The Color of Heaven - 09 - The Color of Time (18 page)

Looking boyish, he was insanely attractive in faded jeans, a red T-shirt that clung to his fit muscular body, work gloves, sunglasses and a navy baseball cap, he dragged the hose up the ladder and sprayed water into the trench full of leaves to loosen the obstruction.

“It’s a good thing you called me when you did,” he said, brushing some wet leaves over the side and glancing down at me at the base of the ladder. “This really needed to be cleaned out.”

“Thanks for coming.” I lowered my voice. “I’m almost positive Gram would have tried to do this herself if you hadn’t shown up. I could see it in her eyes. She had that determined look about her. God knows what could have happened.”

“She’s an amazing woman,” he replied, scooping out the leaves. “I can’t believe she’s eighty-six. I hope I’m that energetic when I’m her age.”

“Me, too.”

Chris pressed the lever on the hose and a spray of dirty water and rotten leaves splashed down on me. I exclaimed and stepped back.

Chris laughed. “You might want to go inside. It’s going to get messy when I start tossing out the goop.”

Hesitant about letting go of the ladder, I squinted up at him. The sun nearly blinded me. “You sure?”

“Yeah, this is no problem. It won’t take long.”

“Okay.” Reluctantly I backed away, shaded my eyes to watch him for a few seconds, then I climbed the back steps and entered the kitchen. I found Gram at the counter making sandwiches.

“No doubt he’s working up an appetite,” she said. “Can’t let a good man like that go hungry.”

“Certainly not.” I reached into the decorative crystal bowl for a pickle and crunched into it.

Gram pointed at the package of sliced cheese on the table. “Hand me that, will you?”

I fetched it and peeled off the plastic wrap to pass her one slice at a time.

“So what’s the scoop, baby girl?” she asked. “Give me all the dirt.”

I laughed. “You know the dirt, Gram. He’s only here for a couple of weeks, then he’s going back to Seattle to be with his son.”

“End of story,” she said, with a hint of disapproval.

“I don’t know.”

She let out a huff. “What about his ex-wife? You mentioned the other day that she might come out here to visit?”

I glanced out the kitchen window at the water dripping over the eaves. “I’m not sure about that. He’s looking forward to seeing his son, Logan, but he hasn’t said whether or not Katelyn will be coming to stay as well. It’s still up in the air, I guess.”

“You
guess
. Now there’s a recipe for disaster.” She put the sandwiches together and reached for the knife to slice them into triangles. “I hope you’re putting up a good fight on your end.”

I laughed. “I’m not sure what you mean by that, Gram, but I don’t think I should have to fight. If it’s meant to be, it will be.”

She slapped a slice of ham onto the mayonnaise-coated bread. “Phooey on that. If you don’t make sure he knows how you feel, he’ll be ripe for the picking—by that other woman who betrayed him and broke his heart all those years ago.”

“That ‘other woman’ is the mother of his child,” I replied. “And his child has leukemia. Sometimes I wonder if I should just get out of the way and let them put their broken family back together. I don’t want to be a homewrecker, especially in a case like this.”

“You’re not the homewrecker,” my grandmother said, facing me. “She was.”

I thought about that for a moment, and was surprised by the sorrow and compassion that seeped into my soul. “We all make mistakes.”

My grandmother set down the knife and stood motionless at the counter for a few seconds, staring at the triangular sandwiches. Then she turned to me and cupped my chin in her gnarly fingers. “You’re a good person, Sylvie. So kind and sympathetic. You deserve to be happy.”

She carried the plate of sandwiches to the table and set it down.

“So what do you think I should do?” I asked.

“I can’t make that decision for you, but he should at least know how you feel. It won’t work if you keep him at a distance. His wife will come out here and throw herself at him, all sexy and seductive, while you stand back, behind protective glass.”

“What are you saying, Gram? That I should sleep with him?”

“Gracious, no,” she replied as she turned on the coffeemaker. “Making a man wait always works to a woman’s advantage, but in this case, I don’t think you’ll be doing yourself any favors by playing it cool. If you want to be with him, make sure he knows you’d get on a plane and change your life for him.”

“You mean move to Seattle?”

“If that’s what it takes. If you want to be a part of his life, you might need to consider making some sacrifices—like getting rid of that giant house you don’t want to let go of. You’ll have to decide what’s more important to you. The past or the future.”

A big glob of wet leaves and muck fell past the window, and suddenly I could hear the sound of the high pressure water sluicing across the clean gutter. A moment later, the hose shut off and Chris climbed safely down the ladder.

Chapter Thirty-six

I drove straight to work after Chris and I finished at Gram’s house, as I was scheduled for the evening shift that day. Grateful for the distractions of my job—for I’d been analyzing my love life so obsessively over the past few days, my brain was beginning to throb—I focused on the food orders and drinks and welcomed the insanity of a busy night at the pub.

Later, I went to bed fantasizing about a future with Chris where he had never been married and there were no obstacles to get in the way of us being together. But when I woke, everything was still the same.

My cell phone vibrated, and I knocked over an empty water glass as I reached for it in my sleepy state.

“Hello?”

“Hi, it’s me.” The sound of Chris’s voice on the other end of the line roused me like the delectable smell of coffee first thing in the morning.

I sat up and rubbed my eyes. “What time is it?”

“It’s just past 11:00. Did I wake you?”

“Yeah, but it’s time to get up anyway.” I tossed the covers aside and slid off the bed, padded to the mirror to look at myself, still half asleep. “What’s up?”

He was quiet for a few seconds. “Are you working this morning?”

“No, I’m off until the dinner shift.”

“Can I see you? Right now? I have something I need to talk to you about.”

A feeling of apprehension rolled into my belly. I suppose I was jaded, always expecting the ceiling to come crashing down on my head.

“Sure. I just need to hop in the shower and get dressed. Do you want to come over for breakfast?”

“I’ll be there in half an hour, but don’t cook anything. I’ll bring breakfast.” His voice was clipped and in a hurry. “See you soon.”

After I ended the call, I sank onto the edge of the bed and rubbed my hands over my face to try and wake myself.

* * *

“There’s been a change of plans,” Chris said as he set a paper bag and tray of coffee on the center island in the kitchen. He reached into the bag and withdrew two breakfast sandwiches he’d picked up at the deli in town. “I’m not sure how you’re going to feel about it.”

Though my insides were knotting up with dread, I tried to maintain a light and casual tone. “What is it?”

He backed away to lean against the counter. “Logan had a doctor’s appointment rescheduled for next week, so we had to change his flight. He’s coming early. He’ll be here today.”

The fact that Chris feared I would be unsettled by this news was unsettling on its own. “But that’s
good
, isn’t it? You were really missing him.”

“I was,” he replied, looking me intently in the eye. “But Katelyn is bringing him out.”

“Ah, I see.” The sense of easy contentment left me as I regarded Chris in the morning light beaming in through the windows. I dragged one of the stools out from under the kitchen island and sat down.

“I don’t want you to be uncomfortable with this,” Chris said. “Katelyn and I had a long talk on the phone last night and she didn’t want Logan to fly out here all alone. That’s all. I told her I didn’t want her to stay for the whole week and she accepted that, so she’s flying home first thing tomorrow morning, on a 6:00 a.m. flight. I’ll bring Logan back to Seattle myself, in time for his appointment.”

I slid the breakfast sandwich away from me. “Will she be staying at your place tonight?”

“Yes,” he said flatly.

I tried not to view this unexpected development as a total catastrophe. It was only one night, and Chris had assured me there was nothing to worry about.

“She couldn’t get a flight back right away?” I asked nevertheless.

Chris seemed embarrassed to explain. “It’s more of an issue around a knee problem she has. It’s hard for her to sit for that many hours in one day.”

A likely story
, I thought grudgingly, and wasn’t proud of myself for my cattiness. At least I had the discipline to keep it to myself.

Reaching for a coffee, I peeled back the plastic lid and took a sip. “When you spoke to her last night,” I said, “did you talk anymore about your relationship and what she wanted?”

“Not a whole lot,” he replied. “But by now she should realize that I’m not open to the idea of us getting back together. If I was, I would have invited her to stay the whole week.”

“Did you tell her about
me?”
I asked.

“Not yet.”

I nodded and took another sip of coffee.

Chris strode forward and dragged a stool across the floor to sit beside me. “You’re not happy.”

“I’m fine,” I assured him, casually waving a hand through the air.

“No, you’re not. Your guard has gone up. I can feel it.”

Turning to face him more directly, I set the coffee cup down. “Okay, so it has, but I can’t help it. I’m wary about pinning my hopes on this—especially when you have an ex-wife and a son back home, and they’re both coming to stay with you tonight. Is she going to sleep in your bed?”

“No. I’ll put her in the guest room, and there’s no going back to what we had, not after everything she did. I don’t have those feelings for her anymore.”

“Still…” I rose from the stool and moved around the island to reheat my coffee in the microwave.

“Just hang in there,” he said. “Please. Katelyn will be gone tomorrow morning and I still want you to spend the week with Logan and me. I really want you to meet him, and I want to spend as much time as possible with you before I head home.”

I faced Chris from the opposite side of the kitchen island. “That’s the worst part about this. Eventually, you’re going to leave and I’m going to miss you like crazy.”

Chris stood up and circled the island to pull me into his arms. I breathed in the clean, intoxicating scent of his skin, closed my eyes and fisted a clump of his denim shirt in my hand. I wanted to hold on to him forever and never let go. I wanted to keep him from going to the airport to pick up Katelyn.

“I’ll miss you, too,” he whispered in my ear, “and I don’t want to lose you. Don’t throw in the towel, okay? Give this a chance. Katelyn will be gone tomorrow and it’ll just be you, me, and Logan. We’ll have a good time, I promise.”

He stepped back and cupped my cheek in his hand. All I could do was nod my head and brace myself for whatever the next twenty-four hours would bring, because I had a feeling Katelyn wasn’t going to go down without a fight.

Chapter Thirty-seven

I had hoped Chris would call or text me on my cell phone that night, just to put my mind at ease, but I didn’t hear a single word from him.

I worked the late shift at the pub and it was past midnight by the time I arrived home. There were no messages on my home phone either.

Curling up on the sofa with a cup of chamomile tea—and trying not to feel jilted and angry—I turned on the television and clicked back and forth between two late night talk shows. When the commercials came on, I picked up my phone to see if any texts had come in. There were none.

It was hard not to go crazy wondering what was happening between Chris and Katelyn in those moments.
Had he put Logan in his pajamas and taken them both out in the rowboat? Were they lying on their backs, gazing up at the stars, reminiscing about old times?

Should I text him?

No, Sylvie.
No!

Slamming my phone down onto the sofa cushion, I told myself to get a grip. Whatever was meant to be, would be. If tonight, Chris realized he was still in love with his ex-wife and he wanted to put their family back together, then that would be that. It was better to know now rather than a year from now, or even a week from now.

Or maybe Katelyn would fly home in the morning, Chris would sweep me off my feet, twirl me around, and he and I would live happily ever after.

I couldn’t help but scoff at that idea, which proved my theory: When it came to romance, I was an incurable pessimist. How could I not be, after losing the two people I loved most, then spending the next eight years living alone in the house we’d shared, surrounded by grim reminders of them?

Picking up my phone and trudging upstairs to bed—I paused on the landing outside Tyler’s room. Slowly I moved to the open door, peered briefly at his bed where the teddy bear sat on the pillow. I stared blankly at everything else. Then I decided I had to stop torturing myself by going in there every time I felt lonely. I backed out and pulled the door closed.