Take Me (Take Me 1)

“Jude… You can offer blanket statements like that. But there are ideals to consider, goals and dreams and plans and—”

“Kate,” he halted and whirled around to face her. “I know your brain is always churning with all those goals and dreams and plans. And you’re always moving forward. I appreciate that.”

“But the ideals…” Kate once again took in the immediate sight of Jude’s enormous apartment. She hadn’t even made it past the foyer, and already…the place overwhelmed her. So, too, did that vision she’d involuntarily had. And the fact that Jude had always wanted to be a part of a family he’d never had.

Ironically, Kate had a family—one she was not fully a part of.

Her doing as much as everyone else’s. Kate didn’t fit in, because Kate didn’t want to fit in. She chose not to cave to others’ ideals.

Perhaps that was selfish.

She believed she was being true to herself. But again…perhaps she was selfish.

Helping people to heal had never been a self-serving act for her. She listened, she empathized, she offered ways to cope, to overcome, to turn things around for the better. She didn’t interject her personal beliefs into the sessions…she worked with her patients’ individual beliefs and helped them follow a counseling plan that was sustainable because it was centered on a righteousness rooted within. Not a radical turnabout that was too confusing to dissect when dealing with massive inner turmoil.

Really, sometimes Kate felt no one understood inner turmoil better than she. Then someone like Jude would come along and Kate had to concede she wasn’t the only one who wished another person “got her.”

The interesting thing about that particular sentiment was that Jude truly did get her. Nikki got her. When Conner was alive, he’d gotten her, too.

The difference in those scenarios, however, was that she, Nikki and Conner had spun yarns about all the cool shit they’d do once they’d graduated. All the non-traditional, non-conformist dreams that had always gone against the high-society grain. The three of them were from prominent families. Families that lived and died by conventionality.

The three of them had not been pillars of their respective familial structures. Kate oftentimes felt guilty over that, in her own situation. No daughter wanted to purposely displease her parents. Or her brothers, who’d always been protective of her.

But when sitting down to a dinner table night after night, listening to Dr. and Mrs. Stockman encourage their boys to be great athletes and scholars, find the right girl to marry, join the family practice, have children and be the sort of people other people aspired to be… Well. That was tough to stomach. Because when they’d looked at Kate, they’d merely nodded their heads and her mother had said, “You and Andrew will be so happy together. What beautiful children you’ll have. And, Kathryn, darling, you must master my pomegranate-citrus glaze for duck breast. Andrew is positively enamored by it!”

Andrew had, indeed, loved the glazed duck. He’d also wanted three kids…maybe that was why that specific number had magically appeared in Kate’s vision.

Actually, it’d been his parents to suggest three was the appropriate amount of children for a couple of their stature. And Andrew had latched onto that. One day, he’d even asked her if she liked the names he’d already picked out for their children.

He and Kate had only been eighteen at the time!

Kate rubbed her temple where a headache was forming.

Apparently, coming to Jude’s apartment had been a huge mistake. It was sending her in all kinds of errant directions. None of them good.

“Damn it, Jude,” she muttered. Then bucked up and said, “I believe in you. In everything you do. I know you so well…” Emotion swelled in her throat. Tears prickled the backs of her eyes. “You are an honorable man. Through all the adversity and the troubled times…you never once lost sight of the difference between right and wrong. Nor did you ever skip over the fact that gray areas exist. Those incongruent, in-between states that can’t actually be reconciled. You live in those gray areas. That’s what makes you so brilliant…so resilient.”

“Kate,” he said in a very honest tone, “I still feel like I’m drowning sometimes.”

“Everyone is drowning sometimes, Jude. What’s most important is making up your mind as to how you’re going to save yourself. If you can swim to shore on your own or if you need someone to toss you a life preserver to cling to… Asking for help is not a sign of weakness. You understand that.”

“It takes some fortitude to reach that conclusion, Kate. Especially for a man like me.”

“You recognized and accepted the choice you needed to make. You let someone help you. So that you don’t drown. You don’t even tread water, Jude. You always get back on solid ground and move forward.”

“You showed me how to do that, Kate.”

r /> “To an extent. But the strength was always inside you, Jude. I just made sure you saw it, latched onto it, committed to it.”

He kissed her tenderly. Then murmured, “You’ve done so much more than you’ll ever know… You rescued me, Kate. I made it through the bleakness with Annalise. I made it through this trial. I’m capable of dealing with all of this… Because of you.”

“Which is why I know I can let you go.”

His gaze narrowed on her. “What?”

“Jude…” Panic seized her. “We have to talk.”

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