“So,” he said. She felt his hands massaging the back of her neck. “When will you be ready for bed?”
The massage felt nice. He had strong hands, and he kneaded her tense muscles deeply. “Why?” she said. “Are you sleepy?” She closed her eyes and enjoyed his touch.
“Not so much.” His voice had become a whisper. He kept his hands on her neck, kept massaging.
“I’ll be there in a little bit. Just a couple things I’d like to check on first.”
Strong hands relieving the tension. “Don’t be long,” he said.
“I won’t.” The massage stopped. She opened her eyes slowly and heard the door to the master bedroom close.
Then she resumed her typing, and after a few minutes she’d completely forgotten about her husband waiting for her in the room at the end of the hall.
62
We stopped for dessert at Rachel’s Cafe, one of my favorite indie coffeehouses in downtown Denver.
Built on the first floor of a remodeled warehouse, Rachel’s had hundred-year-old wooden plank floors, brick walls, and air ducts and pipes snaking across the ceiling. Copies of the Denver News lay strewn on the tables. A coffee roaster sat in the corner near the cramped stage.
Just like most independent coffeehouses, Rachel’s Cafe didn’t have color-coordinated, matching furniture and didn’t sell “green” plush baby seal toys made by child-laborers in China, overpriced espresso makers, or trademarked mints. Instead, Rachel’s simply offered an eclectic bohemian atmosphere and exceptional coffee from around the world. My kind of place.
I would have liked to hang out for a while, but since I didn’t know why Tessa had been so aggressively nice all night, I wanted to get her home as quickly as possible before she said something to Cheyenne that I would regret. So, I made sure our dessert stop was brief, then we headed for Cheyenne’s condo.
Ten minutes after leaving Rachel’s, I parked at the curb, but before I could invite Cheyenne to join me outside so that I could say good night, Tessa spoke up: “Be a gentleman, Patrick. Walk her to the door.”
“Tessa-”
“Go on.”
“That’s enough,” I said.
“That sounds nice,” Cheyenne said. Then she stepped out of the car and waited for me to join her.
I lowered my voice and said to Tessa, “We’re going to talk about this when we get home.”
“OK.”
I opened my door. “I’ll be right back.”
“Take your time.”
As we headed along the path toward her porch, Cheyenne took my arm and managed to slow our walk to a stroll. “Well, Dr. Bowers,” she said. “Thank you for eating food in my general vicinity tonight.”
“You’re welcome. I’ve been thinking, I’ll probably need to eat sometime in the next week or so. Maybe we can do it again?”
“Hmm,” she said. “I’ll have to check my busy social calendar.”
“That full, huh?”
We arrived at the porch, but instead of stepping into the light as I expected her to, Cheyenne paused on the fringe of the night. “You have no idea how popular I am.”
“And yet you chose to spend the evening with my stepdaughter and me.”
“Yes, I did.”
“I’m honored.”
The night settled in, calm and sweet and cool around us. “I had fun,” she said. “And I really like Tessa.”
“She has a way of growing on you.” Then I added, “She means the world to me.”
“I can tell.” Even though I didn’t remember either of us edging closer, the space between us seemed to be shrinking. I gazed at her standing in the faint glow of the porch’s twilight.
Cheyenne Warren really was a beautiful woman.
Moments eased by.
The sounds of traffic drifted toward me from far away, from some distant city that had nothing to do with the two of us.
Finally I said, “Maybe I should be going. You know. Take Tessa home.” But after I’d said the words, I didn’t go anywhere. Neither did Cheyenne. It seemed like neither of us wanted the date-that-wasnot-a-date to end.
I had the urge to take her in my arms, to hold her, to kiss her and see where everything might lead, but then I remembered Lien-hua and how things had ended with her. I didn’t want to start off on the wrong foot with Cheyenne. Didn’t want anything to go wrong.
Take it slow, Pat. She’s worth it. Don’t do anything stupid.
The sound of a car honking on one of the neighboring streets broke the spell, and I eased back a step. “OK,” I said. “I guess-”
Cheyenne let out a soft sigh. “That’s twice now.”
I hesitated. “Twice?”
“Yes. Once at the barn earlier today, and then, just now.”
“What do you mean?”
Her eyes were still filled with their usual confidence and strength but also held a touch of disappointment. “That’s twice I thought you were going to kiss me and you decided to back away from me instead.”
Oh man.
My heart was racing. I felt like I was in junior high again, fumbling for the right words to say to the girl I’d finally worked up the nerve to talk to. “It isn’t that I don’t want-”
She squinched her eyes shut and hit herself in the forehead with the heel of her hand. “Oh, I shouldn’t have said that. I’m always doing that. I just say what I’m thinking. I don’t even-it’s a bad habit. I’m sorry.”
I wanted to tell her that it wasn’t a bad habit, that her blunt honesty was one of the things I liked about her, but just ended up saying, “Never apologize for telling the truth. It suits you.” And then, “Good night, Cheyenne.”
“Good night,” she said, and then I gave her a light, friendly hug, but that was all.
And as I turned and walked back to the car I heard the condo’s door swing open and then click softly shut behind me.
63
Back at home, I wanted to get to bed, but Tessa only left me alone long enough for me to get my toothbrush in my mouth before she knocked on my bedroom door, walked in, caught me in mid-brush in the adjoining bath. “Why didn’t you kiss her good night?”
I spit out the toothpaste. “That’s none of your business.”
“She’s nice. I like her. I think you should’ve-”
“All right, that’s it.” I set down the toothbrush. “What are you trying to do?”
“Just saying you should have kissed her.”
“No, I mean all night.” I grabbed a cup of water. Rinsed out my mouth. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing.”
“You made dinner for me. You’ve been playing matchmaker. You even complimented my book. Something must be seriously-”
“Can’t I just be nice once in a while without you getting on my case for it?”
“I’m not getting on your case. I just don’t understand.”
She slung a hand to her hip. “What? Maybe you’d prefer I cop an attitude instead?”
“Well…”
“How about a little obstinacy? Would that be better? Or despondency, maybe? Is that what you’d like?”
“Look, it’s just that you haven’t seemed like yourself tonight, that’s all. Usually, you’re more quiet and introverted and sort of just annoyed at life in general, and not so…”
“Not so what?”
“Aberrantly cheerful.”
“Well, that’s easy enough to fix,” she said.
“Tessa, please.” I tried to think of anything that might have happened earlier in the day to cause all this. “Is it leaving for the summer? Is it something to do with that?”
She was silent.
“The shoe box?”
No reply.
What else?
Oh yes.
“Your mom’s diary. Is that it? Is that what this is all about?”
The look of pain that swept over her face came so swiftly and suddenly that the whole mood of the room changed in an instant.
“I was just trying to…” she began, but didn’t finish.
The diary must have been more important to her than I ever would have guessed.
“I loved her, you know? More than anything else in the world.” Her voice had become something small and fragile. A little girl’s voice.