Chapter 7 #2
“I’ll do whatever you want, Devon. I’ll leave you alone or we can start over and I’ll be more careful next time.
” She thought he would, but in the long run, she wasn’t so sure.
She wondered if he was capable of attaching to anyone at a deep level after losing his mother at such a tender age, with a cruel father.
Maybe Charlie screwed things up intentionally so no one would attach to him, and he chased away the people who loved him by hurting them.
Anything was possible. She didn’t have a fast answer for him.
“Why don’t you think about it,” she said, and he nodded. She drove away a minute later, thinking about Axel and Charlie.
And Charlie drove home, with tears streaming down his cheeks for the son she had lost, and the grief he had caused her.
—
Charlie visited her the next day at the barn, at her invitation, and they went for a walk on the beach every day. They stayed off painful subjects, and he made her a laugh a few times. And sometimes, they just walked without talking.
By the weekend, she had relaxed, and on Friday night, he took her out to dinner, to the restaurant they had liked the first time they went out.
On Saturday night, he brought lobsters to her house and they cooked them together.
It was a delicious meal, and they drifted slowly closer again, and she let him spend the night.
Their lovemaking was less passionate. It was gentle and tender, with all the feelings he had for her, and she had for him, despite her misgivings about him.
He had new respect for her, and deeper compassion.
They relaxed with each other and he asked her to spend the Labor Day weekend with him on his boat, and she loved the idea.
It was barely big enough for both of them, and had a small cabin.
She knew how much he loved the boat. It was a gem, and his prize possession.
They were both looking forward to it. He had charted out a number of coves and beaches he wanted to explore with her.
They took off on Friday night, after she helped him load the supplies.
She had brought all kinds of treats to eat.
He brought wine, and they shared the cooking.
She loved where they went. They watched sunsets and sunrises together, and made love in the small bunk.
They threw anchor and swam naked off the boat, and he thought he loved her deeply, as much as he could.
His marriage ceased to exist for both of them.
They felt like they were alone in the world.
They came back to the marina on Monday afternoon, and took everything back to his house.
Their three days on the boat together were as perfect as it could get, and had swept away the last of the hurt he had caused her.
She trusted him again. He was flying back to San Francisco the next day, and she was going back to New York.
They spent their last night together at his rented house.
She locked up the barn on Monday night, although she came out for a night now and then in the winter.
“What happens now?” she asked him over breakfast on Tuesday morning.
They had avoided the subject all weekend.
He had a big acquisition deal he was doing in Texas, and an empire to run.
She had back-to-back commissions until Christmas.
“Will you come to New York?” she asked him.
She knew they had a long stretch ahead of them without seeing each other until January, when she did his portrait, if he didn’t visit her in New York before that.
“I’ll try to get to New York when I can, but it won’t be for a while,” he said honestly.
She had no break in her schedule either.
And she didn’t want him to distract her from her commissions.
But the three days on his sailboat would feed them for a while.
It had been so tender and loving. “And we know we’ll have January when I come to sit for the portrait.
Maybe we can go somewhere after that.” She loved the idea, but it would be a long wait until then.
He had let her take dozens of pictures of him on the boat, with the wind on their faces, laughing and talking and working the sails, or at the helm.
She loved the images she’d gotten, better than anything she could have taken in the studio, where photos could look so stiff sometimes. She had taken some videos of him too.
They made love one last time before the cars came for them.
Hers came first, and Charlie held her tightly in his arms. He had promised to call her this time.
He wasn’t going to let her slip away from him again, or hurt her.
She clung to him for a last minute, fighting back tears, wondering if she really would see him again.
“Take care of yourself please,” she said softly.
“I promise. You too.” She got into the car and he watched her drive away. For the first time in his life he knew he was in love and it terrified him. He didn’t want to lose her.
Then he got into his SUV with the driver who was taking him to Teterboro to meet his plane.
He thanked the couple who worked at the house, and left them the big tip he gave them every year.
He told them he would see them next summer.
They liked Devon a lot. She had been very kind to them, polite, warm, and respectful.
They hoped he’d bring her back too. They had never seen him with a woman in the ten years he’d come there.
As Devon rode back to New York in the car, she thought about how perfect Charlie was when she was with him.
He was terrific, warm and loving and open with her.
The big question was if he could maintain it from a distance, or would pull away and run.
The danger with him was that closeness terrified him.
She knew that now. She understood his demons, and her own.
When he hid from her, she felt scared and insecure and abandoned.
That was her demon she would have to wrestle with now, and it was a big one.
And Charlie suffered from the same thing.
In a short time, he had become a powerful force in her life.
They had laid everything bare to each other, and now they were going back to their separate worlds.
She had no idea if the relationship would survive.
He sent her a text while she was still on the road. “Don’t forget how much I love you.”
“Don’t you forget either,” she responded to him. The big question, they both knew, was whether he could hold on to her and not run from the risk of losing her as he had his mother. The four months ahead of them were going to be hard, not knowing when they would see each other again.
She got to New York as he got on his plane, and as it took off and headed to California, Charlie had never felt so alone in his life.
She sent him a text then, and he read it and smiled.
“I’ll be here, waiting for you,” she said.
He hoped it was true, and that he would have the courage to meet her halfway and trust what they had.
As he flew west, as much as he loved her, he wasn’t sure.
Her love for him terrified him and burned him like a flame and yet he needed her warmth and her love desperately.
She was the first woman he had ever truly loved.