Forevermore

  Though he had no faith of his own to speak of, he found Sydney’s belief to be a comfort by proxy. “And despite how much the world sucks at times, good people getting hurt, children getting sick...” And dying. “You still believe that there’s something better, an afterlife or something?”

  “I don't pretend to understand why the world is what it is. I think to do so would be arrogant on my part. But I do believe in His plan and that there is a better afterlife. Having faith in that helps me to stand fast even in the face of the…impossibly painful events that happen everyday around me.”

  “I need to know she will be looked after, that it’s not the end, and I’ll see her again one day.”

  Putting her hand lightly on his shoulder for a moment, Sydney added, her tone even gentler now, “I truly believe you will, Mr. Maximilian.”

  He didn’t know what to answer to that, so he just nodded and said, “Thank you.” Because her belief in God made him feel better, lighter.

  “Anytime, Mr. Maximilian.”

  He was not a religious person, but before he left his daughter’s room, he prayed to all the people he knew who had died, asking them to please take care of his precious little angel.

  Alone on the veranda of the master bedroom, Aleksander took a deep breath, trying to let the mountain air into his lungs. It’d always had a calming effect on him, but right now, there wasn’t enough mountain air in the world to set things right. The Cottage hadn’t just been a refuge; it was an escape from the stress of everyday life. But there were some things nobody could escape from, and he supposed the past few horrible months qualified.

  He walked back inside the room, closing the French doors, and looked around as he unzipped his suitcase. Every nook seemed to hold a memory of his life with Rachel. He hadn’t gotten around to clearing out her things, believing it much too personal a thing to just assign to a maid. I will do it tomorrow.

  Her silk robe still hung on the back of the door and her make-up and cream bottles were arranged neatly on a mirrored tray over her vanity. The room held a sweet, spicy air, the lemon scent of perfume that lingered on her skin. He could almost see her slim shape outlined on the bed.

  He let out a tortured sigh. He’d have definitely considered this a mistake, coming back to the place where he and Rachel had spent some of their happiest moments, if it weren’t for one thing: Olivia wishing for it.

  That’s all that mattered.

  He looked down at the folded contents of his suitcases and let out another sigh. In the unpacking he discovered he hadn’t packed sensibly. He hardly needed a suit, much less two of them, or two pairs of dress shoes, or five ties.

  Jesus Christ! Just habit. Just packing on autopilot.

  He hung some items, folded others into drawers, then stacked up on the shelf near his side of the bed the fifteen books he had brought. Though he had a vast library downstairs, he was looking forward to reading those titles he had brought with him and, then if time allowed, he would revisit some old books. Then, he went through his hand luggage, connected his iPhone and Kindle to their chargers and docked his iPod on his bedside table.

  Having worked some of his things into the room, he found it did make him feel more settled in.

  So he crossed to his office, which could be accessed both from the bedroom and from the corridor, and unpacked his obsessive supply of pens and put them on his desk along with his laptop case and tucked his checkbook and cash in the desk drawer.

  I could go for a walk now. Stretch my legs, get some exercise, or perhaps some fresh air.

  Those were healthy, productive things to do and that had kept him going during the last year. But the five-and-a-half-hour flight, and after, the drive, plus all the stress of seeing a frail Olivia still fighting, left him exhausted. But then fatigue cozied up to him like a lover most days.

  Promising himself he would go tomorrow, he went down to the ground floor for a sandwich.

  After checking Olivia’s vitals, settling into bed, and reading a bit, Ava felt for sure that she’d drift off to sleep after such an exhausting day.

  She’d been wrong, though. She’d tossed and turned for a half-hour, thinking of Olivia. Then, as usual, her thoughts trailed to Aleksander. What had he said to her, today, on the plane? We’re both aware you’ll be willing when the time comes.

  Her stomach rolled with indignation. How dare he?

  He didn’t know her. How dare he be so bold as to insinuate I would so easily fall at his feet like an obedient puppy?

  The more she thought about it, the more elusive sleep became. She’d worked herself into a lather, her blood boiling so much she sat straight up in bed, wide awake.

  Deciding that she needed something to calm her nerves, she swung her legs off the bed, stood, and stretched. She grabbed a cardigan cashmere robe, put it over the practical Juicy Couture clothes she used as pajamas, and shoved her feet into velvet mules, hoping she could find some hot chocolate in the kitchen.

  Soft lights glowed downstairs, so she easily made her way down the darkened hallway toward the source of light. She passed through the living room, where the fire was dying embers, and stepped into a the bright light of the kitchen.

  With its white marble island and oak cabinetry which reflected the organic surroundings and took out the urban, city-slick look, the kitchen was a practical and yet cozy room. Ava looked around, wondering where the tea kettle might be. After a minute, when she decided it was hopeless and she’d calmed herself enough that sleep might come and she started to turn back toward the stairs, a voice rang out from a corner.

  “Can I get you something?”

  “Oh!” Startled by the male voice coming out of nowhere, she whirled around, expecting Matthias, but to her surprise, saw Aleksander.

  He was sitting in a cozy nook, which was cut out of the back of the house and surrounded on three sides by windows, with an empty plate and glass in front of him.

  “Uh, no thanks.” He seemed like he had much too much on his mind to be worried with getting her some hot chocolate. “I can ask Matthias—”

  “Matthias is in bed,” he said, sliding out from his seat. Her voice ran over his body like warm syrup. Her almost imperceptible accent burred soft and rolling from her luscious lips; lips that he knew were sweet and soft. Just looking at them made his blood thunder in his veins. He had rules for himself where women were concerned. So far he’d always followed them.

  But this was different.

  She was different, in ways he couldn’t yet define.

  It was not only her beautiful face, golden hair, and luminous skin. It was her sunny disposition. She was all things warm and radiant.

  “I was going to say in the morning,” she said with a smile.

  He took his plate and glass to the sink and turned toward her, and as he did, she noticed he’d changed into lounge pants and a Henley shirt. “You strike me as a tea person.”

  She was not. She very much preferred coffee or hot chocolate, but she nodded away, and her words left her in one jumbled breath, “Tea would be great, thanks.”

  “Mugs are there,” he pointed to a cupboard on the other side, while he busied himself filling the electric kettle, which was tucked away in a shelf just by the nook.

  She pulled two mugs from said cabinet and then hopped on one of the dark-brown leather-topped stools at the long table.

  When her fingers smoothed back a lock of blonde hair which had escaped her braid, he wanted to grabbed her wrist and pull her toward him for a kiss. He usually didn’t find tall blondes so alluring, but in her case it was sweetened by her forwardness and seductive lack of coyness.

  Given the opportunity, he wasn’t sure he could resist. And weeks of living together would present many, many opportunities. Right now, he was entertaining a quite vivid fantasy which was turning him hard as a rock.

  Unbraiding her hair, and stripping her lithe body of those practical clothes, peeling away layer by layer, from the blue jacket and the somewhat transparent co
tton T-shirt to the—again!—practical white work-out bra to get to the skin layers beneath and—

  Guilt mixed with lust and longing spiraled through him like a whirlwind in a desert, catching bone-dry dust and tossing it up to the sky. It’s wrong.

  Yet, it felt right. It felt possible.

  Ava could feel tension radiating from him, tight and edgy; like he wanted to explode, but knew the damage would be catastrophic; and she wondered what it was like, having that kind of control.

  A night owl hooting somewhere in the dark forest behind the house interrupted her thoughts and his fantasy.

  “No wonder Liv loves it here,” she said, glad for something to distract her from the intense, dark, and mesmerizing Greek god. “It’s so peaceful.”

  “It’s far from the city and all the hubbub,” he said, setting the kettle on its base plate and turning it on.

  “After living in New York for years, it feels like heaven.” She sighed and explained when he looked askance at her, “I grew up in Trondheim then I moved to Oslo to start medical school. Calm, almost sleepy cities compared to Manhattan. After the excitement of the first year, I got tired of the constant frenzy. Besides, with all the pressure of residency and fellowship, it was not like I could enjoy even ten percent of all the attractions.”

  He raised a brow. “Not even the Statue of Liberty?”

  “I went there when I was a teenager, my first time in New York.” A bit uncomfortable with being in the spotlight, she changed subjects. “What made you decide to buy here? So far away from everything when you’re such a New Yorker?”

  “I didn’t. Rachel’s great-grandfather built it about a hundred years ago and no one had made any considerable renovations…my mother-in-law didn’t want it but Rachel loved it here, so the house was passed on to her. I considered selling it more than once. When Rachel was around eight months pregnant, we were stuck here for days in a row because of a very bad snow storm. My only thought was that I was going to deliver a baby in the middle of a raging storm by candle light. But nothing happened,”—he reached up and knocked twice on the cherry wood cabinets—“and she loved it here, so I decided to renovate.”

  “You’re superstitious,” Ava observed with a quiet chuckle.

  “Actually, I’m not. That’s just a silly habit I acquired recently.” He slid a beech wooden box toward her. “Here.”

  She opened the lid and studied the packages, choosing an orange flavored teabag.

  “I also don’t believe in luck, good or bad. How could I? I mean, I lost my wife. And I’m about to lose my daughter very soon.” He glanced toward the doorway, as if Olivia would appear at any moment and catch him saying those words, then he looked back at her. “I despise the idea that all I’ll ever have is bad luck,”—two more small knocks on the wood cabinet—“so, no, I’m not superstitious.”

  Not knowing how to respond as his gestures belied the proclamations he’d just made, Ava remained quiet.

  “With the hospital’s gossip vine,” he said, “I guess you already know all about my wife’s accident.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  At first, she thought the frown planted between his brows was because he didn’t believe she avoided idle hearsay, but then she realized he must be anticipating the painful task of relaying the details of his wife’s demise.

  “Listen,” she automatically offered, “you don’t need to talk about this—”

  “No, it’s okay.” He stopped suddenly and let out a humorless small, huff of laughter. “Who am I kidding? It’s not okay and I guess it’ll never be.” And I am babbling. He leaned his hip against the counter. “Well, to make a long story short, she was hit by a bus soon after Olivia started her chemo. As she crossed the street in front of the hospital…”

  Ava reached out to him. She couldn’t not. His shoulder was warm beneath her hand, and she scooted closer to him.

  “But she didn’t die immediately.” He reached up and put his fingers over the top of Ava’s hand and looked directly into her eyes. “Rather, she was declared brain dead and I had to sign a waiver for her machines to be turned off.”

  Every ounce of empathy Ava felt was shining in her blue depths and she squeezed his shoulder but didn’t say anything. She just waited for him to get that out of his system.

  The tightness in his chest loosened a little, as if just that gesture of comfort and friendship eased his pain to some small degree, which reminded Aleksander that he was in the process of pouring his heart out, a self-indulgent exercise for which he had no taste. Yet, she made a good listener, and it felt oddly liberating to talk to her. “And when Olivia was well enough to return home…the apartment, it was so damned quiet. I never realized how much life Rachel brought to our home…to our family.”

  The kettle whistled, but Ava ignored it, giving him her undivided attention.

  “She was a great woman. And seeing you—and Sydney,” he added hastily, “interacting with Olivia, I was reminded of how lacking Olivia’s life has been lately.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  Aleksander pulled her hand from where it rested on his shoulder, but he held onto it. He had never wanted to kiss a woman more. He wanted to kiss her so badly, he could taste it. He’d devour the pink sweetness in those lips, stroke all the compassionate words from the tip of her tongue. Leave her breathless. Rattle her to her bones.

  He looked away before he did something he would regret.

  His gaze traveled to the doorway, and Ava suspected he was thinking about his little girl, and how sick she was, and the grief that lay in store for him, all the while aware of the heat of his skin on hers.

  She grasped his hand with both of hers and gave a firm squeeze, hoping to offer him some small amount of comfort, but it seemed so little in the face of the dark and daunting times ahead for him.

  He inhaled deeply, and when he released it, his shoulders squared and he gave her a ghost of a smile. “Thanks for listening. I’m sorry that I—”

  “Oh, no.” She cut him off with an emphatic shake of her head. “Don’t you dare apologize, Aleksander. If you wish to talk, I am here. Whenever you need.”

  Christ. There were a great many things he needed and a full half of them were squeezed in that giving gesture alone. He told himself not to make too much of her kindness and offer. She’s been groomed to be a doctor, always thinking of others’ comfort and needs. Needs. And there it is, this word again.

  His eyes glittered but he stepped away from her, saying, “We need to pour water over those tea bags.”

  Ava nodded and reached for the kettle but he turned his gaze to her once more and said, “I’m grateful you put your life on hold to help me with Olivia.”

  “I’m happy to do it,” Ava told him. And moved by the gratitude that glistened in his eyes, she repeated, “I am happy to do it.”

  Because she truly was.

  Although she’d never admitted it to anyone, she wished beyond measure that she had been able to have one more Christmas with her own baby-girl.

  Chapter 11

  Thursday, November 12, 2015

  8:10 a.m.

  * * *

  Ava awoke feeling the heat of embarrassment on her cheeks. Once again, she’d dreamed of Aleksander. Living under the same roof as him, and being in such intimate surroundings with him and his daughter had opened her up to another side of him.

  Yes, he was a walking ego who knew he could have any woman he wanted, but there was also something sweet and kind about him. He was, as Sydney had said, the total package. And Olivia was the sweetest little girl. She only hoped that she could make it through the next few months unscathed.

  I’m an adult, a doctor. And this is my job.

  She would go back to her life in New York and continue it as before. She couldn’t afford emotional entanglements. Not with his daughter, not with him.

  After putting on a fisherman sweater and slacks, she stepped out of her room to check on Olivia. To her surprise, Olivia wasn’t in her be
d, and in fact, it was made as if she’d been up for hours.

  She studied the empty foyer as she walked downstairs, then the living room, the library room, with its double pocket doors that could open to the living room, and then the patio outside. Where is everyone?

  There was a fire going in every room she entered, which made her check her watch.

  This certainly is a house of early risers.

  She finally stumbled across a sign of life in the dining room.

  Matthias knelt by the hearth, stirring the fire and adding more logs until it was burning bright and hot.

  “Oh, hello,” she said to him. “So, you’re the one responsible for keeping the home fires burning?”

  He let out a sound between a huff and a chuckle.

  “There’s a nice one in every room. It’s so cozy.” She rubbed her hands together and warmed them in front of the fire. “I don’t know how you manage on your own. This house goes on and on, doesn’t it? But in a livable way instead of like a museum.”

  “Kira—one of the maids you met yesterday—and I, we live here, kind of permanent fixtures. And we have people coming weekly to help with the garden, the pool, and other things.” The thin old man nodded, struggling up from his stooped position. He almost stumbled forward, until Ava offered a hand to help him up. “The Cottage was important to Mrs. Maximilian’s family. But it’s a too big house for one adult and a child…”

  He trailed off, and she knew what he was thinking. Soon, it would only be Aleksander.

  “Do you think he might sell…”—she tried to think of a way to put it as gently as possible—“After?”

  “Oh, no. He loves this place, too. And Mrs. Maximilian wouldn’t have wanted strangers living here. Still, I imagine it must be hard for him, being here for the first time since she died. There is so much of her in every room.”

  Ava looked around. It made sense that he was up late last night, why he appeared so stressed. “Olivia loves it, though. I suppose she must feel closer to her mother, here.”