Dawn smiled when she saw Katie’s efforts and shook her head.
“At least she didn’t try and put makeup on you.”
“I could,” Katie said thoughtfully. “Alex has really long eyelashes so if he wore mascara . . .”
“Definitely time for bed,” Dawn said firmly.
She ignored Katie’s pleading to be allowed to stay up later because it was a holiday.
“Can Alex read to me tonight?”
“I’m sure Alex would like to get home now,” Dawn suggested.
“I don’t mind.”
It was true. I’d enjoyed reading to Katie the one time I’d had the chance. I wanted to read to her about lions who talked, and sailing in magical ships—a world of childish wonder, a world where bad things didn’t happen to good people, where fathers were responsible and loved their kids, and no one hurt innocent animals. And besides, there was nothing waiting for me at the cabin.
Katie fist-pumped the air, but Dawn gave me a weird look as if she’d rather I just went. I shrugged and followed Katie to her bedroom.
“What are you reading now, Katie-kay?”
She handed me a paperback with curling edges: ‘The Last Battle’.
“It’s the end of the series,” she said sadly. “After this the story’s over.”
I turned to the page she showed me. I wasn’t sure what a unicorn’s voice sounded like, but I read the words anyway.
At first, she watched me, her eyes wide, her small hands gripping the sheets as if she was fighting sleep and willing herself to stay awake. But as I continued to read, her eyelids drooped, and soon she was breathing slowly and deeply.
“I have come home at last!” I read. “I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now . . .”
The words echoed something inside me, something too painful to explore.
I laid the book on her bedside table, pulled up the quilt so she wouldn’t get cold, and crept out quietly.
Dawn was waiting in the living room, sitting in silence, her hands wrapped around a cup of coffee.
She looked as beautiful as ever, her short dark hair thick and glossy, her warm brown eyes hazy and lost in thought.
I stood in the doorway, and she looked up.
“Thank you for today, Alex. I’m glad Katie called you. It could have gotten ugly with her father.”
I sighed. “It still might. He wasn’t happy.”
“Let him try,” she bit out. “I’ve had enough of him treating Katie like garbage. Leaving her in the car while he screws some student. It’s his business if he wants to mess around with co-eds, but not with Katie there. I won’t put up with that. My lawyers will be in touch with him first.”
“I’m sorry if I’ve made things worse,” I said honestly.
She shook her head.
“No, I’ve let things go on long enough. It’s time that asshole shaped up . . . he’s always cancelling at the last minute, saying something important came up . . . as if Katie isn’t important! And if he doesn’t get his head on straight, then Katie doesn’t need him in her life.”
“That’s not the only reason I’m sorry.”
Dawn’s lips pressed together.
“Can we not apologize to each other? I don’t want to do the apology thing—who’s the most sorry.” She took a deep breath and met my eyes. “Can we just say that we’ll try really hard not to be in a situation where we need to apologize again?”
My heart gave another small jolt of hope.
“You’re making me have all these feelings,” she forced out through gritted teeth. “I hate it—and I love it.”
She said the word ‘love’, but yanked out of her like that, it sounded all wrong. Maybe today was a new low point in her life, when a recovering alcoholic was more reliable than her daughter’s father.
The words rolled around in my head and I didn’t know what to do. I knew what I wanted to do—I wanted to push her against the wall and wrap her legs around my waist. But what did Dawn want? A frown screwed her face into obvious doubt.
But when a man has been numb as long as I have, finally meets a woman who makes him want to live again, and then loses that woman . . .
It was time to throw my final hand on the table.
“Dawn, I can’t ask you for a second chance, or even a third chance or a fourth chance, because I won’t make promises I can’t keep. I’ll be fighting addiction every day for the rest of my life; it will always be one day at a time. But I can tell you that I’ve never wanted anything more than to make things work with you and Katie.”
I was wearing my battered heart on my sleeve, waiting for her response.
She didn’t answer immediately, and I felt the hope drain away again, drop by stinging drop.
“You say you’ve never wanted anything more than to make things work with me and Katie,” she said at last, “but that’s not true, is it? You want a drink more. Right now, you want a drink.”
I nodded slowly. “I’ll always want a drink, but it’s not true that it’s the only thing I want, or even the first thing that I want. Being an alcoholic is a disease, but it isn’t everything that I am. I won’t let it define me anymore. I want you and Katie in my life.” Otherwise, what’s the point?
I walked toward her and sat on the sofa, keeping a small distance between us. She took a deep breath, still seeming conflicted.
“What about your wife?”
My eyebrows shot up. “Charlotte?”
“Charlotte . . .” she rolled the word around, then looked away. “I never knew her name. I always wondered . . .”
“Why are you asking about her?” I snapped, too aggressively.
She flinched slightly, then straightened her shoulders and met my irritated gaze.
“I met her. In town. She was asking for directions to the cottage. I didn’t like her very much.”
I gave a hollow laugh.
“No, not many people do. My brother couldn’t stand her. Turns out he was right. She was a complete bitch. I’m very glad she’s not in my life anymore.”
“But she is! She was here in town.”
I shook my head, confused and annoyed.
“What exactly did she say to you, Dawn? Because I swear, it makes me want to hunt her down.”
She gasped. “That’s a terrible thing to say!”
“Jesus, I’m not saying I would! She . . . damn it!” I stared at Dawn. “Why are we talking about her? She’s been out of the picture for two years!”
“But she was here! In town!”
My hands folded into fists, the knuckles cracking.
“She wanted me to work for the business again. My business. I’m an architect—I design . . . I used to design offices, corporate headquarters, that sort of thing. Go to Denver and you’ll see half-a-dozen downtown buildings that are mine.”
Dawn seemed stunned.
“I had no idea! I knew you worked in construction . . .”
“Yes, you could say that: Winters & Carter. That was my business. I started it with my . . . best friend, Warren, right out of college. I was the Chief Architect, Warren was the CFO, and Charlotte was the office manager, but it was my business.”
“What happened?”
I mulled that over. What had happened? I hadn’t seen it coming. Somehow, I missed all the signs. Too damn trusting.
“The simple answer? Charlotte and Warren had an affair. I found out, and I left.”
The longer answer was more complicated, but the result was the same.
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I know what that’s like . . . I mean, I . . .”
Dawn seemed flustered, and I remembered that I’d only heard about Katie’s dad from Stella. Dawn didn’t know I’d been clued in already.
“Don’t worry,” I said tiredly. “Stella told me what happened with Katie’s father. She said he played you both—the way Charlotte and Warren played me.”
Her eyes closed and her body slumped.
“I
kind of hate that we have that in common. But Stella . . . at first, I was just so angry with her. I thought she was jealous. It never occurred to me that she was serious about him. She used to bounce back from breakups quicker than hangovers. I had no idea that she was with him, let alone engaged to him. She always called him ‘Matt’. I had no idea he was also Matthew—the same man that I was seeing. I felt sick when I found out.”
Her expression changed again.
“Charlotte wants you back.”
“Fuck what she wants!”
I was trying not to shout and wake Katie, but Dawn was making me crazy.
“I told her I wasn’t interested. We’re divorced. That’s it. Done. Forever. And anyway,” I said, frowning at Dawn, “Charlotte doesn’t like animals. She hated Stan.”
“Oh!”
“I told you she was a bitch. It wasn’t until Carl sent Stan to me that I really understood it.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Do you, Dawn? Do you really? Because all of this . . . this bullshit, it’s ancient history as far as I’m concerned. We had something real, you and me. Don’t you think so? Didn’t it feel real to you?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Thank God!”
She folded her hands in her lap and gave me a direct look.
“I want to take a chance on you, Alex, because I think if I don’t, I’ll always regret it, the road untaken. But if I take a chance and it goes wrong, I’ll always regret that, too. I’m thirty-four and a mother—I can’t be irresponsible. I have to do what’s right for both of us, but Katie comes first. I can’t screw up her life just because I’ve screwed up my own.”
I wanted to reach out and touch her, to tell her to take a chance and that I’d never let her down again—but that would be a lie. Instead, I stared down at my hands, smudges of oil still staining my fingers.
“I can’t make that decision for you, although God knows I want to. There are no certainties in life—we’ve both experienced that.” Unwillingly, my eyes sought hers, searching for a sign. “I want you every way, Dawn. I . . . I think I could be a good father to Katie. I want you: in my life, as part of my world. I want to spend a whole day with you, a whole night, then another, and another, and another. I want a life with you and Katie. Because I love you. I love both of you. The package deal. Everything.”
She flinched as if she’d been scalded.
“That’s not fair,” she whispered.
My shoulders sagged.
“Maybe not, but if I don’t take this chance to tell you how I feel right now, I may never get another. The last two months have been shit without you. There were times when I didn’t know if there was any point in struggling so hard, and then I’d think of you.” I laughed without humor. “Your silence made me want to keep fighting—I didn’t think I was a masochist, but maybe I am.”
She smiled sadly. “We’re not very good at this, are we?”
“We could be,” I said softly. “Take a chance on life and love. We could be great.”
“There are still so many things I want to ask you, to know about you. What about your police record? Dan said . . .”
“I’ll tell you everything! Everything you want to know. I promise. No more secrets.”
Her eyes blazed with belief.
“We could be a complete car crash,” she whispered.
“Then let’s be the best fucking car crash we can be,” I begged, inching closer to her. “I can’t make you love me, but I can’t stop loving you either. So you choose: take me, all of me, broken and put back in pieces, or say to hell with me. And I’ll sell the cabin and move away—you’ll never have to see me again.”
That was it. The final roll of the dice. I held my breath.
“All or nothing, huh?” she asked faintly.
“Yes. But I want you to choose all.”
“Do I have to decide now?”
I laughed a little.
“If you don’t, I’ll probably have a stroke waiting for your answer.”
She smiled at that, then shook her head.
“Okay.”
“And ‘okay’ means . . . ?”
“I choose all,” she said simply.
My heart thumped painfully, leaping and lurching to a new rhythm inside my chest.
“Thank you,” I said, and I pulled her toward me.
Her lips were as soft and warm as I remembered, but a thousand times sweeter. Her hands reached up to my neck, pulling my head down so she could kiss me harder, her short fingernails digging into my skin.
There was no holding back, from either of us. I wanted her, I needed her, and she was finally admitting that she wanted the same.
A new determination hardened inside me—I would be the kind of man she needed. Someone she could rely on, someone who would share the load. I wanted to show that she could trust me.
And I ignored the spiteful little voice in my head reminding me that she couldn’t.
For her—for Katie—for both of them I would fight the twin demons of defeat and self-destruction, and this time I’d win. I wanted to deserve Dawn’s trust and commitment; to be a real father to Katie, if she’d let me.
“Can you please just hold me now?” she whispered, her eyes still creased with concern.
“Yes,” I said, my heart reeling and spinning. “Yes, I can do that.”
And I pressed her to my chest, listening to her heart hammering against mine.
Alex
“HOW LONG WERE you with your wife?”
We were sitting on Dawn’s sofa, my arms around her as she leaned against me. I hated talking about Charlotte, but if Dawn needed to hear it to move on, then I’d talk till sunrise.
“Thirteen years, if you include dating for two years. Married for ten, but that includes being separated for 18 months, give or take.”
“That’s a long time.”
“We met in college and got married right after. Carl had already joined the Marines so . . . I think I was looking for a replacement family. Although her parents didn’t like me much . . . and then I worked crazy long hours building up the business. For a long while, I didn’t even notice that we’d grown apart. I think Stan’s arrival woke me up to what she was really like. She used to put him outside if I wasn’t there, even if it was below zero or snowing. She’d always say it was because he’d been barking or made a mess, but I had my doubts. Later, I realized she just didn’t like animals.” Thank God we never had children.
“How long have you been divorced?”
“Six months.”
Dawn paused, toying with a strand of hair, frowning, deep in thought.
“What did Charlotte say to you? Because after you and I had talked that morning, I thought . . . I thought we were okay.”
She sighed.
“I know. I’m sorry about that. To be honest, she didn’t say much. She wanted directions to Tanglewood. I was in the bakery with Katie, and Mavis knew that I’d treated Stan . . . at least, I think that was all she knew. So she told Charlotte that I could give her directions to the cottage. I explained I was Stan’s vet, and . . . and she told me she was your wife. I felt such a fool.”
“I can imagine,” I said wryly. “Divide and conquer: I think Charlotte was born saying that.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t ask you about it.”
“I wish you had.”
“I know. I’m s—”
“You don’t have to apologize, Dawn. I get it. I do. You thought I’d lied to you. You thought I was like Matthew, playing two women.”
“Yes,” she said softly, and looked up at me with a pained expression on her face.
“I’m not like that.”
“I know. I know that now.”
We sat in silence for some time, and I enjoyed the feeling of Dawn’s soft weight in my arms after too many long, dreary days apart. Had we finished talking? Because I hoped that she’d let me take her to bed, make love to her, because one night hadn’t been enough. Not nearly enough.
> “Can I ask you about Stella?” she said quietly.
I sighed. “Sure.”
“She says you’re not . . . dating, or anything.”
“No! Not then, not now, not ever!”
“I’m s—”
“Please don’t say you’re sorry! Dawn, I promise, there’s nothing going on between me and your sister. But she’s been a good friend to me. I’m not going to cut her out of my life now that you and I are . . .”
I wanted to say ‘together’, but suddenly that seemed too great a leap, too much of an assumption.
“I wouldn’t ask you to,” she said quickly. “In fact, well, Stella . . . we’ve been having coffee together a couple of times a week for over a month now. We’re trying to be sisters again. It’s nice. I’ve missed her. I knew she was seeing you . . . as friends,” she added hurriedly. “I was glad about that. I didn’t want you to be lonely.” She laughed sadly. “I was horribly jealous though, but Stella kept saying nothing else was happening. I wanted to believe her—she seemed so sincere. Anyway, things have been better between us.”
“Good. I’m glad.”
“Me, too.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Of course! Anything.”
“What’s with the vegetarian chili?”
Dawn laughed.
“Oh my goodness, that’s totally your fault! Because you’re vegetarian, Katie decided that she is, as well. I’m sure she was showing some sort of solidarity with you—my daughter can be very stubborn. And please don’t say she’s like me! But I think she’s finding it quite hard because she loves bacon with pancakes and maple syrup, but she’s been sticking to a vegetarian diet. So I do, too, mostly. It just makes it easier at dinner time not to cook two different meals.”
“Should I apologize for that?”
“No, I’m fine with it. She really missed you, Alex.”
“I missed her, too. Reading to her tonight . . . that was special.”
“You’re getting good at all the voices,” she smiled. “Thank you for doing it.”
“It was my pleasure.”
I meant every word.
We relapsed into silence, but I reached out to pull her hand into my lap, playing with her fingers.
One Careful Owner: Love Me, Love My Dog Page 22