Five Minute Man: A Contemporary Love Story Page 15

  “I am so sorry, Liz,” Holly said, her voice thick. She reached down and pulled Liz into an embrace. Liz accepted it for a few minutes, quietly sobbing against Holly’s shoulder. Then she pushed away.

  “So ... that’s all I have to say,” Liz said, sniffling and swiping at her eyes with the back of her hand. “You know what Eve is capable of, and you can decide what you want to do with that information.”

  “Liz, I –“

  Liz held up her hand and cut her off. “No. No more talking. I meant what I said, Holly. Now grab that remote. I’ve got half a dozen unrated movies, all with hot guys, and every one of them has a least one scene with full frontal nudity.”

  Chapter 27

  Adam hung up the phone, feeling a fraction of the crushing weight on his chest begin to lift. It had taken a little over a month, but Eve Sanderson had just been formally arrested under a laundry list of charges, including arson, criminal mischief, and illegal use of a controlled substance, among others.

  Sam said that the Sanderson family lawyer had already posted bail, and was pushing to have Eve remanded to a psychiatric facility for evaluation. From what Sam insinuated, it wouldn’t be Eve’s first time there.

  Adam didn’t really care where she went, as long as Eve was out of his life. As long as Holly was safe.

  Holly. He hadn’t spoken to her in weeks. At first it had been because he was trying to protect her, but now...

  She hadn’t made any attempt to contact him, not that he’d expected her to. He knew through Sam that she had cooperated fully with the investigation, and that she was recovering well from her physical injuries.

  Adam rubbed absently at his chest. Thinking of Holly battered and bruised made his chest ache.

  Beyond that most cursory information, he was lost. He had no idea what she was thinking, no idea how she felt. Did she hate him? Were her nights plagued with agonizing dreams of him as his were of her? It was inconceivable that she would ever be able to forget what had happened, but was there any chance that someday, she might be able to find it in her heart to forgive him?

  The front door opened and closed, signaling Brandon’s return from his shift at Applebees. Adam ran a hand down his face and tried to wipe away any trace of emotion before Brandon found him like that. He was a man, goddammit. Men did not cry in front of other men.

  Brandon paused briefly at the door, no doubt assessing the situation. It was a game they both played. Adam pretended he was fine, and Brandon pretended to buy it.

  “Work good?” Adam asked.

  Brandon nodded, moving into the room. “Kind of slow now that the semester’s started up again,” he said. He went right to the fridge, grabbed the carton of milk and poured himself a glass. The kid always did have a thing for milk, which might explain some of his sturdy six-two frame and perfect teeth. He leaned casually against the counter, downing the entire glass and immediately pouring another.

  “Guess who came in for dinner tonight?” Brandon asked, his tone far too casual to be believable.

  Adam swallowed hard. He’d refrained from asking, but every Tuesday night he wondered. Did Holly and Liz still go out every week? If they did, did they avoid Applebees, knowing that Brandon worked there?

  “How is she?” he heard himself asking.

  “Different,” Brandon answered vaguely.

  “Different how?”

  Brandon stared at him a long time before answering. “You know, maybe you should call her and find out for yourself.”

  Adam searched his nephew’s face. The kid meant well, but... “Did she give any indication that she would want me to?” he asked bluntly.

  “No,” Brandon admitted. But –“

  “Leave it, Brandon,” Adam commanded firmly. Before his nephew could say anything else, he turned on his heel and retreated into his bedroom, closing the door in a very clear message.

  ***

  One day became the next. Holly couldn’t seem to summon the energy to notice. Or care. She went through the motions, did what she had to do, but no more than that. She retreated back into her own private world, preferring Max’s company to anyone else’s. The only exception was Liz, who continued to bully her into going out once a week. It was the only time Holly left the cottage, except for running occasional errands. Even those she tried to avoid, doing as much as possible online.

  At least she didn’t have to worry about losing her cottage anymore. She had received a letter the week after Eve’s arrest to inform her that the Covendale Valley Historical Society, “upon further reflection”, had “opted not to pursue” acquisition of the property “at this time”.

  Eventually summer turned into fall, Holly’s favorite time of year. The air grew cooler, the days grew shorter. Each day she watched the leaves change color a little more. Shades of green turned into brilliant hues of deep gold, orange, and crimson flame.

  It was beautiful, and yet she couldn’t seem to wholly appreciate the wonder of it, because it felt wrong. How could she take pleasure in so much vibrancy when she herself felt so barren inside?

  Then the colored leaves were gone, too, leaving the trees bare and stark-looking. The brightly colored chrysanthemums and kale flourishing at the front of the house dried out; the last of the roses died and fell away; the variegated green and white blades of the abundant hostas withered away, leaving everything in varying shades of grays and browns.

  It was as though the season had finally attuned itself to Holly’s existence.

  Too cold to sit outside, she sat at the kitchen table, Max splayed across the tops of her feet lest she try to sneak away while he napped. She sipped her coffee and stared blankly at the screen. The little straight line cursor blinked patiently, incessantly, waiting for her fingers to tap the keys and weave a new story, but it just wasn’t happening.

  At one time, writing had been her passion; the thing she loved to do above all else. In Holly’s eyes, being an author was the best job in the world. With a few strokes of the keys, she could create entire worlds where true love existed, good triumphed over evil, and the endings were always happy ones. It had been her privilege to escape into those realms each and every day, some part of her believing that somewhere, someday, someone might read her stories and find even a sliver of the same joy in reading them that she had in writing them.

  But now... it seemed kind of pointless. To craft a good tale, an author had to be able to envision things like soul mates and happy endings, even if she no longer believed they were possible. These days, all of her thoughts were dark. Her inner vixen, the one she used to call upon for sass and spice, remained silent and sullen. Even Vinnie was forgotten, lying dormant in the bottom of her underwear drawer.

  Despite all that, she missed writing. She longed to lose herself in a story, to let her fingers fly as her brain tried to translate all those ideas and thoughts and feelings into written, readable prose. Where she could leave her own reality behind and create something better.

  She needed that escape, but the ideas Just. Wouldn’t. Come.

  Holly sighed and let her hands hover over the keyboard, twitching. Maybe, instead of writing about someone else’s world, she should write about her own. If she couldn’t create a new story, maybe she could find some measure of comfort in transcribing one she already knew.

  And so it began. Once Holly started, she couldn’t stop. Everything that she’d held deep inside, everything she hadn’t been able to talk about, came out on the pages. All the hurt, the ache, the tremendous feeling of loss and betrayal.

  But as she wrote, she began to realize it wasn’t all bad. There had been a hell of a lot of good crammed into those couple of weeks. Sunset picnics on the lake. Pizza and movies. Incredible, mind-blowing sex.

  The wonder of finding the one person you wanted to spend the rest of your life with.

  Writing her own story became an obsession. It was the first thing she did when she got up in the morning; the last thing she did before closing her eyes in exhaustion. She took only m
inimal breaks when her body demanded it. The more she wrote, the more she remembered. All the little details that had gotten lost in the face of so much overwhelming drama. The feelings were so raw, so real, they translated onto the pages with minimal conscious effort.

  It was beautiful and tragic and heartbreaking. It was cathartic.

  Originally, Holly had begun writing it as a means of private, personal therapy. It was intended as an exercise to release some of the pain and begin healing. But by the time she finished, she knew it was quite possibly the best thing she’d ever written.

  Chapter 28

  Adam was absolutely miserable. Winter had taken hold with a vengeance, which meant that many of his outside jobs had to be postponed. There was always inside work to be done, but in general, that kind of stuff required a lighter touch and a more skilled hand. These last few months, Adam preferred the jobs that required less finesse and more brute force. He wanted to come home at the end of the day physically exhausted. The sooner he could fall asleep at night, the less time he had to think.

  To regret.

  Christmas was only two days away, and he just couldn’t summon the urge to care. He hadn’t even bothered to get a tree. There was no point. He’d be spending the holiday alone this year, having declined his brother’s repeated invitations. Brandon had left three days earlier, and for the first time in months, Adam didn’t have to worry about putting up a front. For the next ten days, he could just be.

  He poured out the chunky contents of the soup can into a bowl, then popped it in the microwave to heat it up. While he waited, he grabbed himself a beer from the fridge, as well as a package of rolls he’d picked up at the mini-mart when he’d gassed up on the way home.

  When the microwave dinged, he took his dinner into the dark living room, not bothering to turn on the light. Pointing the remote at the flat screen, he turned on the hockey game and settled in on the couch. Feet planted on the coffee table, he raised the spoon to his lips, cursing when it burned his tongue.

  He grabbed the cold beer and took a drink, swishing it around to relieve some of the pain. He had barely swallowed when the doorbell rang. Adam cursed again. Who the hell would be visiting him? Nobody he wanted to see, that was for sure.

  He ignored it, expecting it to ring again. It didn’t. A few moments later, he saw the brief swipe of headlights through the slight gap in the drapes. Adam got up and went to the window, but he only caught the flash of taillights fading quickly as the vehicle drove away.

  Odd.

  Adam shrugged to himself and sat back down. He ate the rest of his meal without tasting it; watched the game without really seeing it. Who had come to the door? Why had they only rung once? And why had they driven away like a bat out of hell only seconds after doing so?

  Curiosity finally got the better of him. Adam set his bowl on the coffee table and went to the door. A blast of cold wind went right through his clothes, chilling him. Of course there was no one there; he didn’t know why he’d even bothered. But then his eyes landed on the package that had been left there.

  It was relatively small, wrapped in shiny white paper with glittering snowflakes and sporting a red satin bow. In crimson calligraphic letters, a small tag bore his name. He reached down and picked it up; it was heavy, like a book. Looking once more up and down the street and seeing no one, Adam took his package and went back inside.

  He sat back down on the couch with the package in his lap, afraid to open it, because in his heart he knew what it was: a present from Holly. He ran his fingers over the paper for a while, thinking about how only a short while ago, her fingers had probably touched this paper, too.

  Adam took a deep breath and gathered his courage. He carefully pulled at the tape along the folded seam until he could extract the plain white box within. Lifting the cover, he saw a manuscript. He drew in a breath when he saw the title: Five Minute Man.

  With shaking fingers, Adam removed the stack of paper from the box, turned the first page and began to read.

  He read through the night, unable to put it down. He’d never read anything Holly had written before, but he was drawn in from the very first page. She had a true gift, able to bring the characters to life, to paint a scene so clearly and thoroughly that he could imagine it perfectly.

  Of course, part of that may have been because he had lived it.

  Hours later - eyes blurry, back aching from sitting for so long - Adam finally reached the last chapter and froze. It consisted of one page, blank except for three handwritten words scrawled across the page in Holly’s flowing script:

  To be determined...

  ***

  The stone cottage was a vision. It looked like something out of a Thomas Kinkaid painting. Dusted with glittering snow, carriage lights glowed along the cobbled stone pathway leading to the porch. Electric candle lights burned in every window; each sill was draped with boughs of evergreen tied together with big, red bows. In the large living room window, he could make out a Christmas tree, decorated with twinkling white lights and cascading white ribbons. Over the scent of fresh snow and wood smoke, he smelled the mouth-watering aroma of freshly baked cookies. Tollhouse, if he wasn’t mistaken.

  Adam fingered the small lump in his pocket and took a deep breath. Then he walked up to the door and knocked, careful not to dislodge the wreath of freshly cut pine that hung there.

  As if she had been waiting for him, Holly opened the door almost instantly, wearing an oversized holiday themed sweatshirt and slim fitting leggings that showcased the lovely curves of her legs. She looked smaller than he remembered, more fragile, but so much more beautiful. The light from within created a glowing nimbus around her head, making her look like an angel. The image literally took his breath away.

  Her head tilted up, those big green eyes looking right into his with so much guarded hope he thought his heart might explode right in his fucking chest.

  “Merry Christmas Eve, Holly,” he said, his voice thick.

  “Merry Christmas Eve, Adam,” she said in that low, musical voice of hers. “Would you like to come in?”

  “Yes, thanks,” he said, stomping his feet to get the snow off before stepping inside. He was immediately met with a push of warm, soft fur against his hand. “Hey Max,” he said, indulging the dog with a rub.

  “He missed you,” Holly said softly.

  “I missed him, too,” Adam said, meaning it.

  Adam straightened and cleared his throat before reaching down into his pocket and extracting the contents. “You gave me a gift,” he said, “so it seemed only fitting that I give you one in return.”

  Holly stared at the small package for several long seconds, but made no move to take it. It wasn’t fancy, just a crinkled sheet of white paper folded around a box. Looking at it now, Adam realized he’d actually done a pretty shitty job of it. Hell, he wasn’t Martha Fucking Stewart. And he couldn’t help it if his hands were shaking like crazy when he’d wrapped it.

  “Go on,” he coaxed. “Take it.”

  “You didn’t have to,” she said, but she reached for it anyway. He took some small pleasure in the fact that her delicate hands were trembling a little, too. At least he wasn’t the only one.

  “Yeah, I did.”

  She carefully pulled away the tape, just as he had done, revealing a small black velvet box. Her attention, however, was focused on the inside of the paper she’d just unfolded. It was the last chapter of the book she’d left him.

  He heard her sharp intake of breath as she read the words. He, of course, already knew what they said. “To be determined” had been crossed off and beneath it had been written “and they lived happily ever after”.

  Tears welled in her eyes as she looked up at him. “Open it,” he commanded.

  Holly did. She lifted the hinged lid of the little black velvet box and gasped at the sight of a beautiful radiant cut diamond engagement ring, flanked by stunning, smaller emeralds and set in custom white gold setting.

  “Marry me, Ho
lly.”

  No flowery words, no romantic poetry, just a heartfelt request.

  Some might have thought Adam was taking a gamble. After all, he and Holly had only spent a couple of weeks together before spending the next several months apart under some very unpleasant circumstances. But he knew better. There was not a doubt in his mind that this was exactly the way things were meant to be, because he’d read her story. And in her written word, he’d seen her heart. Her pain. Her love. Her forgiveness. And he knew the depth of her feelings were only rivalled by his own.

  “Yessss,” she whispered through the tears.

  Adam released the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. Before she had a chance to change her mind, he slipped the ring onto her finger and crushed her mouth to his. She’d said yes. And he was never going to let her out of his arms again.

  ***

  God, how she’d missed this. Missed him.

  It had all become clear to her when she’d started writing her story. Their story. She loved him. Adam was the other half of her soul, and without him, she was miserable. Once she allowed herself to accept that, everything else fell into place.

  The last six months had been hell, but they had made her realize what was truly important. And as the details of what Eve had done and the extent of her illness had become known, Holly was ashamed that she had not given Adam the benefit of the doubt. She’d been so devastated, so ready to believe that he had betrayed her, that she hadn’t been able to look past her own heartbreak and see that he, too, had been hurt.

  Thank God he was willing to give her another chance, because she would never make that mistake again.

  Holly tugged off Adam’s coat and blindly managed to hook it on the coat rack. The rest of his clothing did not fare quite as well. Individual garments, both his and hers, were unceremoniously removed and dropped as Adam used his much larger body to push her farther into the house.