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Chapter Twenty-Three
The knock sounded again and Olé growled low in his throat. Who would be at her door so early? Watching a true crime show the night before had definitely been a bad idea. Amelia looked around for a weapon. Her eyes landed on the heavy iron skillet she kept on the wall above the stove.
Worked for Rapunzel in that movie.
She grabbed the skillet and crept toward the door, hoping she wouldn’t have to use it.
A deep, muffled voice called out through the door, “Amelia, it’s Creed. I need to talk to you.”
Still unsure, Amelia glanced down at Olé. “If you really are Creed, then what is my dog’s name?”
“Right now your dog is Olé. Your first dog ever was Blue, and the dog you had when we were in high school was Stormy,” came the steady reply.
Amelia pulled back the curtain to see Creed standing on her stoop with his hands shoved in his front pockets. She breathed a sigh of relief when his lips twitched up in their familiar way. She dropped the curtain and smoothed a hand over her hair. She looked down at her snug t-shirt and flannel pajama pants. Great. She opened the door and Creed shook his head.
“Really? I could have been a serial killer that’s been stalking you for years! I can’t believe you opened the door.”
“What on earth are you doing here, Creed?” she asked, stepping back to let him in.
“What are you doing with that?” he countered, eyeing the skillet in horror.
“You could have been a serial killer, remember?” she volleyed, her back to him as she hung the skillet on a hook above the stove. He didn’t comment.
She turned back to the living room where Creed was scratching behind Olé’s ear, eyeing her apartment. She tried to see it through his eyes: small living room with a kitchenette along one wall, a short hallway that led to her room and bathroom. She had set up a small round dining table with three mismatched chairs near the wall between the kitchen and the bedroom. Other than her couch, an overstuffed chair and her coffee table, she didn’t have much furniture. Just a bookshelf and T.V. cabinet that had been her parents’. In fact, most of the furniture in the room had been her parents’. She wondered if Creed might recognize it. Her coffee cup sat on the table next to her chair, an enticing curl of steam rising from it. Her Bible lay open next to her coffee.
The spicy scent that followed Creed into her apartment mingled with the rich brew hanging in the air from the coffeepot. For all of the years that Amelia had dreamt of a husband, she had never imagined how wonderful the fragrance of cologne or man soap or whatever it was and coffee would be when entwined together in the wee hours of the morning. Her face flushed. She might need to get Creed out of her apartment and never let him back in.
He looked up at her just then, causing her stomach to flip. As always.
Could he tell that she wanted to snuggle up with him and watch When Harry Met Sally every Friday for the rest of their lives?
“You might be upset with me in a minute,” he said softly.
“Why?” Amelia struggled to tamp down her emotions.
Instead of answering, he gestured to her open laptop on the coffee table, and asked, “May I?”
Confused, she nodded and Creed sat down on the couch. He typed for a minute before turning it to her.
Amelia gasped out loud when she saw the pictures of them together on a major news website. Well, not news, necessarily. What was her face doing on a gossip rag? She sunk down on the cushion next to Creed.
“Is that from our walk?”
“Yes.”
“And someone took pictures of us?”
“Looks like it.”
“Why?” she turned to Creed, heart trembling at the stricken look on his face.
He turned to her. Seemingly on their own his hands reached out and settled on the tops of her knees. “Amelia, I don’t know. I have no idea if Hailey has something to do with this or not. I don’t know why anyone cares about my personal life. I don’t understand any of this. I wanted to come here and warn you before you went to work today so that you wouldn’t be blindsided.”
Amelia laid her hands over his. He slowly rotated to meet her palm to palm. “Thank you. I appreciate that, Creed.”
They remained frozen for a moment, hand in hand, the quiet of the morning giving both a hope that neither was willing to let go of. The faint rhythm of their heartbeats thumped messages to each other through their warm fingers and palms; whispering what had been left unsaid for more than a decade. Their gazes avoided and met, then fell away before skirting back to one another and holding. Amelia felt that she could sit that way forever. She found herself gently sweeping her thumb up the edge of his pinky finger and back again. His fingers tightened around hers and his eyes went almost black. She cleared her throat and pulled her hands back.
“You need to go,” she whispered.
Shadows played across his face. A muscle danced near his jaw.
“Not because I’m upset,” Amelia felt the need to assure him. “Well, I am, but not at you. You couldn’t have known that someone would do this. We both know how innocent that walk was. But Creed?”
“Yes?”
“You smell amazing. I’m confused and still waking up…and that picture of me looking up at you while you hold my face is just too much. It reminds me of…well. And you being here in my apartment this early with just the two of us doesn’t feel appropriate. I hope you understand that I need you to leave.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed. His eyes skittered away and met hers once more. He rose and walked to the door, opening it wide before he turned back to her.
“Would you join Izzie and me for dinner tonight, Amelia? We would love to cook you our specialty.”
“I would love to. On one condition,” she answered, following him to the door.
“What’s that?”
“You need to make those amazing rolls.” She winked, trying to lighten the electricity that pulsed between them.
* * *
Her sleepy eyes and mussed hair were too hard to ignore. The slowly awakening dawn and the threshold between them emboldened him. He leaned forward and brushed a lingering kiss against her cheek. She jumped slightly, her breath fluttering across his lips. He pulled back quickly, before he could take advantage of his emotions, or the early morning, or the memory that she had surfaced.
“Deal.” He grinned and took a step back.
Amelia shut the door and Creed waited for her to lock it before he walked away. He was thankful that he had been able to warn her about the sudden publicity, and even more thankful that she had kicked him out. Her warm apartment smelled like oranges and cinnamon and the feminine touches throughout had filled him with a strange and sad longing. He wanted Izzie to have a mother; a woman to braid her hair and shop for her and bake her cookies. Sure, he could do those things, but a woman—Amelia, if he was honest about where his heart was headed—could do it all with a flare that Izzie needed. With the love that he longed for.
Lord, why did I have to fall for a woman that spent the last ten years of her life preparing for her husband…only to change her mind about all of that just as I am ready to be the man that she has been preparing for?
He drove back home and opened the door to the townhouse quietly. Kate sat on the couch, his laptop balanced on her knees, scrolling through Facebook.
“Creed, it’s not even six in the morning and I have a dozen messages about this news article. The little ‘Trending now’ section on the side of the screen has you and Izzie and Hailey at the top under ‘Father/Daughter Duo Custody Battle’.”
“Great,” he muttered, tossing his keys on the desk.
“That was fast,” Kate commented, fishing.
He sunk into his recliner, feet sprawled apart, elbows digging into his knees. He stared at the floor thoughtfully before he responded to his sister.
“She’s amazing, Kate. And I think I’m too late. Or at the very least I am too complicated. She deserves so much more than this nonsense,” he said, waving his hand toward the computer.
He laughed without humor. “Amelia doesn’t even have a smartphone—or at least she didn’t until last week, I guess. She must be the last person on earth to purchase one. She is simple. Down to earth. She deserves so much more than what I can offer her.” He punched a fist into his open palm lightly, thinking.
“But…she’s coming to dinner,” he said.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Kate’s face split into a wide smile.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Creed, I really don’t think she has much of a case if she chooses to make one. You are a good father that has provided a stable home for Izzie. As for Hailey, she is a giant question mark. She has moved around and dropped off the radar so frequently that she would make a fly dizzy,” Creed’s lawyer, an older gentleman with thinning white hair and a rail thin frame leaned back in his desk chair with a squeak.
Creed nodded, his eyes on the “James Q. Peabody” etched into the frosted glass on the top half of the office door.
“So what about this, photographer or reporter or whatever he is, that took these photos of me? Should I be worried about that?”
James scoffed. “No. You are certainly allowed to date, Creed. And I think you should,” he added, winking. “But this is just a gossip rag. If it becomes troublesome, come see me and we can do something about it. If anyone is in the wrong, it’s them; not you. In the meantime, trust your gut on whether Hailey should see Izzie or not. Legally, I don’t think you need to be concerned. You are a great father, Creed,” he said again and rose, his hand outstretched.
Creed shook the offered hand and thanked James before he let himself out. The law office was located in the heart of downtown in an old building. Creed loved to bring clients to the alley behind it for photo sessions. The red brick and a vintage, faded advertisement for laundry soap made for a charming backdrop.
The autumn air had turned even colder and Creed zipped up his black fleece jacket before he shoved his hands in the front pockets. The meeting with Peabody had taken less time than he anticipated. He was pleased that he had time to walk around downtown for a bit before he met his client for coffee around the corner.
The senior and her mother were waiting for him at the coffee shop when he arrived ten minutes early. Creed apologized for not beating them there.
The mother grinned, “Not a problem; we’re early.”
Her smile was uncharacteristically bright. Maybe she was just one of those perky yoga types. She certainly dressed the part.
“Were you with your girlfriend from the internet?” the daughter blurted out. She jumped slightly and whispered, “Ouch,” rounding innocent eyes at her mother with a shrug.
Creed forced a tight smile. “I’m afraid that was a misunderstanding,” he answered. He turned to the large menu mounted behind the cash registers.
“What do you ladies say we grab a drink to keep us warm and get started? Do you have a special place in mind where you want to take pictures today?” he rushed on, hoping he could avoid the subject of Amelia. His mind was far too cluttered where she was concerned.
Creed had never photographed such a distracted subject, including the family portraits he had taken for a family with triplet toddlers the month before. His senior seemed to be star-struck, her mother no better. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes when his client not-so-nonchalantly snuck in a selfie with him in the background and spent the next few minutes posting it somewhere online.
By the end of the session, Creed had a headache and stiff neck from waiting frozen in position while the girl texted or tweeted or whatever it was she was doing. He stored his equipment in his car and noticed a green light blinking on his phone. He had eight new messages from potential clients, all recommended by the distracted teen. Well, at least this was good for business. No doubt they all hoped that the website where he posted teasers of his sessions was just as popular as the trending video. I can make them all famous! he thought with sarcastic enthusiasm.
He tossed the phone onto the passenger seat and hoped Amelia was faring better with her parent-teacher meetings.
At least the parents are only worried about their children and not her weekend activities.
He drove to his mom’s to pick up Izzie. Once they were back in the car, he waited patiently for her to buckle her seat belt before he caught her eye in the rearview mirror.
“Missed you today, Kiddo,” he crinkled his eyes at her.
“Miss you, too, Daddy. Nana made me eat soup for lunch.” Izzie stuck out her tongue in disgust.
“Well, we should make up for that at dinner.”
Creed shifted the car into reverse and backed out of the driveway. They both waved at his mom who stood blowing kisses from the large picture window.
“With pizza?” Izzie sat up excitedly.
“I was thinking we could make something fancier than that for our guest tonight.” Creed pulled forward and drove in the direction of the grocery store.
“Who’s our company?” Izzie asked distractedly, digging through the backpack of toys she had taken with her.
Creed paused and once the car was stopped at a light he caught his daughter’s gaze again.
“Miss Howard.”
He scrunched one eye closed and twisted his mouth to one side under his wrinkled nose at the shriek of excitement that hit him full force from the back seat.
* * *
“I assure you, Mr. McClary, it’s not what it looked like,” Amelia leaned forward in the chair across from her boss’ desk, hands clasped to her chest.
The entire day had been a train wreck. From the moms that were intrigued by her relationship with Creed to those that were clearly offended by it. None of them seemed too interested in discussing their child’s progress. By the time noon rolled around, a headache began to pound behind Amelia’s eyes, her shoulders taut with anxiety.
Now she sat across from the principal who said he had received numerous calls from parents concerned that the publicity of the first grade teacher would put their students in danger. While McClary assured them and Amelia that he in no way anticipated that being the case, he did care about the bad publicity.
“We’re not here to discuss the truth behind the article, Amelia. I’m more concerned with the reputation of this school. I have a meeting today with members of the school board; I’ll find you at the end of the day to discuss this further.”
He looked over wire-rimmed glasses at her, making her feel like a student that had been sent to him for throwing spit wads across the cafeteria.
The stress of the morning caught up with her and welled in her throat, holding a response in its grip. She nodded and rose.
Chloe called out to her in the hallway just before Amelia stepped into her classroom.
“What did he say to you?” she whispered, her dangly skeleton earrings dancing with the shake of her head.
Amelia shook her head. She glanced behind her and back at Chloe. Not here.
Chloe understood the look. “Hey, I have a break between parents, how about you?”
Amelia finally had her breath back, “Uh, yeah. My parent for my next block of time cancelled and then I had scheduled a lunchbreak.”
“Then, girl? Let’s get out of here,” Chloe said.
Over chicken salad sandwiches at a small deli around the corner, Amelia shared some of what the parents and the principal had said. Chloe, as Amelia expected her to be, was outraged.
Chloe was usually outraged over something.
“Good grief, Amelia, where is this law that says you need to remain unmarried or that dating is going to affect your job? What do they all think you are going to do, give your students a play-by-play of your relationship?” Chloe shoved a chip in her mouth, and munched angrily.
Amelia shrugged. Although she felt raw and uncertain, Chloe had a point. In what world was she not allowed to date? Just because she had behaved like an old maid doesn’t mean she was one. But there was more to it, of course.
“It’s because of the position we were in when the picture was taken and the colorful spin that reporter gave on it. Not exactly a great advertisement for New Hope Christian School, you know?”
Amelia picked up her sandwich and set it down again. She really wasn’t hungry.
Chloe chewed thoughtfully for another moment. She bounced her eyes from Amelia to the window next to their table and back again, a barely contained question in her eyes.
“Oh, just ask, Chloe,” Amelia said, a small smile curling her lips.
“Well, was it, you know—a steamy moment?”
“If you consider tripping and knocking a guy over by accident steamy, then yes. It was quite scandalous,” Amelia answered dryly.
Chloe laughed. She rested an elbow on the table, chin in her hand.
“And how is your heart, Amelia?”
Amelia gave a small, self-deprecating laugh. “Gone, Chloe. It’s gone.”
Chloe wrinkled her forehead, “And why is that bad? The ex-wife thing?”
“Not an ex-wife. Ex-college-fling,” Amelia corrected, hoping she didn’t ask for more details. Amelia had no desire to share Creed’s personal business. “And no, it’s not that. It’s me. This is when I was supposed to really go after all of the things that I’ve ignored for these years. I finally get to change my life. I’m moving into my new house tomorrow, and looking for ways to serve people in all of that space. I don’t want some guy in my head making decisions for me like I’ve had all of these years. I want to get a cat…”
Amelia stared out the window, her voice drifting, leaving Chloe to wonder about the significance of cats. Time ran out and the women wrapped up the remainder of their lunches and drove back to the school. Chloe parked, but stopped Amelia before she could open the door.
“I just have to say: maybe Creed is your new dream. And who cares if it is too much like the old one? Maybe you have been living like an old married woman to protect yourself from falling in love. And here love has found you and I think your new dreams—the house, the independence, the, uh, cat?—could possibly be your new protection—your new reason to hide from love. Or maybe to hide from something bigger altogether—the scary unknown.”
