Crash Into You (10 page)

“You should be a professional,” she swooned.

              “A bachelor either has to learn to cook or make do with take-out.  And in Spanner, Montana the take-out selection is pretty skimpy, I’m afraid.”

             
He took a sip of wine, then set down the glass and looked at her with a long, appraising stare.   A schoolgirl giddiness skittered around inside her.   She didn’t even resist letting her starved eyes feast on his total maleness.  How had a man so drop-dead sexy stayed a bachelor?

             
With him no more than three feet away, she let herself take in his sandy blondish hair, a few weeks past due for a haircut, and calm grey eyes set into an angular face bronzed by the Montana sun.   And his lips were… She looked away; she didn’t usually stare at men’s lips.

             
He put down his fork.   “Now that you’re feeling better, why don’t you tell me how you ended up here?”  

             
She chewed her food then took a sip of the cucumber-flavored water as she tried to decide how much to tell him.  The whole truth was out of the question.  But her mind had been so hazy for the past few days she’d not even tried to construct a solid story for herself.

             
“Don’t try to lie to me,” he said evenly, even playfully.    “You’re stalling so you can think of something that won’t be mortifying.”

             
“How did you know that?” she blurted.

             
He shrugged modestly.   “I can tell.  Where are you from, Lauren?”

             
She looked down at the unfinished lasagna.   Another wave of shame came over her; she’d lied about her name, the most basic unit of information.   It was too late to back out now.

“
Idaho.”  She hesitated, despising the bitterness of her lies.   Still, she plunged in.  “Boise, actually.  I was leaving my ex-boyfriend.  He was a controlling jerk, and I’d had enough.  I’ve left before, but every time, he would find me.  He’d tell me he could find my phone records from the phone company, my emails from my ISP.  I believed him.  He gave me a lot of reasons to believe him, actually.  He would have some of the uniformed cops sit outside by the curb while he was at work.  Supposedly to make sure I was safe, but it was really to report back if I had a boyfriend, which I did not.  There were a lot of stupid incidents like that.  He controlled the household finances, which meant that I had no money to leave.  But I saved for months.  I had a secret account.”   She was surprised how easily the lies were coming now.  Maybe it really would be possible to tell him most of the truth.  She’d just obscure the embarrassing parts.

             
“So you were trying to escape.  Did you crash your car or…?”

             
She nodded.  “I crashed my car, yes. I guess I just got sleepy and didn’t want to pull over.”  Plausible enough.

“
But why did you leave the crash site?  Especially in your condition.”

             
“I was in shock.” she said.  “I don’t remember a lot about it.  And I didn’t want to be in a hospital and have Seth come in and bully the hospital staff into seeing me.  I just really wanted to get away.”

             
Mark seemed to consider that as he drilled her with those penetrating eyes.  “What made you start saving?”

             
“Pardon?”

             
“You said you started saving money.  It sounds like you had been with Seth for a while.  Long enough to know what he was like, long enough for him to take control of cash flow.   So what was the impetus to start saving money to get away?”

             
“I… um… I just decided that I couldn’t spend my life like that.”  She blushed fiercely; she could feel the heat of her embarrassment sweep up her neck and burn her cheeks. Her hand on the silver fork had begun to shake.   When she risked a glance at Mark, he was looking straight at it.  She put the fork down and set her hand in her lap.  

“So…uh…  What was the phone call about?” she asked in an effort to get  his intense gaze off her guilty hands.

              “Oh, that.  It was my brother Josh.  He’s the CEO of the family company.   He’s been getting offers from a developer from Aspen, Colorado to buy some of the property out at Starlight Lake to build a golf course.”

             
“And you don’t want to sell?  Or you do?”

             
“I don’t want to be pressured into it, but Josh thinks it’s a great offer.   My other brother Andrew also wants to sell.   But my sister Maggie wants to hold on to the property. I’ve started renovating a resort there.   We’re supposed to discuss it later.”

             
“You’ve started renovating a resort?  That sounds fun.”

             
“It is fun,” he said, as if just deciding that for himself.   

“I’ve always been fascinated by architecture,
” she said.  Then she felt herself blush again.  That was another thing that Seth had squeezed out of her – her ambition.   She was embarrassed to acknowledge how easily she’d surrendered her own hopes and dreams to a man who was not worthy of her.   She knew now how poor a trade it was and was ashamed she’d allowed herself to be so easily manipulated.   She would never allow a man to subvert her life again.   The foundations of her life had to be rebuilt with her own two hands.  She would get to Portland eventually and work as a web designer and figure out what to do with the rest of her life.  Now that she was on the way to freedom, nobody was ever going to get in her way again.

             
Mark looked impressed.  “That’s great,” he said.  “I’ve been interested in architecture for a while.   I designed this house.”

             
“You designed this?”  She couldn’t help the awe in her voice.

             
“Yeah,” he laughed.  “Do you like it?”

             
“It’s gorgeous.   Sort of a mix between the old west and Bavaria.”

             
He smiled, flashing perfect white teeth.   “Thanks, I think.”   He rose and began to clear the plates.   She stood up to help.  “Stop,” he said, “You’re still healing.”

             
So she stood beside him at the kitchen sink while he rinsed the dishes and put them in the dishwasher.   Mark wiped down the granite counters and the stove.   Everything gleamed.  She thought back to her house in Adams Morgan, how Seth required that everything be just so.  But she didn’t think Mark was obsessive.  Just tidy.  It was about pride in his work, not control.

             
“I’m going to walk with May for a few minutes.  Why don’t you sit down or lie down if you’re feeling weak.”

             
“Can I go with you?” 

             
“Are you up for it?”

             
“I’ll walk slowly.”

             
“Well, if you want to.  But don’t overdo it.”  He walked to the closet in the entryway and grabbed a jacket for himself and one for Aimee.  “It’s in the low forties tonight so you’ll need this.  It will be big on you, but you should be warm enough.”   He added a warm tartan sweater and wrapped it around her neck.

             
She put on the wool-lined coat.  Like the sweater, it was enormous on her, but she liked it; it felt like she was wearing a very snug, very warm, very nice-smelling blanket.    She wedged her feet into her filthy shoes.  They were the only shoes she had – the one’s she had worn when she boarded United Flight 134.  They were ragged, and stank of sweat and jet fuel.   “I need some new shoes, I’m afraid,” she said lightly as she noticed May sniffing them.

Mark opened the door and the puppy bound out of the house.    The night was bucketwashed in moonlight, making everything seem silvery and very dark, like a photo negative.  The gla
ciated peaks of the Bitterroot Mountains rising beyond the black foothills gleamed under the full moon and a plush black field of stars.  The river was black, and its light burbling was the only sound she could hear.  No traffic noise, no hum of other people.   Aimee inhaled a deep breath of air so pure and cold it felt like menthol in her lungs.  

May bou
nded off into the tall grass. “This way,” he called to the dog as they walked toward a narrow flowing river.   “There’s a path over here.  That way you’re not jostled by snake holes or whatever.”  It was just a dirt rut in the grass, wide enough for two people.

             
May ran ahead, then stopped and looked back at Mark.   “No, May.  Do not jump in the water.”

             
Aimee laughed.   “She would freeze!”

             
“She’s a Husky so I don’t think she’d freeze, but it would be a pain to give her a bath and dry her off at this late hour.  She loves water.”

             
May trotted head.

Aimee marveled at the
sky.   Nets of stars strung from every corner of the blackness, as if giant mirrors had been placed in the sky, reflecting countless stars from deep galaxies, space so remote it could not be named.  She’d never seen anything like it.

She
glanced at Mark’s face in profile, marveling at the man who had rescued her, who made her feel so safe. 

“Why are you so kind to me?” she asked abruptly.

              He took in a little breath, as if the question took him off balance.   He looked up at the stars, ostensibly thinking.   “You seem like you need just a little time,” he replied.  He met her gaze then, his face strangely gentle.  “To heal physically and … probably emotionally.”

             
How had he done it?  How had he said the thing that would strike so deeply.    He was protecting her.  After being treated like an object by Seth for so long, she felt amazingly prized by this stranger.   She kept her face in profile to his, afraid to allow him to see the emotion welling in her eyes.

             
It had to be the drugs making her so weepy.  Normally she wasn’t quite so emotional.  She couldn’t afford to be, not in Seth Sabich’s house.  But Mark did not seem inclined to judge her for her tears.  Guilt tugged at her conscience.   He was so sweet to her, and she had not even told him her real name.  She regretted her lies.   She would have liked to hear him call her by her real name.

             
Mark was walking unnaturally slow in an effort to keep abreast of her, and his arm brushed hers.  She thought for a moment he might take her hand, and her heartbeat accelerated, but he didn’t.  He shoved his hands in his jeans pockets.   

“I love this place,” she sighed.  “I’ve never been to the mountain states.   I was missing out.  I mean…. Except for Idaho.  I’ve never been to Montana or Wyoming.  Though really I should have because they’re so pretty.”  She was rambl
ing to cover up her slip, and dared not glance at Mark to see if he noticed.  “Have you lived here your whole life?”

             
“I spent my first eighteen years here.  After I moved away, I came back for summers and Christmas.   But I guess you could say I’m from Washington D.C.”

             
She smiled faintly.  Strange coincidence that they were both from D.C.  Only, she couldn’t say so.   Her lies had trapped her.

             
“And have you moved back?  Permanently, I mean?”

             
“I think so.” He shrugged his heavy shoulders.  “I came here to figure out some things.   But I’ve realized that it feels like home.”

             
She wanted to know what those things were that he had to figure out. What could ever become so complicated for him that he had to return to his childhood home to reflect?  This was a man in complete control of his life.  

             
Women, she supposed, remembering the condoms.

             
She pondered that last phrase “feels like home.”  She never quite had that after leaving her childhood home in Salem, Portland.   She had lived with Kimberly in Portland for a while, in an ancient two bedroom apartment that while it did have some charms, it didn’t quite seem like home.   Surely her Adams Morgan house had been lovely… but it hadn’t felt like home either.

             
She hoped she would find that when she returned to Portland.  She wasn’t sure where she belonged anymore; she wasn’t sure where she’d ultimately end up.  

             
A cold wind whooshed down the mountain and Aimee shivered beneath the jacket that Mark had given her.   “Ready to go back?” he asked.

             
She nodded.  “Sorry,” she said with a regretful smile.   “If you want to continue, I can make it back alone.”

             
“That’s just crazy talk,” he said lightly and whistled for May, who came running, and they began to trek back toward the house.   

             
From the outside, it was a cedar and glass castle, a spectacle of grey stone and raw timber, a beautiful, sprawling two-level house with warm buttery lights glowing in the windows.   If she wasn’t careful, she might start to think of this as a wonderful vacation instead of what it truly was: a temporary respite while she healed.