by Jessie Cooke
“If I weren’t so excited about the prospect of riding one of these beautiful creatures right now, I’d be creeped out once again by your stalker tendencies,” Bella said.
The handlers introduced the horses to Bella: Midnight Velvet and Chesapeake Thunder.
“Which one do you want to ride?” Reece asked.
She moved towards Thunder as if it hadn’t been years since she’d been on a horse. “Had you done a more thorough job with your stalking,” she began, “you’d know that when I was young—about seven—my parents had a horse that looked a lot like Thunder, here. Her name was Cinnamon. At the risk of running nostalgic, I think I’d like to take Thunder for a ride.” She mounted the horse easily and then leaned down to stroke his long majestic neck.
Reece turned to the two men that stood with the horses. “Thanks, fellas. The bikes are just beyond the picnic area, due north.” The guys nodded at them. “See you back at the truck?” Reece asked, and he received, again, two silent nods.
“I’ll race ya,” Bella offered.
“Is everything a competition with you?” Reece asked, but before she could verbalize an answer, she dug her heels in and pushed the horse out into the clearing at a quick gallop. Reece urged his horse on with a swift “Yah!” and the two were off across the meadow in the wake of the dust kicked up by Bella and Thunder.
Bella rode the circuit of the large clearing at a gallop, steering Thunder so he’d zigzag through the open space. Then she slowed him and found a trail she felt comfortable to navigate him through at slower gait. They trotted downhill, hopped a fallen tree or two, and still managed to saunter into the parking lot and find the truck and trailer well before Reece and Velvet showed up.
“It’s about time,” Bella said when Reece finally appeared. “Thunder and I have exchanged entire histories. We know each other’s stories forwards and backwards by now, don’t we boy?” She rubbed the soft nose of the reddish-brown beast beside her.
“So, you look like you’re getting on well.”
“I’m in love,” Bella admitted.
Reece laughed. “The last thing I’d think you needed in your life was another male.”
“This one’s different,” she protested. “This one loves unconditionally, and never asks for anything I’m not willing to give.”
Reece dismounted just as the two silent handlers appeared again to take the horses from the couple.
“And just when were you ever asked to give that you weren’t willing to do so?” Reece whispered in her direction. “From where I sat, you were willing, able, and quite ready every time.”
Bella swatted at him playfully and shushed him for fear of the silent horsemen hearing.
They said goodbye to Velvet and Thunder, and Reece paid the men for their help. Bella watched as the wad of cash exchanged hands, and she thought about how Reece had obviously spared no expense on making her happy on this one random day; it was no special occasion; no birthday or anniversary. It was just a regular Sunday afternoon, but he’d made it the most memorable Sunday she’d have for ages, she was sure.
You could have this all day every day, a voice in her head began. He could be yours—happiness could be yours—if you’d just get off your high horse (so to speak) and stop fighting against him every step of the way.
Bella watched with admiration as Reece chatted amiably and easily with the two guys he’d hired for the day. She liked the way he seemed comfortable with everyone he met; liked the way he didn’t put on pretenses, even though he had the money that said he could. As she listened a little closer, she realized some Spanish was mingling with the English, and it wasn’t being spoken by the two Latino horse handlers alone; Reece was tossing in a few sentences here and there as well.
He is nothing if not mysterious, she thought.
Just another reason for you to be attracted to him, the voice began again. Haven’t you always wanted to take a foreign lover? Bet he could use some of that Spanish in the bedroom.
A calmer more serious voice broke through. Since when is that all you think about, Bella Ryan? There’s more to life than sex, you know. Life is made up of beautiful moments, most of which happen outside the bedroom. Just look at today.
And every moment had been wonderful—except for the panic attack, but even that turned into something memorable and wonderful in its own right. She realized with a start that she hadn’t thought of Luke once throughout the entire day. Then she recalled how it was a rare occasion that she didn’t think of Reece, even when she was with Luke.
49
“I didn’t know you spoke Spanish,” Bella said as soon as Reece joined her and they had waved the horse trailer away.
Reece ducked his head a bit. “Not very much. But Ernesto and Daniel have been teaching me some. They let me hang out with them and try my hand at new stuff I learn. Tried that Rosetta Stone thing because so many workers on site are Latinos. I wanted to be able to talk to them in their own language. Ernesto and Daniel have been sort of coaching me along as I go.”
Bella settled back into the passenger’s seat of Reece’s Porsche. He’d asked her to chat with him before she left, and though she felt way too dirty to climb into the car, Reece had told her that’s why he paid to have it detailed once a month. The smell of her own sweat mixed with his and a little bit of the mustiness of horses kept everything from the day fresh and in the forefront of her mind along with the curiosity that had peaked when he’d asked her to join him for a second before they headed their separate ways.
Reece took Bella’s hand into his own, raised it to his lips, and kissed it tenderly. “I don’t want you to misunderstand any of this.”
She turned to him, a little fearful at the seriousness he was showing.
“I’ve been working my nerve up to tell you this, and I’m really glad that today kind of fell into my lap because—well, I think this has all been the perfect prelude.”
“Prelude?” Bella asked.
“To this,” he said stopping and taking a deep breath. “Bella, I love you. I am in love with you. I want to be with you and love you and stay in love with you for as long as you’ll let me. I can’t be with anyone else. I’ve tried, but it doesn’t work. And it’s all because I can’t be without you. I know you’re going to come back with that old song and dance about Nicky and the baby and how you have to be the only woman, but Bella, you have to realize that you are the only woman. You’re the only woman I want; you’re the only woman I’ll love.
“Haven’t you wondered why Nicky and I aren’t living together?”
The thought hadn’t crossed Bella’s mind until that very moment, but now that he had mentioned it, she did find it odd that they weren’t cohabitating, especially since the birth.
“I can’t live with Nicky because I don’t love her,” Reece continued. “I haven’t slept with her since I knew who you were, and I’ll never be able to be anything other than Hayley’s dad with her. I’ve told her that I don’t love her. I’ve told her that I’ll be a good parent with her, but that we have nothing else beyond that. Bella, I’ll never be able to be with her or anyone else for that matter when I love you.”
Bella remained quiet, tears threatening to rise around the hard lump in her throat. She knew that if she were honest with herself, she’d admit that she was in love with him too. She knew, as well, that she was a hypocrite. She kept putting Reece off saying she didn’t want to be with him because he had a bond with another woman, but look at what she was doing: sleeping with someone else, trying her best to make love to someone she wasn’t in love with. In essence she had told him she wanted him to be faithful, but she couldn’t promise the same. She was being exactly who she feared he would be to her. She was nothing short of a fake and a sham.
“You may have won your little race today,” he said, “but I’ll win the marathon. I’m not giving up on us. I’m not going to stop trying to convince you of what I already know: that you love me too. But when you lose this, Bella, you’ll realize that this
time, losing really means you win.”
“But I still won today,” her voice raspy as she tried to move the sound around the lump in her throat while she shifted the conversation back away from the reality she was trying to avoid.
“Yes, but next time, I will win,” Reece said.
“Next time?”
“I don’t give up, Bella. Just be ready.”
The drive home seemed longer than she remembered. The whole time she fluctuated between the desires to cry, to laugh, and to puke. How could she have gotten herself into this mess? How could she have become this person, this type of friend? If she had any sense of honor, she would tell Nicky the truth of her relationship with Reece; she’d tell Nicky that it was all her fault that Reece was having less and less to do with her; she’d tell Nicky that all of her dreams of having a family were dashed because of Bella.
Some friend I’ve turned out to be, Bella berated herself.
When she got into the house, she repeated the same bath ritual of the previous night, only this time when she lowered herself into the bubbles and froth, she reached for her phone and dialed Christo.
“Where in the world have you been all my life?” came her best friend’s voice on the phone. Christo Drake was nothing if not dramatic, but that was part of why Bella loved him so.
The sound of his voice, however, brought all of her emotions to a head, and before she could even utter the thoughts and confessions she needed to be absolved of, she burst into tears.
“Bella, darling, what is it? What’s happened? Are you okay?”
“I’m a whore!!” she bellowed into the phone.
“What?!”
“I’m that girl I swore I’d never become. I’m her, Christo. A low-down, slutty, dirty, two-timing whore!”
“Okay, baby girl. There are many things that I have called you in my lifetime, but ‘whore’ was never one of them. Let’s take a deep breath and calm ourselves down. Do you have a glass of wine?”
“Yes,” she hiccupped.
“Okay. Take yourself a big gulp of that red deliciousness and feel it flow through your body. Take a long sip in as you do.”
She followed his directions and could feel herself starting to relax. She sniffed back a few tears and felt the lump in her chest starting to dissolve.
“Doing better?”
“Yes.”
“Now, slowly and calmly tell me why in the world you think you’re a whore.”
“Because I am,” she whispered.
“Did you sleep with someone and then charge them money for your services?”
“No,” she said.
“Did you receive something in return for performing sexual favors?”
“No.”
“Did you take a job for an escort service and then do more than escort a gentleman within that service?
Bella actually laughed. “No.”
“Then for all intents and purposes, you, my dear, are not by definition a whore.”
“But I am by my own definition,” she said.
Christo uttered a long, dramatic sigh. “It sounds to me like this is not an over-the-phone kind of conversation. This conversation sounds like it needs a sleep-over,” Christo suggested.
“Would you really do that for me?” Bella asked.
“Of course I would. And besides, Simon is out of town, and I don’t really want to be alone anyway.”
“I’ll take what I can get,” Bella sniffled.
“Apparently,” Christo chided. “Hence your new self-entitlement.”
“Not funny,” Bella remarked, deadpan.
“See you in an hour.”
When Bella nestled into the sofa beside Christo, he noticed her red knees.
“Ohhhh my,” he said reaching forward and rubbing at the indentions and scratches. “Looks like we have a little carpet burn, eh?”
Bella took a sip from her wine glass and then shook her head. “No. Worse. Gravel rash.”
Christo’s mouth dropped open. “And what about these scratches on your arm?”
“Let’s just say I was hugging a tree,” she smiled.
“Wooowww,” Christo sang. “Gravel rash and tree scratches. Both on the same day?”
“No. Tree-hugging happened Saturday. I got the gravel rash on Sunday.”
“Bella Boo,” Christo said, “You’re becoming quite the naughty girl.”
Bella’s face fell. “See, even you agree! That’s why I had to call you, Christo. I can’t believe this is who I’m becoming! Me—the nerdy housecat who rarely left the house on the weekend unless it was to go to Barnes and Noble for the next Fern Michaels or Janet Evanovich or see what else was on the best seller list I hadn’t read yet! Me--the one who judged those girls who even dated more than one guy at a time much less slept with them. And here I am—with Luke one day and Reece the next. I’m disgusted with myself!”
Christo put up a finger to stop her from her ranting. “Just to clarify, when you say ‘with’ Luke one day and ‘with’ Reece the next, do you mean in the Biblical sense?”
“Yes!!” Bella shouted. “What is wrong with me? I hate myself, but at the same time, I feel like I can’t help myself. I’m a whore, Christo? How did I become this person?”
Christo stroked her long brunette hair away from her face and sighed. “Believe it or not, millions of women the world over wish they could be in your shoes for just a moment.”
Bella laughed harshly. “I don’t know why. It feels horrible and cheap.”
“But you have two men who love you, Bella. Hell, most women find themselves at a point in life where they aren’t feeling very loved even by one person. They’d love to feel loved by two. It’s a dilemma some people only wish for.”
“That doesn’t make it any easier,” Bella admitted. “What if I love them both?” she whispered. “Can I?”
“The question is: are you in love with them both?” Christo asked.
Bella was silent for a while as she pondered her answer to the question. She could categorically admit that she was in love with Reece. But to do so aloud and to someone would make it real. Could she say the same about Luke? She wasn’t sure. She didn’t think so, but she felt like a part of the reason she felt so in love with Reece was because of the mystery, the chase, the intense passion and heat that they’d started with.
“I don’t know,” she finally said.
Christo took a long sip of his wine and then placed his glass on the table, turned towards Bella, took the glass from her hands, and placed it beside his on the table. He took her hands in his and stared into her eyes intently.
“Bella, it’s time to start making decisions, and while I know how important it is to be clear-headed, when your heart is involved, you need to be fair to it as well. If you love Reece—if you are in love with Reece—then your heart is never going to allow you to toss him aside so easily.”
“And what if I’m in love with Luke?” she countered.
“It works the same way,” Christo answered. “But—well, let’s just say that from my observations and data collection, the two are not on an even playing field when it comes to your true affection.”
Bella looked away from Christo’s piercing brown eyes. She knew that he already knew her truth.
“Now, you may not like my saying this, but I’m going to say it anyway, missy,” Christo continued, and Bella sucked in a lung-full of air bracing for the berating. “You really need to question yourself and decide all the answers to ‘why’. Why are you rejecting Reece so vehemently? Why are you keeping Luke hanging on? Why won’t you ask him about your suspicions regarding his true sexuality? Are you so worried about what others will think of you that you’ll deny yourself true happiness with Reece because of the scandal over Hayley Jo? Are you keeping Luke in your back pocket because you think nothing better will come along, or are you using him to make Reece jealous? Maybe you won’t let go of him or have an uncomfortable conversation with him because you think being with him no matter what, is better th
an being by yourself. There are a lot of questions you aren’t answering, and if you ask me—which you didn’t, but I’m telling you anyway—you need to answer those and find out the truth to yourself before you move on and try and share yourself with any others. Know your true heart, Bella.”
“You remember in Haiti when we had a conversation like this?” she asked quietly.
“I do. I told you the second ice cream is never as sweet as the first. You eat the second because you enjoyed the first one so much, but it’s never quite as good.”
“What if I told you that this time, the second was the best?”
“But was the second this time the same as the second last time?” Christo asked.
“No.”
“And do you know why the second was better this time, then?”
“No.”
“It’s simple, Bella. Because the second ice cream was feeding your heart.”
Tears welled up in Bella’s eyes as she let the words sank in. She tilted her head over onto Christo’s shoulder as he squeezed her to him in a hug.
“Oh, our little Bella is growing up,” Christo said, lightening the mood. “Just look at how far she’s come: she’s gone from being this shy little housecat I had to strong-arm into body painting to having two men and a horse between her legs all in the space of two days’ time.”
Bella chuckled at the sound of it all, but she wiped a tear away that had spilled onto her cheek. “That sounds disgusting,” she mumbled.
“On the contrary, my dear. Some would say that sounds fun.”
50
Reece felt his blood pressure rising as he looked at the scratches along the driver’s side of his silver Porsche Boxster S. A hundred pennies mocked him from the black asphalt as they winked in the early morning sun. He pulled out his phone, put it on camera mode, and began snapping picture after picture. Then, he typed a text message to Luke and attached several of the pictures.