Affairs & Atonements (16 page)

He moved aside to let her pass. She stood riveted at her spot though, her legs growing numb and wobbly. His words had hit her directly into her heart. He had said them once before.
By the way, thanks for the fuck. It was great
, she recalled their first night together as a couple. And despite his callousness, she still loved him.

She bit her trembling lips and started towards the door.

“Christy,” he said firmly. “If you walk out of that door, I’m not coming after you. Not this time.”

She shut the door behind her and stood in the empty hallway of her lodge. Her mind reeled with the visions of their conversation. A tear trickled down her cheek. She walked in a daze as she descended the staircase. A little part of her hoped he would come after her. But he didn’t. And she should be grateful that he hadn’t. Yes, it had hurt to walk out of there. It hurt to let him go. But if she had stayed, hoping that he would stay too, it would have hurt her more. Because sooner or later, someone would have to leave.

*****

He punched into the air furiously, stamping his feet in rage. He threw his head back, clinging onto his nape with frustration.

What the fuck was she doing! One minute she writhed in his arms, begging him to take her and the next she was as cold as ice.

He was tired of the emotional roller coaster she was putting him through. It was like she had tossed him into a washer, wrung him inside-out and then spun him dry.

He wasn’t going to deal with this anymore. He wanted out. He had done his best to show her he cared. But not anymore. He had never allowed a woman do this to him. Except, Christy. It had always been Christy.

He was going to end his three weeks with JR and then he would never have to see her again. He was going to have to make arrangements for JR’s visits. Because he sure as hell was never coming to Puyallup again!

He pulled on his clothes and raced down to the crew cab. For now though, he needed to get away from the lodge. He needed to calm down before he could face his son again.

Heavy rain clouds clustered in the sky, darkening out the sun. Lightning flashed, preceding claps of thunder.

He pressed down onto his accelerator, heading down the highway and away from Puyallup. His mind recapped every inch of their conversation.

What had happened? When had it turned a wrong course?

He veered to the side of the road and skidded to an abrupt stop. He banged onto the steering wheel furiously, letting out a scream embodying eleven years of bottled frustration.

He recalled the tumultuous episodes of emotions he had been through all those years back. Anger, rage, hurt. He had thought finding Christy would put him at peace again. Instead, she had worsened his obsession for her.

Now, he was running from her. Where was he gonna go? Philadelphia? It wasn’t even far enough, because he knew exactly where he would find her. And that little detail wasn’t going to do him any good at all.

He leaned his head wearily against the wheel, thinking for a long time. He then turned his blinker on and swerved back towards Puyallup.

*****

He pulled up in the driveway and walked hastily into the house.

He found Margaret in the kitchen, preparing lunch for the guests in the lodge. She had a tray of delicious chicken finger sandwiches laid out before her and was in the process of filling out a second.

“Margaret,” he said.

She spread the filling onto another slice of bread. “Are you hungry? Do you want a sandwich?” she asked without looking up at him.

“Umm… no,” he said, glancing down at the trays. “Margaret, have you seen Christy?”

“She was cleaning out the stables. Could you tell her to wrap-it up? It’s going to pour and I don’t want her caught in the rain.”

He rushed out the door, and towards the stables. He found her collecting the horse blankets she had hung out to dry.

“Christy,” he called out.

“I can’t talk right now, Ashton,” she replied tersely as she heaved the blankets into the stables.

“Well, I do. “

“This is not the time.”

He grabbed her wrist, stopping her in the middle of her task. “If I left it to you, you’d never have time.”

“Let me go,” she threatened.

He glared at her, holding her wrist tighter than before.

She shook him off and marched back outside. She tugged at a bale of hay, trying to pull it inside the stable.

He ran after her. “Here let me.”

“I can do it.”

“I know you can.” He pushed her aside and thankfully, she didn’t fight back. He dug a pitch fork into the hay and pulled it hurriedly into the stable while she collected tools that lay about outside the stable. 

He looked up at the sky and the rain clouds were now massed more densely, and rumbling.

“Christy,” he tried again.

“I need that one inside too.” She pointed at a second bundle of hay.

He sighed and dug his pitch fork into it again. He watched her from the corner of his eyes as she busied herself outside. He dragged the bale into the stable, eager to get on with his discussion with her.

He threw it into a corner and rushed towards the door. It had begun to drizzle and he stood at the threshold shouting at her. “Christy, get in!”

“I need to clean this mess up,” she yelled back.

“It’s not important! Get in!”

“Yes, it is! It is important to
me
! And if you think this stable fork, this saddle stand and this pooper scooper is not important, then you can just go to hell! Better still, why don’t just go back to Philadelphia!”

“Is that what you want? Me to go back? Is that what this is all about?”

“What do you think, Ashton? You show up eleven years later and you expect me to simply waltz back into your life like the past never happened? Because suddenly you find me convenient?”

He stood now in the pouring rain, his hands on his hips, anger in his eyes and his clothes drenched to his bones.

“Convenient?” He rolled up his eyes. “The only person who finds anything convenient is you. I last recall
you
sleeping in
my
bed at your own free will! And you dare make me the bad guy here?”

She opened her mouth to say something, but stopped, deciding against it. She blinked at him through the rain clattering against her face, and then suddenly dropped the stable fork and manure scraper from her hands.

“I’ve had enough,” she said, walking away from him.

“So you’re gonna run, like you always do,” he said, following close behind her. “You can’t solve a problem, so you run.”

“I don’t have a problem. It’s you that is a problem. The trouble is how do I explain that to you?”

He pulled her around to face him. He didn’t care about the heavy downpour or the muddy puddles of water soaking into his expensive sneakers.

“Talk to me,” he pleaded. “What is it? Do you still resent me for marrying you?”

“Ashton.” She sighed tiredly.

“I’m here, aren’t I? I’m here now.”

“I thought you said you weren’t coming back for me. It would have been better if you hadn’t.”

“Yeah, well as you can see I can’t help it. I’ve been doing it for so long, it’s become a habit.”

“What do you want from me, Ashton?”

“I want you.”

She shook her head, sobbing quietly. “I can’t give you that. I’m sorry.”

“Why not?” he begged, holding onto her tightly.

“And what about Naomi?”

He stood quietly, not knowing what to say. What about her? What was he to do with his fiancée?

“I thought so,” she whispered and turned around to walk away, her lips quivering from her pain and the cold of the rain.

He rushed before her and blocked her pathway, his mind racing through his thoughts. He needed to tell her. He needed to let her know how he felt about her. It was his only chance. She could reject him, and yeah it would fucking hurt. But he didn’t care about rejection right now. “Christy, I love you.”

She pursed her trembling lips. “Perhaps, if I was seventeen again, I’d have fallen for that. But I am not seventeen. I have a child and I need stability in my life. I cannot commit to a man who can’t afford to give me and my son his time. It’s not enough, Ashton. It’s not enough for me. I want a man who I can wake up to each morning. I want someone I can run to when I’m hurt. To scream at when I’m angry or because I’m in the damned mood to. I want a man who I can call my own. Just mine alone- without having to worry about sharing him with another woman. ”

“It’s not easy, Christy. I’m still trying to sort things out myself.”

She nodded, her tears disguised in the pouring rain. “Fine. Once you’ve sorted them through, come back to me. But I can’t promise you I will be waiting for you when you’re done.”

“Christy,” he begged, cupping her face, leaning his brow against hers, his voice rasping against her face. “Don’t do this. I’m sorry for putting you through this. But give me some time.”

“And I’m sorry too, Ashton.” She wept. “I’m sorry that I can’t help being selfish about you. I just can’t share you. Please… don’t ask me to.”

*****

Two days of continuous torrential rain and two days of torturous silence. If it hadn’t been for JR, Ashton would have certainly lost his mind.

His Facebook page beeped again. It was his move on the scrabbles.  He scratched his chin as he studied the word JR had last entered.

“Kamsin,” he read. “What the heck is a ‘kamsin’?”

It had to be valid if the Scrabbles site accepted it. He looked up the dictionary out of mere curiosity.
A hot south-westerly wind in Egypt, coming from the Sahara.

He scrunched his mouth in deep thought. The boy had a knack with words. He would never have thought of something as creative as that. He glanced down at his miserable allotment of tiles. There was no way he could come up with something near as good as
kamsin
. He mouthed the word aloud as he frustratingly tried to construct a word that was not near as impressive. He was failing miserably.

“Dad?” JR called from the living room. “I’m done!”

“I saw that!” he shouted back from the family’s private study.

“Well then, hurry up!”

“I’m thinking!”

He heard his footsteps grow closer to the door. “We’re playing scrabbles, Dad. You’re meant to be a little faster with your tiles.”

“I know.”Ashton scratched his head. “But give me some time, would ya? Breathing down my neck isn’t going to help me speed it up.”

“I’m just asking if you’re going to be done anytime soon. We’ve got a week to play it, you know.”

“Ahh, alright.” He threw his hands up in the air in defeat. “I’ve got some work to catch-up to as well.”

“I’ll be at the lodge, then,” JR said, turning back to head out again.

“Hey, where did you learn to play scrabbles like that?”

“Mom,” JR put simply, before disappearing out the door.

Ashton stared after him, tapping the edges of his computer. She loved playing scrabbles. There was so much he had yet to learn about his wife.

He resumed his search on the web. After another argument over her computer in her office, Christy had reluctantly allowed him use to her study in the main house, thanks to the support of Margaret and JR. He had surreptitiously tackled the issue over dinner so he could win their support. He had inkling she would relent if Margaret and JR sided with him. Although, he had not expected that she would be a step ahead of him by relocating him to the study in the main house instead of letting him share the office with her like he had wanted to.

The distance she kept between them pained him. But she was hurt. More than that, she was right. He was so emotionally invested in possessing Christy, he wasn’t thinking straight. He needed to sort his problems out. He wasn’t even sure he was ready to end his engagement with Naomi. He’d spent the last three years of his life with Naomi. And until he had found Christy, he had become thoroughly convinced she was the one. How could he just call her up and tell her that he couldn’t marry her anymore because he’d found his wife again? How could he tell her that he had mistaken friendship for love? That he’d never feel for her the way he felt for Christy?

He opened yet another web link leading him to advice on running a successful bed and breakfast lodge. He scrolled down the page unenthusiastically. There was nothing there that he hadn’t read before, until his eyes fell on a small link.

He navigated to the recommended page, growing excited.

*****

He cleared his throat as he entered the living room.

JR was mindlessly surfing through the T.V. channels while Margaret and Christy engaged in their little gossip.

“Hey,” he announced as he ruffled JR’s hair, urging him to shift up slightly so he could sit next to him.

“How’s your day been?” Margaret asked. “You’ve been locked up in that study all day, I’d barely seen you.

“Well, I’ve been setting up a proper website for the lodge. Dougie, my web designer’s done a pretty impressive job. We just need to polish some little rough nuggets, but otherwise it’s coming along fine.”

“When can we see it?” Margaret asked excitedly.

“Soon.” He chuckled. “It’s going very well is all I can tell you for now.”

“As long as it brings in some business. That Rainier’s Lodge up the road isn’t doing much good for Lily Grove.”

“Anything little helps. The repairs and a little facelift to the front of the lodge will boost its image.”

“I don’t have the budget for a facelift,” Christy mumbled, trying desperately to focus on the book on her lap.

Ashton tensed, coughing slightly to ease his nerves. “I was thinking of paying for that.”

She snapped her eyes up sharply at him. “I thought I had made it clear you weren’t investing any of your money into the business. We owe you enough as it is.”

“It’s not a loan,” he said curtly.

“I don’t care.”

“If it helps, think of it as my appreciation for taking care of JR for the last ten years.”

“I don’t need your appreciation.”

“Oh come, now, Christy,” Margaret said. “We all know we can do with a little help.”

“But Margaret-” she protested.

“But nothing,” Margaret said determinedly. “I accept your offer, Ashton. Thank you.”

“There’s also one more thing,” he said, glancing at Christy unsurely. “There’s a seminar for small hoteliers in New York. This will be a great opportunity to expose Lily Grove to the world, not forgetting there will be immense information, advice and networking with others in the business.”

“We’re not interested,” Christy said flatly.

“Well, you should be,” he rebutted. “You can’t say Lily Grove isn’t getting enough guests when people don’t know where the heck it is. You’ve got to get the information out there so people know it exists.”