As If You Never Left Me (Crimson Romance) (12 page)

Not the kind of thoughts that were conducive to getting her to work on time. Forcing them to follow a different track, she closed her hand on the handle of the closet door.
Pink sweater. It’s supposed to be chilly today. Maybe a skirt. I haven’t worn a skirt in a while.

She looked.

He had rolled on his back toward the center of the bed, one arm flung across the space she’d just left. His hair was tousled, the top half of his chest bare, the rest of him covered by crumpled sheets and quilt. He was naked underneath it, she knew, and she again fought the urge to return to the bed.

She forced her attention back to the closet. She needed time and space to think. They’d fallen too easily into the old rhythms of their lovemaking. Who was to say the other old patterns wouldn’t follow, including the ones that had destroyed their marriage? It was sweet and easy and wonderful to fall back into bed with him, but the rest would be harder.

With the pink sweater and the skirt in her hand, she took one last backward look. She wanted this, she realized. Maybe she wanted it too much.

She snagged her shoes, then dressed in the bathroom so she wouldn’t have to face the temptation of him again. Then, quietly, she slipped out of the house and headed for the shop, where she could remind herself of the woman she’d become. The woman she’d made out of herself, by herself, without Rey.

• • •

Rey wasn’t surprised to awaken alone. As wonderful as last night had been, he had expected Joely’s over-analyzing nature to prevent a repeat this morning. But that was all right. He could be patient.

As usual in the morning, the house was chillier than he was used to. Shivering, he half ran, still naked, into the living room to dig sweats out of his suitcase. Then he headed to the bathroom to finish his morning routine.

She must have left in a hurry this morning, he reflected as he retrieved some socks. There were no breakfast food smells in the kitchen, and the coffeepot was still cold. He made an omelet for himself, considering his best course of action for the day.

First of all, he wasn’t going to rush down to the shop. Now was the time to leave Joely alone, to let her think. No, the best thing he could do today was make himself scarce, possibly for the entire day.

That was fine. It would give him the opportunity to catch up on his work. Plus, he could spend the day planning how to meet Joely tonight when she came home.

That would take some mulling over, to come up with the perfect approach. He pushed it to the back of his mind for the moment. First things first, and the first thing he needed to do was take advantage of the fact he was alone.

He finished his eggs, then cleared off the table and set up his computer. While he was waiting for it to boot up, he picked up his cell phone and dialed his office number.

“Hi, Lisette,” he greeted the secretary who answered. “Is Bill in?”

“He’s on the phone. Do you want to hold?”

“Sure.”

“So how’s it going?”

“Fine. Did Bill get the pictures?”

“Yeah. I don’t mean with the case, I mean with the other project.”

Rey sighed. He didn’t really want to discuss this with Lisette. She’d been an important catalyst in Rey’s decision to contact Joely while he was working on this case, but he didn’t want to think about that right now. Mostly because he knew Joely wouldn’t appreciate the story. He hadn’t lied about being celibate over the past year, but Lisette had come very close to breaking that trend. Fortunately, she hadn’t taken the rejection personally. Unfortunately, she seemed to have adopted him as a sort of pet project.

“So far, so good, I suppose,” he said. In spite of having bared his soul to her before, he found himself reluctant now to talk about it. Maybe because he was so focused on Joely now that being so open with another woman seemed wrong. “How long do you think Bill’s going to be?”

“I see.”

“What do you see?”

“It must be going well if you don’t want to talk to me about it.”

He laughed, mostly at himself. “I think it’s going well. In fact, I think it’s going really well.”

“Glad to hear it.” The warmth in her voice surprised him. He was afraid she might be jealous. Women were funny creatures. “Bill’s off the phone. Let me transfer you.”

“Rey, the pics are great,” Bill said instead of “hello.” “I’ve got things seriously underway, and I’ll get back to you as soon as we have all our ducks in line. You did good, Rey.”

“Glad to hear it.” He drew in a slow breath of cautious relief. They weren’t quite done yet, but the case was well underway. If all went as planned, it would be a great coup for him, both professionally and personally. That chapter of his life — and Joely’s — would finally be closed.

“Take the rest of the week off,” said Bill. “You deserve it. And good luck with that ex-wife thing.”

“Jeez.” Rey scrubbed his forehead. “Lisette has a big mouth.”

“Hey, she likes you. Cut her some slack. Later, Rey.”

“Thanks, Bill.”

• • •

When Perry arrived, Joely was sitting behind her desk staring at the computer, not entirely sure what she’d been doing before her thoughts had distracted her.

Thoughts of Rey asleep, Rey naked, Rey inside her. About what she should do with Rey next. And no matter how hard she tried to steer her thoughts in other directions, they always ended up with her doing something she shouldn’t. Like falling back into Rey’s arms without any consideration of where it would take her, or of what it meant for her life here, her shop, her growing success and her new identity.

“What’s up, boss?” Perry asked in a typically bright tone. “You look pensive.”

Joely looked at her with a grim sigh. “No, just thinking.” The joke fell flat, and Perry cocked an eyebrow. Joely shrugged in apology. “Nothing new. Just Rey. Mister ‘give me a month to be your husband again.’ Mister ‘I’m too sexy to live.’ Mister ‘I know just where to touch you to make all your brains fall out of your head.’” She stopped, not sure if she was about to laugh or cry.

“Rough night, huh?” said Perry with a wry grin.

“I guess that depends on your definition of rough.” She put her face in her hands as Perry took the chair on the other side of the desk.

“You want to talk?” Perry offered.

Joely shook her head. “No. But I probably should.”

Perry waited patiently for Joely to collect herself. “We were a good couple. I mean, we were a
really
good couple. We had these rhythms, these ways of doing things. It was like we breathed together, like we were one person sometimes.”

Perry nodded sagely. “What happened?”

“I was working for a design team for a company that made ceramics. I loved the work, but my boss was a pig. I filed a sexual harassment case. Rey was young and gung-ho, and he insisted on representing me.”

Perry made a face. “Ooo. I see what’s coming.”

“Exactly. Rey was a good lawyer, but he didn’t have the experience my boss’ lawyer did. He got ripped up one side and down the other in that courtroom. I ended up having to quit my job. After that, it was only a matter of time. He was humiliated, and he threw himself into his work trying to prove himself to his company and, I think, to me. I was devastated, with no job and suddenly no husband, either. It didn’t matter to me that he’d lost the case. I knew he’d done the best he could. What mattered to me was having his support while I tried to move on with my life, but he just wasn’t there. Finally I got tired of trying to catch his attention, so I threw fake divorce papers at him and left.” She shrugged. “Looking back, I don’t think I really thought about the consequences.”

Perry shook her head. “I don’t know what to say.”

“There’s really nothing
to
say. I just have to decide what I’m going to do about him now.”

“Do you want him back?”

“I’m not sure. But I don’t think I can send him away. Not now. Not after last night. Maybe not ever.”

Perry grinned. “The ol’ magic’s still there, huh?”

Joely nodded. “There’s no thinking things out logically when that kind of thing’s going on.”

“That’s some good sex, then.”

“You have no idea.” Joely looked back at the computer, moving the mouse a little to deactivate the screensaver. The yearly profit graphs popped back up again, filling the screen. “But I can’t forget this. How much of this do I have to give up to keep him? Is there any way I can have both?”

“Do you think he’d want you to go back to New York?”

Joely shook her head. She really wasn’t sure. Rey had always seemed to her to thrive on the pace and the atmosphere of New York City, but she supposed it was possible he could change. She had certainly changed, over the last couple of years. Could she change back? Maybe, but it would be terribly painful for her to let go of all the work she’d done here.

Perry settled her chin into the curve of one hand. “It might be worth it, you know.”

That, Joely decided, was what scared her the most. “You might be right.”

• • •

After he finished the small amount of work he had to do for the day, Rey was at loose ends. With nothing else to do, he paced the living room for a time, until he found himself drinking his third cup of coffee in front of the living room’s bay window.

The view was spectacular, still draped with snow, though much had melted in the warmer weather of the past two days. Joely’s house appeared to have very little backyard, aside from a small flat area where her barn/studio stood. The property sloped down from the tiny back deck into a pine-filled valley. Beyond it rose more mountains, punctuated with rocky outcroppings. Stretches of green and snow-whitened pine trees alternated with strips of bare, silver trees. The closest patch of these wasn’t far from the back of Joely’s house. They had white bark, like birches, but he was pretty sure that wasn’t what they were. He’d have to ask Joely.

He drained the coffee cup and put it in the sink, then, on a whim, headed out the front door.

The slope of the property wasn’t as extreme as it had looked from the house, and he hiked down the edge of the valley to see what he could see. But what impressed him most wasn’t so much what he could see, but what he could hear. Or, more accurately, couldn’t hear.

No traffic. No sirens. No people sounds at all. He heard birds and squirrels, the wind whispering through the pine needles. The air, saturated with the odor of pine and clean soil, smelled like no one had breathed it in centuries.

He realized suddenly that he’d been standing utterly still for several minutes. It was as if time had stopped. He was so used to seconds and minutes and hours flying by him, so filled with activity he barely knew when one ended and the next began. This was different — time flowing by like slow water, soothing instead of urging him, minutes melting seamlessly from one to the next, but in a way that quieted him instead of speeding him along.

He found a snow-free spot and lowered himself to the ground. It was still damp, and prickly with pine needles, but he didn’t mind. Sitting this way, with Joely’s house behind him and the wide stretch of rolling mountains in front of him, it was as if he were the only human being on the planet.

He sat for a long time, feeling the wind against his skin, in his hair, listening to the soft, natural sounds, smelling the clean, thin air. The sky above was a rich, sapphire blue, a color he’d never seen in the sky before. Everything tumultuous and anxious inside him stilled and settled. He hadn’t felt this peaceful since — actually, he was pretty sure he’d never felt this peaceful before in his life. Unless it was in the womb, and he couldn’t remember that.

He’d known from the beginning of this venture that one very large obstacle stood between himself and Joely. Besides his own ego, that is. That was the issue of relocation. He knew that after so long in Colorado, Joely would probably be reluctant to move back to New York. He’d also known that he had no particular desire to leave New York. But today, for the first time, he could picture that happening. It had seemed ridiculous to think he could be happy, or even comfortable, living in the mountains, practically in the middle of nowhere, after a lifetime in the bustling City. But something here touched him deeply.

He had no idea how long he sat there, but finally he realized his foot had fallen asleep. Reluctantly, he stood, stomped it a few times, and continued his walk, to see what other treasures he could find.

• • •

Joely hadn’t heard from Rey all day, and drove home suspended between anxiety and anticipation, wondering what he’d been up to, all alone in her house.

Assuming he hadn’t made other arrangements, she had a pizza in the back seat of the car. There’d been leftovers from last night, but neither of them had remembered to put them in the refrigerator, and she’d had to toss them in the garbage on her way out this morning. As for dessert — well, there was still the pie, which
had
made it into the fridge. Or, even better, there was Rey.

Though it was a tremendously hard thing for her to do, she’d decided today that she just had to let go. Let things happen as they would without dwelling on where they might lead. More importantly, without trying so hard to be sure they led where she wanted them to go. Rey’s return was a gift in and of itself. She should take it, relish it, and be prepared to let it go if necessary. She hoped she wouldn’t have to, but if she did, at least if she were prepared, it wouldn’t be such a shock to her system.

Rey’s rental car still stood in the driveway, but when she went into the house, he was nowhere to be seen.

“Rey?” she called, sliding the pizza onto the table. No answer. “Rey, I’m home!”

Still nothing. Where in the world could he be? Walking to the front bay window, she saw a light on in her workshop. She frowned and headed back outside.

Sure enough, he was in there. He’d helped himself to her supplies and was shaping a piece of clay on her sculpting table. He smiled as she came in.

“Good day at work?”

“Not bad.” She gestured toward the table. “What are you doing?”

With a grin, he turned the piece of clay to face her. The shapes were roughly formed, but she could tell what they were supposed to be — two naked figures, one male and one female, in a not-quite-compromising position. “Remind you of anything?” he said.