A Woman Gone Mad (29 page)

Oh. My. God. He’s gotta be kidding me!

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I can’t look at him, so I keep my eyes on the table, letting his story replay in my mind.

“No, Lil. I wouldn’t lie about that shit. I loved you. Hell, I still love you. And I’ve never lied to you—ever.”

I finish off my margarita and hold the glass above my head. Looking at the waiter a few tables down, I speak as clearly and assertively as I can manage. “Make it a double,
NOW
.”

He mouths back, “Yes, ma’am,” and scurries towards the bar. I have another drink in front of me and half guzzled down before I look back up at Leo.

“Shit. Now I feel like an asshole. I’m so sorry, Leo.”

His smile warms me up from the inside out. “It’s okay.” We sit in silence long enough for me to have another margarita before Leo starts again. “I saw you not too long ago. Well hell, yeah it was. You and… I don’t know, your husband? I know it was your daughter with y’all because she looks just like you. Anyway, I guess it was about five years ago at the Christmas light festival down in Natchitoches.”

He laughs but there isn’t any happiness to it. It’s the saddest laugh I’ve ever heard.

“I was there with my wife. Three months after I saw you, I filed for divorce. I hadn’t realized how much I still loved you. How much I didn’t love her. I couldn’t do it to her, stay married to her and still be in love with you.” He shrugs then lets out a sigh. “So you wanna eat?”

“No,” I whisper, watching him, memorizing his face. The last time I did this, studied his face and took a mental snapshot, it lasted forever. But now I need to replace it with the new, older version of him.

His hair is cut short in the back and along the sides, but the hair on the top of his head gets longer the closer it gets to his long bangs. His face looks the same—older but it still has the same sharp, perfect lines, high cheekbones, dark blue hooded eyes, and those sexy-as-hell bow lips.

“What do you want, Lil?” His eyes are piercing through mine.

You! I fucking want YOU!

“Lillian, calm down. Breathe like I taught you and put the tequila away. It turns you into an emotional train wreck. Stick to business. Fireplace and measurements. Go back to that and wash this vile giddiness out of your head. It’s making me nauseous.”

“I want a fireplace. That’s why I busted my bedroom wall down this morning.”

He waves the waiter down and pays the check, and we head back in his truck. “I don’t feel comfortable letting you drive home. Even if I am following you, can I drop you off down the street?” His laugh is low and it makes my belly flip-flop. “For old time’s sake?”

“No. Nick’s ‘out of town’”—I roll my eyes and make air quotes—“for another week and my daughter Bella went skiing with my in-laws for winter break. You can drop me off in the driveway.”

“Got my measuring tape. You want me to go ahead and do the measurements today? I can call in the order for the fireplace then call my guys to come by tomorrow and reinstall the sheetrock you got carried away hammering the shit out of.”

“That sounds good.”
What the hell am I doing? What the hell am I doing? What the hell am I DOING!

“You aren’t doing a damn thing besides letting him in the house to do measurements, Lillian. That is IT!”

Yeah, that’s it. That’s all I’m doing.

“So, what’s up with you and your man? Y’all looked happy at the Christmas Festival thing.” Leo looks over his shoulder at me and his question makes the cab of his truck shrink in size.

“We were happy. For a long time. Then shit happened, life happened, and ruined everything.”

He reaches his hand over to pat my knee. “Life’s not supposed to ruin everything, Lil. Tell me you know that, right?”

“I don’t know shit about anything anymore, especially life. As far as I’m concerned, it can all just kiss my ass. I don’t even care anymore.” I feel exhaustion set into my bones.

The cab of the truck goes silent after those words fall from my mouth. Nothing is said but the occasional ‘left’ or ‘right’ in order to give directions.

He pulls up in my driveway and takes the keys from his ignition, neither of us moving other than that.

Several minutes go by in complete silence before I hear him exhale loudly. “Lil, why are you so unhappy? Where’d that girl go that had so much life and energy in her that you could feel it coming off her, huh? Where’d she go?”

“She died.” The words hurt more coming out than I thought they would. My heart feels like a bomb just exploded in it. And fuck if it doesn’t hurt.

“No, she didn’t die.” He shakes his head and settles his pleading eyes on mine. “She’s lost. She’s so fucking lost and she doesn’t even know it. But I’ll find her. You’ll see. I’ll find her and wake her up. I’ll bring her back to life. Even if it’s the last thing I do.”

The driver’s side door opens then closes. When I look up, tears stream down my face to land on my chest and slide beneath my shirt. Using my sleeve, I wipe the tears away as quickly as I can and hop out of the truck, making my way to the front door. I unlock it and leave it wide open, heading straight to my bathroom.

After a few minutes of splashing cold water on my face and counting my breaths, I have my shit together and am able to walk back out and deal with this man crashing back into my life, into my heart. Making all my dreams and all my nightmares come true at the same time.

I can’t love him again. I won’t love him again. I’m not strong enough to make it through a second time. The power he holds over me, even after twenty years, is far too strong. He will destroy me. I know this without a doubt.

He will leave me, and when he does, he will kill whatever is left of me.

I see him writing on a legal pad when I walk into the living room. I allow myself to stop and catalog this ghost, this dream. This man who I once believed I’d created in my mind because he’d disappeared like a thief in the night with my heart.

He’s still just as tall, shoulders still just as wide and broad, stretching his black t-shirt, making each muscle visible as it contracts with his movements. His long legs are clad in dark denim jeans that hang low around his hips. His light blond hair is darker in the back and sides, and his bangs that fall to his strong cheek bones are the same shade of light blond his long hair was twenty years ago.

While I watch him, he sets his legal pad down and pulls his measuring tape off the back pocket of his jeans. Then he reaches up to measure the ceiling to the fireplace and the ink I see circling both biceps and peeking up out of the back collar of his t-shirt makes two things happen to me simultaneously—my mouth goes completely dry and a moan of hunger and pain escapes my dry throat.

The sound makes his eyes flick down at mine. He brings his arms down, taking away the sight of the sexiest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.

“Lil? You okay?” His expression is of genuine concern, allowing me to fumble an excuse from my brain and pass it off half-assed.

“Yeah… I, ah… I need some water or some bourbon or a beer. You thirsty?” Padding across the living room barefoot, I make sure there is at least four feet between us as I walk past him into the kitchen.

“Yeah, water would be good. Thanks.” He gets back to his measuring and writing.

An awkwardness falls around us, and I know it’s me, that it’s my fault. I’m freaking awkward, and anxiety is pumping though me like crazy. Anxiety, lust, hurt, fucking love, but worst of all…hope. This hope spurs fear. This hope scares the shit out of me, and all I want it for it to go away.

I don’t need things in my life like hope. Dreams don’t come true for girls like me. I wanted it too bad and held it too high for too long. It’s only right that destiny would be cruel and make me pay for it by denying me the one thing I’ve yearned for since I was five years old.

“Okay well… I’m all done. I called Rick and let him know about the sheetrock and drywall installation you’ll need after the fireplace is installed. So…” His eyes come into my line of vision and his warm fingertips gently pull my chin up to look into his eyes.

What the hell? Is he trying to fucking kill me? Jesus, look at those dark blue eyes. God, I remember them. Not from twenty years ago but from every single night in my dreams for the last twenty years.

Except now they have tiny creases, tiny laugh lines in the corners, and I feel something fundamental crack inside me that I don’t understand. So much of our lives was just uselessly wasted apart. The happiness that we could have had, that we wanted so much back then. Both of us scared of the unknown but still eager to throw it all away, just to be together.

So many things could have been different. And in the dead center of my soul, in the marrow of my bones, I know that had I not gotten out of his car that Saturday night, my life would have been a life filled with happiness I will never know—instead of the pain and nauseating regrets that are eating me alive now.

“So, I’ll see you around, firecracker.” His warm hand slides from the tip of my chin to the front of my throat. Then he cups the nape of my neck and crushes me to him. His dry, soft lips brush against my forehead as his long arm wraps around me, holding my body to his like a lifeline.

God, he smells so fucking good, and he lights something deep inside me, something that’s been neglected and brushed aside for years. Hope, love, and devotion unfurl and swell and it’s all I can do to stand still. When all I really want is scale this man’s body and fuck him into oblivion.

However, I also want to haul ass and hide at the same time.

I stand as still as I can with my hands at my sides, breathing slowly. His lips kiss my forehead, where they still haven’t moved, and he whispers against it, “I’ll make you happy again, baby. If it’s the last thing I fucking do.”

Then, as the front door closes behind him, I sink to the floor and allow myself to fall apart, weeping for two things. For my numbness to return to me and choke this horrible hope that will leave me in shattered pieces. And for Leo to scoop me up and take me far, far away, leaving this numbness and wasted life behind me.

I
surprise myself. Well, it’ll probably shock the shit out of you too. I don’t have an illicit and deviant affair with Leo. I don’t hold myself from it because of my marital vows though. Don’t make a saint out of me, for God’s sake.

No, I only abstain from Leo to protect myself. I keep the relationship between us as friendly as I can. We do still go to lunch almost every week. However, our calls and texts are much more frequent. Like ‘Good morning,’ ‘Whatcha eatin’ for lunch?’ and ‘Goodnight,’ with a hundred or so texts in between.

And apparently I catch Nick completely off guard when I file for divorce in June. I’m a little surprised when I set the paperwork in front of him and he looks at me as if I’ve stolen both testicles and his only living child.

“What the fuck is this, Lillian?” Fierce anger contorts his face that was calm only seconds before.

“Those are divorce papers. See?” I point to the heading. “It says right there.”

“Yes I see
that…
Now would you like to explain what the hell I’m looking at divorce papers for?”

I sigh and speak as calmly as I can. “Nicolas, you and I both knew this was coming. Please don’t do this. Are you seriously going to stand there and act like I don’t know about your affair—or affairs? We haven’t had sex since before my brother died. And quite honestly I would shudder to have to have intercourse with you now—
using a condom
. God knows where it or they have been.” Oops. Calm slipped there a bit at the end.

“Oh that’s fucking rich, little miss perfect. It’s not my fault you checked out of this marriage emotionally
and
sexually after Bella was born.”

“Bella? This didn’t start with Bella. This started with this fucking house.” And now calm has completely left the building.
Fuck it!
I’m seething pissed! Is he freaking kidding me? “This started when you stopped seeing me,
all of me,
when you looked at me. This started when we stopped being a team, Nick. You cast the blame on me if you want to, but you make damn sure that when I pick up and carry this burden that is our failed marriage, you acknowledge that you played just as much a part in its demise as I did.”

“Burden? That’s what this is to you? A burden? Come on, Lillian. Life isn’t perfect. We’re parents. We can’t split our family up. Don’t do this to us.” His anger is deflated instantly. He’s pleading me with his eyes, and for the first time in over five years, I see the Nick that pushed me on the swing outside at Brad’s party by the lake.

As I watch the tears flood Nick’s eyes and fall down his beautiful face, a very large part of me dies. Until this moment I hadn’t really stopped and looked at what we had, what we could have kept, what we lost so long ago. And a vital part of me, possibly the last shred of goodness within me, dies in that instant, withering away as the realization dawns on me of what we allowed to happen to us.

I lay my hands on his shoulders, letting my fingers play with the ends of his black hair around his collar as the tears from the pain of what I am about to say fall. For everything I am about to let go.