“I need to go.” He said. He leaned down to nuzzle her neck. “Can I see you tomorrow?”
“Yes,” she said. “But if you keep doing that, I won’t let you go.”
She watched as he moved about the room, picking his clothes off the floor from where they’d landed and pulling them on. When he was done he came to her, leaned over and gave her a soft kiss.
“Thank you for breakfast...and lunch, and everything else. I’ll call you in the morning. Would you come to my place and I’ll fix you lunch? Then we can go do something if you’d like.”
“I’d like that.” She started to get up but he pushed her back down with a hard kiss.
“No. Don’t get up. I’ll let myself out.”
Melanie, feeling drowsy and content was glad to stay in bed. She heard the front door close, but when she listened for the sound of Alex’s car door, she didn’t hear it. What she did hear, the loud revving sounds of a motorcycle, made her cringe with a sudden sadness and pain.
Images of Sam came un-beckoned to her mind. Memories of him on his bike looking so cool and proud and memories of him lying broken in the hospital after the accident. Then lying depressed in the hospital bed they had put next to the very one she lay in now. And then the darkest memory. The one she usually was able to push quickly away. Sam, as he looked lying in his coffin, the very last time she saw him.
“Shit!” she threw the pillow that lay next to her across the room. “I can’t. I can’t. NO!”
Then she rolled out of bed. She was no longer sleepy and had a lot of thinking to do.
CHAPTER 12
She was up hours before his call the next morning. Her night had been a restless one, and when the clock on her nightstand read six o’clock she’d given up the thought of trying to get a decent night’s sleep. She’d gone to her favorite spot on her couch with a book she been meaning to read, and Angel had curled up next to her.
Her thoughts kept drifting away from the words on the page though, until she put the book aside. She sat, scratching behind Angel’s ears distractedly and listening to the quiet sounds of her house. There was the hum of her refrigerator, the birds outside, a breeze blowing the blinds through her open door wall so they tapped together.
Her home had been her sanctuary for almost a year and a half, since Sam’s death. She had just a few friends anymore because after the accident her entire life seemed to be taken up with Sam’s care. The people who were true friends had stuck around, but a sifting process had taken place. So it was her books, her home, and her cat, that had carried her through.
Then Martin had come into her life, and with him some hope for a different future. Being with him had reminded her that as old as she’d been feeling, she was only twenty-four. She could still have a normal life filled with love, and maybe even children someday.
Martin himself had not been the right man, but she owed him some thanks for showing her that the possibility was still there.
Now there was Alex, and what was she going to do about him? She was already falling for him. And falling hard. Soon, she would be in too deep to walk away. Flying planes and riding motorcycles, it seemed inevitable to Melanie that someday he would get hurt, or even killed, and she couldn’t go through that ever again. It was too much to ask.
She had to end it now before it really began, and she would have to tell him why. There would be no more keeping things from Alex. She owed him that much. Melanie felt her anxiety ease some after coming to this decision about Alex.
She was dozing when the phone rang, and her voice was full of sleep when she picked the up phone from its cradle on the side table next to the couch.
“Hello?”
“Hi. I didn’t wake you, did I?
“Oh, no..., I mean yes. I was dozing on the couch. I had a rough night.”
“Are you all right?”
This was her chance to tell him she didn’t want to see him, but it didn’t feel right to tell him over the phone. It was strange how different she felt than not much more than a week before when she’d told Martin the same thing. Then she’d felt bad but clear that it was the only thing to do. But with Alex, she felt wretched and completely torn. She took a deep breath.
“I’m fine. Just waking up is all.”
“If you want to sleep, you can call when you’re ready to make plans. I have things I can do in the meantime. I just thought I could take you to lunch and then you could come to my place. I’d like you to see it.”
“That sounds good.”
She would tell him at lunch, and then go home. She didn’t want to get into it on the phone. “I can meet you. Then you won’t need to bring me back.”
There was a short pause.
“Sure. That’s fine. Let’s go to Angelo’s. You like Italian, right?”
Melanie smiled to herself. “I love that place!”
“Okay then. Noon?”
“I’ll see you there.”
Melanie arrived at Angelo’s before Alex and ordered a glass of red wine after checking her watch and seeing that it was after noon.
She tried to follow just a few rules for her life to help keep her on track. Things that made sense to her, and now she could just do them automatically. The rules had served her well especially at times when life became chaotic, because they interjected a sense order. They were simple things really. She wrote out a list each morning of things to accomplish, brushed her teeth before bed, read two books a week and gave ten percent of her income to charity. And she never drank alcohol before noon.
The restaurant was small and dark and filled with the delicious smells of baking bread and rich sauces. The walls were painted a rusty red and there was a candle lit on each table and white Christmas lights twinkled where they were twined around the ceiling molding.
As she was a frequent diner at Angelo’s, the waiter knew her and was chatty and solicitous. He brought her a basket of warm bread and several packets of butter.
“I know how much your gentleman friend likes his butter. You might tell him of the health benefits of olive oil. It’s actually much better for you and it’s so delicious the way we serve it with ground pepper and garlic.”
Melanie looked at him and smiled weakly. “Oh, thanks Tony, but I’m not meeting him. It’s someone else.”
A surprised look passed briefly across his features.
“Oh, okay. Good, then.”
He retreated and left Melanie to her thoughts.
She was looking forward to seeing Alex. As Melanie sipped her wine and began to relax, her mind drifted to the night before and sharp memories of moments with Alex came unbidden. She could see him lying next to her after they had made love. He’d been in a light sleep and she, with a deep feeling of well-being, had watched him. She’d noticed a faint scar underneath his chin, and had imagined him as a small child racing his tricycle and taking a turn too sharply. Seeing him fall in her imaginings, she’d reached up and gently touched the pale line.
The powerful feeling she’d had then for the small child he once was, and for the man he was now, returned to her. She looked up and saw him entering the restaurant and felt her face grow warm at the sight of him.
She watched as he searched for her in the darkened room that was growing crowded and raised her hand. He smiled when he saw her and was soon sliding into the seat across from her. He took her hand in his, brought it to his mouth for a quick kiss and after releasing her, leaned back.
“It’s only been since yesterday evening, but I found I missed you.”
He sounded almost annoyed.
“It is bothersome, isn’t it?”
Melanie teased but she actually understood as she’d felt the same way, and worse; she’d missed him and she suspected she would soon miss him for a long time. It was better to end it now.
But instead of saying anything, she listened and smiled at his story of being stuck behind a school bus that kept stopping to pick up very small campers much of the way to the restaurant.
She
ordered eggplant parmesan for lunch and ate every bite. She had two glasses of wine, with the thought at the back of her mind that it would give her courage to break it off with him, but all it did was soften the edges of everything in the restaurant and make her more talkative.
Melanie glanced at her phone and realized that almost three hours had passed. The meal had ended but she hadn’t said anything about ending things between them. Twice Alex had mentioned something he’d like to do with her in the future and she‘d said things like, “That sounds like fun.” and, “Oh, I have never done that before.”
So she gave up and told herself that she didn’t want to ruin her favorite restaurant for herself. And except for the small nagging voice that she successfully ignored, she had a wonderful time with Alex at Angelo’s.
He paid the check and took her hand again. This time he pressed the tips of her fingers to his lips. The warmth of his touch and the soft pressure of his lips made Melanie squirm a little in her seat.
“Let’s go to my place. I want to show it to you,” he said. “I can drive and bring you back to your car later.”
“I’d like to follow you, if that’s okay. Then you won’t have to bring me back.”
He searched her face for a quick second. “Okay.”
She followed him back down a long private road to his home. As they drove through the trees, she tried to imagine the house. He’d said that it was a work-in-progress. In her mind, it was a log cabin made with rough-hewn logs, small and charming. She was surprised by the length of the road, which was rocky and unpaved. It went on for almost a half mile and then the trees thinned out some and the road became asphalt for a short jaunt up to the house.
When she saw the house, Melanie’s jaw dropped. It was not a small log cabin; it was a very large, modern fieldstone and wood home that blended into the trees like it was a natural part of the environment.
The garage door opened, and Alex pulled his Jeep into the empty spot. The three car garage held two other vehicles, so Melanie parked in the side lot next to it. Alex walked out of the garage and shut the door, then came up to her.
“Let’s go in the front,” he said.
Melanie nodded. She was still a bit in shock at the size and beauty of the house that he claimed to have built himself. Surely he didn’t mean by himself. How long would that have taken?
He led her up a paved walk-way that had empty flower beds on either side. “I know I want flowers leading up to the house, but I don’t have much of a green thumb. I suppose I’ll have to hire a landscaper for some of this.”
“Did you build this all by yourself?” Although she tried, she was unable to keep the amazement out of her voice.
Alex looked at her and grinned with obvious pride.
“Well, most of it. I worked with an architect for the design, and I had help with the framework, the plumbing and some of the electrical. I hired a friend of mine to do the stone work and much of the tile. Wait until you see- she’s a genius.”
“She?”
Melanie felt a stab of something.
Alex laughed with delight. “You should see your face. I think you are jealous.”
Melanie frowned, but knew that jealous was just the right word for what she felt.
“No, I’m not. I just never heard of a woman doing stonework.”
“Well, she is quite talented,” he looked at her with a mischievous grin, “and really in shape, too.”
Melanie grinned back. “You’re a bad man.”
Alex opened the front door, which was massive and rose up well above their heads, and stepped aside to allow her to go in first. The entrance was open with a high ceiling. Her steps across the bare wood floors echoed in the large space.
“Alex, it’s beautiful!”
She turned and saw that on his face was an expression of deep satisfaction and happiness.
“It needs a few things yet.” He laughed. “Like furniture. I guess that will be the last thing, but furniture is a bit like flowers for me. I know that I want chairs and sofas, but I know nothing.”
“Well, you can hire someone for that, too.”
“I like your taste. Maybe you could help me?”
“Maybe.”
She hadn’t thought about her resolve to end things with Alex since after lunch, and her feelings were in a tumult. Walking away from this man was not something her heart wanted her to do. It was another part of her, the part that held the pain of the past and told her there was no more room there, and no more room for risk.
“I do have a bed, though. And I have a table in the kitchen.”
He led her back through the large open room to the kitchen, which was another large room like a kitchen family room combination. One wall was completely covered in fieldstone with an immense fireplace. In front of the fireplace, was a long, cherry-wood table big enough to comfortably seat ten people. One end of the table was covered with stacks of papers and a laptop.
“I love your cherry cabinets,” Melanie said.
She was beginning to feel uncomfortable remembering that her plan was to have this be the final meeting between them. The thought was making her sad and nervous as she tried to find the words and the courage to tell Alex that she didn’t want to see him again.
When he turned and looked at her with a boyish expression of pride shining in his eyes, all of her built up resolve melted.
It wasn’t true and she couldn’t tell him that she didn’t want to see him again. There were a few people in her life that she would be quite happy if they walked out of her life forever, but Alex Ryan wasn’t one of them.
She sighed with resignation at the knowledge that never seeing him again would actually cause her pain at this point.
“That was a big sigh. Is everything okay?” he asked.
“I had a sad thought, but I’m all right.”
She waved her hand like she was pushing the thought away.
“I love your home, Alex. It’s a reflection of so much of you. And I don’t even really know you that well.”
“I haven’t spent three days lost alone in the wilderness with a lot of women, Melanie. You know me fairly well.”
Alex moved to the built-in refrigerator and took out an opened bottle of white wine.
“Want something to drink? I have beer or ice-tea too.”
“Sure.”
She nodded at the bottle he held in his hand.
Glasses in hand, they went through the rest of the house. The thought and attention to detail was impressive, and Alex seemed as happy as she had ever seen him. He showed her everything and told her how he had come to each design decision.
When they got to the Master bedroom he threw open the door and then took her hand and drew her through the threshold. Melanie had the distinct impression that he was fighting the urge to say, “Ta da!”
She giggled and said it for him, “Ta da!”
Then she looked around the room and grew quiet. It was large and except for a king-size bed with a canopy, it was empty. The oak trim in the room was beautiful, but it was the wall of windows with an open view of the mountains that drew her attention.
“Wow.”
It was the best she could come up with to say. She turned and Alex had a small smile on his face as he looked out the windows. He moved to a set of french doors she hadn’t noticed, that opened to a large deck.
You couldn’t tell from the front of the house that it set right up to the edge of a cliff, and the deck seemed to hang over an abyss that dropped down hundreds of feet. She followed, her heart speeding up a bit in a reaction to the feeling of stepping out over nothingness. The deck railings seemed too low somehow. Melanie felt off-balance.
“I need to get furniture for the deck too, I guess.”
He sat at the edge dangling his legs over the side. Then he patted the spot next to him. “Come and sit. You’re not afraid of heights are you?”
Melanie sat next to him slowly moving her legs over the edge of the deck feeling curiousl
y lightheaded.
“Not more than what is simply natural.”
She glanced at him. “You seem to have an almost unnatural affinity for heights,” she said drily.
He laughed. “I guess that’s true.”
He took her hand again and softly massaged her palm with his thumb.
“You know, ever since our little adventure I can’t look at the mountains without thinking about you.”
She didn’t answer, but she felt pleased. When he reached over and kissed her, she responded. But when he began to slide his hand under her shirt, she moved away, looked out at the mountains and tried to calm her breathing.
“What’s wrong?” Alex asked quietly. He kissed her shoulder and softly rubbed her back.
She didn’t really know what to say. All she knew was that she had been ready to break it off with him, and now she was in his arms dangling three hundred feet from the ground.
She stood up and went to the french doors.
“I want to see the rest of your house and the property.”
Alex followed her back into the bedroom. “All right, but you’re sure nothing is wrong?”
“I’m fine. Maybe I am a bit nervous around heights.”
He seemed to accept her answer and led the way through the other four bedrooms and baths on that floor. They were all fairly large with the same oak trim, but none of them had windows that faced the mountains, or sat over the cliff.
“Why so many bedrooms?” she asked.
Alex looked at her intently.
“Well, I’m planning ahead, I guess. They’re for the children.” He flashed a grin. “I guess it’s pretty optimistic for a man who hasn’t even had a girlfriend in about two years.”
“Really?”
Melanie couldn’t help feeling surprised. He was, well he was so sexy and accomplished, and he was funny and ...nice. Women must go after him all the time. Why wouldn’t he have had even a girlfriend in two years? And if he was building four bedrooms for future children, it wasn’t because he didn’t want a commitment.
“You mean you really haven’t been with a woman in two years?”
Unintended Love: A contemporary romantic novella Page 7