Wolfe
Page 3
"I've got you" He said into her ear, her eyes still closed. For the moment she forgot why she had been running, she just felt the closeness of him, the care in his voice, and all she wanted was for him to take her inside.
Wolfe raced back to the house, desperate to get Ruby safely inside,he took her straight through to the living room, laid her down on the sofa, and placed a blanket over her, then heading to the kitchen and fetching back a bowl of warm water and towels for her feet.
"Thank you" she said, taking the towels as Wolfe sat beside her. Wolfe looked at her, cold, wet, bleeding. His heart ached, this was all his fault.
"Ruby I have to explain, let me just explain and then if you still want to leave tonight I will find a way to get you home, I promise, but I can't let you go not knowing the full story"
She looked up at him, not smiling, not really anything, he couldn't read her response, she was just ready to listen. Taking a deep breath to steady his nerves he began,
"Twenty years ago I had more success than I knew what to do with, I was arrogant, obnoxious, I only painted women I thought were beautiful, never having any real relationships, never thinking I needed one, and never thinking anything of the women I met were good enough for me, in my arrogance.
I had been working on a collection of over 200 paintings, they were going to be exhibited at an opening that was being planned at one of my galleries, it was all I had given any thought to for nearly three years, it had become my obsession. Finding the perfect woman became my obsession, I spent years fascinated by the way women look, searching endlessly for the ideal beauty. Never interested in anything other than their appearances, I had no idea how lonely and sad I was. How these women looked to me for their approval, when in reality I never saw anything beyond their eyes, hair and skin. I hate who I was back then, that's what money and success does to someone, it allows you to be like that, I never needed anyone's approval, or anyone's money, so therefore I never thought I owed anyone my respect." He took a pause, his face looking to the floor, not wanting to look at Ruby, hearing himself say the words out loud only reminded him even more what a vile person he had been. How he deserved what had happened to him, and how he ultimately, did not deserve Ruby.
He cleared his throat a little, shifting awkwardly in his seat.
"Anyway, there was this girl who worked for my assistant at the time, she was called Lilly, she was about 19 years old, I had never even spoken to her even though she had been in my house every day for over two years. Well it turned out that Lilly was in love with me, she had loved my work for years and was hoping I would paint her for my collection, she showed up on the day she knew I was holding sittings for potential life models, and I didn't even recognise her, not because she looked particularly different, but because I had never even noticed her before so had no recollection of who she was, and therefore no qualms in telling her she was not right for my collection and closing the door in her face." Wolfe placed his head in his hands, Ruby could see how hard this was for him to say, how much he hated himself for the way he had acted,
"She left me a note, I remember what it said word for word, 'You may know what beauty is but you don't know love, it must be very lonely'. It was, I didn't realise how lonely I was at the time as I was surrounded by people but I didn't have a single friend, I didn't think I needed them. Not really.
Anyway that night a group of us were at the local pub. You might know it, The Angel Inn, we had been drinking and celebrating my completion of the collection at last and the impending gallery opening. There was a woman, she was known locally, notorious for her ability to read peoples palms, I didn't believe any of it and thought it all nonsense, but in our drunken excitement we thought it would be a laugh. She came to the table and read everyone, and then she took my palm." Wolfe swallowed, running his hand slowly through his hair, remembering her words.
"You, you are going to lose everything you hold dear, everything you care about will all be gone and you will know what it is to be truly alone" She held my hand for a moment, I remember I felt shivers, she looked straight at me, like she knew me, like she had already seen it, I felt it. In my cockiness of course I didn't let on that she had affected me, and I let out a laugh to which everyone joined in, I handed her some money and asked her to leave. She didn't take the money though, she pushed it back towards me, and simply said 'red hair, watch for a girl with red hair, she will come, one day she will come and your days alone will end'.”
Ruby felt as though her heart had stopped for a moment, her breath caught in her throat. Wolfe dared not look at Ruby, determined to finish he continued,
"Anyway, I came home alone that night and passed out on the sofa, this sofa to be exact, I woke up hours later only because I smelt smoke, I ran to see where it was coming from and saw the passageway leading to what is now the library was full of smoke, my entire collection had been destroyed in a fire, to this day I don't know how the fire started. In a moment of stupidity I ran through the flames, trying desperately to salvage anything that I could, it was all I had worked for for years, all of it, just gone, burnt to nothing, vanished beneath the flames, everything I had been back then was in those paintings and the fire just swallowed it all up, it swallowed me up. I began to choke on the smoke, it was hopeless, I ran out as fast as I could, throwing myself out of the door on to the ground, I knocked myself out, I didn't come round until the morning when Jessica, my assistant at the time, arrived for work and I woke from the sound of her screams. My face was covered in burns, my neck, my arms, half of my hair was gone. She called for an ambulance immediately, I couldn't bring myself to speak, I was in shock, not able to understand how the whole house hadn't gone up in flames. The fire service couldn't figure it out either, writing it off as a freak accident, the gallery, which is now the library, had been the only room effected by the fire, it seemingly started and finished unaided. Anyway, they took me to the hospital where I stayed for about a month, my burns were so bad they were worried I would lose my sight, luckily I didn't. When I was allowed home I hired a new assistant. I didn't want anyone around me that had known me before, known who I had been, I just wanted to be alone. So I hired Sarah, I asked her to take care of my galleries, the house, any errands I needed doing, and I just locked myself away. Convinced that the woman I had met at the Angel Inn had been right, she had seen it all. So I knew I was destined to be alone."
Wolfe still couldn't bring himself to look at Ruby, she hadn't said a word, just listened, unable to tell what she was thinking, he continued,
"Every night since then, I have dreamed of you Ruby, I had never even met you, never seen your face, but every single night since this happened to me, you have been in my dreams, I had no idea if you were real, or if my mind had just made you up because of what she had said, 'Red hair, watch for the girl with the red hair'. I didn't pick up a paint brush for five years, trying to leave that part of my life behind, but you, you and your red hair were persistent, and it was as though I needed to release you, I had to paint you, and so I did, for ten years I have been painting you, drawing you, waiting to see if you would ever come. Never believing you actually would, and then you arrived. It was actually you, here, in my house, not just on canvas, I remember standing and watching you, observing the way you stood, your eyes, how your hair fell about your face, every thing about you that I had seen in my dreams had been real. Of course I never wanted you to find the paintings like that, no one was ever supposed to see them, it was just, I don't know, it was just me fighting the loneliness, when I painted you I didn't feel as lonely anymore, but when you came here and I saw that everything had been true, I couldn't bring myself to tell you, I didn't know how to, I was so afraid you would run and I would be alone again, and then this happened. I'm so, God, Ruby, I'm so, so, sorry..." His voice trailed off. Ruby took a breath, placed her hand on his, the other hand she lifted to the side of his face, her index finger running gently over his scars, she turned his face towards her, looked him straight in the eye, he w
as beautiful, she thought, this dark, lonely, damaged man, was beautiful, and he needed her, he'd waited for fifteen years for her, she was meant to come to his house that day, what they had felt when they first looked at each other had been real, what she had felt when she first touched his face on the landing earlier had been real. She smoothed the hair out of his eyes, leaned in and kissed him. Wolfe tried to catch his breath, his heart and mind racing, she wasn't running, he had told her everything and she wasn't running, she wanted him, he wrapped her up in his arms, pulling her towards him, lifting her off the sofa, returning her kiss. She pulled away as she lay weightless in his arms as he lifted her effortlessly, looking at him, his face beaming, his eyes filled with tears, one falling down his cheek which she caught with her finger, he had never felt love before this moment,
"Mr Wolfe, what big eyes you have" Ruby smiled.
"All the better to see you with my dear" Wolfe replied, and he kissed her again, and again, and again, and again, and again....
The End.