“Everybody loves you, Angel.” Ben rocked me gently in his arms. “You know they do.”
“That’s not what I mean.” I gave him another thump on the arm. He’d be black-and-blue in the morning, and I didn’t give a shit.
“Well, how about this, you little witch.” His voice turned rough, and so did his hands. He tangled his fingers in my hair and tilted my face toward his. “I love you. I always have, and I always will.”
Then Ben kissed me the way he hadn’t kissed me since Melody took him for herself.
I opened my mouth to his, learning again the taste and texture of his tongue. Strong emotions swirled together in a brew as heady and confusing as Long Island Iced Tea.
Ben laid me back, my dress rode up, and the rough blanket scratched my bare legs. The mist-heavy air slid cold fingers along my exposed skin. I let him kiss me, and I kissed him back, trying hard not to compare him to Ian, or to the Ben I’d known so many years ago.
Back then, I’d made the mistake of thinking I could maintain a relationship without giving up anything. With Ian, I’d made the mistake of thinking if I gave up everything—my body, my heart—the relationship I craved would follow.
I’d been so accommodating, hadn’t I? Too accommodating.
Ben’s long legs tangled with mine on the scratchy blanket. He was taller than he had been when we were teenagers. Taller, heavier, less rangy, more muscular. We didn’t fit together the same way we had back then.
This was not the Ben I’d fallen in love with.
“No.” I wedged my arms between us and pushed at his shoulders. “Stop.”
Immediately, he pulled away. He sat up, ran his hands through his hair. I sat up, too, and reached out to smooth down the silky strands, but it was a lost cause. The humidity made the loose curls of his perpetually too-long hair tighten into little spirals.
“I’m sorry,” we both said at the same time.
Ben covered my mouth with his fingers. “I shouldn’t have kissed you, not tonight. Coming here was a bad idea.”
I took his hand in both of mine and held tight. “I needed you to try, even if I did say no.”
“I meant it when I said I still love you.” His eyes were soft, his voice even softer. “I never stopped.”
“I love you, too, Ben.” I put my hands on his shoulders and looked him in the face. “Always have, always will.” A vision flashed through my mind of the two of us as we’d been in the third grade, sitting cross-legged behind the alphabet chart stand, taking turns reading to each other. “But you’re not the same person you were all those years ago. Neither am I. We can’t take up where we left off. If we start anything, we have to start slow. I don’t think either of us can stand another broken heart.”
Ben pressed his forehead to mine. “Have you always been this smart?”
“I used to think so.” I chuckled, though I wondered if I’d ever feel like laughing again during this lifetime. “But now, I’m fairly certain that I’m dumb as dirt.”
*
The rain continued after Ben dropped me off at home, a persistent gray drizzle that perfectly matched my mood. The skies cried, and I cried along with them.
I was getting ready for bed when the phone rang. I had already convinced myself Ian wouldn’t call. When he did, I didn’t pick up. Partly because I was still mad, hurt, and grieving. Mostly, I didn’t pick up because my nose was so stuffy from crying. I knew I’d sound horrible and I didn’t want Ian to know how badly he’d hurt me. He left a cheery message in his damn Scottish accent, saying how much he’d missed seeing me today.
Arrogant playboy bastard.
I should have known he was out of my league when I first met him. Ian was no boy-scout. He probably didn’t even realize he’d done anything wrong, and I wasn’t going to be the one to inform him that it just wasn’t right to keep two women on a string. No way would I let him see how much he’d hurt me.
I turned on the TV, watched an infomercial about vacuum cleaners, inhaled an entire party-size bag of Tostitos and killed what was left of yesterday’s bottle of Cabernet.
Ian called again an hour or so later. I wadded up the empty Tostitos bag and hurled it at the phone. The message he left was less cheery, but he obviously had no clue. “Now you’re worrying me, lass. I’d come check on you, but...” There was a slight pause, and I could hear him sigh. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I got into bed and tried to let the sound of the rain on the roof lull me to sleep. But how could I sleep with bed buddies like these—anger, hurt, betrayal, loss? They kicked and pinched and swirled inside me. I tossed and turned and searched for excuses to make what Ian had done okay.
Maybe I had jumped to a conclusion.
Maybe she was his long-lost sister who’d been abandoned at birth.
Maybe, despite all evidence to the contrary, Ian had a good reason to break a date with me and go out with another woman. I tossed aside the sheets and schlepped to the bathroom to pee. Relieving my bladder in the dark bathroom, I berated myself.
I should have answered the phone.
I shuffled to the sink, rinsed my hands, turned on the unforgiving bathroom light, and squinted into the mirror. Why the hell hadn’t I answered the phone? Because now, I was actually considering driving out to his place with my red-rimmed eyes, my swollen nose, my blotchy face.
Wasn’t I an adult? An adult who owed it to Ian to at least give him the chance to explain? I should call him back. But no—I needed to see his face, so I could tell whether he was telling the truth, or playing on my desperate need to believe his lies.
I splashed my face with the hottest water I could stand and followed with a cold rinse. Visually unimproved but filled with purpose, I pulled on clothes, grabbed car keys, and headed out into a driving rain that soaked through my jeans before I got the car door open.
Ian still wanted me, or he wouldn’t have called.
But why would he want me when he could have her?
I had no idea, but I needed to find out. Maybe giving Ian everything wasn’t the wrong thing to do, after all. Maybe all I had to do was lay my soul bare and then give a little more.
It took an hour to make the twenty-minute drive to his house. I navigated flooded streets and detoured around an entire section of town where homes and businesses stood under a foot of water. Just before midnight, I turned onto his drive.
The big house was all-but dark. A dim light over the kitchen sink glowed through the mullioned dining room windows that faced the highway.
I turned off my headlights and stopped halfway down the drive, remembering. I’d once stood at that sink, sipping coffee, leaning against Ian, watching a pair of deer nibble at the gardenia in the back yard.
Should I go through with this? I looked like hell. Maybe I should wait until Monday morning and go by his office.
I had just made the comforting decision to retreat when I saw her.
She emerged like a seductive ghost from the shadowed dining room into the kitchen, her hair floating around her in rich ebony waves. When she reached up into the cabinet over the sink, the black satin robe she wore pulled against ample breasts. She brought down a crystal tumbler, held it under the faucet, and gazed out the window into the dark back yard.
I knew the pure, flowing well-water would fill the glass in exactly the way she expected, just like everything else she’d ever asked for or wanted. She was the kind of woman who never had to wonder why anything happened—or why it didn’t. Just like Melody.
I didn’t worry whether the beautiful woman behind the window saw my cranky old car parked halfway down the drive. Even if she’d been looking in my direction, she couldn’t see me. Even if she’d thought of looking past her own desires, the kitchen light would reflect against the dining room windows and throw back her own image.
She would never know that once again, I had come in second.
She would never know that once again, I was sitting on the outside looking in.
She would never know, and neither would an
yone else.
I backed my car down the drive, and waited until I reached the main road before I turned on the headlights. I went home and tried to sleep, finally giving up when the sky lightened to a pearly gray. Then I walked to the river, so early in the morning that even Lizzie wasn’t interested in coming along. I sat alone on the bench where I’d first kissed Ian, and watched the pale, insufficient sun rise over the water.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I managed to avoid Ian all of Monday.
Once, he came up the stairs between classes, but I initiated a conversation with a couple of parents and waited for him to lose interest.
Maybe he had a great excuse for standing me up and then having dinner and a sleep-over with that sex-on-stilettoes woman. The sad fact was, he wouldn’t need a great excuse. Or even a good one. I’d believe any old flimsy excuse he gave, because I was weak where Ian Buchanan was concerned. And until I could be strong, I had to stay away.
I wasn’t even angry anymore. I was sorry I had let him get so far under my skin. Sorry I’d let my need for love blind me to the truth, and hadn’t realized from the beginning that for him, it had only been about the sex. But at least now, I was crystal-clear about what I wanted.
I wanted marriage. I wanted a man who would love me—and only me—for the rest of our lives. I wanted more than Ian could give. Maybe I should give Ben a chance...
When I got home, I changed from my ballet clothes into jeans and a tee in two-point-nine seconds, and Lizzie and I left the house in case Ian decided to drop by. Because if I came face to face with him, I would cave in.
Ben had asked me to cook supper for him and the kids, and I knew Ian wouldn’t show up there. I could take refuge with Ben until Ian got the message.
I’d been half afraid things would be strained between Ben and me after the Saturday kiss, but they weren’t. Ben leaned against the kitchen counter, sipping wine and pretending to be interested in learning how to cook. Canned laughter spilled from the living room where the kids lounged on the couch in front of the TV.
I handed Ben a bag of rice. “Make yourself useful. Follow the directions.”
While he measured rice and water into a boiler, I battered the chicken. We worked in companionable silence, like a long-married couple. I knew without a doubt Ben and I could be happy together. But would we ever again feel that magnetic pull of pulse-pounding, overwhelming lust? Had Ian ruined me, even for this?
“Shit!” Ben’s voice blended with the hiss of water boiling over onto the stove. He plucked the lid off the rice pot and dropped it onto the counter with a clatter, then shook his fingers to dissipate the heat. “Why’d it do that?”
I turned the burner to low and used a potholder to replace the lid askew, leaving space for the steam to vent. “Didn’t the directions say to turn it down once it started boiling?” I picked up a battered chicken breast. “Watch and learn.” I showed him how to slide it gently into the pan of hot oil.
He snorted. “You’re so talented. That must have been really difficult.”
I wiped my hands on a kitchen towel and moved aside. “Let’s see you do it.”
He picked up a drumstick and lowered its butt end into the boiling oil. The sizzling sound made him jump—he dropped the drumstick into the pan, splattering hot oil. “Damn!”
“Not as easy as it looks?” I demonstrated again how to slide a battered chicken wing into the pan. “Do the rest, and I’ll show you how to make biscuits and gravy.”
As we stood at the stove, he put an arm around me and rested his hand casually on my hip. He took it away after a moment and commandeered the spatula, scraping the pan to keep the gravy from sticking. A calm certainty settled over me. Whatever happened, Ben and I would always be there for each other.
I came home that night half expecting to find Ian waiting on my doorstep, but he wasn’t. He hadn’t left a message. He hadn’t called, at all. More disappointed than relieved, I supposed he’d given up.
*
Early Tuesday morning, Ben called. “Did I wake you?”
I cradled the phone between shoulder and ear, poured coffee into a mug, doctored it with sugar and milk. “No.” I cleared my throat and sat down at my kitchen table. “I just haven’t had my coffee yet. What’s up?”
“Amy’s sick. She started throwing up in the middle of the night.”
“Poor baby. You want me to come take care of her?”
“No. We’re doing okay. She’s asleep now. I’m going to try to get some work done in a minute.”
“Okay.” I stroked Chester, who’d settled into my lap like a huge, puffy pancake. “What do you need me to do?”
“Could you pick up Jake and Maryann after school and keep them with you? If there’s any hope of keeping them from getting what Amy’s got...”
“Sure. No problem. Tell Amy I hope she feels better soon.”
“Thanks, Casey. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“Good thing you won’t have to find out.” I hung up the phone, feeling a small glimmer of hope, and a slightly larger glimmer of determination. I loved Ben, and I loved his kids. Maybe it would be best for everyone if we wound up together.
But no matter what happened, or what didn’t happen, between Ben and me, I couldn’t continue teaching in such close proximity to Ian. Every time I passed his office, I would want to rush in, throw my heart at his feet, and apologize for not answering his calls. If I asked my mother’s opinion, she’d say I should stay put, wait it out, and allow time to work its healing magic. But I didn’t ask my mother’s opinion, because I didn’t want to wait that long.
I took a deep breath, picked up the phone, and called the realty office. Thirty minutes later, I parked my car outside the vacant building that had once been the scene of my high school romance with Ben.
In fact, until my junior year, it had been the scene of every high school romance in Angel Falls. A new high school had been built that year, and the old high school—this old building—had been abandoned. Empty and alone, it stood on a hard foundation of cracked red dirt, its vacant eyes put out by hooligans with slingshots and too much time on their hands.
I got out of my car and walked up the smooth-worn concrete steps to the padlocked double doors. Chipped brick walls served as billboards for graffiti artists, making the place look more like an inner-city ruin than the cultural art center the city wanted to turn it into. And so far, no one in town had shown any interest. But if the project had a chance in hell, I was more than willing to take the first leap.
Something moved in my peripheral vision. My heart lurched in desperate hope. Then I realized the car coming toward mine wasn’t Ian’s black sedan. Murphy Realty’s big maroon land yacht bumped over the curb and tore into the beaten dirt surrounding the old building, sending a plume of dirt into the air—a giant orange exclamation point rising up behind the car.
Joan Murphy got out and slammed the driver door. “Hey, Hon.” The noontime sun shone directly down on her, lighting up the short spikes of her red hair. It was an impossible shade I’d have thought fake if her kids’ hair hadn’t been exactly the same color, including her twin daughters who took ballet. The firecracker red hair was just an indication of their firecracker personalities.
Meredith got out the passenger side, looking like a runway model with her wild brown hair and lean, leggy build. I waited in front of the school’s front doors, my hands shoved into the front pockets of my jeans.
Joan and Meredith came up the stairs, and Joan unlocked the padlocked chain wrapped around the doors’ push bars. “Sorry we’re late.” She unwrapped the chain and dropped it in front of the door. “Richard was showing a house, and he had the key to this place so we had to wait for him to get back.”
Joan Murphy and her husband Richard owned the largest realty office in town, so they stayed pretty busy. “I knew y’all would get here sooner or later.”
The creaky entrance door swung inward. My heart sank down into the dust that covered the old woo
d floors. “Oh, Lord.” Festoons of peeling paint draped from the ceiling and hung down the walls, suspended in a matrix of cobwebs. Dank mildew and black rot gathered in corners and crevices. I imagined I could see mold spores teeming in the humid air. I could certainly smell them. “This is horrible.”
“I know it looks bad,” Joan said. We entered the old ghost of the building quietly, stepping lightly on the dusty floors as if treading on someone’s grave. “But if you decided to take over some part of it for the ballet studio, the city would send in a cleaning crew.”
“It will take more than cleaning products to make this place work.” But hoping to be proved wrong, I followed Joan and Meredith down the trail of footprints someone had left in the wide hallway.
“As I told you on the phone,” Joan said, “the Historical Society—”
Meredith chuckled, and Joan shot her a look. Meredith explained. “Cole calls it the Hysterical Society.”
Joan hooted. “Whatever you want to call it, the society wants to preserve the building. At their request, the city council has voted to allow any civic groups, clubs, or what-have-you to adopt space in the building, rent-free. The only catch is you’d have to do the renovations for your space on your own dime. Here are the girls’ bathrooms.”
The three of us followed the veering path of footprints to the dark narrow bathroom on the first floor. The place was flat-out scary—bad enough to inspire nightmares. We all crowded at the spider-webbed doorway and peered in.
“I’m afraid to walk in.” It was hard to believe this place had ever housed rows of giggling teenage girls standing in front of the mirrors putting on too much mascara, or coaxing the rusty tampon machine to cough up one of its paper-wrapped lifesavers.
Peeling paint, rusting sinks, wobbly plywood dividers separating cracked toilets. There was no way any of the little ones would consent to go in here. Nor would I want them to. “Fixing this bathroom alone would cost thousands.”
“The city would fix them,” Meredith said. “Right, Joan?”
“Right. They just want to know that someone will actually use the space before they do. And all the utilities would be paid by the city. Once you got your studio space fixed-up, you’d have a free place to teach from now on. Let’s go look at the auditorium.” Joan led the way, and Meredith brought up the rear.
Angel Falls (Angel Falls Series, #1) Page 17
