by Lucy Kevin
Chapter Thirteen
“Mom, if you’re feeling up to it, I would love some help with dinner,” Phoebe called out from her kitchen.
An hour ago, when Phoebe had come back home and seen that the bedroom door was still closed, she’d been happy enough to leave Angela be while she got started on dinner. She’d settled on pasta for dinner with meatballs and homemade sauce. It wasn’t hugely imaginative, but Phoebe was well aware of what years of cooking for one had done to her culinary skills.
No answer had come from the bedroom yet, and she assumed her mother was still taking a nap. When the pasta sauce chose that moment to bubble up and spray over her, Phoebe looked down at her splattered clothes and realized she’d need to quickly change before checking on her mother, just in case Patrick arrived early.
Thanks to the racks of clothes taking up space between the plants, Phoebe only had to walk a few yards across the apartment to slip on a dark dress dotted with bright lilies that she’d owned for ages but never found an excuse to wear. Not that spending an evening with Patrick should be an excuse for anything, Phoebe reminded herself, and then hesitated. She didn’t want him thinking that she’d dressed up just for him. Maybe she should change into something more casual before he—
The chime of the doorbell cut off her outfit indecision. She hurried over to get the door, looking back briefly to the flowers she’d put on the apartment’s biggest table, so that Patrick could see how much her mother appreciated the gift. Even if it seemed that Angela hadn’t gotten out of bed long enough to spend much time looking at them.
Patrick looked gorgeous as he stood in her hallway. He handed her a potted Iris bulb. At the same time, she knew what the meaning of the Iris was. Friends. Hope. And faith. If he had taken the time to look it up, which she was sure that he had, which did he mean exactly?
“I would have brought wine, but I wasn’t sure whether that would be a good idea.”
“Good call,” Phoebe said, glad that she didn’t have to sidestep the issue of her mother for the very first time ever on a date. “Come in.”
“You’re looking great tonight.”
She felt like she could bask in the glow of his appreciation forever...which was what had her backing away from him, instead.
“I’m just going to go check on Mom. Could you keep an eye on the pasta sauce for a minute?” Phoebe went over to her bedroom door and knocked. “Patrick’s here for dinner.”
When there was no answer again, she pushed open the door, more than a little worried now. If anything had happened to her mother while she was at work, she’d never forgive—
The room was neat. Too neat. On top of the newly made bed, there was a note. Phoebe sat down on the edge of the bed and picked it up, recognizing the elegant swirls of her mother’s handwriting.
Cally,
I’m sorry about yesterday. I know I must have embarrassed you in front of your friend. There’s good news, though. David called me and we talked. I think there might still be a chance with him. By the time you read this I’ll probably be back in Sacramento. Please don’t worry about me. Everything is going to be fine. I can feel it. Love always and my best to Patrick if you see him again (which I hope you will!).
Mom
Phoebe read the whole thing through again, just to make sure it wasn’t all some kind of huge joke. It felt like it ought to be, but at the same time she knew that it was exactly the kind of thing her mother would do, and exactly the way she would do it. She stared at the note for several more seconds before putting it down again and heading back out into the kitchen.
Without a word, she got out a couple of plates and served up the pasta. “Looks like it’s just the two of us tonight,” she said to Patrick as she took the plates over to the table and set them down.
“Is your mother still not feeling well?”
“She’s fine.” She tried to smile, but couldn’t manage it. “She’s gone.”
“Gone?”
Phoebe nodded. “She left me a note telling me she’s going to try to work things out with David after all.”
She brought the plates over to the table, found a bottle of wine, poured two glasses, then sat down with Patrick who was very quiet as he watched her carefully. She picked up her fork and tried to force herself to take a bite, but it was yet another thing she couldn’t manage just then.
“Phoebe—”
The way he said her name was too gentle, too kind.
Hating the tears that were springing to her eyes, she said, “I just hate the way she keeps making the same mistakes. She went running back to him the moment he snapped his fingers.”
“Maybe she thinks it’s her best chance of being happy,” Patrick suggested.
“Being happy?”
Phoebe got up, moving away from the table. The flowers Patrick had gotten her mother were still there, still beautiful despite everything. Flowers had always been that for her, she suddenly realized, a balm to her soul no matter what else was happening. No matter how she was hurting. As a child when her mother and father had split up, she’d spent hours in the garden, planting. Growing.
Healing.
“I wish that were the case. She’ll go back to him, and then six months or a year down the line, things will fall apart again and she’ll be so hurt by it.”
“And you’ll be hurt by seeing her like that again, won’t you?” Patrick added, moving to stand beside her. He put his hands on her shoulders, turning her gently to face him.
In that moment, it occurred to her just how close to her he was right then.
“I think Angela is being very brave.”
“You aren’t the one who has to deal with her every time a relationship falls apart.”
“No, she is. It’s bad for you, Phoebe, I know, but it must be worse for her. And yet she’s still willing to take that risk. It’s a hard thing, putting yourself out there for someone else.”
Phoebe wanted to argue with that, but right then she couldn’t think of a good comeback. She was too busy staring at Patrick, drinking in the feel of his strong hands on her shoulders, tracing every line of his features.
She wasn’t sure which of them began the kiss, but it was Patrick who took control of it. He kissed the way she had dreamed he would, with a sense of strength behind every movement of his mouth on hers. It wasn’t the intensity of it that made Phoebe catch her breath. It was the intimacy of his kiss as he held her in his strong, warm arms.
She pressed closer to him, tight against his body, kissing him back with all the fire she’d been trying to douse for days. Her hands moved to his shirt. She wasn’t sure of much right then, but she was sure that she needed this from him.
“Come through to the bedroom,” Phoebe whispered, but Patrick stepped back, holding her at arm’s length. “I’d like nothing more right now than to be with you, Phoebe, but I want more than that.”
Phoebe hesitated. Why did he have to break the mood like this?
She bent her head over to the side to place a kiss on the inside of his wrist. “Can’t we just enjoy the moment? If I want you, and you want me….”
“That’s the trouble, Phoebe,” Patrick said as he threaded his fingers through hers. “I do want you. All of you. And until you’ll agree to give me more than just one night, I can’t.” He leaned in and kissed her gently one last time. “I just can’t.”
He slowly slid his fingers from hers, then headed for the door. By the time Phoebe had recovered enough from that second kiss—and how perfect it had felt to have her hand in his—to think straight, he was already shutting it behind him.
Chapter Fourteen
It was amazing how empty Phoebe’s apartment felt the next morning. Her mother hadn’t been there long, but the place suddenly seemed too quiet without her as Phoebe watered the plants before leaving for work. It was her day off from the chalet, but she’d thought she’d be spending it with her mother.
Feeling a little at loose ends, as Phoebe headed out of her apartment, she almost
ran into Jack, the neighbor she’d met on the stairs the other day, accompanied by a woman who had to be his fiancée.
“Oh, hello,” the man said, smiling. “Nicky, this is Phoebe Davis, our upstairs neighbor.” The woman with him was petite and pretty, with spiked blonde hair and blue eyes.
“I’ve been looking forward to meeting you,” Nicky said, offering her hand. “Do you think you’ll be able to come to our party? It will be the last Friday night of the month.”
“I’d love that,” Phoebe found herself saying, surprised to realize just how much she meant it. For so long, she’d kept herself apart from her neighbors. Now, she wondered, what were her reasons for insisting on making her apartment feel so temporary?
Watching the happy couple walk away, hand in hand, Phoebe’s thoughts slid to Patrick and the way he’d held her hand when he’d told her he wanted more than just one night of passion. He’d looked so good, had kissed so well. If she half closed her eyes she could remember every moment of that kiss as if it were still happening. Phoebe bit her lip at that memory, savoring it as she got into her car.
If only he’d wanted to go further, everything would have been so simple. So straightforward.
She turned her relationship with Patrick around in her head for the hundredth time. They’d only known each other a few days—admittedly an intense few days—but even so, could he really have been asking for some kind of commitment from her? Especially when he was due to go back to Chicago as soon as he was done with Rose and Donovan’s house?
Phoebe impulsively decided to head for Golden Gate Park to see how things were looking in the garden. She parked by a swing set full of children and mothers and something twanged in her stomach as she remembered the freedom of swinging way up high, with her mother behind her to help her soar.
Feeling the sun on her face, she headed over to the garden patch they’d all worked so hard on. It wasn’t yet perfect. Not all the flowers were out in full bloom, and there were still gaps where they’d had to re-seed spots of it. Still, the whole place looked better than it had when they’d left it, and certainly better than when they’d started.
She, her mother, and Patrick had done that. Phoebe looked at the space where the old tree stump had been. It was bare, but they’d filled the hole with fresh soil, planted plenty of seeds, and already Phoebe could see a few hints of shoots trying to rise through the recently cleared earth. She gently made sure that the soil around them would support them and went back to the car to get a bottle of water so that she could pour that around their roots.
If only making things grow with people was as easy, as straightforward.
Phoebe’s thoughts circled back to Patrick, once more. She’d been so careful until last night to keep a distance between them, yet right now all she knew was she missed him...and wished he was here with her now to enjoy the garden.
Yes, he was far too unrealistic about romance, but did that really matter when Phoebe, at least, knew better? Since every relationship had a built in cutoff point, anyway, surely it couldn’t hurt if she went into dating Patrick with her eyes open, knowing that it wouldn’t last. Could it?
The answer to that came in the form of a memory, not of their kiss this time, or how sweet and lovely it had been to hold his hand, but of dancing with Patrick at the Kyle wedding.
He had held her close and she’d felt so safe, so warm, in the circle of his arms.
She knelt down to tuck soil back around a new root that had pulled loose and as she did so, she could practically hear Patrick saying, “If you never take risks, you never get any rewards worth having.”
Wiping her hands clean, Phoebe got out her phone and punched in his number. “Hi, Patrick. Any chance I can steal you away from your work for a few hours?”
* * *
“You do realize I wouldn’t ever normally end up blindfolded this early in a date?” Phoebe said, and then flushed slightly as she realized exactly what she’d implied.
Thankfully, Patrick simply laughed. “Then I’m obviously a very lucky guy. Left a bit from there, and don’t swing too hard.”
She adjusted ever so slightly, swung back the putter in her hands, and tapped the space in front of her where she hoped the golf ball was. She felt the club connect, followed a few seconds later by a dull thunk.
“It’s in!” Patrick said.
Phoebe felt his hands brush her face as he pulled off her blindfold, and her skin tingled with electricity for a moment. She passed the miniature windmill to the hole beyond.
Sure enough, her ball was sitting in it.
“I did it. With your brilliant guidance.” She couldn’t help smiling at that. She stole a glance over at Patrick and caught him staring at her. “You know, one has to wonder about the kind of man who thinks up blindfolded miniature golf as a date.”
“What do you have to wonder?”
Phoebe cocked her head to one side. “Oh, I wonder all kinds of things when it comes to you.”
That was true, though she already had the answers to some questions, like how he’d kiss. Which was why she stole one from him right then and there.
“I was going to take you somewhere fun today, but now you’ve managed twice to surprise me. I’m definitely going to have to come up with something to top this.”
Patrick grinned. “If you think you can?”
Phoebe simply smiled back, her mind already whirring with the possibilities.
* * *
Patrick was a little surprised when they headed for Golden Gate Park a couple of days later. But even though they’d just been there together to work on the garden, he quickly realized there were things he hadn’t seen. A good dozen of them, in fact.
“I bet you don’t get many bison in Chicago,” Phoebe said with a look that made it clear she’d guessed exactly what he’d been thinking up to that point.
“Not in the middle of a city park, no.” Patrick admitted, “I’m impressed. I’m going to have to think of something good to top this one.”
Phoebe smiled. “Good luck.”
The enclosure was huge, yet it still seemed barely big enough for some of the creatures within. Their shaggy fur moved in the breeze as they slumbered, or shifted around them as they hurried from one part of their home to another. Patrick and Phoebe watched the huge creatures from the sidewalk. When Patrick’s hand brushed hers, Phoebe didn’t pull away, and he allowed himself the pleasure of sliding them together.
* * *
“Indoor skydiving?” she asked a few days later.
“Why not?” Patrick replied, as if they were about to do the most normal thing in the world.
With anyone else, she would have quickly listed a half-dozen reasons why not, from the baggy and shapeless jumpsuits to the fact that they were currently being blown around by a huge fan and might be bounced almost anywhere by it.
But a few minutes later, as she was tossed around by the air currents, she was glad she didn’t seem able to say no to Patrick...because she was enjoying herself more than she had ever believed that she might.
There was something utterly exhilarating about the air rushing past as she balanced in the upward flow of it. And it was strangely relaxing to have to give in and go along with that flow.
Patrick turned out to be pretty good at it too, floating there opposite her almost perfectly still in the air stream. Somehow, Phoebe noted, he managed to look good even in a skydiving suit.
He even reached out a couple of times to stop Phoebe drifting off out of that flow. They were just small touches, but just as it always was when they touched, there was something powerfully electric about their moments of contact.
* * *
Patrick had been more than a little surprised when Phoebe brought him to a cathedral the following evening just as the sun was setting. It didn’t seem like the kind of place for a date, somehow. Yet when they went inside Grace Cathedral and he saw the labyrinth marked out on the floor, he understood.
There was peace here. Along with joy
.
And boundless love for everyone.
“I read about this on one of the tourist sites for the city,” he told her. “But it’s even more spectacular than they said it would be.”
Phoebe looked pleased by his appreciation for the cathedral and gardens. “It seemed like a good place to come.”
“You’ve done this before?”
She shook her head. “You know how when you live somewhere, you always tell yourself that you’ll do these things, but you never actually get around to them?”
“Ah, so I’m just the excuse,” Patrick said as they began to make their way along the path of the labyrinth.
Phoebe grinned at him and said, “A very good looking excuse, though,” before turning her focus back to the path of stone, with Patrick following close enough behind to take her hand in his.
* * *
Phoebe had been wondering what Patrick would do to top their last outing. A few days later as they sat next to the bay’s wave organ and eating tortillas while the collection of wave-powered pipes around them droned and groaned, whispered and occasionally whistled, Phoebe had to give him the credit he deserved. It was yet another place Phoebe had never gotten around to visiting as a local, and another experience that was all the better for spending it with Patrick.
If every day could be like the ones they’d shared recently, she might almost see how people could fall in love. It was just as well that Patrick was in town for a strictly limited time, or she might be in trouble. Even looking at him there with the sunset in the background was enough to make her chest clench with longing.
An idea came to her, and she took hold of Patrick’s arm. “Come on,” she said.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ve supplied the dinner. I think it’s only fair that I supply the movie. How’s your singing voice?”
“My singing voice?”
