Chapter Ten

"Might As Well Be Strangers"

If you wanted the honest truth, this was it. I missed him. I missed him every night, every day, every minute. I went to bed alone, I pulled those blankets up to my chin and proceeded to spend the rest of the night thinking about him. I fell asleep with an ache so deep that I wondered if I'd find the strength to get up in the morning again. I woke up and that ache was still there, my eyes felt scratchy and I swore that I got no sleep at all. I guess that was the thing, I always woke up.

God, I know this sounds horrible. There I was, almost four months pregnant, and my heart was broken so bad I was seriously questioning my will to live. How horrible of a mother did that make me? But maybe that was the only thing that kept me hanging on, the thought of that child, Brad's, mine, sleeping between my hips, needing me. It was my own choice but it was all that I had left of him. He didn't answer my calls anymore.

So, since I was so miserable, your probably wondering why I didn't go back to him. The answer is, I did. I went back to him right after I got the cast off my leg. I was showing by then, not much but there was a little bump. It had been awhile but we were married. I hadn't really thought it would matter if I'd been away for awhile.

I bought a plane ticket, Caroline drove me, proudly, to the airport. I smiled at her, waved, and honestly believed as I stepped onto that plane that I could put everything behind me. I believed that I could go home to him, that he would take me back, and we would heal each other. My absence from him had hurt both of us, had made me aware of how much I depended on him. I was so certain, getting on that plane. I was such a fool.

Anyone who knows Brad Townsend, would have told me I was a fool. They would of shook their heads, laughed a little, and said I'd be lucky if he let me come back to him at all. Caroline told me that. Justin told me that. My own mother, haltingly, had uttered the same words to me. "Ashleigh," She'd said, her voice going very quiet, breaking slightly. "I just don't know what to tell you. Brad's such an unpredictable man."

"I love him." I'd told her. And I did.

I went to Townsend Acres first. It was a Friday night, around ten or so. I walked into the farmyard and went straight to the barns. I saw Charlie and Samantha sitting on one of the benches, watching the sun go down, talking quietly. Something about racing. I took a deep breath, looking around. It had been the first time I'd been to the barns since Pride. I wondered if Samantha still hated me.

She didn't say anything when she saw me, she just seemed sort of stunned. "Do you guys know where Brad is?" That's how excited I was. I was in that kind of love that couldn't wait one more minute. It had to have right now. It had been a month since I'd been here. I was four months pregnant and I knew they could see the little bump around my stomach, pressing through my shirt just a little. Brad would be so surprised.

Samantha sat there, stone-faced, while Charlie appraised me with those fire-cracker blue eyes. "Party over at Henderson's. Should still be going. Maybe you can catch him there."

Looking back, I had to wonder if Charlie knew what I would find once I went there. But I couldn't think that Charlie would have let me go with no warning if he knew what I'd find. But then, Charlie was always telling me that Brad would break my heart. Maybe he wanted me to find out for myself. "Thanks!" I said. I knew that I should of stayed longer, talked, caught up on things. I should have sat Samantha down and finally talked to her about all of this. It was the middle of June, six weeks after Pride's death. We should have been able to talk about this by now. But I was so hurried, so excited, that I didn't.

I got the Lexus that Brad had bought me for a wedding gift from the garage and started down the highway. I knew were Henderson's was. It was only a couple of miles. My heart raced with anticipation, wonder, happiness. I'd get him back. I would.

But there are side courses in life, sudden obstacles, cliffs that appear out of nowhere and then your running and your jumping and then your falling with no one to catch you. I expected Brad to be there. To catch me, I mean. But instead I was forced to look into that snide smile and fight the tears that threatened me. Of course Brad Townsend didn't love me.

It was just a glimpse at first. It was flash of blond hair, a flash of his smile. I didn't even think upon first seeing them that they were even together. It didn't even register but then, there it was. There they were. Holding hands, smiling. Brad leaned forward to whisper something in Lavinia's ear and she laughed. She laughed. It tore me up. He rested his fingers lightly on her waist and I couldn't believe the sight I was seeing.

My husband, the man I had been so ready to give my life to again, standing there, looking so happy and in love with Lavinia Hotchkiss-Ross.

I left the car there. I had my mother bring me the one that I'd driven up until Brad had given me the Lexus. It was a nice black Stratus and I slid my things in the trunk and the backseat. My mother said words but I couldn't tell you now what they are. She just stood there with this look on her face that said "Look at what he's done to you." But in reality, it was my fault. I'd pushed him away and was heartbroken when he went to someone else for what I wouldn't give him. Time. Attention. And yes, the physical part of the relationship that had always come so easily to us.

I knew that Charlie and Samantha wouldn't tell him that I'd been there. They wouldn't say anything at all. He would never know that I had been there at all. He would think that I just kept going with my life, not caring enough to go back to him. He could think that. That was fine.

*

I don't know why I settled on Carly, Virginia. I drove straight out of Kentucky into Virginia. Then I drove all the way through Virginia. I guess I settled on Carly because it was as far as I could go. The ocean stopped me. For awhile I thought about finding another airport and flying all the way across that ocean just to be as far away from him as I possibly could. Maybe then my pain would go away, maybe then I wouldn't see his face everywhere I went.

I got a hotel room and grabbed my necessities and sat on the bed. It was an old room, a little dingy but clean enough. I decided that this is where I would live now. I would go and see if I could find an apartment or a small house to rent. I would raise my baby here and I'd never leave this little town, with these simple people, and the ocean that called out to me. That told me, somehow, that it understood my pain. It could cover it's width and go way down into it's depth. The ocean understood.

"So that kiss didn't mean anything, right?" I said to Brad the day after our romp in the parking lot. I had a skull-splitting headache and had spent the majority of the morning with the porcelain God also known as the toilet. And sitting on my bed wondering just what Brad Townsend thought of me The Morning After.

Brad reached up for a lead shank and flung opened the stall door, glancing at me as he reached for Chasing You's halter. "You feel guilty." he said to me, snide smile on his face. But the smile wasn't entirely mean so I let it go.

"I was drunk. You took advantage of me. You're the one who should be feeling guilty." I wrung my hands together some more, studying him in a way that I never had before. He really was good-looking with that dark hair and those penetrating blue eyes. He was built really well, lanky with all those muscles. I remembered the way that his hands had felt on me the night before, hot in my skin and pulling me closer. I shivered and not necessarily the bad kind. You could say, quite fairly, that that's when I knew I was in trouble. I should have ran then, a hundred-no a thousand-miles in the opposite direction. But he was a challenge so I went for it.

"Why don't we," he paused as he waited for me to reach his side, barely avoiding Chase's dancing hooves. 'do something crazy."

"Crazy?" I asked, feeling a nervousness in my stomach. "Like what?"

"I bet that I can make you fall in love with me in a month."

"Brad, that's crazy. There's no way in hell I would ever-"

"Prove it." He said and then he leaned in to kiss me again.

He had me in twelve days.

But now here I was. In a lonely hotel room, all by myself. I was pregnant, I was too embarrassed and ashamed to call my family, and there he was with her. Dancing.

*

It didn't take me that long, really, to get back on my feet. Before the week was out I'd already made an appointment for a guy to show me this little house on the beach that I was thinking about renting. I'd filled out a few job applications and gotten a call back from a gas station who was looking for a morning and afternoon clerk. It seemed easy enough, the pay was crap but money wasn't an issue for me. And the best part was, I could pick up and leave anytime I wanted.

I pulled up in my Stratus and immediately wasn't impressed with the house's exterior. It was an ugly shade of green. Almost a puke-your-guts-out-after-eating-pea-soup green. And the paint was peeling. But the inside is what got me. That and the fact that I was growing increasingly sick of living in a hotel.

There was a man standing outside, leaning up against a Silverado pick up. There was nothing striking about him, I saw flashes of red hair underneath his hat and his eyes were almost an aqua blue. His hands were weathered as if he spent long hours working on equipment. His shoulders were broad and well-muscled and his smile was friendly when he said hello. "Aiden Stahl."

"Ashleigh Griffen." I said, smiling and shaking his hand. "So your renting this place out?"

"Yeah," he said, his gaze catching on my face before moving back to the house. "I bought it a couple of years ago. It's been a great house for me but I don't spend too much time in the area anymore, mostly just summers so I figure I might as well rent it out to someone who will be here more than me."

I nodded, studying him, then looking back to house.

"I can see that the outside needs some work. I've hired some people to come by and do some painting, starting next week. But the inside is what always gets people. I replaced all the carpets with hardwood floors and everything has been recently put in. It's got two bedrooms and one bath." He stopped talking, a slight smile coming across his face, almost embarrassed. "Here, why don't I show you?"

I smiled and laughed a little and followed him into the house. There was a little entryway, barely big enough to fit a chest that I could put some shoes in and the two of us. He smiled at me again as I followed him up the two stairs that had taken us into the kitchen. Oak wood floors. That's all that I could think as I looked around. I remembered all of the furniture that I had put in storage after getting rid of my apartment in Lexington. I could see that deep brown couch that I had bought going up against that wall so I could sit and look out the window and see the ocean. There was a small deck connected to the house with steps that led out into the sand.

It was small, only one floor but I couldn't help it.

I fell in love with that, too.