You Can Have Manhattan

by P. Dangelico

  I typed…I’m fine. And erased it.

  Typed…I’m sorry. And erased it.

  I meant the second not the first.

  I took a shower with nonexistent water pressure, got dressed, and drove over to the farmhouse with bile churning in my gut. My head scrambling for a foothold on composure. My heart searching for bravery. I found neither.

  My grandparent’s house was exactly as I remembered it. Standing on the curb, looking up at it, my heart thumped double time, my palms sweat even though there was a chill in the air. It was a little more weathered––the white clapboard siding in need of a fresh coat of paint, the black shutters missing a few slats, some cobblestones of the circular driveway missing––but essentially the same. An idyllic farmhouse by all outward appearances. House of horrors if you knew what had happened on the inside.

  My grandmother’s lawyer had mentioned that a family had bought the place. Two dentists with three young kids. I could only hope they would replace those old ugly footprints with new happy ones as soon as possible.

  “Mrs. Blackstone?”

  The moniker still threw me off. I turned to watch a man, around late sixties, exit a silver Honda Pilot and approach with a manila envelope in his hand. He wore a green Philadelphia Eagles knitted hat, an almost completely white beard, and a tweed blazer.

  “Tom Linklater.” He extended a hand and I shook it. “I’m sorry about your loss.”

  “I’m not in mourning, Mr. Linklater. I haven’t spoken to my grandparents in decades.”

  “I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord God: so turn and live.”

  My grandparents had never repented. I’d never really lived. So there you have it.

  Linklater nodded, lips pressed together in discomfort.

  “Which is why I’m confused about this stipulation to the will,” I continued. “As I’ve told you already, I don’t want anything from them and anything they did leave me should be donated to a local women’s shelter.”

  Linklater exhaled. “I’ve made arrangements for the proceeds of the sale of this house and the car dealership to go to two separate shelters. Needless to say, they are extremely grateful for your generosity. Unfortunately, I can’t close escrow until you remove your grandmother’s belongings from the attic.” He shrugged. “She was adamant about that. I’m merely carrying out her wishes.”

  I almost couldn’t believe the depth of my grandmother’s depravity. I say almost because she was pretty terrible––even worse than my grandfather in some ways. To be forced to come back here and clean out the personal belongings of a woman who used to take pleasure in physically abusing a five-year-old was some sick shit. Especially since whatever stuff she did leave was destined for the trash anyway. Then again, it seemed in character.

  “So here I am,” I stated, my throat dry, mouth parched. My tongue felt thick and useless.

  Linklater smiled awkwardly, searched my blank expression, as the two of us engaged in a staring contest. I was getting the notion that Linklater knew more about my family history than he was letting on.

  “Here you are,” he echoed, then opened the envelope and produced a key.

  * * *

  The house was warm. Somebody had left the heat on. Linklater, I figured. I removed my cashmere scarf and gloves and draped them on the finial at the bottom of the staircase banister. The furniture had been removed. The entire house was empty. Other than that, nothing much had changed on the inside either. Same yellow paint on the walls and white eyelet curtains, though weathered by time and dusty from disuse. A heaviness sat on my chest as I looked around. The furniture was gone, but the ghosts remained.

  Blades of sunlight crisscrossed the weathered oak stairs leading to the second floor. My gaze followed them up. I’d forgotten how well-lit the house was because my memories were dark and dingy. They were of the basement concrete floor where my grandfather forced me to stay kneeling in prayer for hours in a dark so deep and disorienting, I welcomed the pain in my knees because I was afraid I’d float away. Of the wet cold that seeped into my bones in the dead of winter with only my cotton pajamas to keep me warm. Of the way I’d learned not to cry, or he’d make me stay there longer. I’d never dared to disobey. He’d once told me he had cameras watching me. Years later, in my teens, I realized that it couldn’t have been true because it was pitch black down there, but at the time I’d believed him.

  Every muscle in my body was shaking by the time I finished climbing the creaking stairs on unsteady legs, my heart clashing inside my chest as if I’d just run the NYC Marathon, which I’d done once with mediocre results and vowed to never do again. I had no intention of strolling down memory lane and went straight to the cord hanging in the hallway, tugged on it, and watched the stairs that led to the attic unfold.

  Dust bunnies and a single small white document box were the only items in the space with a low-hanging ceiling. It was sitting in the middle of the room, my name in big black block letters written on top, seemingly waiting for my arrival. I would’ve laughed at the drama if the story wasn’t so freaking sinister. It was a good thing I was a runner too because the jolts my poor heart was sustaining would’ve ended a less fit person.

  Lowering myself to the dusty floor, legs crossed, I raised the lid and peered inside the box. It was half-filled with large manila envelopes. I reached for the one on top, opened it, and out slid a decade’ old edition of Martha Stewart Living magazine. This was beyond odd. I mean, I liked the magazine for its recipes but I’d never subscribed to anything while I was living with them. They would’ve most likely decided it was a “bad influence” somehow and confiscated it. Puzzled but curious, I flipped through the first copy and a letter fell out.

  The white envelope was addressed to me. The return label read: Josh Martin, 355 Morning Ln, El Paso, TX 79835.

  My heart flat-out stopped beating and the fine hairs on the back of my neck stood erect. In a frenzy, I ripped open the rest of the manila envelopes, and from within each magazine, a letter from Josh slid out. Ten in total. After all the years I’d spent looking for him, it had never occurred to me to search under his mother’s maiden name. The next moment a slow realization pushed the shock aside.

  He’d been looking for me too.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Sydney

  The sound of an incoming text woke me out of a fitful sleep. My mind scrambled for purchase when my eyes, dry and painful, cracked open. Above me there was an unfamiliar popcorn ceiling, the walls were an awful shade of dark green, and the air smelled musty.

  The hell am I?

  It took a moment before I remembered what had happened and where I was. Squinting at the screen, the phone read a little past midnight. Then I saw the text.

  Scott: I’m outside. Open the door.

  He was here. He’d come for me. A strong dose of pure joy shot through my veins, making my head spin like I was tripping.

  No one had ever come for me. But Scott had––a man I’d once thought to be the most selfish creature on the planet. I’d been wrong about him just as much as he’d been wrong about me. He wasn’t selfish. On the contrary, he was an unexpected hero, a reluctant good guy in disguise. Too bad I was already married to him. If things had been different, we might have had a fighting chance. The knowledge sat heavy on my chest.

  A reckoning was coming as clearly as the part in every horror movie where one of the dumbass characters says, “let’s get back to the cabin,” instead of getting in their car and driving away at the first sign of danger. Any day now, Frank’s secret was going to be revealed, and when that happened, I would inevitably lose Scott’s trust. And there was nothing I could do about it other than stand by and let it happen.

  Jumping out of bed, I hurried to the cramped bathroom, splashed water on my face, and glanced in the mirror. After gathering all the letters, I’d driven back to the motel and holed up for the rest of the day reading and crying and chugging Mountain Dew (the only soda left in the hallway vending
machine) like it was nectar of the gods. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d shed a single tear. Frank’s news had pushed me to the brink many times, but never over the edge. And now I couldn’t stop them from falling.

  “Yikes.”

  I looked like Don King. My hair was a tangled, combed-back mess. My eyes were nearly swollen shut, the left more than the right, and the skin around them raw. Under the florescent overhead light, I looked like I’d mopped the floors with my face and there was nothing to be done for it. Not now that he was at the door.

  As I reached for the doorknob, I remembered that I was wearing a stained threadbare t-shirt and baggy sweatpants and debated changing for all of a minute. I was tired of hiding, tired of pretending that I was so much more put together than I really was.

  At work, I was a rock star. Everywhere else in my life I was rock bottom. This was it. All I was. Full of holes, emotions worn out, nerves shot to hell from keeping everything bottled up. It was either going to send him running back to Jackson Hole or he’d stick.

  I wanted him to stick, though. I really really wanted him to stick. Scott was turning out to be the most wonderful surprise of my life. I’d been an outlier since birth, searching for somewhere or someone to belong to, and with Scott, I’d found it. Even if it was only for a little while.

  The motel was built in a horseshoe shape, my room on the ground floor. So when I opened the door to an empty sidewalk I was a little surprised. It was March and yet no one had told Pennsylvania. The cold hit me all at once, the damp kind that gets into your mended bones and makes them hurt. As the stitch on the left side of my rib cage liked to remind me.

  A clap of thunder boomed overhead, a storm imminent. Shivering, I wrapped my arms around myself and took a small step out, looked left and right, found not a soul in sight. Then I spotted him, a tall lone figure exiting a parked SUV and my heart sighed. He marched toward me wearing an inscrutable expression. Blank but stern? That’s the best way to describe it. His mouth set in a straight, uncompromising line. His eyes hawkish, sharp. I didn’t know what to make of it, but I didn’t have long to wonder.

  The minute he reached me he opened his jacket and wrapped me in it, his heat wiping out the chill in my bones, his scent soothing my shattered nerves. I’d never been so happy to see someone. Walking forward, he carried me inside while I wrapped my arms around his waist and held on for dear life. I tipped up my face and he dropped kisses on the corner of my mouth, the sensitive skin on the side of my throat, my temple.

  “How did you––”

  He snatched the rest of the words from my lips with a kiss. And he didn’t stop. Not when he placed me back on my feet and kicked the door shut behind him. Not when he slipped his jacket off and draped it around my shoulders to warm me up. I hadn’t even noticed how violently I was shaking until he began to rub my back and whisper sweet reassurances in my ear.

  “…I’m here…It’s okay…I’ve got you…I’ve got you, Sunshine…” His body heat clung to the jacket. His scent too. And safety, and comfort, and the rest of the good stuff. I had never felt more cared for in my entire life.

  The tears started all over again. Stinging tears. So thick and viscous I could barely see through them. Scott’s face became a handsome blob.

  Taking my hand, he dragged us over to the foot of the queen-sized bed, sank down on it, and placed me on his lap. His arms wrapped around my waist, mine around his neck. We sat in silence that way for a while, anchored to one another. Like he knew what I needed to gain back my composure.

  “How’d you find me? I don’t mean to imply you’re a scary stalker, but you are exhibiting stalker-like tendencies.” I knew he was resourceful. This, however, was next level.

  He snorted and nuzzled the side of my neck, planted a few quick kisses there before speaking. “My father knew where your grandparents lived. This is the only…” Frowning, he glanced around. “…hotel in town.”

  “I’m impressed,” I told him in all honesty, my gaze drawn to that soft sensual mouth of his like a millennial to Twitter.

  My favorite mouth in the world curled up. “Because I found you?”

  “Because you came…” I tunneled my fingers in his hair and he sighed. “…and because it feels like I’m sitting on a speed bump.”

  He grinned wide and bright. “That happens by rote whenever it’s near you…I missed you.”

  “I missed you too.”

  He breathed deeply and his expression sobered as if he were preparing himself for something unpleasant. His arms tightened around me. “Tell me what happened.”

  I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to think about Josh, or my grandparents, or the horrible memories this place evoked. My brain felt crowded and I needed to clear my browser history. I wanted to feel good and Scott knew how to do that better than anyone.

  Wrapping my hands around his prickly face, I kissed him hard. “I don’t want to talk,” I whispered against his lips. “Not now…not yet. Just make me feel good. Can you do that?”

  For a beat, he searched my face. Then he nodded. The jacket was gently pushed off my shoulders, sliding silently to the ground. Slowly, the ratty t-shirt I was wearing was lifted over my head and tossed to the carpeted floor. With supreme concentration, his calloused fingertips traced the lines of my collarbone so gently a shiver wracked my entire body. I couldn’t wait any longer.

  While our mouths melded, he stripped me bare, laid me down on the crappy motel bed, and undressed himself slowly as I watched him with undisguised glee in my eyes. It was better than any Christmas present I’d ever unwrapped. Gray sweater? Boom, gone. Designer Italian boots? Atta here, kicked off. Jeans? Bye-bye.

  “No underwear?”

  His brow folded in worry. “I was in a hurry to get to you.”

  “Have I ever told you that you’re perfect?”

  “No. But you have called me a royal pain in the ass.” He smiled broadly.

  “Same thing. Come here.” I opened my arms to him. Because he was. With all his faults, Scott Blackstone––sensualist, reformed playboy and dilettante, lover of a good time, environmentalist, and newly minted king of the cattle business––was perfect for me.

  He stood naked and proud. And proudly showing off each delineated line of muscle meeting muscle. His erection jutted out from the rest of him, leading the charge. An instrument of God. A work of art created to give pleasure and take pleasure.

  I thought about what my grandparents would say to that and chuckled. Maybe I was just like my mother after all, a creature of passion and pleasure, a sinner…a hopeless romantic. My grandparents had done everything in their power to beat it out of me and it hadn’t worked. It had gone into witness protection, hiding, waiting for Scott to come along and draw it out in the open.

  “You’re laughing at me?” my dream lover said with a half–cocked grin. God bless him, Scott had such healthy self-esteem it would never even occur to him to be offended. I loved that about him. Gloriously naked, he placed a knee on the bed and stalked up my body.

  “I was just thinking that I must be a lot like my mother because I’ve never seen anything more beautiful than your body––”

  Or your heart…

  I couldn’t say that out loud, though. I was seventy five percent certain that I was one hundred percent in love with him, and I couldn’t risk losing him by letting it slip out in a moment of weakness.

  Truth was, I didn’t know how Scott felt about me. There was care there, a lot of it, sure, I wasn’t blind, and he’d always been a very expressive guy. But love? I was fairly certain Scott had never been in love before. In addition, he was definitely the type to wear his emotions on his face, so wouldn’t I have known if he was? Wouldn’t I have sensed it?

  No, I didn’t think he was in love with me. Not the way I was in love with him.

  “Living art?” he said smugly.

  “The Guggenheim’s got nothing on you, babe.”

  “And all yours, Mrs. Blackstone,” he declar
ed in a husky voice. “Do with me what you wish.”

  Locked on mine, those deep blue eyes of his held steady as his head slowly delved between my legs, his beard sending fireworks shooting across my skin as it scraped the inside of my thigh. My fingers curled into the sandpaper sheet and fisted, my legs stiffening at the feel of his hot breath on me as my heels dug into the mattress.

  By the time his mouth latched on to my sweet spot, I was already halfway to coming. There is something to be said about a man who knows his way around a woman, and not just her body. Before long I was writhing in pleasure, the events of the last forty-eight hours fading into distant background noise while I was having the best sex of my life.

  With his lips and his hands he wrenched a grand total of not one, but two epic Os out of me. Then he went up on his knees and crawled over my body, marking points of interest with his kisses. Pushing my legs apart with his, he settled between them, made a place for himself like it was his right. Scott moved decisively, with the confidence of someone who knew how to give pleasure and ask for it in return.

  Our hips kissed. His erection pressed against me and he rocked his hips back and forth until he’d driven me mad with wanting. Grabbing him, I guided him onto his back and straddled him. He groaned in satisfaction as I slowly sank down. Eye to eye, my body bowed over him, I placed my hands on both side of his head and paused to admire him.

  Scott was devastatingly handsome. I’d watched women fall at his feet for years, but that wasn’t why I found him irresistibly sexy, why I hadn’t pushed him away when he’d kissed me at his sister’s wedding. It was the unencumbered love of life that shone in his eyes. He was unapologetically himself, a fun-loving sensualist. And that I envied. It was contagious. He made me want to have fun too.

  “I’ll always find you,” he murmured, lids heavy, gaze filled with longing.

  Maybe it wouldn’t last. Maybe it would. I wasn’t sure Lady Luck was on my side this time, but I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Not yet anyway.