A Thousand Miles

Part 41

"JoLynn Travis!" Kelly's voice hit a shrill note and a raw nerve. It made JoLynn want to cringe, but she held the impulse in check. "How long have you had that tattoo on your shoulder? Harlan, did you know she had a tattoo?"

"Hmm?" Her father looked up from his evening paper as Kelly's fingers clamped onto JoLynn's shoulder, her manicured nails digging in a little. She winced and pulled her shoulder from her step-mother's grasp.

"She has a tattoo!"

"Of what?" He laid his paper down and leaned forward.

JoLynn grinned. "A yellow rose."

Her dad's brows rose slowly, and he made a spinning motion with his index finger. JoLynn obediently turned so he could see the ink in question.

Kelly made a disgusted sound and took her place at the wicker table that had always seemed out of place on the front porch. It was a porch worthy of a Deep South plantation, wide and high with white columns stretching the full height of the home's two stories. This being West Texas, however, there were no towering oaks dripping with Spanish moss. No, there was only flat, dusty, treeless land as far as she could see beyond the black iron fence that outlined the property. But it was home, and beautiful in its own way.

With a grunt, her dad returned to his paper.

He took her side. JoLynn smiled softly and sipped her iced tea. She saw it now, though she had never noticed before; all the little ways her father had taken her side throughout her life that had driven Kelly to absolute nagging distraction. Her dad glanced at her over his paper and gave her a wink.

"When did you get it?" Kelly's demand suddenly lost its teeth.

"Years ago. In college."

"Harlan. Did you know about this?"

"We've all had a very full week, Kelly." He turned a page of his newspaper. "Maybe we could dispense with the drama about the tattoo and just enjoy our Friday evening. She's a grown woman. She can get a tattoo if she wants one. And it's not as if she has her eyebrow, nose, and tongue pierced like someone else I know." He shook his paper to straighten out a crease, or maybe to emphasize his point.

Kelly folded her arms across her chest. "You know very well that's just a phase he's going through. And when it passes, he can let the piercings heal up and, poof, they're gone. But that tattoo is forever."

JoLynn bit her tongue to keep from voicing her willingness to bet her first pay check that she wasn't the only one of her father's children to have a tattoo. In fact, she'd bet her first two paychecks that little Keisha was the only one who didn't.

The sound of tires on asphalt drifted on the breeze as a pickup turned into the driveway. JoLynn squinted against the reflection of the late evening sun on the windshield.

"Daddy, are you expecting someone?"

He folded down the corner of his paper and cast a glance down the drive. "No, not really."

"Not really?" That was a cryptic answer.

She followed the progress of the truck as it approached, but cast a questioning glance back at her father to find he'd put down his paper and sat watching her rather than their approaching guest. His eyes were misty and tinged with pink.

"Daddy, who is it?"

He shrugged. "You're the new face of the company. Why don't you go see?" His voice was suddenly tremulous and thick with an emotion she'd never sensed from him.

Her heart skipped and then raced, and her brows knit together in alarm as the truck drew closer. She rose from her chair. No one would come out to the house on business. Not without her dad knowing about it. She glanced down at her bare feet, faded jeans and tank top as she reached the top of the porch stairs. Then she turned back to her father, her anxious heart pounding.

Her dad smiled gently. "He called a couple of days ago and asked if he could come. He wanted to know if I thought you'd want to see him, or if you'd send him away."

The pickup turned into the circular drive and came to a stop in front of the house. As did her heart. The breath caught in her chest and a slow smile emerged.

"I couldn't fathom why you wouldn't want to see him. You seemed so...um...friendly with each other at your grandmother's birthday party. So, he told me the whole story about what happened with your show. What he'd done and the falling out y'all had. And then your phone call to him earlier this week."

She pressed a hand to her stomach, vainly willing the butterflies there into submission. Then she turned back to her dad, breathless. "Shane?"

Her father nodded. "I told him, if you could forgive him, then so could I. Then I told him to come on out and see what you had to say about it."

"Harlan, why didn't you tell me?" Kelly asked, smoothing her hair behind her ears, but received no answer.

"It's clear to me he loves you, JoLynn." Her father's tender tone made her eyes drift closed momentarily as her heart swelled with hope. "There's no doubt about it. And I'm sensing that you might just feel the same way."

The driver's door opened. And when Shane finally stepped out she knew there was no one else to whom her heart could ever belong. His expression held the same revelation, and he stood, taking in the sight of her, his remorseful, relieved smile mirroring hers. Then he climbed the porch stairs to meet her, reaching out one hand to lay it against her cheek. The warmth of it proved this was real—that he had really driven here from Tennessee and stood on her daddy's front porch touching her.

She had left him behind, believing the worst—that his love for her was an inconvenient truth, an unforeseen complication in his plan to take what had been hers. But he had given all that up, accepting the penalties that came with breaking his contract, and come all this way with no guarantee that she would accept him. Hot tears stung and threatened to spill as she leaned into his touch. He raised the other hand to smooth a tendril of hair away from her face before gently cupping her other cheek. She raised her hands to cover his.

"You forgive me, right?" he asked softly.

She nodded because she couldn't speak.

"I love you, JoLynn. You are my home. If this is where you are, then this is where I want to land."

JoLynn's breath caught and a tear slipped down her cheek. Mere days ago she'd been certain she never wanted to see him again. But now he was here, standing in front of her telling her that wherever she was, was where he wanted to be. And, for her, there was no question. She loved him with her whole heart and didn't want to be without him.

A wide smile broke out on his face, then he wrapped his arms around her and pressed a kiss to her lips, causing her to forget for a moment that they weren't alone. But the sound of her father clearing his throat brought her back. Shane turned her loose to greet him and shake his hand.

"Thank you, sir. For all your help."

Her dad nodded. "Where are you staying?"

Shane glanced back at his pickup. "I didn't stop to make arrangements. When I got into town I came straight here." His glance slid back to JoLynn, and he smiled as if everything but her vanished.

"We'll have Natalia fix up a guest room for you."

"There's no need to bother Natalia, I'd be happy to do that for you." Kelly stood up, but Harlan's hand on her arm brought her back into her seat.

"I'd love it if you'd just stay right here with me, darlin'." He said. "JoLynn can manage."

"But, Harlan..."

Kelly's argument faded to nothing more than background noise when Shane pushed the same stubborn strand of hair behind her ear, and then pressed another soft kiss to her mouth. The warmth of his arms encompassed her as he drew her close as if they were completely alone in the world and needed nothing except each other. When he pulled his mouth from hers, he gave her an easy smile. He had found peace in the last few weeks. Peace and forgiveness, which had both come to complete fruition in this moment.

Nothing had ever felt so right. Although the years she'd spent working on Traveling Texas in pursuit of her dream had fulfilled a need for purpose, she'd never felt complete. Pieces she hadn't even known were missing had fallen into place. What were the odds that her whole experience with the show, and the thousands of miles she'd traveled, were merely the means to this end?

Trusting God, coming home, and finding Shane.