“I’m not. Delilah…”
He trailed off as his mind segued into another line of thought.
“Hey, dude,” Jake said softly. “Are you okay?”
Caleb shook his head. “No. I’m not okay. I need a fucking drink.”
“It’s nine in the morning,” Jake reminded him.
“Believe me,” he said grimly and then sighed. “I realize that. I just have a feeling I’m going to be drinking a lot for quite a long time to come.”
Jake sat on the couch and draped his arm over the back. “Okay. What exactly did she say?”
“What does that matter?”
“Listen, I have to get to wardrobe and makeup in about fifteen minutes so that gives us ten minutes to figure out what happened. Now, I apologize for what I said to her--”
“That’s right! You said something to her! What did you say to her?”
Jake blinked. “She didn’t tell you?”
“No, Jake. She didn’t, but you will.”
“I, ah, may have said something about paying her.”
“You said what?” he demanded angrily.
“I’m sorry,” Jake said, holding up his hands in a defensive gesture. “It wasn’t my fault. Well, it came out of my mouth but what was I to think of a girl you’re dating who gets off work at two in the morning!”
“She could’ve been a bartender. Or an ER nurse. Or a surgeon.
“I’m not used to women actually, you know, with a brain. I’m really sorry I assumed the worst.”
“You’re an ass,” Caleb muttered.
“I know. I just don’t know how to deal with true love.”
“Hardly true love. She dumped me, remember?”
“What did she say?”
“She said it wasn’t logical to fall in love after a week. And then she told me to go back to my world. So I asked her to go with me and that’s when she informed me that she didn’t love me.”
“Harsh, dude.”
Suddenly a bang hit Jake’s door, making Caleb jump.
“Sorry, that’s my booty call.”
“Seriously?”
“No, Caleb. I’m not such a horn dog as to get a scheduled booty call on set. Geez.
Listen, hang out here for a little bit. I gotta get to wardrobe and makeup. But I’ll be back, and we can talk more.”
Caleb gave him a weary look. “I think I’m over talking. But thanks.”
As the door shut behind Jake, Caleb flopped down on the couch and leaned back against the cushions. He placed his arm over his eyes and let his mind drift. Thinking about Delilah hurt his head, hurt his heart and made him want to punch something. But as his body relaxed, as his mind finally slowed down, Sunday replayed through his mind.
She’d been so open, and he had gotten the feeling that sharing wasn’t something she normally did. They had danced so intimately and then they had loved so passionately. Her coldness, the abrupt turn in her feelings, just didn’t make sense.
He drifted off to sleep with that thought rumbling through his head.
Chapter Fifteen
Perhaps it was the epic twelve-hour nap he’d had yesterday that had him surprisingly clearheaded now. Caleb sat by his gate, waiting for the time to tick down to catch his plane, which departed at eight. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a straight shot back to River Ice. His ass was going to feel it after a few hours. Still, he couldn’t seem to get up and walk around as much as possible. He’d been thinking a lot since yesterday and it had his brain swimming.
Jake had finally shaken him awake to inform Caleb that he was done with filming. Caleb had missed everything and had a crick in his neck to boot, but he felt rested and restored after his day long sleep.
Jake had driven them to a steakhouse and had treated since it was Caleb’s last day in Los Angeles. Caleb had downed a few too many beers but hell, it’d been worth it. He had even posed with Jake a few times as fans came up to get his autograph. Jake was right. He was going home so what the hell did he care about gossip magazines?
Jake had dropped him off at his house and made him swear to keep in touch, and to watch his movies. Through it all, Caleb thought he was fine, until he’d walked inside and heard silence. The same type of silence that waited for him back in Alaska. He thought he’d been okay with it, thought he’d gotten past it, but loving Delilah opened all the wounds and he’d given in, texting her.
She hadn’t answered.
He knelt there in the middle of the damn floor waiting for her to respond, but she didn’t. So he called. And it went straight to voice mail. He’d almost thrown the phone across the room. He’d almost got an Uber and went to her work, but her words echoed in his head.
“I. Do. Not. Love. You.”
Only now that he sat there in the airport, surrounded by hundreds of people did he start to remember more. He remembered the desperation behind the statement and the fear in her eyes. That triggered an earlier statement she had made.
“I’m scared.”
It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out she was scared of love. Hell, what did she have in her life to compare the emotion to? She’d had betrayal from the one person in the world who should have protected her, and she’d had heartache from the knowledge that she couldn’t save her sister from the same fate. Delilah downplayed a lot of it but she’d had to fight and claw for the person she was now. They were two different people, who grew up as opposite as two people could get. He didn’t buy that race was a factor and refused to play that card. Delilah was such a warm and wonderful human being. She was fun to be with and great to laugh with. She engaged all his senses.
“You need to find another Claire.”
Perhaps that’s what she really thought that he needed another woman who was Claire. But he’d laid Claire to rest and trying to revive her memory in someone else was not only disrespectful, but it dimmed Claire’s light. She always would be in his heart, but his heart now beat for Delilah.
“I want to love, and I want to feel like I’m worthy of love.”
As Caleb remembered that one shining moment from her confession, he realized what a fool he’d been. She’d fed him a line and he’d fallen, hook, line and sinker. She’d thrown out a test and he’d failed, spectacularly.
Caleb stood up and looked around. His luggage was already checked but he could call Hank and have the pilot pick up his suitcase. All he had on him was his small carryon that had one clean pair of underwear. He looked up at the clock on the wall and saw that it was close to seven. His flight would be boarding soon to take him back home, but he suddenly figured out that Alaska would never be home again if Delilah wasn’t with him. He’d be a lonely, miserable old man and thoughts of the movie Up! splashed through his mind.
She loved him, but she was fucking scared. He took off at a run toward the car rental booths.
Chapter Sixteen
Delilah sat at her vanity at The Pony with a blush brush in her hand just staring at her reflection. She had to be the biggest coward on the planet. How could she have been so scared to let Caleb walk away?
It had terrified her to leave Mississippi, but she did it because it had been the only way she was going to survive her teenage years. It had unsettled her to come to Los Angeles because back then she’d had vague thoughts about being the next Hollywood star. Yet that abstract dream had faded quickly under reality and the need for money. For seven years she’d created this world that had revolved around one single direction…to get her GED, because if she got that then everything would be great. It would be peachy.
It would be normal.
She took a deep breath and laid down the brush. She looked over herself with a critical eye. She wore a blue wig that managed to barely cover the tips of her naked breasts. Around her hips were the barely there G-string panties that hid just enough to keep the law off the management’s back. Glitter dusted her skin so she could glow under the spotlights. In a few minutes she was due onstage to shimmy and shake for her paycheck, and it suddenly
dawned on her that when she got her GED nothing was really going to change.
She’d still need to make money, so she’d still be dancing, shaking her ta-tas in the faces of men reeking of stale beer and cigarettes. Did she think that once she proved she was worth a high school diploma that the world would stop spinning, the trumpets would blare, and thousands of balloons would pour from the heavens in triumph?
Somehow, she didn’t see that happening.
So what did she see happening?
She saw herself in the exact same place in front of the exact same mirror, holding the same brush and wearing the same wig. She’d still have this, and she’d still be all alone.
When she’d met Caleb, she had never thought about being lonely. She’d existed in this bubble of work and study with her eye on the goal. She’d taught herself from the ground up and she was proud of how far she’d gotten. But what was the next step? What was the next dream?
Event planning always interested her but the thought of online courses, apprenticing and starting up a business overwhelmed her, not to mention the hobnobbing, schmoozing and kissing ass all for the opportunity of a contact. Public relations weren’t her strong suit.
So where did that leave her?
It left her in Los Angeles while Caleb flew back to Alaska. He’d been right. You could fall in love in a week, but she’d let all her insecurities drag her back down to what was safe. If she stayed here in L.A., then she stayed with her comfort zone. And she’d be miserable because she was too scared to take a chance.
She glanced up at the clock on the wall. It was almost nine, almost time for Caleb’s plane to take off. Her heart stopped. If she let him get on that plane, then everything around her would be meaningless without him. She pulled out her phone and then cursed when she realized the battery had died.
She tossed it back into her bag and stood, pulling the damn blue wig off her head. She ran to her locker and opened it, taking out her clothes. Modesty had no place in an exotic dancer’s world so she shucked the uncomfortable scrap laughingly called panties and began dressing in her real clothes.
“What ‘cha doing, Del?” Suzy, one of the other girls, asked from her vanity.
Delilah glanced at her and met the girl’s gaze in the mirror. “I’m out of here.”
“Now? You go on in, like, three minutes!”
“I guess you’ll have to take front pole, Suzy.”
The other dancer’s eyes widened. “Seriously? Like, totally seriously?”
Delilah smiled. “Yeah. I’m done dancing.”
Then suddenly, the music abruptly stopped playing. Delilah half focused on it until she heard Caleb’s voice reverberate through the dance hall.
“‘To know for an hour, you were mine completely. Mine in body and soul, my own. I would bear unending tortures sweetly, with not a murmur and not a moan. A lighter sin or a lesser error might change through hope or fear divine. But there is no fear, and hell has no terror to change or alter a love like mine.’”
“What the hell is that?” Suzy asked.
“It’s Ella Wheeler Wilcox,” Delilah whispered.
She ran. Leaving the dressing room, she hurried from the backstage area to the front. She looked toward the DJ booth, squinting against the harsh light blinding her. Ignoring all the confused patrons, she hurried from the platform, racing to Caleb. He met her halfway, scooping her up into his arms, hugging her tight. There, surrounded by everything she hated, all the men who stuffed money into her g-string, she wound her arms around Caleb so tightly she didn’t want to let go.
“I’m so sorry, Caleb!” she said anxiously. “You were right. People do fall in love in a week because I’ve been sitting here thinking and I realized that I’ve been so scared about leaving the haven I’ve built that I pushed you away and I don’t want you to go, Caleb. I love you.”
“Wow, talk about a run on sentence,” he murmured, pulling back to cup her face. “It was a beautiful run on sentence.”
“You didn’t get on the plane.”
“And you’re not dancing.”
She shook her head. “I had already quit. Like, five seconds ago. I realized that just because I’m taking a frickin’ GED test won’t change things. But loving you will.”
“I’ll have to retest here in California but transferring to a park here shouldn’t be too--”
“What?” she asked. “What do you mean transferring?”
“I can’t live without you, Delilah,” he explained. “You’re my world now.”
She gripped his hands. “And I don’t want you to give up yours. Especially since I don’t really have a life in L.A.”
“Delilah--”
“Shh,” she said, covering his mouth with her finger. “I want to go with you. At least until we figure out what our next move is. And we will figure it out together, right Caleb?”
He took her hand in his. “Always, my love. But, before we go home to Alaska, you’ll be taking that GED test.”
“It’s no longer necessary,” she said.
“Of course, it is,” he said. “You’ve worked too damn hard, and I would never take away your dreams, your aspirations.”
“That’s just it,” she told him. “I don’t know what my next dreams are.”
He smiled at her. “Then we’ll figure them out. Together.”
She kissed him again, and the audience around them began clapping. Embarrassed, she pulled back to look around.
“Oh, god.”
“Come on,” Caleb said, smiling. “Let’s get out of here.”
Suzy rushed over to hand over her purse, and Delilah hugged her.
“Good luck,” Suzy said. “He’s a handsome fellow.”
Delilah smiled. “He sure is. I’m so very lucky.”
Caleb twined their fingers together, and they left that world behind.
Epilogue
Caleb walked into the Suinnak Diner expecting to see Delilah waiting for him at a table, so it left him a little confused when he saw her sitting near the fire stove deep in conversation with Paden Winters. Now, he loved Paden like a brother, and Delilah had become close with his wife, Thea. But seeing her captivated by Paden’s passionate story gave him twinges of jealousy that he didn’t like.
“Hi Caleb,” Thea said from her seat at the bar portion of the diner.
Caleb slid onto the seat next to her, giving a nod toward their respective partners. “Are they planning world domination over there?”
Thea smiled. “Del’s been picking his brain about writing.”
Caleb’s eyebrows rose. “Really?”
“News to you?” Miki asked as she sat a cup of coffee in front of him.
“Well, she does admire Ella Wheeler Wilcox,” he said.
Miki and Thea stared at him in confusion. He waved his hand dismissively.
“By the way, how long are we supposed to wait?” Thea asked. “And how is Delilah holding up under this pressure?”
Caleb shrugged as his eyes darted toward Delilah. Her chin rested in the palm of her hand as she talked to Paden. She was so gorgeous he couldn’t take his eyes off her. They’d arrived in River Ice eight weeks ago to the day, so it was a celebration of sorts. September had come upon them quickly and that signaled the end of the tourist season. Some locals would be packing up to spend the winter a bit farther south in either Anchorage or Juneau, but for him the winter would bring a whole new set of chores to the Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve.
So far, Delilah had taken well to the differences between Los Angeles and River Ice. Hell, even between the Deep South and the Far North. His friends had been a godsend, taking to her and helping her adapt to a whole new way of life. Miki had let her help in the bar and it’d given Delilah a way to meet the population in a controlled, relaxed environment. She even opened up about taking her GED and they had all become her cheerleader.
“How can she be so calm?” Thea questioned. “I’m a nervous wreck!”
“Oh, she’s nervous,�
� Caleb assured. “To pass she’s got to receive at least a four hundred ten on each of the five subtests and an average score of four fifty.”
“We took high school for granted,” Miki muttered as she wiped down the bar top.
“Tell me about it,” Thea replied. “I really don’t think I could pass a GED test. I barely got an acceptable score on my SATs.”
“Liar liar pants on fire,” Miki teased.
Thea laughed.
Delilah glanced up and Caleb’s gaze met hers. She smiled at him, said something Paden and then stood. As she walked toward him, he couldn’t help but admire the sway of her hips and the glint of heat in her dark eyes.
“Done for the day, baby?” she asked as she slid her arms around his neck to give him a quick kiss on the lips.
“I am.”
“Mind if we skip dinner? I want to check to see if my test results came in.”
“Oh, before you go,” Miki called out, holding up a hand. “Delilah, I wanted to ask if you’d like to take over planning the end of the year ball.”
“The what?”
“It’s a celebration to send off tourist season,” Miki explained. “We have one every year but mostly it’s been a little…old fashioned.”
Thea snorted. “The biggest development last year was someone brought the soundtrack to The Notebook.”
“Caleb mentioned you were pretty good at event planning so what do you say?”
Delilah’s grin went from ear to ear. “I’d love to!”
“Awesome!” Miki replied. “In a few there’ll be a town meeting you’ll need to attend so bring your ideas.”
“Thank you so much!”
“Now, shoo,” Miki said as she waved her hand like a broom. “I’ll keep my fingers crossed!”
“Me too!” Thea called out.
Caleb hurried Delilah into her coat, bundling her up to brave the outside weather. His snowmobile was parked off the main road. They’d had a very light snowfall just the other night and the temperature was cold enough to keep it from snowing. The real test for Delilah would come in a few weeks when River Ice got a heap of snow dumped on them.
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