Love Redefined

by Delancey Stewart

  “Do you want to watch TV in Sam’s office while you drink it, and we’ll borrow your mom to talk about some business stuff over there?” She pointed to Chance’s office.

  Finn nodded and she smiled at me before guiding my son in to settle in front of the television.

  “We’ll talk interiors this afternoon,” Sam said. “Miranda’s been dying for you guys to get back, she’s so excited to show you her ideas.”

  Chance offered me hot chocolate too, which I accepted, and we settled into chairs in his office, Miranda with a pile of books and drawings in her lap.

  Two hours later, I felt less like I was in a business meeting than like I was planning something amazing with close friends. We had agreed on details about the design, both exterior and interior, and the vision we all had for the high-end all-season sports resort McLaren would bring to Kings Grove was completely aligned. I might have been uncertain before, but I knew this idea was good—I knew it was a winner.

  “I can’t wait to show this to Harvey,” I told them as we wrapped up. “There’s no way he’ll turn it down.”

  I hugged Sam and Miranda goodbye, and Chance, Finn, and I bundled up and walked through the snowy town center back to the Inn. During the time we’d been inside, snow had drifted in little piles around the sidewalks and edges of the parking lot. A plow sat ready to go on one side of the parking lot, and while it was definitely piling up, it didn’t look as though we’d be snowed in. Kings Grove was prepared to handle snow, even this early in the season. I was a bit disappointed.

  Chance took us to dinner at the restaurant in the Inn, which was charming, if severely outdated.

  “I think we’re really well positioned,” Chance said, talking about the competition for the resort spot at McLaren. “I just can’t imagine the other proposal is going to be as well thought out and prepared, since the guy’s never done any of this before.”

  We seemed to have agreed not to mention Jeff by name, whether that was for Finn’s benefit or for mine, I wasn’t sure, but I liked it.

  “I hope so,” I said, finding myself staring more and more often into the deep blue gray of Chance’s eyes, feeling both a comfortable welcome and an enjoyable little zing when I did.

  “The last thing—” Chance trailed off as the lights flickered around us and then popped back on. The wind outside had kicked up during the meal, and I could hear it howling around the corner of the Inn where we sat over the remains of our dinner. Finn colored happily, but looked up with narrowed eyes when the lights dimmed and relit.

  “What was that?” he asked.

  Before either of us could answer, the lights flickered again, and then went out, and cool blue emergency lights flared to life in a few spots around the room. The waiter bustled to our table, one of only three that was occupied. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “We weren’t really prepared for winter quite yet.”

  Chance looked up at the man, “They didn’t replace that generator last year, did they?”

  The waiter, a middle-aged man with a friendly smile, shrugged. “You know things have been a little rough for the Pipers.” He looked around, his face eerie in the dim blue light. “Sorry to end your meal like this, guys.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Do you know, though…will the heat be working tonight if the power’s out?”

  “I’m sure we’ll get the power on again soon,” the waiter assured me, but his face didn’t look as certain as his voice.

  “Want me to take a look?” Chance asked. “Maybe it’s just a fuse.”

  “Just a minute,” the waiter said, disappearing into the back of the dark restaurant. We sat in the dark for several minutes, listening to the storm grow increasingly loud outside.

  After a while, Sandra Piper bustled over, wringing her hands. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “Chance, I called Sam earlier because I didn’t want to disturb your dinner. I had a feeling we might have trouble once that wind started. He and Cam are taking a look, but Sam doesn’t think he’s going to be able to get the generator back up.”

  “I’ll go have a quick word,” Chance said, rising. “Can you guys wait here a minute?”

  I nodded as Finn climbed into my lap. “I don’t like it so dark,” he said, sounding much more like the small child he was than he’d sounded all day.

  “It’ll be okay, buddy. This is part of winter weather. It’s always exciting!”

  Sandra and the waiter were conferring in a far corner when Chance returned. “Sam’s getting a couple of the generators from Palmer set up to run the heat for the night,” he said. “But I was thinking maybe you guys should just come to my place? I don’t want you to be cold, and I’ll be worried about you all night. I’ve got a whole-house generator, so even if the whole village is out, my place will be warm.”

  “Okay,” Finn said before I could respond, and his little voice sounded so worn and shredded, I didn’t even bother to argue. We went upstairs, using our cell phones to supplement the emergency lighting as Finn and I gathered the things we’d need for the night.

  Soon, we were pulling up to Chance’s garage, which had a foot of snow piled up in front of the door. He pulled into the dry open space and closed the door behind us, and it was a relief to see electric light warming the stairs up to the main level of his house. The living room was every bit as warm and inviting as it had been the previous night.

  We put Finn to bed in one of two upstairs guest rooms, and then Chance and I headed back downstairs to the living room, where I was impressed by his fire-building skills.

  “Boy Scouts?” I asked, amused, as he constructed a complicated log lattice before lighting it.

  He laughed. “Kings Grove,” he said simply, grinning at me. “You learn most of the same stuff as the Boy Scouts when you grow up in the mountains,” he said. “Only it’s not for practice up here. We actually need those skills.”

  “I see,” I said, nodding at the fire that was glowing to life. “Maybe later we can go outside and you can build a lean-to for me to evaluate.”

  “Got a lot of experience in the lean-to evaluation arena?” He crossed his arms and gave me a frank and sexy look, eyes twinkling.

  “Maybe not. I’m more of a luxury resort kind of girl, I guess.”

  “Well, if we get this done right, I’ll build you one of those to evaluate, okay?”

  I laughed. “Fair enough.” It really did seem like a possibility at that moment—this place, this man, this resort. The magic of Kings Grove made the issues of my real life feels light years away.

  “Can I get you a glass of wine?” He offered. I nodded, and leaned back into a cozy armchair in front of the fire as Chance went to the kitchen. My life was right there—my real life—dancing on the periphery of this cozy place, this compelling place, but I wasn’t going to let it creep back in just yet. I was going to hold on to the possibilities that Kings Grove offered—a huge career win, the chance to show Harvey for once and for all what I was worth, and hopefully to show a judge Jeff wasn’t a good gamble for my son, though part of me was torn about that one. I didn’t want Jeff defeated and ruined, I didn’t want him to slip back into the life that had ruined everything in the first place.

  Chance returned with a big globe of red wine, and reached out to hand it to me. Our fingers touched as I accepted the glass, and the contact warmed my entire body. “Thank you,” I said as he lowered himself into the chair opposite me, lifting his glass.

  “To McLaren’s Kings Grove resort.”

  “To our resort,” I corrected before I’d even thought about it. But that felt right—I had a much more personal stake in this place than I’d had in any previous property.

  Chance seemed to know what I meant, maybe felt it too. His eyes glittered in the firelight as he lifted his glass again. “To our resort.” That deep rich voice filtered through me, warmth and a glow of teasing anticipating flickering inside my chest.

  I took a sip, letting the rich wine coat my tongue and slide down my throat as the fire warmed my
face and Chance’s proximity warmed every other part of me.

  No, I realized, staring once again into the yellow core of the flames, my goal wasn’t to ruin Jeff or even to keep him away from Finn completely. It was to allow him back on my terms, it was to take control of the parts of my life that had for so long felt completely out of my control. My super power might have been spaghetti, but I was working on some others—and control was one of them. I didn’t want to be pushed around by the changeable tides of my life anymore, letting people like Harvey and Jeff decide what happened to me, to Finn. I wanted to be master of my life, my universe … and Finn’s too, for now.

  The silence around Chance and I was comfortable and warm, and he appeared to be lost just as deeply in thought as I had been. I glanced over at him, took the opportunity to study the strong profile, the small dimple in the center of his chin that drew shadow from the flickering light of the fire.

  “Thanks for having us here, Chance.”

  His gaze slid to mine, something dark and promising there, and I shivered, though I wasn’t cold.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” he said. His voice was almost sad, and I found that I couldn’t tear my eyes from his face. For the first time, I didn’t see Chance’s certainty broadcast like a clarion bell coming from every part of him. In the dancing light of the fire, he was suddenly much more human, more real. “Sometimes this house feels too big when I’m here alone.”

  I watched him, seeing the loneliness I felt inside my own little house radiate from him suddenly, as if a veil had been lifted from my vision by the storm. I inched closer to the warmth of the fire, sliding to the soft rug that lay in front of the hearth and curling my legs beneath me. “I understand that. My little house expands once Finn goes to bed. That’s why I watch the baking show.”

  “Me too,” he said, a half smile flitting over his face. “To fill the space. Snuff the silence.”

  “Snuff the silence,” I repeated. That was it exactly. “Yes.”

  “Do you miss being married?” Chance asked, his interested eyes on my face.

  I felt the sad smile flicker across my lips. “No. Unequivocally no. I didn’t get married for the right reasons in the first place, and I think it’s pretty obvious I didn’t marry the right person.” I stared in my glass for a long beat, then took a sip and swallowed, thinking. “I was pregnant, so we got married. What should have been a fling resulted in the complete disaster my life has been over the past eight years or so.” A pang of guilt hit me hard. “Not Finn,” I said quickly.

  “Of course not,” Chance said. “He’s just the lucky result of it all.”

  “I don’t know how lucky either of is us, but I’m lucky to have him.”

  “And he’s lucky to have you.” He dropped my eyes for a second and then looked back up, something in his expression changed, softer. “Having a mom with super powers is a pretty great thing. And he’s got someone willing to fight for him, to be his champion.”

  I nodded in agreement, and was surprised to feel myself wanting to talk, wanting to share secrets with the solid man next to me. “Right after Jeff left, there was a lot of fighting to do. He was almost three, and he quit talking completely. For two solid years—did I tell you that?”

  “You’ve hinted around it,” Chance said. “That’s why he knows ASL, right?”

  “Yes. The therapists we saw agreed that continuing language development in whatever way we could was critical. We both learned ASL, and for a long time, that was the only way he would speak. I hated Jeff then. It was like he took even more from me than just the idea of marriage, the money, my belief in my own security. He stole something from Finn, too.”

  “Do you still hate him?” Chance’s head was cocked to one side, and his body was reclined against the bottom of the armchair. Something about the posture made me want to curl up next to him, feel him close. I didn’t allow myself to overthink the desire, though his question still rolled around in my head. I moved to lean next to him as I decided on the answer. His arm fell naturally over my shoulder and a thrill spiked through my body.

  “I don’t hate him,” I said, nearly unable to form words because of the heat radiating along one side of me from Chance’s body. “I’m past that, I guess.” My voice was a ragged whisper. “It all just makes me sad.”

  “When Finn talked again,” he began, pausing as if trying to decide how to frame his question. “Was it some kind of big event that made him talk? Did something happen?”

  I smiled, thinking about that day, and looked up to find those stormy blue eyes on mine. “He just said goodnight to me one night as I tucked him in. Just like that.”

  “Oh my God. What did you do?”

  “I just kissed him goodnight, hugged him extra tight and acted like everything was normal. Then I left his room and cried hysterically for hours, wondering if he’d ever talk again, wishing I’d recorded the sound. I didn’t sleep at all, I couldn’t wait for him to wake up—I didn’t know if it was a fluke, or if he was just going to start talking again like nothing had ever happened.”

  “Did he?”

  “He’s still quieter than most kids his age. But the next day, yeah—he just talked. He still signed too, sometimes.” I stared into the fire, watching the tongues of flame wrap the logs, then pull away, in a constantly shifting dance. “I still worry constantly that every word might be his last, that he might just stop talking again.”

  “Is that likely? What do the doctors say?”

  I shrugged, my frustration at being alone for so many years with Finn’s silence coming out in my posture. “They couldn’t tell me exactly why he stopped talking in the first place. He was too little for it to be any kind of defiant act. They think it was an expression of fear, of feeling out of control. Something in his little brain just chose to assert control in the only way it could figure out how.”

  Chance watched me, his face full of sympathy and understanding, and I realized I hadn’t really shared my feelings about that time in our lives with anyone. My mother was there, but Finn’s silence worried her and it was hard for her to accept it, so she was constantly launching ideas at me about how to “fix” him.

  We drank in silence for a long minute, but it felt like our bodies were still communicating. The points of contact—my knee pressed against his leg, his hand on my shoulder, my other shoulder nestled into the crook of his body—felt like separate points of communication between us, like even in the silence we were sharing things about ourselves, our lives. It was comfortable and exciting at the same time, and though in no universe was it advisable for me to be this close to someone I was contracting business with, none of that mattered in that moment.

  The wind howled around the house, and our cozy fortress remained impenetrable. Finn was snuggled safely beneath the quilts upstairs and Chance was here to make sure we were both sheltered and protected—from the storm, definitely. But it felt like so much more.

  “Chance?” I asked, something occurring to me. “Why do you know sign language?” I turned to look up into that handsome face, so close to my own now.

  His eyes squeezed shut for a beat, then opened again, shining with emotion. “Rebecca,” he said simply. For a minute I thought he’d leave it at that, allow me to make my own assumptions. But he continued. “She was deaf. She had implants, so she could hear in some situations, and she could speak, but she preferred sign language. She taught me.”

  The pain of losing her flickered across his face, and I wondered if I shouldn’t have brought it up, but he smiled, staring down at me. “She would have liked you, Mike.”

  A little jolt of surprise made my eyes widen. “I’m pretty sure I would have liked her, too.”

  Chance kissed me then, a soft slide of lips in front of a warm glowing fire in a mountain house during a storm. It was probably the perfect kiss by most standards—it definitely was by mine. It was a teasing back and forth, a kiss that started with softness and understanding but morphed in a passionate burn into mutual wanti
ng and a quest for possession. And by the time the kiss ended—after what might have been minutes or even hours—the grate was pulled over the fire and I was in Chance’s arms, nodding when he asked if I was ready to go to bed.

  At the top of the stairs he paused outside the second guest bedroom, his fingers on my hand light, ready to release me. I slid my hand into his more surely and rose on my toes to meet his lips again, and then followed him to the master bedroom, my heart beating wildly with anticipation and happiness.

  Chapter 15

  Chance

  Fate is not a word I use. I’m a guy. We don’t necessarily think like that. But everything about the night I spent with Mike in my bed felt fated.

  The storm.

  The electricity at the Inn.

  The flickering fire and the wine, and the way she scooted near as we talked in low voices, the sweeping ceilings of my house suddenly felt low and cozy with her inside.

  The way my heart jolted and shuddered when she touched me.

  The little nod of her head and her confident hand in mine when I asked her if she wanted to come to my bedroom, and the way everything else in me reacted when we kissed.

  I’d felt that way only once before, and that’s how I knew it was right. That it was what was supposed to happen next. My heart seemed to know, even if my mind still spun around the questions echoing there, the voices saying Rebecca’s name in an endless chant designed to keep me from forgetting her.

  We slept afterwards, Mike’s dark hair in soft piles around the pillows and her sweet skin pressed close to mine as I listened to her breathe. I wanted to take her worries from her, to make things easier for her. She carried so much, and did it all alone, keeping all the worry and fear locked away where Finn wouldn’t see it, couldn’t feel it. I wanted to carry it for her if I could. Holding her protectively while she slept felt like doing that, like watching over her. So I slept in fits, keeping watch. Keeping Mike and Finn safe in the only way I could, since I had little control over the other factors of her life.