“No, David. I can’t do this.”
He hovered over me, his gray eyes were like two dark slits. “All right, Nicci.” He moved out from behind the bar and headed for the entrance to the den. At the doorway, he stopped. “Your father has my address. When you’ve finished with this nonsense, I’ll be waiting.” He disappeared into the hall.
A few seconds later, I heard the thud of the front door slamming.
I stomped my foot on the floor. “Bastard.”
I returned with my drink to the living room and got comfortable on the sofa. Gazing up at the portrait, I contemplated the fiery eyes in the painting.
The taste of his lips was still on mine. The heat from his eyes still burned in my gut. The smell of him was everywhere. Could I be so easily swayed by him after just one kiss? He had hurt me and made my life insufferable for months. Was I that infatuated with the man to be so overcome by his presence? I laughed until the tears came to my eyes. He was back! My heart was racing with excitement and my stomach was doing somersaults.
“You have been a fool, Nicci Beauvoir.”
***
The next morning the light from the downstairs window woke me just after sunrise. I rose from the sofa, feeling stiff and a little sluggish, but for the first time in months, I was warm with happiness. The chill of winter had left me. I stretched and looked around the room. Everything was different now. I could hear life humming all around me. Birds were singing in the trees outside, and in the distance, a church bell was ringing. I jogged to the stairs, listening to the world awakening around me. I felt young again, with an unlimited energy, as I bounded up the steps to my room.
I quickly showered and changed. I put on an old pair of jeans and a fitted button-down shirt. I laughed at my reflection in the mirror. It was just the kind of outfit Michael hated; too tight in all the right places.
I was packing a small duffel bag with clothes when I heard a knock on the door.
“Come in, Dad.”
He pushed the door open and entered my room. “Going somewhere?”
I nodded. “Hammond.”
He gave me a big grin. “I guess this means the moron is history.”
“You were right. I can’t marry Michael. Seeing David again made me realize that.” I stuffed some extra socks into my bag and fought with the zipper. “I thought I was over him. I was wrong.”
He sat on the edge of the bed. “Does David know that?”
I finally got the bag zipped. “No, but he will.”
“I’m very proud of you, Nicci. It takes a lot of courage to walk away from the easy life you could have had with the…well, with Michael. People aren’t willing to give up the comfort of their well-planned futures for their dreams.”
“If you, Uncle Lance, and Val hadn’t rescued me, I—”
He cut me off with a wave of his hand. “Sooner or later, you would have left Michael. We just sped up the process by bringing David here. I needed to wake you up from the fog you had been walking around in since he left.”
“I was a fool to think Michael could help me forget about my feelings for David.” I touched his arm. “He said you had his address.”
My father clamored from the bed. “It’s in my study.”
I followed him downstairs. He ran into his study and later emerged with a small piece of paper in his hand.
“Heading out that way now?”
“No, I have one stop to make before I go.” I held up my left hand with the engagement ring on it.
“I see.” He walked me to the door and kissed me good-bye. “Good luck, Nic. Be happy.”
“I will, Dad. Now I know I have the right man to make me happy.”
***
Michael was at the front door, still in his pajamas, with a coffee mug in his hand, when I let myself inside.
“Feeling better?”
“Fine.” I walked past him and into the hallway.
“You are not going to my mother’s in that!” He pointed to my outfit. “She’ll think you are selling it on the street. Go upstairs and change.” He motioned to the stairs, but I did not move. “Hurry up. We have to get there and help her with the guest list, before the invitation people meet us at one.” He chuckled. “However, after last night, I’m sure she’ll just want to spend the day in bed with a headache.”
“I’m afraid I’m not going to your mother’s.”
He reprimanded me with his stern blue eyes. “Now what…running off to join a cult or something? Stop wasting time, Nicci. We have to get moving.”
“Michael….” I took in a fortifying breath. “I don’t want to marry you.”
His face fell a little, but then he recovered. “Very funny.”
“You can have all the clothes you bought me. I don’t want them. I will come by later for my other things.” I placed my key to his house on a table by the door. “Here is your key.” I reached into my shirt pocket and pulled out my engagement ring. “And here is your ring.” I dropped the ring next to the key.
His mouth fell to the floor when he realized I was serious. “What…what is all this about? Is this about last night? You’re still mad about that? Come on, Nicci. We had a fight. You don’t end relationships over that.”
He was moving closer to me, but I took a step back. “Michael, we never had a relationship. You had the relationship. I just went along for the ride.” I took another step closer to the door. “You need a wife that will dote on you and be supportive of your practice. I don’t love you enough to do that.” I paused for a moment and sighed. “I’m in love with someone else. I never realized until last night at the party, when he reappeared in my life. I can’t begin to apologize for everything, but I’m sorry if I hurt you.” I turned away and headed for the front door.
“We can’t work this out?” Michael hollered. “We can’t see somebody? Get some kind of counseling? You’re not even going to try and save what we have? I can forgive you anything, Nicci. We are good together.” He followed me to the door.
“Michael, we were never good together.” I opened the front door and turned to face him. “I want you to be happy. Go find yourself a nice girl and have a bunch of kids.” I kissed his cheek, and then looked into his eyes. I thought of David’s smoldering gaze, and added, “You know, there was always something missing from your eyes.”
“What? Nicci?” he pleaded.
“Good-bye, Michael.”
I trotted down the front steps, and ran to my car, without ever looking back.
Chapter 25
The ride into Hammond resembled something right out of a Richard Clague painting. Dense cypress swamps rose from the side of the interstate, teeming with all forms of native wildlife. The ground rose from the swamps and you quickly found yourself in the city of Hammond. Dotted with old plantation homes, Hammond was a place where nouveau riche families pretended their history was as lavish as the houses they lived in. Most of the old Southern families had died out in this area. Immigrants, who started out by working for the nearby sugarcane mills, had taken over the lands that once belonged to such names as Roman and Destrehan. Now families with names like Bordonaro and Yeager resided in the city’s landmark homes.
The GPS system in my car only got me so far around the country back roads. I still had to stop and ask for directions to David’s house, which was located well past the city limits. The road leading to it was made of gravel, and my little Honda shimmied across the uneven ground. The house was over a mile from the main road and it seemed to take forever to get there, but when I finally passed a high row of bushes, the structure came into view.
It was a modest Acadian, surrounded by a wide porch with four square, white posts supporting the front of the house. There were two swings hanging from either end of the porch. The entire structure was built out of wood and brick, and there was a fresh coat of white paint on all the wood trim around the front door and windows. The sloping roof was covered with shiny new tin that glistened in the sunlight. A bricked path led to the porch,
and wound its way around three huge, moss-covered oaks. Off to the left was a two-car garage.
I parked in the gravel driveway, but didn’t see the familiar red Jeep out in front. I stepped from my car and decided to have a look around.
Climbing the steps, I took in the view from the porch. The house sat alone on several acres, and the closest neighbor was a good distance away. There was a pond off to the left and more towering oaks scattered about the property. High green grass floated lazily in the morning breeze, as a soft bank of white clouds hovered just over the eastern horizon. There was only the buzz of an occasional bee and the whisper of the wind through the trees to distract my thoughts.
I settled down on one of the porch swings and began rocking gently, back and forth. The windows in the front of the house had old-fashioned storm shutters and the glass looked like the antique leaded kind that curved, giving a distorted view of the house inside. The boards beneath my feet were worn, but had been recently painted a deep mahogany.
I sat, peacefully rocking, losing myself in the solitude of my surroundings. Suddenly, I heard the sound of the front door opening and then the old porch creaked as someone emerged from the doorway.
He stepped out into full view, wearing only his jeans and covered with paint. He was holding a rag in his hands, wiping the paint from them. How I had missed the look of his bare chest, glistening with sweat and paint, and the way his jeans hugged the curve of his round butt and thighs. His hair was mottled and flecked with paint.
He saw the car and I waited, as he frantically looked around the driveway and the porch. When his eyes found me, reclining on the swing, he slowly smiled.
“What took you so long?” David sauntered toward me. “I was hoping you would show up last night.”
“Last night?” I raised my eyebrows and whistled. “You overestimate your effect on women, Mr. Alexander.”
He stopped a few feet from me and leaned against one of the white posts along the edge of the porch. His thick, dark hair reflected the red rays of the late morning sun. It was longer than I had remembered, just touching the base of his neck.
“I figured my kiss must have evoked some kind of response.” He threw the rag in his hands to the ground.
“Thank you, Dr. Pavlov. I guess next, you’ll try to train me to kiss you every time I hear a bell.”
“I have a bell out back. We could give it a try.” He raised his face to the warm sun. “So what about Michael?” He peered down at me again, crossing his arms over his wide chest.
My eyes fell and I stopped rocking. “Oh, he is probably telling everyone he knows what a bitch I am.” I regarded the green landscape surrounding us. “I gave him back his ring this morning.” A pair of blue jays playing in the tall grass distracted me for a moment.
“What did you tell him?”
I turned back to David; his eyes were cool and detached. “I told him I didn’t love him and I couldn’t marry him.” I remembered Michael’s face when I walked out the door. “I told him to find himself a nice girl and have a bunch of kids.”
“Did you tell him why you couldn’t marry him?” David asked, cocking his head to the side.
“I don’t know. I really couldn’t come up with any reasons. I just told him I couldn’t marry him,” I teased.
“Nothing about me?”
“Your name never came up.”
“You didn’t tell him the reason you couldn’t marry him was because you were in love with me?”
“I don’t remember ever telling you I was in love with you.”
He laughed and the sound echoed off the side of the old house. “You never needed to tell me, Nicci. I knew.”
“Oh, you arrogant ass.”
I stood up and was about to go around him when he held my arm. “Still angry?”
His gaze filled me with a happiness I had never realized. It was as if all the events in my life had led me to him.
“This is a very beautiful place,” I said, ignoring his question. “Good place for a painter.”
He let go of my arm. “It took me a couple of weeks to get it into shape, but it’s coming along. It was a wreck before.”
I leaned against the white post.
“So, are you just visiting or are you planning on staying for a while?” he pressed.
“I thought maybe I would stay awhile. If you don’t mind, that is.”
“Stay as long as you like.” His voice was playful and mocking.
“I have a confession to make.” I hesitated, sucking in an encouraging breath. “The whole time I was with Michael, I was never able to stop thinking of you.”
His eyes softened and he reached for my hair, twirling a lock around his fingers. “I want to show you something.” He took my hand, tugging me to the front door and inside the old house.
There was a cozy living room to the right of the entrance, with a round stone fireplace and worn hardwood oak floors. David led me past a wide oak stairway, as we ventured deeper into the back of the house. I noticed there was little furniture, only scattered wooden chairs and one large round pine table in the dining room. We went through to the kitchen. It was painted bright yellow, and a new refrigerator hummed in the corner, not far from an old-fashioned gas stove.
Behind the kitchen was a glassed-in porch; it appeared modern and had an air conditioning unit built into the wall. All along the floor of the porch, leaning against the walls, were rows of paintings. There were two easels in the room; on one of them was a portrait of me, or Jenny, in some casual everyday pose. The other was very different. It was of me dressed in a pale cream cascading wedding gown and standing before an altar, but there was no groom next to me. Only the light from the altar candles illuminated my face.
“I painted that after your father told me about your engagement,” David professed. “I was going to give it to you as a wedding present. Now I shall just have to hold on to it for a while.”
“It’s beautiful.” I studied the painting, taking in the soft hues of white, beige, and gold.
“This is my masterpiece,” he whispered.
I quizzically tilted my head and frowned at him. “Your masterpiece? I don’t understand.”
He turned to me. “An art teacher once told me that ‘In every life, there is one masterpiece; one thing that you look back on and remember as your crowning achievement.’” He caressed my cheek. “No matter where I go or what I do, I will always look back on my paintings of you as my masterpiece.”
I felt a tingle of excitement course through me. “Show me the rest of the house.”
He took my hand and led me to the stairs.
The second floor was much worse than the first. Some old floorboards had been replaced, and the new wood shone out like shiny piano keys against faded yellow ones. There were strips of dingy, flowery yellow wallpaper falling off the walls, and dull brass light fixtures hanging along the ceiling. The ceiling had dark stains from water damage and some of the plaster looked as if it had recently been replaced.
David led me to the first door on our right. The hinges creaked with annoyance when he pushed open the cypress door. The room inside was neatly swept and freshly painted a pale gray. It was bare, except for a desk and a small chair in the center. There was a new porcelain fixture hanging from the ceiling and the switch on the wall looked new, as well.
“This is my study,” he announced.
He showed me the bath and the guest room; then we came to the last door along the landing.
This room had been painted the most brilliant azure. There were curtains hanging on the windows and a cream Oriental rug in the middle of the floor. In the center was a king-sized, four-poster mahogany bed.
David leaned against the doorframe. “I had this room done first. I wanted it ready when you came.”
“What would you have done if I hadn’t come?”
“I knew you would come.” He moved across the threshold and rested his hands on the wall behind me, encircling me with his long arms. “I missed
you,” he whispered.
I touched his chest, letting my fingers trace the outline of his firm muscles. “Tired of all those cold showers?”
“Are you still angry?”
I smiled up at him. “No.”
“I thought of calling you a million times, but I knew you would never forgive me unless I was here; right here, to look into your eyes and tell you how I felt.”
“Why did you leave?”
“If I left, there was no threat from Sammy and I knew you would be safe. If I stayed, things could have gotten ugly. I figured best to let the situation cool itself off. And you needed to cool off, too.” He sighed, happily. “Do you know how much I have missed you? The smell of you, having you next to me in the morning, painting you, touching you—”
I pressed my finger to his lips. “Maybe you could just show me exactly how much you missed me.”
“Yeah.” His face inched closer. “I could do that.”
Finally his lips were on mine, draining me. I could feel the muscles of his chest against me, as his arms enveloped me. As he started to unbutton my shirt, his hands caressed the skin around my neck, making my flesh tingle.
“I have waited so long for you,” he murmured against my neck.
He kissed the base of my neck. I leaned my head back and pulled him to me. His lips covered my chest with kisses. David picked me up and carried me to the bed, kissing my neck, my shoulders, and my face. He gently placed me on top of the bed, then he stepped back and stared at me, reverently. He slowly climbed onto the bed and rubbed his hands up and down the length of my chest. When he gazed at my half-naked body, his dark brows drew together with concern.
“You’re so thin. Have you been sick?”
“No,” I asserted, feeling the mood ruined. “Just unhappy.”
“I promise to make it my mission to find ways to fatten you up.” He kissed the mounds of my breasts tenderly.
“What did you have in mind?” I asked, as I heard the zipper of my jeans being moved down. I felt the weight of his hands, sliding the jeans off me.
“Lots of home cooked meals and….” His eyes feasted on me. “Plenty of exercise.”
The Nicci Beauvoir Collection: The Complete Nicci Beauvoir Series Page 30
