14
Window Reflections
Playing for Keeps
The cushions on the couch were softly cradling her weary body and luring her into a sleep that had been elusive over the past few days. She knew that the wisest thing for her to do was to take herself upstairs and get a proper night's sleep in her own bed for the first time in days, but wisdom wasn't winning tonight. Between this new found coziness of the couch and the hope that if she could just stay awake a bit longer she might be able to see Lee if he did stop by, she was willing to forgo her own bed for one more night on the couch. If she could just keep her eyes open for a bit longer. Maybe if she propped herself up a bit more she would manage it. Adjusting the pillows behind her, she reached for a magazine to read but her mind kept wandering, and she found herself letting her vision blur as she gazed at some point outside the French doors.
She hadn't known that she had been carrying so much tension until it all seeped out of her during that last phone call with Lee. She hadn't realized how tightly she had been holding on to her heart over the last few months. So much had changed, so many wonderful unbelievable moments had taken place and even though she had been there, present in all of them, she hadn't let herself really catch up to the reality of how she felt about any of it. She had been excited, hopeful, scared, cautious and full of unbelief all at the same time, and she hadn't let herself acknowledge any of it until she placed the receiver of the phone back in its cradle. She had already felt as if the cold that had chained her to the couch in the first place had loosened its hold; after that phone call she had felt brand new. And then she had become overwhelmed with cozy sleepiness.
Amanda never would have let a "little cold" keep her down, and she had tried so hard to convince Lee that was all that she had. Maybe he knew her that well; her mother would have been pleased because she had been the one to get her on the couch in the first place. Her own mother knew all too well how hard a mother needed to get hit with sickness in order to flop the way she had finally admitted she had needed to. Mother would have liked it that Lee had also made her stay put. Maybe all that time she had spent locked in the Marvelous Marvin's freezer had made her susceptible? Who knows? But knowing that Lee was headed out to the Shenandoah Valley with Francine instead of her made her feel even worse. And for a tennis tournament to boot! She loved tennis.
It wasn't that she was jealous that Francine was with Lee. It was just that the current circumstances seemed to exasperate all the insecurities that Amanda had been trying to tramp down for months concerning Lee and her place with him, both professionally and personally. She hadn't been able to put her finger on it earlier. Or maybe she hadn't wanted to take the time to consider all those pesky insecurities, but she wanted to tonight. A year ago she had been just fine knowing that she and Lee were such good friends and partners. Since then so much had been shaken up and she had been trying so hard to just let the pieces fall where they would.
First there had been Leslie. It had been surprising enough that Lee had apparently decided that he didn't want to have shallow, temporal relationships anymore, but what surprised her even more had been her own reaction. She had to admit that she had always had a crush on Lee. Who wouldn't? The man was drop dead gorgeous and knew how to charm a woman. She had learned to see through it, and it had been easy enough to let his charm slide right off of her like water off of a duck's back when she knew he was just a player. She could refer to his dates as "kids" and be happy that the two of them could get beyond that and be friends. But she had always wondered what she would think if he ever did decide to settle down; she hadn't expected to turn so green and her response had dismayed her. But then after that plummeting rollercoaster ride everything had begun to take a steady uphill climb with Lee. Dinner with no shoptalk, he had even cancelled his plans with Leslie for it, and she was determined to take that in stride and try to get back to her old cool as a cucumber self.
The revelations she had gained about Lee during the Serdayich case had brought their friendship into a new depth, but even then she had tried to keep her heart in check. It had swelled and warmed with his touch and his words as they sat at the outdoor café, but she was not going to let her heart go. In fact she had decided to take that chance with Allan Chamberlain and again she had been surprised by her responses. Not only was she unreasonably jealous when Lee appeared to have someone in his life, she couldn't rise to the occasion herself. She had flat lined in response to Allan. But she had certainly had caught on fire when Lee had lingered over her hand in her bedroom the night he had climbed the trellis!
If she had thought she had been on a roller coaster before that, it was nothing like what was coming. Evidently Leslie and any others had disappeared. As far as she knew, it was herself that Lee was spending time with in and out of work. Nights at the opera, heart to hearts in the woods wrapped up in his arms, almost kisses, regular lunches together, swapping life stories, hand holding and black mail dinners. She had only begun to wonder where it was all going and then, boom! Joe had returned to her everyday life and that had turned everything up a notch… his presence had brought back all sorts of old thoughts and fears and Lee had seemed even more warm and attentive towards her. Kisses on the cheek, telling her she was "very special" – how long had she longed for a man to respond to her that way? And then there had been that dinner the other night. It all seemed so lovely, but the tension inside of her had continued to build. She wanted so badly to just let her heart go and let herself fall in love with Lee. But she couldn't. She hadn't known what to expect of him. At the same time that she was enjoying this wonderful connection - it seemed so deep and real, she was also ready to fend him off. She wanted to trust the Lee that she had come to know, but she hadn't been sure if she should. If she let herself go, she would be opening everything up to him that she held dear. And she didn't have any assurance that he wanted all of her. It confused her that, despite all of his attentiveness, he never made any significant move to advance their relationship towards a more intimate one. Yet at the same time she was relieved that he didn't.
Sometimes she haunted herself with questions. Was she the flavor of the hour, or was she just a good friend, "good ol' Amanda"? Was this what a platonic close friendship with Lee was like? Or was all this attention just because she was there, the most regular person in Lee's life at the moment. What if she wasn't' there? How would Lee handle a case without her and with another? With Francine? They had history together, she knew that. Would he care, would he notice her absence? Would Lee miss her or would he just throw himself into the work at hand with that moment's partner and forget about the girl or the partner he left at home? Joe had thrown himself into the work and the location he had been in and he had left all of them. Would Lee ever do that to her? The fear of Lee leaving her behind like Joe had had also been niggling at her from just below the surface because she didn't think she had the right to feel that way and ask that about Lee, even though she did.
Of course she had handled all those annoying insecurities like she always had. She would be professional and focus on the case and ignore all of the ridiculous feelings that were coursing underneath the surface. She had latched onto Lee's suggestion that she follow the tournament on TV, and she had been thrilled when he had called her the first time just to update her. He was thinking about her. And as much as Francine's inane comments irked her, she knew they weren't really about Lee. She could tell that the woman was just trying to get back at her for the chocolates….
She would happily take Lee up on his offer to add anything; it would help her pass the time. She watched the tennis tournament with added interest because now she knew that he wanted her on the case too even if she wasn't physically there with him; she wasn't out of sight out of mind for him. But it was this last phone call that had opened her and eased every tension she had been struggling to keep ignoring all of these months.
Something about the way he had searched for words to describe how different it was without her had cracked open the door of her heart that she had apparently firmly closed when Joe had left - even though what had come out was clunky . "Potpourri?" She could still hear his breathy "yeah" as she translated his awkward words and told him that she had missed him too. She could easily imagine the shy dimpled smile on his handsome face, the one that she was beginning to realize really was just for her and it warmed her and excited her to the core of her being. And it surprised her that that had been all that she had needed to firmly prop open the door of her heart to him. He could easily open it further if he chose to, but she was ready to finally admit that she would let herself fall in love with Lee Stetson. The fact that he had been able to tell her that her special blend of "potpourri of personality" was something that made a difference in his life made it safe for her to take the risk.
But it hadn't been enough to keep her eyes open. The next thing she knew it was the bright light of the morning sun that was assaulting her. She must have fallen asleep, and if Lee had stopped by at all, he had chosen not to wake her. Well, no matter. She was a new woman this morning! She would clean herself up and head into the agency as soon as she got the boys out of the door! She was still a little nervous about what could happen with Lee, but she wasn't going to fight with herself anymore. She was ready to embrace whatever came her way. She just wanted to see him.
