him because she got so excited when it was time to buy the next book.” Kate chuckled. “But when he got Gathering Storm for her birthday, things got much better. By then I was off at college and had kind of fallen behind. When I went home I had planned on turning in Storm Warning for Gathering Storm, but then everything happened and my world fell apart and I never did.”
Kate turned in his arms then, her eyes searching his. Rick gently wiped the tears from her eyes and gave her a soft smile, asking her silently to continue. She took a few shaky breaths and laced her fingers with his. “I feel down that dark abyss for a long time. My father found the bottle, and for a while I was too blinded by my own grief to see what it was doing to him.” She looked back into his eyes then. And when she spoke, the wonder was apparent. “Then one morning I saw the book. And I don’t know why, but I picked it up. Part of me found comfort in the fact that just a year before then my mother had been touching those same pages. And then something else happened. As I read the book, I found clarity. For the first time in a year my mind wasn’t foggy or dark. I could think. I could see. When I finished the book I immediately flipped to the first page again to see if I could find where you’d dropped your hints so I could solve the case, too. I took notes. I found purpose, as small and insignificant as it really was. And when I resurfaced from reading, that didn’t go away. I took a more proactive role in my dad’s life. It wasn’t until years later that he was really and truly sober, but it began that day. I went out and bought the next book and tried to solve the case before Storm did. It wasn’t until a few books later, with A Calm Before the Storm, that I actually managed to.”
Kate paused and looked towards the pond, lost in thought. “I wasn’t better. I wasn’t even close to where I was when we first met, but your books set in me the fire to try.” She looked back at him, a small smile lighting her eyes. “They were even part of the reason I became a cop. I wanted to solve my mom’s case, but your books gave me the inspiration to think that I could.” Kate settled back down against him. “It wasn’t until my rebellious stage had come and gone and I’d undergone years of arduous therapy that I felt like me again. And then you appeared and you were nothing like I’d imagined you to be. And then I got to know you and I realized that you were, in fact, everything I imagined you to be and then some.” She started playing with the hand she was holding as she faced him once more. “And I know that if there was anyone my mom would tell me to hold onto with all my might, it would be you. You saved my life, Rick. You made my life. I can’t even begin to tell you want you mean to me. It’s so much more than always, and yet—“
