I was in the garden and I didn’t have a lot of time.
September was moving swiftly toward October and I needed the dead plants out, the soil fertilized and turned in order to put it to rest for winter.
I was thinking I’d plant tomatoes in the coming spring. Corn. Potatoes. Pumpkins.
Yes, definitely pumpkins. Ethan might like having a pumpkin from my garden to carve for Halloween.
Jake had left after I made us sandwiches for lunch. He’d been gone half an hour. It was nearing on one. Time was running out.
The garden had seemed a great deal smaller when I’d helped Gran work it years ago. Now it seemed rather large. There was no way I was going to get what I needed to get done that day.
I’d have to do what I didn’t get done tomorrow.
This was because I had to be at Alyssa’s for my freebie mani-pedi at three, before that I had to pick Ethan up from school. Then drinks afterward. Which meant I needed to look presentable.
I definitely needed to look presentable later. When I picked Ethan up from Alyssa’s, Jake said I should stay for dinner at his place since I was going with him to the club after. This was so he could show me the lay of the land “should you hang there and keep an eye on it for me” (this last said with lips quirking like this would never happen and he was humoring me).
But I was going to hang there and keep an eye on it for him. He had way too many responsibilities. He didn’t think it was true, but he needed my assistance.
I’d show him how much better it was when “his woman” looked after him.
On this thought, I yanked out a dead corn stalk but did it smiling.
My smile froze when I heard, “Josephine.”
My head snapped up and I saw Henry standing outside the white fence that surrounded the garden.
Unlike yesterday, when I didn’t have the time to make the comparison, today I did.
And I saw what I’d been seeing for decades. That Henry Gagnon was tall, dark and handsome. He had lovely thick hair that seemed immune to gray (and I knew he didn’t dye it) and strong facial features that were most striking.
But not like Jake. Henry’s looks were smoother, more refined.
It must be said that of the men of our acquaintance, Henry had an edge.
But that edge was nowhere near as sharp as Jake’s.
He looked me from top to toe and his blank face turned into a blank mask. The difference was a nuance but I knew him well enough to see it. I also knew what it meant.
He got that look when the person he was addressing annoyed him and he wanted them to know they mattered little to him, if anything at all.
However, that look had never, not once, been aimed at me.
“Henry,” I said, traversing the rough ground in Gran’s wellies to get closer to him. Once I did, I stopped on my side of the fence and held his eyes, my look for him doubtfully a mask. I didn’t care that he knew I was annoyed at him. “I’m uncertain I’m ready to speak with you.”
“I leave in the morning to get to Paris,” he replied. “Amond allowed a day’s delay in the shoot so I could come and spend some time with you. I don’t have more. We have to do this now or over the phone and I’d rather do it now.”
This explained Amond’s strange statements during our phone call. He knew Henry was coming.
He also knew I was going to watch men fighting and had guessed this was because those men were interested in me.
Thus, I was more than mildly annoyed that he didn’t warn me Henry was intending to pay a surprise visit.
However, I couldn’t think on that.
I could only think on the limited possibilities of what had to be said between Henry and me face to face.
“If you have something to say, Henry, then please say it. I have work to finish in the garden and then I need to get to the school and pick up Ethan. I’ve plans with a friend after that and I’m spending the evening with Jake and the kids. So I don’t have a great deal of time either.”
The mask slipped, only slightly but it did it before he said curtly, “Spending the evening with Jake and his kids.”
“Yes,” I confirmed.
“Do you think perhaps that the local strip club owner knows your grandmother was a millionaire?” he asked and that wasn’t curt. It was borderline snide.
My back went up and my skin prickled.
“If you’re insinuating Jake’s interested in me only for Gran’s money, that’s both erroneous and insulting. And your spiteful tone in regards to Jake’s business concerns is offensive. He runs a very respectable club. Now, is that what you came here to say to me face to face?”
He ignored my question and asked, “Are there respectable strip clubs?”
“Jake’s is,” I returned. “Now, if this is what you wish to discuss, you made the journey to Lavender House in vain. I’ve no desire to talk about this.”
“That isn’t why I’m here.”
I said not a word but held his eyes.
His jaw clenched before he released it to announce, “I’ve spoken with Daniel. He’s phoned a company in LA who will be packing all your belongings in the pool house. These will be shipped to you express. You’ll have them by the end of the week at the latest. Daniel’s also agreed to come on board as my assistant officially. I’ll give you six month’s severance. This will be transferred into your account within two days. Your paperwork will arrive at Lavender House within that timeframe. You’ll need to sign it and return it at your earliest convenience.”
I felt not a small amount of pressure building in my head.
“So you’re sacking me because I’ve met a man,” I stated.
“I’m severing our professional relationship because it’s no longer constructive.”
“And it’s no longer constructive because you’re in love with me, never had the courage to do anything about it, I found a man I care about and you’re having a tantrum. And as you hold some power over me, the tantrum you’re having is negating my employment.”
His expression didn’t change. Not even a hint.
“You’re a millionaire, Josephine, and the severance package is fair.”
“I believe a severance package of a month’s wages for every year I’ve worked for you is more fair, Henry,” I returned, simply to be vexing mostly because he was vexing me.
“Then I’ll ask Daniel to change the amount and the wording in the paperwork,” Henry replied instantly.
That was when I felt the shot to the heart. The pierce of the arrow so excruciating it was a wonder I didn’t stagger back.
Wounded pride. Again.
But this time, the return arrow was directed at me.
“And this is it?” I asked.
“This is it,” he confirmed.
“Twenty-three years at your side and you hand me as much money as I ask for and walk away.”
He didn’t delay even a moment with his response.
“Yes.”
For the third time that day, tears stung my eyes but they weren’t good tears, overwhelmed by emotion of hearing a lovely story about a lovely woman or the gentle words from a man I was growing to feel very deeply about.
These were bad tears, overwhelmed by the emotions of loss and betrayal.
“Tears are hardly necessary, Josephine,” Henry said dismissively. “We were simply photographer and assistant.”
“Outside of Gran, for twenty-three years, you were the only real thing I had.”
The mask again slipped but he got it back in place swiftly.
But he said nothing.
I did.
“I’ve hurt you and done that simply by realizing the possibility I might find happiness and reaching for it and you strike back like this?”
“I’m uncertain what kind of happiness you can find with a small town strip club owner in the middle of nowhere in Maine but if that’s what you want, Josephine, you now have a clear shot.”
He was giving me a clear shot.
A clear shot by taking himself away.
“My first living memory is my father slamming my mother’s head against the kitchen floor.”
It came out as blunt and ugly as it was. And when it hit him, the mask disintegrated and Henry flinched so severely, his head jerked back with it.
“Some time later, she left us, never to return. Some time after that, when he discovered I was dating a boy without his permission, he beat me so badly I was in the hospital for a week.”
Another wince and, “Josephine—”
“Gran saved me from that. I managed to become normal again. I went to college. Fell in love. He was controlling, this was true, but he was handsome and he cared about me. I thought. Until the first time he beat me. I fell down a flight of stairs and broke my shoulder. I came back to Gran after that too.”
His hand came out but I took a step away.
“Did you ever wonder why I was so remote, Henry?”
“Honey—”
“Did you ever think to ask?”
“Jo—”
“No. You didn’t. I was so in love with you when we first started working together, every day held pain. But it was put up with the pain or lose one of only two people in my life I cared about and respected. So I put up with the pain.”
His face had blanched. “You were in love with me?”
“Head over heels.”
His voice was aching when he whispered, “Sweetheart—”
“To find you were the same and you didn’t even ask why I was protecting myself. Why I was aloof. Why I was disconnected. Didn’t even attempt to find a way in. I never thought for one moment you returned those feelings because…because…I don’t know why you did it but you never, not once, gave me any indication that you felt that way for me. You gave many other women that indication, right in front of me, but never me.”
“I showed you all the time, Josephine,” he said gently.
“No.” I shook my head. “Jake did. He knew all that about me and he knew he had to proceed with caution but the point is he realized he liked me, he was attracted to me and he proceeded.”
“I’m afraid he had an unfair advantage, honey, because I didn’t know any of this shit,” Henry pointed out.
“You…didn’t”—I leaned in— “ask,” I hissed and I leaned back. “Two decades and you didn’t ask, Henry?”
“How was I to know there was something to ask about, Josephine?”
“If you love someone, you want to know everything. You want to heal all hurts. You want to be there for them when they need you. You just want to be with them all the time.”
“Are you saying you’re in love with a man you’ve known two weeks?”
“No, Henry. I’m saying that’s what I gave you for twenty-three years.”
I watched him flinch again. He knew it was true. Every word of it.
He recovered and inquired, “How do you press something like that with someone you employ? Someone that matters. Someone that, if you don’t get it right, you could lose and you know you can’t lose.”
“I don’t know. Maybe you do it because it’s worth the risk of whatever might become of it.”
“I’ll remind you, sweetheart, you felt the same way and you didn’t take that risk either,” he said softly.
He was right.
Absolutely right.
“I was afraid,” I told him.
“I understand that now. I could have no idea then.”
He was right about that too.
I looked to the dirt at my feet.
“Josephine,” Henry called and my eyes went back to him.
“It wasn’t meant to be,” I stated.
“How can we know that if we haven’t tried?” he asked.
“Because I’m falling in love with a man I’ve only known two weeks but even falling, I already know I can’t imagine what a day would be like without him. No,” I shook my head as Henry’s face started getting hard again. “I can imagine it. I just don’t want to.”
“I’m not certain he’s right for you,” he told me.
“And I’m not certain you would be, saying something like that when you don’t know him in the slightest.”
“I know we had our words yesterday, Josephine, they were unpleasant, he was there throughout, and he didn’t intervene for you once,” he pointed out.
“You’re right. He didn’t. But then again, you were my employer, had been for years, I’m a forty-five year old woman and it really wasn’t his place to intervene. However, when I was overcome by emotion after that scene that was when Jake intervened, holding me in his arms, stroking my hair and talking to me to soothe me.”
“So this guy is perfect,” Henry stated disbelievingly and perhaps a little sarcastically.
“Not at all,” I told him. “He’s ludicrously protective and preposterously overbearing. He’s also got this thing where he selects my seat for me, usually next to him, and does this by planting me in it. He can be very dictatorial and it isn’t infrequent when he is. He laughs when I’m being serious and bellows from wherever he is in the house at wherever the person he’s talking to is. He also uses curse words frequently, even in front of his children, and allows them to do the same, especially his eldest son, this latter I intend to have words with him about very soon. I’m certain he has other bad habits that I’ll discover, given the chance. The thing that makes me happy is that I have that chance.”
“So it’s you giving up on us,” Henry noted.
“No, it’s me saying that we had our time, that time passed. We both made that mistake. And now it’s me moving on. I didn’t drive here to fire me, Henry. You did.”
“Knowing how I feel about you, can you work alongside me? And if you care about me, can you honestly wish to do that while making me watch you fall in love with another man?”
“No, I intended to resign,” I told him honestly. “However, I had hoped to do it and salvage a relationship with someone I love very deeply who means a great deal to me. I just hadn’t come up with how to do that yet.”
He said nothing but held my gaze.
I did the same.
Henry was the first one to break the silence.
“F*ck, I should have come to Lydia’s funeral with you,” he clipped tersely.
He should have.
He really should have.
But he didn’t.
And if he did, I would not have Jake.
Or Amber.
Or Ethan.
Or Conner.
So I said nothing.
“I f*cked us up,” he whispered and the way he did made my anger fade but my pain increase.
“We both did,” I said quietly.
“You had no choice with your past the way it was. I did.”
I couldn’t argue that.
“I f*cked us up,” he repeated and I moved to him and put my hand on his chest.
“Stop it, Henry.”
“Twenty-three years, I’d look forward to you walking into my hotel room every morning with a coffee, sweetheart. Daniel’s nowhere near as attractive as you and completely the wrong gender. He sends it up through room service.”
I closed my eyes and dropped my head to rest it on my hand on his chest.
Oh, how I loved walking into Henry’s hotel room with a coffee every morning. The smile he’d give me. We’d sit down and chat, about the work to be done that day, where we were going, what was next, or nothing at all.
And he’d always make me laugh.
Now, looking back, knowing what I knew, I realized he worked for it, worked to give that to me.
Every morning.
His hand lifted and wrapped around the back of my neck and that felt nice and warm in the crisp autumn air. Strong. Sweet. Lovely.
With his lips at my hair, he said, “You find your way to salvage our relationship, you tell me. Then we’ll do it.”
I moved closer and wished the fence wasn’t between us as I turned my head so I could press my cheek to his chest.
His hand gave my neck a squeeze and his lips were still at my hair when he said, “This is killing me, honey, so I must go.”
I nodded, my cheek sliding against his shirt and I started to move back because I didn’t want to hurt Henry. Not ever.
And I had.
Unintentionally but I’d still done it.
So I had to stop doing that.
But I stopped when Henry’s hand at my neck put pressure on.
I tipped my head back to see Henry’s descending.
And then he kissed me. Not a chaste brush on the lips. His mouth opened over mine and for some reason, mine opened under his and his tongue slid inside.
He tasted very nice. He kissed very well. I was not surprised at either. He was Henry and almost everything about him was good, but as for the latter, he’d had a lot of practice.
But it didn’t fire me the way it should have. The way it could have. The way I knew it would have, even only three weeks ago.
Because I’d had Jake that morning, his mouth, his hands, his body, and he gave so much even while taking, nothing could compare.
Nothing.
Not even Henry.
He lifted his lips from mine and looked in my eyes.
He saw it because I didn’t hide it.
His voice was again an ache when he murmured, “F*ck, I f*cked us up.”
My throat closed and I could do nothing but step away.
His hand dropped away when I did.
My eyes again filled with tears when it did.
How could it be that I felt with Jake like I was getting everything and at that moment knowing Henry was walking away, knowing Gran was gone, it felt like I’d lost everything?
“I wish for you to be happy,” he said gently and I swallowed, the tears now stinging my eyes. “I truly do.”
“I hope you’re happy too.”
My throat started aching as Henry tipped his head to the side and said, “Good-bye, my Josephine.”
“Good-bye, Henry,” I forced out.
He smiled. It was sad. It was adrift.
It gutted me.
Then he walked away.
* * * * *