Mr. Right Next Door

by Arlene James

  Radley pushed Morgan to write acknowledgments of all the flowers, plants, cards and gifts of food that found their way into the house. When Denise received hers, she gnashed her teeth in frustration. It read, “Thanks for everything, and tell Chuck thanks, too. Morgan.” She could only assume that Chuck had followed through on his offer to send flowers—and Morgan had equated that simple, offhand act with “everything” she had tried to do. It was time to accept the fact that Morgan’s love for her—if it had ever actually existed—had died its own quiet death.

  So she did the only thing she knew to do; she took refuge in her work and continued privately grieving her losses, just as she had done before Morgan Holt had pushed his way into her life.

  Morgan floated up out of sleep, drifting into consciousness. Drifring described perfectly all that he did these days. He drifted from one meaningless moment to the next. Sighing, he rolled easily onto his back and opened his eyes to darkness. He was used to waking several times a night now, used to being alone, and he knew from experience that if he just lay quietly and kept his mind a blank, he would drift back off to sleep.

  He was almost there, had almost reached oblivion when a distant sound pulled him back. It was that sound that had awakened him, that faraway, almost unrecognizable noise that was clearly out of sync with the night. Radley. His mind immediately provided the solution to an unwanted puzzle. But no, Radley had returned to Fayetteville and college at last. Reiver, then. For some reason, the big dog seemed to resent being shut out of Morgan’s bedroom these days. He often whined and scratched at the door. Morgan ignored him, telling himself that he needed sleep and the dog was a distraction.

  The sound came again, and he recognized it this time, a kind of rattling knock followed by a startled bark. Morgan resignedly admitted to himself that the sound did not originate with the dog. Burglars, perhaps? He reflected with something akin to amusement that the idea did not alarm him. But then it wasn’t very likely. Jasper’s weekly police report usually included such heinous crimes as candy stealing and name calling. He supposed that it was someone he knew and that he really ought to get up and see who it was.

  Eventually he did so. It was like wading through deep water, but he finally managed to get himself up and into his robe and slippers before walking out onto the landing and down the curving stairs. He noted the blurred silhouette of whomever stood beyond the leaded glass of his front door, backlit by the porch lamp. It definitely had long hair. Denise. He felt a twinge of dread but not enough to make him turn back and pull the covers over his head.

  He realized as he drew near that a piece of white paper had been pressed against the glass, and she appeared to be writing on it. Without warning, he opened the door, and she nearly fell into the entry hall on top of him.

  “Morgan!”

  “Hello.

  The dog was there and welcomed her with uncustomary vigor, leaping up and wagging his tail.

  “What are you doing walking around in the dark?” she asked Morgan while rubbing the dog’s head. “You could’ve let me know you were there.”

  “Sorry. Did you want something?”

  She pulled back from the dog, folded the envelope on which she had been writing and stuck it into her purse, along with the slender pen she had been using. Reiver sat back on his haunches expectantly. “I, um, wanted to let you know that I’ll be out of town a few days.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’ve arranged for my next-door neighbor to feed the cat, but I’d still like it if you kept an eye on the place.”

  “Sure.”

  They stood for a moment, each uncertain what to say next, until Morgan realized that he was cold and standing in an open doorway in his bare feet. Obviously, the situation required a remedy. He said the first thing that came to mind. “Well, have a good trip.”

  That seemed to irritate her for some reason. “Don’t you even want to know where I’m going?”

  He didn’t see really that it mattered, but he politely said, “All right.”

  She frowned. He felt it, despite the shadows obscuring her face, and that feeling, that sense of her, disturbed him greatly. “I’m going to Chicago on business,” she said, and he nodded quickly, desperate to get away.

  “I see. Well—”

  “Do you?” she said, grasping the door facing. Reiver’s tail thumped the floor hopefully once or twice, then subsided. “I don’t think you see or hear or feel anything,” she added.

  He didn’t deny it, though at the moment he was feeling a kind of panic he couldn’t quite define. She laid her head against the doorjamb, and Reiver stretched out on the floor at his feet, whining with disappointment as it became evident that she wasn’t coming in.

  “Oh, Morgan, I can’t stand this anymore!” she cried. “You said yourself that Ben wanted to be with your mother again. He wanted to go.”

  “Yes.”

  “You can’t let this beat you! You have to start living again.”

  “I am.”

  “No, you’re not! You’re hung up in denial, and if you don’t force yourself out of it we’ll never...you’ll never have a real life again.”

  She was right, and he knew it, but he couldn’t see what she expected him to do about it. He made a feeble attempt to placate her. “We’ll have dinner when you get back.”

  “And discuss what? The weather? The stock market?”

  “I don’t follow the stock market.”

  She laughed, but it sounded more like crying. “You made me open up to you. You made me care about you. And now you’re essentially telling me that it means nothing to you anymore! Don’t you see what’s happened? We’ve traded places, you and I. Now you’re the one who can’t care about anyone or anything, and I’m the one with her heart broken—again!”

  He was disturbed by that. He hadn’t meant to break anyone’s heart. All he wanted was to be left alone for a time, to get used to the hole in his heart, the emptiness of his life. That wasn’t too much to ask, was it? He took a deep breath and repeated the one pacification he’d offered before. “We’ll talk when you get back.”

  She gripped the door facing until her fingertips glowed white. “We won’t talk about anything important,” she said in a whisper aching with sadness. “We won’t talk about anything that matters. Oh, Morgan, I don’t want to lose you! I just can’t lose anyone I love again!” With that, she whirled and hurried away.

  He watched her pound across the porch and down the steps, then carefully shut the door. Reiver sat up, whining. Morgan ignored him. He had hurt her somehow, and he was sorry about that, but he simply couldn’t do anything about it right now. His father, his best friend, his hero, his anchor had left this world and him alone in it. Shouldn’t she understand that? He turned from the door and moved sluggishly toward the stairs. Reiver got up and followed, whining still. Morgan thought irritably that he ought to get a cat.

  He went to his room and stripped off his robe before lying down on top of the covers. It was cold, and he wanted to cover up, but it seemed like too much effort at the moment. After a bit, he rolled onto his side, curled up his legs, and reached down for whatever covers he could find. He pulled them up all the way to his chin, sighed, and closed his eyes, expecting to drift away. But sleep did not come. He looked at the clock on the dresser and was surprised to find that it was just half past nine. He hadn’t been in bed an hour when Denise had awakened him. Suddenly, something that she’d said echoed in his mind, and this time for some reason he really heard it. I just can’t lose anyone I love again....

  Love. Did Denise love him? Hadn’t he wanted that? Why now did the thought bring a kind of panic and the need to flee? Denise was everything he’d ever wanted in a woman. She was bright and confident, stronger, he suspected, than she even knew. She had real style and charm—when she chose to—and her heart was bigger and softer than anyone could expect, considering all she’d been through. He’d told her that Ben had undoubtedly reached out to Jeremy in Heaven in order to comfort he
r, but ever since, he could only think that he did not want his father there with Jeremy. He wanted him here for himself. In all his life, only his father had stood firmly by him, only his father had ever loved him no matter what, as he was now trying to love Radley.

  Radley. Radley had proven himself a capable, compassionate man, the kind of man he tried to be himself. It occurred to him then that, as he loved Radley in the same way that his own father had loved him, then perhaps Radley loved him in the same way that he, Morgan, loved Ben. Did that mean that Radley was looking to him for the same kind of support for which he had looked to Ben? God, how could he ever live up to the legacy of Ben Holt? He thought of the way Belinda nagged at Radley and tried to force her own values on him, how often she expressed disappointment in him, how she undermined his confidence and then criticized him for not being able to choose a profession. What had ever made him think that he could counter that? Had he really believed that he could single-handedly provide the support and wisdom of two parents?

  The world seemed a terribly overwhelming place just then, because Ben, his bulwark against the tempests of life, had been removed. For only the second time since he’d sat at the side of his father’s deathbed, he cried. He turned his face to the pillow and let it soak up the tears that rolled silently from his eyes.

  I just can’t lose anyone I love again.... I just can’t lose anyone I love again....

  How had she survived it the first time? he wondered. Clearly, he hadn’t given her enough credit. It had seemed to him that she was afraid to face the world, to live fully, to let anyone get close to—The thought ran to a screeching halt inside his head. God help him, he hadn’t been wrong. She’d reacted just as he had to the death of the most important person in her world, the one who gave her the strength to do what life requires. Just like him. Except that he had Radley. Suddenly he was so very grateful for his son and for Denise and for what he’d had with his parents, for a wise and wonderful father and a kind, loving mother. His quiet tears turned into sobs that were a mixture of laughter and pain.

  It was cold, not as cold as Chicago, but cold enough to have her shivering inside her warm-up suit. She ran from the parking lot, a gust of wind slamming the heavy metal door behind her as she entered the club building. Several heads turned. Some people recognized her and called out hellos or acknowledged her with waves. She felt a surprising satisfaction in so many friendly greetings. They seemed to say that she was home. Jasper was really home for her now. She hadn’t felt that she had a place in this world in so long that she hardly knew how to respond. She smiled, stiffly at first and then warmly, and gave back little waves of her own.

  After checking in, she went to the posting board to see what activities were available. An aerobics class was about to begin, also a coed basketball game. Water isometrics classes were conducted every hour on the half hour through eight o’clock. She hadn’t brought a swimsuit, and the other activities didn’t particularly appeal to her. She supposed she could go for a run around the rubber track and finish off with a half hour in the weight room, but running had never been her favorite sport. She stepped over and checked out the racquetball court reservation sheet, finding an open slot in about forty minutes. She penciled in her name and attached a red sticker beside it, indicating that she needed a partner. That done, she wandered over to a crowd gathered to watch the half-court basketball game that the volunteer ref had just whistled to a start. She’d spend fifteen or twenty minutes mingling, and if she hadn’t found a partner by then, she’d release the court and take that run, after all.

  She was about to do just that when she glanced toward the outside door and saw Morgan walk past the check-in station wearing street clothes, the pockets of his corduroy coat bulging suspiciously. He gave the studly male attendant a smile and a slight wave, spoke briefly and wandered into the busy gymnasium, turning his head this way and that as if searching for someone. Denise bowed her head and bit her lip. Was he looking for someone specific? A friend? A date? All she knew for sure was that he wasn’t looking for her. As far as he knew, she was still in Illinois. On the edge of the crowd, she turned away, but then she stopped.

  Morgan had been distressingly persistent about getting to know her. It was because of him, really, that she had let down the barriers and allowed herself to start fitting in here. He was the reason this place had become home to her. What if he had been as easily discouraged as she was feeling now? She might still be getting her only welcomes, however tentative, from that snotty cat of hers. On the other hand, if he rebuffed her again... Well, she wasn’t sure that it would be wise to solicit such an experience in public. She stood uncertainly for several moments, debating her options, only to let someone else beat her to the draw.

  “Hey, Morgan!” She whirled around in time to catch a glimpse of one of her neighbors as he pushed past her, moving in Morgan’s direction. Morgan stopped and waited for the young man to reach him. They shook hands. The man clapped him on the shoulder, speaking deliberately. Morgan nodded and managed a wan smile, then nodded again. Denise knew exactly what was being said. Glad to see you out and about. Sorry about your loved one. Let me know if there’s anything I can do. I know what you’re going through because my grandmother-aunt-cousin-stepsister passed away six, seven, eight years ago. And so on and so forth, all of it very nearly meaningless because no one can know just what another person feels or thinks...unless the bond of love and shared experience is so strong that it transcends the normal barriers of skin and bone. But she knew. Oh, yes, she did. She knew exactly what he’d been through, exactly. Which was why she should be there beside him now. Putting aside her fear of rejection, she crossed the room toward him, getting there just as her neighbor clapped him once more on the upper arm and left him.

  He hadn’t seen her yet. His eyes were closed and his head bowed as he took a deep, fortifying breath.

  “Hi.”

  His head snapped up, eyes gone wide. “Denise! I didn’t know you were back.”

  “I just got in a little while ago.”

  “And your first thought was to come here?”

  She shrugged. “I was feeling kind of restless.”

  He nodded and ran a hand over his head. “I know what you mean.”

  “Do you? That’s a good sign.”

  “Is it? I don’t know.” He shook his head and added softly, “It’s so much more difficult than I expected.”

  She reached out a hand to him, laying it tentatively upon his forearm. “I know.”

  He covered her hand with his. “I know you do.”

  They stood that way for a moment, and then he abruptly pulled back. “Listen, I, uh, could use a sponsor. I told the attendant that I was just looking for someone when I came in. I figure that he’s ready to throw me out right about now.”

  She smiled. “No problem—providing you’re willing to give me a game of racquetball. I have a court reserved for twenty minutes from now.”

  “Great. Uh, I can’t promise you a top-level game, though.”

  “That’s all right. I don’t have anything to prove, just working off some excess energy and whiling away some time.”

  “Okay. Sounds good.”

  “Just let me clear this with the gatekeeper,” she said, moving off in that direction. In only a matter of seconds she had Morgan’s name on the guest list, hers beside it in the sponsor column. She walked back to him, and together they made their way to the back of the building.

  In the communal area outside the courts and the showers, Morgan stripped off his street clothes, revealing skinhugging silks beneath. Quickly he slipped on a pair of loose shorts and sat down next to Denise on the bench to pull on his socks and court shoes while she did likewise. She finished first and began stretching. He joined her shortly, and they worked in a silence that was only slightly uncomfortable. Time passed quickly, and the court emptied right on schedule. Denise removed her warm-up suit and took a final few stretches before getting out her racquet and balls.

&nbs
p; Morgan followed her into the room, wheeling his arm to loosen the joints. Denise took the first serve without preamble. His return was sluggish, as well as the next and the next, but she cut him no slack. Instead she drove him, on and on, right to the very edge of his endurance and ability. When it was over, he was breathing much too hard, and she was much too energetic still.

  “Again,” he said tersely, disgusted that he had allowed himself to deteriorate to such a state. How many weeks had it been since he’d had a real workout? He didn’t care to count them.

  “You sure?” she asked, sounding slightly more breathless than he’d expected.

  He merely nodded and served the ball. She went after him with every ounce of her strength—and beat him down to his knees, literally. Exhausted, he missed the shot and dropped, huffing through his mouth. She pattered over to the ball and bent to scoop it up, then came back to stand over him.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” It took him a while to get the one word out

  She glanced at the clock on the wall. “We’ve run over about two minutes.”

  He nodded and lifted a hand for assistance. She bent and slipped a hand beneath his arms, helping him up. He reeled slightly, then found his feet. “Thanks.”

  She stepped away, and he was grateful. It was embarrassing enough without her thinking she would have to help him from the room. His strength returned in time to get him out the door and across to the bench.

  Denise went through her cool-down routine without so much as a glance in his direction, then tugged on her warm-up suit and changed her shoes. He’d managed to get down to his bare feet by then and take out his fresh clothing.

  “I planned to shower at home,” she said, then amended herself. “Actually, I’m thinking of a long, hot soak in the tub, so I guess I’ll take off now.”

  Her words conjured a sensually vivid image for him—candles surrounding a steaming tub, Denise with her hair pinned up, wet skin gleaming. Impulsively he followed up on her statement as best he could, given the situation.