Chapter Twenty -Two

Jon’s POV

                I collapsed down on my bed once I made it back up into my apartment; it literally took everything I had not to turn around and run right back to Lina. My head was still spinning with what happened; my mind not able to fully wrap around the events that just unfolded in the room below me. The moment that I had been waiting for, dreaming about for what feels like forever, that moment just happened but it was all wrong; nothing went like I wanted it to, I ruined everything. I was so caught up in the moment that I didn’t allow myself to break away when I should of; instead of pulling away from her I pulled her closer, I deepened the kiss, I couldn’t get enough of her. I can only imagine the mixed feelings she was getting from me right now; how I didn’t respond at first, then I responded more than I should have, then I all but pushed her away. I had to, I had to push her away; I wasn’t good for her, I wasn’t right for her; it was hard to keep telling myself that when in that moment when we were connected, when our lips molded together as one, all I felt was right, nothing about that moment felt wrong.

                I had no idea Lina even liked me like that; did she like me like that or was it just the alcohol talking? She seemed pretty upset when I told her that we couldn't be together so I could only assume that she really did like me. What was I going to do now? I felt like a complete ass turning her down; I never wanted to turn her down, hell I wanted her more than I have ever wanted anything but I’m not good enough for her, or at least I don’t feel like I am. If she really does like me does that mean that maybe I am good enough for her, or at least could be? God it was so hard to just sit up here and not go running back down to her; I wanted to just pull her into my arms and never let her go. I wanted nothing more than to be with her, to love her forever but could that ever happen? Would her father ever let that happen?

                She told me not to look down on myself when I told her that I wasn’t good enough for her; did she not see how bad my past was, did she not see all things that I had done before I came here? I wonder if she even knows about half of it; her and my father were close so I would assume that he would have told her most of it if not everything. Was she really willing to just look past it all and see me for who I am now; for who I have become? The more I thought about the brief moment we had together the more I craved more of her touch; I wanted to be with her and clearly she wanted to be with me to. Maybe I was just over thinking my whole past, maybe since I moved on from that I became a better person than I imagine myself as. I wanted to be a better person, I was striving to be a better person; I knew that if I was with Lina I would make sure that I stayed a batter person, stayed the person that I have worked so hard to become.

                With all the thinking I have been doing lately about how I’m not and will never be good enough for her is it possible that I missed who I really am, who I really became? Maybe I was wrong about it all; maybe I really was good enough to be with her. What would her father think about it; what would her family think? Would they accept me like she has or would they only see the bad things from my past? So far I have never got the feeling from Thomas or Katherine that they think anything bad about me, they have treated me like family since the first day I arrived here. Lina’s right I do need to stop thinking so low of myself; I’m not the same person I used to be, I’m better, and I will only continue to get better. If I could really have Lina as part of my life then I know I would never stray back to my old life; I would never do anything to jeopardize a life with her. Now the only question is will she still have me; will she still want to be with me after I turned her down tonight?

                I tried to push all the thoughts to the back of my mind and get some sleep; I had a plan in my mind of what I was going to do but I couldn’t put it in motion until tomorrow. Once I worked out all the details then there would be the matter of seeing if Lina would be willing to give me the chance to prove to her that I want her, that I need her. I drift off to sleep with thoughts of a future with Lina; when I woke up the next morning I was quick to shower and head downstairs to see if I could put the first part of my plan into action. When I made it down to the barn I took a quick look in the tack room and seen that Lina was still sleeping; making my way into the office I was happy to see Thomas was already there at his desk, it was time to start phase one. If this phase didn’t go well then the rest of the plan was basically trashed but I knew this was the most important step and hopefully I could convince Thomas that I would be enough for his daughter, that we would be good together, that we would be right for each other.

“Umm… Can I talk to you for a minute?” I ask Thomas once I walk in; I wanted to be confident and prove to Thomas that I’m worth his and his daughters’ time, but the moment I walked through the door I got nervous.

“Sure son, take a seat.” Thomas said motioning to one of the chairs across from him; I turned around to shut the door to the barn before making my way to the chair.

“I uhh… there’s umm… something I wanted to discuss with you.” I was already tripping over my words, I could see that this really wasn’t getting off to a great start; I squared my shoulders and took a deep breath hoping that the next words out of my mouth would come out right.

“You alright there boy? You look a little flustered.” Thomas replied setting down the paper he was looking at and offering me his full attention; the moment the paper landed on the desk I wished he would pick it back up so that his full attention wasn’t on me.

“I’m fine, there’s just something that I really wanted to discuss with you.” Well at least I wasn’t still stumbling with my words though my voice was still lacking the confidence that I wish it would have.

“Shoot.” He replied relaxing back in his chair.

“Last night… Well I was wondering… You see I really like…” Fuck I just couldn’t get the words out, at least not all of them at once; I couldn’t even get myself to complete a full sentence.

“You keep talkin’ in circles and we ain’t gonna get nowhere. What’s on your mind son?” God what I would give to be as relaxed and calm as Thomas was right now, although I have a felling that whenever I do get my lips to form the words that need to come out he might not still be in the same state of mind.

“I wanted to ask your permission to date your daughter sir.” Finally the words just spilled out of my mouth and I studied Thomas to judge his reaction; first he looked a little shocked and his eyebrows rose into his hairline but once he got over the initial shock he seemed to relax back in his seat. Ok, not really what I was expecting, but a lot better than reaching under the desk and pulling out a shotgun like I thought he might do.

“You want to date Kit-Kat?” He asked seeming a little perplexed about the whole thing; maybe he just didn’t fully understand yet and the whole shotgun thing was coming soon once he got the gist of it.

“Yes sir.” I replied doing my best to keep my back straight and eyes focused on his; I needed to show him that I was serious about this and that it meant a lot to me.

“Well…” He rubbed his hand across his forehead a few times and scratched his brow. “How does she feel about it?” His question threw me off a bit because I was ready for him to start putting me down and telling me that I wasn’t good enough for her or maybe that she would never go for a guy like me.

“I think she likes me too, at least I’m hoping she still does after last night.” I stopped short after that, thinking maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned what happened last night and Thomas caught onto the words immediately.

“Last night?” He questioned once again raising his brows; I swear I saw his hand twitch as if he wanted to reach for something but it could have just been my imagination waiting for the loaded shotgun to come out.

“Well we went to a party together and she… mentioned something about wanting to be with me but I told her no. I wanted to clear it with you before we made any decisions about anything.” I stretched the truth a little feeling like he really wouldn’t appreciate me making out with his daughter in his barn.

“Well I know that you did defend her against that Baker boy and I have no doubt that you would always protect her.” He stopped to look at me for a moment as if silently asking if that were the truth and I nodded my head. “I don’t have no problems with you Jon and if you’re anything like your daddy was then I couldn’t ask for no one better for my daughter. You have done nothin’ but prove how good of a man and worker you are since you got here so I don’t see any problem with you’s two bein’ together. Now, gettin’ Lina to believe that you are worth it after turnin’ her down might be a whole ‘nother story.” He said with a chuckle; I couldn’t help but let out a little laugh too, in part because I knew he was telling the truth about trying to get Lina back but also because I was just shell shocked at how this whole conversation was going. I was fully expecting to be down on my knees begging the man for a chance with his daughter where in reality it turns out that he was completely ok with the whole thing.

“Thank you Sir, I promise that I will treat her with all the love and respect that she deserves. Do you think that I should ok this with Katherine too?” I asked; I don’t really know how this whole thing works, I had never actually asked a parent permission to date their daughter before. Did you just have to ask the father or did you ask the mother too?

“Katherine will give you the same answer as me; we already think of you as family Jon so there’s no use in wastin’ your time askin’ our permission. To be honest it really wouldn’t matter either way, Kat had a mind of her own and she will do as she pleases whether we agree with it or not.” He said with a laugh and I knew the words he spoke were true; Lina really wasn’t one for doing as others told her, she was respectful and all but she was also stubborn and had a mind of her own.

“Ok Sir, thanks for your time.” I said offering him my hand as I got out of my seat.

“Tell you what Jon; I’m goin’ to do you a favor. I really want to see this work out for you and really don’t want to have to deal with Lina pickin’ another worthless piece of crap like that Baker boy.” I seen his fists clench as he talked about Landon and had to force myself not to smile knowing that he hates the guy as much as I do. “Lina is real fond of this cabin we have up in Granbury, we usually take a family trip up there every year but for the last few years we just haven’t had time.” Thomas opened up a drawer in his desk and pulled out a set of keys holding them out to me. “Tell you what if you can convince that daughter of mine to give you a second chance you can both have Friday off and spend the weekend there, good luck son.” He tipped his hat before picking up the paper he dropped on the desk earlier and getting back to work.

                I thanked him again for everything before making my way back out of the office and up to my apartment; everything about that meeting went way better than I could have ever expected and my dreams of being with Lina were becoming more and more of a reality, now the only thing I had to do was convince Lina to go with me. I took some time to look up things in the area of Granbury so that I could make a plan for the weekend; the little town offered a lot in the way of tourist attractions and I decided to make it seem like I just wanted to take her on a trip to see the town and pretend like I didn’t know anything about the cabin that her and her family owned there; I thought it would make it more of a surprise to her and a little more special if she didn’t know where we were really going.

                I had a few more things planned for the weekend and spent the first half of my day setting up reservations and finding the needed information on the internet for the other things I wanted to do for Lina; I never thought of my father as someone to sit around and search the web but luckily he did have a laptop and there was a wireless connection already set up making the process much easier for me. After getting everything sorted and ready I decided to head down to the barn and see if I could find Lina; I had a lot on convincing to do and could only hope that she would at least give me one last shot at having a chance with her.

                I made my way downstairs and found that she was no longer in the tack room; I searched the nearby barns and even the barn where Bubba the Magnificent was housed but had no luck in finding her. Giving up I went back to the main barn to find Thomas and he said that she was either at the house or working with one of her horses in barn six; her truck was still outside so we knew she didn’t leave unless someone had come to pick her up. I decided to try my luck in the barn first and if she wasn’t there I would try the house; walking into barn six I found her in a stall that was labeled ‘Juliet’ brushing out a pure white horse with an Ivory mane and tail. She didn’t see or hear me approach so I just stood by the stall door watching her for a while; she looked so at peace and relaxed when she was around horses, it was nice to see her in her own little world. She moved around the horse to brush the other side and with the movement she spotted me on the other side of the stall; she offered me a small smile but I could tell that it was forced and braced myself for what I knew was going to be a hard task of getting her to go with me this weekend.

“You should have named them Ebony and Ivory.” I said trying to break the ice and referring to the color differences in her horses; she looked up from the horse a little confused at first but then it seemed to click.

“I got Juliet a year after Romeo so I had no idea what colors they would be.” She seemed withdrawn and didn’t even bother looking at me while she spoke, instead she just focused on her brush stokes as she continued to groom the horse.

“You could always rename them.” I said making my way into the stall and hoping she would at least give me the time of day to try and get her to come with me.

“Yeah, I could.” She replied simply.

“Lina, can we talk for a minute?” I asked seeing that my poor humor wasn’t getting anywhere with her.

“Isn’t that what were doin’ right now?” She asked still not looking at me even though I stood at the head of the horse a few feet from her. Shit, this was going to be harder than I thought.