Love Me Long (Love Me Book 4)

Chapter 13

It was just after midnight when Chloe decided that she needed a drink of water and wandered down to the kitchen, then over to the kitchen table where she sat to look at the moonlit drenched garden. The house was quiet, and it made her feel lonely. It was clear that her home was back in Savannah. She knew her father loved her. He had written her every week she had been away with the occasional phone call when he was able, and every time he made sure that the focus of all of the conversations had been about her.

Perhaps that was why she had no clue about Doreen.

Even though they had written and talked regularly,  they had still grown apart. It happened with the closest of families that spent time away from each other. Their lives diverged as different people came and went. The truth of the matter was that, while she and her father loved each other, they had nothing in common anymore. At least they didn't as long as he continued to view her as the teenager she used to be.

Twelve years ago, Chloe's life had been all about her father and Valentine. They had been her only focus. Now, having moved away, grown up, and found a life of her own, she realized that it hadn't been healthy. It also hadn't been healthy that she had tried to carry that focus with her to Savannah.

"Are you alright?" Valentine's voice asked from behind her.

Chloe turned to see him leaning against the door jamb in loose pajama bottoms with his computer tucked under his arm. She took her time looking at him, letting her eyes take in the view.

Lord help her, she and her father may have grown apart, but she still had powerful feelings for the man standing across from her. The thought made her give a sad smile.

"Why the sad look?" he asked as he placed his computer on the table and moved to put on the kettle. "Would you like some tea or coffee?" he asked.

Chloe saw it for the peace offering it was. "Tea would be nice."

They were silent for a while as Chloe turned to look out the window on the small garden behind the house once again while he prepared the tea and served it to her.

The action made her smile, but this time it was amusement.

"And now you're amused?" Valentine mused as he sat in the chair next to her and blew on his tea to cool it.

"I wonder how many of your soldiers would believe that you prepared and served tea to an American woman inside her father's house?" Her lip twitched again.

"Very domesticated of me, isn't it?" he asked with a return smile. That smile broke Chloe's heart. It was the first one she had seen since she had arrived.

It made her cry, and she couldn't stop the tears.

"And now you're sad again," he said with a sigh.

That sigh quickly checked her, causing her tears to instantly dry as she stood to leave.

"I'm sorry, Chloe. I lost my patience a long time ago." He reached for her hand and took it with his own. "Please, sit down. We need to talk and have this all out." 

Chloe sat down and wiped the tears off her cheek. "You know what the funny thing is, back home. I'm the stoic one, the one who has it all together and never gets emotional."

"Then why are you different here?" Valentine asked, leaning back in his chair.

"You, it's always you. I'm sitting here thinking about how my father and I have grown apart, so far apart that I don't even know he has someone special in his life. Yet I look at you..." she stopped, not wanting to finish, having said more than she wanted to, but she needed to talk to someone.