Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
About the Author
Back of the Book
A nor’easter, the two women whose path is forever changed by it.
Alex lost her son, Teddy, to a drunk driver and the anguish of this sent her life into a spiral of pain that removed her from being able to love anyone. She lives in her glacial citadel and she likes it—the cold keeping the warmth out. Reese has made a life for herself and her little girl, Carly, alone and with no support from her family.
Reese and Alex brought together by an act of nature and torn asunder by an attraction and a desire that Alex does not want and runs from. Reese fights for a love that she cannot live without.
They survived the storm that brought them together and only love will deliver them from its aftermath.
The Very Thought of You
© S. Anne Gardner 2003
Affinity E-Book Press NZ LTD
Canterbury, New Zealand
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the express permission of the author or publisher.
Please note that piracy of copyrighted materials violate the author’s right and is illegal.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Editor: Ruth Stanley
Cover Design: Helen Hayes
Acknowledgments
Thank you to my lovely partner who asked for this story and it is because of her that it was written. Lisa, you have been such a gift to my life in so many ways I could not possibly count. Thank you, for loving me, for believing in me in the darkest of times and for sharing with me the best of times. You and the children that we have shared keep my heart and because of all of you, my loves, I am breathing. Here is your love story; I wrote it for you.
To my sons, I am grateful for all the memories and all the love; you have always been the softness inside me. Each one of you have been the miracles in my life.
To my friends who have listened and listened…thank you.
Thank you to Mel and Julie who have believed in this book and have published it.
And my thanks to Ruth, my copy editor, for the patience and sensitivity with which she edited my work.
Dedication
For Lisa, who asked me to write her a love story.
Chapter 1
She didn’t know exactly when it happened, but she suddenly realized that she had lost something important. Something inside her had died. She looked out the window of her corner office at Bakeman, Thomas and Denton. She had made partner and was what many would call a success. As she looked out that window, she asked herself why she was there. There was a snowstorm passing by, a nor’easter no less. All others had left for home but she was still there, working. And, at that moment that morning, she realized she had lost something. She had lost it so slowly that she didn’t even know when it started or when it ended.
She had lost the joy she once had at just waking up and looking into the eyes of her only child. It had been two years since Teddy had died, two years since she had barely seen anything. If she were honest with herself, she would acknowledge that that was the exact moment it had happened, but to do that would mean she would have to look at it. And even now, Teddy was not something she could talk about with anyone.
Her marriage to James, Teddy’s father, from the beginning had been shaky at best, and she couldn’t be sure at that point why she had ever married him. In the beginning, she thought it was because she and James had the same interests and a shared love of the law. But as the years had gone by, she realized that her marriage was just a lifeless entity that served no purpose. She had decided to discuss divorce proceedings with James when she discovered she was pregnant.
And, for a while, Teddy caused them to try to make it work. But in the end, they both realized that they would make better parents if they were apart. It had been just another weekend for her when the phone rang. James always called before dropping Teddy off on Sunday afternoons, so she picked up the phone expecting to hear James’s voice. But, that day, when the phone rang, it was not James but the police. She couldn’t remember exactly what they said or what happened afterward; it was all a blur of pain and more pain that never seemed to end. All she could process were the details—the cold and antiseptic details; all else simply disappeared from her mind. Perhaps it was a blessing or perhaps it was all a part of the nightmare of the nothing that she felt day in and day out.
They had both died instantly. Hit head on by a drunk driver. Her life became a list of things that had to be done, no feeling, a persistent numbness that seeped in like freezing rain; a coldness that steals all the warmth inside you. She never, ever again felt warm after that. The cold had taken over inside her, like a frozen tundra. People were so kind, they took over decisions like what clothes her son should wear; the flowers, the church, even the plot where Teddy and James should be buried. They began to pack up his room and at that she simply began to scream and yell, demanding that they all leave her house. It was her son, his room, and it was up to her to do what she wanted with it. They had called her a few times to ask how she was doing, always avoiding the mention of what had happened. Relatives and friends called; Kate, her sister, had tried to talk to her over and over again but she simply just didn’t want to talk. All she wanted was the one thing no one could give her; she wanted her son. After a few weeks, they all went back to their lives, she didn’t. After a while, she went back to work. Work was what had kept her sane. She worked and she worked. Work was a stream of lifelessness that was filled with words, contracts, and other people. Work was where she lived and where she functioned. She had never done better professionally; work had become her life.
Two years later, she was looking out of her big office window seemingly in full control of her life. Her life. Is this what it is going to be like for the duration? She had become used to the routine. She got up in the morning, went to the office, and didn’t leave until after nine each night taking work home with her. On the weekends she would work some more.
She had slowly separated herself from her friends and family. It had happened so slowly that they had stopped trying to include her. And that was fine with her because not feeling was so much better. Work was something that she had control of and understood. She ran her fingers through her hair not understanding why all of a sudden these things filled her mind, much like the nor’easter that was hitting the area with such force.
She was brought out of her thoughts by the ringing of the telephone. “Hello.”
“Alex, how did I know you would be there?” asked the voice on the other end of the line.
“A good guess, Elliot. What do you want?” she asked sarcastically.
“Alex, the weather is getting really bad out there. Although I can’t fault you for your dedication, I don’t want to see you stuck in the building all weekend.” He said it jokingly but the concern managed to slip in.
Elliot Harford was a senior partner at the law firm and also a friend. He had known Alex when she had been married to James and had seen the changes take place in her afte
r the death of her ex-husband and her son. In effect, he knew more about her than most, so he knew she would be in the office. Elliot had always liked Alex and James but he, like many others, thought that sooner or later she and James would divorce. It was that obvious to anyone who knew them. He had to admire her for trying to make the marriage work for Teddy’s sake. And, he had been there by her side when she buried her ex-husband and son. Little by little the old Alex that he liked disappeared and he missed her. She was effective, efficient and one of the best lawyers, if not the best, in his law firm. However, the woman that she had been had changed. What made her sharp and lethal in the courtroom was a different person than who she had been once upon a time. There had been a softness about her that had simply just disappeared. And he missed that part of his colleague and his friend.
“There are some things I need to go over with you before we go to trial on the Eldrige case. I wanted to check out a few facts...”
Elliot cut her off. “Alex, it looks like Siberia out there. Go home!” His concern was obvious in his voice.
“I’m almost finished here, Elliot,” she stated in a matter-of-fact tone.
“Okay, be careful driving home, Alex. See you on Monday.”
“Yes, sure, I’ll see you Monday, Elliot,” she replied absently as she hung up the phone and went back to her brief.
†
An hour later, she got into her car and started home. It had snowed more than she had expected and she maneuvered her Mercedes slowly down the street. There were only a few cars on the road as most people realized it was not worth taking a chance driving in such horrible weather conditions.
As she came close to an intersection, a car suddenly pulled out in front of her and spun out of control. She swerved to miss hitting the car. The other car, however, did not manage to keep control and slammed into a snowbank to the right of the road. Alex pulled over and took a deep breath to regain control of her shaking body from what just happened. She looked up at her rearview mirror and could see the driver of the other car; the driver’s head was leaning on the wheel. Alex picked up her cell phone and dialed 911 but there was no signal whatsoever. She tried once more then just acted on instinct; Alex opened her car door and ran back toward the other car as quickly as she could through the heavy winds of the raging snowstorm.
When she reached the other car, she knocked on the window. She could see a woman with blonde hair with her head resting on the steering wheel. She tried opening the door but it was locked. Alex looked around the interior of the car and was able to make out the crying of a child coming from the backseat. Alex tried the door again then the door that led to the backseat from the driver’s side; both were locked. She could see a little girl in a car seat in the back and the persistent crying began to scare her. She tried banging on the glass again to see if the driver might hear her. And when the blonde’s head moved, she felt a rush of relief.
She knocked on the window again, signaling the woman to unlock the door. The woman leaned over and pulled up the lock before she fell back on the seat. Alex pulled the door open and could see a gash on the blonde’s forehead, which was bleeding profusely. As she looked at the blonde woman’s face, the beauty of the woman before her struck her. It seemed odd to her that she would notice that under the circumstances. She shook her head as if to come back to reality and then looked at the little girl who was quietly sobbing and had begun to hiccup as tears ran down her face. She pulled up the lock to the back door, then closed the driver’s side door gently to protect the woman inside from the wind still coming in strong gusts around them. She opened the back door to tend to the child who seemed somewhat calmer as she reached out slowly for her.
“Okay, it’s going to be okay,” she said gently to the little girl who bravely tried to control her sobbing.
“Mommy...is mommy okay?” she finished saying as another sob escaped her.
Alex looked to the front and then back at the child. She could tell the child the truth that she didn’t know anything about the woman’s condition, which is what her sterile mind assessed. But, looking into those blue, tear-filled eyes, she did the only thing she could think of, she lied.
“She is going to be fine. We are going to get you both into my car and get you to the hospital,” she said confidently to the child.
“My arm is hurt. Mommy was taking me to the hospital, I fell off the counter,” she said. “I wanted a cookie and I fell.” She started sobbing again.
“Okay, okay...it’s okay, what’s your name?” Alex smiled, trying to soothe the little girl.
“Carly…” the little girl replied as she sniffled and wiped her runny nose with her arm.
“I like it…” was all that Alex said and the little girl giggled and smiled.
“Okay, Carly, I am going to get you out of your seat and into my car and then I will get your mom, okay?” Alex waited patiently and finally the little girl nodded her head in agreement. She unbuckled the child and bundled her up in a blanket that she noticed on the other side of the seat before starting back to her car with the little girl in her arms.
Alex finally reached her car and could not help but shake as she strapped the little girl into the backseat; the cold was going right through the lightweight coat she was wearing. She was about to start back for the woman when she felt a small hand hold on to hers.
“I’m scared,” the little girl said.
Alex reached out and put a golden curl back behind the child’s ear. “Everything is going to be fine, angel.” The child stared into her eyes and Alex was touched by the look of trust she saw there. “I’m going to get your mommy. I’ll be right back, okay?” Carly nodded.
Alex braved the cold again as she began to make her way back to the other car. When she finally reached the other vehicle she opened the driver’s side door. The woman inside turned her head slowly to her, her eyes still closed. She looked at the pale face of the beautiful woman before she reached in and tried to unbuckle the seat belt. As she removed it, the woman’s eyes fluttered open.
When blue eyes met green ones, the world suddenly stood still. It felt like fusion, or when suddenly all stops and nothing else filters. All Alex could hear was her breathing and all she could see were those blue eyes. And as the lips of the woman opened slowly, Alex’s eyes focused on the lips, mesmerized by them. A strong gust of wind shook the car and Alex out of her trance.
“Can you move?” she asked softly.
“I think so...” The woman suddenly got very agitated. “Carly!”
“Your daughter is safe in my car; she’s fine, a little shaken up but otherwise fine,” Alex said reassuringly.
“My head,” the woman complained before her head fell back again to the seat.
“You probably have a concussion. I’m going to try and get you into my car and then we can try getting to the hospital,” Alex said, making an effort to sound calmer than she actually felt.
The blonde shook her head in affirmation.
“Okay, come on. I’ll help you out and you can lean on me, okay?” Slowly Alex helped the injured woman out of the car. As the woman stood upright, she fell forward into Alex’s arms clinging to her as her head rested on Alex’s chest.
“Slowly...a step at a time.” They began walking toward Alex’s car fighting against the gusts of wind and snow. Once they reached Alex’s car she helped her into the front passenger’s seat and strapped the seat belt on as gently as she could so as not to cause any further pain. As she did this, her passenger seemed to lose consciousness. Alex closed the car door and ran to the other side and got into the driver’s seat.
“Is my mommy going to be okay?” asked the little girl bravely.
“Yes, sweetheart. We’re going to the hospital now.” Alex looked at the woman next to her, and then focused on the road as she headed for the nearest hospital.
†
Alex sat in the sterile waiting room of the hospital, waiting. The last time Alex had been in a hospital was when James and Ted
dy had died and the police had taken her to identify the bodies. She just sat quietly, lost in a time she had never truly left behind. It was a familiar scene that she didn’t want to remember, but one she couldn’t forget. Those were the details that she could not erase from her mind: the smell of antiseptic, the whiteness of the walls, and the colors that they all wore, white, sterile white. All the details were so embedded in her psyche that she could not remove them. There were no feelings, no emotions just a cold bluntness to it all. And Alex found herself back to the dark time in her life. When she was taken to see them, she remembered thinking that Teddy looked like he was just sleeping. How could he be dead? He had been such a beautiful boy. As all those memories washed over her yet again, the pain was still a constant but the tears still never appeared.
Suddenly two little feet stood on a piece of the floor that she had been staring at. Alex’s eyes came up and before her stood Carly with a cast on her little arm.
“Hi,” she said to Alex.
Another voice spoke to her. “I’m Doctor McKensey.”
Alex looked up and saw a young man dressed in a white coat.
“She will be fine. It was a simple break. Her mother has a concussion and we would like to keep her overnight for observation.” As he spoke to her he began writing on a pad.
Carly slipped her small hand into Alex’s, and she looked down at the child who was leaning against her.
“Here is a prescription for some Tylenol with codeine in case she is in a lot of pain. Some children are okay taking it others get really fuzzy. Her mother needs to take her to her pediatrician in a week to check the cast.” The doctor nodded and handed her a piece of paper.
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