“He’s supposed to ask me!”
“He already did once, dear.”
“How do you know?”
“A mother knows some things. She just knows. Tory, don’t expect him to lay his heart at your feet again. Not unless you have made it very clear how you are feeling. Have you?”
“Of course not. I’ve been hiding it from him.”
“Darling?”
“Yes, Mom?”
“Don’t. Don’t hide what you are feeling from him.”
“I should tell him?” she whispered.
“Trust him,” her mother said.
“I’m scared.”
“So, go back to your little house and make flower arrangements and never know.”
“I have to know.”
“Life is offering you something wonderful, Tory. But you have to have the courage to take it.”
Tory realized she had taken a different path once because she was too afraid to grab life with both hands.
Mark had said she knew a little more about the nature of life now, that she wouldn’t be afraid.
And suddenly she wasn’t.
She knew where Adam was staying. Was he still there? Or had he already. gone? He would say goodbye to her, surely?
Or would he?
She left her mother’s place and debated going back to hers for her car, but suddenly she just wanted to run.
Partway there, she realized she was still in her rumpled clothes from last night.
Who knew what lewd conclusions the mother she had always considered so prim and proper had entertained about that?
It occurred to her that her hair was still flattened from the helmet.
It occurred to her that she was starting to sweat.
When she asked for his room number at the hotel she reacted to the clerk’s look of superiority with a grin.
He was still there.
And Adam never seemed to care what she looked like.
Adam had always seen her heart.
She was going to tell him.
Flat out.
That she loved him. Madly. Wildly. Always.
She was going to fling herself into his arms, and ask him to marry her. She was going to—
She knocked on the door of his room, noticing that the surroundings were absolutely posh.
For her. She suspected that all he had become was for her.
The door opened.
The most beautiful woman she had ever seen stood there. Her hair was glossy black and her eyes sapphireblue. She was wearing clothes that were fresh and unrumpled and screamed designer label. She was tall and slender and strong looking. A woman suited for any kind of adventure.
She was Adam’s amazon.
And the message Tory had come to give him died in her throat.
Instead, she felt shame at her own arrogance. She had assumed Adam did not love this woman. How could he not love such a woman as this exotic beauty who stood before her? She had assumed because his motorcycle wasn’t a two-seater, his girlfriend didn’t ride with him.
This woman would ride her own bike. Right beside him. Not behind him.
“Yes?” the woman asked, amused eyes taking in Tory’s appearance.
Tory could hear a shower pounding behind her.
“Wrong room,” she whispered, and turned away before the tears that pricked her eyes could fall.
Chapter Ten
“A
dam, a girl came to the door while you were in the shower. A woman, really, though there was something delightfully girlish about her. She said she had the wrong room, but I just had the feeling—”
Adam froze, the towel to his head.
Tory
.
“What did she look like?” he asked carefully.
“Short hair. Copper curls. Puppy dog eyes.”
He muttered a word that always made Tory laugh. Kathleen frowned.
“Adam?”
“Kathleen, I have to tell you the whole story.”
“And I have one to tell you. That’s why I came. Should we do it over lunch?”
What he wanted to do was chase out the door after Tory. But he knew he had loose ends to tie up here first. It had been a shock to come back to his hotel and find Kathleen waiting for him, but he had known it was an opportunity.
It would be unforgivable for Kathleen to feel they had any future at all.
But he’d still had grease on him that the cold water at the cabin hadn’t been able to strip off, and he badly needed a few minutes to himself to think over what he would say. He’d taken a shower.
Why had Tory come here?
It made some hope begin to pound so hard in his chest he could barely hear what Kathleen was saying as they had lunch in the hotel restaurant.
But he did hear it. Something about an old boyfriend from college dropping by unexpectedly, and them getting reacquainted, and it being absolutely magic.
“You and I never had magic, Adam,” she said ruefully. “As much as that’s what I wanted for us, I just couldn’t make it happen.”
He swung around at the sound, scanning the room.
“What?” she asked. “Good grief, Adam, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Not seen one,” he muttered, “but certainly heard one laugh.”
“Tell me about the girl,” she said, a smile in her eyes. “Adam, you look different from how you looked a few days ago. Younger. No, not younger exactly. I can’t put my finger on it.”
So he told her about the letter. And Mark. And Tory.
“You love her,” Kathleen said with soft reverence. “That’s what I see in your face that I’ve never seen there before.”
Adam said nothing.
“What are you going to do about it?”
When Adam said nothing, Kathleen laughed. “Oh, Adam, you’re just like your dad. Remember when Hanna took an interest in him and we couldn’t believe how he resisted her even through you and I and the rest of the world could see how right it was?”
“I remember.”
“Does it run in the family?”
“Maybe.”
“You have to go to Tory and tell her what you feel. What you’ve always felt.”
“I already did that once.”
“Adam, are you scared? You?”
“I’m invoking privilege. Terrifed.”
Kathleen covered his hand with hers. “I saw something in her eyes when I opened the door today.”
“What did you see?”
“That you have absolutely nothing to be afraid of.”
An hour later he put Kathleen in a cab, kissed her lightly on the forehead goodbye, and wished her well from the bottom of his heart. He glanced around. The flower girl was not on her usual corner and for a moment he was afraid he would have to get them somewhere else.
And then he saw her, darting in and out of the pedestrian traffic, her face lighting up when she saw him, her basket full of flowers.
“I need something from you,” he told her, and when he told her what her mouth fell open, and then her eyes filled up with tears.
“That will pay my rent for a month. You’re not just doing it for me, are you? You really need them, don’t you?”
“I really need them.”
“You could get them cheaper somewhere else.”
“I know.”
“You’re a good men,” she whispered.
“I hope so.”
“I hope she deserves you.”
He smiled. “She does.”
Tory lay on her couch. She still had not changed out of the rumpled clothes. A half gallon of Maple Walnut ice cream melted in its bucket on the floor beside her, the spoon sticking in it forlornly.
It was too early to be eating ice cream.
In quantity.
She had the TV on, too.
The soaps. She had never watched an entire soap opera in her life, but she was taking pleasure in the pain and angst and complicated relationships being played out before her eyes.
She hiccupped from crying and blew her nose.
She would not even look in the mirror.
The doorbell rang and she ignored it.
It rang again. And again.
And that was followed by what sounded like a savage kick to her beautiful door.
Break in, she told the intruder, silently. Kill me. I’m ready to go.
“Hey, lady, open up.”
Did she recognize that voice? Reluctantly, she went to her living room window and flipped back the curtain. Daniel stood out on her porch. He waved at her.
She closed the curtain.
God, she looked like something the cat had dragged in. She wasn’t opening the door.
“Come on, Mrs. Mitchell!”
She looked back out at him. When had he come to know her name?
“My whole future is riding on this,” he called.
Sighing, she padded to the door and opened it a crack.
“Look,” he said, stood back, and bowed dramatically toward the road.
Over his shoulder, parked at the curb, was his ricksha. The passenger compartment was crammed full to overflowing with flowers. The bright blossoms were shoved in from floor to roof. There was a trail of them on the road.
“I felt like an idiot driving that thing down the street,” he said, grinning.
She stared at him, and at the flowers, and back at him.
“Gramps plays for high stakes. He said he’d get me a scholarship. He thinks I’d make one hell of a lawyer. Me.”
For a moment, her own pain seemed to fade, and she could see the happiness, the hope, in Daniel’s face.
“You would make a good lawyer,” she told him.
“Ha. I mean my family has been on the other side of the law for as long as I can remember. Me, a lawyer?”
“I can see it.”
He beamed. “Do you know how much a good lawyer can make?”
“Ah, no, I guess I don’t.”
He told her.
“A day?” she asked him.
He laughed. “An hour!”
“So, is your scholarship contingent on the delivery of this contraption full of flowers?” she asked, dazed.
“I’ll probably talk just like you in a year or two,” he said happily. “I think he’s getting me a scholarship because he’s taken a liking to me, but I kind of felt obliged to help him out after that, you know?”
“I don’t think I do. What exactly are they for? The flowers?”
“Lady! For you!”
“Oh.” Of course. The grand gesture. Goodbye with a flair. Making himself unforgettable, as if he was not that already. “So, he’s gone?”
She had to know.
“Gone?”
“Back?”
“Back where?” Daniel asked baffled.
“Home. To Toronto.”
Daniel shook his head. “He’s gone all right. Back. Right over your back fence.”
She stared at him in horror. Her hand flew to her hair.
“You got that right,” Daniel said. “A mess. And white stuff on your lip. Right here.” He touched the corner of his own lip.
“Oh, my God.” She slammed the door in his face.
“What am I supposed to do with the flowers?” he yelled.
She didn’t know where to go first. She ran into the bathroom. It would be hopeless trying to fix her hair. She ran into her bedroom. She had to change. She had to—
“Torrrry!”
She froze. It was the cry of a man in pain. She peered out her bedroom window. Adam was lying on top of a completely flattened mugho pine holding his leg and moaning.
She went out the back door at a dead run. “What have you done?” she asked, coming to her knees beside him.
His hair was over his eyes. She gave in, and brushed it back with her fingertips.
“Sorry,” he said, gazing up at her. “I don’t think the other tree is going to make it either. I’ll replace them.”
“I meant, to you.”
“I seem to have twisted my ankle. I think we’re really too old for this, Tory.”
“Too old for what?”
“You know.”
“I’m afraid I don’t.”
“Why did you come to my hotel?”
“I forgot my wallet. On the bike. It didn’t matter. It didn’t have any money in it.”
“I never saw it,” he said suspiciously. “How can you forget something on a motorcycle?”
“Are you calling me a liar?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.”
“So?”
“So what?”
“Why did you come to my hotel room?”
“I wanted to meet your girlfriend. Whom you are seeing. She’s very lovely.”
“Could you help me up?”
She didn’t want to touch him again. She was afraid what little resolve she had would dissolve like sugar in hot water. She helped him up.
He leaned heavily on her, and limped slowly toward her house.
“Why did you come to my hotel room?” he asked once she had him settled at her outside patio table.
“Would you like coffee?”
“Not particularly. She’s not my girlfriend anymore.”
“She’s not?”
“No. She met an old flame. And ignited.”
“Oh.
She
met someone.”
“Yes. Why did you come, Tory?”
“To tell you something.”
“What?”
“Are you like this in the courtroom?”
“Yes. They still call me Bulldog Reed. What did you come to tell me?”
“I forget.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Let me put it another way. If I remembered, I wouldn’t tell you.”
“I’ll stay out here until you do.”
“You will not.”
“Yes, I will.”
“Fine. Go ahead.” She folded her arms over her chest “Would you like a cookie?”
“Not if you made them.”
“That’s not a very nice thing to say to a woman you are trying to woo.”
“Woo who? You? What makes you think that?”
“How about those flowers?”
“Just helping a couple of poor kids get to college.”
“You love me madly,” she said.
A little smile tugged at the corner of his lips.
“Is that what you came to tell me?” he asked.
“Yes, that you love me madly, and want to spend the rest of your life chasing me around the bedroom hoping for a chance to tickle my toes.”
“That’s what you came to tell me?”
“Nearly.”
“Nearly?”
“Except,” she took a deep and shaky breath, “for the word
you,
you can substitute
I
. I love you madly.”
“Ah, Tory.”
She snuck a glance at his handsome profile then looked back to her flowers trying to decipher what that meant.
Ah, Tory.
It could mean damn near anything. Her heart laid out at his feet and he chooses to be enigmatic.
“And when did you discover this?” he asked quietly, after the silence had drawn out forever between them. “That you loved me madly?”
She took a deep breath. In for a penny, in for a pound. Why not tell him? Why not tell him everything?
She was being given a second chance. It was a choice between telling him the truth or trying to survive the rest of her life with the help of Maple Walnut ice cream and the soaps.
It might end up at that anyway.