Back to Life Ch. 02

She emptied the glass and filled it again, taking her drink with her back to her room. Getting back into life was difficult when she didn't know what she wanted, and she was finding it hard to figure it out. She knew one thing for certain. She wanted more than sex, even though she knew that was a big part of what would meet her need. She had had sex, lots of it, but she was still empty. She loved making love, but she wasn't about to settle for something that was only about scratching an itch, when her heart and soul were crying out for more. Maybe she needed to figure out what would completely satisfy her before she allowed anyone, including the fascinating Peter van der Meulen, to make too great an impression on her.

She found Peter's answer as soon as she opened her e-mail. Would she mind an afternoon call tomorrow, as he had an appointment this evening, and needed to get some things done in the morning. She sent an affirmative response, and sat in the darkness, watching the moon through the curtains, sipping the wine and wishing. It was hard not to hope, when her body seemed to think that he might be the one, but she had learned pretty early on that men could be more vastly disappointing than anything, and that a broken heart was the hardest thing to mend. Hers was pretty fragile as it was, and still a little sore from its latest brush with disaster. She would be cautious, no matter what her body said.

Peter woke early next morning, lying in bed savoring the dream he had had. Not the wild sexual ride of recent dreams, this one had been sweet and romantic. He felt panic rising inside him at the thought that all along, in the last years with Alijd, and the four years since her death, he had been wanting the scene that had unfolded in his dream. Awake, he ran a mile from women and commitment...life with Alijd in the last ten years of their marriage had been an increasingly miserable, and eventually heartbreakingly impossible ride, and he wanted none of it. And knowing he wasn't a one-night-stand kind of man, he had deemed it better to steer clear of them and keep himself to himself. Now Karen Mullings had completely stirred him up, waking up all the dormant and powerful emotions he had buried in his deepest heart when Alijd had rejected his love. And he couldn't seem to get them back under wraps...

...They stared into each other's eyes, moving slowly to the music the band was playing. It was his cousin Maurice's wedding, and he had invited her as his date. She was radiant in a gold and black silk creation, the sexy high heels she was wearing bringing her almost at eye level with him. She was smiling at something he had said, and her eyes glowed at him, making what was left of his defenses crumble into dust. He bent his head and touched his lips to her cheek, his hands trembling with a fierce need that had him swinging her off the dance floor and out onto the porch, where he pulled her into his arms and kissed her soundly.

"You are the loveliest woman here, and you have my heart, Karen," he whispered against her well-kissed lips. "Come home with me later, please, love!"

He waited till she nodded before kissing her again, losing himself in the sweetness of her breath and the warmth of her arms around him...

He took Scrooge for a longer walk than usual, wishing he could outdistance his troubled thoughts, but they remained with him even as he set food and water for the dog and went to shower. He had some errands to run in town, and had promised to take a book to his aunt Lammie that she had been wanting to read for some time. Then he would lunch with her before coming back home to talk to Karen. He found he was growing more nervous as the morning wore on, and by the time he was sitting down to lunch in the residents' cafeteria with his ancient relation, he was a mass of nerves. His sharp-eyed aunt did not miss his discomfiture, and asked, after regarding him for a long moment,

"Whatever's the matter with you, Peter? You're as skittish as a colt!" She eyed him worriedly, adding, with a chuckle, "A poor cliche, I know, but it seems most fitting in your case."

"I'm fine, auntie," he answered, and gave her half the truth. "I have a call to make that I'm a little nervous about, that's all."

"Well, as long as it doesn't interfere with pleasant conversation with my favorite nephew, feel free to indulge!" she said regally, a queen allowing her servant a treasured privilege.

Peter laughed, and forced his shoulders to relax. He breathed in deeply, drank some water, and managed a fairly normal conversation with his aunt through the three courses of the meal. As he was leaving, he kissed her cheeks and said,

"Thanks for the lunch date, Auntie! I had a good time! Take care, okay?"

He squeezed her frail hands and smiled down at her, turning to walk away before the head nurse could accost him. He narrowly escaped her attention, and grinned to himself as he drove off. The last thing he wanted was a meeting with the woman whom it was now clear to him would make a pass at him if he let her. He stopped to buy tea and cream before finally going home. Once he had made himself a cup, he went into his office and picked up the phone. Karen was waiting, and he could no longer put off the inevitable. Besides, he had a stack of notes for her to read, and needed to have an address to send them to. He would not examine the reason for the notes, and would not face the possibility of rejection, at least not consciously. He'd cross that bridge when he got to it, but he was praying he could bypass it.

The phone rang twice before he heard her voice.

"This is Karen," she said, "how may I help you?"


"Karen, it's Peter," he replied. "It's so lovely to hear from you again. How are you doing?"

A small pause, and then she answered. "I'm very well, thank you, Peter."

His name on her lips was a velvet caress, and he cleared his throat. "So, how can I help you?"

"Well, I'm writing a scene in which my characters are stranded in a city in The Netherlands by a storm, and I wanted an authentic, non-journalistic perspective on what that's like. I thought you'd be perfect for that." Her voice was low, sultry, and though he knew instinctively that she wasn't trying to seduce him, he was enthralled by the sound anyway.

"Well, I have experienced a few, yes. I'm happy to give you any information you may need."

They spoke for the next half an hour, and then she said,

"Thanks, Peter. This is great!" He could almost see the smile on her face, for he was sure he heard it in her voice.

"I'm glad I could help," he answered, and then hurried on. "I wonder if you would mind very much giving me an address to contact you. I've written some things I'd like you to read, if you don't mind."

He knew he had been vague, but he didn't doubt that if she wanted more information, she would ask for it. So when she did, he was not surprised.

"What sort of things?" she wanted to know. "You didn't mention that you were a writer, too!"

"Well, I'm not, in the way of being published or anything like that, but I have been writing a series of notes, as I call them, dedicated to someone special. I wonder if you could read them for me and critique them." He wanted her to discover that they were all for her, and so increase her appreciation of the surprise of them, and prayed she wouldn't be turned off by thinking he was asking her to read something meant for another.

He could hear her hesitate, and wished he could see her face so maybe he could get a clue as to what she might be thinking. The moment stretched interminably, it seemed to him, and when she finally spoke, he let out the breath he had been holding unconsciously.

"Send them to my e-mail address," she said. "I'll probably be moving soon, and I'd rather receive as little mail in my brother's mailbox as possible."

Was her voice cooler? Did he detect a wall going up? He could not be sure, and he rang off in a frenzy of uncertainty. As he had been saving the notes on his laptop, it was not hard to attach the file to an e-mail, after he transcribed the first one he had written on paper, while he was still in England, and saved it to the file. He sent if off immediately with an anxious prayer.

Two hours later he received a response, and his heart thudded when he saw it. He had stayed online all afternoon, and now that it was here, he hurried to open it, fearing the worst, but hoping for the best, as they say. Her words leapt off the page at him, their meaning clouded for a time by his overwhelming relief that she had not rejected him. He read aloud, to force his addled brain to concentrate:

"Dear Peter,

I have never received a sweeter gift in all my life. I don't mind confessing that I was upset when you made your request, thinking you were asking me to read something you had written for someone else. It never occurred to me that it might have been for me, as we have barely met twice, and know so little about each other. So when I read these precious notes, and read your thoughts and feelings, I was humbled and flattered. It has taken me this long to send this reply because it has taken me this long to open your e-mail. I promise to be more technical in my critique in the next message. This one is simply to say thank you. I am honored by your regard.

Warmly, Karen"

She was so formal, he thought as he re-read the message, and somehow he knew it meant she was holding deep emotions in check. Perhaps he could dare to hope that she was as overwhelmed by thoughts and feelings for him as he was for her. He sent a quick reply:

"Dear Karen,

I am relieved that you are neither offended nor angry with me for presuming that you would have an interest in my thoughts. There is no hurry to read them. There will always be more. I'll explain the next time we are able to speak to each other. As you know better than most, sometimes writing it down isn't enough.

Have a good evening!

Warmly, Peter"

He made himself shut down the laptop after that, and found things to do to occupy his time till he went to bed, though not before writing another note for the woman he now happily knew would not reject his thoughts.

Karen lay back, her laptop on her belly, re-reading the notes Peter had shared with her. They were all written to her, and dated. Her eyes misted over when she saw that he had been writing to her since their date in London. Clearly she had made as deep an impression on him as he had made on her. She wondered why he had started on this project, and reminded herself to ask the next time she wrote to him, but whatever his reason, she was glad he had. She read the first note again, pausing over the part that made her tear up when she had first read it:

"I have never met anyone quite like you in all my life. My heart recognizes you, and I pray yours recognizes me. I sense a greatness in you that calls out to me, and asks me if I want to join you for the journey. And my heart says yes."

As a writer, Karen knew the power of words, and knew how much it must have cost for him to write those words to a perfect stranger. It seemed that he was just the sort of person she admired, one who embraced his fear of rejection and did what his heart said to do anyway. In each of the notes, he exposed a bit more of himself to her, through his description of a powerful moment or thought from his day, and his reflection on it. The one where he described the dead bird that he found on a Monday morning, broken from having battered itself against the glass window of his classroom in an effort to fly free was heartbreaking. He saw himself in that bird, wanting a way out of the life he had been living, and trying not to lose himself to the illusion he let others see. And he saw her as his reality, though he knew there was much more to learn, and he hoped she would share the learning with him.

So many of his thoughts reflected her own that she wondered if he might be what some people thought of as a soulmate. It had to be incredible, after only two meetings, to have found so much in common with another human being to make the thought even possible. And yet, what other explanation could there be for it? His words in the notes made her long to spend time with him, listening to him talk about his life, his hopes and dreams, his wishes and desires. She wanted to know him much more than she did, and she hoped the notes he had promised to keep writing would help her with that, too.

She read his reply to her note with a smile. He was so formal, so polite, so Old World charming, and she found it sweetly appealing. She had a story to finish, but she promised herself that she would look at them over the weekend while she was at Toni's house. Which reminded her that she needed to book her bus ride. Doing that online took only a few minutes, and then she placed her laptop carefully on the other side of the bed, rolled over, and went to sleep.

The next few days passed as a blur. Karen was immersed in her writing, and except for the day she spent driving around Yorkshire with her brother, she worked from early morning till late at night to meet her deadline. She was leaving on Friday morning to London, and wouldn't be back till Monday, and she didn't want to have to work; she wanted to relax, and read Peter's notes. He had sent her more since the last time, and said he understood about her not responding till the weekend, as he himself had work all week.

The bus ride was uneventful, except for the expected delays on the highway, and by the time she arrived at Toni's apartment she was pleasantly tired. Toni had left the key with the doorman, and she let herself in with a sigh of relief. She could kick off her shoes, put her feet up, and nap till Toni got home. A call to tell George she had arrived safe and sound, and she lay back on the recliner and fell asleep. Toni woke her when she got home with the tempting flavors of Chinese food warming up. Her stomach rumbled loudly as she sat up, and she followed her nose to the kitchen.

"Hey you!" Toni said, spying her wandering in. "Had a nice nap?"

"Yes, thanks. I needed it...I've been staying up way too late the past few nights, and you know me, I can't travel and sleep." Karen peered into the containers on the counter. "What's for dinner?" she asked.

"Anything you like from these boxes. Help yourself!" Toni handed her a plate and a spoon.

Karen took garlic chicken wings, broccoli, and pork fried rice and sat at the counter next to her friend. They ate in companionable silence, and only when Toni had emptied her plate did she ask about Karen's guest.

"What do you know about him?" she wanted to know.

"Nothing," was Karen's succinct response. "I met him in a pub."

Toni turned surprised eyes to Karen's face. "You were in a pub? By yourself? Whatever possessed you?"

Karen rolled her eyes at her friend. "You make me sound like a recluse! I was in there the night before with..."

Her hesitation did not go unnoticed. "With? Who with?" At her continued silence, Toni's eyes bulged. "With another man?" She sounded positively scandalized, so much so that Karen laughed, despite the small, niggling hurt that she suppressed determinedly. Only as she talked with Toni was she fully realizing how closeted she had let herself become, until even her friends thought her a hermit.

"Why is that so hard to believe? Do I have a tree growing out of my face or something? Yes, with another man. I met him in Amsterdam a few months ago. Well, not met, exactly, more like bumped into and nearly knocked over. And then we met again at the British Museum a few weeks ago."

Toni eyed her friend speculatively. "Been keeping secrets from me, eh? So what's this other chap's name? Is he Dutch? What do you know about him? And how did you end up in a pub with him?"

"He asked me out for a drink," Karen replied, and closed her mouth. But she should have known her friend would not relent, and so she found herself telling Toni all she knew about Peter, excluding the writing he had been doing for her. That was still too new, too precious to share with anyone. She laughed when Toni concluded that he must be a homely-looking man, as Karen had not indicated he was also a chick magnet.

"He's very handsome, and tall, and blue-eyed," she corrected Toni. "But he's not your average chick magnet. He's much more understated. Maybe it's to do with his job, or his personality. He's nowhere near as pushy as Niall!"

"So you're saying he's a dud?" Toni concluded.

Karen laughed again. "No, silly! He's just a different kind of man. I'm sure if you were to meet him, you'd see what I mean. He's got an Old World feel about him...you know what I mean. Charming, courtly, thoughtful." She stopped talking when she realized she was gushing about a man she barely knew, and hoped Toni would let it go.

She didn't. "You sound like you're smitten with this Dutchman, missy!" she teased, chuckling. "Now I really want to meet the guy who beat out a chick magnet for your attention!"

Karen held her peace. It wouldn't do to let Toni get started in on the teasing, or it would never end, and the last thing she needed right now was anyone else knowing about what amounted to a schoolgirl crush, albeit a very heavy one, on a twice-met man. She finished her meal, and took a glass of wine with her into the living room. She knew her friend was an avid British comedy fan, and there were a set of them about to start. She sat with her feet curled under her and laughed her way through three hours of television before she decided to call it a night. She wanted to re-read Peter's notes and send him a quick one of her own before bed.

"What time do I need to be ready for this party, how shall I dress, and what can I do to help?" she asked as Toni opened the sleeper couch for her.

"The party's at eight, and the dress is club formal, and no, there's nothing for you to do. It's all been taken care of. Does your date know where to come?"

"Yes, I told him." She helped Toni spread the bed, and then set her bag on top before following Toni to the linen closet where she chose a towel and washcloth.

"I'm going to take a bath and turn in now," Toni announced. "I'm bushed! Goodnight! Sleep well, sweetie!" She waggled her fingers at Karen as she disappeared into her bedroom.

While Toni bathed, Karen set out her night things and re-read Peter's notes. In one of them, he confessed to daydreaming about her while at work, and remarked on how pleasant an activity that had become for passing the time between classes, or in meetings which were dull. She smiled as she read it, and decided to respond to that one.

"Dear Peter (she wrote),

I've had a chance to re-read the notes you sent me, and I wonder why you started to write them at all, and that you could find anything to daydream about me. Poor thing! You must be starving for some mental stimulation, which I am happy to supply! *chuckles* At any rate, your notes are very poignant, and I find they give me a whole lot to think about. Thank you. I hope you have a good night...you're probably asleep already. Sweet dreams!

K"

She clicked "Send", and then went to have a shower. As soon as her head touched the pillow, she was out like a light, and did not wake till she heard rustlings in the kitchen. She rolled over and stretched, wishing she could stay in bed longer. But this was her friend's living room, the stage for tonight's party, and she would need to ensure that it was spotless and free of the appearance of a bedroom. She got up slowly, and took her things into Toni's bedroom, then returned to fold the bed back into a couch and fluff the cushions before taking her self off for morning ablutions. Clad in shorts and an old t-shirt, she wandered into the kitchen. Toni was just dishing up the scrambled eggs and bacon she had been cooking.