The "What If" Guy (15 page)

This is absurd
.
I’m stalking him, and he’s probably spending Christmas in Hawaii with a buxom blonde.
I panicked at the thought. I hadn’t heard what Layla Deberaux had planned for the holidays.

I teetered up the driveway, cursing myself for wearing tennis shoes instead of boots. My jeans became soaked and half-frozen from the knees down. I put the plate of waffles on the porch, rubbed my frozen hands together, then knocked. While I waited an eternity, or maybe a minute, I looked up at the gray-white sky, flinching when snowflakes hit my eyes. Apparently, no one was home. I sighed, frustrated, and bent down to retrieve the waffles. A proper stalker wouldn’t leave waffles behind.

“Hello?” Henry swung open the front door. He stood in the doorway, wearing sweats and a thermal shirt. He looked at me as if I’d lost my mind.

Maybe I had.

“Autumn?”

I straightened, brushing snow off of the foil-wrapped plate. “I brought you breakfast. It’s still warm.”

Henry’s gaze shifted from my face to the plate, then back again. “You brought me breakfast?”

“Yes. Waffles. I found my dad’s waffle iron. And Elliott made bacon. It’s on the crispy side, but everything that El makes winds up crispy.”

“I like crispy bacon.”

“Good.”

“Would you like to come in?” Henry opened the door wide and gestured for me to enter.

“Are you sure? Would you rather be alone?”

He took the plate from me. “Come in. It’s freezing out here.”

Henry’s house wasn’t what I’d expected. His apartment in college had been filled with prints of historic works of art and stacks upon stacks of books. This place had Spartan written all over it, and that was being generous. In the corner of the living room, a leather couch faced a flat-screened television. No pictures on the walls, no tables, no rugs on the hardwood floor. It looked like he’d moved in this morning.

“How long have you lived here?” I asked, dripping clumps of snow onto the floor.

“Since the end of August.”

“Wow,” I gushed. “Love what you’ve done with the place.”

Henry sniffed. “Yeah. I’ve been busy.”

“I can help you fix it up,” I said.

“Oh, you can, can you?” He peeled back the tin foil and peeked beneath it. “Looks good. Mind if I eat it while you’re here?”

“Of course not.”

“Let me take your coat.”

“It’s okay. Eat, and I’ll set it on your…” I looked around. Not a coat rack, or even a closet, in sight. “Couch.”

“Want to split the waffle with me?”

“No. I’m full.” I followed Henry into the humble kitchen and sat across from him at the table. “You want me to help you hang some curtains or something?”

Henry swallowed a giant bite of waffle. “You have a need to decorate?”

I snickered. “Maybe. My father is resistant to change, so our house is in a permanent state of 1983.”

“Okay then, yes. You can hang curtains or something.”

Henry took a bite of bacon and my gaze settled on his hand—strong, with the long fingers of an artist. I remembered how quickly those hands could make me sigh.

“So, why’d you bring me breakfast?” he asked. “Shouldn’t you be home with your family?”

“I thought you were in Hawaii,” I blurted.

Henry narrowed his eyes. “Hawaii? Why?”

“Your truck’s gone.” My words sounded lame, even to me.

“It’s in the shop,” he explained. “Curtis said he’d replace the fuel pump over the holiday, and I walked home from his shop.”

“Oh. That’s good.”

“It’s good that I’m not in Hawaii?”

“Yes. No, I mean, it would be great for you if you were in Hawaii. I guess.”

After polishing off the last of his waffle, Henry leaned back in his chair and stared at me. “You never answered my question. Shouldn’t you be home with your family?”

“They’re both occupied right now. I was as good as invisible.”

“So, why’d you come here?”

“You’re so far from home,” I said. “I thought you might be lonely.”

He took the plate to the sink. “I guess I was a bit lonely. But you’re wrong about one thing.” He looked over his shoulder at me. “This
is
home.”

“Right. Sorry.”

Henry rinsed the plate, then faced me. “It was thoughtful of you to bring breakfast. Thank you.” He gazed at me, a coffee mug poised in his hand. “So, what kind of curtains are you going to hang?”

I wriggled in my seat and gestured at the couch in the living room. “I don’t know. Maybe red? Red would be nice with your couch.”

“Maybe. What about the walls? Mrs. Peterson said I could paint.”

“Maybe a rich mahogany?”

“You don’t think it will be too dark?”

“No. Your front window is big, so you get plenty of light. Besides, I’m one for drama.”

He raised an eyebrow. “That so?”

“Dramatic colors.”

Henry put his coffee cup in the sink, then walked into the living room, touching my shoulder as he passed me. “You had a flair for the dramatic when we were dating.”

“What does that mean?” I followed him.

He smiled over his shoulder. “You cussed out your professor for giving you a B.”

“Hey.” I pointed my finger at him. “I deserved an A, and we both know it. You admitted it.”

“Of course I admitted it. I was trying to get into your pants.” Henry flashed a wicked smile.

I pushed his solid chest. “You told me I deserved an A just to get in my pants?”

Henry’s deep laugh made my stomach twirl. “I’m kidding. You were my girlfriend, what was I supposed to say?”

“You were supposed to be honest.” I crossed my arms.

“Okay, fine.” Henry sat on the arm of the couch. “Your paper was good, but it wasn’t the best I’d read. It had potential, but you didn’t put any of your personality into it. You sounded like you didn’t care at all about migration period art.”

I scrunched my face. “I didn’t
care about migration period art. But I presented you with the facts, and the—”

Henry shook his head. “Professor Kendall wasn’t looking for facts and statistics. He was looking for
you
. He might have been a narcissistic jerk, but he knew art history. And he wanted you to care about it.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me that I deserved that B.” I took a step toward him.

He laughed. “I can’t believe you still care.”

“I was
not
dramatic.”

Henry’s face turned serious. “You told me you were pregnant with some other guy’s baby and dumped me in the rain outside my apartment. I’d call that dramatic.”

He might as well have slapped me. We stared at each other for a long moment. Henry’s brow furrowed. I could see that he was still hurt, even after all these years. My throat tightened with guilt.

“I’m sorry,” I said, a rasp in my voice. “I never meant to hurt you. I really thought I was supposed to give Cliff a second chance. I didn’t think there was any other option.”

“I know.” He looked at the bare hardwood floor.

Never one to let things go easily, I said, “You’re dramatic, too, you know.”

Henry’s lifted his eyes to mine, and my breath hitched. “How so?”

“In the park at the Christmas Festival. We kissed, and then you just took off. You didn’t talk to me, or call. I felt like—”

“I didn’t realize that I was required to call.” The corner of his mouth tugged, and it both thrilled me and pissed me off.

I wanted to punch him. “We kissed.”

“That warrants a phone call? I didn’t realize we were in high school again.”

“We’re not. We’re just—”

“We’re adults.” He gazed at me, bemused. “I left because it felt weird.”

“Weird? It felt weird?”

“You’re the first woman I’ve kissed since my wife.” He rubbed his whiskery chin, looking tired. “I didn’t know what to make of it. I hadn’t kissed another woman in nine years. And of all the women in the world,
you’re
the one I kiss? It felt like fate and karma had come back to kick my ass.”

“You hurt my feelings,” I said. “I felt like an idiot standing there. If you didn’t want to kiss me, you shouldn’t have.”

“You kissed me.”

“Well, you shouldn’t have kissed me back, then.”

“I wanted to.”

“No, you didn’t. You just said it was fate and karma kicking your ass. What the hell does that mean, anyway?”

Henry raked his hand over his face and sighed. “You don’t understand.”

“You’re damn straight, I don’t.”

“I wanted to do it, but it felt uncomfortable.”

“Well, by all means, I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable.”

Henry stood, then pulled me against him, one hand at the small of my back, clutching my shirt in his fist, the other behind my neck, his fingers tangled in my hair. His mouth crushed mine with a ferocity that stole my breath. His lips parted, and his tongue touched mine.

My legs trembled. I grasped Henry’s shoulders and steadied myself. Our kiss was like a tornado, whirling and tossing me in fifty different directions at once. I pressed closer to him and deepened the kiss. That provocative sensation of silk and sandpaper made my heart pound so hard, I swore he could feel it through my clothes.

Or maybe that was his heart?

I nipped his lower lip as I pulled back. I gazed into Henry’s eyes, clouded and discombobulated, and was pleased to see his confusion. Because I felt the same. Had someone asked me to recite my name and phone number just then, I couldn’t have formed a sentence.

I tilted my head, then swept my lips across his. My senses swirled, and I melted into the moment. I wanted Henry. I’d never stopped wanting him. Not once, in all these years.

“Autumn.” He grasped my hips, his fingers beneath the hem of my shirt, and pushed me back a step.

We were breathless, our faces flushed. My pulse tingled in my lips. I pressed my fingers to them, dazed.

Henry looked at me as if I were a feast he wanted to devour. Smiling, he ran his thumb across my swollen lips.

“That’s enough for today.”

I dropped my hands to my sides.

“Go home and spend the day with your son.” He sounded very teacher-like.

I leaned into him again, closing my eyes.

But Henry’s grip on my hips remained firm, and he moved me further away. “That’s not it. It’s just that I’m in the middle of a messy divorce. I…I should take things slow. Merry Christmas.”

Exhilarated and aggravated, I picked up my coat and hat, then opened the front door. A burst of wind and snow whipped across my face. I turned and glanced at Henry one last time before I walked out.

Chapter Ten

“Mom!”

Elliott’s voice sounded guttural and terrified. I tore through the house to get to him.

The weeks after Christmas had tried my patience. The snow had piled up, covering the bottom half of the living room window and freezing the pipes several times. Walking to work had become a slow-going process of slipping and sliding down the hill, completing my shifts, then crawling back up in the dark, sidestepping mounds of shoveled snow and drifts higher than my knees. The novelty of my first white winter in years had long since worn off.

I’d not seen Henry since Christmas—and it wasn’t for lack of trying. I’d taken the scenic route home a handful of times, trudging past Henry’s house with hopes of running into him. No such luck. Elliott had told me that they’d had a substitute teacher in his class for a week, and my curiosity nearly killed me. Where was he? Who was he with? When would he come home?

My father saw his doctor in Spokane more and more often, though he thought his appointments were a secret. I knew about them because Helen told me every time he was given a new prescription. I’m sure she was breaking privacy laws, but Helen briefed me on each medication and why it was typically prescribed. Beta-blockers for hypertension, diuretics for removing excess fluids, and penicillin doses high enough to treat a horse. I didn’t know exactly what was wrong, but I knew my father was very sick, and it scared me.

I charged through the house to reach Elliott. My gut clenched at the sound of my dad vomiting. His gurgled groans echoed and Elliott reassured him. “It’s okay, Grandpa. Mom’s coming.”

My dad lay curled on the bathroom floor in a mess of blood-tinged vomit. The smell hit me before I even entered—a nauseating mix of puke, sweat, and alcohol. Elliott kneeled next to him, awkwardly rubbing his shoulder. El appeared helpless, his horn-rimmed glasses crooked on his red nose. “What’s happening?”

I grabbed the door handle to keep from passing out. “Go call nine-one-one, El.”

Elliott stumbled out of the bathroom. I hit my knees, then cradled my father’s head in my lap. “Be still. I’m here.” His glassy eyes showed no sign of recognition. He lurched forward and vomited again. Clear bile, ribboned with blood, slid across the tile floor.

§

It took ten minutes for the ambulance to arrive. Cody came in with the other volunteer EMTs and I dissolved into tears. Doris arrived to stay with Elliott—thanks to her snoopy but oddly helpful need to keep a handheld police scanner next to her TV tray while she ate dinner. I rode with my father in the ambulance, the roads treacherous all the way to Spokane.

I waited in the hospital for hours and hours. It took until dawn for me to learn what was really
wrong with my father.

“Miss Cole, your father’s cirrhosis is extremely active right now,” the doctor said.

My father slept in his hospital bed, tubes protruding from his arms.

“Cirrhosis?” I asked.

The doctor guided me to the hallway where he explained the severity of my father’s condition. Dad had been diagnosed with cirrhosis a year before Elliott and I had returned, and he hadn’t told a soul. Six months prior to our arrival, he’d been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes as a result of liver disease. He’d been fighting bouts of jaundice and hypertension, which had caused him to pass out in his garage and spend a couple of days in the hospital afterward.

His doctors had told him to cease all consumption of alcohol after his liver biopsy. Obviously he hadn’t, which was why he wouldn’t be considered for a liver transplant. My father had no interest in changing his lifestyle. Now, he was suffering from bouts of encephalopathy, a brain dysfunction syndrome that made him agitated and disoriented. His heavy drinking had caused lung failure, and he would need to start using oxygen several times a day. The bottom line: my father was drinking himself to death, and his health would only get worse.