Spring Into Love

by Chantel Rhondeau

  I lay across my bed and cried myself to sleep. When I woke up, he was gone, and it was after midnight. When I turned on my phone, there were several messages asking me to call him back, asking what went wrong, and then it must’ve dawned on him that I’d overheard his conversation with Courtney because he said he’d sent her away with her things and got his key back.

  I was torn and otherwise numb. It was those tiny fractures of doubt that ruined a relationship. Did he really believe I was some bimbo he’d met in a bar? Who meets someone in a bar and thinks they’re gonna find happily-ever-after in twenty-four hours?

  How dumbtarded could I really be?

  ***

  I woke up tired and exhausted from a night full of emotional swings. One minute I was angry enough to take a bat to him and the next I was sad for what we could’ve had. I ignored his messages and went to the office. We were closed on the weekends, and it was an opportunity to clear my desk of clutter.

  Penelope knew something was wrong because she wouldn’t settle down. She kept sniffing my breath. Cats were very intuitive to human emotions. When she screamed and jumped from my desk, I knew something was wrong.

  Then he appeared in my doorway.

  “Not taking my calls isn’t very mature,” he said, placing his hands on his hips.

  “Calling me some bimbo you met in a bar isn’t either,” I barked. “How did you get in here?”

  “You left your keys in the back door.”

  “I guess the bimbo personality struck again,” I bit out under my breath.

  There was a long pause where we just stared at each other. Finally, I was the first to break the gaze, and I started fussing with some papers on my desk. I didn’t want him there, and yet I couldn’t force him to leave. You didn’t just stop caring for someone regardless of how stupid they acted sometimes, but it didn’t mean I could forgive him for what he said about me.

  “Are you done over-thinking what you thought you heard?” he asked as he approached my desk and planted his palms down to look me straight in the eyes.

  “I know what I heard and the tone with which you said those things. You need to leave. Get out!” I yelled and pointed toward the door.

  “I won’t beg. I did that for years with Courtney. You either believe me or you don’t. I care about you,” he said as he walked away.

  I watched his car pull out of the parking lot through tear-stained eyes. It was the right thing to do. I’d been living a fairytale and should’ve known better. Fairytales are only for movies and sappy books and my life didn’t have that script which read happily-ever-after.

  I had worked like crazy to get my scholarships and put myself through school. After I graduated, I came home and took care of mom while she drank herself into oblivion and wound up in poor health. When she had the stroke, Lee, my worthless spoiled-brat brother was never around to help. There was no time for relationships between work and caring for her, but then, it was the daughter’s rite of passage to care for the ailing or aging parent, right?

  When she passed away, I was the one who had to box everything up and say good-bye. I was the one left with all the bills and four cats to take care of. I was the one left with no one and a mountain of grief.

  I was used to men walking out when it things got tough.

  ***

  Zetta agreed to cover call for me for the rest of the weekend and told me to go downtown to the W Hotel and get myself a spa package. The Works, they called it. Oh, I needed the works, all right.

  As they tried like crazy to rub the knots from my muscles, I cried harder and created more. Finally, the massage therapist told me I needed a counselor not a massage therapist before she disappeared.

  When she returned, she asked me to sit up and held out a tray that held three shot glasses. “Take one, they’re chocolate shots, trust me on this.”

  “Oh, no, you don’t understand. Getting drunk is what got me in this situation to begin with.”

  “The chocolate flavor soothes, the liquor numbs. Take the shot and then we’ll talk.”

  I took the first shot, then reached for the second. She left the room for a little bit, and while she was gone, the music played softly and the room was dark. Slowly, I began to relax and lay back on the table face down.

  When she returned, her hands pressed harder into my muscles, but the liquor was calming me. I was beginning to no longer care—perfect.

  “Tell me what you first thought of when you met him,” she asked. Her voice seemed distant, so the shots really were effective at putting me in a fog.

  “I thought his dark eyes were beautiful and honest. I tried to imagine what it would feel like to have his lips on mine.”

  “How did he make you feel?”

  “Special. We connected and I just felt free with him.”

  “Was the sex good?”

  I coughed. No. She. Did. Not. A stranger was asking me about the sex? “Hmm, how do you describe amazing sex? So gentle at times and then hungry at others. Purely satisfying.”

  “Do you think you were falling in love with him?”

  “Yes, I was.”

  She stopped her inquisition, and I could hear her humming, but it sounded far off in the distance, not right over me. I supposed the alcohol was taking effect, and I was becoming numb—possibly drunk.

  She went quiet on me, but kept rubbing my back and the backs of my legs. When the massage began to feel different and almost sexual, I became alarmed.

  Was it the liquor and I was imagining things? I abruptly sat up on the table, forgetting I was nude beneath the sheets and whirled around to find Flynn in the room. He was the one doing the massage. He reached up and placed a finger under my chin and lifted it toward his. His face came down a few inches away from mine.

  “I love you, and I’m not taking no for an answer, not yet anyway.”

  “Flynn, how did you…?”

  “Zetta. She tracked me down through Glenn at Stuttgart, telling him it was an emergency. It wasn’t the other way around and me hunting you, but I’m glad she did. She said you were miserable and that you were here. I put two and two together. My mind’s been racing at how to fix this, and the only thing I could think of was to admit to myself that I’d fallen for you. I love you. I don’t expect you to believe me, but I do.” He wiped the hair from my eyes, and I took a good look at him. He was wearing a red T-shirt that had his company name on it.

  Oh, no. “I missed the picnic, didn’t I?”

  “You missed the softball game, but the barn dance hasn’t started yet.”

  “I’m sorry, Flynn. I didn’t trust us enough to weather the storm. How can I have a relationship if I don’t trust it after a week?”

  “Trust is earned, and it’s only been a week. Maybe we rushed things. Okay, yes, we rushed things, but I’m crazy about you, and I know you love me or at least the amazing sex.” He laughed.

  “Oh, my God. You had her ask those questions, didn’t you?”

  He nodded.

  “Bad boyfriend, bad.” I shook my finger at him.

  “Does this mean I’m your boyfriend again?”

  “Does this mean I’m your girlfriend again?”

  “Eh, for a pink-haired punk chick, you’ll do as a consolation prize.” He handed me a robe.

  I elbowed him in the ribs and knocked the wind from his sails in time for him to chase me to the dressing room. The staff shushed us as we chatted while I grabbed my things and quickly dressed.

  When we went to my hotel room to get my bag and the rest of my things, I needed him. I craved to have him inside me, to fill the void that pain and stupidity had created.

  I pulled him down on the bed with me and kissed him hard.

  With greedy hands, he removed my T-shirt and bra. I rolled to my back, and he pulled off my shorts and panties. When he stood up to undress, I felt the cold air cover my body. It was symbolic of our relationship and why things felt the way they did so quickly. He brought out the warmth in me and made me feel alive again.


  When we made love…it was special. It wasn’t just sex. There were feelings, passion, cravings, and desires. We could talk about anything, and I wasn’t embarrassed. He could ask me to do anything, and I would, at the very least, give it a try.

  Flynn was my match, and I finally realized it. I also realized I was the one who’d run when things got tough, not him.

  I followed him to the house and changed my clothes for the dance. It took everything I had not to put the tank top and black skirt on for good measure. When I stepped out of the bathroom in a hi-low dress and cowboy boots, he whistled.

  “I don’t mind sharing you with my family, but make sure the last dance is mine.”

  Chapter 9

  The next few weeks went by like crazy. We spent the weekends at the lake and the week together at his place. After we’d been together for six weeks, he asked me to move in permanently, and I said yes.

  Our schedules were hectic and between the nights of wild, crazy, amazing sex, and days filled with other peoples’ pets, all I wanted to do was curl up on the sofa every night in his arms.

  When he had to leave for Phoenix for a business trip, I was sad to see him go, but I had the stomach flu and used the days to rest. I was dragging and couldn’t get my energy level back up.

  Why does all hell break loose when you feel like shit and you have to do everything you can to fight through it, I asked myself. That was when Cherokee decided to take on another stallion at the farm and cut himself up on the gate.

  “Doc, I think he just misses you and does crazy stuff for you to come see him,” Glenn said through the truck window.

  “I am beginning to wonder. Where is he?”

  “Stable number four.”

  “Oh, you moved him, did you?”

  “Yeah, some smart-ass doc said we should.” He grinned.

  I worked on Cherokee’s wound, but the cut was deep and far from clean. I looked outside for some help to hold his reigns, but no one was around, so it was old school.

  I tied him up and soothed him before putting my chair down by his flank. I must have struck a nerve because he jerked and bucked and kicked the wall, breaking the reins in the process. He positioned himself between me and the gate. He was wild-eyed and behaving fiercely. I tried soothing him with my hand, but he bucked up on the wall and pitched for me. I jumped back, and he then had me cornered. Every time I took a step for the gate, he rushed me and cut me off.

  He was jealous. He was keeping me hostage for his own.

  I yelled, but no one came. I waited over an hour and nothing changed. Cherokee’s eyes told me he was angry about something. He was behaving as though someone had drugged him. He was far from his usual self. He was wild.

  Finally, I decided I could kick the chair one way to distract him and dodge him the other way. When I kicked the chair to my left, he went left, and when I got to the gate, it wouldn’t open, so I tried to climb it.

  I didn’t remember anything else because everything went dark.

  ***

  Flynn

  “How long has she been out?” I asked.

  “We don’t know. We found her in the stall, and he was standing over her,” Glenn answered.

  “What did the doctors say?”

  “They don’t know yet. They’ll let you in to see her shortly. They said they needed to speak with you. I told him you were flying back. I’m sorry, Flynn. I should’ve never left her alone with him. He’d been acting crazy all day, but she was always able to calm him. They were like kindred spirits.” Glenn stood up and ran his hands through his hair.

  I wanted to be mad at him, but it wasn’t his fault. Chloe never asked for help.

  I paced the ICU waiting room and pushed the buzzer a million times before someone finally answered. The nurse said someone would come out and talk to me.

  It had been twenty-four hours since she’d gone out to the farm. No one knew exactly when Cherokee had hurt her, they only knew her truck had still been there the next morning. They’d found her when they were making morning feed rounds.

  “Mr. Davis,” a man asked, looking out into the waiting room.

  “I’m Flynn Davis,” I stuttered out and approached him. The grim look on his face made me nervous.

  He leaned in close to my ear and put his right hand on my back and spoke softly. “Mr. Davis, I’m Dr. Hernsberger. Chloe has a skull fracture and a large bleed on her brain. She has not regained consciousness. We’ve put in a tube to drain the fluid and relieve the pressure, but I don’t want to build your hopes up. We don’t know how long it will be before she wakes up or even if she will. We have her on a ventilator to take the stress from her body, so she recovers quicker. So far, fetal heart activity is perfectly fine for the gestational age.”

  “What fetal activity?”

  “You didn’t know? Mr. Davis, Chloe is six weeks pregnant.”

  The doctor explained all the risks and the prognosis and told me the next forty-eight hours would be the telling sign. I placed my chair by the head of her bed and began to count her heartbeats. I was going to count them until she woke up, but somewhere in the process of my counts, she squeezed my hand. It was only for a second, but she did.

  ***

  It would take another four, long worrisome days before she finally opened her eyes. She came to like a wild cat with very little understanding of where she was or what had happened and the nurses had to restrain her. It broke my heart to see her almost lifeless, but when she became confused and combative, I lost it and the nurses made me leave the room until I could get it together. I was grateful they assured me it would be temporary.

  When she was completely conscious and more like herself, she began to talk and ask questions. The doctors said to let her take the lead and refrain from forcing information at her. It was the most painful event I’d ever witnessed.

  She remembered Cherokee cornering her, but that was it. When she tried to move her legs, they were very weak, but at least she could feel them and all ten of her toes.

  I was scared to give her the news about our baby. I wasn’t certain of how she would react. Would she be happy? Or would she feel trapped, her biggest fear?

  “Sweetheart, there’s some news I’m hoping you’re happy about.”

  “Hmm and what could that be?” she asked with a cynical tone.

  “You need to get well because we’re going to have a baby.”

  “A what? No, that can’t be. I’m on the pill.”

  “I’ve seen the ultrasounds, and there’s a little boy in there who’s just fine.”

  “It’s a boy.” She started to cry.

  “Genetic testing suggests it’s a boy, but they say it’s still too early to confirm, but I know it is. They can’t tell by ultrasound yet, but all the test say he’s fine.”

  “But how?”

  “Honey, if you don’t know how babies are made, then maybe we need to talk about the birds—”

  “Oh, stop it. I want to see our baby. Do you have photos?” At least she was smiling.

  I helped her sit up in bed and showed her pictures of the baby. She became excited and looked through the pictures over and over. Her face lit up in love.

  “I have to get out of this bed. Can you help me?”

  She wanted to try and take her first step. I was relieved; it was if she felt she had something to live for, if it wasn’t going to be me. When she tried to move, it saddened me to see her so helpless and struggling to control her body. She said her limbs felt like jelly. I had to turn away, so she couldn’t see my reaction.

  ***

  It was another week before Chloe was able to take her first step, and even then, she had to use a walker. She struggled mentally, emotionally, and physically to become the woman she’d once been. I watched as she fought with fierce determination to come back. I was by her side every single day for therapy. I would leave for work and return to stay with her every night until she would fall asleep, then I would go home to our bed without her.
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br />   Simon moped and stayed by the door. He knew when something was wrong. He’d always liked girls more than me. Traitor.

  When the hospital allowed me to bring Chloe home, I hired Carla, a nurse, to help take care of Chloe’s medical needs and Carla moved into the guest room upstairs. A physical therapist came to our home daily to help Chloe get her strength back.

  Chloe slept in our guest room at the front of the house, and I fully realized what it meant to say you loved someone in sickness and in health.

  Simon stayed right with her and made sure he approved of anyone who tried to touch her.

  I watched as our baby grew inside her and finally got big enough to make a bulge in her belly. Whenever I looked at her, she always seemed to have her hand on her expanding tummy, like she was trying to connect with the baby from the outside because she couldn’t feel anything on the inside.

  It broke my heart to watch her struggle daily to become the woman she once was and embrace her new life at the same time, but I did well to hide my emotions from her. I loved her completely, and I prayed for the day when she would come back to me with her heart instead of just being my roommate. I craved her touch and missed lying in bed with her in my arms, talking about all the things we loved to do, foods we loved to eat and our favorite stories from our earlier years. I yearned for the time when I could make love to her again.

  ***

  One morning, several months after the accident, I was lying in bed alone, and I heard her giggling hysterically. I walked to the open archway and watched her. She was walking around in the kitchen talking to someone… There was no one there; she was talking to herself… No, she was talking to the baby.

  She wasn’t limping, she was walking normally, and as I stood in the archway and watched her, I saw her dance. When she twirled around, she saw me.

  “We were dancing,” she said. Her eyes sparkled in the light like a million fireflies.