Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
T he days turned into weeks and time lost all meaning as Julia worked relentlessly on her novel. She slept only a few hours a night, many times jerking awake in a cold sweat, Ross’s name upon her lips. She ate when she remembered to, which wasn’t very often.
Twice, she ventured off the mountain to replenish her supplies. There wasn’t a scale in the cabin, but by the looseness of her clothing, she suspected she’d lost at least ten pounds.
After Ross’s departure, it had taken her nearly a week to pull herself from the bed and the deep depression into which she’d sunk. During that week, memories of her parents’ deaths haunted her. She could swear she heard Duke meowing at various times of the day.
The image of Ross’s face when she laughed at his declaration of love tore her heart to pieces.
Convinced she was losing her mind, Julia gave herself up to sleep to avoid the pain—only rousing to relieve herself, eat a few bites of food or throw an occasional log on the fire when the cabin became bone-chillingly cold.
After a week of self-pity, she roused herself enough to leave the sanctuary of her bed and make a plan. In spite of her best efforts not to suffer another debilitating loss, she had. Her own foolish fears had cost her the love of her life—the only man she could ever imagine marrying and having children with.
Refuting Ross’s declaration hadn’t saved her pain, but given it—unbearable amounts of soul-rending, heartbreaking aches that took her breath away. For two days, she plotted and planned, determined to win back the heart of her best friend. With her course set, she sat down to write. Her words were her only weapon, her only power.
In the dark of the night, when she awoke with tears streaming down her face, she sat down to write.
When loneliness ate at her insides like a cancer, she sat down to write.
When the memories of Ross’s arms around her felt like a vise squeezing the life out of her heart, she sat down to write.
Only the novel kept her going.
Once she’d roused herself from depression and risen from her bed, she started taking long walks in the snow, communing with Mother Nature as she felt the wounds of the past slowly heal. There was a lot to be said for the healing effects of the natural world.
Finally, after two months and three more snowstorms, the manuscript was complete. As a butterfly emerges from its cocoon, Julia felt she was coming alive again. Pleased with her efforts, she spent the next four days cleaning the entire cabin from top to bottom and packing up to prepare for her return to the city.
The real world.
Ross.
Driving down the mountain, Julia felt hopeful for the first time in weeks. Taking her time, she traveled back to New York like a lady of leisure, a person with nothing but time on her hands. She emailed her novel to Ross using the free wi-fi at the first Starbucks, then she bought a map and proceeded to take every back road she could find, eschewing the busy interstates in favor of exploring the small towns along the way, even stopping in Easton, Pennsylvania to tour the Crayola Factory. Walking around the displays with a tour group of elementary-school children, she felt very much like a child herself again.
It was as if she were starting her life anew, everything fresh and unique.
Unfamiliar and unexplored.
She took pleasure in the small things. Trying something different to eat at a restaurant. Stopping at overlooks along the way. Watching the arrival of spring and taking in the scenery as she drove—signs of the green season were sprouting up everywhere. A city girl by birth, she’d never fully appreciated all nature had to offer until her time in the cabin.
Riding with the windows down, she inhaled the smells of budding trees, blooming flowers and rain-soaked earth. Smiling, she took delight in everything she saw, feeling as if she were a blind woman who’d suddenly been granted the gift of sight. Even her return to the city—full of hectic traffic-packed streets, cursing, angry commuters, and taxicabs blaring their horns—did nothing to dim her new, happy outlook on life.
For the first time in her life, she felt free. Free to chart her course and achieve her goals. Goals she would stop at nothing to reach.
Entering her apartment exactly one week to the day she left the cabin, Julia dumped her suitcase in her bedroom and ventured out onto her tiny fire escape. Smiling, she yelled “Hello” to the familiar old neighborhood before setting out to unpack her clothing, aware her time in this apartment was waning away.
Changes were coming.
She wasn’t the same broken girl she’d been when she crawled in and decided to call the place home ten years ago. She had money in the bank, a successful career, and options—lots of them.
Reaching over, she flicked on her radio, the sound of Gloria Gaynor belting out “I Will Survive” suddenly permeating the room. Singing along, Julia spent the entire afternoon doing all the chores she’d spent a lifetime putting off—cleaning out closets and file cabinets, putting her old life in boxes, making room for the new one.
The doorbell ringing pulled her away from her work just as the sun was setting outside and her hungry stomach was starting to grumble. A quick peek out the peephole revealed, to her surprise, Ross.
Had he read her manuscript? Was that why he was here?
Taking a deep calming breath, she opened the door. She stepped back to watch him walk in with a large pizza and six-pack of beer.
“Welcome home.” He passed her with barely a sideways glance on his way to the kitchen.
Stunned speechless, she watched as he put the beer in the refrigerator and grabbed a couple of plates from the counter. She silently marveled over the fact she had watched him do this very same thing a thousand times and yet even this simple act seemed different, special.
“Wh-what are you doing here?” she asked, kicking herself for the slight quiver in her voice. Cool, Julia.Very cool.
“It’s Thursday, Jules. Pizza night,” he answered as if she were two slices short of an extra large. “Got a supreme to celebrate your return.”
“I know it’s Thursday, but how did you know I was back?”
“I promised your landlady twenty bucks if she called me when you returned. Got the call this afternoon and settled the debt on my way up.”
“My, aren’t we ingenious?” She smiled tentatively, trying to determine his mood.
“I’m not without my resources.” He returned her smile with a faint one of his own. “You look good.”
Julia felt tears clogging her throat at his words. For once, her own words were failing her. Why couldn’t she say aloud all the things she found so easy to write on paper?
He cleared a spot on the dining table, now cluttered with packed boxes. “Getting a jump on spring cleaning?”
“Something like that. I’m surprised to see you here. I thought after you left the cabin?—”
“I made a promise to you,” he said tightly.
“A promise?”
“I promised you that no matter how things ended in the cabin, we would still be friends. So here I am.”
Although the words sounded friendly, the tone was forced and Julia knew she had quite a bit of making up to do to him. She’d hurt him terribly and yet her heart swelled at the knowledge he would swallow his own wounded pride to keep a promise to her.
Just when she thought she couldn’t love him any more, he blindsided her with kindness, when all she truly deserved was his disdain.
“Ross,” she started, but he stopped her.
“I got your book,” he said, his words hitting her like an exploding bomb. A small cowardly part of her had been hoping he hadn’t read yet.
After all, the novel was their story and despite the fact Ross was standing in front of her, she couldn’t imagine he would want to discuss such a painful topic.
Did he want to continue the fight, rehash the arguments, berate her for behaving like such a fool?
Panic rising inside her, she tried to act nonchalant.
“Great,” she replied, her voice tight.
“It was good,” he added casually. “Really good. But, Brown Eyes—” He looked down at her. When had he gotten so close to her and had he really just called her Brown Eyes? “—you forgot to email me the last chapter.”
“Oh.” She fought the impulse to step away from him. Taking another calming breath, she stiffened her spine. “Actually, I haven’t written the last chapter.”
Clearly confused, Ross merely looked at her for a moment. “You never send me an unfinished manuscript.”
“Well, the thing is,” she kept on, praying she wasn’t blushing like a fool, “I didn’t like the original ending.”
“Original ending?”
“It was terrible,” she added hastily. “I tried it out, researched it, but it didn’t really work.”
“Is that right?” His voice was flat, emotionless. How she wished she could tell what he was thinking.
“In fact, I was hoping you could help me,” she continued.
“Help you?” His voice betrayed nothing to her and she was tempted to shake him, slap him, anything to get some sort of reaction from him.
“Write another one.” Again his face looked as if it were carved from granite. “After all, we were working on this project together.”
“Help you how?”
“I have another idea for the ending.” Her voice sounded strained even to her own ears. She was desperate to say the words her heart was screaming. “But I thought maybe we should research it first.”
“Research.” He repeated the word with such disgust, she considered running away. What if he rejected her and the new ending? What if it was too late to make amends?
“Yes,” she replied quickly before she lost her nerve, “I have part of it scripted out right here.” She handed him a sheet of paper from one of the numerous stacks on the dining-room table.
Glancing at the paper, Ross visibly blanched. “What the hell is this? Didn’t we try this before? What are you hoping for here, Jules? Another opportunity to kick me in the teeth?”
“No. Of course not, Ross.” A lone tear trickled down her cheek. “I don’t want to hurt you again. Ever again. Trust me. Please.”
Ross flinched as she tossed his own words from the cabin back at him. He’d asked for her trust and she’d given it—well, up to a point. Now she was asking for the same.
“Julia,” he started, but stopped as an anguished sob escaped her lips.
“Don’t call me that,” she whispered.
“What?” he asked.
“Julia,” she repeated. “Please don’t call me that.”
Whatever strength had gotten Ross to her apartment and through her front door seemed to slowly seep out of him as he dropped into the chair behind him.
“I don’t know what you want,” he said miserably.
“Just read the paper. Please.” She was well aware of the pleading tone in her voice, but she didn’t care. All she wanted was to finish what he’d started in the cabin, the right way this time. He was silent for so long, she knew she’d lost. He would never forgive her.
“How can you not know how I feel about you?” he started, his voice flat. Startled, she glanced up to see him reading the words on the page she’d handed him.
“Every time I look at you, I see my past, present and future. All I want in the world is wrapped up in you. I love you, Jules. Dammit, I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
Crumpling the paper as the last words fell from his lips, Ross stared woodenly at the floor. He’d risked his heart for her again. Her courageous, handsome hero had given her his heart again. Only this time, she knew what to do with it.
She knelt before him. The tears she’d tried valiantly to hold in began to fall freely. This time she would answer with the words written in her heart.
“Ross,” she said, her voice trembling beneath the tears. “Oh God, Ross, I love you too. More than I can ever tell you. These past couple of months have been hell. I love you so much it hurts and I’m so very sorry. Please forgive me. I never meant to hurt you and I know I don’t deserve it but I swear if you’ll only forgive?—”
No more words came as Ross’s lips descended on hers in a kiss that took her breath away. Julia clung to him as the kiss continued for minutes, maybe hours, both of them trying to prove their love with their lips, their hands.
When they finally parted, Ross laughed as Julia continued to cry—happy tears this time.
Helping her to her feet, Ross crossed the room to grab a box of tissues.
“Blow,” he ordered, wiping her dripping nose.
Following his command, she reached up on tiptoe to place a soft kiss on his cheek. “Please say you forgive me.”
“Jules, there’s nothing to forgive. I wasn’t totally honest in that cabin. I hid my feelings, hoping I could trick you into falling in love with me, rather than simply telling you the truth right from the beginning.”
“When did you realize you loved me?”
“Years ago.” His face broke into a self-deprecating grin. “Talk about your world-class fools. So much wasted time.”
“Well,” Julia answered smugly, “if you’ve taught me anything in the last few months, it’s that anticipation only makes the reward greater.”
Bending down, Ross wrapped her tightly in his arms before picking her up and slowly swinging her around. Julia giggled at his impetuous action.
“I love you,” he said again, spinning her faster, “and you are the greatest reward any man could ever receive.”
“Ross, you lunatic,” she cried, dizzy and giddy, “put me down.”
Placing her back on her feet, he added to her lightheadedness with a kiss that sucked all the breath from her body. His hands loosely framed her face as he worshipped her lips with his. If she lived to be a hundred, this was the kiss she would remember on her deathbed.
“That was a pretty good ending.” For the first time since he walked into her apartment, Julia saw a true glimpse of the real Ross.
“Just pretty good?” she asked.
“Not bad. It works for me.”
“I’m so glad you approve of this one,” she answered.
“Still…” He rubbed his chin as if deep in thought.
“Still what?” she asked, pleased by the return of his fun-loving nature.
“I don’t know. The words were good, but it seems to be lacking something.”
“Oh yeah? Like what?”
“Well, this is an erotic romance. Therefore I think it only fitting that after such a heartfelt declaration, the heroine should prove her love.”
“Prove it how?” Julia asked suspiciously.
“Well, I’m not the writer, of course, but maybe the ending would be stronger if right after her speech, she fell on her knees and gave the hero the best blowjob of his life.”
Julia burst into laughter, shaking her head. “I’m not sure a blowjob would really fit at that particular point in the plotline. Something like that is really better suited to the epilogue.”
Ross groaned. “Epilogue. What is it with women writers and epilogues?”
She smiled. “What do you mean? Epilogues are extremely important to romance novels. Women like to know that things work out in the long run and that the romance doesn’t end with the last chapter.”
“Yeah, well. I suppose you could work the blowjob scene into the epilogue, but I’m gonna tell you right now, it better be one of those ‘later that night’ epilogues and not a ‘five years later’ one.”
Julia giggled. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“You do that.” Ross wrapped his hands in her hair to pull her close. “I’m even going to be a good editor and help you with that epilogue. Like I always say, you can never do too much research.”