by M. Leighton
As she drops his silverware into his empty glass and begins wiping the bar clean, I speak quietly to her. “I think Cody really has a thing for you, Jordan.” I use my best girl-conspirator tone. I just want to feel her out on the situation. Overstepping my bounds would not be a good idea.
She doesn’t look up at me and her smile is a sad one. “He just thinks he does. What would a nice guy like that want with someone like me?”
“What do you mean? What’s wrong with you? You’re beautiful, funny, smart. And you make a heck of a Mrs. Claus,” I add, eyeing her outfit.
“I’m nothing any decent man would want to take home. Unless it’s just for the night.”
This isn’t like Jordan. She’s usually so ballsy, so confident. It’s heartbreaking to see her so…down.
I reach over to put my hand over hers, stilling it and drawing her eyes to me. They’re glistening and I realize how near tears she is. My heart breaks even more for her. And I could just strangle her brother and her ex for making her this kind of a wreck.
“Jordan, don’t sell yourself short. You’re worth more than one night and you can’t let anyone convince you otherwise. I know it. Cody knows it. Jason knows it, too. He’s just too big of a butt to admit it.” I’d like to call him something much nastier, but little listening ears preclude me from doing so.
“You really think so?” she asks, her voice wobbly.
“I know so. Why don’t you give Cody a call? Just to see. What can it hurt?”
“My pride,” she answers. “My heart.”
“Both of those are already hurting, though, right?” She shrugs. “But if I’m right… Maybe he could be someone who would make you really happy. Isn’t that worth the risk?”
Her eyes search mine for long seconds before she nods grudgingly. “I guess so.”
“I know so,” I repeat, squeezing her hand before I release it.
As I lean away, I’m filled with hope for my friend. I hardly notice the beautifully-modulated southern voice when it sounds from just over my shoulder. Until I hear the name she mentions.
“Pardon me, but do you know where I might find Cole Danzer? I went by his house and he’s not there.”
I turn to see to whom the voice belongs and I’m stunned. A gorgeous brunette is standing behind me, casually poised, smiling pleasantly at Jordan. Her hair is as black as mine, only wavy, and her face looks like it should grace the cover of a magazine. She’s dressed like she might’ve just come off the slopes of Aspen with her winter white ski jacket and matching moleskin pants.
“Eden, do you know where he is?” Jordan asks, pulling my attention back to her.
I’m speechless for a few seconds. A lancing pain in the vicinity of my heart tells me that this is not a good thing. That this woman is going to be a game changer for a game I was already in danger of losing.
I don’t look back at the woman. I don’t want to meet her eyes. I don’t want answers to the questions rolling through my mind, like how does she know Cole and who is she to him. Besides, I imagine that I already know.
“I think he was working on the cottage across from mine today,” I explain, brushing Emmy’s hair back from her face to give myself something peaceful to focus on. She leans her head back against my chest so that she can look behind us at the stranger asking about Cole. I don’t. I don’t want to look at her.
The gasp I hear, though, draws my gaze anyway. The woman is even paler than she was when she walked in and she’s staring at Emmy like she’s just seen a ghost.
Just like Cole did the first time he saw her.
She places the tips of her trembling fingers over her lips as she watches my daughter. After several tense seconds that feel like hours, she turns her shocked eyes up to mine. Tears are welled in the corners. “Do you know Cole?”
I nod. Yes, I know him. I know his touch, I know his kiss, I know his heartache.
She nods, too. And judging by the pain I see in her eyes, she knows how well I know him, too. “Okay then.” I watch her pull herself together. Straighten her spine, raise her chin, wipe one stubborn tear from her cheek. “Thank you.”
And with that, she turns and walks gracefully out the way she came.
⌘⌘⌘⌘
I’m numb as I take groceries from the back seat and carry them inside. What feeling I have left in my heart freezes the instant I see the sleek black SUV pull to a stop in the driveway. My eyes meet the woman’s, the same woman who came into Bailey’s. The same woman who knows Cole. The same woman who I’m pretty sure is his ex-wife. But why is she here? What does she want with me?
I smile, pausing with bags dangling from my fingers, the cold wind whipping through my hair. I watch as she climbs out from behind the wheel and makes her way slowly to me, carefully picking her way along the snow-cleared path.
“Eden, right?” she asks, obviously noting Jordan’s use of my name earlier.
I nod.
“I’m Brooke Danzer, Cole’s wife. Can we talk?”
Cole’s wife.
Cole’s.
Wife.
Wife. Not ex-wife. Wife. Present tense.
I want to ask why, why we need to talk. I want to tell her that I don’t want to. I want to tell her to get lost. I want to tell her Cole is mine and she has no business here.
But I don’t.
Because I can’t.
He’s not mine and I don’t know what her business is here. I was so caught up in Cole’s story about losing his daughter, I never asked what happened to his wife. I just assumed. I assumed all sorts of things and never confirmed any of them. I just noted that he was alone. Solitary. That he wore no wedding ring and had no connections. And I let the rest go.
Like a stupid child.
I wanted to trust blindly. And so I did.
“Maybe we could go inside?” she asks, shivering noticeably. Her clothes may look nice and probably cost a fortune, but they obviously aren’t very weather-worthy. I want to smirk. I want to tell her to go back to wherever she came from.
But I don’t.
Because, again, I can’t. I have to know. No matter how much it hurts.
“Of course.”
I lead her inside, setting the last of the groceries in the kitchen. “Have a seat,” I tell her as I busy myself getting Emmy situated in her room with a brand new sketch pad and colored pencils for her to draw with. When I return, Brooke isn’t seated, but rather staring out the kitchen window. Toward the house Cole has been working on.
My heart drops into my stomach.
I clear my throat and begin to sift through a bag, pulling out cold items and placing them in the refrigerator. I’m not going to make any overtures. I’ll wait for her to get to the point.
“How long have you known Cole?” she asks finally. She turns toward me. I can tell because of the clarity of her voice, but also because the hair on my arms stands up. Like they’re reacting to her scrutiny.
“Just a few months.”
“How is he?”
I shrug, taking the milk out of a bag and setting it carefully in the fridge. “He’s fine, I guess. I didn’t know him before, so…”
“Right,” is all she says. After a couple of minutes, during which my nerves are about to make my skin bleed, she continues. “Did he tell you about…everything?”
“What’s everything?”
“Charity, the accident. Everything that happened.”
“He told me that she was killed in a car accident. And that he was driving.”
“Did he tell you he’d been drinking?”
I turn and meet her eyes. They’re a beautiful lime green color. Stunning, like the rest of her. “Yes, he did.”
She nods and looks down at the kitchen table. I turn to put cheese on the shelf. “And did he tell you about us?”
My hand freezes on the cheese. Just for a few seconds. “Some.”
“Did he tell you we’re still married?”
“No,” I manage to whisper, even though my heart is in
my throat.
Her laugh is bitter. “I’m not surprised.”
“And why is that?”
“He’s cheated on me more times than I can count.”
I feel like I’ve been kicked in the chest by someone wearing razor-sharp stilettos.
“I’m sorry to hear that.” What else am I supposed to say?
“I’ve only seen him a handful of times since…since the accident. He just lost it. We both did, I guess. Losing a child…”
I close my eyes and I push the refrigerator door shut. I don’t even bother turning to face her. I don’t want to see the pain. I can already imagine what it must look like–a mother’s face when she talks about the child she lost.
“I couldn’t stand to come back here. He couldn’t stay away. We just sort of silently agreed to heal however we could, wherever we could. But I never stopped loving him. And I think we’re both ready to try again. When I talked to him last week–”
“Last week?” I interrupt, my stomach twisting into a bundle of knots.
“Yes. We’ve kept in touch, of course. I wanted to make sure he was okay. He’s never wanted me to come here, to visit him here, but it’s Christmas. And I hate the thought of him spending another Christmas alone, so I thought I’d surprise him.”
Oh, he’ll be surprised, alright.
Or will he? Is this why he started pulling away? Did it really have anything to do with getting too close to us? Or did he think he was on the verge of getting busted?
The thought makes the room dip and sway behind my closed lids.
“Maybe I shouldn’t assume that there’s something between you, but if there is, I want you to know that I’m not trying to hurt you. Cole is a gorgeous, charismatic man. A woman would have to be blind not to see that. But we have a lot of history together.”
I nod, trying hard to swallow past the lump in my throat. “I completely understand.”
“I was hoping you would.” I hear the tread of her soft-soled shoes as she walks toward the living room. I collect myself and smile as I turn toward her. “It was…it was nice meeting you, Eden. I wish you the best of luck.”
“You, too,” I say as sincerely as I can. And for the most part I mean it. This woman has lost enough. I won’t stand in the way of her attempts to salvage her marriage. Now that I know that there is one.
“I’ll see myself out.”
I wait until I hear her engine start before I go to Emmy’s room. She’s drawing a turtle, a pretty good one actually. I plaster a bright, excited smile on my face. “Hey, you wanna go do some Christmas shopping in Ashbrook today?”
I have to get out of here. I have to be somewhere that I can’t sit and think, that I can’t see Cole and his wife from my window. I don’t need that visual to add to my torture.
“Yeah!” she exclaims, hopping off her bed and racing for the door.
“Coat, young lady.”
She runs with a boot in one hand to get her coat from the hall closet and then runs back to finish putting it on. I fight back tears as I remind myself that Emmy and I have done just fine by ourselves these last two years. We’ll be just fine for the next two, as well. And the two after that, and the two after that.
That’s my mantra all the way to Ashbrook and all the way home three hours later.
⌘⌘⌘⌘
I’ve been lying in bed, awake, in the dark, for hours. I didn’t want Cole to see lights on if he should happen to pass by. If he should happen to care.
I figure he does. He’ll feel guilty most likely. Try to explain so that I won’t hate him. That would bother him, I think. Of course, what the hell do I know? It seems that I know very little about the man after all. I keep getting revelation after revelation, very few of them good ones.
And yet, I still love him. I do. In fact, except for this last bomb, I think his brokenness may have made me love him even more. If there’s one thing I can relate to, it’s brokenness. I’ve seen it. I’ve felt it. I’ve lived it. It’s been my constant companion for as long as I can remember. And I didn’t think it could get any worse.
I was wrong.
I hold my breath when I hear the soft knock on the front door. I don’t move a muscle, as if he’d be able to sense it all the way outside. The minutes tick by like shotgun blasts, each one rattling my nerves. After a couple of minutes, I breathe more easily. Surely he’s gone. Surely he left when I didn’t answer the door.
But then I hear the scrape of metal on metal. A key, sliding into the lock. I roll over and curl up on my side, pulling the covers up close to my face, watching inconspicuously from mostly-closed lids. From my bedroom, I can see the edge of the front door. I see it swing open and then swing quickly closed. I hear the soft pad of shod feet moving almost silently through the living room. I see the shadow–Cole’s big, broad-shouldered shadow–move into the mouth of the hallway and head my way.
I make my breathing as slow and deep as I can, not an easy thing considering how my heart is galloping like a runaway horse. Through the slits of my vision, I see Cole stop in the doorway. He watches me for ninety-four long seconds, each of which I count as I inhale deeply and exhale slowly. With each breath, I can smell the unique scent of his skin–salt and soap. Like the sea and the man have become one. Both big enough to drown in. Both strong enough to carry me away. Both as turbulent as the eye of a hurricane.
“Eden?” he finally whispers in his sensual sandpaper voice. I let my lids drift all the way closed. Just my name on his lips, covered in pain, dripping in regret, is enough to undo me.
But I can’t be undone. Brooke is a game-changer. Cole is married. There’s nothing else to say.
I barely hear Cole cross to the bed. I hear the friction of material against skin as he kneels on the floor right beside me. I keep my eyes closed, my breathing even, and I wait.
“I hope you can hear me,” he whispers. If I were asleep, I’m not sure his low, deep voice would wake me. It’s more a rumble than anything. So much so that for a second, I feel it vibrate along my skin, tickling every tiny hair and tingling along every twitching nerve.
“She’s not my wife,” he begins. My heart trips over itself and my breath catches. Hope floods my soul, and I might’ve responded to him had he not continued on so quickly. “Not in any way other than legally.”
Oh. Is that all?
I will my chin not to tremble the disappointment is so great.
“I loved her the way a kid in high school might love his girlfriend. We were barely together after I went to college, but I was a typical guy. Stupid. Horny. Proud. When she kept coming around, who was I to tell her no? Then she got pregnant. I thought I was doing the right thing by marrying her. But I never loved her. Not the way I should’ve. Not the way I love you.”
Oh, God! My heart! I feel like it was made of glass and it just exploded inside me, shards sticking into the walls of my chest like shrapnel.
“There were other women. She knew it. She knew I was caught up in the world of fame and money and fans. She didn’t deserve any of what I did to her. And when Charity…after Charity, I knew it was time to set her free. She deserved better than me. Someone who would love her like she needed to be loved. Someone who could help her heal. Give her more children. Someone other than me.” He pauses and I want so badly to open my eyes. But I don’t. I know better than to look at him.
“I left and came here. Sent her divorce papers. She never signed them. I didn’t really care either way. I gave her a way out. The divorce wasn’t for me. I never planned on meeting anyone, on having anything more in my life than the misery I deserved. Than an eternity spent mourning my daughter. But then you came along.”
I feel the ever-so-slight warmth of Cole’s head when he rests it on the mattress right in the curve of my body. He’s not touching me. But he doesn’t have to. I feel him as if he were.
“Emmy looks so much like Charity, but as beautiful and sweet as she is, she’s not the one I couldn’t stop thinking about, even from the beginning.
It was you. It’s always been you.”
Another pause. Another deep breath.
“I’ve been alone for a long time, and not once have I ever felt lonely. Bereft, yes. Angry, hell yes. Bitter, remorseful, hopeless, yes, but never lonely. Not until you. You changed everything. And I was so caught up in you–in the way you respond when I touch you, in the taste of your body, in the sound of your voice–that I didn’t think about tomorrow. Or even yesterday as much as I used to. Most days I’ve thought of you more than Charity. And I wasn’t prepared for that. I wasn’t prepared for you. Because of that, I’ve handled it all so, so badly.”
I hear his shaky breath. I feel his sincerity. I want it to matter. But it can’t.
“Please forgive me. I’ve hurt so many people, but I swear on my life, I never meant to hurt you. I hope you believe that.”
Another pause. Cole is quiet, his breathing heavy. I keep mine even, continuing the ruse. I can’t let him know I’m awake. I can’t have him here, in my bedroom, so close and so sincere, and expect to resist him. I need time. And distance.
I feel him lean back, pull away. I hold perfectly still.
“I’m twenty-nine years old and you changed everything for me. You made me want to laugh and love and live again. You made me feel when I didn’t think I could feel anything anymore. I just wish I could’ve been whole when we met. I wish I could’ve said the right things and done the right things. I wish I could be the type of man you deserve. I wish I could be the kind of man you could love.”
I hear him shift and then I feel the feather-light brush of his lips on my forehead, the tip of my nose, the curve of my cheek.
“I know you’re awake. And I love you,” he says quietly, his mouth near my ear.
I open my eyes and meet his. They’re dark and fathomless in the shadowy night. I say nothing. He says nothing. We just stare at one another, memorizing lines and shapes, angles and planes.
And then he stands and walks away.