by R. D. Power
He took her trembling right hand with his left and caressed her face with his other hand. She inclined her face into his hand and kissed it as her tears stirred. “I knew I missed you, more with every day that passed, but until I saw you today I had no idea how boundless my need for you is.” He brought her right hand to his lips and kissed it.
She wondered if this were truly happening. Could it possibly be that he was going to ask her to marry him? She held her breath, getting more emotional and excited with each word he spoke. “You are without question the single most wonderful person I have ever met. I truly doubt there’s a better human being on the planet. What I’m trying to say is … I love you, Krissy!” She began to cry. It was the first time he’d ever uttered that magical phrase.
“I love you, too,” she said.
He pulled her tenderly off her chair to her knees, took her in his arms, and hugged her. He moved back a bit and took a deep breath. Taking her hands and looking into her sparkling eyes, he said, “If you’ll still have me …” He hesitated out of fear. Tears streamed down her cheeks. There was complete silence for a moment but for the sound of nervous breathing, and the blowing of female noses and shushing of males outside her door. He plunged forward, “You’d make me the happiest man on Earth if you say you’ll be my wife. Kristen Taylor, please marr—”
“YES!” she answered before he could finish, grabbing the ring he proffered and sliding it onto her ring finger, and lunging to embrace him. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!” There was a commotion outside of her door. The two glanced at the door and smiled.
“You’re sure?” he beamed, tears welling in his eyes.
“I can’t believe this is really happening. Please tell me it’s real.”
“It’s real. That’s my mother’s engagement ring.” He’d stopped by Kim’s to get it out of his trunk that held the promise of a new family. “I hope that’s okay. You said it fit perfectly.”
“I’ll treasure it forever.”
The couple was yet hugging closely. “You should know that I married Jenny after she told me you were married to some guy named Katz.”
“What? That bitch!”
“That’s precisely what I called her when she called me yesterday to fess up. Then I called you.”
“She must have erased the message. That’s why she showed up yesterday. She staged the whole thing. Did you get the message I left you last February?”
“No. Shit! She must have intercepted that one, too. What did you say?”
“I said I missed you and asked you to call me. When you didn’t call, I got serious about Andrew Katz. When I found out you married Jenny, I nearly died and just about accepted his proposal. In the end, I couldn’t go through with it: he wasn’t you.”
“I’m sorry about marrying her. It obviously didn’t last. She wasn’t you.” She smiled. “When do you want to get married?” Robert asked.
“I don’t know. There are lots of arrangements. I need a dress—”
“How about tomorrow?” Robert interrupted.
“Tomorrow? But …” Kristen was shocked. There was nothing she wanted more than to marry him, so she was sorely tempted to consent. Moreover, delaying might run the risk of something else intervening to steal away their felicity. On the other hand: “Our wedding isn’t something I want over and done with. It’s the most special day of a woman’s life. I want to plan it, fret over it, and look forward to it. I want to savor it not only on our wedding day but forever. It’s a lot of work, but it’s a labor of love, and I wouldn’t miss it for the world. I want our day to be perfect.” Too bad her argument was so persuasive.
“All right. Whatever you want is fine by me. When though?”
“Let’s talk about that later. I’m dying to show everyone my ring.” She sneaked up to the door and opened it quickly to catch the four of them there. She held out her hand to show her ring, jumping excitedly and crying tears of joy.
Her mother joined her, jumping and crying in unison. “I knew it, I knew it,” said her mom, “You two were meant to be!” Her dad and brother got something in their eyes.
The family went downstairs for a celebratory potation. Brian, Kim, and her husband Phil were invited over as well. Afterward, they left the couple on their own. Kristen and Robert sat holding hands, engaged in deep converse about the recent past and their immediate future. They talked about his experience in Iraq, though he spared her the goriest details and glossed over the torture, because he didn’t want to upset his fiancée or himself. “I love you so much. If you didn’t do what you did, I hesitate to think of how different the world might be,” Kristen declared. “Did they give you a medal?”
“Yes, the Distinguished Service Cross. I gave it to Brian.”
Tears came to her eyes as she embraced him. Nothing impressed the Taylor women more than gallantry. They spoke for a short time about their university years and the major events since, and began to consider their future together. Every so often his son would come and sit on his knee. “He’s adorable, just like his father,” Kristen said.
“You want one? I can whip one up for you,” suggested the naughty man.
“I’ll take four, please,” she replied. Getting more serious, she asked, “When can we start a family?”
“It wouldn’t make sense any time soon, with me on the road for eight or nine months a year and you a busy doctor.”
“It may not make sense, but this goes beyond logic. It’s hard to explain. I know it would shock everyone I work with that I even want children; they see me as dedicated to my profession—and I am. But with you, I’m just myself: a woman madly in love; your wife to be; your best friend; your soul mate who was meant to have children with you. I’m so anxious to have your baby.”
“Take Brian, then. He’s housebroken already.” She smiled and thought how fabulous it will be to enjoy his sense of humor for the rest of time. “I don’t want our children raised by strangers. You’ve worked long and hard to become a doctor. What would happen to your career if you step out of it for several years to raise children at this point? I certainly don’t want to quit baseball. What’s the point of having children now if we can’t spend any time with them? Just to have little copies of ourselves that we see every now and then? Let’s wait till my career is over.”
“And if it lasts for another fifteen years?”
“It won’t. My bum shoulder is sore as hell even though I don’t throw as hard as I can. And my pitching hand is causing me trouble, too; my fingers never healed properly after the Iraqi bastard snapped them, and I couldn’t get medical help for a few days. I’ll be lucky to stay in the majors next year.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Let me see your hand.” She took his hand and manipulated his fingers in different ways. “Your index finger is crooked. I’m afraid we’ll have to call off the wedding,” she joked. She also moved his right shoulder and arm around and asked questions about his soreness. “I’ll have a close look at your shoulder and hand at my hospital. Don’t sell medicine short. Some expert care and loving attention afterward from your personal physician can work wonders.” She kissed his hand. “Whatever happens with your career, I’ll love you every bit as much.” She didn’t say so because she knew what baseball meant to him, but she liked the idea of his being out of the sport. It would mean less time apart, less female temptation for him, and having children sooner. “Whenever your career ends, you can use your incredible brain to do whatever you want. And whatever happens, I want to start a family soon, okay?”
“Okay, but let’s at least wait a little while to have some time with just the two of us.” Changing the subject, he said, “There’s only this coming weekend left in the season. We’re at home. They might well be my last in the majors, so I really want you to be there. Can you come with me to Minneapolis? I want to show you off to my teammates.”
“I’d love to. So, what happens after the weekend? I won’t be through my residency until next summer. I can’t leave at this po
int. Can you stay with me in California until baseball starts again next year? I rent a small apartment near the hospital.”
“Live in sin? Great.”
“After that, I planned on doing a three-year fellowship in pediatric oncology. I can do that in Minneapolis. As long as we’re together, I’m happy.”
They got to bed late that night. The lovers were desperate for each other, but with her parents there it was impossible, wasn’t it?
Kristen lay in her bed awake, hoping, praying he would come to her. By 12:30, she could wait no longer. She got out of bed, pulled up her night shirt, and took off her panties. She tiptoed to her door, wincing when the floor squeaked under her. As she reached for the doorknob, she heard a tap; a finger nail, she guessed. Her heart sped up. The doorknob turned, and the door opened a crack. It squeaked. She heard a whispered, “Shit,” and tittered. She reached out for his hand and heard a whispered, “I hope this isn’t a guard.”
“Don’t make me laugh,” she said, chuckling. She squeezed through the door and led him downstairs to the basement bedroom.
They gazed at each other with loving, yearning eyes. She lifted off her nightshirt and reveled in his gape. Stepping up to him, she yanked down his pants, then kissed him passionately while reaching down to grab his penis. She towed him to the bed, pushed him down on it, and straddled him. Smiling salaciously, she put one hand on his chest and grabbed his balls with the other. He gasped in pleasure.
His hands went for her bottom, his mouth for her breasts. Looking deep into her lover’s eyes, she slowly lowered herself on him. She moaned in ecstasy and cooed, “Welcome home.” He smiled. Starting with a leisurely grinding motion back and forth, she gradually accelerated and soon was thrusting wildly up and down on him. Both were so overcome with lust, they could last no more than two minutes before simultaneously erupting in the most explosive climax either would ever experience. She collapsed onto him, and both exclaimed breathlessly, “I love you!”
•
The next day, Lisa and Kristen made a celebratory supper. The scene at the table was one of pure joy. Finally all was right with the world. But then Robert’s cell phone rang. He answered. It was Jennifer, who said, “Hi, Bobby. I have something really important to tell you …”
Volume Three
“Krissy! Krissy!” screamed Robert Owens as he struggled to sit up in his hospital bed, having aroused from his drug-induced sleep nine hours after an operation to save his life. “Krissy! Where’s Krissy? Is she dead? Krissy!” shrieked the panicked and disoriented man as a nurse and an orderly worked to calm him before he could tear apart his sutures and pull out his IV needle. They could see the terror in his eyes as he recalled the incident that put him here. A doctor rushed in to sedate him. “Krissy!”
The last thing he could remember was Kristen Taylor, the woman he loved, tugging desperately on his arms to drag him away from a crazed man who was intent on killing the two of them. Robert, who sustained a knife wound in subduing some gang members who had assaulted Kristen, was losing consciousness as he bled profusely. “Run Krissy!” he tried to scream, but it emerged as a murmur. She heard, but refused to abandon him to certain death as the armed man approached. With the animal but fifteen feet away, Kristen shielded Robert as he fainted.
“What happened to Krissy?” he asked the hospital workers. They couldn’t or wouldn’t answer. “Krissy!”
Chapter One
Back in Time
Through the marvels of the written word, we regress four and a half years in time to a phone call Jennifer Taylor, Kristen’s cousin, made to Robert just hours after Kristen had accepted his marriage proposal. Sitting at the supper table with his betrothed and her family, he went white as Jennifer informed him she was pregnant with his child. She awaited his response, but he could say nothing, as shock had expropriated his voice. “What’s the matter?” said his fiancée. He couldn’t answer her either.
“Well, Bobby?” said Jennifer, “What have you got to say?” He hung up his phone and left the room, his face still divulging his absolute shock. Kristen followed. “Bobby, please tell me what’s wrong.”
“I, I don’t believe it,” he finally choked out. “Why can’t anything go smoothly? Why is life so hard?”
“What’s wrong? You’re scaring me.”
He sat. “That was Jenny. She’s … she told me …” He looked up at Kristen and couldn’t finish.
“I’m your wife to be. I’ll stand by you. Tell me!”
“She’s pregnant.”
Her initial reaction was much the same as his—thunderstruck—but then it diverged with a wretched screech as she bolted from the room with her right hand to her mouth. He didn’t follow; he couldn’t. He just sat there bewildered. Kristen’s father, Bill, came into the room to ask what the matter was. Robert told him in a detached manner that Jennifer was pregnant by him, and that everything was wrecked. Bill sighed and went out to inform the rest of the family. Robert’s phone rang again. He ignored it.
A few minutes later, he went in search of Kristen and found her crying on her bed. “Krissy, I’m so sorry,” he said as he sat next to her and stroked her hair. “I know I’m in another mess, and I’m making you miserable again. I wanted only happiness for you, and this is what I give you. But I swear to you, Krissy, I’ll straighten this out.”
“How? She’s carrying your child.”
“Maybe it’s not mine.”
“It’s yours. She knows you’re not stupid. She wouldn’t make this up.”
“Okay, then, maybe I can talk her into an abortion.”
“No! Don’t do that. It’s not the child’s fault the parents are divorced. Anyway, Jenny will never give up her baby, especially one fathered by you. It’s her best bet of reeling you back. The only proper course is to marry her again,” she moaned as her face fell into her pillow.
“No, never! I don’t love her. I love only you. I’ll work this out. Please trust me.”
She removed her engagement ring and held it out to him. “Take it back.”
“No, Krissy. You said you’d marry me! I’m holding you to your promise.” He withdrew from the ring.
“This situation changes everything. Do you think I do this lightly? There’s nothing I wanted more than to marry you.”
“Then, let’s just get married. Right now!”
“No. You have a sacred obligation to her now. You have to do the right thing.”
“To hell with the right thing. All I care about is you. I don’t give a shit about her baby.”
“How can you say that? It’s your baby, too. If I were to get pregnant, would you be as callous?”
“No, of course not. I love you and I’ll cherish our children. Let’s get married, and we can start a family right away. You’ll see what a great husband and father I’ll be.”
“Here you are bragging about being a great father while promising to disown your own child. I can’t believe you. Take your ring back.”
“No, I don’t want it back,” he said with tears in his eyes. “Please don’t do this to me. I love you. Don’t turn me away again. I’ll go see her and work it out. Then we’ll get married, all right?” She put the ring in his hand, closed his fingers on it and told him to go to Jennifer. “Don’t do this to me, Taylor. I’m warning you. If I walk out that door, I will never be back!”
“So we both see how deep your love is for me.”
“And how deep yours is for me,” he rejoined bitterly. “Thanks for standing by me. The very first problem that presents itself and you’re out the goddamn door. Goodbye!” He rushed out of her room and her house. He ran up the street and out of their neighborhood. Finally, after almost five miles, exhaustion stopped him, and he collapsed on the side of the road. He broke down, crying and cursing his awful luck. The fury in his soul spilled out of him and made everything cold and black.
His phone rang. He looked at the display and saw it was Jennifer. He pushed the button, but didn’t say anything. “Hello?” said
Jennifer. “I can tell you’re there, Bobby; I can hear your breathing. I tell you I’m pregnant with our child and you hang up on me?” she chided.
Out rushed his bile. “You cost me everything, you bitch!” he hollered. “I had just proposed to Kristen, and she said yes. Your news ruined everything. Now she’s rejected me again. I hate all Taylors! Not only will I never marry you again, I’ll never even talk to you or Kristen again. Drop dead and take the fucking baby with you!” he yelled as he hung up. Jennifer stood there in disbelief then sat down to cry.
Chapter Two
A Little Forward
One hour ago, life was perfect. One hour ago, everything was finally as it was supposed to be, and it all made sense. One hour ago, he could finally look back with equanimity and reason that all the strife was worth it if that’s what it took to get to this point. One hour ago, his future was set. He could face anything life could throw at him with his loving wife by his side. One hour ago.
Now, as he lay in the stubble that had been a cornfield until a few days earlier, he looked beyond the sky that was somehow still a picturesque azure despite the blackness that enveloped him, and hollered to the welkin, “I hate you!” Robert sat up and called a taxi to take him to the airport.
Kristen knew him better than anyone else, but not even she comprehended the depths of despair he suffered at the loss of love. His psyche had never completely recovered from losing his entire family to a plane crash when he was but eight-years-old. He couldn’t cope with lost love or rejection and always overreacted to them. He despised her for rejecting his hand for the second time, for taking away her love once he finally declared his, his most dreaded fear. “Never again!” his anguished pride roared. Determined to forsake the Taylor clan forever, he called Sprint to cancel his phone account, tossed his phone under a passing truck—and briefly considered tossing himself there, too, before concluding that would be counterproductive—so that they had no way to contact him.