Always Something There to Remind Me
Page 31
“Sure. Yes.” What I wanted was to take him into my bedroom for a solid week. “Good idea.” Given what had already transpired between us, this conversation had to be between us alone. We needed to feel alone.
I grabbed a sweater from the hook by the door and followed him out, shrugging into it.
Nevertheless, I was immediately cold in the brisk air.
Without asking questions, he took off his coat and put it over my shoulders, just like he’d done the first time we’d met. It was warm and smelled like him. I pulled it closer around me.
“So what happened with you and Theresa?” I asked. “Did she leave you for greener pastures?”
He laughed quietly and shook his head. “Not exactly. That would have made things easier.”
I stopped. “You left her?”
“I had to.” He turned to me and put his hands on my shoulders and looked into my eyes.
“Why?” I breathed.
There was so much weight on his answer. So much. This was the moment that could change not only our futures, but also our past.
But Nate didn’t seem to feel any weight pressing on it at all. “I’d rather love you and be alone than love you and be with her,” he said simply. “Or anyone.”
And there it was.
Finally.
The moment I had waited for, for so long.
“You love me?” I tried to swallow, but my throat was tight.
He kept his gaze fastened unwaveringly on mine and gave the smallest nod. “I love you. I have always loved you. And it’s pretty clear to me now that I always will.”
“And even if I say no to you right now, even if I tell you it’s too damn late and you blew it a long time ago, you’d rather be alone than go back to the beautiful and perfect Theresa?”
“Baby, I’d rather be in a monastery than live my life trying to convince myself that one more woman could hold a candle to you.”
His use of baby made me come unglued.
He moved in and put his arms around me, holding tight, stilling my shaking emotions with his deep calm.
He drew back and looked into my eyes. “I love you,” he said, with more sincerity than I’d ever heard from a man.
“But—”
He kissed me. And whatever I was going to say or ask disappeared with our breath, rising into the cold air.
Because whatever had gone wrong—with him, with me, with us—I knew what was right.
And I was never going to let that go again.
We stood there, clutched together, for a long time, breathing each other’s breath, drinking each other in. Then it hit me—the only possible next move.
“You want to go for a ride?” I asked, excitement building deep within me.
“A ride?”
I nodded. “You know. In the car?”
“Sure.” He looked a little confused. “Where do you want to go?”
I tipped my chin up and looked at him, smiling and crying at the same time. “Now, where do you think I want to go?”
Understanding dawned in his eyes. He smiled, that charming thief smile of his. “Down River Road? Violet’s Lock?”
He remembered.
And heaven knows I remembered.
The weight of heartbreak fell off my shoulders like a bad costume. There was a lightness in my heart that I almost didn’t recognize.
Almost.
But I did recognize it. It was myself. It was deeply, elementally me. And I loved this man.
“Perfect!” I said, but my voice was tight with emotion.
He smiled and reached for my hand and we started to walk.
We crossed the parking lot, hand in familiar hand, got into his car, and drove, away from the present, away from the past, and straight into our future.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to the people who kept me sane in various ways while I wrote this unusually difficult book: Patrice Luneski, Paige Harbison, Jamie Taylor, Steve Troha, Annelise Robey, Meg Ruley, Mike McCormack, Dana Carmel, Kim Amori, Nicki Singer, Mimi Elias, Anita Arnold, Connie Atkins, Devynn Grubby, Jami Nasi, Mike Beall, Carolyn Clemens, Martina Chaconas, Russell Nuce, Mark Bozek, Cinda O’Brien, Sue Conversano, Susi Keffer, Tatjana Kruse, Zarathustra, Melodious, Rose and Lily, and THM.
Thanks also to Sean Osborn and Dan Luneski for hitting the road in emergencies. And sometimes doing the clean-up afterwards.
As always, thanks to Jen Enderlin for her brilliance in every way, and for seeing things I can’t.
And finally, thanks to those guys who were there, then, and raised me to be the monster I became, much to the dismay of later boyfriends: Gregg, Doug, Jamie, Brian, Roger, and Eric. I appreciate the fact that you taught me to throw a punch, and that you threw them on my behalf now and then, but sometimes I wish you’d taught me to block better.
Also by Beth Harbison
Shoe Addicts Anonymous
Secrets of a Shoe Addict
Hope in a Jar
Thin, Rich, Pretty
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
ALWAYS SOMETHING THERE TO REMIND ME. Copyright © 2011 by Beth Harbison. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Harbison, Elizabeth M.
Always something there to remind me / Beth Harbison. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-312-59910-2 ([hardcover]) — ISBN 978-0-312-64183-2 ([pbk.])
1. First loves—Fiction. 2. Loss (Psychology)—Fiction. 3. Psychological fiction. I. Title.
PS3558.A564A49 2011
813'.54—dc22
2011006363
First Edition: July 2011
eISBN 978-1-4299-8755-4
First St. Martin’s Press eBook Edition: July 2011