by Gerri Hill
Erin shrugged. “He got delayed at another project because the guys doing the drywall had a supply issue. Not his fault.”
Joyce put her hands on the desk and leaned down, meeting her gaze. “Are you sure you’re Erin Ryder? Have you been body-snatched?”
“Funny.”
Joyce smiled at her. “So? Is that a no on Ralph’s?”
“I brought my lunch.”
“Good God—who are you?”
Erin glanced up from her spreadsheet. “I’ll call around, find someplace that has decent veggie burgers. Maybe we can go another day.”
“Okay. Let me know.” Joyce paused at the door. “I’m glad you’re back, Erin. Really, I am.”
She nodded. “Yeah. Thanks.”
She’d like to say that she was glad to be back too. But that wasn’t the case, was it? As soon as Joyce left, she spun around in her chair. She’d closed the blinds today, using the bright morning sun as an excuse. Truth was, she couldn’t find any motivation to work, not when she was staring out the window, wishing she was anywhere else but closed up in this bare office. Not true either. Not anywhere. She knew where she wished she was.
She’d taken to making Melanie’s fried potatoes and onions and peppers for breakfast. She’d bought a dozen eggs but found the taste lacking after eating fresh ones for so long. She’d bought a package of flour tortillas, but they, too, paled in comparison to the homemade ones she’d grown accustomed to. Even adding green salsa—from a jar—didn’t help much. She should have stolen one of the pints of salsa that Mel had canned from her garden veggies.
Two weeks. Seventeen days. So, almost three weeks. The days—the nights—had simply crawled by. She’d officially taken back all ten of the projects from her father. Two weeks. It had taken two weeks to get them back on track and running smoothly again. All without yelling or throwing tantrums or threatening the contractors. She’d calmed down the buyers who were starting to panic at the delays, she’d called in a couple of favors, and she’d hired a new contractor—a plumber who was just starting up a new business—to work on a house that had been at a standstill for three weeks. Things were running smoothly again.
She stood up and opened the blinds, noting that clouds now shrouded the sun. Would they have thunderstorms today? Rain? She thought it funny that she had never really bothered—or cared—about the weather before. She went from her garage at home to the parking garage here at the office. Rain only affected her by slowing her commute. She didn’t consider that trees and grass and, yeah, people’s gardens needed rain to survive. Creeks and rivers. The birds. She smiled. Goats and chickens.
She took a deep breath, then blew it out—as if she could blow away the images in her mind.
Unfortunately, they stayed. They were as fresh and crisp as ever.
Chapter Fifty-Two
The path along Mule Creek was dry, the dirt starting to crack again from the sun. Once the summer rain ended, the characteristics of the desert started to show again. The cabin, which was along Eagle Creek, was at the edge of the foothills, the trees and terrain more mountain than desert. Here, closer to the bluff, where Mule Creek now flowed, desert plants dominated.
She paused beside the large yucca, the tall stem of the flower starting to lose its petals. She had such a clear vision of Erin bending close to smell the fragrance, she had to blink several times to chase it away.
She turned her attention to the creek, its water flowing steadily by, gurgling past the rocks on its way to meet up with Eagle Creek past the cabin. The little creek would lose steam as winter approached, lessening to only a trickle in places, until the snowmelt from back in the mountains filled it again. It would go dry as the spring flowers bloomed and stay dry until July when the cycle started all over again.
“Mel…look at that!”
She whipped her head around, hearing nothing but the breeze as it carried Erin’s voice away. She closed her eyes, letting imaginary fingers caress her cheek, soft fingertips glide across her skin. She smiled as quiet laughter whispered in her ear, warm lips nipped at her neck, demanding hands pulled her close.
The smile faded when she opened her eyes. It was the creek flowing, the breeze whispering, the piñon pine brushing her arm.
Damn… How long was she going to do this? Would she be like Stella, years from now still hanging on to a memory of a long-lost love? She couldn’t decide which hurt worse—the guilt she clung to over Adam or the emptiness in her heart where Erin used to be.
Because, yes, she could admit—now, she could—that she’d fallen in love with Erin. She’d convinced herself that their relationship, while emotional to some extent, was mainly physical. And, of course, temporary. That was something they’d both known going in. Temporary. Yet they’d become friends. Rare for her. Rarer still, they’d become close friends. Erin knew all her dark secrets. Erin never judged. It was simply too easy. After her initial fear, it was so easy being with Erin. Being lovers.
Easy. Natural. They were open and free with each other. There were no outside distractions, no ulterior motives, no games. And she fell in love.
She tapped her hiking stick on the rocks a couple of times, then walked on. She had tons of things she could be doing. Should be doing. The green beans were all but spent, so she needed to pull the plants while they still had some life in them. The goats were in for a treat. And it was time to collect pine needles. The nights were getting colder and if she wanted to harvest sugar snaps before a hard freeze, she’d need to protect them. And she needed to stack the firewood she’d cut last week. Most of it was still on back of her truck. So many little chores that had occupied her days for the last seven years. Yet she was out hiking as if she hadn’t a care in the world. Hiking, because, in the garden, she saw Erin in every corner. In the garden, in the shed, in the kitchen, in the bedroom… There was no place left for her to go. Even out here, in the wide-open spaces, the deep, endless sky, all she had to do was listen.
She tilted her head now, smiling again as the breeze carried Erin’s voice, tickling her ears as it passed by, lingering for only a second before disappearing into the trees.
Chapter Fifty-Three
She tapped the steering wheel absently, the song on the radio barely loud enough to register. She’d left earlier than usual and now was regretting it as traffic had slowed to a crawl. While she had taken to arriving at the office after nine to avoid the morning rush, she normally stayed until six thirty or so, letting the five o’clock traffic die down. Today, though, she’d made a point to leave earlier. She’d found she was staying longer and longer and she was adamant that she would not fall back into old routines that kept her at the office until nine or ten at night. So she’d head home early, she’d make dinner. Then she’d watch a little TV. That medical drama that she and Mel had started watching was on tonight. She could kill an hour or two in front of the tube.
Then start all over again tomorrow.
“Your life sucks,” she muttered to her reflection in the mirror.
Yeah, it did. She knew what she needed to do. She needed to try to hook up with some of her old friends. Try to reconnect with them. Hell, she needed to go out and do something. Maybe it was time to start dating again. Real dating this time. Not just quick hookups to try to get over Sarah. Because it wasn’t Sarah anymore. It was Mel.
How had Melanie gotten so deep into her heart? When had that happened? And why the hell couldn’t she kick her out? It was like she followed her everywhere…to work and back home. At the grocery store, she walked beside her in the produce aisle. She hovered over her while she cooked. She sat beside her on sofa. And she crawled into her bed at night.
She recognized the similarities. When Sarah left, yeah, the house seemed empty. Her bed seemed empty. She knew now that it was mostly with anger that she missed Sarah. She’d stumbled around her empty house, wondering where she’d failed, trying to picture Sarah in happier times. Sometimes she could convince herself that they’d been ecstatically happy together, b
ut she knew deep down that that was only in her imagination. She and Sarah had a superficial relationship only. She couldn’t remember a single time that they’d talked from the heart. Shared secrets and dreams. They were never friends. They met, they became lovers, they moved in together. There was never anything to bind them, other than that. If she hadn’t been so busy with work, surely she would have seen that, recognized how lacking their relationship was. Busy with work, busy with trips to New York and Mexico. Hard work and hard play, nothing in between. Everything was fast. Hard and fast. Nothing was ever slow and easy.
She met her eyes again in the mirror. Things had been easy with Mel, hadn’t they? They worked side-by-side, but it wasn’t hard and it wasn’t fast. It was almost a lazy kind of work. They teased and played in the garden. They snuck off to the creek on occasion. They took time for hikes and for picnics. It was slow and easy and damn near perfect. So perfect were things with Mel, the difference was absolutely glaring when compared to Sarah.
Things felt perfect there with Melanie.
How was she ever going to find that here?
By the time she got home, the stress of sitting in traffic for an hour had frazzled her nerves. So much so that she very nearly hit the strange car that was parked in her driveway. She pulled up beside it, but there was no one inside. With a curious shrug, she opened the garage door and pulled in, closing it behind her again.
As soon as she went inside the house, she knew someone was there. She could feel it. She took out her phone, ready to call 911 when it occurred to her that if someone had broken in, the alarm would have gone off. Would burglars park in the driveway?
“You’re home early.”
It was so familiar…she thought surely, she was dreaming. She turned, finding her standing just outside the kitchen. Her blond hair was longer than she remembered, long and silky. She put her phone back in her pocket, trying to string some thoughts together, enough to make a sentence. Why hadn’t she gotten her key back? She knew why. She’d always hoped that Sarah would come back.
Sarah walked up to her then, wrapping both arms around her in a tight hug. Erin stood stiffly, only pulling away when Sarah moved to kiss her.
“What are you doing here?”
Sarah’s smile was as brilliant as she remembered. “I missed you, Erin. So much.” Sarah’s gaze moved to her hair. “I hardly recognized you, though. That’s a bit extreme, isn’t it?”
Erin moved past her into the living room, heading to the bar. She stopped when she realized what she was about to do—pour herself a drink. She spun away from the bar.
“What do you want, Sarah? Did you forget something?”
Sarah’s smile was confident as she came up beside her, her hand running smoothly up her arm. “I forgot you, darling. Did you miss me too? I heard from some of our friends that you had a rough go.”
Erin met her gaze, wondering why she’d ever thought she was in love with this woman. Her blue eyes had a coldness to them. How had she not seen that before? Cold and calculating. There was no warmth there. At least, no genuine warmth. She knew what that looked like now and she wasn’t seeing it here. Sarah was trying hard to convey some, though, wasn’t she? How had she not noticed that before?
Maybe because she’d had nothing to compare it to. Erin looked into Sarah’s eyes, their blue not unlike that of Mel’s. But it was what was inside the blue that held the difference. Truth, honesty… Love. Things she’d seen in Mel’s eyes. Here? No. Those things were missing. She supposed they’d always been. Joyce’s words rang true. Sarah was a taker, not a giver.
When she didn’t answer, Sarah moved closer, close enough that they were touching. “I can see that you did miss me. I’m so sorry, Erin. I made a mistake. I realized after I left how much I loved you. How much I still love you.” Sarah ran her hands up her arms, pulling her closer. “You feel that too, don’t you?” She lifted her head, her mouth close to her own. Erin let Sarah kiss her. Her lips felt foreign to her. There was nothing there. She felt nothing. She could have just as well been kissing the rim of a scotch glass. That thought made her smile, and she pulled away from Sarah. Kissing scotch glasses was her forte, wasn’t it? Or it had been.
She moved away from Sarah, wondering why she wasn’t angry. She turned to face her. “So you still love me, huh? What happened to…What was her name again?”
Sarah’s smiled turned a bit coy. “It doesn’t matter, darling. She wasn’t you. She could never be you.”
“She wasn’t me?” Erin gave a humorless smile. “That’s funny, isn’t it? Because with you, I wasn’t me either.” She shoved her hands into the pockets of her jeans. “I like myself a bit better now.”
Sarah’s gaze traveled over her, as if seeing her jeans and the polo shirt for the first time, the polo shirt with their company name on the left pocket. She drew her brows together in a frown.
“Were you at work? Like that?” She moved closer again. “Darling, I told you a hundred times, you’ve got to dress the part. What? Did you completely fall apart when I left? Your hair? Your clothes? Erin, we worked so hard to get you where you were. Why would you throw that away?”
“Unbelievable,” she whispered. “You are unbelievable. Sarah, we didn’t work hard. I worked hard. You tried to zap the life out of me and you nearly succeeded.” She walked toward the front door and opened it. “I’ll need your key, Sarah.” She held her hand out. “If you come to the house again, I’ll call the police.”
Sarah’s mouth dropped open in disbelief. “What…What are you saying?”
“Do you need it spelled out for you? I want you to leave. I don’t want to ever see you again. Ever.”
“Leave? Erin, I love you. I—”
“Spare me the bullshit, Sarah. It’s not going to work this time. I’ve wasted enough years on you.” She pointed to the door. “Get out.”
The loving smile Sarah had plastered on her mouth changed into a vicious snarl. “You were nothing without me! Nothing! Look at you now! It didn’t take long. You’re already starting to fall apart! You are so going to regret this, Erin. I’m the best thing that ever happened to you. Now you’re throwing me out? As if I mean nothing?” Her laugh was bitter. “You need me, Erin. I don’t need you.”
“Then why the hell are you here?”
“I took pity on you. I’d heard you were having a hard time. But you know what? Forget it. You can go to hell! I wouldn’t come back to you if you begged!”
Erin arched an eyebrow. “It didn’t work out with your new girlfriend so you thought you’d slither your way back into my life, huh? You know, if you were like four or five months earlier I might have been stupid enough to let you back in.” She held her hand out. “I’ll take my key now.”
Sarah twisted it off her keychain, then threw it at her, hitting her in the cheek. “I hope you have a miserable life!” she spat as she strode out the door. “Loser!” she tossed over her shoulder.
Erin closed the door and leaned against it. “Wow,” she murmured. “Didn’t see that coming.”
She went back into the living room, her gaze drawn to the bar. If she was ever going to drink again, now was the time. Sarah seemed to do that to her. She picked up the key, then went into the kitchen instead. Maybe she’d make some of Melanie’s spicy burritos for dinner. Top them with that enchilada sauce she’d picked up at Whole Foods.
She paused as she was cutting up the onion and stared off into space. If it had been four or five months ago, would she have really let Sarah back in? In the state she had been in? She really didn’t know.
She put the onion into the pan, then paused again. What was she doing here? How long was she going to pretend she was happy being back?
I miss her.
Yeah, she missed her. She missed the cabin and the creek and the goats and the chickens and the garden and… and she missed the rain. She missed all of it. Since she’d been back, she’d been doing nothing more than going through the motions. Going through the motions of living. She had a
n ache inside her chest that wasn’t going away, it seemed.
Because I miss her.
Chapter Fifty-Four
She leaned against the window, her gaze fixed on the traffic below. She heard someone approach, sensed that it was Joyce. She glanced at her, then back to the window.
“I never realized how busy everything is. There’s so much movement. Cars, people, planes flying over. Everyone’s in a hurry.”
Joyce walked up beside her. “You spend an awful lot of time staring out the window.”
“Do I?”
“You know you do. It’s like you’re here but you’re not really here.”
Erin shrugged. “I can’t seem to find my groove.”
“What are you talking about? I checked the status on your projects. Everything is humming right along as if you’d never been gone. Dad was frazzled the whole time. He couldn’t wait for you to get back. And when you did…You snap your fingers and it’s all running smoothly again.”
Erin continued to stare out the window. “Nothing feels right.”
Joyce came closer to her. “Are you okay?” she asked quietly. “This whole month, you’ve been…I don’t know. Distant.”
Erin turned away from the window then, considering the question. Was she okay?
“No. I mean, yeah, physically, I’m fine. Great, in fact.” She took a deep breath. “I miss her.”
Joyce frowned. “Who. Stella?”
Erin smiled and shook her head. “No. Not Stella. Melanie.”
Joyce’s frown deepened. “Who is Melanie?”
Erin turned back to the window, looking out again. She no longer saw the cityscape that bustled with activity. She saw a lazy creek, she saw a blue scrub jay land on a low branch of a piñon pine, she saw hummingbirds feeding at a red and yellow flower. Saw the twins kicking up their heels as they ran from their stall in the morning, saw the chickens gathered around her feet, waiting for the scratch she was about to toss down. And she saw Mel in the garden, on her knees, dirt streaked across her face, her straw hat blocking the hot sun. Her blue eyes would be twinkling at her, smiling…teasing. She smiled back at her, then realized that Joyce was still there watching.
