Something About You (Just Me & You) (36 page)

 She struggled out of his grasp. “I know they will,” she
said. Gage noticed that her voice was lower and raspier than normal.

“I thought you’d like to drive into Des Moines with me from
now on,” he said. “See a movie, do some shopping, whatever you like. You’ve
been cooped up here in Walden long enough.”

“I’d love to, but—” She stopped mid-sentence and stared at
his chest.

“What is it, darlin’?” he asked, tipping her chin up with
his forefinger.

“Nothing that needs to be your problem. Theo has a way of
getting me worked up.” Gage had noticed that Sabrina’s demands at work
frequently left her irritated and exhausted but never worried. But this
morning, she was.

“Theo Ward is a career politician,” he reasoned. “You don’t
get where he is without mastering a certain level of manipulation. And if it’s
your problem, it’s my problem, too.”

A new emotion spread across her face, one that he hadn’t
seen before. It looked a lot like guilt. There was something else she wasn’t
telling him. He was sure of it.

“Thank you for being so understanding about this, Gage,” she
said. “I have to proof some press releases and get them back to Carlton
tomorrow. I’ll need to get to the coffee shop before the morning rush, or else
I’ll—”

He planted a palm on each side of her face and kissed her
quiet.

“You don’t need to wind out the tale, darlin’. I can drop
you off in the morning on my way out. The weather’s supposed to be hellish.”

“No, please don’t.” Her voice sounded slightly panicked.
“What I mean is, I don’t know what time I’ll want to leave or come back or —
Gage, just go without me. I’ve become a really good driver.”

“Thank god for
Fargo
,” he said with a smile.

“Yeah.” She coughed into her hand and then cleared her
throat. “D’you want to go to Nicki’s tonight for dinner? I was so looking
forward to seeing the lake.” She gave him an eager look.

“Take your bells off, baby.” He looked at her with paternal
concern. “Your face looks flushed, and I don’t like the sound of that cough.”

“Really, Gage—”

“Hmm, I thought so,” he said, laying a hand across her brow.
“Feels like you have a fever.”

“That’s ridiculous.” Sabrina tried to suppress another
cough. “I never get sick. I
can’t
get sick.”

“Something tells me the little microorganisms that have
invaded your lungs would beg to differ. Humor me and jump into your pajamas.
I’ll make a food run. After that, it’s straight to bed. No fooling around.”

“Absolutely none?” An impish smile tugged at her mouth.
“You’ve given me no hope to live.”

Gage grinned at the simmering, seductive look she was
sending his way from underneath those long lashes. He’d needed to be close to
her in every way, and she hadn’t just obliged; sensing his need for physical closeness,
she’d initiated contact, and she’d done so freely and quite creatively. Their
sex life together would never get boring, and he knew that to be a fact.

“Well, maybe we can fool around a little,” he told her with
a wink. “I’ll reserve judgment for when the time comes.” He slung on his jacket
and searched around for his car keys.

“Gage?” Sabrina asked. He could still see the heat of
attraction in her eyes, but there was a hesitant look on her face that he
couldn’t interpret. Then he saw that she was shivering slightly.

“What is it?” He paused in the doorway. “Are you cold? D’you
need me to turn up the heat?”

“No. You’re right. I don’t feel well. Before you go, I want —
I need you to tell you that — never mind,” she sighed and snuggled into
his chest. “Just hold me for a little while longer.”

Gage did just that. Sabrina pressed her cheek against the
flannel of his shirt, closed her eyes and sighed. Never had he met a woman who
made him look forward to spending his life with her forever. He could always
predict she’d be unpredictable. A day might come when he could interpret her
moods like he would words in a book, but she’d always be like a second language
to him, never completely familiar and slightly difficult to read.

She would always be his biggest challenge.

As Gage got into the Tahoe, the unsettled feeling he’d felt
in the kitchen resurfaced and became stronger. He backed the vehicle onto the
snow-packed street, put it in drive and drove away slowly. He didn’t want to
put any distance between them right now. He wanted to be with Sabrina every
minute.

Because when she stood in the kitchen stammering and
shivering in his arms, he couldn’t shake the strange feeling that she
struggling not to tell him goodbye.

Sabrina sat huddled in a chair at a corner table, sipping
her mocha latte and half-heartedly nibbling the corner of a currant scone. Her
tonsils were as swollen as ripe figs, and a fever raged under a clammy brow.
Gage hadn’t been pleased when she had insisted on venturing out to the
coffeehouse, but she had to get the press release talking up Theo’s bills in by
noon or Carlton would be in fits.

She read over the draft once more before she hit “Send.”

There is the path of lesser resistance
, she reminded
herself. Money was no longer a problem now that she’d paid off the loan on the
house. Plenty of women took pride in the sense of accomplishment they derived
just from being wives and mothers. She plopped her chin in her hand and traced
the star pattern on the Formica tabletop with her nail. It wasn’t as though she
couldn’t have a job at all. She could work flexible hours at Ella’s, maybe do
some consulting work on the side. She and Gage would need a second income so
they could afford a bigger house in Shady Oak Hills to accommodate their
growing family.

Shady Oak Hills—?

Sabrina blinked and snapped out of it, appalled. Here she
was, sitting alone in a tiny coffee shop in Walden, Iowa, undone by the power
of her own irrational persuasion. She hadn’t finished her first cup of coffee.
Of course she wasn’t thinking straight.

She sipped the steaming liquid and idly scrolled down her
inbox, passing over emails from Theo and Carlton with frantic-looking subject
lines until she got to the end of the queue.

From: molly@lechateauduparker…

To: sabrina@lascasadimarch…

Subject: You’ve Arrived

Dearest Brini,

I got no advice for you, sweetie. Honestly, did you
really need it?

I have to confess something. I had my doubts that you’d
survive the flatlands. The Buckeye State. No, wait. Ohio’s the Buckeye State.
What’s Iowa? I can’t remember. It has the word “eye” in it. Or maybe “corn.”
Forget it. I’m too lazy to Google it. You’re probably thinking that if you see
another snowflake, that’s one too many for this particular incarnation. Gage’s
problems are no doubt weighing on your mind, too. But you’re still there,
tractor pulls and all.

Welcome home, sister of mine.

Welcome to the world of mature, adult love. Think of your
relationships with Jackson and the kayakers as training wheels for the scary
part. The part when you finally learn how to keep your balance. Are you ready
for what happens next, Sabrina March? Gage’s priorities will change — a
lot. Facing the D-word (See? It remains my bête noir, even though the two of us
became intimately acquainted when I lost my parents) makes you think about what
you’ve done with your own life. It also makes you think about what you want in
your future. There’s only so much we can do with the time we have. So if you
and Gage want the same things out of life, you’re almost all the way there.

Brini, you didn’t get a reputation as Cadence Corner’s
golden girl just because you broke through the glass ceiling in a profession
dominated by good ol’ boys like Theo Ward. The more difficulties life threw at
you, the more resilient you became. There’s a limit to resilience, as you’ve
discovered. You’ve finally met the man who drew out the incredibly
soft-hearted, down-to-earth, coney-gobbling woman you’ve tried so hard to keep
under wraps — that softness, that
give
, is what makes you a true
star. I’m so proud of you. Not just for finding the magic words but for doing
the actual alchemy.

Squishes,

Molls

P.S. Sebastian and I send our love to Gage.

Sabrina closed the browser and powered down her laptop.
Giddily altruistic people like Molly had to be proof of intelligent design.
Sabrina felt anything but resilient. She definitely didn’t feel like a star.

All she’d done was let a wonderful man fall in love with
her.

A man who was magnificent in bed. An honorable man who would
do what he had to do for his sister, no matter how painful that was. A man
whose priorities were about to change, just like Molly said. She could take
Gage’s future and fritter it away while he waited for her to step off the fast
track and give him the one thing he wanted the most. One simple thing: children
to pass down his name and his legacy. Any other woman could do it and probably
would.

She stared mindlessly out the window, barely seeing the
people trudging by in the snow. Instead, she was imagining the crestfallen look
on Molly’s face if she only knew what was really running through her best
friend’s mind. She could stay here in Walden with Gage. She could forever link
all of his hopes for their future with the most devastating time of his life
just by virtue of her presence by his side. She could lead him to believe that
she was what he wanted until he found out otherwise. 

Or I can be selfless and let him go. 

It wasn’t as though she didn’t have a good excuse for leaving.
Fires that had sparked as a result of Theo’s naughty-naughty time with his
flame-haired mistress still needed to be put out.

Sabrina hesitated for a long time before she opened the
laptop again. She opened the browser and quickly searched for flights out of
Des Moines. The last plane to Austin left at seven p.m. That was doable. She’d
need to pack and arrange transportation to the airport.

After three cups of espresso, her executive functioning had
kicked into high gear, thoughts bolting ahead of her brain’s processing speed
only to crash into each other in confusion. She thought of Molly typing away in
front of her computer with a smile on her face. Then Sabrina imagined Gage
sitting by the side of his sister’s hospital bed. He would take her hand and
feel its warmth, blood of his blood if only by half, and feel consoled by the
thought that he wouldn’t be the last of the Fitzgerald line.

Leaving didn’t have to be a long, drawn-out affair; all she
needed to do was wait for him to come home, sit down beside him, and tell him
what she needed to say. She thought of how his shoulders would instinctively
stiffen defensively as he retreated into himself and the look of cool, quiet
reproach in his eyes. He would regret loving her, and he’d have every right.  

Suddenly, Sabrina couldn’t bear the thought of seeing Gage
again.

Ever again.

It’s over and done.

Gage reached for the bundle of roses wrapped in florist’s
paper that had ridden shotgun on the way back from Des Moines. He didn’t peg
Sabrina as the rose type. She’d probably prefer something more exotic and rare,
like chocolate orchids or stargazer lilies. But the hospital gift shop hadn’t
had a wide selection of floral arrangements.

As unimaginative as they were, red roses would have to do.

There was no point in dwelling on the events that had
transpired that morning. He’d fought the good fight as long as he could, but
he’d done the right thing. He’d finally stopped fighting. He’d let Michelle go.
The woman he’d read to that morning for the last time had been gone for the
past two years, lingering perhaps in the dimension Sabrina had described. Gage
didn’t know what emotions he was supposed to be feeling. Relief? Anger?
Sadness? He tried to narrow down the list to just one and only felt more
confused.

Michelle would want him to just get on with it. He knew that
much. His sister would want him to embrace every second and live a big, loud,
unpredictable life with a woman who adored him by his side. She would have
loved Sabrina.

Regret
, he finally decided. That’s exactly what he
felt.

As soon as Gage opened the front door, he was overwhelmed by
the strident smell of ammonia. He heard the sound of someone humming in the
hall. A stout, motherly looking woman in her late fifties emerged carrying an
armload of clean linens. She wore a bright pink headband, circa early 1980s, to
keep her short, grayish-blond hair from falling into her eyes. 

“Gage!” she exclaimed with a smile. “Well, look at you.”

“It’s really nice to see you again, Joanie.” Gage forced a
smile.

Joanie was a Walden fixture. For as long as he could
remember, she’d been cleaning other people’s houses. Not because she needed the
extra money. Joanie actually found sweeping, mopping and polishing things to a
high shine an enjoyable pastime.

“I met your young lady, Sabrina,” she said with a wink. “So
well-spoken and polite. You did good for yourself. I told my husband that when
Gage Fitzgerald finally brought a woman to his hometown it had to be serious —
at least Lacey Adams seems to think so.” Joanie chuckled. “Are the two of you
going to get married?” 

“Ah, we haven’t discussed it.” Gage had forgotten how every
residence in Walden seemed to be wired with empty soup cans and kite string.

“Your lady friend, Sabrina, told me the same thing,” Joanie
told him. “You’ll have to forgive me for being a little nosy. Folks around here
are just happy to see you settle down with someone steady. You deserve
happiness after what you’ve been through with Michelle. I told Sabrina as
much.”

“Is she here?” Gage asked, looking around.

Joanie looked perplexed. “Goodness, no.”

“Did she say what time she’d be back?”

“Oh, sweetie.” Joanie’s face fell. “You mean she didn’t
phone you? Sabrina had to take a flight back to Austin. Mentioned something
about a major emergency at work. Howie’s cab company picked her up and drove
her into Des Moines. She left a note for you on the desk.”

Suddenly Gage felt like an idiot standing there in front of
Joanie with a dozen red roses in his hand. He forced himself to spend a few
more minutes of polite conversation before excusing himself so she could get on
with her housework.

The guest bedroom had once been a repository for the
ridiculous number of suitcases Sabrina had toted to Iowa. Now it was completely
empty. He checked the room thoroughly. But there was no stray hair barrette
left behind on the desk. No pair of lacey panties accidentally kicked under the
bed.

Nothing …

He needed something — even something as simple and
elusive as the smell of her perfume lingering in the air — to remind him
that she’d really been there, because it all seemed like a long, sweet dream.

A sealed envelope was on the desk. Sabrina had scribbled his
name on the front in hasty cursive. Gage tossed the roses on the bed and picked
it up, testing its weight in his hand. Weight was no indicator of the contents
inside, and he was certain they’d be far heavier.

When a woman wrote a letter like this one, put it in an
envelope and sealed it, there was only one thing she had to say.

He sank into the desk chair and looked at the front of the
envelope again, studying the decisive slant of the loops in her handwriting.
She couldn’t stay with him in Walden indefinitely; she’d never misled him about
that. But he could tell when she was trying to avoid getting close to him
again, and the proof was right in his hand.

This is it—?

Gage tossed the envelope aside without bothering to open it,
struck by an uncanny sense of déjà vu. The night she turned down his suggestion
to try their hand at a relationship burned strong in his memory. She’d run away
from him then, and she’d done so without hesitation. Why had he assumed that
she wouldn’t do it again?

He could hear Joanie belting out the chorus of an old
Fleetwood Mac tune from the laundry room.

Steady. Right.

Sabrina was anything but steady. In a matter of a few hours,
she had shown him and the entire town of Walden just how well she could live
that particular adjective down.

The roses listed over the side of the bed; their heads
drooped to the floor and looked almost dejected. Suddenly, the pain of loss hit
Gage full force.
Michelle is gone.
This was the one day he needed
Sabrina the most. He didn’t need her shoulder to cry on. He didn’t even need to
talk things out with her. That would come later when the shock had passed.

He simply needed her to be there. 

The thought of coming home to her was the only thing that
had made his nightmare of a morning bearable.

The scent of roses was flooding the room now, elegant and
warm. Moving like a somnambulist, Gage retrieved them from the bed and tossed
them in a trash can next to the desk, barely feeling the thorn that pricked the
pad of his thumb. He had never felt more alone than he did at that moment.
Until a few hours ago, there were only two women in his life, in his whole
world, that he loved.

Neither of them was coming back.

**

Sabrina hoped for a light passenger load on the plane given
the late hour.

Instead, the seats around her started to fill up with
travelers going home after an extended holiday. She pushed her train case into
the compartment above her seat, praying that the back of the plane would remain
relatively empty. God, she felt miserable. Along with her swollen throat,
pressure was building inside of her ears and behind her temples. Her stuffy
nose picked up the faint but odious smell of recycled cabin air: coffee, peanuts
and jet fuel.

She slumped into her seat, thinking wistful thoughts of hot
honeyed tea and Molly’s homemade cream of chicken soup. She gulped down her
dread. When Molly found out that she’d bailed on Gage without warning, there
was no telling how long the quiet treatment could last. Sabrina shifted
anxiously. Everything would be better once she was in flight. She’d be on her
way home. Tomorrow she’d fall asleep in her own house in her own bed.

Everything would go back to normal …  

A couple charged down the aisle with two children and staked
claim to the trio of seats on the opposite side. The female half of the couple
wore a faded yellow sweatshirt with “World’s Greatest Mom” on the front. Her
hair was pulled up in an untidy ponytail. She attempted to rein in a headstrong
toddler who made repeated beelines to the attendants’ area. Her male
counterpart was slightly less fashion-challenged in plain jeans and a gray
T-shirt. He toted a carrier filled with sleeping baby with one hand. The other
held a changing bag the size of a mini-fridge. 

Sabrina’s cell phone began to vibrate.
Oh, hell
, she
thought, looking down at the display.
Gage.
Perspiration broke out on
her palms as she accepted the call.

“There’s not a major emergency at the office, is there?” His
voice rumbled in her ear. It was a familiar voice. But it seemed as though she
hadn’t heard it in years.

“Gage…” Sabrina couldn’t think of a single thing to say that
wasn’t a lie.

“I didn’t think so.” He didn’t sound particularly angry. He
didn’t sound anything. Sabrina didn’t know how to interpret the tenuous silence
that came next. He could have said anything. He’d be justified in calling her
out on the lie.

“I’m just calling to make sure you’re okay,” he said after a
long silence.

“I’m fine, Gage. I really am. How do you feel?”

“I’ve seen better days.” His voice sounded tired.

“You will again. I promise.” She studied the couple on the
other side of the aisle. They were murmuring at each other as they engaged in
the business of folding, stuffing and shoving stuff into the overhead
compartments. The woman had managed to get the toddler seated and settled, but
now the baby was starting to make ominous gurgling noises, a sound that would
usher in the mother of all others. Sabrina knew it all too well.

The man shut the compartment with a bang.

“You’re on the plane?” Gage’s voice in her ear brought her
back to reality.

“Yes. I think we’re about to take off soon. I left you a
letter. Did you read it?”

“I don’t need to, honey.” Sabrina’s heart ached at the weariness
in his voice. “You’ve already told me everything without saying a word.”

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

“Yeah, well. About that thing I said on New Year’s night?”
His voice was gruff. The rest of his sentence was drowned out by the baby’s
loud, jagged squalls.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you.” Sabrina plugged her free ear
with a finger.

“I want you to know that I meant what I told you, Sabrina
March. Every word. Remember that.”

“Of course I will. Gage?” She heard nothing but dead silence
on the other end of the connection. She looked at the display. The call had
terminated. 

“I’m just glad the stroller fit in the overhead,” the woman
told her husband, pulling the toddler onto her lap. Her body language was a
study in weary alertness compounded by stress.

“I think he needs to be fed,” suggested her mate, who was
pacifying the baby with his little finger. But Sabrina’s ears didn’t deceive
her; she still heard a baby crying.

She frowned and peered over the seat, only to discover that
the same scenario was being replayed in various rows in front of her.
Harried-looking parents corralled and calmed children on laps and in carrier
seats.

Could this be her future? She imagined herself on a podium
giving Theo’s next introductory speech. Sabrina March, the only Chief of Staff
to successfully wear both nursing bra and pearls. Gage stood on the sidelines
with an Ergo Bjorn strapped over his black leather duster. A well-behaved child
wearing Clayeux knits and polished patent Mary Janes held his hand. The image
had the same wishful appeal of a Hollywood motion picture.

It wouldn’t happen.

It could never happen. Because that wasn’t real life.

The engines began to whine, an egregious noise that made her
eyes water. Plane rides usually had a soothing effect and Sabrina had been
banking on a few hours of shut-eye. She felt too awake. Across the aisle, the
man had set up his laptop on the pull-down tray. He paused to pull open a
package of animal crackers for the toddler while his wife fed the fussing baby
under a nursing shawl.

They made it look so easy, but Sabrina couldn’t begin to
imagine such sangfroid. She retrieved her MP3 player and earbuds from her
messenger bag and queued up her playlist. The air in the cabin was stifling and
dry. Tipping her head back, she concentrated on the music and the weak flow of
cool air that blew over her temples.