by Dianne Drake
“Doctor?”
Daniel blinked hard, shaking himself out of his near-trance-like state. “Excuse me?” he said to the nurse.
“I said, your patient’s still down in X-ray. They have a shortage of transportation attendants right now and they don’t anticipate bringing him back up to his room for at least another twenty minutes.”
“Thank you,” Daniel said absently, then headed back to the elevators and on down to his office.
Once inside, he locked the door. Something he never did when he was in there. But he’d been thinking about this moment for a few days now, and he needed to be alone. No one to disturb him, no thoughts to distract him.
“I’ve got to do it,” he said to Elizabeth’s photo as he sat down in the chair behind his desk. “This hanging in limbo with Zoey is killing both of us.” He could feel it in his heart. And he could see it in Zoey’s eyes every time he looked at her. So much hesitancy, so much wondering... It was taking a toll on everything in his life. Everything in Zoey’s life.
Sighing, Daniel leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. It was too early in the day for such a weariness to be setting in, but he was down-to-the-bone weary, and it had nothing at all to do with his physical condition and everything to do with his emotional shape. Bottom line: he was a mess. Conflicted. Confused. Angry at himself for everything he was putting off. For everything he was about to lose if he wasn’t careful.
“I love her, Elizabeth,” he confessed. “I didn’t know it could happen to me again, but it did, and I want it so badly. And it didn’t happen because I’m not lonely without you anymore; I have been and I still am. But this is different. It’s a new beginning for me and I want to grab it and hold onto it. God help me, I am going on without you, Elizabeth.” Just as Elizabeth had wanted. And now, finally, just as he wanted.
Slowly, Daniel opened his eyes and looked at Elizabeth’s photo again. A sad smile crept to his face as he reached out to stroke it, the way he’d stroked it so often these past months. Only this time, his stroke didn’t linger. Rather, it turned into a grasp. “Damn,” he whispered as he picked up the photo and held it in midair for a moment. He hadn’t anticipated it being this difficult. But one simple gesture was turning into such a heartache.
As tough as this was, however, it was also the right thing to do, and the right time in which to do it. Yet, so many memories were flooding back. Memories that threatened to stop him. Memories he forced himself to blank out as he allowed himself one last look... One last touch, he thought, when he finally placed the photo into his desk drawer.
He didn’t shut the drawer right away, though. No; he left it open and stared at it for an eternity, wondering if he could take the next step. This whole letting go was a progression of steps.
“Do it,” he whispered to himself. “Do it for Zoey.” Do it for any chance of a life he hoped to have with her.
But it wasn’t easy. His wedding ring was so much a part of him now that taking it off would be like cutting off his arm.
Once, his ring had been a symbol of so much hope. Now, though, it was a simply a reminder of a life that was finished. I can do this, he thought to himself as he twisted his ring the way he’d twisted it so many times over the past year.
One little twist...that was all he needed. Just one little twist over his knuckle and on down to the end of his finger. This had been such a long journey for him to end it this way, but this was where it had to end. So, taking in a deep breath and holding it, Daniel twisted his ring one last time then took it off and dropped it in the drawer on top of Elizabeth’s photo.
He looked down at the white streak on his finger where his ring used to be, then he shut the desk drawer, laid his head down on his desk and cried.
* * *
He was standing on her front porch, illuminated by the yellow porch light, thrusting two bottles of wine at her when she opened the door. “Seriously?” she asked.
“You asked for two, I brought two.” Daniel grinned. “Did you want more?”
“If I’d asked for a new sports car, would you have brought that, too?”
“I think a red one would be nice. Or would you prefer something in blue?”
Daniel looked good. Tight jeans. A nice gray T-shirt that accented his musculature. Hair a bit mussed. Dimples definitely turned on for the occasion. “I think one bottle of wine is all we’ll be needing.”
“Well, then, we’ll put the other one away for next time.” He stepped into the house and Zoey shut the door behind him. “Which I hope will be Friday night.”
“Another date?” she asked him. “Before we’ve officially started this one?”
“Like I’ve told you before, I like to plan ahead.”
So did she, and her mind was already racing forward. Two dates in one week...the prospect excited her and made her nervous at the same time. “Don’t expect me to cook for you again. I struggled over this meal, and once in a week is enough.”
He took a step closer to her, then reached out and stroked her face with the back of his hand. “What I expect is that food probably won’t matter to us a whole lot by the time Friday rolls around.”
Immediately, Zoey’s heart started pounding hard in her chest. The implication was hers to do with as she wanted. He’d laid it out on the table for her and her choice was either to pick it up or leave it alone. “What’s going on here, Daniel?” she managed to ask without sounding too breathless.
“Besides having dinner?”
“You know what I mean,” she said coyly.
“I do know what you mean.” He headed into the kitchen, put the bottles of wine in the fridge then turned around to Zoey, who’d followed him in. “It’s all I’ve been thinking about for days. I mean, I’ve lost sleep. And it’s hard to concentrate at work.”
“Why?” she asked, her voice almost a whisper.
“Because it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, yet at the same time, the easiest. I mean, I didn’t expect you in my life, Zoey. I wasn’t prepared for it, and I wasn’t ready for it. But you happened to me and I was caught so...so unready. And I’ve been resisting you because of that. You know I have.” He pulled out a chair at the kitchen table for Zoey then sat down across from her.
“When Elizabeth and I married, it was for ever. We had that written into our vows. And, dear God, I loved that woman so much. She came out of nowhere and changed everything in my life. Gave me a new perspective, a new outlook on life. Gave me Maddie. And, Zoey, this was a relationship I thought I didn’t deserve. But I was so grateful for it because I liked the man I was with Elizabeth.”
She admired his heartfelt words, but they didn’t exactly instill confidence in her. In fact, they sounded to Zoey like this was the beginning and the end for them. “She loved you with that same passion, Daniel.”
He smiled. “I know. In fact, we never let a day go by that we didn’t acknowledge that in one way or another.”
“Which is why you’re having trouble moving forward in your life now. You’ve had perfection once, and you don’t think it’s out there to be found again.”
“That’s not true. Actually, for a while I thought it was. But these past few weeks with you... Zoey, they’ve been amazing. They’ve changed my thinking in ways you can’t even begin to imagine.”
This was it. This was where Daniel walked away. “But they’re over now.”
“No,” he said quite gently, reaching across the table to take her hand. “They’re not. Not if you don’t want them to be.”
“Then what, Daniel? I need to know what we’re doing, because I can’t do this anymore. I can’t spend my life wondering who we are and what’s going to happen with us.”
“We’re a couple of people stuck in a place we haven’t been able to get past.”
“Elizabeth...” she whispered.
“What about Elizabeth?”
“I can’t compete.”
“Who says you have to?”
“You do, Daniel. In the loving way you talk about her, in the way your eyes go all soft when her name is mentioned. In everything that you said just now.”
“That’s my transition, Zoey. You have to know where I’m coming from before we can go forward together. And I do want us to go forward together. What I’m allowing myself to discover is that you’re on my mind more and more every day. And when I close my eyes, it’s your image I see, not Elizabeth’s. It’s you I want to be with, not Elizabeth’s memory, because her memories are my past and you’re my future, I hope.” Daniel let go of Zoey’s hand, leaned back in his chair and stared across the table at her for a moment. “I took off my wedding ring today.”
She glanced down at his hand and saw that his ring finger was bare. For the first time since he’d walked though her door, her hopes raised. “Are you sure you’re ready for that?”
“I am. It wasn’t easy, but I didn’t try talking myself out of it the way I might have done a few weeks ago, because what I’ve finally realized is that, while Elizabeth was once my new direction and my hope for the future, that’s now done. You’re my new direction, my new hope, and I don’t want to lose that.” He leaned back across the table, took hold of her hand again and kissed her palm. “I don’t want to lose you. But every time we’re together you seem to pull away a little more than you did the time before.”
Now her head was spinning. But she was no longer frightened. “I’ve been holding myself back, Daniel. At first it was because I thought I feared men, feared getting involved with someone who could hurt me again. But then we became involved, not totally immersed in it as we might have been, but involved nonetheless. Then I feared that you couldn’t get over Elizabeth which, in the end, would leave me hurt.”
“I can’t get over Elizabeth,” he admitted. “But what I can do is put my relationship with her in its proper place.”
“Which is where?”
“Tucked away deep in my heart. See, my marriage wasn’t like yours to Brad. You were glad to walk away from it. But I was left incomplete when my marriage was put to an end. For a while, I didn’t know how to deal with that, or if I even wanted to deal with it. It’s not easy being left with a big, gaping hole. It’s not a good way to spend your life, and I was just starting to figure that out when we bumped into each other that day in the coffee shop.”
“What have you figured out since that day?”
“That I didn’t have to die because Elizabeth did. And that’s what I was doing, Zoey. Dying inside, little by little. Each day was worse than the one before, because I let that happen to me. But then I looked up and there you were.” He squeezed her hand. “And I’m not going to tell you that the moment I set eyes on you I fell in love, or knew that we were meant to be or anything like that, because that’s not what happened. Also, when I saw you that first time after Elizabeth’s death, I certainly wasn’t in a place where I could accept anything outside what I’d already known, so my feelings about that, about us, were... I don’t know. Confused, maybe.”
“Has that changed?” She asked the question, fearing the answer.
“Are you asking if I love you?”
Her hand still in his, Zoey scooted forward to the edge of her chair. “Do you?” she asked almost shyly.
“I fell in love with you at the fundraiser, Zoey. And I’ve gone through hell dealing with it ever since, because I felt so guilty.”
“Do you still feel guilty?”
“I put my wedding ring away today. And also Elizabeth’s picture. It wasn’t easy to do, but I had to, because what I’ve only just come to realize is that in loving you my guilt has disappeared. I can’t totally put Elizabeth behind me because she was an important part of my life. And when you accept me, you have to accept that in me. The thing is...”
Daniel shut his eyes, withdrew his hand from Zoey’s and ran his fingers through his hair. “The thing is...you’re in my heart now.” He opened his eyes slowly and looked across the table into Zoey’s eyes. “In so many ways...ways that I probably don’t even understand yet. Ways that I hope will continue to grow inside me. I want us, Zoey. You and me. In every way that a man can want a woman.”
“But can you look at me and not compare me to Elizabeth? Because it scares me to death that you’ll always cling to her as your standard.”
“All I can say is trust me, and give me time to prove myself to you. I’ll do it, Zoey. I’ll do anything I have to, to gain your full trust. That is, if you love me. And maybe I should have asked you if you do before I started seeing the two of us well into the future.”
“I do love you, Daniel. No qualms about that. And it wasn’t love at first sight for me, either. But you did grow on me, starting with that night at the fundraiser.”
“But it scares you,” he stated.
“It scares me,” she confirmed.
“What can I do to make it better? Because I’ll do anything it takes.”
This talk made her better. Understanding Daniel more made her better. The hope that was building inside her made her better. “Give me time. And, like you asked of me, be patient. Hold onto me when I try to push away—and I will try, Daniel. It’s my nature. I retreat when I feel threatened.” Nobody in her life had ever fought so hard for her, and it made her love Daniel all the more because he was fighting.
Daniel smiled. “Believe me, I’ll hold on with everything I’ve got.”
Zoey pushed back in her chair and stood up. She didn’t move away from the table, though. Rather, she simply stood there for a moment and stared at Daniel, who had also risen from the table and was standing, staring back at her. “Are you sure I’m the one, Daniel? Because there hasn’t been anybody else since Elizabeth, and I wonder if you should have looked around for a while. Maybe got yourself more used to being single again.”
“I’m sorry I’ve put these doubts in you.” Daniel walked around to Zoey’s side of the table and pulled her into his arms. “That was never my intention.”
“I put the doubts in me, Daniel. And Brad did. And even Elizabeth...” Nuzzling her head into his chest, she closed her eyes and a gentle sigh escaped her lips. This was where she wanted to be. The only place. But how could she stay there when so many doubts were still rattling around in her? “It’s my problem to deal with.”
“Our problem,” he corrected. “Because you are the one. The only one. I don’t need to play the field to see what else is out there because I found you, and you’re all I want. And someday, Zoey, after I’ve reassured you every day that you’re everything I need, I hope you trust me enough to believe me.”
“I do trust you, Daniel. I trust what you tell me. But what I don’t trust is that I’m enough for you. You’ve already had an ideal marriage and it worries me that I can’t give you the same.”
“But I don’t want the same from you, Zoey. I don’t expect it. What I want is everything that you are. I love you for who you are, for everything you do, for the way you make me feel.” He pulled her even closer. “While I can’t pretend to know what it feels like being the person who’s stepping into my life, I can only hope that it’s not too overwhelming, that you’re not too weighed down by what I’ve had in my past. Because that was another time, another life. And I’m trying damned hard to move beyond that now. But I want to move beyond it with you. Only you.”
She truly believed him. And that belief came with the love she felt for him. For Daniel, she wanted to be everything and, while her faith in herself was still wavering, he did instill a confidence in her like none she’d ever felt before. In time, and with Daniel’s help, that confidence would grow. She was sure of it. “And I want to be there for you, Daniel, in every possible way. I want to be everything you need, because you’re everything I need.”
> “Well, be warned. One of these days I’m going to ask you to marry me.”
“You are?”
He lowered his head and he kissed her lightly on the forehead. “When you’re ready,”
“How will you know when I’m ready?”
“Well, I could tell you it’s something metaphysical, like the stars will all line up properly, or that I’ve had a vision of some sort. But I’d rather keep it a little more simple—stay close to you and watch over you for as long as it takes. Trust me, Zoey, I won’t miss the clues.”
“And Maddie?”
“She loves you already. I think she’ll be excited to have you as her new mother.”
“But I want her to remember Elizabeth,” Zoey said. “I want her to know everything that Elizabeth was, and always make the distinction that Elizabeth was her mother. That’s important.”
“We’ll do that for her. The two of us, together.”
“I do love her. And I’ve got so many ideas of things she and I can do together...”
Before she finished her sentence, Daniel lowered his mouth to hers and she melted into his kiss like that was the place she had wanted to be for an eternity. “Want to continue this discussion in the bedroom?” she whispered into his ear once he had pulled slightly away from her.
Without a word, Daniel scooped her up into his arms and carried her down the hall. But he stopped at the bedroom door. “This is where it starts, Zoey,” he said, his voice rough-edged.
Actually, it had started a year ago when he’d opened his front door to her and said, “Hello, I’m Daniel Caldwell.” The road from that door to this one had taken more turns than she could ever have anticipated, but each and every turn had led her to the place she’d always wanted to be. With Daniel, for ever.
EPILOGUE
HE COULDN’T HELP but laugh at her. For all her athletic skills, Zoey was faking her bravery now, and it looked so cute on her. “The first thing you need to do is get yourself up to the edge of the hill.”
