Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
W hen the house came into view as I walked back from the meadow, Layla was waving excitedly at the front door. Next thing I knew, she started running toward me. Seeing her welcome lifted my heart and I bent down, holding my arms wide, waiting patiently to receive her into them.
When she reached me, I enveloped her in a loving embrace and spun her in fast circles on the lawn. I’m almost sure her high-pitched screams and infectious giggles were heard for miles.
“Stop, Daddy. Put me down,” she shouted in protest, but I knew it was all for effect because the look of glee on her face assured me she never wanted me to stop.
“Oh, I don’t know. I could do this all day,” I teased, but obviously I couldn’t. She was growing fast, and the weight and orientation meant I almost lost my footing. Placing her on the ground, I watched her stagger dizzily until she fell on her ass. I chuckled.
“What’s gotten into you today?” she asked, mimicking something Harper would have said to her.
I grinned then tried to bite it back and looked at her more seriously. “You. You’ve gotten into me. Can’t I spend time with my favorite girl without you busting…” I stopped because I had been about to say ‘busting my balls’ then remembered who I was talking to.
“What? Busting what? Your balls?” I stared wide-eyed and almost swallowed my tongue.
“Where did you learn that?” I asked, running my hand through my hair, guilt-ridden.
“You. You say it to… Matty, Harper, and Uncle Dorian,” she replied with her hands—one on her hip and one counting each person on her fingers. “What does it mean anyway? What balls? I’ve never seen them, where do you keep them?”
If ever there was a moment when my words had come back and bitten me in the ass, it was at this precise second.
“It’s only a saying, Baby,” I offered, trying to dismiss it.
“Well you say it a lot .” She paused, blinking for effect as she thought more about it. “You say it so much, if there really were balls, there would be none left to bust.”
I couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped my lips. “You’re so right. I really need to say something else when people are getting my goat.”
“Who’s getting your goat? You’ve got a goat?” she asked excitedly, her eyes big as saucers and her face full of expectation.
“What? No. No goat… another saying… never mind.” I sighed and looked down at her innocent little face, knowing in my heart Grace was right. I owed it to Layla to do better. “Let’s go to the house. Do you know what’s for dinner?” I asked swiftly changing the subject.
“Meatballs and sketti,” she immediately replied. “I wanted mac and cheese, but Harper said I’d turn into macaroni, but sketti is the same thing just designed differently.” Her rationale was spot on; pasta was pasta no matter how it was shaped.
When I pushed open the front door, the heat from inside engulfed me. I stepped aside, letting Layla walk in first. “Boots off, young lady,” Matty called from the kitchen.
“All right, stop busting my balls, I’m doing it,” Layla shot back.
Coughing back a laugh, I gave her ‘the look’ that warned her she’d gone too far, and she bowed her head to look down at the floor. The last thing I wanted was me admonishing her right before I went away, so I scooped her up and whispered in her ear. “You can only say that to me, Baby Girl.”
“I’m doing it,” she called over my shoulder to Matty again, and I smiled in awe at how quickly she caught on.
Wandering into the kitchen with Layla in my arms, the wickedly mouthwatering smell of basil, garlic, and red wine permeated the air and my stomach groaned as pangs of hunger shot through me.
“Smells delicious,” I told Matty as I stood Layla down on her feet. Matty gave me a second look and frowned, and I guessed she had noticed I’d been crying again.
“Can you help set the table?” Harper asked Layla as I slid onto the stool next to the fridge, leaned over, and pulled a beer out from the already open door.
Twisting the bottle cap with my teeth, I took a long drag from the cool, bitter tasting liquid.
“One of these days, you’re gonna give yourself a cavity doing that,” Matty scolded.
“Yeah, I suppose,” I mused, checking out the cap on the counter and chugging down the rest of the beer.
“Dinner is set,” Matty informed us and dished it up into large serving bowls.
“Go wash up, Layla,” Harper told my daughter.
“You too,” Matty prompted in my direction.
Nodding, I slid off the chair and wandered around to the sink.
“Not here,” she scolded stepping in front of it. “I prepare food here,” she reminded me.
Shaking my head, I turned and wandered out of the kitchen and down the hall to the first available bathroom, washed my hands, checked out my red-rimmed eyes, and returned to the kitchen.
Harper placed a huge platter of cheesy garlic bread—Layla’s favorite—at the center of the table and sat down. Matty followed suit with deep dishes full of her amazing meatballs and lightly buttered spaghetti. Turning back, she placed a large bowl of grated Parmesan cheese near my setting and stood back wiping her hands.
“There, I’m done for the day. Cole, I’ll see you in the morning. I hope everyone has a great night.” We all called out our goodbyes as Matty left and turned our attention to our food.
“Delicious,” Harper groaned, slumping back and sliding down her chair; her hand over her stomach, she looked totally sated from the taste of her food.
“Yum,” Layla agreed, her clothes splattered in Bolognese sauce with a face to match, “I’m stuffed.”
When Harper was finished she stood up from the table, pulled Layla’s chair out, and helped her to her feet. Lifting her sweater over her head, I noted the tiny sparks of electricity as her hair made static electricity from the wool.
“Yikes,” Layla commented and laughed as her hair crackled for a few seconds before she quickly smoothed it down.
“Bath time,” Harper informed her, “I’ll go start it, Honey. Don’t forget to come up before the water gets cold,” she added. Without looking at me, she left the room and Layla came around the table and climbed up on my knee.
Placing her hands on my face like she always did when she had something serious to say, I waited patiently for her to let me know what was on her mind.
“You won’t forget me when you go to work tomorrow will you, Daddy?”
Her words crushed me. “Baby, look at you. I could never forget you, not even if I wanted to. You’re so precious, you know that?”
“Mm-hm,” she muttered, not totally convinced.
“Baby, it’s three weeks. Twenty-one sleeps. Now I know you can count to twenty-five, because we did that leading up to Santa’s visit, right?” She nodded. “So, you can count the sleeps down until I get back, and meanwhile I’ll Skype every day.” I watched her consider my reply in the intelligent little way she had, and she nodded again.
“Okay, I won’t be sad because I’ll still see you every day and you came back last time, so I know you’ll come back.” My heart squeezed again at how grown-up she was attempting to be about me leaving.
“Baby,” I said, taking her tiny hand and placing it over my heart, “You feel my heart beating?” She nodded. “Every single beat in here has your name on it. Every single pause in between is your smile. I’ll be back before you know it, and we’ll do something fun together, okay?”
Nodding again, she squeezed my cheeks together, pursing my lips, and she rapidly peppered a bunch of small kisses over them. She kept on doing it and I had no idea what was going on in her head. Eventually she stopped. “I lost count, but I think there’s enough there to last until you come home,” she informed me, and I realized the significance of what she had done.
Feeling my throat close, I knew I had to move before I broke down and cried again, so I set her down on her feet and began running toward the stairs with her. “Thank you. Now we need to move before we both get into trouble with Harper for letting the bath get cold.”
With Layla in bed, I packed the last few things I intended on taking with me and stowed them neatly in Stuart’s car. He had left it open outside the house, ready for me to load, and was driving me to the airport to meet the guys at the private airplane. I closed the trunk, went straight back inside, and up to my bedroom.
Stripping off my clothes, I took a hot shower, dried myself off and lay naked on my bed. Even though it was a bitterly cold February night outside, my bedroom felt stiflingly hot. I flipped through the TV channels on my remote and lay back to watch a biographical documentary on David Bowie to distract myself from darker thoughts. It must have worked because I don’t remember falling asleep.
My TV timing out woke me up. The room was in darkness, but somehow, I knew I wasn’t alone. My bedroom door was ajar and there was a distant light somewhere down the hall. “Layla, is that you, Baby?” I asked shifting onto my side and pulling the comforter over the lower half of my body.
“It’s me,” Harper mumbled in a low tone.
“Harper? What are you doing in here? What’s wrong?” Shifting up onto my elbows, I tried to focus in the dark.
“Nothing,” she sighed, “No, that’s a lie, everything. I’m sorry. I heard the TV from outside and I knocked, but when I opened the door, it switched off. I thought you did it when you saw me come in.”
“No, I was asleep, it timed out. What can I do for you?”
Harper chuckled in the dark, “You can’t say stuff like that, Cole.” I got the double entendre as soon as she said this and my dick bounced with interest against my leg. The flirty sound of her voice tugged at an invisible cord inside of me, sending sparks of possibility I was tired of fighting.
“Why are you here?” I asked, trying carefully to keep any encouragement from my voice.
“To make things right between us.”
I sighed because the attraction that had built between us during the previous months, and the subsequent rift it had caused, was torturing us both.
“What do you want me to say, Harper? You’re a beautiful girl. But you’re the light to my dark. We would never work, and I’m leaving tomorrow.”
“Which is why I decided this couldn’t wait another day. You may meet someone…”
“You deserve way more than I can offer. More than I’m ready to give… may ever be ready to give.”
“Noted. I get you.”
Walking past the window, her slender silhouette cast a darker shadow as she moved across the room; then I felt the mattress dip near my knees.
Drawing in a deep breath, I sighed. “Harper, this is not a good idea. If you stay in here, I guarantee you this won’t end well,” I warned, feeling my restraint slipping.
“If I stay here, it could be the start of something,” she argued.
“Is that what you think? The start of what? More heartache for me? For you, when I make you feel you’re second best for my affections? Do you really want to compete with a ghost? If not, then it’s exactly why you shouldn’t be here. Have you not been listening to me?”
“I’ve listened, Cole, and I’ve made my own observations, years of them. Don’t you think I’ve tried to be objective about this, wondering if this isn’t some stupid crush I’ve developed for the unobtainable? After six years, very long years I might add, I’m sure it’s not.”
“I’m your employer for Christ’s sake, my daughter relies on you.” I knew it sounded conceited and aloof because we both knew she was more than this.
“Despite what you say, your actions speak louder than words. Verbally, you’ve been extremely clear in what you don’t want to happen, but how you’ve behaved, the way you almost lost it on Christmas night, how you’ve avoided being in the same room as me…” She left the rest of the explanation for me to decipher. “We both know this attraction isn’t superficial, even if you tell yourself it is.”
I closed my eyes to shut out my feelings, even though she couldn’t see my face in the dark. Deep down I always knew Layla wasn’t the only reason for not being with Harper, that reason alone would never have stopped me in the past. It was because when I was with her I had started to feel things, other things; she stirred my emotions in ways I felt uncomfortable with.
I felt frustrated by the way my body reacted around Harper and hated the thoughts I had no business having. They weren’t welcome. When I looked at her she triggered butterflies, excitement, dark moods, and feelings of guilt and disloyalty to my late wife.
Harper’s advances had also prompted me to face the fact that I was conflicted between feeling excited and the need to cling to a memory because I was petrified I was falling from Grace. Falling away from a part of my life so significant it had paralyzed my soul and rendered me terrified of opening my wounded heart to someone else.
My raw attraction for Harper left me with an ache of want in my stomach and a heart torn in half between grief and something else— possibility.
I had tried everything to resist this beautiful, trusting woman who was willing to take a chance with someone as damaged as me. Why was I resistant? Grace was gone. There was a wall around my mind and I’d hid behind it for so long, I had no idea how to behave. I knew if I stepped out in front of it the world would have changed.
I was torn between being with a gorgeous girl made of real flesh and blood and remaining loyal to a ghost. Yet, the letter from my wife had spelled it all out. I had her blessing. Facing my denial meant admitting my thoughts and fantasies no longer included Grace. They were unequivocally full of Harper.
Lastly, the passionate memories of my time with Grace were fading and no longer wounded me in the same way that they had; replaced by my curiosity and wonder of how it would feel to face my vulnerabilities about falling for Harper. Is this what’s happening?
When the mattress decompressed as Harper stood, I figured my words had done the trick and she had risen to leave. I heard her move away, but when I saw a glimpse of her frame fleetingly move past the door and the crack closed, and the sound of the lock engaging told me this wasn’t the case.
When I felt the mattress dip again, this time the impression deeper on Grace’s side of the bed, something inside me snapped. The last thing I would have done was take any woman in the bed that had held so many memories of my wife. The bed where Layla was conceived… the bed where we drew plans for a family and had lived, laughed, and loved.