Maybe This Life (10 page)

Forty-five White Lake Road was a haven within itself. Fruit trees and a long gravel road prepared the way to a renovated old auburn-hued barn.  Outlining the barn, were the most diverse multi-colored flowers and plants Lena had ever seen.  Violet, yellow, orange, and red bordered the plush verdant lawn that stretched for acres and acres across the property.  To the rear of the barn sat a small white farm-house adorned with a wrap-around front porch.  Lena noticed that even further across the property stood a horse stable. If she wasn't mistaken, there were two horses inside.

Lena’s nerves were ferociously firing as she pulled into the driveway next to the house.  Rick, dressed in faded blue jeans, sage t-shirt and saddle-colored work boots, was outside watering flowers that hung in window boxes along the porch’s railing.

Who was this guy? Lena wondered.

“Lena.” Rick beamed, as he jumped down the stairs and raced toward his guest, giving Lena no time to wonder about him any longer. Only halfway out of her car by the time he’d reached her, Rick's open arms and illuminating smile were a welcome more appropriate for a friend who’d been gone for months than a coworker he’d just seen the day before.

But Lena relished in the warmth of Rick’s hearty hug.  It was fierce, yet tender. Exciting, yet safe.  Refreshing, yet achingly familiar. His embrace was a complete sentence in a one-word exclamation.

“Lena. Come on. Let me show you my house.” He led her through the large oak door.

“Oh…kaay.”

“You can put your purse down inside.” The wooden screen door slammed shut, but Rick left the oak door open. “Want somethin’ to drink?” Rick asked, already opening the refrigerator.

“Oh. No, thank you.”

“All right.” He took a beer out, shut the door with his foot, grabbed the bottle opener off the fridge, and opened the beer, all in one smooth beautiful movement.

“C’mon, I’ll take you through the house.” Lena tried to concentrate on Rick’s description of each room while she followed him, but all she could focus on was how cute he looked from behind.  How the pockets of his Levi’s cupped his muscular back side.
Stop it, Lena,
she commanded. Rick was describing something to her, but she’d only caught every other word. “Hmm,” she mumbled, hoping he couldn’t tell.  Not that she wasn’t interested in his house, but the warm fuzzies coursing through her body were entirely distracting. He was too darn sexy, and seeing him in his home environment was causing an uncharacteristic lustful reaction.

The house wasn’t too large, so the tour took only a few minutes.

“Wanna see outside?” Lena heard Rick say. Her skin felt flush, and she hoped he couldn’t see through to what she had been thinking.

“Sure,” Lena tried to calm her fervor.  “Can I have a glass of water first?

Rick grinned. “Of course.”  He reached in the refrigerator and took out a bottle of Poland Spring. “Here you go,” he said, simultaneously opening it and handing it to her.

After drinking her water, she placed it on the table. “Thank you.”

“No problem, let’s go outside.” He led her to the stables. “This is Ellie,” Rick noted, pointing to a cream-colored beautiful mare, “And this here is Cal.” A beautiful black horse lifted his nose as Rick petted it. “They’re my best friends,” he said proudly. “Have you ever ridden one?”

“A horse?” Lena gasped her answer, causing Rick’s hearty chuckle. “No. Never.”

“Well, maybe one day I’ll show you how to ride.”

Lena only nodded, afraid if she’d said yes out loud, he might actually show her how to ride.  She did not want to get on top of a horse that was taller than she was.

“How ‘bout a motorcycle?”

“How ‘bout a motorcycle what?”

“Have you ever ridden on a motorcycle?”

What was he crazy? They’re even more dangerous than a horse. “Um. No.” She wondered why he was laughing again.

“Wanna go for a ride?”

“What?  On a motorcycle?  I don’t think so.”

"It's a lot of fun."

Lena didn't have the heart to let him down. "All right." She sighed.

"You don't have to, sweetie, I'm not forcing you.  I just think...you'll like it, is all."

A timid Lena nodded her head and spoke under her breath, "I'll try."

"What was that? I didn't hear," he joked.

"I'll try it," she said louder.

"Great."

Holding Rick so close on the back of motorcycle felt dangerously familiar. Almost as if she knew she belonged with him.  But it was too soon.  Much too early in their relationship to feel this safe.  And though Lena should have been elated, she became suddenly disquieted.  She closed her eyes, let the sixty-miles-per-hour wind whip at her, and kept the side of her head pressed against Rick's back.  Content where she was, but confused with her feelings, how could she be falling so hard...so fast?

He took her for a ride through Sparta and ended up in Warwick, New York, where finally he drove her up Barret Road.  Stopping at its very highest point, the view was breathtaking. Rick pulled the bike onto the verdant open field that sat atop the unobstructed view of the serene Warwick Valley.  It caught Lena's breath to see such beauty.

"You like it?" asked a satisfied Rick.

"It's magnificent."

Rick took Lena's helmet from her hands and hung it on his bike. "I come up here to unwind.  The owner is a friend of mine...well, a friend of my dad's."

"The owner?..Of what?" Wondered Lena, out loud.

"The property. He owns it all. Bob owns this entire farm...even the run-down shacks on the side of the road.  There's cattle too." Rick laughed.

"Wow. It's amazing here. Even the air is more fresh."

"Yeah," Rick boasted. "I'd love to build up here, but...the property's not for sale."

"You're property is just as nice."

"Thank you, but I do wish I had this view," Rick mused with a sigh.

Lena wished she could just kiss him.  She knew he wanted to the other day in the park, and now she wished he'd make a move today.  Up here on the mountain, her heart raced, wanting so badly to be in his arms.  But her heart spoke a foreign language that her head didn't know how to translate yet. She knew it'd be wrong, her broken engagement, barely cool. Though she had been the one who had ended it with Vince, it was Lena who'd been hurt.  Physically
and
mentally.  Her self-esteem had been attacked, and she needed to fight her way back to a healthy well-being.  Falling right into the arms of another guy would not help her to heal.

As much as Rick felt he knew Lena, his anxiety betrayed him…his usual self-composure lost, whenever he'd come close to her.  She was intoxicating.  Her mere presence had him fumbling like a nervous freshman starting quarterback.  But he tried sobering himself with a couple of deep breaths.  He must have been good at masking his feelings, because it didn't seem that Lena noticed. Considering the amount of times she'd fiddled with her locket, Rick could be sure she was just as nervous.

"Come 'ere," Rick said, simultaneously tugging Lena's hand to lead them to an old log laying on its side.  He turned to face her as they sat.  Lena's eyes turned into little crescents when she smiled, and Rick couldn't help himself…he leaned in and pressed his lips on her forehead, leaving them there for a brief tender moment.

"You are so beautiful," his thoughts slipped out, causing a soft pink glow on Lena's already childlike grin.

She bowed her head in chagrin and whispered, "Thank you."

"I'm sorry if I embarrassed you,"  Rick apologized half-heartedly, because he had meant what he said. Lena may not like compliments, but Rick knew she needed to hear them.

"That's okay," a still blushing Lena replied.

"Listen to that."

"To what?"  Lena asked.

"Exactly. It's so quiet up here, you can almost sense what life was like a hundred years ago.  No car engines polluting the silence. No electrical wires humming. It's as if time stood still up on this mountain."

Lena snickered as she turned her attention to Rick's Harley.

"Okay.  Well, you have to get up and down this road some way...and you didn't want to take my horses."  Just then, an SUV drove down Barret Road, negating Rick's claim that time stood still.

Another snicker escaped Lena.

"Yeah, yeah. I get it...but...sometimes...it just
feels
like time...at least
trickled
by, up here.  The road is barely paved and if you just take a look around, you can appreciate what God intended when He created..."  But Rick trailed off, afraid of alienating Lena with his corny recollections of another time.

"I get it," she uttered softly. "I'm sorry I laughed.  It just seemed funny...that car zipping by while you were rambling on about...well...the non-existence of technology." She chuckled again.

Rick nudged her with his elbow.

"But, really," she continued. "It does feel..." Lena's eyes tipped up to the left, probably in search of a word. "Untouched...by time."

A sense of contentment overcame Rick.  Untouched by time was exactly the way he had felt about his love for the woman sitting next to him. As if the past ninety-five years had not gone by, Rick still loved this girl... now called Lena.

"Is that why you like it up here?" Her sweet voice echoing through space sent him back in time...to that fateful day in 1917.

"Angie, sweetheart, I
have
to go," Richard hated saying goodbye to her.  The starless night mirrored his mood.  Departing for the war in the morning meant leaving behind his beloved Angelina.

"Let us run away, Richard. You cannot leave me here." She looked down at her lap, while fumbling with her locket. "Please...not with
her.
"

He knew she was referring to the monster she called Mother.  "Oh, Angie, if it were in my power to stay, you know I would.  We just cannot run though.  What kind of life would that be for us?  And what kind of man would I be?'

Angie put her head on Richard's shoulder and sighed. "That's one of the reasons I love you so much, you know? You always do the right thing....as much as I dislike it."

He took one last drag from his cigarette, tossed it, wrapped his arm around Angie, and pulled her close, now embracing her with both arms.  Kissing her on top of her head, he tried to suppress his own tears.  "I will be back before you know it, Angelina. I promise." Though he tried his best to reassure Angie, his heart sunk, knowing he should have never made a promise he could not guarantee he could keep.

Angie lifted her head and took off her locket.  "I want you to have this," she said, as she began pulling at the heart.

"But that is yours.  Why..." Then he saw what she had intended.  Angie had broken the heart locket in two.

"I put this in it last night." Richard noticed the small photograph of Angelina pressed inside the heart.  "Now we will both have each other's heart," she commented, while slipping the broken heart onto a chain she pulled out of her skirt pocket.  "I took this from mother's box.  She will never notice."

Richard allowed her to slip the locket around his neck.

Angelina looked up at him with moist eyes. "Please return, Richard. Promise?"

Her words cut into his heart, piercing its center with the truth.  Though he did not yet know his fate, the heaviness that weighed on his chest was not a good indication.  "Promise," he whispered, choking back his tears, saying a silent prayer that he would, indeed, return and keep his promise to his Angie.

"Rick." Somewhere in the distance he heard his name.

"Rick." His thigh felt warm. "Rick, are you okay?" Lena asked, her hand gently squeezing his thigh.

"Oh...my goodness, Lena. I'm so sorry.  I...I spaced out there for a minute."  What an ass.  Couldn't he have flashed back in time when he was alone, rather than while he was on a
date
with Lena. "I am so sorry."

"Oh, it's fine.  I just...you looked like you were in another world...at first, I thought you were just enjoying the view, but...but then you looked kind of...sad."

"I did?" Rick had not wanted Lena to see him like that.  "Um...I was just thinking is all...everything's fine." With a semi-trembling hand, he touched Lena's cheek.  "Oh, Lena.  I've waited a long time for you."

If the crumpled-up expression on her face indicated her confusion, then Rick had a lot of explaining to do.  He knew the time had come to tell her, but he feared her reaction.  Still, he held steady.  It was now or never.  His gut told him to go for it.  The muffled thoughts in his brain, however, may have been telling him otherwise.  Since his gut lay closer to his heart, he went with
it
.

"You may think I'm crazy," he began. "But, I've been searching for you all my," Rick took a deep breath, "all my life."

Baffled, she asked, "You mean metaphorically?"

"No," he said firmly. "I mean literally."

With both his hands, he reached for hers and peered straight into Lena's eyes.  "I've known you, forever."

"But..."

His two fingers on her lips prevented her from finishing. "No, Lena, please. Let me finish."

"Okay."

Back to holding her hands, Rick continued to divulge their past.

"Do you believe in reincarnation?" a trepid Rick asked.

He heard a soft tut slip from her lips before she answered. "Well, I never really thought about it before.  I mean, well...why?"

The lowering sun's light that glinted off the random gold specs in Lena's irises caused her eyes to appear amber, momentarily creating a blip in Rick's train of thought.

"Do
you
believe in reincarnation?" Lena countered.

Rick nodded, still apprehensive, while his stomach performed somersaults and affected his ability to speak.

"You do?" she asked.

"I do," he finally blurted. Closing his eyes and taking a reaffirming breath, he elaborated, "I do, and I believe...I've loved
you
in a past life."

Her hands pulled out from his, a deliberate move on her part, Rick thought.

"You think I'm crazy." He was worried now.

"No." The shake of her head, not at all convincing.  "No, I don't."

"Do you think it's impossible?" he questioned.

Lena was nearly chewing off her bottom lip, all the while tightening her hand around her necklace.  "Well, I guess not...but...even if it were possible, how...how would you remember your past life anyway?"

Rick's stomach assaults were vanishing.  At least Lena seemed open-minded about it.  "Some people just do. Though...you're right, most do not remember, which is why it's so hard for people to believe we can be reincarnated."  He took it slow, not wanting to trounce on her already pre-conceived beliefs.

"But see," she started slowly. "I believe in Heaven, and if we
are
reincarnated, how can we go to Heaven?"

Rick let out a chuckle.  "I don't have all the answers, sweetheart.  I do not recall where I'd gone after my last life, but...I do believe I had at least one past life and...I believe that, in
that
life, I fell in love with...you."  He searched her eyes for a reaction.

After a few moments, he heard, "Then why wouldn't I remember that?"

"I don't know...but I wish you would...remember."

Lena's eyes had that faraway look in them.  He was sure he had lost her.  Her smile exhibited courtesy, not sincerity, and Rick suddenly felt the urge to tell her he'd been pulling her leg about the whole thing.

He digressed. "Why don't we head back? We can get something to eat."

"Okay." Lena jumped right up, undoubtedly too eager to drop the whole subject.