Love Untold

Love Untold: Chapter 42

Love Untold:  Chapter 42

Chrissie glanced at the man leaving the bar.  There was something familiar about him, but his cap pulled down so low most of his face was hidden.  She sure noticed his backside as he rounded the corner into the lobby.  Tight, muscular buttocks encased in faded denim.  Just like Race’s rear...

Oh, God.  Don’t do this to yourself!  She poured another glass of wine and downed it in two swallows.

“You sure you’re alright, Chrissie?”  Ricky asked, leaning on the edge of the bar.

“Yeah, rough couple of weeks,” she mumbled.  “Months, actually.”

“I heard about your accident,” he said, picking up a glass to dry it with a clean cloth.  “That must have been something...to wake up from a coma.”

“It was something alright,” she commented and filled her wine goblet again.

“If you’re getting drunk,” he said, arching an eyebrow at the glass and bottle in her hands, “then I suggest you do it in private.  Your momma will have my hide if I let you go crazy around her guests, and that pitching arm of yours will get us both in trouble.”

Chrissie smiled.  She always liked Ricky.  He’d been a surrogate brother to her for several years, and she could tell him just about anything.  Not everything, but most of her problems.  He wouldn’t understand her obsession with a fictitious man...but then again, maybe he would.  Her mother understood, though, and so did Dena.  However, Chrissie would live just fine if no one else knew.  “I’ll take it back to my cabin.”

“I thought all the cabins were full,” he said, putting away the glass and reaching for another out of the sink.

“I’m staying in the Love Nest,” Chrissie said with a grimace.  Anything associated with love required another bottle of wine tonight.

“Power’s out in that one,” Ricky commented.  

“I know,” she said again.  “I’ll get some lamps from the emergency supply closet.  I don’t plan on having parties out there.  Just sleeping.”

Ricky nodded and crossed over to serve a group of older men who just entered the room.  Chrissie’s cell phone rang, and she knew it was Dena checking up on her.

“So, did she go for it?  The designs for the hotel?” Dena asked when Chrissie answered.

“I think so,” Chrissie said, hiccupping.

“Are you drunk?”

“Not yet.”

“Well, don’t get drunk tonight.  Save it for tomorrow when I get there.  We’ll have the whole place to ourselves.”

“No, we won’t,” Chrissie told her sister.  “Guess who’s staying for the week.”

“What do you mean?  It’s Mom’s week to close down the place.  That’s why you waited until now to go up there.”

“She’s open for a group who needed a place during a convention,” Chrissie groaned.  “And it’s none other than David Elliot.”

Dena went silent for almost a whole minute.  That gave Chrissie some time to grab her bottle of wine, wave at Ricky and head out the door.  Then Dena burst, “Oh, no!  Have you seen him?”

“No, and I don’t plan to.  I’m staying in one of the remote cabins, and I’ll be keeping out of sight for a while...getting drunk.”

“Well, don’t do anything stupid until I get there,” Dena demanded.  “My flight arrives at ten in the morning, and I want to be there in case something happens.”

“Nothing is going to happen,” Chrissie sighed.  “I told you.  I’m staying away from the main resort as much as I can.  You going to stay with me?  I’m in the Love Nest, but the electricity isn’t working.  Mom said we can use the west wing; there’s no guests there, but I’d rather not.”

“No electricity?” Dena moaned.  “That means no hair dryer.  Sorry, sis.  I’ll stay in the west wing.  Why don’t we share one of the suites together?”

“That means I run the risk of barging into David Elliot, and I can’t handle that,” Chrissie said.  By now, she was out into the sunshine and walking the path to the two isolated cabins up on the northern ridge.  She hoped she didn’t meet anyone, especially the guy staying in the Time Out cabin.  Being neighborly while half inebriated and lugging a bottle of wine wasn’t in the cards today.

“Suit yourself.  We’ve got the whole week to screw around.  Got any ideas?”

“Yeah,” Chrissie said, hefting the wine up in front of her although she was talking on a phone and Dena couldn’t see her.  

“Well?”

Chrissie sighed.  “How about we spend a day out at our old swimming hole?”

Dena laughed.  “You only want to do that because nobody knows about it or how to get there if they did.”

“Which suits me just fine.  Want me to pick you up at the airport tomorrow?”

“Nope.  I rented a car.  Didn’t want to be stuck at the resort without transportation all week.”

Chrissie reached the cabin and breathed out.  She didn’t see a single soul...especially not David Elliot.  “I’ve got my car, you know.  You can use it instead of wasting money on a rental.”

“I know, but I don’t like your car.  It’s too girly,” Dena said.

“It is not.”

“Whatever, sis,” Dena chuckled.  “I’ll see you around noon if you’re not hung over.”

“No promises,” Chrissie said, smiling as she put the wine on the table in the little kitchenette and searched for a glass.  Dena hung up, and Chrissie poured another glass.  Cheers, she thought, raising her glass to the nearest window and the forest beyond the glass panes.  Here’s to potential peace and quiet and solitude for a whole week.

*****

Kicking his feet up on the railing of his cabin’s front porch, Reese reclined in the rocking chair and stared out across the dark night.  Dinner with David and his family had been tedious, with the two little ones roaming the dining room recklessly and Jennifer hounding him about his steak and baked potato, saying the red meat did nothing for his digestive track.  Though he loved them all, he was glad to get away for the rest of the night.

Nighttime in the Rocky Mountains was like plopping down inside the Gates of Heaven and sighing with content.  He’d been all over this world, but there was just something about the ruggedness of this place.  He could spend hours -- days -- hiking in the forests in isolation, yet...

A vision of long hair and the sound of a beautiful voice graced his mind.  He could spend days -- years -- in her company.  Not the woman from his dreams...No, he kept seeing that woman from the bar.  He saw no ring on her finger that afternoon -- it was usually the first thing he noticed about a woman, though not the first about her -- so he figured she was single.  His reaction to her confused him.  He was pulled toward her, and that was strange to him.  He’d not been so enticed with a female since he started his unconscious relationship with the one from his dreams.

But this one...was she the one?

It was the high altitude, he mused.  His brain was addled from lack of oxygen.  Just wait a few days to get acclimated, and he’d be fine.  

Standing up, he stretched and considered taking a short walk to clear his mind.  Reese grabbed a flashlight from the table just inside the front door and stepped off the porch.  At first, he followed the path toward the resort, but soon, he heard voices in that direction and veered off.  After a few minutes, he came to the cabin next to his.  He’d been told it was unoccupied, but now it seemed to be glowing.  

Reese stopped next to a tree.  Was that...fire?  He raced forward, chiding himself for not having his cell phone with him.  He couldn’t call for help.  He could only help whoever was stuck in that burning cabin.  

Coming closer, he realized that the structure was not on fire.  Rather, a fire flickered inside, like from a fireplace or oil lamps, and he laughed at himself for jumping to conclusions.

Then a figure moved across the windows, a shadowy silhouette projected through the lace curtains by the warm glow inside the room.  It was a female figure, and as she came back, stopping right there, framed perfectly by the window, Reese blinked and forgot to breathe.  The woman inside lifted her hands over her head, pulling off her shirt, and he saw the very feminine lines of her upper torso and the tumble of her hair as it fell back to her shoulders.

Hastily, he turned away.  A freaking peeping-tom, that’s what he was.  If someone caught him, he’d be kicked out of the resort, and he wasn’t ready to leave yet.  Reese trotted across the field that separated their cabins, not bothering to stick to the path, and made it to his porch without being seen.  He glanced back...and he could still see her.

He didn’t know if her figure had been burned into his retinas or if it was his rambling imagination that fueled the vision before him.  Though he could barely make out her shadow through the curtains now, he could clearly see everything she was doing.  That pull in his chest got stronger.  She rubbed on her body -- applying lotion, maybe? -- and he almost ran over to introduce himself.

Forcing his body to stay right where it was, he sank down into the rocking chair and strained his eyes to see more.  He watched as she drew another article of clothing over her head and the silhouette grew more defined as she approached the window.  Reese leaned back into the shadows of his porch, thanking himself for not turning on any lights and drawing attention to himself.  The woman parted the curtains and opened the window to let in fresh air.  With the firelight behind her, he could only see the sides of her head and the color of her hair, and that’s when it hit him.

She was the heartbroken woman from the bar.  Dolly Hill’s daughter, Chrissie...and she formed in his mind, like he’d seen her hundreds of times before, and Reese got that funny feeling again.  This time, he didn’t ignore it.

She could be the one...the one he’d been searching for...the one he’d been dreaming of...and she was right there, not a hundred yards away...

The window to her cabin was wide enough to fit a couch through, and if it was like the ones in his own cabin, he figured there was a seat under it.  She crawled up on the ledge and leaned against the frame, her shapely, bare legs bent at the knees as she perched there, staring out into the mountainside.  Her head rested on her knees, and he felt as though she looked right at him for a second.  Reese jumped up from the rocking chair and backed further into a darkened corner.  She couldn’t see him.  He hoped she couldn’t see him.  That was the owner’s daughter, and if he knew anything about Dolly Hill -- which wasn’t much -- Chrissie Hill was off-limits, and he knew better than to mess with her.

She sat there for almost an hour, and Reese was stuck in his corner the whole time.  He couldn’t move away if he wanted to.  Something drew his gaze to her.  Something filled his whole being with an odd mixture of completion and intense yearning.

Her profile, the shape of her nose, the lines of her body...just like the woman from his dream.  Could it really be?  After five years, he’d finally found her?

It was ridiculous to think that she just popped up like this, after years of searching for her.  That all he had to do was stop looking, and there she was.

He had to meet this woman.  He needed to know if it really was her...if this was the woman that stimulated him and calmed him and convened with him.  And if she was real...or if his mind had finally snapped.  Too many blows to the head?  He was making things appear real when they weren’t?

Or if Chrissie Hill was the woman he was meant to fall in love with.  Chrissie...the name was magic, itself...like he knew she would be.

She eventually left the windowsill and moved to another part of the cabin, taking her oil lamp with her.  Reese went inside and submerged himself in a cool shower.  Tomorrow...he’d seek her out tomorrow.