by M. Leighton
Dash and Carmella both turn and wait for us to fall in beside them then we all walk to the end of the boardwalk and down onto the sand. I pause to take off my shoes. Jake keeps going, and only Dash glances back to make sure I’m still with them.
Our eyes lock again and I smile into his like all is fine and right with the world, even though this whole day is tearing through my heart, and will tear through my memory, like a hurricane. Standing here, looking at him, I can’t breathe. It’s like he’s taken the air from the world around me and left me with nothing but emptiness, a vacuum where there used to be love and life and vitality. Without him there is just…nothing.
Before I fall completely apart, my survival instincts kick in. I raise my chin and rush to catch up to Jake, elbowing him and saying, “You remember that time we worked on that story at Martha’s Vineyard? It started pouring and we ran all the way back to the van in the rain? God, I don’t think I’ve ever been quite that wet before.”
Even as the words leave my lips, I regret them. I didn’t mean it the way it sounded, but it’s too late to explain when Dash’s head snaps my way and he gives me a withering look.
My cheeks sting furiously and I lower my head to hide them, deciding that my best course of action is to keep my mouth shut. Period.
We walk the rest of the way to the surf in silence. When we are close enough to dip our toes in, Dash stops and turns toward us. Carmella does, too, and I notice that she can’t stop smiling. She’s practically glowing.
A wave of nausea ebbs and flows in my stomach, much like the salty Pacific water ebbs and flows around my feet. Thankfully, a distraction comes at just the right time.
“Don’t start without me,” orders Travers from behind us. I turn to see him lugging two stuffed bags that no doubt contain all the trappings of a man in his profession.
I smile at him, grateful that he chose this moment to arrive. Plus, I haven’t seen him since before Christmas.
Since before Dash.
I internally smack myself at the thought. Is that how my life is going to be divided now, Before Dash and After Dash?
“Hey, gorgeous,” he says, throwing one arm around my waist and hugging me to him. He’s always been a very friendly guy. Friendly, but completely harmless. Probably a lawsuit waiting to happen, but it won’t come from me. “When you gonna dump this guy and give me a chance?”
I catch my breath for a fraction of a second until I realize that he tipped his head toward Jake, not Dash. I laugh lightly. “You’d break my heart. I can’t have that, now, can I?”
“Never.”
He gives me a wink then introduces himself to both Dash and Carmella. Dash is calm and quiet, more so than when he first arrived. I can’t help wondering why, not that I’d be able to ask. I’m not supposed to know him intimately enough to notice such small shifts in his mood and personality.
“Let me unpack and we can get this party started,” Travers says, setting his things down carefully and quickly unsnapping compartments until he has assembled a large and very expensive-looking camera. He’s our candid guy. He doesn’t do shoots with special lighting or staged anything; he goes for au natural, which is what we were told Dash wanted. Just some follow-up shots of him. And his…person, I guess.
As Travers positions the couple in different directions to capture the best natural light, I take out my small digital recorder and prepare to ask questions that I know the answers to will destroy me.
“So, Dash, word on the street is that you and Carmella are back together, and that it’s serious. Care to comment on that?”
Dash glances at Carmella, smiles, and then turns that devastating face in my direction. “That’s actually part of what I came here to discuss.”
“Fill us in. Something big must’ve changed, since we just completed the first interview a couple of weeks ago. So, what gives?”
I’m trying to keep my questions and the feel of the follow-up as light and airy as the beach. He picked the location. I’m just working with what was given to me.
Dash takes a deep breath. Noticeably deep, his wide chest expanding and then slowly contracting as he exhales. “I’m retiring.”
If it’s possible, a hush falls around us. The ocean, the air, the world pauses as if to say, “Did I hear that correctly?”
“Retiring?” I repeat, giving him a chance to set the record straight if I misunderstood. Only he doesn’t. “I thought the high was what you loved more than anything?”
“It was.”
A pause. A heartbeat. A single space in time when my entire rib cage threatens to collapse in on itself.
It was. Until he found something he loved more.
Or someone.
Someone else.
“What changed?”
“I told you I’d quit when I found something I loved more. And so I am.”
I swallow, which is difficult considering that my mouth is dry and my throat feels swollen shut. “Can we assume that this beautiful woman has something to do with that?”
I nearly choke on the words.
I force my lips to maintain their pleasantly detached curve. Just for a few more minutes. Just until I can get away.
“As a matter of fact, she does.” He turns those glowing black eyes of his on Carmella, the tick of Travers working his camera seeming to highlight every horrific second of it. I watch, nearly blind with pain, as Dash casts his glorious smile onto her. “We haven’t made it official yet, but…”
He doesn’t say the words, thank God. It’s like he’s sparing me from having to hear them.
I gulp. “Then congratulations are in order, I suppose.”
Carmella, obviously ecstatic, throws her arms around Dash’s neck and starts bouncing again. It makes me want to kneecap her so she can’t do it anymore.
She leans back just enough so that she can smash her lushly perfect mouth to his angularly perfect one, making my abs clench in rebellion. I turn my head. I can’t bear to even look at them. My heart just can’t take it.
I’m in a dark gray haze throughout the rest of the short interview. I have no idea what questions I ask, if any, or how jubilant I seem for the couple. I only know that I can’t wait to get off the beach.
Out of California.
Away from Dash.
I don’t emerge from the fog until Jake and I are on the red-eye, heading back to Philly, sand still grating between my toes, much like Dash’s words are grating on my soul.
“You okay?” Jake asks softly, concern evident in every syllable.
“I…I have no idea. I… I…”
I stop trying to formulate words that can express the way I feel, and simply shrug instead, turning to look out the small oval window. My eyes burn with unshed tears, but I refuse to let them fall until I’m alone. This kind of anguish deserves a safe place, a place where I allow it to overwhelm me. A place where the pain can shred me to pieces.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Dilyn
When we touch down in Philadelphia, it’s pouring a cold, dismal winter rain. Every frigid drop that splatters my face as we race for a cab seems to further chill my already frozen heart.
Jake tells the cabby my address so he can drop me off first. I nod in silent gratitude. At this point, I don’t trust myself to speak. It’s getting harder and harder to hold back the crippling agony.
I fight back tears all the way to my street, only one managing to escape and snake its way down my cheek. The rivulets of water that slide down the glass of the cab window seem to mirror me. They look like tears, like the sky is crying with me. Like it feels my pain and can’t contain it either.
At my building, I pat Jake’s knee in thanks, and then push myself out into the rain. Part of me wants to stand in it, to let it wash away the hurt, the disappointment, the gnawing torment. Or maybe just numb it with a thousand icy kisses.
But I don’t. For one, the cab hasn’t pulled away yet, and the last thing I need is for Jake to see me break down then try to swoop in and m
ake things better.
He can’t.
No one can.
I trudge slowly across the width of the sidewalk toward the entrance, my legs as heavy as two thousand-pound weights dangling from my hips. They drag at me when I try to move them, they resist as though they’re giving up, too. As though they want to stand in the rain as well.
I’m reaching for the door, wondering vaguely where the doorman is, when I hear my name. It’s distant, almost like the rain has carried it hundreds of miles to deceive my ears, because it sounds like Dash.
My fingers curl around the handle, rain peppering down on my lashes, wetting them in preparation for the torrential downpour that will happen when I’m finally behind closed doors. But they stop when I hear the voice again. It’s louder this time, loud enough to cause me to turn my head and peer into the glow of the streetlight, to look into the glitter of the drizzle.
Out of the darkness, out of the slashing sheets of precipitation, I see a man running toward me. Like a mirage, only rising from the cold, wet ground rather than the hot, steaming sand.
Dash?
I turn to face my delusion, ready to embrace my fall into insanity if it means I get to keep him in my craziness. But when he reaches me, when his strong fingers curl around my upper arms and grip me like he’s afraid I’ll wash away, I realize this is no delusion. No mirage.
This is real.
What the hell is he doing here?
He wastes no time getting right to the point. “Please tell me you don’t love him,” he says on a pant, his breath curling in a warm ribbon that drifts from his lips and fades off into the night.
“What?”
“Tell me you don’t love him.”
“Love who?”
His wide, tanned brow wrinkles. “Jake, that asshole boss of yours.”
How is this happening? “What are you doing here?”
It’s as though the freezing rain has numbed my brain. I just can’t seem to process this.
I look up into his eyes, recognizing the identical desperation that I’ve felt so keenly over the last two weeks. This can’t be real.
“I watched you walk away, Dilyn. I watched you walk away and I couldn’t breathe. I stood there, on the beach with a woman I don’t love, and watched everything I’ve ever wanted get farther and farther away. And I just…” He takes a step back and drags his hands through his wet hair. “Jesus, I couldn’t even breathe. Me, the guy who jumps off snowy cliffs for the hell of it, I couldn’t breathe. It’s like you took the air with you when you left. And I…I want it back. I need it back. I need you, Dilyn.” When I say nothing, primarily because I’m completely dumbstruck, he wraps those big hands around either side of my neck and presses his forehead to mine. “Christ Almighty, please tell me I’m not too late. Please.” The last word is said on a whisper, a whisper I can feel as a warm brush against my cheeks. I feel it more than I hear it.
But he’s engaged.
“It was Jake who kissed me, not the other way around. I don’t love him, Dash. It’s you. You. There will only ever be you,” I tell him in a broken voice, a sob building in my chest and gurgling up through my throat. “I’m just…I’m just afraid to believe this is real. What if I’m imagining this because I want it so much? What if you’re not really here? What if you’re on a beach in California with the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen? What if you’re engaged to her?”
My voice rises as panic starts to invade my leaden muscles and aching chest.
Thumbs brush arcs through the water running down my cheeks, rain mixing with hot, salty tears. “It’s a long story, and I’ll explain later, but I’m not engaged to Carmella. I was helping a friend. That’s all. But I’m not there now. I’m here. I’m here with the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. I’m here, baby,” he says softly, a shudder in this voice. “With you.”
I drop my bag and purse and reach for him, feeling my way from his thick wrists to his muscular forearms, and from his bulging biceps to his broad shoulders. As I do, warm lips drop light kisses all over my face, erasing every tear I’ve shed, wiping away the grief and sorrow and misery that have enveloped me over the last weeks.
“I’m in love with you, Dilyn. The kind of love that makes a man do crazy shit like get his agent to schedule a follow-up interview for a fake engagement just so he can see the woman he loves one more time.”
The woman he loves.
I laugh at that, a laugh of pure, unadulterated relief. “Thank God.”
He laughs, too. “You can kick my ass for that later. There might even be a line to do it.”
“I only care that you’re here. You’re here. Oh God, oh God, oh God, you’re here,” I say melting against him, my legs finally giving out.
As if sensing that, he bends and sweeps me into his arms and I wind mine around his neck, snuggling as close as I can get. We only spent a few hours together, but my heart made the decision that we were meant for each other. I’m not used to missing people. He came for me. He missed me, enough to create a situation where we could see each other again. This is real.
“Can I come in? Or should we get pneumonia out here and have adjoining rooms at the hospital?”
I grin. “Adjoining hospital rooms? I don’t think that’s a thing.”
“If you have enough money, they’d probably tear out a wall if you ask.”
“You’re spoiled,” I tease.
Dash curls me up until he can tuck his face into my neck, next to my ear, “I’d trade it all for one more day, one more minute with you.”
I press my fingertips to Dash’s cheek until he raises his head and brings those inky black eyes to mine. “I’m yours. I have been from the second you walked through the door at that chalet. You can have all the days, all the minutes you want.”
His lips spread into a smile that takes my breath away. “I want them all. Every minute. Every day. But,” he says, pausing, his grin turning devilish. So devilish that my stomach does a flip. “I have a very specific idea for the next ninety to one hundred and twenty minutes or so. You in?”
I worry my bottom lip with my teeth. “Did you…did you and Carmella…”
“No! God, no. Since you, there has only been you.”
Now I can return his smile, feeling warm all the way through, despite the cold, cold rain. “Then I’m in. All in.”
“Okay, so can I borrow your kitchen?”
I lean back and frown. That was not what I was expecting to hear. “My kitchen?”
“Yeah, I’ve got some marshmallows I need to roast.”
A shiver works its way through me, and it has nothing to do with the winter wind. “In that case, third floor, apartment two-oh-nine. Make a right as you walk through the door.”
I’ve never met a man who could run up two flights of stairs while cradling a one-hundred-ten-pound woman in his arms.
At least not until the year I learned to separate anger and pain from Christmas. Until I learned to love Christmas again.
EPILOGUE
Dilyn
Nearly one year later
Dash takes the blindfold off my eyes and I feign surprise when I see the snow-covered roof of the little A-frame chalet we met in all those months ago.
“Oh my God, Dash this is great!” I turn my purposely wide eyes to him and lean over to kiss his lips, which are currently curved into a smirk. When I ease away, he’s still smirking. “What?”
“I know damn well you figured out where we were heading.”
“No, I…I…” I fumble. I’m a terrible liar. Always have been. “I’m really surprised.”
He chuckles, nipping at my lower lip with his teeth. “Liar. But that’s okay. You’ve obviously missed the part I was trying to hide from you anyway.”
I look back at the chalet, finally noticing the white SUV parked along one side, almost hidden from view. This time, my eyes are genuinely wide with happy shock when I turn them to Dash. “She’s here?” He nods, grinning. “With the baby?”
&n
bsp; He rolls his eyes. “Of course with the baby. You think she’d leave her this soon? Or maybe ever?”
I grin. “Not likely.”
I’m suddenly overcome with emotion for this man, for the kind, thoughtful way he has of doing anything within his power to make me smile. Especially now.
We’ve been trying to get pregnant for several months, with no luck, and our dear friend Carmella just gave birth to a baby. She got pregnant without even trying. In fact, the baby was an accident. A happy one, but still an accident.
Although a part of me is extremely envious of my beautiful friend, it in no way diminishes how ecstatic I was when I heard Carmella had become a mother a few weeks ago. If anything, it made me even more excited to see her, to hold a tiny life in my arms, press my nose to its baby-fresh cheek.
I reach up to touch the tips of my fingers to Dash’s square jawline. “Although I’m anxious to see little Thea, this day would be perfect anyway. As long as I have you, every day is perfect.”
His lips melt into the smile that I love so much, and he shrugs. “I know how hard Christmas is for you.”
I shake my head, injecting as much sincerity into my expression as I possibly can. “No, not anymore. I will forever love this holiday more than any other. It brought me you.”
Dash presses his mouth to mine in a slow, gentle kiss that turns my heart to slush, like snow on a sun-drenched road. “Then Merry Christmas, baby,” he finally says, leaning his forehead against mine.
It’s a gesture that speaks volumes in our relationship. Since that night in the rain, when Dash puts his forehead to mine, it says I love you. I need you. I’m lost without you.
I know this because it’s what it says for me, too.
When he pulls away, his eyes are twinkling merrily. I know he wants to see the baby, too. “You go on in. I’ll be right behind you with our bags.”
“Is she staying here, too? Because there’s…there’s only one bed.”
He cocks a brow at me. “Not that we used the bed before, but no. She’s not staying here. She and Ami have a chalet a few miles up the road. A visit from Carmella and the baby are just Christmas present number one.”