Good Morning Heartache (25 page)

“Anything. Name it.”

“Could you thank your friend
for me? I never did, and I feel bad. He was really nice about last night.”

“Definitely.”

Riley looked straight at
Alexis with a serious face. “Now… I want to know what happened.”

Alexis turned her mouth up
into a half smile, “I know.” Her eyes never left her coffee. “But let’s do it
on the way to the hospital. The paramedics said that splint was only temporary.
Maybe on the way we can hit Friendly’s and have some ice cream for breakfast.”

“Deal, but don’t think that
you are getting out of telling me what happened.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

§

“We need you back in New
York immediately,” commanded the voice over the phone.

“I’m just wrapping up this
project, and I’ll be back on Monday,” Ryan responded to his boss’s mandate.
Steve Lipenski was a hard ass when it came to business, and Ryan didn’t like
him all that much. He was annoyed that the guy would call on a Saturday,
knowing Ryan was several hours away, and demand that he come into the office
right away. Plus, they would probably waste at least two hours going over
Steve’s various sexual exploits since Ryan was gone, and he didn’t care to hear
about another woman that let Steve subject her to complete humiliation. It was
girls like that who turned Ryan off to the dating scene in New York; none of
them had any self-respect. Once he got back to the city, he’d take a break from
women altogether.

Even though Alexis was
everything he thought a woman couldn’t be, she managed to complicate things
anyway. Though, maybe he was the one complicating things.

“We just got a big account
from the Taggarts,” Lipenski continued as though he hadn’t heard Ryan, “and I
need a project manager. Miller’s a damned idiot. We never should have promoted
him. Get back here now before I decide I’ve made a mistake.” Click.

That guy is the definition
of a jerk, Ryan thought as he shoved his phone into his back pocket. He hadn’t
planned on leaving until the next morning, but he didn’t have any reason to
stay longer. The project was done, sans a few minor details. There was some
touch up painting, and someone had to move the furniture back into the rooms,
but they didn’t need an architect around to do that. Daniel managed to get
everything done right on schedule. There was nothing holding him here, and that
bugged the crap out of him because he was looking for any reason to be held
back.

He tried to convince himself
it was best that he was leaving as he began filling his bags with clothes.

“Going somewhere?”

Ryan looked at his best
friend, unsmiling. “I just got a call from Steve. I have to get back to New
York.”

“You don’t have to. You
could stay here. Be your own boss. We could create a business that blows Pontus
out of the water, and that prick will be working for you.”

Ryan zipped up his duffle
bag. “I got the promotion. They’re putting me in charge of the Taggart project.
It couldn’t get any better than that.”

Daniel leaned against the
door frame. “Then why don’t you seem happy about it?”

Ryan was silent. He didn’t
want to admit anything because he knew that if he stayed it would be the wrong
decision. Alexis wouldn’t have him, and his career would be over.

He didn’t want to go back to
Pontus, to the hustle of the city and work, but it was the only thing he
actually had. Everything else was a fairy tale waiting for an ending. Now, as
much as he suddenly wanted to take it, Daniel’s offer was completely out of the
question. He got the promotion he wanted, and that was better than being close
to a love he could never have.

“You don’t have to tell me,
but I know that it has everything to do with that fat lip you have and a petite
brunette.” Daniel said. “I’ll tell you what I think. I think that you’re too
scared to go after the one woman that you’ve ever let yourself fall in love
with. I think that you fell in love against your will and now you’re not man
enough to own it. I think that you’d rather live alone with a broken heart than
find out how she feels. I think you’re a coward.”

Ryan zipped his duffle and
pulled his bags off the bed. “I think it’s none of your business.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.
You’re my friend, which makes it my business. You can’t just leave without
talking to her first.”

“What’s the point? I know
exactly what she is going to say. She knows I love her. There’s no way that she
wouldn’t have figured it out by now. She probably doesn’t want to see me again.
It’s better if I just go back to my life and try to forget I ever set foot in
Maple Field, Massachusetts.”

“It’s not better if you are
throwing away a great opportunity that you want to take and going back to a
life that you don’t want anymore. I know that you thought being a life-long
bachelor was what you wanted, but people change.”

Ryan smiled half-heartedly. “It
seems to me that no matter what I do, things always end up being the same.
Turns out I’m just like my dad, and even the woman I thought was unlike any
other woman is exactly like my mother. If I leave now and go back to work, she
won’t have the opportunity to abandon any children and I can keep myself out of
the bottle. But if I take this any further, if I pretend that this means
anything to her, we’ll be no different from my parents.”

Ryan pushed past Daniel and
began walking down the hallway.

“Talk to her. I dare you.”

Ryan stopped, turned, and
looked at his friend. “Sorry, I’m not in fourth grade anymore. Lock the place
up before you all leave. I like the people that live here, and I doubt they
would forgive me if their house was ransacked when they came home from their
honeymoon.”

Ryan dug into his pocket and
tossed the keys to Daniel. “I’ll keep in touch.” With all of his strength, he
dragged himself out of the house to his Lincoln, stuffed the bags into his
trunk, and drove out of the long driveway.

He dialed Lipenski’s cell. “I’ll
be there in four hours. Give me the rundown so I can start brainstorming.”

§

Alexis parked the Volvo in
front of the garage, and for the first time in two weeks Caitlyn’s house was
nearly quiet. This is good, she thought. She needed to be alone with Ryan when
she talked to him. She didn’t know exactly want she wanted from him, but she
did know she wanted something. It would be difficult for her to do even without
a house full of construction workers.

Her friend was going to be
pleased. The house was whole again—roof and all, and Alexis was sure Ryan added
at least 1,000 square-feet to the formerly cozy split-level. Apparently, babies
take up a lot of space.

Alexis walked through the
front door into the cool air of the stair landing. Her stomach twisted into
knots. This was foreign territory for her, and she knew that he wasn’t looking
for a romantic relationship—she wasn’t sure that she wanted that either—but
maybe they could figure something else out. Something unique to their situation.

 Alexis was closing the door
when she heard a deep voice behind her. “He’s not here.”

Spinning around, she found
Daniel standing at the top of the stairs. She smiled and let out a disappointed
“oh” then added, “Will he be back soon? I don’t mind waiting for him.”

Alexis began climbing the
stairs, and Daniel disappeared into the living room.

When she reached the top, he
motioned for her to sit down on the couch. “I’m afraid that Ryan isn’t coming
back. He was called back to New York about an hour ago, so he gathered his
stuff and left.”

Alexis tried to maintain her
smile but could hear her teeth chattering with resistance. “I guess there is no
reason for me to sit down then.”

Daniel planted himself in an
arm chair. “I think you should sit for a couple of minutes.”

Too confused to do anything
else, Alexis sat on the edge of the couch. Ryan was gone, he left without
saying goodbye to her, and she felt like she’d just been hit with a bat in the
gut. She was wrong about him. He was exactly what he said he would be and
nothing else. All that weirdness—the lovemaking—was her addition to their
fling, not his.

She put her elbows on her
knees and her face in her hands. How did she let this happen to her again? She
started falling for a guy for the first time in close to a decade, and he takes
off for a job without a proper end to their affair. She gritted her teeth
together to keep from shouting, crying, or vomiting.

As much as she wanted to,
Alexis couldn’t find it in herself to blame him. This was their deal, and he
was the one who followed through. He was a man, and this is what men did.

“Ryan’s mother left when he
was thirteen. It was a dark, damp winter day. According to Ryan, she was always
worse in the winter.

“Ryan and his father were
watching a football game when his mother stormed out of the kitchen and called
her husband a ‘no good, rotten son of a bitch,’ before she slammed the front
door, never to come back. Jackson Webb just sat there, his eyes never left the
television screen.” Alexis looked up at the man who looked too large and
masculine for the wingback chair he was sitting in.

“From that point on, Ryan
had to take care of his father. It wasn't too hard to do that; as long as there
was beer in the fridge, his old man didn't complain. It was taking care of
everything else that wore Ryan down. Grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning,
landscaping, paying bills all fell under Ryan's new duties. It didn’t take him
long before he realized that both of his parents were low-lifes.

Before the age of fifteen,
he had a job, dealt with creditors, managed to get the electricity back on four
times, and pumped water out of the basement twice. The saddest part of the
story is that Jackson never stopped loving Rebecca. Ever. And while he hated
his father for letting love reduce him to a worthless, drunken slob, he
resented his mother more.

“Ryan has no idea if his
mother is alive or dead. The last time he heard from her was a few days after
his fourteenth birthday. She called to scream at him for not sending her a present.
She was, after all, the one who did all the work that day and deserved
something for giving him life. Ryan having no idea where she was wasn’t an
acceptable excuse.

“I met him about ten years
ago, and he’s spent every holiday with my family since. He’s never brought a
date, and as far as I know, you’re the most serious relationship he’s had in
all that time.”

“What are you trying to say?”
Alexis asked, clutching her hands together.

“Just making conversation.”

But Alexis felt ashamed,
like he was blaming her for something. Regardless, she had no reason to be here
anymore, so she stood up. “I should go. Next time you see Ryan, would you tell
him thank you for saving my life?”

Daniel narrowed his eyes at
her as he reached into his back pocket. “I’m starting a business in the state.”
He handed her a dark blue business card. “If you want to make any changes in
your life, give me a call.”

Alexis slid her fingers over
the smooth, stiff card before putting it into her purse. “Thanks,” she said, “but
I like my house the way it is.”

“There’s always room for
improvement. Just call the number on the card when you decide what you want.”
Alexis nodded her head, slid the card into her purse, and walked to the stairs.

When she was seated behind
the wheel of the Volvo, she took a deep breath and stared into the forest
surrounding the property. This was the way it was supposed to be, so why did it
hurt like hell?

Chapter
18

“Have you seen this?”
Caitlyn pointed to the espresso machine on her kitchen counter. “This is top of
the line. I didn’t have one this nice in the coffee shop, and Ryan put one in
my kitchen. And the oven! I will definitely be baking dozens of cookies in that
sucker. You wouldn’t believe the little touches Ryan added to the bedroom. It’s
gorgeous.” Alexis’s best friend had returned from her honeymoon with more of a
glow than she left with and a little bit more of a stomach. It wouldn’t be long
before she had to tell people that she was pregnant. “Did you get to meet Ryan
at all? He’s a workaholic, so it’s possible that you missed him completely.”

“Yeah. We met.” Alexis
averted her eyes down to the new tile floor. She wasn’t really in the mood to
talk about it. He was all she had thought about since she found out he was gone
three days earlier, and she was sick of thinking about him. Alexis hadn’t eaten
much since Ryan left; her stomach couldn’t handle much more than coffee and
water. She tried to attribute it to nerves because of a meeting with her
professor and the editor the next day, but when she was honest with herself,
she knew that wasn’t all.

Alexis had managed to
convince Dr. Lehrer to set up another meeting later in the week. She of course
had to explain everything to her from her sister disappearing to being held
hostage, and after a day’s worth of deliberation and faxed police reports as
proof—a good professor always needed documented proof to excuse an absence—she
told Alexis to be in New York on Thursday under any circumstances, or her
career as a writer be damned.

She looked up at her best
friend whose eyes were narrowing on her. She hadn’t fooled her. Not a bit.

“What happened?”

“It’s the same old story. We
had fun; he left.” She took a sip of the dark liquid. It was a beautiful blend
of rich chocolate and bitter espresso. “I really missed the magic you make
behind that counter. My coffee maker is a little stressed out at having to be
the sole provider for my caffeine addiction for two straight weeks. You can’t
leave again for that long.”