Mayne Attraction: In The Spotlight (37 page)

So the truth about the packages wasn’t like
a monster after all. Instead it was a happiness to learn the real
identity of my generous and humorous secret admirer. But it also
meant I’d been wrong about whom to be grateful to.

“Those were from you?” My words were still
catching up with my thoughts.

“Who did you think they were from?”

He laughed like I’d said something
funny.

“Well, it was hard to tell. There was never
a return address or card inside, Gray. Did you forget you were
dealing with me, and that I’m not the brightest bulb in the
fixture?”

He shook his head in disagreement.

“You’re as brilliant as the sun…and just as
warm.”

The smolder in his eyes was back in full
strength.

“I have something else for you, another care
package, sort of,” he said as he pulled something small out of his
pocket.

“This is something I had specially made,
just for you. I designed it myself. I’ve always imagined giving it
to you here, in this place.”

His eyes were bright with enthusiasm.

Then he took my left hand and slipped a ring
on the third finger.

How unbelievably surreal was that?

When I examined my hand, my heart skipped a
beat and then screeched to a halt. It was exactly the same ring as
the one I already owned, with one notable exception. The gemstone
was not aquamarine. It was deep pink, nearly magenta in tone,
perfectly flawless and without equal. I couldn’t take my eyes off
it, trapped in stunned amazement.

Gray was extremely pleased at this reaction
and he reached over to pull me in and kiss the top of my head.

I knew what it was, but I still couldn’t
believe what I was seeing. Bixbite. He’d actually had a bixbite
ring made—for me!

Grandpa found a piece of bixbite on a
mineral-collecting trip he’d taken years ago. I’d heard the story a
hundred times; it was my very favorite. That rock was his most
prized possession, and he had some sweetheart possessions when it
came to his rock collection. He’d found his one and only bixbite
specimen in the Thomas Range, a mountainous area in the western
desert of Utah, one of only two places it has ever been found.

Bixbite is so rare, so scarce, that it holds
the distinction as the rarest gem on earth. In fact, it’s so rare
that most people have never heard of it. Despite that it’s highly
valuable due to its unique beauty and extreme scarcity. And this
specimen, resting on my finger (very heavily all of the sudden) was
almost three carats in size, and possibly the largest cut piece of
bixbite on earth. And it was on my hand! I’d felt ill when I
realized how much Ash had paid for my aquamarine…now I felt
terminal.

“Do you know what that is?” Gray asked,
smiling, and looking just slightly smug.

“Bixbite,” I whispered, as if in the
presence of great majesty.

“That’s right.”

He seemed slightly surprised, but he gave a
short laugh of pleasure and said, “I’m glad you know your gems. It
saves me the trouble of explaining the similarities between you and
this little treasure. Though, all the descriptions would be
interchangeable: perfect, pure, and priceless. I could be talking
about you or the stone.”

His eyes burned with sincerity as he
spoke.

I gasped for breath like I was being held
under water. Then I started to take the ring off, but he stopped me
with gentle yet irresistible finality, holding my right hand by the
wrist.

“Gray, I can’t wear this. I don’t want to be
responsible for this. It should be in a museum. There are people
who would bite my finger off for this!”

He laughed with pleasure, totally blowing
off my fears and insecurities.

“Ellie, this isn’t ‘The One Ring.’ It was
made in North Carolina, not Mordor. But if it makes you feel any
better, I’ll keep an eye out for Gollum,” he said as he made a show
of looking over his shoulder.

It was funny, but I couldn’t laugh. I still
couldn’t breathe.

“Besides, you can’t give back what’s already
yours—it’s your inheritance.”

He smiled like it was an inside joke.

“Now what are you talking about?”

He was speaking in riddles, it seemed.

“Did you know that your Grandpa found a
piece of bixbite?”

“Yes?”

“My dad told him about my hobby—ring
design—and he sent the raw piece of bixbite to me, to have it cut
and set, for you. In fact, I received the uncut stone the month
before he died. It was ironic because I had already made a ring for
you: a very rare aquamarine. But when this came along…well, I had
to start over, but I’m glad I did. I knew this would mean more to
you. It would represent the people who love you, who know that the
real treasure…is you.”

My mind had been racing hard to keep up with
all the new information. Finally, it spun out. Everything I
believed ten minutes ago had been knocked askew, like a curling
stone pushed out of the bull’s-eye and off the course.

Every single real thing I’d attributed to
Ash had actually come from Gray. Who really knew me so well, and
who was I truly in love with after all? This was a far bigger
question than my rapidly collapsing mind would be able to contain
or contend with. I was scrambling to get a handle on the moment,
and on my feelings about my recently revised frame of
reference.

“So tell me about this other boy. Did you go
to school with him?”

I guess I should have seen that line of
questioning coming.

“No, he didn’t go to Eastern. He lives in my
neighborhood, though.”

Truth.

I knew I had to tell the truth. It was
already bad enough without lies to make it worse.

“What’s his name?”

Gray was all interested politeness.

“Ash.”

It felt strange to speak of him, especially
to Gray.

“No last name?” he asked, nudging me.

“Why? Are you going to Google him?”

The hackles were making another stand.

“Just curious.”

Gray was still emitting friendliness. When I
didn’t answer he asked, “So, how old is he?”

I shrugged.

“You don’t know how old he is?”

There was a strange undercurrent in his
tone, something more than disbelief.

“I didn’t card him when I met him, Gray.
He’s older than me. So is everybody else. So what?”

He seemed to consider my answer, though I
couldn’t translate his expression. He dropped it and moved on.

“What do you like about him?”

I thought about how I would be enjoying this
conversation if I were having it with Sam. Now it felt like I was
walking on eggshells, or landmines. But I pushed ahead with the
honesty, trying to be tactful.

“Ash makes me feel very…happy and safe. He’s
kind of serious. In fact he’s the only person I’ve ever met who’s
easier to tease than me. It took a while, but he’s finally starting
to understand my sense of humor now.”

Gray raised an eyebrow and grinned,
definitely in on the joke.

I continued, “He’s a big reader, always
suggesting books that I end up loving. He speaks several languages,
so he can recite love poems to me in French and Italian, or just
make some up, and I like that. He grew up in Australia, so he loves
all the same Aussie bands and actors that I do.”

I’d been watching Gray’s reactions to the
things I’d said, but now I had to look away, back down to the
lake.

“He’d never dated anyone before me. He’s a
virgin, like me, and very strict about keeping it that way until
we’re married. I really like that.”

“Wait a minute. You’ve already had a
conversation about getting married?”

The friendliness was completely gone.

“Sure. It was one of the first things we
talked about, in our first conversation, in fact. He was trying to
explain his interest in me, and his intentions. It was nice to know
going in that he had long-term commitment in mind.”

Gray was lost in his thoughts for a very
long time. I thought maybe he was done asking about it, and I was
starting to feel relieved.

“So, do you have plans to marry him?”

The ‘All Clear’ was revoked. The sound of
his question didn’t have that false sense of friendliness anymore,
but Gray’s tone was still even, and in control. In fact, he was
unnaturally calm and easy given the situation. I was afraid to
answer his question, but my hesitation indicated the reply as
clearly as if I’d actually spoken the words.

He abruptly pulled me inside his arms and
hugged me tight, kissing the top of my head, as though he were
comforting me after I’d received tragic news, as opposed to being
the recipient of such a declaration himself.

“No!” he pleaded.

It was heartbreaking. I thought about the
wire crossing, about the patience and restraint he had shown on my
behalf; about the perfect little ‘I Love You’ care packages he’d
faithfully sent me, month after month, but received no credit for;
about the time and effort he’d gone through to bring me here today;
about the fabulous, priceless heirloom on my finger that confirmed
my feelings for him and my feelings for my grandpa would somehow
always be connected, brought together in platinum and diamonds and
bixbite in a perfect fit.

And I thought about the pinnacle of
injustice: the engagement ring in my pocket; the one he had
designed for me, which somehow his rival, employed for the chief
purpose of keeping suitors at bay, had obtained and used to secure
me!

I was overwhelmed. The future I used to
dream about with Gray at its core, the one I had mistakenly laid to
rest in tears and pain, was now looking me in the face, here for an
accounting of all my actions. Now it occurred to me that I might
have engaged myself to the wrong person.

How could this have happened? It was so
unfair!

As if he could hear the words as I thought
them, he asked, “Is there any way you would be willing to
reconsider your options, before you get married?”

That was a far more generous request than I
would have been able to make, if our positions were reversed. He
had moved his face so that it was level with mine, just inches
away, searching my eyes, desperately seeking the answer to his
question.

Just like always, the hot tears falling on
my skin shocked me. Then my instinct, overpowering and undeniable,
shocked me again. I grabbed Gray’s face and kissed him as hard as I
could. That was silly though, because I didn’t really know what I
was doing. Fortunately, Gray knew exactly what he was doing and I
let him take over. It was far more intense and intrusive than a
kiss from Ash, but then I guess their kissing styles were
representative of their personalities.

It felt horrible and heavenly at the same
time. Horrible because I was breaking a promise to someone who
loved me dearly, while enjoying every second of it. Heavenly
because I was breaking that promise with someone who loved me
dearly, who seemed to be enjoying every second of it as much as I
was.

How could this possibly work out? We
couldn’t all win. Someone’s loss would be my own and it would be
very bad. There was no way for me to have complete happiness now,
no matter what happened next. I realized that my behavior didn’t
warrant happiness now, and it would quite likely spoil the
happiness of whoever walked away with me. Maybe that was how it
would be: no one got to be happy.

After he’d had his way with me, in the way
you might expect when out in the open with people coming and going
every so often, and two Austrians about a quarter mile away on the
other side of the lake facing our direction taking pictures…

After my introduction to being kissed by
Gray, he pulled me onto his lap, and I sat facing the water,
recovering for a while. I felt intensely happy but immensely
guilty. I was going to have to get myself together, especially my
weak knees, if I wanted to maintain my status as a visitor and not
a resident of this place.

Just like at Lake Louise, I was surrounded
by incredible beauty and managed to see nothing while I walked on
autopilot, mostly hand-in-hand with Gray, up and out of the Lake
Oesa basin to the trail that led back down to Lake O’Hara. It was
very slow going. Every so often he would stop and kiss me again,
holding my waist, or my shoulders or, most often, my face. The
intense waves of pleasure followed by the agony of guilt was nearly
too much for me. Gray probably thought I was a victim of first
love, and in a sense, that was actually true.

He was generally a good-natured,
enthusiastic sort of person, and he was the same now, just turned
up a couple of notches so that he was levitating slightly. I would
have been like that too if the tremendous guilt I felt hadn’t been
weighing me down, like heavy baggage. Or maybe the weight was from
my own feet, dragging and stalling, trying to delay what I knew
would be an impossible task: returning to the hotel and facing
Ash.

Every so often I would become aware that I
was shaking and I would try to will myself to stop. The adrenaline
and whatever other self-produced drugs flooding my system made me
feel something more than just high. I felt a powerful desire to run
away from Gray but also to hold him and kiss him. I wanted to cry
and laugh, and then scream and sigh. I was a mess.

While standing around in the parking lot
waiting for the shuttle bus with the other hikers, Gray was very at
ease and open with his affection for me, though it was far more
toned down than it had been up at Lake Oesa. I squirmed around
hoping he would get a clue, and knowing him, he probably did, but
it didn’t translate into better behavior on his part. When I was
too embarrassed to let him kiss me in front of other people any
more, I turned my back on him and tried to step away, but he reeled
me back in, holding me from behind in a warm inescapable hug around
my arms just below the shoulders, with his chin resting on my
head.