by S. J. McCoy
“No, not at all. I get it. Hang on, let me give Em a shout.”
A few minutes later Emma picked up.
“Hi, April. Are you okay? What’s going on?”
“I’m fine. I just can’t stop myself from interfering again. Charlotte ended up spending most of last night in my room after she talked to Ben. She told me their whole story. She’s planning on leaving early this morning, sneaking off and not saying any good-byes, and I just think it would be all wrong if she left without seeing him one more time.”
Emma was quiet for a long time.
“Am I wrong?” asked April when she couldn’t wait any longer.
“No! Not at all. I think you’re absolutely right. I’m just trying to figure out what on earth we can do.”
“I know it’s not really for us to do anything, but it just seems such a shame, now that they’re finally in the same place, for them to go their separate ways again.”
“What happened last night?” asked Emma.
“Ben wouldn’t talk to her.”
Emma sighed. “I was so hoping he would. I love him dearly, but he is stubborn when it comes to her. You’re right; it’s not for us to decide, but I am going to go see him. Thanks, April.”
“Thank you. Will you let me know what happens?”
“Yep, I’ll call you later.”
~ ~ ~
Ben turned over at the sound of someone moving around. He sat bolt upright in bed, but regretted the move immediately at the pounding in his head.
“I hope you’re feeling better than I am,” said Chance as he emerged from the bathroom.
“I feel sorry for you if I am.”
Chance gave him a rueful smile. “That Chivas seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Yeah, it feels like a terrible idea right now, though.” He pursed his lips. “Hopefully, you drank enough that you don’t remember me pouring out my sob story?”
Chance shook his head and started fiddling with the coffee maker. “I remember. I remember you being a stubborn bastard and saying there’s nothing you can do.”
Ben sighed and got up. “What do you want me to do?”
Chance shrugged. “It’s not up to me. But if it were, I’d say I don’t want to see you throw away a chance I’ll never have.”
Ben stopped just inside the bathroom door and looked back at him. “Ouch. Don’t pull any punches, will you?”
“Just telling it like it is. You did ask.”
When Ben came out of the bathroom, Chance handed him a cup of coffee. He took it with a grateful nod. “I know she’s flying out this morning. I guess, I could have a quick word with her at the good-bye meetup. I mean, it’d be a controlled environment with a predetermined end time.”
Chance smirked. “You sound as though you’re going into a dangerous confrontation that you might not come out of alive.”
Ben sipped his coffee and nodded. He felt that way, too. He’d only managed to survive all these years because he kept the past, all his memories and feelings for Charlotte, closed up in a box. They came out sometimes, but he managed to put them away as quickly as he could. If he were to willingly go and talk to her, he didn’t know if that would burst the box wide open. Would he be able to go back to keeping everything carefully compartmentalized? Or would it all come flooding back, allowing the pain and longing to destroy him once and for all?
“You don’t have to,” said Chance. “You can choose to let it go. Pretend this weekend never happened. Go back to your life as it was.”
“No.” Much as part of him would like to, he knew he couldn’t do that. This weekend had happened. He’d seen her, talked to her, touched her. Worse than that, in telling Chance, he’d relived everything that had happened. “You’re right. I need to talk to her.”
Chance raised his coffee cup to him. “Good luck.”
They both turned at the sound of knocking on the door. “Ben? Ben, are you in there? Wake up!” It was Emma.
He hurried to open the door and she came barging in past him. “You need to get dressed and get a move on. Oh…” She stopped when she saw Chance.
“G’morning, Em.”
“Hi, Chance.”
Ben knew she must have something important on her mind by the way she turned away from Chance and back to him. She never normally wasted any opportunity she got to chat with Chance.
“What’s up, Mouse? I’m not really in a hurry to do anything until I’ve taken a long hot shower and had at least two more cups of coffee.”
She took the cup from his hands. “You don’t have time!”
“Why?” he was used to Emma getting a bee in her bonnet and expecting him to fall in with her wishes, but he wasn’t up for it this morning.
“Because Charlotte already left.”
“What?!” He was stunned. He was just getting used to the idea that he was going to finally talk to her, and now Emma was telling him he’d already missed his chance?
“She told April last night she was going to skip all the good-byes and just head to the airport. I went to her room and she wasn’t there, so I called reception and they said she checked out five minutes ago.”
So, that was it then. His decision had been made for him after all. He took another sip of his coffee.
Chance and Emma were both staring at him.
“What?”
“After everything we just talked about, you’re just going to sit there?” asked Chance.
“You need to go after her!” cried Emma.
He stared back at them both. “You think?”
“Yes!” they replied in unison.
“Here.” Emma handed him a piece of paper. “This is her flight number. She’s flying Virgin Atlantic which means she’ll be going to terminal three.”
Ben took the piece of paper and looked down at it, then up at Emma. “Thanks!” he rubbed his hands over his face then looked around the room. He didn’t know what to do.
“Go!” said Chance.
“I can’t. I have to pack my stuff. I need to checkout. I need to…”
Emma picked up his wallet which was sitting on the coffee table and handed it to him. “All you need is this. Now go. We’ll pack your things and check you out if you’re not back before then.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. “Now go!”
“Thanks, Em.” He looked at Chance.
“Just get your ass moving will you?” he said with a grin.
Ben did as he said. He ran down the corridor to the elevators and pushed the button repeatedly. What if she’d already cleared security? What if she’d decided he was right and there was no point in them talking? What the hell was he going to say, anyway?
The elevator came and he stepped inside, jabbing at the button to take him to the lobby, willing it to go faster.
Chapter Eighteen
Charlotte pulled her suitcase in beside her as she took a seat at the coffee shop. She was too early. The check-in desk wasn’t even open yet. Typical! The one time in her life she was early and she couldn’t even get that right. Never mind. She’d just sit here and enjoy her coffee, and wait for the painkillers to work their magic. Her head wasn’t pounding quite so badly now, but she still had a long road back to normal. She took a sip from the bottle of water she’d bought—she knew that was all she should be drinking, and lots of it after last night—but it was the coffee that would bring her back to life.
As she sat there, she replayed the weekend in her head. It had been great to see everyone. She was glad that she’d been able to be there for Pete’s wedding, as well as Missy’s, unexpected as that had been. But for her, this whole visit had been about Ben. She sighed. And he still didn’t want to talk to her. At least with April’s help she understood why a little better now. How would she feel if he was married to someone else, but was still telling her he loved her? She shuddered at the thought. She couldn’t imagine how she would feel at all if he were married. The thought of him with another woman made her blood run cold. She kne
w that was ridiculous, and totally unfair of her, but she couldn’t help it. He was hers. Always had been, always would be. Forever and always.
She knew he must have had girlfriends over the years. A guy like him wouldn’t have been single all this time. He was gorgeous. He was a real catch. There must have been some who’d tried, but surprising as it was, she was truly grateful that some woman hadn’t come along and got her claws into him.
She took another swig of her coffee. How must it feel to him? She’d married Alastair four years ago. Ten years after Ben had told her that they could never be together. She’d wanted to believe that he didn’t care anymore. But in her heart she knew he did. He was hurt, and he’d stuck with that crazy idea that she’d wanted to see the world more than she wanted to be with him. He’d hurt her by believing that she’d got rid of their baby in order to have a life of freedom, and he’d added to that hurt by his later insistence that they could never be together because it would clip her wings. Her wings, the freedom to travel, none of it meant anything without him. If there’d been any doubt about that, she’d proven it with Alastair.
Alastair traveled the globe, for work and for fun. She went with him most of the time, at least she had for the first couple of years. She’d met him through her work. She’d studied marketing, as she’d told Ben she would. For the longest time she’d believed that one day she’d put her skills to work for the resort and help him grow the business like they’d said. Instead, it was how she’d met Alastair. He ran an events company and had hired the firm she worked for to run a huge campaign for a series of concerts he was staging in London. She’d taken the lead on the account and so spent a lot of time working directly with him, since he was a hands-on kind of guy—in every respect.
When the assignment was over, Alastair had asked her to come work for him, and he’d doubled her salary. She’d been flattered that he was interested in her. She hadn’t had a relationship since Ben. She’d gone on the occasional date, but that was all. Of course, her parents had encouraged Alastair at every turn. He was ideal son-in-law material as far as they were concerned—rich, and a traveler. And he cared about their daughter. He really did. Charlotte wouldn’t deny that. She wished that he’d turned out to be some arsehole who she could hate and leave. But he wasn’t. He was a good man. That made it hard. She didn’t want to hurt him, but she couldn’t love him the way he deserved to be loved. Because her heart was already spoken for, it had been since she was ten years old.
She stirred her coffee and sighed as she replayed the few moments she’d spent with Ben last night. When she’d told him that they couldn’t change the past, but they could change the future, she’d seen a glimmer of hope in his eyes. He’d shut it down as quickly as it appeared, but it had been there. And he’d told her the one thing that he couldn’t get past. She was married. How could either of them get past that? She knew he would never get close to her again while she was married. But she didn’t know if he also meant that he could never get past the fact that she’d gotten married—to someone else. He never had.
~ ~ ~
Ben thanked the driver as he got off the shuttle bus and told him to go back and wait for the others. He should tip him, but he didn’t want to take the time. He’d see him again later; after all, he’d rented the bus for the whole weekend. He didn’t have time to worry about the logistics right now. What he needed to do was find Charlotte. He walked in through the doors to the check-in area and stopped dead. How the hell was he supposed to find her amongst the masses of people milling around. He looked at the piece of paper Emma had given him with Charlotte’s flight number on it. Not that he needed to look, he’d memorized it the moment he saw it. He went to check the boards to see which desks were handling check-in.
It must be a big plane, there were seven desks listed. He made his way over to them. There were short lines at three desks, the others weren’t open yet. There was no sign of her. Did that mean she’d already checked in and gone through security to wait at the gate? He scanned the crowds, but of course he couldn’t see her anywhere. That would be a miracle. He wandered up and down, hoping that she might just appear while he figured out his next move. He fished his phone out of his pocket and called Emma’s cellphone.
“Did you find her?”
“Would I be calling you if I had?”
“Oh, sorry. No. What are you going to do?”
“I don’t suppose you have her cell phone number do you?”
“Oh, my goodness! How stupid of me! Of course I do. Hang on. I need to look it up. In fact, I’ll have to call you back. It’s stored in my phone. Give me a minute.”
“Thanks, Em.”
He turned around in circles, searching the faces of the crowd around him. Why hadn’t he thought to call Emma before? It didn’t matter now. His phone rang.
“Here you go,” Emma recited the number.
“Is that a Florida area code?” he asked.
“I believe so.”
Ben repeated the number back to her. “That’s it,” she affirmed. “I’ll tell you what, I’ll text it to you when we hang up. That way you don’t need to remember it.”
“Thanks, Em.” He was pretty sure he wasn’t going to forget it, but he’d rather have it just in case.
“Okay. I’ll let you go. Good luck.” She sounded so excited, he had to smile. She was in his corner and always had been. “And even if you don’t find her, I’ll invite her to the lake soon, okay? This isn’t the end!”
“Thanks.” He couldn’t think beyond the next couple of hours. He had to focus on finding her now. As he always did, he tried to calm his mind by running through checklists, figuring out what needed to be done. “Will you do me one more favor?”
“Anything!”
“Will you and Jack call the shuttle driver and figure out who’s going where and when?”
She blew out a sigh. “Really? That’s what’s important right now?”
“You know me; I need to make sure all of you are okay before I can take care of what I want.”
“Okay. I’ll do it. What about you though, what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know how long I’m going to be. I can get a taxi back.”
“Okay, and don’t you worry about a thing. If you’re not back by eleven thirty, I’ll go to your room and pack your bags, and check you out and everything.”
Ben smiled. She was such a good friend. “Thanks, Em. For everything.”
“Don’t thank me yet! Go find Charlotte, talk to her. And I want to hear all about it afterwards, okay?”
“Okay.” As he hung up Ben wondered what he would have to tell her. What was the point of him coming after Charlotte like this? There was nothing they could do. He was sorry for the past, so was she, by the sounds of it. But where did that leave them? They had nowhere to go. Even if she wasn’t married to someone else, the words she’d written in that letter were still true. He had a resort to run, she had a world to see.
He took a deep breath. He didn’t know what he was going to say, but he knew he had to see her if he could. His phone buzzed with a text. He opened it and held his finger on the number. He chose to save it to his contacts. Then he hit the call button. And waited.
His heart hammered in his chest while it rang…and rang. His heart sank as it went to voicemail. Damn! He hung up. He didn’t want to leave her a message! He needed to talk to her. He tried again. This time she picked up on the second ring.
“Hello?”
“Hi.”
“Ben?”
“Yeah, it’s me.”
“Oh, my God! Thank you! I can’t believe this. I wish we could have talked face to face before I left.”
“You haven’t left yet, have you?”
“Yes, I’m at the airport.”
“I know, but where?”
“I’m about to…” her voice trailed off.
Ben had spotted her, too. She was coming toward the check-in desk, toward him. Pushing her suitcase with one hand, holding
her phone up to her ear with the other.
“You’re here?” Her voice was barely a whisper coming down the line.
They locked eyes as she came closer, she was maybe fifty yards away now. A group of people heading for the desks blocked her from view for a moment. “I’m here,” he replied, hoping with all his heart that when the crowd cleared she’d still be there.
She was. Just a few yards away now. And so damned beautiful.
“I’m going to hang up on you now,” he said with a smile.
She was close enough to hear him without the phone. She smiled back as he lowered his phone. She did the same and stopped just a few feet away from him.
“I can’t believe you’re here.”
“Neither can I, but I couldn’t let you leave. I’m sorry about last night. I should have stayed and talked to you, but it hurt too much.”
She nodded. “I’m sorry. If it’s any consolation, it hurt me, just as much. I spent the rest of the night blubbing to April and telling her our whole story.”
“I did the same thing, with Chance.”
“It’s a pity we couldn’t have done it with each other.”
“It is, but opening up like that last night, it made me realize we do need to talk. We never talked anything through. I still have things I want to tell you, and I still have questions. I’m guessing you might, too?”
She nodded her head vigorously. She looked like she was about to cry. He couldn’t stand that! If she did, he would no doubt join her.
“So how about we check your bag in and then go get a cup of coffee. I could really use one after the amount I drank last night.”
She gave him a rueful smile. “It sounds as though we both did the same thing last night, just with the wrong person.”
He nodded. How would it have been if he’d spent all those hours reliving their story with her, instead of with Chance? He couldn’t know. He’d refused to talk to her. He needed to make up for that now, in these last couple of hours before her flight left.