A Rocky Path (19 page)

A knock on her door interrupted her train of
thought.

“Come in!” she called out.

Sam walked into the room. He looked great in
a pair of low cut jeans and a tight t-shirt. She could admire him
as a good looking man, but her heart belonged to Patrick. Her heart
didn’t beat faster when Sam was around.

“What are you doing up here all by yourself?
You sure do keep to yourself a lot these days. What’s going on with
you?”

“Nothing, Sam, I’ve just got a lot on my
mind.”

“Come on, Emily, something is bothering you.
You’re distracted by something. You can tell me anything and I
won’t breathe a word to anyone. I promise.”

“Sam, you aren’t exactly the kind of guy that
inspires one to pour out one’s feelings.”

Sam sighed. “Emily, I know that I’m always
joking around and acting silly. I seem to be a really shallow guy
and that’s what I would like everyone to think. But I really can be
a good friend. Not to just anyone, but to people I care about. I
really like you, Emily. I know that there won’t ever be anything
romantic between us, but I still feel like we’re good friends.”

Emily looked at him quizzically. So there was
another side to the carefree Sam she knew.

“Ok, Sam. There’s a man that I’ve fallen in
love with. But our time together is short. I know that he’ll be
leaving soon, and it’s really breaking my heart. We’re trying to
spend as much time together as possible. I was supposed to meet him
last night, but I had to go to the dinner. So I’ll have to wait
until tonight.”

“Why are you keeping this guy a secret? Why
haven’t you brought him to meet us? He could have come to the
dinner with us last night.”

“It’s complicated. Sam, I’ve told you as much
as I feel comfortable telling you. Please don’t ask me any more
about it.”

“Uh oh, he’s married! He has a wife!” accused
Sam.

“No, he doesn’t have a wife. He’s just a
little different. I can’t explain it, just believe me that this is
a strange situation. Maybe someday I can tell you all about it. But
I guarantee you that you won’t believe me!”

Sam stayed with her and they talked for
awhile longer, but he wasn’t able to get her to tell him anything
else about Patrick. After he left, Emily went downstairs and looked
at the portraits. This was the first time she had looked at them
since she knew that the picture was really Patrick. She studied the
portrait of Bridgett. As she looked at it, she kept finding fault
with every feature. Her eyes were too close together, her lips were
too thin, her hair was too blond. She smiled at herself. She had no
reason to be jealous of this woman. Patrick loved her now, and much
more than he had ever loved Bridgett.

She couldn’t wait until she saw him tonight.
She would shower him with love and kisses. And she would stay with
him until morning.

Finally, dinner time rolled around. She ate
with everyone else and tried not to act too excited. She didn’t
want them to suspect anything. She was going to be out all night
and she hoped no one would miss her. Then she could pretend that
she had been at the house all along.

After dinner, Emily went to her room to get
dressed for her adventure. She could barely contain her excitement.
The thought of seeing Patrick always affected her this way. This
time was worse because she hadn’t seen him last night.

She snuck quietly down the stairs. Everyone
was in the library and she was careful not to let any of them see
her. She opened and closed the door softly. Then she hurried down
to the rocks and to the cave.

“Patrick, I’m here!” she called. “Patrick,
where are you?”

There was no answer, so she entered the cave.
What she saw in the cave shocked her to the core. Everywhere she
looked there was destruction. The blanket was torn into shreds. The
pillows were ripped to pieces, and there was foam everywhere. The
candles were broken into pieces and the glass holders were
shattered. What had happened here?

“Patrick!” she called more urgently. “What
happened? Patrick, can you hear me?”

There was no sign of him anywhere. She sank
to the cold ground. She couldn’t figure out what had happened. Had
Patrick done this? Why? Had someone else found the cave and
destroyed everything? What possible motive would anyone else have
to do something like that?

She felt tears springing to her eyes. Where
was Patrick? Why wouldn’t he come to her? She gathered up the
remnants of the blanket and made a bed the best she could. Then she
curled up on the pieces of blanket, hoping that Patrick would come
soon. Surely he would be here. The note she had written to him had
said that she would be here tonight. She slowly drifted off to
sleep, hoping she would see Patrick when she woke up.

* * *

Emily woke up stiff and sore from sleeping on
the hard, cold ground. She was freezing! She wondered how long she
had been asleep. Surely not that long. She looked at her watch and
gasped with shock. It was five o’clock in the morning! Where was
Patrick?

“Patrick, please come to me!” she cried. “Why
are you doing this?”

Tears of frustration sprang to her eyes. She
and Patrick had been so happy, enjoying each other’s company. What
had happened? She couldn’t imagine what could have caused Patrick
to do this. Everything was fine the last time they were
together.

Emily painfully walked back up the trail and
to the house. She slipped in quietly and went to her room without
anyone seeing her. She had to work this morning, so there wasn’t
much use in going to bed. She showered and dressed, then went down
to the kitchen. She made coffee and took a couple of ibuprofen. She
was aching all over. After she had drunk a couple of cups of coffee
and the pain medicine had kicked in, she started to feel human
again.

She sat at the table and thought about
Patrick while she was drinking her coffee. The hurt she was feeling
was breaking her heart. She couldn’t believe this had happened.
Would he ever come back? Had he decided just to go away and not
tell her? She couldn’t believe he would do that to her. There had
to be some reason. And she was determined to find out what that
reason was.

The rest of the gang came downstairs after
awhile. Sam looked at Emily and lifted an eyebrow. She usually
thought that one eyebrow thing was cute, but this morning it just
irritated her. She frowned at him and he looked away. She was ill
tempered this morning, so everyone decided it would be best to just
leave her alone. That suited her just fine.

After breakfast, she went upstairs to the
office and worked quietly. When Rebecca came in to work, Emily just
nodded at her and didn’t say a word. The rest of the day passed in
a similar manner, and everyone just left her alone. She knew
everyone must think she was the moodiest person they had ever met.
But they didn’t realize what she had been going through.

That night she went back to the cave, hoping
to find Patrick. She called to him for more than half an hour. This
was beginning to seem familiar-she had done this once before when
she was trying to get Patrick back. Was she going to have to jump
in the water and try to drown herself to get him to come back
again?

She walked despondently through the cave and
then by the water. She had never felt so horrible in her life. How
had this happened to her anyway? How had she fallen in love with a
ghost, a man she could never really have? Could things possibly get
any worse? Was this all just a nightmare that she would wake up
from and find herself in bed with her husband?

She finally resigned herself to the fact that
she wasn’t going to be able to find Patrick. She thought that
perhaps she had lost him forever, without even being able to tell
him goodbye. Tears slipped from her eyes and down her cheeks. She
felt as if the world was dropping out from under her and she was
falling into an abyss of despair.

“Goodbye, Patrick,” she whispered softly.
Then she walked back up to the house and didn’t look back.

Chapter Twenty Nine

Two weeks passed by without any word from
Patrick. Emily had moped and cried for the first week, but she
realized that life had to go on and she had a job and an obligation
to her employer. So she pulled herself up out of her grief and
started to go on with her life. She was always sad now, but she did
her job quietly and efficiently. She wasn’t the same woman she had
been before, but she never gave anyone any reason to question her.
She just stayed out of everyone’s way.

One evening, she went out to the garden to
take a walk. She stood at the top of the steps that led down to the
water, but she didn’t venture any farther than that. Sam came out
of the house and stood beside her.

“Want to talk about it?” he asked.

“No. I just want to be left alone for awhile.
I’ll be alright. It will just take time.”

“So your lover is gone now?”

“Yes, he’s gone. He left before I thought he
would, and he didn’t say goodbye.”

“Emily, I know you’re hurting. But life has
to go on. I wish you would go out with Jamie and me. We’ve asked
you several times this week, but you never say yes.”

“I just don’t feel like doing anything right
now. I wouldn’t be very good company.”

“Come here,” he said and gathered her into
his arms. He felt safe and strong.

“Well, I guess I was right.”

Emily sprang out of Sam’s arms and whirled
around. There was Patrick, halfway up the steps, his face a mask of
fury.

“Patrick!” she exclaimed as she rushed to
him.

As she tried to put her arms around him, he
pushed her away.

“What’s wrong with you? I called for you and
you never came. You’ve been gone for two weeks and now you’re
pushing me away? What’s happened?”

His face was like stone as he said, “You
didn’t come that night after you promised you would. I waited and
waited and you never came and I didn’t hear from you. I realized
that you had decided that you didn’t really want to be with me. I
thought perhaps you had taken up with this fellow here. I see that
I was right.”

“What? What are you talking about? I left you
a note! And I haven’t taken up with anybody.”

“I just now found you in his arms.”

“Wait a minute,” said Sam. “I was just
comforting her because of what you had done. How could you have run
off and not even said goodbye?”

“This is none of your concern,” said Patrick
coldly.

“Not my concern? Are you kidding me? You
stand there and accuse me of messing around with Emily, and then
you say it’s not my concern?”

“Stop it!” cried Emily. “Patrick, I left you
a note on the blanket. I weighted it done with a rock so it
wouldn’t get lost. I had to go to a dinner because Rebecca and Sam
were speaking and I was expected to be there. I didn’t get back
until late and I was tired. I didn’t think you would want me to
come to see you that late. I needed to go to bed. I came back the
next evening and found the cave in shambles. Did you do that?”

Patrick looked away. “I was so angry that you
didn’t show up. I convinced myself that you had left me for someone
else and I lost control. I destroyed everything I could get my
hands on.”

“Look,” said Sam, “I think I need to go back
to the house and let you two work things out. Emily, are you going
to be okay out here?”

“I’ll be fine. Patrick would never hurt
me.”

Sam left them then. Emily went up to Patrick
and touched his arm hesitantly.

“Patrick, after all the things we’ve said and
done, how could you not trust me? How could you think that I would
go to another man when I love you more than anything?”

He looked at her, and there was pain and
regret in his eyes. “I’m so sorry I doubted you, Emily. All I could
think of was that you didn’t show up after you had said you would
be there. So many years ago, Bridgett hurt me so badly. I guess I
just couldn’t believe I was lucky enough to find a woman that would
be so devoted to me.”

“You should never have doubted me, Patrick.
There was supposed to be trust between us.”

Patrick couldn’t meet her eyes. “Can you ever
forgive me? Or have I ruined everything that we had together by one
act of distrust?”

She reached out, put her fingers under his
chin and lifted his face up so that he had to look at her.

“Patrick, what you did was hurtful. You
didn’t trust me, and then you stayed away no matter how much I
called for you. It’s hard for me to understand what you did.”

“Emily, I couldn’t hear you calling for me.
There’s a place I can go. It’s just at the edge of this world and I
can just exist there with no one seeing me. I didn’t know you
wanted me to come back. The only way I can connect with you when I
am there is if something triggers it. Once it was when you were
drowning. This time was when I thought you were in the arms of
another man. I was jealous of this man anyway, so when I sensed he
was holding you, it pulled me back.”

“You really didn’t know I was looking for
you?”

“No, I didn’t know. Look, I know I should
have trusted you and I feel very foolish now. I don’t know why I
was thinking those things about you. Please, Emily, I need you to
forgive me. I will never distrust you again. I promise I will
always have faith in you and our love.”

Emily wrapped her arms around his waist and
laid her head down on his chest. She could feel his heart pounding
in her ear.

“I forgive you,” she whispered.

* * *

Emily and Patrick lay together on a new
blanket that he had somehow come up with. There were new pillows,
too. His arms were wrapped tightly around her, his lips against her
hair.

“I keep wondering how you come by these
blankets and pillows. And you brought new candles, too. I was only
in the house for a few minutes before I came down to the cave. How
could you have gotten all this stuff in that short period of
time?”