A Not-So-Distant Love, page 17
Her gaze traced over his features, exploring, discovering. He was tired. It was evident in the lines that marked his eyes and the furrow between his brows. Weary from a night spent at someone’s side, but it was more than that.
It was the grief that bowed his shoulders.
The taut line of his jaw that never softened.
The mouth that never pushed into a smile.
She’d made a mistake in looking at his mouth, his lips perfectly formed, their outline edged by an impeccably trimmed beard. She’d never felt so strong a pull, a desire that sang through her at the thought of closing the space between them.
“Be not rash with thy lips.”
That scripture would come to mind now, of all times. Fortunately, she was well-practiced at discarding those words when she found them inconvenient.
She took the tiniest step closer. The space between them all but disappeared. Heat flared in every place they touched. Her palm slid up his chest, her fingers tracing the patch of bared skin at his throat.
He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
Her hand slid behind Alec’s neck, gently tugging him toward her. She wanted him closer. Charlotte pressed her lips to his cheek, and Alec stilled beneath her touch. Next she moved closer to his lips, where she laid a whisper of a kiss on the bristle that lined his face. He didn’t move.
Finally, she pushed up onto her toes and touched her mouth to his. She was acting on instinct, asking him to trust her, desperately hoping he’d let down his walls and allow her in, wishing he could feel even a quarter of what he’d awakened in her.
Her hand slid up from the back of his neck, her fingers combing through the thick waves of his hair. Yet still he didn’t respond. Charlotte knew she hadn’t misread the flare of desire in his expression, but there was a despondency in the way he held himself back. A hopeless restraint in the tenseness of his body. She pressed another kiss to his lips. He tasted of the agony of yesterdays, of a future he believed could no longer exist.
A tear slid down her cheek.
How she wanted to take his heart in her hands. To school it in the ways of love. To teach him that there was more to life than despair and darkness, that love could be good and right and beautiful.
As if he could sense the longing within her, he softened.
Charlotte knew the moment he came to life beneath her touch. His large hand banded around her waist, and his lips molded to hers, assuring her that beneath the stone statue exterior lived a man, one whose desires and passions were far from dead.
“Charlotte,” he breathed against her mouth. Beneath the fervor of his kisses, she grew dizzy and breathless. The room whirled, her mind spun, but his gentle hands held her in place, anchoring her within the longing that sparked around them.
She returned his kisses with her own, wanting to erase all trace of the anguish life had subjected him to. Her hand tightened on his shoulder. She pressed herself closer, as if she could reach through and touch his soul, take away his pain, and soothe his scars.
Alec froze, jerking back as he released her, something haunted in his expression. “No,” he heaved out.
She gasped at the abruptness of his retreat. The fire she’d felt at his touch turned to ash.
“Go,” he said hoarsely.
Her chest contracted. “Alec?” She could barely hear herself over the wild thumping of her heart.
“Please, go.” His eyes were tortured, as if her kiss had physically wounded him.
She stumbled backward, bumping into the stove and knocking over her teacup, coffee splashing as it fell to the floor and the cup shattered. How she managed to gather her things, she didn’t know. With her hand on the doorknob, she turned back to look at him. Alec stood unmoving with his back to the wall, his hands gripping the roots of his hair and his chest heaving.
As for herself, she could hardly breathe either. The gravity of what she’d done pressed down on her, a physical weight that settled on her lungs. She stepped outside and pulled the door closed behind her, hurrying down the steps and away from the doctor’s cabin.
The rain had softened to a drizzle, but Charlotte knew nothing but a sharp sense of loss. Instead of treading cautiously, as she’d resolved to do, she had made a vast, and perhaps final, mistake.
But she had treaded cautiously, hadn’t she? Taken one slow step at a time, her hand extended, an offering with no expectation. She’d come to him exactly where he was. And when they’d finally met . . .
He’d pulled back.
Fled.
She walked swiftly, as if she could outpace the growing ache inside of her. But with each step she grew more certain. She had offered her heart, or at least a piece of it, and he’d retreated.
There was only one way forward. The choice, quite simply, was Alec’s. If he needed distance, she would give it to him. If he wanted someone to walk beside him through his grief, she was willing. And if he wanted a chance to see what this something between them could be, she would be waiting.
But this time he would have to come to her.
Chapter Nineteen
Alec sat at his desk, papers spread before him. One of the candles guttered, a testament to the lateness of the hour. But it wasn’t the lack of light that kept him from his work.
He was useless.
Since Charlotte’s quick retreat over twelve hours before, he’d not slept. He’d not eaten. His hair had been ravaged by running his hands through it too many times to count. The cup of coffee she had made him sat unfinished and cold, the dark liquid she’d spilled and the broken pieces of her teacup untouched.
A perfect metaphor. His ordered life, now in disarray.
When, where had it all begun? He couldn’t say.
All he knew was that as she’d kissed him, something within him had changed.
Alec was a medical man. A doctor. He’d been educated and trained by some of the best minds in science. Spent years studying the human body and its operations. So, logically, he knew the organ that pumped blood through his body had continued to function since the blow of Nellie’s death. And yet . . .
He could have sworn that as Charlotte kissed him, his heart had started beating for the first time in three years.
Thump.
Thump, thump.
With the beating of his heart had come consciousness. An awakening. A slow awareness of the woman in the circle of his arms. Charlotte—her softness, her loveliness, her poignant kisses. Something warm and velvet had unfurled in his chest, so long suppressed that he hardly recognized it. Desire. It yawned within him, waking after these long years, the sheer power of it breathtaking.
So he’d kissed her back.
The joining of their mouths had been sweet ecstasy. A mix of light, heat, and passion. A blazing trail of discovery in which he was reminded that life was more than drudgery and duty. More than regret and despair. There could be tenderness. There could be beauty.
There could be Charlotte.
And it was that. Reality had crashed over him like a tidal wave of despair. Because no matter how badly he wanted her, there couldn’t be a Charlotte. Or any other woman. No love could hold up under the weight of his regrets with Nellie. No woman deserved a man who was chained to an eternal whipping post. Whose attempts at atonement were nothing compared to the mountain of mistakes he’d made.
He’d been a fool to forget, even for a moment.
So he’d pushed her away.
And he’d tried to stop the beat of his heart. Tried to rebuild the wall that kept him separate from the world. But it was no use. Somehow he couldn’t summon his passionless existence from before.
He was raw and vulnerable and without defense.
A loud bang on the door forced Alec up from the abyss of his thoughts. His gaze shifted to the clock on the mantel. Just after eleven. Another night call meant another night of no sleep. He set his papers aside and rubbed at his eyes.
Three successive bangs resounded so hard they made his front door shake. “Alec, I know you’re in there! I can see the candle burning!”
Liam? At this hour?
Alec was in no state for a visit. He got to his feet, trying to tamp down the river of emotion that ran through him unfettered. It was terrifying, having no walls or barriers to block its path.
Another bang. “Alec! Open up!”
Alec hurried over before Liam broke the door off its hinges. He undid the latch and opened the door. “What has you here at so unholy an hour?” he asked, his voice rough from disuse.
Even in the pale moonlight Alec could see that Liam’s face was dark with anger, his brows bunched low over his eyes.
Liam shouldered the door open and stood in its frame. “Why don’t you tell me, Alec! Am I here because my parents set a place at their table for you tonight, just as they do every Thursday night, and once again, I had to pretend not to notice their disappointment when you didn’t come?”
Alec scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Liam, I’m sorry. I—”
Liam cut him off. “Or perhaps I’m here because Charlotte was on the verge of tears all evening, and I’ve observed enough to know there’s something going on between the two of you.” His voice was louder now, his breaths ragged.
Anger rumbled through Alec. “You’ve no idea—”
Liam shoved him hard in the chest, and Alec stumbled back a step. “Or perhaps I’m here for me! I’ve been back a month, and still—nothing! Not even an offer to meet me for a meal at Elliott’s.” He was breathing hard, his nostrils flaring, his face mere inches from Alec’s own. “I told myself you needed time. I gave you your space. But it’s been three years, and nothing’s changed! You know I’d do anything for you—I’d give you my own unbroken heart if I could—but you won’t let me. You won’t let anyone. Just how long are you willing to let the cloud of your grief hang over everyone you love?”
Alec’s own anger was building. He shoved Liam back out onto the porch. “You know nothing of my grief!” Alec followed him, needing air, needing space. Fargo whinnied from the stable.
“Don’t I?” Liam taunted. “I know you use it as a shield, a way of keeping people out! I know it’s easier to bury yourself in it and in your hours of research rather than face the truth of how you felt about Nellie.”
Alec gritted his teeth, fists clenched, his control on the verge of snapping. “Don’t you dare say a word about Nellie,” he growled.
A lock of Liam’s usually perfectly pomaded hair fell across his forehead. “What are you really grieving? Her death?” He met Alec’s gaze with a look of challenge. “Or the fact that you never really loved her?”
Alec’s anger exploded and his fist flew, a sharp crack as it connected with Liam’s cheekbone. Liam’s head snapped back, but within seconds he recovered, head forward, feet apart, as if bracing for another blow. Blood trickled from a small cut beneath the eye that was already beginning to swell.
Alec’s own hand trembled, his knuckles split and bleeding.
“Grieving her loss will not change the fact that you didn’t love her.” Liam touched the rising welt, wincing. “And neither will hitting me.”
All the fight went out of Alec. He let his weight sag against the doorframe. Exhaustion pushed him down until he was sitting on the rough-hewn planks of the porch, the door to his cabin still half open.
Liam lowered beside him, wiping at the blood on his cheek with the back of his hand. Uncomfortable silence hung between them, the only sounds their heavy breathing from spent emotion and the orchestral clicking of cicadas.
“I’m not sure I’ll ever forgive myself,” Alec said, his throat catching. “For not loving her.”
Liam was silent. He looked older than Alec remembered, now fully a man, his jaw shadowed at the end of the day. Gone was the boy who had followed Alec through the smithy, peppering him with questions and hanging on his every word. Somewhere along the way, Liam had grown up. Matured. Enough to notice the truth that Alec had never dared share with anyone.
He hadn’t loved Nellie.
Theirs had been an auspicious start. Nellie’s father, David Hallewell, had been a close friend of Martin’s and a faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Medicine. After receiving a persuasive letter from Martin, he’d been convinced to take a chance on a modest blacksmith with dreams of becoming a doctor.
Alec hadn’t even known David Hallewell had a daughter until he’d been invited, on the eve of his graduation, to a ball where Nellie and her father had been in attendance. When Alec had mentioned their meeting in a letter to Martin, Martin had spoken of the Hallewells in the warmest of terms, strongly suggesting Alec seek a further acquaintance with Nellie. After all Martin had done for him, how could he say no?
It had been a whirlwind of a summer. Alec’s elation at earning his MD. The unexpected invitation to stay on at the university as a professor. And his and Nellie’s hasty courtship, with constant invitations to dinners, balls, and the theater. Those summer nights glittered in his memory—drinks and dancing amongst Philadelphia’s political and social elite with a dazzling Nellie on his arm. Looking back, he knew that sparkle had blinded him to the fact that such a woman, accustomed to living her life at the center of Society, was ill-equipped to become a doctor’s wife in a rugged city like Pittsburgh.
But he’d gotten caught up in the idea of having someone to share his life with as he began his career. And Nellie’s attention had been addictive. She’d sought Alec out amongst a host of suitors who’d clamored for her attention. It was only now that he realized part of what had attracted her was how vastly different he was from other men of her acquaintance. She’d admired his tenacity, the ambition that had taken him from his humble beginnings to a renowned medical school.
In return Alec had adored her. She’d craved being at the center of attention, and he’d been more than happy to give her the stage. She’d needed constant reassurance, and he’d willingly offered it. He’d never dreamed that someone like her, so well-bred and refined, would pay him even an ounce of attention.
But in truth, they’d hardly known each other. It had occurred to him, in the months following their wedding, that rounds of dancing and drinks and dinner might not be the best circumstances under which to find a life partner. That one’s character was unlikely to be revealed on the ballroom floor or in a drawing room. But he’d been caught up in a sort of hazy wonder during their month-long engagement, October wedding, and honeymoon trip to New York City.
Then it was back to Pittsburgh. The look on her face when he’d taken her home to the rustic cabin where he’d been raised had served as a jolt of reality to wake Alec from the dream he’d been living in.
It had only grown worse from there.
He had been fully engaged in trying to build up his medical practice. Nellie had become jealous when his time and attention weren’t solely focused on her, as they’d been before.
During their courtship, she’d been fascinated by his past, the tragedy of his upbringing. But faced with a firsthand knowledge of the modest man she’d yoked herself to, she’d been judgmental of him. She’d turned outward, filling the gaps of his absence with the growing city’s social offerings, becoming the darling of Pittsburgh. He’d been hurt by her cold dismissal and had grown to resent her disinterest in his work.
Instead of growing together in the ten short months they’d been married, they’d grown apart.
Alec knew he looked back on it with a jaded perspective. It hadn’t been all bad. There’d been weekly dinners with the Maganns, whom Nellie adored. Days when there’d been lulls in his work and he’d taken her for drives along the river. Brief pockets of joy that provided glimpses into what might have been a happy future.
But love?
No.
In truth, Alec grieved for what might have been, rather than what was. He liked to think that, given time, it would have come. That Nellie would have outgrown her selfishness, that he would have made her needs a priority.
But he’d been a fool, believing time was an endless commodity. Believing it was Nellie who’d needed to mature into the role of a doctor’s wife. Never even considering taking her back to Philadelphia and building up his practice there. Never contemplating his own selfishness and shortcomings.
He’d now had three years to think of little else.
He would never have a chance to make things right with Nellie. All he could do, all he’d been doing these last years, was trying to atone for his many wrongs. Find the cure for cholera. Live in the constant state of regret he deserved. And never again hurt anyone the way he’d hurt Nellie.
Yet, even in his attempts to make things right, Alec was falling short. He was no closer to discovering the cure for the disease that had stolen her away. In withdrawing himself in the years since, he’d hurt his closest friends, the Maganns. And this morning with Charlotte he’d lost sight, however briefly, of his regret.
The weight of his failures hung heavy.
Liam’s baritone voice broke the silence. “I don’t doubt your regret, Alec. Or the grief it has caused you. But at what point will the debt be satisfied?”
The question pierced him, its tip as pointed as the sharpest arrow.
Was there a way for Alec to repay the debt? Or was it too immense to ever be forgiven? Alec knew the answer he’d be given if he still attended church.
The debt had already been paid.
He shook off such foolishness; there was no peace down that path. He’d quit himself of the habit of expecting anything from God. It was easier when the only person he ever expected anything of was himself.
Alec sucked in a heavy breath and ignored Liam’s question. “I’m sorry, Liam. Sorry for the pain I’ve caused you and your parents.” Remorse filled him as he rubbed at the dried blood on his sore knuckles. “Sorry that I hit you.”
