“Nevertheless, I haven’t come to visit since I moved down here.”
“Maybe you could bring Adriana with you,” she suggested with a grin.
Her brother chuckled, which sounded a bit nervous. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. My pager’s exploding so I have to go. We’ll talk again soon.”
They said their good-byes and hung up. Elisa placed the telephone on the nightstand and sank down to the bed. The glowing clock across the room said one a.m. She ought to be fast asleep, but she was afraid. The dreams might return: the one where Kelly and Brody blamed her for causing turmoil, the one where Brody glared at her with accusation and resentment. Or, even worse, the one where his eyes smoldered at her right before he stripped her down to her bare skin. She hated that dream even more, because it reminded her how much in love with him she was.
Thankfully, no dreams came. Just sweet, restful sleep.
“Can I come in?” Elisa practically held her breath while the other woman didn’t say anything. Kelly had a suspicious look on her face, as if she wanted to slam the door on Elisa for being so presumptuous. And maybe coming to see Kelly was a bit audacious. But a little voice had been nagging at her, saying You need to make this right. Simply dusting things under the rug wasn’t the way Elisa operated, and her friend was no different. She’d caught Elisa making out with her ex-husband. Even though the off-limits rule had never been enacted, she felt like she owed the woman… well, something. At least an explanation.
Kelly pursed her heart-shaped lips and seemed to consider the situation a moment longer. Then she stepped back and held the door open wider. “Sure.”
Elisa resisted the urge to heave a huge sigh of relief. Instead, she followed the other woman inside and tried not to gawk at the interior of the home. Kelly and her husband had completely remodeled their sixties ranch-style home. Everything was contemporary yet homey. At the same time, all the touches, down to the wainscoting in the entry hall screamed top dollar. Kelly and her husband had probably spent more money on the deep-mahogany hand-scraped wood floors than Elisa had for all of her camera equipment combined. Then again, they could probably afford it. Colin was a chiropractor in a neighboring town and worked long hours.
The two women walked down the narrow hallway, which opened up to a great room with a vaulted ceiling. Rich-wooden exposed beams decorated the top of the soaring room, which was twice the size of Elisa’s cozy family room. Various photos of Tyler were perched on random shelves of a built-in bookcase. Kelly’s home was very comfortable, the type of place where Elisa felt she could curl up on the couch with a roaring fire.
“Would you like something to drink?” Kelly asked.
They entered an eating area, where the centerpiece was a gorgeous antique farmhouse-style kitchen table. On the wall opposite the table was one of Elisa’s black-and-white photographs, blown up and adorned in a shabby-chic frame. Elisa was surprised Kelly hadn’t taken the picture down and burned it.
“No, I’m fine. Thank you,” Elisa finally answered.
“I promise not to poison it,” the other woman said with a smile. She gestured toward the kitchen. “And I just made iced tea.”
Elisa found herself smiling back, and she relaxed by slow degrees. “In that case, I’d love some tea.” She settled in one of the four chairs at the dining table and waited. The house was so quiet, save for the ticking of the old German-style cuckoo clock. Tyler still didn’t get out of school for several hours, and Elisa missed the boy. She missed his inquisitive questions and quiet, thoughtful voice. No doubt, he was back where he belonged: with his mother. Would Kelly object if Elisa were to drop by and visit the boy?
A small smile graced Kelly’s pretty face when she walked back into the room. She placed a glass of tea in front of Elisa, then took a seat at the table next to her.
They sipped in silence for a moment, then Kelly spoke. “Tyler was just telling me this morning that he misses you already. And that dog.” Kelly took a sip of tea and lowered her glass. “Tyler said you found him while you were out walking. Do you really plan on keeping him?”
“Not at first. I thought maybe—” She almost told Kelly about her suggestion about Brody taking the dog. Then she thought, Maybe not. “I thought maybe about taking him to a shelter. But now I’m not sure. He’s growing on me.”
Kelly shook her head. “Good luck. He looks like he needs some serious TLC.”
Elisa ran her finger over the rim of her glass and tried to channel some courage. Kelly’s your friend, remember? She’ll forgive you.
“You have something you want to get off your chest, don’t you?” Kelly asked, just as Elisa was about to plead her case.
“Yes, it’s about the other day, about…” She paused, trying to find the right words. “What you walked in on.” Good Lord, she couldn’t even look at Kelly, and her brain was dangerously close to not functioning properly—all because of a man. Finally, she lifted her gaze to Kelly’s. “I just needed to apologize. I felt like maybe you got the wrong impression.”
Kelly tilted her head to one side, as though scrutinizing Elisa. “You mean the one where you were making out with my ex-husband?”
It sounded so harsh when Kelly worded it like that, even though that’s what Elisa had been doing. And if she and Brody hadn’t been interrupted, they likely would have ended up on the couch again.
“Yes, I guess that would be the one,” Elisa said with a nervous chuckle.
Kelly shook her head again and offered Elisa a reassuring smile. “It’s okay, Elisa. You don’t have to say sorry. Brody and I have been divorced for several years now. He’s allowed to date whoever he wants.”
“I wouldn’t really say that’s what we’re doing,” Elisa responded quickly.
Kelly studied her for a moment. “Then what are you doing?”
Well, so far it’s been mad, passionate sex. Don’t tell her that, dummy!
Elisa took a shallow sip of some tea. The drink was cold, smooth, and sweet. Just what she needed. “To be honest, I’m not sure.”
“I know what you mean,” Kelly said with a laugh. “Brody has a way of making a woman feel unsure about herself. And you have that look about you. Like you’re in love with him.”
A small, startled gasp escaped Elisa’s lips. How in the world had Kelly figured it out? Just from seeing the two of them together?
Kelly pressed on, not giving Elisa a chance to explain herself. “I know, because it’s the same look I had when I was nineteen. Trust me, I know how you feel.”
And, suddenly, Elisa didn’t feel the urgency to ask Kelly’s forgiveness, like the words were Kelly’s way of forgiving her. Because the woman had once had the same feeling, the same helpless, drowning-in-overwhelming-love that Elisa had. How in the world had she survived that?
“I don’t want to pry,” Elisa replied softly, even though she really did.
Kelly took a long draw of her tea, then dabbed her mouth with a white napkin. “You’re not prying. It’s just something I haven’t talked about in a long time.” The other woman stared at a point over Elisa’s shoulder.
“You fell in love with him quickly,” Elisa guessed.
Kelly nodded. “Oh, yes. Very much so.” She shook her head. “Boy, he could make my head spin. I had never felt anything like that before. Completely blindsided me.”
Well, Elisa could certainly relate to that. Apparently Brody had a way of sweeping the rug out from under a woman’s feet.
“What went wrong? I mean…” Shit, what did she mean? Why did you get divorced?
“A lot happened in a very short amount of time. It wasn’t until years later that everything caught up with me, and I realized the life that I’d been waiting to happen was already happening. Does that make sense?” Kelly asked in an uncertain tone.