CHAPTER SIX

 

 

 

The front door slowly creaked open, inviting the colors of sunset into the entry of the old home as it had done for a hundred years. Golds and yellows caressed the old wood floors of the parlor as the door opened wide. After a moment, a figure stepped through, onto the porch.

Trace was still sitting there. Kiki saw him, leaning back against the wall of the house near one of the windows. The shadows partially obscured him and the old chair he was planted in. He was just sitting there, staring off into the yard, as she made her way towards him.

Trace heard the door open but he didn’t look over. In fact, he didn’t look over until she was nearly upon him and, even then, it was because a glass of red wine suddenly appeared in front of his face. He looked at it before his gaze moved up to her face, so lovely in the dim sunset colors. His eyes locked with hers as he reached up, slowly, and took the wine she was extending to him. His fingers brushed against hers.

“Stanley didn’t deliver your message in a timely manner,” she said, taking the second and only other old metal chair on the porch, the one with only half a seat because the wood had broken off. “Apparently, all of this note delivery exhausted him and he went up to my bed to sleep it off. I just found him; I thought you’d gone home hours ago.”

Trace didn’t say a word. He stood up, took her by the wrist and pulled her up from the broken chair. He then sat her down on the chair that didn’t have any sharp edges on the seat. He perched on the end of the busted chair.

“I told Bullfrog to tell you that I wasn’t leaving until you came out here to talk to me,” he said simply.

“So you sat here for six hours?”

“Six hours, eight minutes, and twenty-nine seconds.”

“You kept track?”

“I did.”

Kiki clucked softly, incredulous. “Trace,” she murmured, gently scolding. “You should have knocked on the door or something. I didn’t even know you were still out here.”

“Now you know.”

Her eyes glittered at him warmly in response as she digested the information. She could hardly believe it, but it was just as sweet and flattering as it could be. Then she sipped at her wine, gazing off across the yard with the fountain in the middle of it. Her gaze grew distant.

“I guess you deserve something of an explanation,” she said softly. “You opened yourself up to me so I guess it’s only right you know what you opened yourself up to, if you know what I mean. Now, I’m going to preface this by saying I’m not looking for sympathy or pity. The situation is what it is and I’m perfectly capable of handling it. So don’t get any funny ideas like I’m looking for a shoulder to cry on. I don’t need one.”

“Okay.”

He said it rather resolutely so she continued. “Mark and I had a good marriage, or at least I thought it was good,” she said. “We had our routine. I wasn’t deliriously happy, but I wasn’t unhappy, either. It was just the way our life was and I was satisfied. So you can imagine what a shock it was when he dropped dead of a heart attack at the age of fifty when he’d never had heart problems in his life. It was Christmastime last year when he went to work one morning and at noon, I got a call from his office manager; they were rushing Mark to the hospital because he was complaining about chest pains and by the time I got there, he had already passed. It was that fast.”

By this time, Trace was looking at her with some sympathy, the precise thing she told him she didn’t need from him. But he took a chance. “I’m sorry for you,” he said quietly. “I really am.”

She nodded and took another sip of wine. “I was sorry for me, too,” she said. “At the funeral, I was kind of in a daze. I remember so many people coming to pay respects, including this guy I’d never seen before. He kept calling Mark ‘Patrick’ when referring to him, so much so that my dad finally asked him if he was at the right funeral. The man assured him that he was but that, to him, Mark had always been known as ‘Patrick’. I didn’t give it much thought until it came time to settle his will and estate. Then, it started getting weird - it turned out that Mark had a life insurance policy but the beneficiaries were the girls and some guy named Robert Graves. When we looked into his will, the girls and I received a very small portion of his estate and the rest went to this guy, again, Robert Graves. My lawyer started looking into everything Mark had and all of it was signed over to this guy I’d never even heard of. When I contested the will, this guy, Robert, and his lawyer showed up to court. Turns out it was the guy at the funeral who had called him ‘Patrick’. It would seem my perfect husband was leading a double life as a gay man and didn’t want to ‘come out’ because of what it would do to his reputation and practice.”

Trace was staring at her, feeling a good deal of disgust and sorrow on her behalf. “So what happened?”

She shrugged, taking another sip of her wine. “It turns out that Robert was really a very nice guy,” she said. “He and Mark had been together eight years.”

Trace’s eyebrows lifted. “Eight years?” he repeated, trying not to sound too shocked. “And you never knew about him?”

Kiki shook her head, struggling not to appear too much of an idiot. “He was a colleague of Mark’s,” she said softly. “Thinking back, I had seen him around and knew he worked with Mark, but I would have never suspected in a million years what was going on. Maybe that’s phenomenally stupid of me, but it never occurred to me to suspect that my husband was having an affair with another man. If he goes to a convention with him, so what? If he goes to the movies with him, so what? I’m not thinking there’s anything sexual. It never crossed my mind. But I suppose, in hindsight, maybe it should have; Mark was a very handsome and manly man, but our sex life was pretty nonexistent. It got worse over the years. He always had excuses, like he was too tired, or hurt himself working out, or things like that. It bothered me but he was a pretty great guy other than that, so I just let it slide. It never occurred to me he just wasn’t interested in a woman sexually.”

Trace wasn’t sure what to say to all of that. After a moment, he simply shook his head. “Wow,” he breathed. “So what happened with the will?”

She sighed faintly, thinking back on a time in her life that had been both shocking and disorienting.

“My lawyer said that Mark’s will was air-tight,” she said, “and here’s the kicker – Mark and I were joint owners of our house, but Mark left his half to Robert, so I couldn’t even sell the house without his consent. More than that, he got half of whatever the profits were. So I sat down with Robert one night and told him that the girls and I somehow needed to live, and that what Mark did to us wasn’t fair. I couldn’t do anything about the fact that he was a gay man so I wasn’t going to let it bother me; what bothered me was that he used our marriage as his cover rather than be honest about it. I could have dealt with it better, I think. He should have just divorced me because it would have been easier for us both. Robert agreed with me and Quit-Claimed his portion of the house over to me so I could at least sell it and keep the money, which was very kind of him. He’s even contributed to the girls’ college funds and returned the money from our joint savings account. I know it sounds really weird that my husband’s gay lover has been so kind to me, but I’m thankful for small things, I suppose. He’s actually become a friend.”

Trace’s brow furrowed. “The man had an affair with your husband and he’s become your friend?”

Kiki sighed, turning her gaze to him. “I told you it’s weird,” she said simply. “I meant it. Robert is a very kind man. It’s not his fault that he fell in love with Mark, or vice versa. I just wish they’d been honest about it.”

Trace mulled her statement over, thinking that she was an extraordinarily forgiving woman. Either that, or an emotional cripple looking for any port in the storm, but she really didn’t seem to be the type. In fact, she seemed very normal and settled about the whole thing. He admired that kind of attitude.

“You’re extremely magnanimous,” he said after a moment. “I’m not sure I could be so forgiving.”

She shrugged, averting her gaze. “Anger and bitterness are such destructive emotions,” she murmured. “I admit I was a basket case when I first found out. Who wouldn’t be? But I don’t want any destructive or crippling emotions in my life, so I’ve had to forgive in order to move on. And if my husband’s gay lover wants to contribute to my children’s college, then I’m going to let him. For my girls’ sake, I’m damn well going to let him.”

Trace liked the backbone he was seeing in her. The woman had been dealt a hell of a hand in life. He was coming to appreciate her fortitude very much.

“More power to you,” he lifted his wine glass to her. “You’re doing what you have to do.”

“You’d better believe it,” she agreed, “which brings me to this house. I told you before I wanted to come home to my roots to start fresh. This house symbolized that. After selling the house in Orange County and purchasing this one, I only have eighty thousand dollars set aside to restore it. That’s it. Remember I asked you what was absolutely necessary?”

“I do.”

“I just don’t have the money for anything more. But I need to get this place, at least, somewhat habitable so I can start generating some income to finish it off. ”

Trace sighed, pondering her dilemma, before taking another sip of wine. He just sat there, watching the dusk descend over the trees, watching the yard grow dark. He had a lot of thoughts on the matter and suspected, at some point, he’d better let her in on what he was thinking. But he wanted to do it in a way that wasn’t going to make her run crying back into the house again.

“Can we talk about it over dinner?” he finally asked. “I’m getting kind of hungry.”

She sighed. “Trace, I want to be really clear about this,” she said softly. “If you work on my house, I won’t date you. I can’t. I don’t want you to think I’m sleeping with you just to get free work out of you and, coming to suspect you are a kind and generous man, you might want to restore much more than what I’m paying for. It just wouldn’t be right. So it’s either the house or me.”

He looked at her. “That’s my choice?”

She nodded. “As hard as it is for me to say that, that’s about the gist of it right now.”

He cleared his throat softly and stood up from the broken chair, setting his empty wine glass down on an equally broken-down matching table nearby. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he casually strolled to the edge of the porch, his gaze moving out over the yard. It took him a moment to realize that Stanley had followed him, now sitting patiently next to his feet. He looked down at the dog.

“Help me out here, Bullfrog,” he muttered. “You said you’d be my wingman. What do I do?”

Sitting back in the shadows, Kiki couldn’t help but grin as Trace had a one-sided conversation with the dog. He looked down at the mutt, nodding his head as if the dog were telepathically speaking to him, before turning around to look at her.

“Can I make a counter-proposal?” he asked.

Kiki shrugged. “I’m listening.”

He paused a moment, thoughtfully, before speaking. “If you and I date, it’s going to be exclusive because I don’t play the field, I’m not a ‘dater’ and I don’t share. Even if we eventually decide to part as friends, for the time being and while we’re getting to know each other, I won’t see anyone else and I don’t want you to, either. Okay?”

She conceded the point. “Agreed,” she replied. “Is that your proposal?”

He shook his head. “No,” he said. “People who date exclusively are usually called boyfriend and girlfriend.”

She fought off a smile. “That’s true.”

“So, as your boyfriend, I’m perfectly free to work on this house anytime, anyway, because you belong to me so, in a sense, the house does as well. Are you with me so far?”

Her mouth turned into a dubious frown. “Now, wait a minute. I just said that….”

“Okay, so if you won’t go for that, go for this,” he said, cutting her off. “You need to generate income from this place, right?”

“Right.”

“You want to open it as a wedding venue, right?”

“Right.”

“Would you consider a boarder, instead? At least temporarily?”

Her eyes widened with surprise. “A tenant?” she repeated. “I… I hadn’t really thought about it.”

He began to make his way in her direction. “Think about it,” he said. “I’ll rent a room here but instead of paying you rent, I’ll fix up the house to earn my keep. How does that sound?”

She was on her feet. “You’re crazy,” she exclaimed, but it was without force. “You’d rent a room from me but….?”

He held up a finger, cutting her off. “You gave me a choice about five minutes ago – the house or you,” he said firmly. “Now, I’m giving you a choice – I work on the house as your boyfriend or as your boarder. You decide.”

She crossed her arms, cocking an eyebrow at him. “I have decided. I’ve decided you’re crazy.”

His lips twitched with a smile and he came closer to her, closer than he ever had. Kiki stood her ground as he brushed up against her, his warm and powerful body sending shockwaves of excitement coursing through her limbs. Having him so close, but not being held by him, was the most painful and exhilarating sensation she’d ever known. He just stood there, his torso against hers, his muscular arms hanging at his sides, gazing down at her with a sultry half-grin on his face.

She began to tremble. She couldn’t control it because having him so close, so magnetically close, was like torture. She knew he could see the lust and longing in her expression and he surely could see that her lips were trembling, but he did nothing more than dip his head and kiss her softly on the cheek. It was warm, gentle, and utterly sexy. Kiki nearly collapsed.

“Maybe I am,” he whispered. “You’ve got until tomorrow morning to decide. Go back in the house now and lock the door. I’m going to stand here until you do. And then I’ll be back in the morning for your answer.”

Kiki was having trouble breathing and the quivering of her body had grown worse. All she wanted to do was throw her arms around him and feel his lips against hers. Nothing in her life had ever called so strongly to her. But she somehow managed to stumble away from him, her mind so much mud, calling to Stanley as she went. The dog trotted into the house after her and she began to close the door, her eyes on Trace standing over by the porch steps. He smiled at her.

“Close the door,” he commanded softly. “I’ll be back in the morning and you’d better have the right answer for me.”

Kiki closed the door and threw the big, old, iron bolt. She stood there for the longest time, indecisive and somewhat overwhelmed.

Then she just grinned.

 



 

She heard the glass breaking.

At first, Kiki thought she had been dreaming. In her dark bedroom on the second floor, she glanced over at the clock. 4:01 a.m. Rolling over, she glanced at Stanley, who was lying in his fluffy little bed next to the wall. The dog was awake, his head up and his ears alert. Kiki lay there a moment in silence, listening for any further sounds, when she heard more glass breaking and a big bang. Stanley leapt to his feet and began barking savagely.

Frightened, Kiki slithered out of bed and grabbed the golf club that she kept under her bed for protection. It was silly, really, and she had been telling herself that she would go to the gun shop and buy a small handgun for protection, but she just hadn’t made the trip yet. Now she was wishing she had.

Scooting to her bedroom door, she cracked it open. She couldn’t see any movement but she could definitely hear something downstairs. It sounded like footsteps, shuffling around. Closing the door, she rushed back to her nightstand and picked up her cell phone. She had to go through the operator to call the 911 system of the Pasadena Police Department, but they connected her right away. A very helpful dispatcher on the other end told her to stay put, lock the door, and stay on the phone until the police arrived. Taking her golf club and Stanley into the bathroom with her, she locked the door.

The noises were getting closer and she was nearing panic at that point. The intruders were definitely in the upper hall, heading for her bedroom. She could hear the floorboards creaking. As she tried to stay calm, listening to the dispatcher assure her that the cops were nearly there, she reached into one of the bathroom drawers and pulled out a very sharp pair of scissors. They were dangerous and a better weapon than the golf club as far as she was concerned. She put Stanley in the shower enclosure and shut it, standing flush against the wall next to the door with the scissors in one hand and her phone in the other.

The footsteps were in her room now. She heard them enter when the door creaked. Then someone tried the bathroom door and Stanley started barking like crazy. The bathroom door rattled violently and the old lock, weakened with age, began to give way when someone kicked it.

The dispatcher heard a lot of screaming after that and when the phone hit the old tile floor, the line went dead.