“No, Grandma."
She held aside the receiver and yawned. “Been up for hours.”
“Well, sweetheart, you’re not really sounding too chipper.”
“Just a stress headache,” Carrie said, massaging her throbbing temple. “It will get better.” Already, Carrie was making a mental list of all the conference calls she’d have to rearranged. Mondays! What a mess!
She must have been exhausted. Totally wiped out from her weekend experiences. And, it was all Mike Davis’ fault.
“Well, maybe my cheery bit of news will leave you feeling better... That fiancé of yours --”
Carrie sat bolt upright in bed, not knowing quite what to expect.
“--is such a doll. You’ll never believe what that Wilson did!”
“No, I probably wouldn’t,” Carrie said, meaning it absolutely.
“He sent the sweetest note -- with the flowers.”
“Flowers?”
“Yes, indeed, perfectly gorgeous arrangement. Must have cost the man a fortune, but, of course, like you’ve told us the man is dirty rich so it really is the thought that counts.”
Carrie’s temples constricted and pounded anew. “Filthy, Grandma. The term is fil --”
“Well now, sweetie, you may call the man a dirty rascal if you want to for out-foxing you with this sweet surprise, but I wouldn’t go as far as to insult his personal hygiene. In fact, he looked exceptionally well-groomed to me!”
Carries head thumped back against the headboard, ramrod ding the base of her skull with another lightning bolt of pain. Flowers? He’d sent flowers?! How in the world would she ever explain breaking off an engagement to a wonderfully thoughtful man like him now! Her grandmother was totally smitten! “It was a very sweet gesture, but I’d caution you against taking anything he said too much to heart.”
“To heart?!” Grandmother Russell shot back. “The man has a heart the size of Nebraska! Looking forward to being a part of your beautiful family, was what he said. Brought tears to Nellie’s eyes it did. Real tears, not just the ones she sometimes puts on during confession.”
Carrie sighed and squeezed shut her eyes wondering how on earth she was going to get out of this mess, while her grandmother continued to wax poetic on ‘Wilson’s’ attributes.
“Wasn’t that just the most eloquent...”
Carrie could practically feel the steam blowing out of her ears. Nice job, Mike Davis! Playing the perfect gentleman and leaving poor Carrie holding the bag. The time for beating herself up over her own duplicity had ended. Now Mike was the one with the answering to do. And Carrie was going to see to it personally he did some talking.
Mike was just going out to get his mail when Carrie roared into his apartment’s parking lot like storm cloud on the wings of -- holy cow -- a new model BMW convertible. She did have money. And lots of it.
That wasn’t the only thing, Mike saw, backing up a step as she leapt from her car and made for him like a thunderbolt. “You!”
Mike inched back toward the mail box. He’d never seen a woman so positively incensed. Not even any of the several who’d dumped him.
“Hi, Carrie,” he offered lamely, as she walked right up to his chin, then poked him in the chest.
“Thanks...one...whole...heck...of a...lot!” she said, emphasizing each word with the pressure of her pointy finger. “You, Mike Davis, have single-handedly ruined my existence!”
“Hey, whoa..."
He tried to lay a steadying hand on her shoulder, but backed off when the look in her eye told him she just might bite it off.
“What right,” she asked, again with the pointy finger, that -- dammit -- was starting to hurt. “Do you have...sending flowers...to my grandmother?!”
Mike gripped his hand around the offending digit and held it in place.
“Let me go!” Carried charged.
“Only if you promise to stop poking.”
Carrie glared at him and pulled back her hand, massaging its aching joints. Poking into his chest had been painful for her as well, though she didn’t dare let him know it. It had taken her over three hours to find him. She’d gone through six other Michael Davises in Redfields before she’d finally happened upon this place here. And now, he owed her some answers.
“Like some iced tea?” Mike asked, pinned to the mail box, his eyes darting furiously between Carrie’s still idling car and the woman in front of him.
Carrie ran a frustrated hand through her tangled hair. “Well, for heaven’s sake,” she said, her shoulders sagging just a tad so their positioning didn’t look quite so combative. “I’m not a bee that’s going to sting you.”
“Tea?” Mike repeated, his voice coming out an octave higher than intended. Okay Mike, he told himself, now would be a good time to think up the reason you did that. She obviously wants an explanation. But do you understand it first?
All he knew was that when he’d awakened that morning feeling sunny, sending flowers seemed the perfect thing to do. Gracious. Thoughtful. And the truth was, he adored Carrie’s grandmother-- along with the rest of her extended family.
Carrie set a hand on her hip and shook her head. “Alright, I’ll come in for tea, but under one condition. You promise to be completely honest with me.”
“That cuts two ways, Carrie,” Mike called as she walked back to her car and yanked her keys from the ignition.
Crimminy. She hadn’t even considered that.
Carrie sat across from Mike at his kitchen table in his tiny but tidy efficiency apartment. Carrie looked around somehow finding all the cleanliness disheartening. More undeniable proof of just how highly unsuited to each other the two of them were. What had she been thinking?
“Well,” Carrie asked, setting down her glass. “I’m waiting.”
Mike was waiting, too. Waiting for something brilliant to occur to him. But all he could come up with was the very embarrassing truth: he’d wanted to impress Carrie’s family.
“It wasn’t meant in malice, Carrie,” he began tentatively, pushing aside his tea glass.
“Well, of course, I know that!”
“Well, then...” he asked, gently pacing his words, lest her ice tea glass wind up on his head. “Why are you so darned mad?”
“I’m mad because...Because...” Carrie faltered. She was so furious she could barely form her words. But what, in truth, drove her anger was even beyond her comprehension. All she knew was it had something to do with Mike inserting himself deeper in her life that he had a right to go.
“We made a deal, you and I.”
“That was ages ago.”
“Three days,” she corrected without blinking.
“Well, it seems like ages, Carrie. It seems impossible I’ve only known you that long. The two of us, we...”
“What?” she demanded, looking him square in the eye.
“You can’t tell me you don’t feel it too?”
Carrie pushed back from the table and stood. “No way. No way, Mike, are you turning the tables back on me. We are not here to discuss my feelings!”
“Okay,” Mike said, taking a lingering sip of tea. “Shall we discuss mine, then?”
Panic gripped Carrie by the throat. What was happening here? No! She was here to confront him. She was furious! And there he was looking -- what? Humble? Self-effacing? Forgivable?
Carrie bit into her bottom lip and dropped back down into her chair. “What do you mean by that?”
“What I mean,” he said, looking right through her with earnest green eyes, “is that you said you wanted honesty. I’m prepared to fess up, if you are.”
Carrie gulped and grabbed for her tea glass, which was empty.
“Refill?” she asked weakly.
“In a moment,” he said reaching across the table and encircling the hand that gripped her glass with both of his. “First, we talk flowers.”
Carrie tried to steady her resolve, remind herself of just how infuriated she was. But when she looked at him, really looked at him, Carrie knew in her heart Mike was telling the truth. He hadn’t sent those flowers to upset her. Or anybody else for that matter.
“So, why?” she asked, the still air settling around them, as Mike released his grip on her hands and laid his palms on the table.
“I can’t tell you what it felt like, Carrie. Being there in that room of people -- with your family. I felt so included. Really a part of things. I didn’t mean to make anything harder on you. Truly, I didn’t. I just wanted to say, thank you.”
The gratitude part she could buy. He seemed sincere enough in his emotion, but... “The note?”
Mike wrinkled up his brow. “Guess I crossed the line on that one. My apologies. I sometimes get so swept up in things, I act before I think.”
Carrie held her tongue, knowing very much what that felt like. Okay, so maybe he had acted on impulse. And maybe, out of good intention. But what a viper she was going to look like now, when she announced her relationship with Mike had ended.
“How about your family?” she asked, after a long pause. “Don’t they make you feel -- included?”
Mike gave a slow, sad smile and studied the table top. “Well, I guess family’s a pretty subjective word, isn’t it? Mine isn’t all that big really. Just me and my dad.”
“Oh, I’m sorry."
But Mike didn’t offer any more. He just sat there being very quite. Abnormally quiet.
Carrie sat there thinking and studying the man. The man with the gorgeous green eyes and shoulders broad enough to take on anybody’s troubles. It wasn’t only his trick with the flowers that was going to make ending this charade difficult.
After what seemed like eons, Carrie reached across the table and laid a hand on his arm. “Mike?”
“My dad’s sick, Carrie,” Mike said, looking up with moisture-tinged eyes. “Very sick. For the past two years, almost all of my income has gone to his care.”
Carrie felt the raw burn in her throat. She’d never known her parents. They’d died in a house fire when she’d been barely a year old. By a twist of fate, she’d been staying with her grandmother as her parents were planning on going away together for their second anniversary trip. They’d never made it, and Carrie, thanks to the luck of the draw, had survived to be raised by her Grandmother Russell and doting great aunts.
Still, she couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to lose someone who’d looked after you, somebody you’d equally loved and cared for. Carrie bit back the sting in her own eyes realizing her Grandma Russell’s time probably wasn’t that far away.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I had no idea.”
“Well,” Mike said with a shaky smile, “Dad’s had a good life. A good hard life, led the way he wanted to lead it. I can’t fault him that.”
“What’s he got?”
“It’s more like, what’s he haven’t? His liver’s going, he’s got heart trouble. But, you know, the great thing is he’s still out there kicking. Tough old coot..."
Mike’s voice faltered. “My dad. Still got that great sense of humor. In fact, just to look at him, you’d never..."
“Oh, Mike."
Carrie stood from the table and walked to where he sat, drawing her arms around him. Her heart went out to this man. This man who always tried to put on the good face, who had worked so hard to make her laugh... Who had sent her grandmother flowers. Who could kiss like nobody she’d ever known.
“Now, don’t go feeling sorry for me,” Mike cautioned, looking up and returning her hug.
“What I feel for you,” Carrie said, for the first time admitting it to herself, “goes way beyond sorry...”
Oh great, Mike thought, she pitied him. That was even worse.
“And the love I see in your eyes for your father only reconfirms it. I’ve seen somebody very different here today. And yesterday, at the shower, also. It’s not just that you’re a warm, caring person. Not just that you can make me laugh..."
Not just that he looked like sin, she told herself.
Mike drank her in with his eyes, beholding a million new possibilities. Then, stood to cradle her in his arms.
She was going out on a limb here, and she knew it. But the words that were welling within her were so fierce, so true, she was losing all power to hold them back.
“Mike, I think that I’m falling in love.”
Mike nestled her closer and brought his forehead to hers, kissing her sweetly on the lips. “Only think?” he asked, with a twinkle in his eye.
“Oh Mike,” she brought soft hands to his checks and looked at him deeply. “More than think. I know it’s brazen of me to say so. That it will probably take a while for you to feel the same way. I don’t understand what has happened to me. How all of this has happened so fast. I never really thought...”
Mike hushed her by tracing the tender line of her lips with one finger. “You don’t know how long I’ve waited to hear you say that.”
“But, Mike!” she said, splaying her hands against his chest. “We’ve only known each other three days.”
But three minutes was all it had taken for Mike to know. The moment he’d seen her holding court at the top of those stairs at the inn, Mike had ached inside at the feeling someone like her could never be his. And now, every ounce of his being ached at the possibility that she could.