Rescuing His Heart

by Melanie Shawn

  Gen flopped down on the couch and Abby chose an overstuffed armchair.

  “Has business been bad? Is that what’s stressing you out?”

  Gen realized that there was just a touch too much eagerness in her voice. It wasn’t that she wished her friend’s store any financial bad luck. She was just a little excited at the prospect that the topic of conversation that evening might be something other than her and Gavin.

  “Oh, no, the opposite, actually. The shop’s doing great. I’m really starting to see my goal come to life before my eyes – we’re becoming more than just a local liquor store and growing into a real destination for local fine wines.”

  “That’s awesome! So what’s the issue, then?” Ella’s voice, Gen noticed, showed the proper amount of concern as she carried her bowl of popcorn into the living room and settled in on the opposite end of the couch. She was properly chagrined and promised herself to focus on her friends as the night wore on and not just think about herself.

  Yeah – and focusing on your friends will help you think about Gavin less! It’s a win-win! Oh, wait…crap. Well, that whole ‘not thinking about yourself’ thing lasted less than two point seven seconds. Great.

  “Well, while running a successful and quickly-expanding business is awesome – I mean, come on, it’s the dream, really – it also comes with challenges I didn’t expect. Like tons of paperwork, and managing staff, and local politics, and…just, bullcrap, basically.” She sighed. “I mean, I know it sounds naive as hell, but I really just pictured myself talking to people about wine, and introducing them to exciting vintages and varietals they’d never thought about before. I must’ve been nuts.”

  “No, honey. Not nuts,” Gen assured her friend. “Delusional, sure. So, so delusional. But not nuts.”

  Abby laughed and threw one of the decorative couch pillows at Gen’s head. Gen reached up blocked it, karate chop-style. “Oh, Abs, if you wanna come for me, you gotta come so much harder than that!”

  All three women laughed and Ella exclaimed, “I can’t believe we’re already this silly and we haven’t even opened the wine yet!”

  “I can fix that!”

  Abby stood and walked to the kitchen with the wine bottles she’d come in with and then returned a moment later with glasses for each of them, the ruby-like liquid sloshing slightly as she walked.

  Gen lifted her glass to her lips and sipped the sweet deliciousness. The flavorful liquid filled her mouth and slid silkily down her throat, and immediately her shoulders relaxed and her head stopped the incessant buzzing that had been torturing her since she’d watched Gavin walk away this afternoon.

  She felt like herself again, there with her friends, drinking wine and talking about their lives. Everything that defined her in her own mind – her humor, strength, and independence – was back full-force, and she reveled in it.

  Still, even on that evening, she felt the weight of Gavin from time to time. Especially as glass after glass of Abby’s amazing wine finds disappeared into her, she felt increasingly desperate to unburden herself about Gavin and his mysterious malady.

  Mr. Rogers had famously said, “If it’s mentionable it’s manageable.” Gen only knew that quote because she’d made a joke about it once, a little wordplay on the words mentionable and unmentionables. At the time, she hadn’t thought much about the sentiment behind the phrase, but tonight, it was burning in her brain and the flame showed no signs of extinguishing anytime soon.

  If I could just talk about it…just get the girls’ perspective…I mean, it’s not as if Gavin explicitly told me to keep it to myself…

  She knew it was wrong, though. No matter how strong the temptation was to just lay all the facts out to her friends and make the situation more “manageable,” she couldn’t. Those facts weren’t hers to share. She only knew them because she’d snuck around and followed him when he couldn’t have been clearer about wanting her to butt out and mind her own business.

  She hadn’t honored his wishes about that, and it would be a real betrayal to run and blab about what little she’d learned just because she was upset.

  This isn’t about you, Gen. It’s about Gavin. He needs your support, even if that support consists of doing nothing. And even if doing nothing is so far out of your nature that it feels like you’re losing your mind. Just zip it. For Gavin’s sake.

  Well, hell. If she was going to have to resist her natural urges to spill out the thoughts that were burning her gut like acid, then her gut was going to need a thick layer of coating in the form of the awesome Cab Sav that Abby had brought. She lifted the glass to her mouth again, gulped down what was left in it, and then stood to walk in the kitchen and get herself a refill.

  Chapter 17

  Shit, how much longer can this trail be?

  Gavin had needed to have some time to himself to clear his head after all the bro time the night before, so he’d figured that hiking was as good a way to accomplish that as any. After all, it had all the ingredients in the classic recipe for getting your head on straight.

  Fresh air – check.

  Physical activity – check.

  Solitude – check and double check.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t care about his family and his friends and his….whatever the hell Gen was to him. He did. He was just overwhelmed with all the togetherness he’d experienced since coming back to Valentine Bay.

  It was a shit ton of togetherness.

  He had so many decisions to make, chief among them the one that he’d used as a weapon of mass deflection with Donovan the night before: what the hell he was going to do with his life now that Plan A was no longer an option.

  He’d never even thought of flying as Plan A. It was just the plan. He’d only adopted that mental moniker for it after the need for a Plan B (and potentially C through Z) had made itself painfully known.

  Of course, he didn’t need to do anything. Not financially. He’d saved and invested. And once the paperwork went through, he’d have his retirement pay coming in. Financially, he could sit on his ass for the rest of his life and be just fine. Psychologically, he didn’t think he could do it for one more week without it driving him crazy.

  It was more than just craving the structure and stimulation of daily work – although after years of military discipline, he was feeling a little aimless without those. The main thing was that he wanted his life and his work to be meaningful. He wanted to make a difference.

  For years, he’d accomplished making that difference by devoting his life to the service of God and country. How was he going to find meaning now?

  Shit. Why does an image of Gen’s face pop into my mind every time I think of the word ‘meaningful’ or the concept of giving my life meaning? It’s damn distracting.

  He knew the answer to that question, though, deep down. It wasn’t hard to figure out. She was quickly becoming the rock in the midst of his storm, even if she didn’t know it. And how could she, with the way he’d treated her?

  As much as his brothers had turned “trying to get Gavin to talk” into their new favorite hobby – hell, forget that, they were each working at it like it was their part-time job – the only person that he could see himself opening up to, if he did open up, was Genevieve.

  The path curved, then, and Gavin stepped out into an expansive meadow. After passing underneath the dense growth of tall, thick trees for so long, it was a revelation. The redwoods grew so high and close that their branches were interconnected overhead. He’d been enshrouded in shadow for nearly an hour, now he burst out into the sunlight.

  Using his hand to shade his eyes, he crossed the meadow and saw that it was actually more of a bluff. He stood at the edge and looked down at the sea crashing against the rocks far below, then cast his eyes out at the horizon.

  He had a sense of how small he was in the universe. It was the same realization he was struck with every time he went up in the air. It was awe-inspiring, but also a little scary, every time the understanding struck hi
m fresh of just how small he was in relation to the whole universe – but it was also kind of comforting, because it meant that his problems were even smaller than that.

  He felt something like a small head rush at the swift change in the atmosphere, and the view. A minute ago, it had been dark, now it was light. It had been cool, now he felt the warm sun beating down on his skin. It had been claustrophobic, now he stood in the middle of an endless unbound expanse.

  And the most significant part of the whole thing was that there’d been no warning. No gradual lightening of the air or incremental spacing out of the trees that would give some kind of hint that a big change was coming.

  He’d just been trudging down the path, pushing through and persevering, and everything had opened up in front of him, like an explosion of light and air. And it felt just as sudden as an explosion, too.

  Yeah. He couldn’t miss the metaphor. It pretty much screamed in his ear to wake up and pay attention.

  He knew what he had to do. There was no consideration or weighing his options, counting out the pros and cons. His vision for what to do next was suddenly as clear as the expansive ocean view before him.

  An epiphany. An honest to God, real-life, consciousness-altering epiphany.

  Yep. That’s what he’d had, all right. And there was really nothing to do when you were struck by one of those, in Gavin’s experience, but to change your life to fit in with that new understanding. Otherwise, what was the damn point of having it in the first place?

  He glanced quickly at his watch. Yeah, if he hurried, he thought he could just about make it.

  He turned and started back down the trail, his pace significantly brisker than the ponderous stroll he’d used when coming up the mountain.

  He had an appointment to keep, and it was critical to be on time.

  So what if Gen didn’t know about it yet? That didn’t make it any less important. She’d find out about it when he showed up.

  Hey, he thought, smiling to himself. I guess that’s kind of our thing now.

  Chapter 18

  Gen’s fingers fumbled with the cap of the aspirin bottle as she tried desperately to line up the arrows, attempting to focus through eyes that had reset their default setting to “blurry.”

  “God damn it, why do they make these bottles so freaking difficult to open,” she muttered under her breath. “Don’t they know that you wouldn’t need the stuff if you were actually in any kind of state to be capable of figuring it out?”

  The muscle exertion of making her eyes try to focus only sharpened the blades driving themselves into her brain from all angles.

  She struggled to do the math in her head. Was the extra percentage of pain caused by trying to get the medicine out of the bottle worth the possible potential relief that the elusive medication might provide?

  But, again. Straining her brain only made it hurt more.

  Finally, she decided to give up and just go get some coffee. Hell, wasn’t aspirin roughly seventy-five percent caffeine anyway? It was basically the same stuff when you boiled it down.

  Yeah, even in her near-paralyzing hangover haze, she knew that statistic was bullshit but clinging to it made her feel better anyway, and her motto was any port in a throbbing headache storm would do.

  She stumbled down to the break room with her mug and poured coffee into it. She then carried the mug over to the condiment station.

  Normally, she took her coffee black. Not because she liked the taste. It was bitter and wouldn’t have been her first choice. She just liked telling people that she took it black. She thought it fit in with her “fierce, independent, ball-busting female professional” image.

  Well, this morning she didn’t care. She was going to pour so much damn sugar into this hot bean juice that people might think she was about to bake a cake. Hell, her “fierce, independent, ball-busting female professional” image had been under siege from so many angles, both external and internal, since Gavin had returned, anyway. It had taken so many shots already that she seriously doubted a little bit of sugar in her coffee was going to make a whole lot of difference one way or the other.

  “Apparently, you have a very bright future ahead of you.”

  Oh, lord. Gen recognized that voice, and it was just about the last person she wanted to deal with at the moment.

  She turned her head as slightly as she could possibly get away with. Her neck was killing her and Bernice Baxter just wasn’t worth the effort.

  It wasn’t that Bernice was a bad person. Far from it. She was just annoyingly, unrelentingly cheerful. In a very in-your-face sort of way. And Gen just wasn’t up for it. Not even close.

  “Good morning, Bernice.”

  “It is, isn’t it? Just a gorgeous, sunny morning where the world seems full of nothing but beauty and possibility!”

  If I turned around and strangled her right now, I think I’d probably get off. There’s no way a jury of my peers would convict me.

  “Hmmm.” The small murmur of semi-agreement was all she could manage.

  “Especially for you. I mean, with your future being so bright and all.”

  Oh, God. She’s hitting that phrase hard. She’s clearly fishing for me to ask about it.

  Gen tried to make her voice as pleasant as possible. “What do you mean, my future being so bright?”

  Bernice gestured at her face and Gen raised her hand up to see what she might be referring to. Had she sprung a giant mole overnight? Did she have something green and gross in her teeth? What?

  Her fingers bumped into plastic and she suddenly remembered – her sunglasses. That’s right. She was still wearing them. The fluorescent glare of the overhead lights had proved too much for her eyes to handle when she’d tried to take them off this morning so she’d just decided to leave them on.

  The lyrics of a cheesy eighties’ song wormed their way into Gen’s consciousness. Something about the future being bright and having to wear shades. That must’ve been the joke her co-worker was going for.

  So, now, in addition to cotton-mouth, nausea, and a pounding headache – she’d have an unshakable earworm to deal with all day.

  Great.

  She finished pouring the virtual snowfall of sugar into her coffee and picked up the cup. “Well, nice seeing you, Bernice,” she said, and attempted to move past the woman and out the break room door.

  Bernice, though, apparently had other plans. She moved slightly, so that she was subtly, yet still quite effectively, blocking the exit that led out to the main office. AKA, Genevieve’s escape route.

  Gen pressed a hand to her forehead. She was losing patience. Which was weird because she hadn’t realized that she’d had any to lose.

  “Can I help you, Bernice?”

  The woman sidled in closer, leaning her head in and speaking to Gen as if they were best buds. “So, what’s the deal with you and Gavin Valentine?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Gen said, hoping her monotone would deliver the message even more clearly than the words themselves.

  “Oh, girl, come on. You can tell me.”

  Why on earth she would think that was beyond Gen at the moment, but devoting the brainpower necessary to try unlocking that little mystery was simply too much. It was making her stomach churn.

  Or, wait a minute…is it…OH. SHIT!

  She had less than a split second of warning that her swirling stomach was upgrading from “low key nauseated” to “full blown cookie tossing time” before she spewed every piece of popcorn and bile left in her gut all over that snooping biddy, Bernice.

  Well, that was one way to stop her questions. Maybe not the best way, sure. But as Gen looked at her shocked and horrified face in the instant before the woman whirled and ran for the bathroom, she would’ve been lying if she said she thought it was the worst.

  She dumped her coffee into the sink and rinsed her cup, then popped her head into her boss’ office on the way back to her own. “Hey, Jim. I think I should go home. I just vomited a
ll over Bernice.”

  He chuckled. “Oh, I think we’ve all wanted to unload on her a time or two. How bad was it? What did you say?”

  She groaned. “I don’t mean verbal vomit. I mean I blew chunks all over her sweater set. She’s in the bathroom cleaning up right now, I’d imagine. Someone might want to check on her.”

  Jim’s eyes widened and he made a shooing gesture. “Yes, by all means, go home. Now, Gen. Seriously. Go!”

  Gen thought he was probably more concerned about his office carpet than her health but she didn’t pause to question it. Instead, she hightailed it out of there, stopping only to grab her purse and keys. Her sunglasses were already accounted for.

  Time to call an end to this crappy day. She was heading home to hide underneath the covers and, depending on how things went, she might not ever come out.

  Chapter 19

  Sitting in his car watching the entrance to the admin offices at the Hearts Afire Resort and Spa, Gavin began to have second thoughts about his plan.

  Up on the mountain, it had seemed like a good idea, waiting outside Gen’s office to surprise her when she came out, in kind of a reverse reenactment of her waiting outside the doctor’s office. He’d thought that Gen, with her sly sense of humor, would get a kick out of it. That’s how he’d seen it going down in his mind.

  Now, actually sitting in a car with his eyes glued to the front door of a building and waiting for a woman who didn’t know he was out here to walk through it…well, he was about ten seconds from calling the police on himself, that’s how much like a creepy stalker he felt.

  He was just about to chalk it up to a bad idea and drive away when she stepped through the glass door. He almost didn’t recognize her because of the oversized, opaque sunglasses she was wearing. It was the way his heart skipped that got his attention, the way it did every time he laid eyes on her. There was no mistaking it.