Beauty from Pain (38 page)

We both know what I’m doing, but she rolls
with it. “As if you’d know what to do.”

“
I’m not totally helpless in the
kitchen. I think I recall cooking brekkie for you one
morning.”

“
I’m not sure a bagel with cream
cheese counts as cooking breakfast, but regardless—I’m good. Why
don’t you go choose a wine for us?”

I kiss the side of her face. “That I can
definitely do.”

I go into the cellar and choose a
merlot. As I walk back to the house, I hear myself whistling
“Private Dancer”
without thinking
about.
Damn, she’s always on my mind, even
if it’s my subconscious.

I hear Laurelyn talking to someone
when I return from the wine cellar. I walk into the kitchen and
she
turns
to see
me standing behind her. She’s upset and that’s when I know
it’s
him
. He’s
called again.

I take the phone from her hand and hit the end
button. “Don’t take his calls again. He upsets you and I don’t want
to spend what little time we have left with him on your mind. I
want to be the only one you think about. Agreed?”

“
Agreed.”

I want her to forget his call, his
face, his name, so I pull her close for a kiss. “Now, do you think
you can make it through dinner without him in your head, or do I
need to take you to bed and give you a reason to forget all about
him?”

“
Although I love the idea of you
taking me to bed, he’s already out of my head. He was the second
you kissed me.”

“
Good.”

While we’re eating, I can’t stop
myself from watching the way the candlelight dances on Laurelyn’s
face.
God, I’m going to miss her when
she’s gone.

She notices me watching her and a smile
spreads across her face. “A penny for thoughts?”

I reach for her hand and squeeze it. “I was
just thinking about what I’m going to do after you go home. Damn,
I’m going to miss you.”

She pulls her hand from mine and begins to
clear the table. Her eyes are dodging mine. “You’ll do exactly as
you’ve done all the other times. You’ll move on to the next town
and find number fourteen.”

I can’t imagine there being anyone beyond
number thirteen.

45

Laurelyn Prescott

The time has come. I’m leaving today, but Jack
Henry has no idea. He believes we have twenty-four more hours
together. Why have I lied to him? Because I can’t bear to see him
be all right with watching me walk away forever when I’m not at all
prepared to do so.

He’s sleeping next to me. He takes a slow,
deep breath and like clockwork, I hear a quiet snore every other
breath. It’s his breathing cycle and after sleeping next to him for
three months, I’ve come to predict it. To expect it. To love it. I
don’t want to know what it’s going to be like not hearing it once
I’m in my bed at home, so I decide I won’t. I go to my purse and
take out my phone to record his sounds. It’s silly, but at least I
can have this part of him with me after I’m gone.

When I finish, I sit in the chair
in the corner of the room and scan through the pictures of us on
my
phone
. I have
come to love these images of us together. I decide I won’t give
them up, either, so I silence both phones and go through the photos
texting each one to my personal phone. He’ll never know I did this
and even if he figures it out, what’s he going to do about it? I’ll
be over nine thousand miles away.

When I finish transferring all the photos to
my phone, I sit and watch this man I’ve come to love. I have no
idea how long I sit staring at him. I only know I won’t get to do
it again after tonight.

I curse the glowing time on the clock—4:36. I
realize the time I thought would never come has. The flames burning
from both ends of our candle are meeting in the middle this
morning. My three months with Jack Henry has dwindled to less than
three hours and is about to be snuffed out.

I pull my legs up and cradle them as I begin
to cry. I’m forced to cup my hands over my mouth to muffle the
uncontrollable sobbing. I hear him toss in the bed and I cup my
hands tightly so he won’t hear me, but he does anyway. “Hey, what
are you doing over there?”

I take a deep breath and my chest vibrates.
The light from the cracked bathroom door is minimal in the corner
where I’m sitting so he can’t see my face. I work to disguise the
nasally sound I’m certain my tears have caused. “I’m memorizing
everything I don’t want to forget after I’m gone.”

There. I said it. It’s the reality
we’ve been ignoring. This is me giving him the opportunity to talk
about me leaving.
Say something. Anything.
Please.

But he doesn’t. “Come back to bed.”

“
Okay. I just need a minute in the
bathroom.”

I splash my face with cold water and then hold
a cool cloth over my eyes knowing it won’t help with the swelling
by the time he gets up for work. He’s going to know I’ve been
crying and there’s nothing I can do about it.

When I get into bed with him, I slide over and
put my head on his chest. He wraps his arm around me and rubs it up
and down from my shoulder to my elbow. “Everything okay with
you?”

“
Yeah.”

“
It doesn’t feel okay.”

I agree. Nothing about this feels okay. I
can’t tell him that, so I do the only thing that will. I roll to my
stomach and rise to my knees. I hitch one leg over him until I’m
straddling him and then my body covers his as I drop my mouth to
kiss him.

We’re both still naked from our earlier romp.
I feel him grow hard below me as I slide back and forth over his
growing erection. My intention is only to tease him and myself, but
then I feel him angled perfectly to slide inside me. I push him
inside just a little, dying to slide his full length all the way
in.

We’ve only gone without using a condom the one
time last week when I told him I loved him and it was the best
ever. I felt so close to him and I want that again before I leave.
I need it one last time.

His hands are on my hips and he doesn’t push
me away so I slide his length inside me a little more. “Laurelyn
…”

“
Do you want me to
stop?”

He doesn’t answer me immediately. “No, I don’t
want you to ever stop.”

I lace my fingers through his and
use them as leverage as I sink his remaining length inside me until
I’m completely full.
I love you so much,
Jack Henry.

I hear a deep groan from him and the sound
alone is such a turn-on. Knowing I’m the one who makes him come
undone gives me a kind of pleasure I’ve never known.

He flexes his hips up every time I slide down.
“Oh, that feels so damn amazing, Laurelyn.”

I would do this everyday if it were up to me,
but it’s not my choice. It’s his. And he’s choosing to let me
go.

Now his hands are on my hips and he encourages
me to move up and down faster under his splayed hands. “I’m close,
Laurelyn.” His fingertips are digging into my skin. “Is it okay to
come inside you?”

“
Yes.”

His fingertips close around each of my
hipbones and he pulls me down hard against him. He makes his come
sound that I love so much because it always has my name behind it.
“Ooh, Laurelyn.”

I feel him twitch inside me and I know he has
just filled me with a part of him.

When he releases my hips, I collapse against
his chest and his arms wrap around me. “God, I’m going to miss
you.”

And there they are. My walking papers. I no
longer hold out hope he will ask me to stay, and I feel the tears.
Thank God I turned off the bathroom light when I came out so it’s
dark and he can’t see me. And I won’t see the love he doesn’t feel
when he’s holding me.

I feel the stream slide down my
cheek.

“
What is that?” He slides his hand
between us and feels the wetness. “Are you crying?”

“
No.”
Yes
.

“
You are crying. What’s wrong? Did
I hurt you?” He slides up in the bed, although I’m on top of him. I
feel him reach for the lamp on the nightstand, but I grab his hand
to stop him.

“
No. I’m not
hurt. I’m fine.”
Yes, I’m hurt but not the
way you think
.

I lace my fingers through his so he won’t try
again to turn on the lamp. I don’t want to attempt to explain
this.

He doesn’t say anything else about it and
neither do I. I spend the next two hours lying next to Jack Henry
with my head against his chest. I’m listening to his
heartbeat—another thing I’ll never hear again.

He kisses the top of my head. “Mmm. I’m going
to be late if I don’t get ready for work. I’d hate to get
fired.”

“
Yeah, that’s a mean ol’ mister
you work for,” I laugh, but even I hear how phony I
sound.

The sun is up and I watch Jack Henry walk
naked to the bathroom. Damn, I’m definitely going to miss seeing
that every morning.

When he’s ready for work, he comes over to
kiss me like he has every morning that I’ve been in his bed, but
this time is different. “I’ll see you this afternoon,
baby.”

I kiss him like it will be the last time I
ever see him. Because it is. I clutch him in my arms. This is our
last kiss. Our last embrace. Our last everything.

“
You’re squeezing me like this is
it.” Can he read my mind? Sometimes I wonder. He kisses my
forehead. “Are you sure everything is okay?”

I nod because I’m so unstable. I’m about to
burst into tears and I have to keep it together just a little bit
longer.

“
I’ll try to come in early so we
can do something special tonight.”

This is it.
Here it comes.

I watch Jack walk out of my life forever as he
leaves the bedroom. And that’s when it all sinks in. We’re over.
Forever.

46

Jack McLachlan

At twelve o’clock, I decide to call it a day
because I’m getting nothing accomplished. All I can think about is
Laurelyn and how she’s going to walk out of my life tomorrow. It’s
all I’ve thought of for a week since I heard her say that she loved
me.

This has been the shortest three months of my
life. My chest quite literally aches with the thought of never
seeing her again. We agreed on three months, and our time together
is up. I promised her the time of her life, but I’ll be damned if
she didn’t turn it around on me. I’m the one who had the best three
months of my life, and there’s no hope for ever topping
it.

I love her too much to let her leave and I
need to tell her right this minute.

“
Harold, I’m taking the rest of
the day off.”

“
Yes, sir. Have a good
afternoon.”

Within minutes, I’m at the house and Mrs.
Porcelli greets me in the kitchen. “Mr. McLachlan, would you care
for some lunch?”

“
Has Laurelyn had lunch
yet?”

She looks peculiar. “She left this morning not
long after you went to work.”

She didn’t say anything about needing to go
into town. “Did she say where she was going?”

Mrs. Porcelli hesitates. “She told me she was
going home. I thought it was strange you weren’t going to the
airport with her, but I didn’t think it was my place to question
it.”

No. She’s wrong. That can’t be
right.

“
Laurelyn!” I run toward the
bedroom and nothing seems out of place, but it’s too clean and in
order. Laurelyn isn’t this organized. Something of hers is always
tossed on the chair in the corner, but it’s free of clutter. I open
the top drawer of the chest where she keeps her intimates and find
it empty.

Please, don’t let her have left me.

I go to the closet and everything hanging
there belongs to me.

Why have you done this, Laurelyn?

I take my phone out of my pocket and dial her
number. I hear my personalized ringtone and I follow the sound. I
find her phone next to her Martin on the coffee table in the living
room. There’s an envelope lying next to it with my name written in
her handwriting.

This is bad. Very bad.

I hold the envelope without breaking the seal.
She’s gone and she left this ink on paper here in her place. These
are her final words to me. I open it and remove the folded
paper.

My beautiful Jack Henry,

This has been coming for three months and I’m
no better prepared for it today than I was when we met. If
anything, I’m less prepared. I didn’t love you the day I met you,
or even a month later. But somewhere between hello and the goodbye
I’m unable to bear, I fell desperately in love with you.

I know you don’t feel the same. That’s why I
told you I was leaving tomorrow instead of today. I couldn’t bear
to say goodbye and see how little you were affected by watching me
walk out of your life forever. Because it is forever. I promised I
wouldn’t contact you and I won’t.