Chapter 8 – Intentions

It wasn't nightmares that stole her sleep that night; it was exhilaration.

She had lain awake for hours, replaying the conversation over and over in her mind like a beloved record. It had been a precious antidote, a balm for her soul. She had talked; he had listened without agenda, without judgment. As she poured out the poison that had been polluting her body and mind for the past year, she could feel the toxins transform into harmless vapor and dissipate, as if Bobby were a filter through which all malevolence was neutralized. She confided everything in him, short of her humiliating demotion at work, until her throat was sore and the shell she had so meticulously crafted developed fissures. While Alex was hardly fool enough to believe that she was cured, some of the tension in her body had undeniably evaporated, leaving in its wake a pleasant buzz that emanated from her core and extended to her extremities.

The memory of his fingers on her face elicited a completely different sensation, one that originated in more primitive parts of her body. It was this sensation more than any that kept her awake, tossing and turning. Although they had been sleeping under the same roof for nearly a week now, Alex had never been more aware of his proximity and how very little effort it would have taken to slip into his room, into his bed . . .

When she finally did drift off, her dreams were much more pleasant than normal.

"Thank you so much again for volunteering to help out today."

The sound of Faith's voice jolted Alex from her mental recap of the night before and she turned around to find Bobby and Faith standing just past the counter of the covered carnival booth. The sky was cloudless, the air thick with humidity and the bright sunlight shimmered like a mirage off the couple's skin, generating a blinding aura that forced Alex to squint until her eyes adjusted. Behind them, colorful carnival booths and amusement park rides spread out in all directions, controlled in their range only by a chain-link fence that circled the perimeter of the park. Young children ran between food and games booths, dragging beleaguered parents behind while teenagers clustered in their social groups. To her right, the distinctive sounds and smells of the pony rides seasoned the breeze.

"No problem."

Alex was mildly surprised to find that she actually meant it. She had shocked even herself when, after arriving back at the cabin from her morning run and learning of Faith's predicament from Bobby, she had so readily offered to step in. Normally a spontaneous decision that so drastically altered her predetermined plan for the day would have been accompanied by crippling anxiety. Today was different. She was different. Better even.

Alex 2.0

Faith, on the other hand, looked worse than Alex had ever seen her. Dark circles highlighted the hollows under her eyes and her skin appeared sallow and stretched tight over her fine cheekbones. Her hair had been hijacked by the humidity, her normally smooth curls a mass of frizz. A smudge of black mud cut down her left leg just below her knee like a crusty scab. Bobby looked far more put together in comparison, hair slicked back, eyes obscured by a pair of dark sunglasses, hands shoved into the pockets of his cargo shorts.

"I really do appreciate it." Faith hugged a brown clipboard to her chest, the muscles in her sculpted arms working under the skin. Her gaze absently followed a gaggle of pre-teens that trampled the grass behind her as they ran, laughing, toward the line for the Tilt-a-Whirl. "I've been on the organizing committee for Portland's Annual Summer Fair for the last four years and I have never had this many volunteers call in sick before."

"Well, no one would know that you've been scrambling all morning. Things seem to be running well. My booth has been busy all morning and I haven't heard any complaints." Alex dumped a handful of toy dinosaurs into one of the wooden bushel baskets that lined the floor, each filled with a different prize – bags of candy, bouncy balls, slinky knockoffs, plastic figures and cheaply made stuffed animals. "This is the first lull in the action I've had all morning to restock."

"That's good to hear." Faith raked a hand through her hair, eyes darting around as if anticipating a disaster at any moment. "I was worried for a while there that we would be so behind and disorganized that people would show up but wouldn't stay."

"You need to relax." Bobby placed a comforting hand on his girlfriend's thin shoulder. "People are, uh, enjoying themselves. It's going to be fine."

She barely seemed to notice his touch, distracted as she was by something happening out of sight off to their right, and Bobby dropped his hand quickly. It hadn't escaped Alex's attention that things had been frosty between the two lovebirds since they arrived at the park that morning. They kept more distance than usual between them and Faith had snapped at Bobby several times as they were unloading boxes from his vehicle. Alex had chalked it up to stress, and perhaps it was, but she couldn't help but wonder if the cancellation of their date the previous night factored into the mood. She tried to assuage her guilt about that by being extra helpful and filling in gaps in the conversation with inane babble. She was extremely relieved when they had finally left her alone in her rented booth to manage the growing line of eager contestants.

"I hope so." Faith's hand flew up to her right ear where a black earpiece resided. She listened with a frown for a moment, staring sightlessly through the back of the booth. "Hang on, I'll be right back."

Spinning on her heel, Faith stalked away on some unknown errand. Bobby watched her go before turning back to look at Alex with a shrug.

"Was she talking to you or me?"

"No idea," Alex chuckled. Grabbing a cloth, she started wiping down the lacquered counter in front of her. "But if I were you, I wouldn't go too far. Not the day to be poking the angry bear."

Bobby laughed, his teeth white against his tanned face. Her heart raced as she was reminded yet again of what a handsome man he was. The image of him sitting in front of her on that coffee table, their knees brushing together, his fingers gentle against her skin, flashed unbidden behind her eyes.

It would have taken absolutely nothing for him to lean forward and kiss you but he didn't. You would be wise to remember that.

Dragging her thoughts back to the present, Alex started scrubbing at puddles of water on the countertop as if they were stubborn stains. "All ready for your magic show later?"

Bobby nodded, stepping closer to the counter and picking up one of the water guns that was resting in its stand. "All set. So, uh, how does this game work anyway?"

Alex raised an eyebrow at him, hand halting mid-wipe. "What do you mean, how does it work? This is one of the oldest carnival games of all time. Haven't you ever seen one at a fair before?"

He shook his head, turning the water gun this way and that in his hand, examining it. The attached hose wiggled around below it like a worm. "We didn't go to carnivals or fairs much. Mom, well . . . uh . . . big crowds like this weren't exactly her thing."

Tossing the cloth on a shelf under the counter, Alex opened the swinging panel on the right and stepped outside the booth, coming around to stand beside him. A row of brightly painted clown heads, mouths agape, stared back at them.

"It's a water balloon race," she explained, picking up a gun from its silver stand at the station beside Bobby's and pointing it at the clown targets in front of them. "You shoot a stream of water into the clown's mouth. See the balloon attached? The better your aim, the quicker it fills up. The winner is the first person who fills the balloon so full it pops. Want to give it a try while I wait for some actual paying customers?"

"That depends." Bobby winked at her with a mischievous grin. "Are you ready to, uh, lose?"

"Oh, you think so?" Alex smiled back at him as she reached over the counter and flicked the switch to start the countdown. "Come on. We both know I've always had the better aim."

Grasping their plastic pistols, they both assumed the stance, veteran cops at a liquid shooting range. The clock at the back of the booth counted down from five, red digital numbers decreasing like those in a descending elevator.

"You're going down, Eames."

"In your dreams, Goren."

Alex drew a deep breath, exhaled slowly and took aim. When the bell rang to signal the start of the competition, she squeezed her trigger and a stream of water came out straight and true, her yellow balloon starting to swell immediately.

Bobby mirrored her body position, but it was clear right away that her time at the shooting range was much more recent than his. He struggled to keep his aim steady, shoulders dropping slightly, causing the stream of water to spray off the clown's chin and create a refracted rainbow in the light that filtered into the booth.

As her lead grew incrementally, Alex felt a ludicrous spurt of pride.

Maybe you haven't lost all your skills after all.

Recognizing that he was well on the way to losing, Bobby stepped closer and leaned into her, bumping her shoulder, disrupting her focus and sending her stream shooting over the clown's head.

"Hey!" Alex complained with a laugh, smacking him with the back of her free hand. "Knock it off. Stay on your own side."

Returning to his lane, Bobby tried in vain to make up some ground. Just when Alex was convinced her balloon was about to pop, he reached over again, his long arms allowing him to remain at his own station while still being able to grab at her gun. She kept jerking it away, water spraying everywhere as they both erupted into laughter. While she was preoccupied with fighting him off, Bobby took advantage of being left-handed and held his stream steady in the general direction of the target. Although his aim was miles from perfect, it was better than hers under his manufactured duress and Bobby's progress quickly outpaced hers until his balloon popped, pieces of mangled latex flying through the air.

"Winner!" Bobby crowed, raising his arms in victory. Leftover water in the line leaked down and pooled in his elbow before dripping onto the grass below.

"You're an ass," Alex laughed.

Thinking quickly, she reached over the counter and flipped the switch to start the machine again. Engrossed as he was in his celebration, Bobby didn't notice and had dropped his gun back onto the counter by the time the bell rang a second time. She took advantage of his distraction, pointing the water pistol in his direction and squeezing the trigger.

The stream of water hit him square in the chest, the pressure too weak to really hurt but powerful enough to kick up a spray that momentarily blinded him. By the time he had raised his hands to block the stream, she had lowered her aim and caught him with another shot to the stomach.

"Hey!" Bobby sputtered, lunging forward to try to wrest the gun away from her.

He may have been stronger but Alex had the agility advantage. She dodged him effortlessly, nailing him again with a shot to the side. Each time he tried to advance, she tagged him on a different part of the body, driving him back. Only when she stumbled over the thick black electrical wires that snaked across the grass behind her did he finally have the opportunity to grab his own pistol and return fire.

They battled back and forth, spray for spray, laughing, absorbed in their own private world until a kink in the line of Bobby's hose sealed his fate. His water supply abruptly cut off with a snap and she managed to get a few more good shots in before he threw his gun down and lunged at her again. Instinctively she turned to block him from grabbing her weapon, tucking it protectively in her midsection. He reached around her, searching for it, his arms solid around her body, his chest pressing against her back. Finally, laughing too hard to keep a secure hold, Alex released the gun and Bobby lifted her off her feet and twisted them both around until it was no longer within her reach.

"Okay, okay, I surrender," Alex gasped, struggling to catch her breath. When he lowered her feet back to the ground, she had to put a hand on the drenched counter to ground herself, partly due to oxygen deprivation from laughter and partly to the intense phantom sensation of his body pressed against hers.

They stood there for a few moments, chuckling and dripping and wringing out their clothes. When she glanced over at him next, he was wiping his sunglasses off with the bottom of his t-shirt, grinning foolishly. Suddenly, unexpectedly, something inside her melted like a candle in a campfire, releasing emotions that had long been trapped in the intricate wax of their lengthy relationship. A formidable wave of adoration knocked the returning breath from her lungs and sent her spiraling under its swells. She was lost.

Alexandra Eames is in love.

Bobby must have felt her eyes on him because he looked up, a goofy smile still on his face.

"What?"

Her thoughts were so wildly ricocheting around her skull that she couldn't even begin to answer that simple question. She didn't even try, electing to cover up her internal turmoil with humor instead.

"Nothing. Just wondering if you were finally ready to concede defeat."

"Best two out of three?" Bobby suggested, reaching down to pick up the gun she had dropped. When he handed it back to her, he let his hand linger, his thumb whispering over her knuckles. "It's good to see you smile again. A, uh . . . real smile."

Alex was frantically figuring out how to reply to that when Bobby suddenly seemed distracted by something over her shoulder. Dropping his hand, he quickly shoved it back in his pocket. Although she could have guessed what was transpiring without looking, Alex glanced back and saw Faith standing maybe ten feet away, a boulder in the river of people flowing around her. Her face was a study in neutrality, but the pinched muscles between her eyebrows gave some clue as to how long she had been standing there and how much she had witnessed.

"You'd better go," Alex said quietly, turning back to face Bobby. "I think you're needed."

He hesitated for a moment, as if hoping for something more from her. When he didn't get it, he nodded and brushed past her. Alex busied herself cleaning up the booth so she didn't have to watch them walk away together.


He had the audience eating out of the palm of his hand.

Alex couldn't help but smile as she stood at the rear of the crowd gathered around a stage erected in the west corner of the park. "The Great Gordini" was in his element, traversing the stage with long strides, clad in a top hat and purple satin-lined cape, waving his magic wand around the rim of a square basket. The spectators, comprised mostly of young children and their parents sitting cross-legged on picnic blankets, paid rapt attention to his every move, exclaiming in all the right places as he pulled a twenty-foot pole from the small basket. Bobby seemed to be having the time of his life as well, gestures exaggerated and animated, enthusiasm so contagious that it rippled through the ocean of people and infected her.

One in a million.

Her emotions were snarled, compartments of her heart swinging open for the first time in a long time as she allowed herself to acknowledge feelings that had been suppressed so deeply. It was like a switch had been flipped somewhere and suddenly, when she looked at him, she saw something in him that she hadn't seen, or at least permitted herself to see, the day before. A potential far beyond friendship. In that moment, she couldn't imagine herself ever being with anyone else.

With that acceptance came no small measure of sadness because, regardless of what she felt, Alex knew that it could not be.

Too little, too late.

Bobby had made it perfectly clear that night on the yacht that any romantic feelings he had had for her were in the past. He was happier now than she had seen him, possibly ever, and obviously had fallen hard for Faith. Most importantly, he had found peace in Maine. She would never ask him to leave and her life, her job, her family were back in New York. She was far too old to be contemplating a long-distance relationship. Never mind the ever-present threat to their friendship if things went sour . . . a friendship she couldn't afford to lose, not right now, maybe not ever.

No, feelings aside, there were practicalities to be considered. Risks that she just couldn't take.

"Looks like The Great Gordini is a smash hit."

Faith suddenly materialized beside her, a specter rising from the earth. She had removed her earpiece and it dangled down over her shoulder forlornly.

"Yep. If his book doesn't sell, he could always go into the children's party business." Alex swatted at a fat honeybee that buzzed around her on a detour from a nearby lilac bush. "He used to perform magic tricks at my nieces' and nephew's birthdays when they were younger. The kids loved him."

Faith's smile was fragile. "I can't imagine his book not selling. Bobby seems to be good at pretty much everything he does. I doubt being an author will be any different."

"Probably not," Alex agreed, sweeping damp strands of hair off the back of her sweaty neck. "A man of many talents, Bobby is."

Up on the stage, the man in question had been joined by a young girl, maybe six years old. He crouched down before her, fanning out a deck of cards.

"Alex, can I ask you something? Woman to woman?" Faith still carried her clipboard and she hugged it against her chest again as she spoke.

A tiny spiral of anxiety coiled in her stomach but Alex tried to keep her tone cheerful. "Of course."

"What are your intentions? With Bobby?"

While the directness of the question caught her slightly off guard, the content had been more or less what Alex anticipated and she was prepared with some selective truths.

"Bobby and I are just friends. Really good friends. Best friends."

Faith regarded her uncertainly, scratching at a bright red mosquito bite on her arm before returning her gaze to the stage. "It's never been anything more than that? Ever? Even just once?"

Alex shook her head. "No, never. Just friends. I swear."

Faith's shoulders relaxed slightly but her expression remained guarded. "Sorry for being nosy. That's what Bobby said, but . . . I had to check. I'm sure I'm not the first girlfriend who's wondered."

Well, you're the only one I know about.

Alex waved dismissively. "It's fine. We get asked that question a lot. But no. It's never been anything more than friendship."

"Did you ever wish it was?"

Faith's voice was deliberately light and devoid of judgment, but Alex could feel her face flame.

Yeah, like ten seconds ago.

Clearing her throat, she was astounded when her reply wasn't the standard flat-out denial.

"I'm not really sure that matters anymore."

Faith nodded as if Alex's avoidant non-answer was exactly as expected. "I apologize if I'm out of line for asking. I'm just trying to protect my heart here. I know I can't compete with you. If you're looking for more . . . well, then I'm just spinning my wheels. You're going to win."

"That's not true," Alex protested with a vehement shake of her head, kicking absently at a loose clump of sod by her toe. "Yes, we have a history, and that history has brought us close. I care for Bobby, deeply, and I know he cares about me too. He also cares for you though, that's obvious. If there was anything . . . romantic . . . that Bobby ever felt for me, it's in the past."

He made that abundantly clear, believe me.

The crowd erupted into enthusiastic applause as Bobby wrapped up his final trick and took an embellished bow, tipping his top hat. The comical sight made the women smile in unison, both a little sadly.

Spikes of regret stabbing at her soul, Alex inhaled deeply and let it out slowly.

"Look, Bobby's happy . . . here in Maine . . . with you. And that's very important to me. He deserves that happiness, more than anyone I know. Maybe, if things were different . . . if he wasn't with you, if he wasn't so settled here in Maine . . . I'd be interested in something more. Maybe. But they're not. He's lucky to have you."

In front of them, the audience started to rise to its feet and the drone of conversation escalated. Faith kept her eyes trained on Alex as if searching every line on her face for any hint of a lie. It took a concerted effort but Alex was able to hold fast and maintain eye contact until some of the tension visibly drained from Faith's body and she sighed. The trepidation that had been present in her face since the start of the conversation remained but had dwindled.

"I'm the lucky one. He's a very special guy," Faith said finally. She jerked a thumb toward the stage where Bobby had just started to pack up his props. "I'm going to go congratulate him on his show. You coming?"

Alex shook her head, suddenly feeling every bit as exhausted as Faith looked from the rollercoaster of emotion. The urge to find a quiet place, where she could be alone, was overwhelming. "I'd better get back to my booth. I'll catch up with you guys later."

Faith took a step forward before stopping abruptly and turning to face Alex again, smiling tentatively but warmly. "Thank you, for being honest. I'll do right by him. I promise."

Alex tried to return the smile but her mouth quivered and crumbled at the corners.

"I know you will."


A/N – Thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed and is sticking with this story. It is greatly appreciated. I can assure you, I am B/A all the way, so please don't give up hope for our heroes just yet. Better is yet to come.

Huge thanks to WendyCR72 who has helped keep this story on track when I was convinced it was going off the rails. It is better for her influence.