Love Untold

Love Untold: Chapter 41

Love Untold:  Chapter 41


Chrissie chewed on her lip as her mother studied the panels of designs for the resort.  She took the whole week off from work to come up here, even driving the distance instead of flying so she wouldn’t loose her hard work to incompetent airport personnel.  Dena was supposed to accompany her and help support her when facing Mom, but Chrissie’s sister had to take care of a few last minute details before she could board a plane tomorrow.  Chrissie didn’t want to wait on her.  She needed to get away from her home -- a home she shared with a man she loved in her dreams.

Just last week, she met with a realtor.  She was selling her house.  She couldn’t live there any more.  She couldn’t sleep in the same bed she shared with Race, even though he never really slept there.  Chrissie knew it was crazy...to sell her own house that she adored because someone who never lived there didn’t live there, but every room held memories of him, sensations of love and adoration, and it had become too much to bear.

What she planned to do after that?  She didn’t have a clue.  Maybe relocate her business to the Denver area?  How would she manage that?  Another thing she didn’t want to think about right now.  She’d have to convince Brian to come with her.  He practically ran her business now, and he’d only been working there for a few weeks.

“Well?” Chrissie stood her mother’s silence for as long as possible.  Dolly scoured over the panels and plans for the last half hour, not saying a word.

“You’ve been busy,” her mother said, and that was it.  Chrissie fluttered over to the nearest collage of paint samples and fabric prints.  

“The theme is still modest and welcoming, not like the ones they have in sports bars where there’s jerseys and baseball cards all over the place,” she explained, although she’d already explained once...or twice...or perhaps more than that since she arrived.  Okay, she was nervous.  This plan had been her life-force for several weeks.  If Mom didn’t allow her to complete it, she’d probably really go crazy.  “I was thinking we do the western wing in the winter style, with the soft blues and grays, and the eastern wing in summer...lots of gentle colors, like the mountain in bloom.”

Dolly Hill nodded, but still didn’t comment.

Chrissie inhaled a full breath and went on, “The cabins, of course, we can keep them like they are, just upgrade some of the furnishings...and the dining rooms and lobby can showcase all of Daddy’s collections...but the bar, we can really turn into a comfortable place for the guests to relax, maybe add a small deli and some private booths...”

Her mother fingered the rich wool fabric samples for the winter rooms’ draperies, and Chrissie tried to swallow past the lump in her throat.  The cornflower blue color called out to her when she was gathering fabric samples.  Race’s eyes possessed so many shades of blue hues...but that one...that particular color was the one that sparked when he smiled.  

Chrissie lowered her eyelids and held onto the image in her mind.  She’d been losing too many of them lately, too many nuances of their days and nights together, and she felt a need to cry.  But it seemed that with every tear she shed, another hint of gloom blocked her dream memories, so she tried very much not to cry.

Her mother looked up at her.  “Chrissie, honey, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said with a weak smile.  “What do you think?”  Chrissie waved at the design panels scattered around her mother’s office.

Dolly pursed her lips.  “I don’t know, dear.  It’s a big job.  How will you manage all this when your office is so far away?”

Chrissie cleared her throat.  “I’m...uh...moving back, Mom,” she said, looking everywhere but at her mother.  Until that moment, she hadn’t been confident on what she planned to do, how to move forward in her solitary life, but now she did.  In fact revamping Mom’s resort just might be the change she needed.  She could relocate her business to Colorado and focus solely on designing other businesses.  Just the thought of going into people’s houses, their homes, seeing families, women with husbands, loving each other...like Ophelia and Ian Fisk...she didn’t have it in her to do that again.

“You are?  Why?” Dolly asked, setting aside the panel she’d been holding.  Chrissie shrugged.  She really didn’t want to get into it.  Dena understood, but her mother...

“Dear, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, Mom.  I’m fine,” Chrissie said.  “I’m...I’m ready for a change.  I’ve changed, and I want to come home, Mom.  Can I?  Can I come home?”

Dolly came around her desk and stood in front of her oldest daughter, drawing her into a rare hug.   “Oh, honey, you know you can always come home.  And I think your ideas are wonderful, but I’m afraid I don’t have time to look over all of it right now.”

Chrissie wiped away a wayward tear...another aspect of Race gone with that droplet.  “Yeah, I noticed the place is busy.  I thought you closed down this week.”

Dolly smiled.  “Normally, I do.  Half my employees already had plans for vacations, but I got a call from a very desperate store chain owner, looking for a place to house his company for the week...some kind of convention they attend every year.  Now, what did he say his store was called?”  Dolly tapped her chin with a manicured finger and frowned...but Chrissie froze.

“FANatical Sports,” Chrissie whispered.

“Yes!  That’s the one.  A Mr. David Elliot, if I remember correctly, the one you recommended.  Monica handled all the arrangements.  I’m just here to keep things in order.  Had to close the west wing since we’re working with a skeleton staff, and -- Chrissie?  What’s wrong?”

Chrissie dropped down into a chair.  Her legs wouldn’t hold her up.  Oh, no!  David Elliot was here this week?!  Just when she thought her life was getting back to a somewhat normal pace, the wicked witch of Fate slapped her in the face.

“I can’t...I can’t stay here,” Chrissie muttered.  “I can’t see him!  I can’t do it!”

Dolly hunkered down in front of Chrissie.  “Honey...is this about your coma?”

Chrissie buried her head on top of her knees.  She couldn’t breathe.  She pressed a palm to her chest.  Her heart was racing...too fast...pain...Oh, God!  

“Chrissie, look at me,” her mother crooned in a soothing face.  “Take a deep breath...good.  Now tell me what this is all about.”

Sucking in ragged breaths, Chrissie explained how she searched for Race, and how David Elliot looked so much like him, and how he was married and didn’t have a brother, and now there was no Race, and she could barely get the words out through her choking throat.  Dolly listened patiently, never once reprimanding her or gazing at her with pity or like she was crazy as a loon.

“Mom, I can’t stay here,” Chrissie said again when she finished talking about David and Race.  “I can’t take the chance that I’ll bump into him.  I know I sound stupid and crazy and I can’t help it.  I can’t stop feeling this way.  It was all a dream, and now it’s gone, and I just want it back, Mom...I just want him back.”

Dolly sighed and pulled a chair over to sit directly in front of Chrissie.  “Chris, I want you to listen to me carefully.  I don’t think you’re crazy at all.  In fact, I know exactly how you feel--”

“God, Mom!” Chrissie declared through a sob.  “Dena tried to do the same thing!  You don’t understand.  How could you?  You didn’t wake up one morning and the man you loved was just gone!  Gone!  It was all a dream, and now it’s gone!”

Dolly’s blue eyes misted up strangely.  “That happened to me, too, dear.  I woke up from a dream, and the man I loved was gone forever.”

Chrissie rolled her eyes and sniffed.  “Mom, Daddy died.  It’s not the same thing.”

“You think it feels any differently?” her mother asked angrily, and Chrissie caught a glimpse of where she got her temper from.  “You think I don’t want to go back to what I had?  And to fall asleep and never wake up because I know my husband is waiting for me in my dreams?  Well, I do, Chris.  Every damn day.  Every morning I have to drag myself out of bed, knowing that every day is another day without him.  It hurts, Chrissie.  It hurts like nothing else in this world, with the exception of losing you or Dena.  So, don’t tell me it’s not the same thing!”

She could only stare at her mother, seeing her for the first time.  “I’m...sorry, Mom.  I didn’t mean...”

Dolly sighed.  “I know you didn’t, dear.  But I do understand.  I was only a little older than you when I lost your father.  I never want you to go through that, but I do know how you feel.”

Chrissie crushed her mother to her, squeezing her in a tight hug, feeling like she finally understood her, could finally feel a connection with the woman whose only concern up until then was how she could get grandchildren.  “Thank you, Mom,” she whispered, and truly meant it.  She felt whole again.  She almost felt like herself, like the person she’d been in her dream, and a spark of her temper bloomed in her chest.

How dare Fate rip that away from her?  Chrissie wanted to pick up the desk and hurl it over the mountains.  She was pissed, plain and simple.  

“I love you, Chris,” Dolly whispered back, “and I’m sorry you have to go through this.  However, I don’t like the thought of you staying somewhere else.  I worry about you.  You can stay in the west wing.  There’ll be no one around to bother you.”

Wiping her cheeks dry and letting the familiar anger grow inside of her, gaining her humanity back, Chrissie said, “I’d much rather stay in one of the cabins.”

“I’m afraid they’re all occupied, with the exception of the one along the northern path, next to the Time Out House, but the electricity hasn’t worked in a few weeks.  The electrician says it has to be completely rewired.”

Chrissie knew of the cabin Dolly spoke of.  It was the romantic retreat one, and it sat back up into the tree line on the far side of the property.  Even without power, it would do just fine.  “The gas still works, right?  I can take a shower?”

“Yes,” her mother said, frowning.  “But you won’t have any lights at night.  It gets pretty dark up there.”

“I’ll scavenge some oil lamps from the supply closet,” Chrissie said, making up her mind with a courage she hadn’t felt in a very long time.  Chrissie Hill was back.  Chrissie Hill wasn’t taking any more crap from destiny or fate or whatever controlled her life.  This was her life, and she wanted it back...with or without Race.  “I don’t want to be around people right now,” she laughed.  “I might upset someone with the way I’m feeling.”

“Alright, dear,” her mother conceded.  “The Time Out House only has one guest in it, and from what I’ve been told, he likes his privacy, too, so you won’t be bothered.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Chrissie said, standing up.  “I think I’ll go grab some stuff from the kitchen and the bar and head on over there.”

“I’ll come with you to the kitchen,” Dolly said.  “Mr. Elliot is having a special dinner tonight with his family.  One of the kids has a severe peanut allergy, and I want to make sure Lawrence knows before he preps for the evening meals.”

Together, the two Hill women left Dolly’s office, arm in arm, and Chrissie’s heart felt lighter in her chest.  With her mother and her sister to support her, she would be fine.

She just had to stay away from David Elliot for a whole week.  Not entirely impossible.  Damn man just had to look like Race...and then not be Race, and now she was just plain pissed at him for existing.  She’d hate to think what she might do to him if she did see him.  It wouldn’t be nice.

*****

Reese threw back his scotch and pulled his baseball cap down lower on his brow to cover more of his head.  The bartender glanced curiously at him, but didn’t ask questions.  That was good.  Reese wasn’t in the mood for a nosey bartender right now.  Glancing at the clock on the wall, he had two hours until David came searching for him.  Reese planned to spend some of that time scouring the mountainside behind his cabin.

Music played through a stereo system...Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze,” and that amused Reese.  Another thing about this place that surprised him.  He figured he’d have to listen to Beethoven or something like that which was supposed to appeal to the masses.  Not Pink Floyd and Led Zepplin.  Reese made a comment about it when he first sat down, and the man behind the bar, Ricky, shrugged and said, “The owner’s late husband had a fancy for the classics.  Dolly likes to keep his memory alive.”

Dolly Hill.  A woman he saw briefly when he checked in.  She was a beautiful lady for her age, and he sensed something familiar about her.  But that didn’t matter much.  He’d met lots of people during his career.  She probably just looked like a lot of others.

As Reese raised his hand for another shot -- his last -- he spotted the resort owner by the doorway that led to the kitchens behind the bar.  He turned slightly away, not wanting to attract attention.  There was another woman with her, and though he couldn’t see their faces clearly from his averted position, he got a funny feeling about the younger one.

It was probably just nerves.  If she recognized him, then he might be spending the rest of his week fighting off a pushy female with an itchy marriage finger, thinking she had what that girl from the show didn’t have.

Just as he drew his glass to his lips, the women embraced, and Reese stared at them.  The hair of the younger woman fell over her shoulder, hiding her face from him -- but the picture of them, locked together like that, was so bittersweet and private, he was riveted.  Obviously, they were mother and daughter.  And they loved each other very much.  Reese got that funny feeling again, only tenfold.

It was time to leave and disappear into the forest.

He drained his whiskey and slapped some bills on the bar for a tip.  Sticking his wallet back into his pocket, he turned his back as the younger woman sat down a few stools away from him.  He refrained from glancing at her.  He didn’t want her to see him.  He didn’t want any complications this week.  No one alerting the media to where he disappeared to, no lonely female banging on his cabin door in the middle of the night, thinking that just because she was willing, he might be too.  Maybe he should have asked if room service delivered to the cabins.  That would be much easier than fighting off solitary women at the bar every time he wanted a drink.

The stereo system kicked over another song.  This one, “Lay It Down” by Aerosmith, and Reese considered moving to the far end of the room, just so he could listen to it.  He loved this song, and he didn’t know why.  In his opinion, it was nothing compared to the band’s earlier works, but every time it came on the radio or he heard it on television, he had to stop whatever he was doing and listen to it.  Strange, he knew, but he couldn’t help it.

Perched on the edge of the stool and ready to jump to his feet the second the song finished, he heard the woman behind him groan loudly and throw her cell phone at the stereo.  “Damn it, Chrissie,” Ricky yelled.  “Stop your freaking tantrums before you break something.”  Reese glanced inconspicuously over his shoulder.  Chrissie.  He kind of like the sound of that.  It was sweet and a little bit tough.  Her face was buried under a curtain of her auburn locks again as she gently banged her forehead on the bar’s surface.

“If you don’t like the song, just ask to change it instead of destroying things,” the bartender said, picking her phone up from the floor.   “Ever hear of the saying, ‘Don’t kill the messenger’?”

“Back off, Ricky,” she mumbled through her hair, not lifting her head.  “And I don’t hate the song, I...I...love it.”  She started wailing, and Reese’s heart stuttered.  This wasn’t a female, you’re-not-giving-me-what-I-want wail.  This was real.  The sounds coming out of her tangle of hair was full of sorrow and pain and heartache.

“You want a drink?” the man asked her.  She nodded, her hair moving slightly with the motion.  

“Give me a bottle of your reddest wine,” she said as she sniffed back her tears and started to lift her head.  Reese hightailed it to the nearest exit with jerky motions as though his brain told him to get the hell out of there, but his body said, Hold her.

No holding! he told himself.  This was supposed to be a peaceful vacation, and that woman was hurting and anything but in a peaceful mood.  She was about to get drunk from the looks of the full glass she gulped down -- most of her face hidden behind the wide-brimmed wine glass -- before he could turn the corner.  Getting cozy with an unhappy, drunk woman was a bad idea.

Still...there was something about her and her hair, her voice and that temper...and he caught just a glimpse of her eyes...

No!  Stop torturing yourself.  She’s not her!

Reese dashed out the back doors of the resort and toward the trees, vanishing down the nearest hiking trail.  Peace and quiet and solitude.  That was all he desired right now.