“No, really. Think about it. We could leave now and…”
“Leave?” Ernestine spoke sharply from the doorway into the living room. Miranda stood behind her. “Where are you going?”
“Kit,” Savannah said, “has been called back to L.A. on business. I’m not going anywhere, except to Michael’s ball game this evening.”
Kit nodded in reluctant resignation.
“Kit,” Miranda wailed. “You have to leave?”
“I’ll be back,” he assured her, “as soon as I can.”
Miranda didn’t look visibly comforted. “Promise?” she asked, her tone intense enough to make Savannah look at her daughter in concern.
Kit smiled. “I promise, Miranda.”
Miranda rushed up to him and threw her arms around his waist. “We’ll miss you.”
Kit looked surprised for a moment, then warmly returned Miranda’s hug. “You won’t get rid of me easily,” he assured her. “I’ll be back. And maybe before the summer vacation is over, your mom will be able to get away from work for a few days to bring you and Michael to visit me in L.A.”
Miranda looked up at him with shining, hopeful eyes. “Really? That would be so cool.”
“I doubt that your mother is going to take you to L.A., Miranda,” Ernestine protested. “That’s hardly a fit place for children. Drugs and street gangs, that’s all you’ll find there.”
“But, Grandma…”
“Those things do exist in L.A.,” Kit acknowledged with more courtesy than Savannah thought her mother deserved. “But there are just as many places that are family-friendly.”
“Disneyland is there, Grandma,” Miranda reminded her. “At least, I think it’s in L.A.,” she added with an uncertain look at Kit.
He smiled and nodded. “It’s in Anaheim. Not very far at all from where I live.”
“Oh, wow.”
Ernestine turned and left the room.
Kit sighed. “Definitely a challenge,” he murmured. “I was just going to suggest that she would be welcome to come, too. I have a feeling she would have thrown the invitation back in my face.”
“Don’t worry about her now,” Savannah said. “I’ll work on her.”
Kit nodded. “I have to go.”
She bit her lip and nodded. This was the way it was going to be, she told herself a bit sadly. There would be a lot of goodbyes in her future with Kit, however long that would be. And probably quite a few disappointments. He was a man who was in great demand. A man who had a very busy life more than half a continent away from Campbellville.
It would be a miracle if she saw him once a month.
Could the feelings that had developed between them in such a short time survive long separations?
“Savannah.” Kit placed his hands on her shoulders and frowned at her. “Stop it.”
“Stop what?” she asked, keeping her expression neutral.
“You’re pessimizing again. Don’t do that.”
She managed a small smile. “‘Pessimizing’? Is that a word?”
“If it’s not, it should be. It perfectly describes what you’re doing to us right now. And I won’t have it, is that clear?”
She could tell that he was only partly teasing. “I’ll try to optimize, instead,” she promised.