Heated Rush - Leslie Kelly [74]
“Dear Annie,
I am looking out my bedroom window, seeing through the evening mist the familiar outline of the Eiffel Tower. As always, it stops the heart for just a moment, the lights brightening the darkness, such a symbol of romance and love.
It’s a hot night—steamy and awash with the scents of this city. Tourists and perfumeries. Car exhaust and fine wine and freshly baked bread. And life. So much life.
I thought that you should see it.”
She sighed softly, closing her eyes for a moment to envision every last detail. Then she opened them again and read the rest of the letter.
As she did so, Annie found herself discovering the City of Lights through the vivid words of a man intimately familiar with it. She also discovered more. With growing certainty, Annie began to understand what Sean was really trying to say.
He was acknowledging the possibilities. Keeping open the chance of a future between them.
Though not overt, his words were letting her know that he was out there, considering…still trying to find a way to let his past and his future come together, and somehow include her.
And he was doing it by giving her the gift he knew she dearly wanted—a glimpse of the big, wide world.
Over the next few weeks, the letters continued. They were sporadic—sometimes several days apart, sometimes two or three in a row. The postmarks varied. He was obviously working—traveling around, being the globe-trotter she knew him to be. And yet he still maintained that connection.
He painted pictures with his words. Amusing her with his descriptions of the driving conditions in Malaysia. Thrilling her as he shared his first impression of the Taj Mahal, the world’s great monument to eternal love.
Then one day he wrote from London, describing yet another view from his own bedroom window. Without him saying it, she knew his business was done for a while. He’d gone back to one of those cold, lonely places he called home.
Funny, her own home, which had seemed so empty since he’d left, had begun to feel warm again. Alive. If only because of the way Annie kept reading and rereading the letters, knowing that each one meant she was still on his mind, hopefully, in his heart. Each was worth waiting for, as she’d promised him she would.
Finally, the waiting ended. Because about six weeks after that awful afternoon in his hotel, she opened an envelope to find no letter. Just a plane ticket. And a note.
“Please come see this view for yourself.”
Annie didn’t even glance at the destination. She was going.
THERE WERE SEVERAL oceans in the world, and Annie had seen none of them.
Sean would someday like to show her the Pacific—to take her to San Francisco so his mother could meet the woman he’d realized he couldn’t live without. Then drive down the Pacific Coast Highway, stopping at little wineries and inns. They’d ride with the top down, as they’d done that weekend in June, with the sparkle of waves always visible around the next turn.
He also wanted her to see the other side of that ocean. He’d never been to the South Pacific and could imagine almost nothing better than lying with Annie on the hot, sandy beach of an exotic island, trying to decide whether the water could possibly be as blue as her eyes.
For now, however, not knowing if she had a passport, Sean had decided on the Atlantic.
His choice wasn’t merely because of its expediency—since it was closest to Chicago. But also because this was the ocean that touched his homeland, too. Now that he hoped to share his life with Annie, he meant to share all of it. Including that troubled part of his past that had yet to be resolved.
He sensed that with her by his side, he could make peace with that past.
“If she comes,” he reminded himself as he stared out at the water. It glistened now, vivid streams of orange and red—reflections from the sun dropping into the horizon behind him—dancing on the surf.
She’ll come.
Sean had never spent much time in Cape Cod, but he’d chosen this place