Mile High Love (21 page)

Cassie stood
and looked through the window secretly watching him.  He was much better,
she could tell, by the look of extreme boredom written all over his face and
the antsy ticking of his legs beneath the sheets.  The doctor was pretty
optimistic, and even went so far as to tell Cassie that he’d consider letting
Gunnar go home tomorrow.  Cassie pulled her hand from the latch and rolled
away from the door until her back was against the wall. She debated waiting
another couple of days to talk to him, but the lawyer had called earlier about
the sale of her home. Lonnie had agreed to come down and watch Abby so she could
go and pack up the last of the things she’d left behind, and she had to move
quickly to meet the escrow deadline.  Her business was getting closer to
its maiden voyage, and she had to get her head clear.  She had to be
prepared.  With Abby and a new baby on the way to care for she had to get
it right the first time.  Leisure Time had to be at least successful
enough to sustain her family, and her personal life had to be settled and less
chaotic.  Her priorities had suffered since she’d run into Gunnar again,
as well as the business acumen that helped her prior venture grow and
thrive.  She hardened her resolve and went inside.

              
He watched her cautiously when she approached him, as if trying to figure out
by the look on her face weather her visit would be friendly or not.  “I
see you still have a bit of a limp,” he tried to start things off
lightheartedly.  When Cassie didn’t play along or even speak he turned off
the television and gave her his full attention.  “You haven’t been here in
a few days,” he added more seriously when she sat down.  “Not since that
first night.”

              
Cassie was surprised he even noticed.  “I left once I knew you were going
to be okay,”

              
“Well it didn’t give me much of a chance to thank you.”

              
The wind knocked out of her.  “Please, whatever you do, do not start being
grateful and sweet, not now.”

              
“Why not?”  His brows drew together, and he tried to reach for her
hand. 

              
Cassie shrunk away from him and began to pace, leaving his outstretched hand
dangling.  “Don’t thank me,” she repeated, and her hands mimicked her
shaking head.  “We would both be burnt to a crisp right now if it hadn’t
been for that man at the side of the road,” she was rambling, talking faster as
she remembered.  “I asked about him, you know, but the paramedics said he
left right away without leaving any word as to who he was. As for me, I was
doing a piss poor job of getting anything done.”

              
“It’s a miracle that we’re alive today and you are every bit as responsible for
it as that man.  Now come here and let me thank you properly. 
Please.”

              
Cassie knew better than to go anywhere near him, but something about his
outstretched hand, and his unusual boyishness touched her.  She placed her
hand in his and went with the gentle tug that pulled her the rest of the way
towards him.  She tried to turn her head when she saw what he was going
for, but he moved with her and caught her lips with his own.  A
surprisingly tender kiss followed, one that left her mouth aching for
more.  “Thank you,” he whispered into her hair, and planted another kiss
on her forehead before letting her go.

              
Cassie’s fingers traced her lips, and she closed her eyes, suddenly overwhelmed
by the last few days.  “I don’t really know where to begin,” she wasn’t
going to be put off any longer.  “So I’ll just start by saying what I came
here for and then I’ll be on my way.”

              
He looked surprised, and saddened by her quick change of heart, as if he was
expecting what was coming, but was hoping for something different anyway.

              
“I’ve asked Wesley to draw up papers releasing me from our partnership. I’ve
put up my end of the original company you bought into, in return for all rights
to Leisure Time.”

              
“No.”

              
“I’m not asking Gunnar.  I just thought it was proper to let you know, and
give you a chance to get your fair share legally by signing all of the
appropriate documents.”

              
“I may be the third wheel in our little partnership, but you still need my vote
to get the side of the company you want free and clear.  Basically what
you are asking me to do is to stand by and let you cripple yourself financially
in hopes that this new business will be successful enough to pay your bills.”

              
“What I am asking is to be let out of all future involvement with you. I’ll
handle the rest of it on my own.”

              
“How will you support yourself, much less a family if this idea of yours runs
dry after a while?”  He was trying to keep a tight leash on his anger, but
his annoyance was all too clear.

              
“That’s just the point, isn’t it?  I don’t want to be your problem or your
concern.  I don’t want to have to listen to your opinion.  I just
want to get my life straightened out, and frankly I can’t do it with…you in
it.”

              
“What about the baby?”

              
Her lower lip trembled as she met his gaze.  “You mean the one I was lying
about. That one?”

              
“Oh Cassandra,” he threw his hands up miserably.  “Don’t do this, he
closed his eyes against the dull throb beginning to creep into his head. 
“I never meant you any harm.  I was angry and hurt, and I wanted to show
you, to make you see that danger is a part of everyday life.  Its’ part of
the bargain,” he clenched his jaw, visibly fighting to get control of his
ragged emotions.  “You placed this red flag on flying because of what
happened to your husband even though you know that people die every die from
all sorts of things. I wouldn’t have hurt you, I just couldn’t get control of
my temper when you kept lying to me and yourself about why you looked into my
flight record to begin with. You know as well as I do that it’s isn’t fair to
go around manipulating people based on your own personal hang ups.”

              
All of the pain and resentment she had pushed aside in light of his injuries
came crashing in on her.  “You went too far,” her eyes blazed at
him.  “You were ruthless in your so called pursuit of the truth, and the
fact that you could put me, and our unborn child in danger just to prove your
point has made me realize that you aren’t the man I remembered at all.” Her
acute sense of loss was beyond shedding more tears.  What’s best for me
and Abby and the baby for now is some sense of normalcy, and I can’t seem to do
that when you’re around.  I need boring days that go by without endless
bickering and unspoken tension, or little car crashes meant to teach me a
lesson.”

              
“Oh come on, that’s not fair and you know it.  I never intended to crash
the car and neither did you.  If you hadn’t kicked the latch by accident I
wouldn’t have lost control trying to keep you from falling out.”  He
looked crushed by her take on what had happened.  “Also, it was not just
about teaching you a lesson.”

              
“The Hell it wasn’t!”  He hadn’t spared her any mercy in getting the truth
and she wasn’t about to give him an inch now. “It was a power play pure and
simple, and you won.  Trouble is, that it’s going to be a hollow victory
for you because I’m all done playing this ridiculous game.  I want a
normal life, and while I know I can’t have guarantees, I intend to do my best
to lessen the variables,” she laughed regrettably.  “Your penchant for
forcing me to look at the truth when I am still so vulnerable makes any type of
continued relationship with you my first sacrifice.”

              
“Is it so wrong to want to live my life with a woman who isn’t so twisted by
fear that I can’t be the person I need to be?”

              
“No it’s not,” her voice faded to almost a whisper.  “But I can’t promise
a quick fix, and I am not willing to subject myself to your special brand of
therapy, which includes forcing people into facing their fears by dropping them
into near death experiences.”

              
“What about the baby?”  His voice cracked.

              
“What about it,” she threw her hands into the air.  “Are you going to
fight me for custody the moment I don’t have an answer for you that you like?”

              
A weary, piercing look flashed across his face.  “I would never take a
child from its mother Cassandra.  But I never thought you would keep a
baby from its father either.”

              
Cassie swallowed against the lump that formed at the back of her throat. 
“I will not keep you from being a father to this child, but I can minimize the
contact we have so everyday doesn’t end up like this,” she moved closer to the
door.  “I’ll have Wes give you a copy of the new agreement. Do us both a
favor and don’t turn this into another power play.  Please, I’m begging
you to just sign so we can get back to…” she waived her hand and choked back
tears.  “Whatever it was we were doing before we crossed paths again.”

              
Cassie fled as fast as her hurt foot would allow.  She was drowning,
fighting to take a simple breath without thinking of him, without wanting a
life with him regardless of all of the good reasons not to.  It sickened
her to speak about their child in terms of a possession, instead of rejoicing
in the new life the created.  He read her so well, knowing no matter what
she said in anger that she would never keep his child from him.  But how
would she ever truly keep enough distance between them when there was such a
strong connection pulling them together.  She’d just have to try harder,
she vowed, to forget about all of the silly dreams she had spun.  Besides,
she was the only one that was truly in love anyway.  For him, any
commitment was still a big what if?  There wasn’t any doubt that she’d
succeeded in capturing his attention and his lust since coming back into his
life, but not enough to have made a bid for something more substantial. 
The more she thought about it the, the clearer the picture became.  He
cared about her all right, but not enough.  He found her attractive, but a
strong relationship could never be built on sex alone.  Whichever way she
worked it out, it always came back to the same thing.  She’d basically
managed to fall in love all over again while he was too busy laying the ground
rules for how he could and could not live his life.  She clung to the hope
that if she had managed to get over him once before, she could do it again, she
just needed to take some time to remember how.

Cassie felt it
start when she drove up to the house.  A knot that formed in the pit of
her stomach and continued to build, practically forcing the air from her lungs
when she walked inside.  It had been sheer foolishness on her part to
believe that any amount of time away would lessen the impact of what she had to
do.  It had taken her four days of driving by the house just to strengthen
her resolve enough to get this far. Like a movie reel playing in her head she
looked around when she finally got inside, re-living and catching glimpses of
precious memories as they leapt out at her.  The day they closed escrow
and moved in, bringing Abby home from the hospital for the first time, the day
their little business bagged the number one client in Clackamas County. 
At least a hundred milestones came back to her, as well as many of the smaller,
ordinary things that she had taken for granted at the time.  Voices
scattered throughout the front room, and laughter echoed in the stairwell as
she stood at the bottom looking up.  She had been smiling until she caught
sight of the door at the top and then she sobered instantly.  The rest of
the house was vacant, except for the master bedroom.  The last time she
was in there, she went in and packed her clothes and that was about it. 
It was stupid really, but she just couldn’t bring herself to deal with her
husband’s things, even so long after the accident.  She looked longingly
back to the front door, and outside, hoping for a reprieve that wasn’t going to
come. But she needed to move on, she reasoned as she forced herself up the
stairs, and it was now or never.  She reached the top faster than
expected, and she paused momentarily before throwing the door open and stepping
quickly inside.

              
She floundered around at first wandering back and forth to different areas of
the room, touching things lovingly with her hands as if they were no longer
real.  She mentally had to kick start herself out of the mental fog that
threatened all of the good things she tried to wrap herself in, all of the
things she had armed herself with in order to protect herself before ever
stepping foot in her old home again.  She caught sight of her face in the
mirror and sat down on the bed to steady herself.  Her reflection revealed
a woman she didn’t really know anymore.  It was her husband who had died,
but she had managed to lose herself in the process as well.  She turned
her thoughts towards Gunnar and realized how horribly she had dealt with her
feelings for him from the very start.  And to make matters worse she was
lying to herself on a daily basis now, just had she had lied to him in that day
in the hospital.  She knew, when she let herself admit it that a part of
her would never stop loving him, regardless of how many good reasons she could
come up with not to.  She’d held him to standards and placed limitations
on him that she never would have placed on anyone else.  Of course, she
mused, maybe that was because she loved her husband enough to let him be the
man he wanted to be and look how that had ended up.

              
It was completely unreasonable for her to mandate how Gunnar should live his
life because of her husband’s death but it was so hard to believe that things
wouldn’t just end up leading to the same tragic conclusion.  She began
pulling the empty boxes that were stashed in the closet out into the room and
continued along her train of thought.  Could she ever really be able to
contain her fears?  Logically she could still sort through them, make them
make sense and all, but emotionally she didn’t stand a chance.  She wanted
Gunnar for life.  But he made it perfectly clear what he could and couldn’t
live with.  Under the current circumstances and her frame of mind, that
would be her.  Her shoulders slumped forward under the weight of the
truth.  He couldn’t decide what he wanted anyway.  He was more
comfortable straddling the fence than making a true commitment to anyone. 
It would take some time, but she was gradually coming to terms with some of the
things about him that scared her, why couldn’t he love her the same way? 
For that matter, why couldn’t he just love her again at all?

              
Three hours and fifteen completely stuffed boxes later, Cassie was finally
getting to the end of it. She purposely left Ben’s side of the closet for last,
knowing what was in there, and not really wanting to deal with it at all, ever,
much less at that moment.  It felt wrong to be boxing up and sorting
through all of his clothes and shoes, things he spent time picking out and
wearing every day.  She willed herself to toss the things in quickly, as
if that would somehow shield her and it would be less painful.  Andrew had
offered to take care of this for her, but she had stupidly thought it would
make her stronger.  Next time, she scolded herself, taking the coward’s
way out might just have its advantages.  She reached in and picked out the
last box that was sitting deep in the corner.

              
“Knock, knock.”

              
Cassie was grateful for the distraction.  “Andrew,” she breathed.  “I
was just thinking about you.  Welcome to my nightmare.”

              
He carefully removed his charcoal gray, double breasted jacket, and gently laid
it out in top of one of the tallest set of boxes.  “Looks like you’ve been
busy,” he scanned the room, finally coming to rest on the box right in front of
her.  “Do you need some help getting these things into the car?” 

              
“Nope,” Cassie shook her head.  “Lonnie’s coming over this weekend to meet
the UPS man.  It’s gonna cost a fortune but it’s still the best
option.            

              
He joined her down on the floor and clicked open the hinges of his leather briefcase.

              
“Looks like you’ve been busy too,” she grimaced when she saw the mound of
paperwork he had for her. 

              
“Yeah, well sometimes that’s not always a good thing now is it?”  He
pulled out the bundle with her name on it and handed it to her. 

              
“What’s this?” Cassie asked, and then remembered the contract she’d
specifically asked him to draw up. “He signed it?’ Her voice trailed off. 
“I can’t believe he signed it.” She took the top page off the stack slowly, fingered
the bold signature Gunnar favored, and folded and tucked the paper into her
pocket.

              
“That is what you wanted isn’t it?”  Andrew seemed surprised by her
reaction.  “Wes led me to believe that it was your idea.”

              
“Oh it was,” she sighed, and did her best to sound more confident than she
was.  “I was just hoping,” she let her mind wander, but put the brakes on
before she lost it in front of Andrew.  “It doesn’t matter what I was
hoping.”

              
“Well as long as you’re sure,” he pulled out his copy.  “If you do need to
change something you had better speak up because Wes hasn’t been able to get in
touch with Gunnar since he signed this.  It seems he’s slipped out of town
unannounced.”

              
Cassie’s heart skipped.  “He’s gone?”

              
“Wes said to tell you that he waited a little more than a week before sending
these your way in case you or Gunnar changed your mind at the last
minute.  But as of yesterday, Gunnar was still gone, and you hadn’t phoned
to say anything different, so he faxed the papers here so I could finalize the
agreement.”  Andrew read the stricken look on Cassie’s face. 
“Listen, I’m sure we could find him for you if there’s anything that you need
cha-”

              
“No,” Cassie cut him off. “You don’t understand.  When Gunnar takes off,
he leaves for good.”

              
“Why don’t you take a break here for a while and let me buy you some dinner,
Cass?  You look like you’ve had enough of this for one day, and it’ll keep
until tomorrow.”

              
“I’ve had enough of this full stop, but this is the last box, and it took me a
week just to get up enough nerve to come up here in the first place. Thank you
for the offer, but if it’s all the same, I just need to get this part over with.”

              
“What’s in there?” he motioned to the box in front of her.

              
“Everything,” Cassie pushed her hair out of her eyes and hoped he didn’t notice
how badly her hands were shaking.  “All of my memories,” she
clarified.  “Pictures, his pilot’s license, our DBA, you name it it’s in
there.”  Cassie looked around guiltily.  “I sort of tore them all
down off the wall one night, you know, after it happened, and I took things
that I spent a great deal of time to love and care for and shoved them away
into the corner. Like the back of the closet would really be far enough away to
forget things like these.” She sighed and bent down to open the lid, the time
capsule of a life that no longer belonged to her. “I think I owe it to Ben and
Abby to take better care of the times and things we did share.  One day
she’s going to wonder what he was like, what we were like, and I don’t want her
to be cheated out of what I do have just because I was too selfish to leave
them in one piece. I’ll always be able to fall back on my memories, but she’s
still so young that this box will hold the only real clues to her past. “

              
“Would you like me to stay?”

              
“That is really sweet,” she picked his jacket up and held it out for him to
fill.  “The fact is, it’s going to be hard no matter who’s with me, and in
that case I’d rather go it alone so I don’t embarrass myself.”  Her voice
started to quake.  “I was kind of hoping that if I faced this now, maybe
someday the things I remember will bring me pleasure, and not so much pain.”

              
“I understand, he was a good man and I miss him too,” he pulled her into his
arms and gave her a quick hug before retreating back towards the door. 
“Hey Cass,” he paused, waiting for her to turn and look at him.  “I’m also
sorry things didn’t really work out down there in California.  Ben thought
it would make you happy to expand your business with someone you used to be
close with.  I don’t think he quite understood the connection with Gunnar,
though, or he might have felt differently.  I don’t know, I just thought
it would give you something to focus on, something positive to get involved in
since Ben was gone.”

              
“I’m sorry too,” Cassie agreed, and waived when he took his leave. Slowly, she
began to pull things out one at a time and paused just long enough to look back
over her shoulder.  “So, so sorry.”