Chapter 4

At twelve o’clock sharp, Alex locked the lobby door and turned off the lights. Usually, he’d stay in the office a bit late in case someone needed to buy some stamps or get mail past closing, but today was not a usual day. He changed out of his uniform and stopped by the corner market to pick up what he needed for lunch. It seemed silly to pay for flowers when there were plenty of free ones everywhere, but he did it anyway. Alex put the roses and the bags of groceries in his truck along with the magazines, bills and other mail he would personally deliver to Rachel. On top of the pile, he placed a large envelope from Prelude Press that was marked URGENT.

Rachel spent most of the morning cleaning her cabin and talking to her agent. Usually she’d spend her Saturdays sleeping till ten and shopping at the local stores, but today was not a usual day. Sandra called at eight to discuss several amendments to the contracts and they had gone over every line word by word. It was times like this when Rachel was glad she had gone to law school. Satisfied that everything was in order, Rachel hung up the phone, made a pot of coffee, took a quick shower and waited for the galleys, and Alex, to arrive.

He had called earlier to tell her she received a package and that he would bring it along with him when he saw her later. She didn’t know if she was more excited about seeing her galleys, or seeing him. She didn’t doubt that her racing heartbeat and sweaty palms had little to do with her anticipation of seeing her mail as it did with her anticipation of seeing the mailman.

At exactly twelve-fifteen, she heard the sound of his truck in her driveway. Willing herself not to run to meet him, Rachel waited several agonizing seconds until she saw him at the door. He was having a hard time balancing the grocery bags, flowers and mail, so when she opened the door, he almost fell into the room.

“Way to make a grand entrance.” He joked.

Rachel took the mail and roses and Alex put the groceries on the kitchen counter.

“What’s for lunch?” she asked, having absolutely no appetite at all.

“Caesar Salad,” Alex answered, “Hope you like anchovies.”

“I love anchovies,” Rachel lied. He could have cooked fried toad and she would have told him it was her favorite food. It was so nice to have him in her house, in a relaxed setting and out of his postal uniform. Alex was wearing a white short sleeve sport shirt that enhanced his naturally tanned skin and showed off the impressive muscles in his upper arms. Rachel flashed back to the memory of the previous night and how those arms had felt holding her against his naked chest. She wondered if he had made plans for dessert.

“Go away and let the chef create his masterpiece,” he joked.

Rachel went into the living room and opened the envelope. She began reading the galley copy of her book, flipping through several pages and making notes in the margins. Alex noticed she was becoming more and more agitated with each turn of the page. Her eyes were focused in a glazed stare of disbelief as her pen furiously crossed out whole sections of text.

“Alex, I have to make a call. Do you mind?” Rachel didn’t wait for his answer. She stormed into the bedroom and grabbed the phone. After three rings, her agent picked up.

“Sandra? I was expecting your answering machine. What are you doing in the office on a Saturday?”

“Hi, Rachel. Agents don’t have weekends, at least not successful ones. What can I do for you?”

“I just received my galleys from Prelude, and I noticed there were some major changes made to some of the story. I was just wondering if it’s normal business practice for a publisher to edit a manuscript without informing the author first.”

“Well, of course they go through the entire manuscript and correct grammar and punctuation. You’ll probably see quite a few proof reader marks, but that’s quite common.”

“I’m not referring to mechanics, Sasha. There are entire sections of text in this copy that I didn’t write, like the love scene between Barbara and Daniel. There’s some stuff in here I don’t even think, so I know for a fact I never wrote it. Do you think someone at Prelude decided to do his own re-write?”

“Not that I’m aware of. If someone at Prelude made any changes it would most probably have been one of the editors. If you’d like, I’ll call them on Monday and see what I can find out. In the meantime, relax. I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation. The contracts are fine. The advance is more than I expected for a first book. This is all good news.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Rachel wasn’t as convinced as she sounded. “Have a good weekend.”

“Everything ok?” Alex said when Rachel came back into the kitchen.

“Sandra seems to think so. Anyway, I won’t know anything until Monday.”

“Won’t know anything about what?”

“Well, I was reading through the galleys and there were some changes made to my book. Sandra seems to think it was an editor at Prelude who made them. I just wish they’d have told me about it first. Like this paragraph here, the love scene. I know I didn’t write that, but I have to admit, it does work better than my version.”

Alex read the passage that Rachel was pointing to. He almost dropped the salad bowl as he read what he, himself, had written.

“Is it good?” He put the salad on the table and Rachel began eating. Alex wasn’t ready to tell her the truth.

“It’s wonderful!” Rachel replied, thinking he was asking about the salad. He wasn’t about to correct her.

They finished eating and to Rachel’s amazement, Alex insisted on helping with the dishes. She could almost get used to this. Almost.

“Would you like to take a walk?” Alex suggested when they were finished.

“Yes, that would be nice.”

They spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying the warm summer sun and each other’s company. Alex led her deep into the woods, and it occurred to Rachel that if she were a mystery writer, this would make a fabulous setting for a murder. She was glad she wrote romance. Even now, her imagination was working on a new angle to the story of Hansel and Gretel.

Alex stopped and pointed to a wooden platform built high on a distant tree.

“Deer stand,” he said.

“What?”

“I built that three years ago. I have the best view of this entire area during hunting season.”

“You kill deer?” Images of Bambi crying by his dead mother flashed into Rachel’s mind.

“Sure. Every year. It keeps the deer population down and venison tastes great if it’s cooked right.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Rachel cringed at the thought.

“City girl,” he grinned at her. It was more of a tease than an insult

“Bambi killer,” Rachel picked up a handful of dried leaves, stuffed them down Alex’s shirt and started running. He caught up with her in three easy sprints, and they both fell, laughing, into a huge pile of pine needles and leaves.

Rachel looked up into Alex’s penetrating gaze. He began kissing her, lightly almost tentatively first on her lips, then her neck, slowly traveling nature’s path toward her delicate breasts. His fingers moved deftly to undo the buttons on her shirt. Her hands, with a will of their own, ripped all the buttons off his, revealing a chest covered in rich, black curls.

 She closed her eyes to the bright rays of sunlight and opened her arms to the warmth of Alex’s body. She wrapped her arms around him, their bodies moving together in perfect unison. Rachel ignored the dried leaves and twigs that lay beneath her. Her conscious thoughts were being transported to a place where such minor irritations didn’t exist.

As she slowly came back to earth, Rachel opened her eyes, looked over Alex’s shoulder and began to laugh. Standing not more than three feet away were a mother deer and her doe. They were staring at them like two curious children.

“Now that you’re defenseless,” she said, “aren’t you glad they don’t have guns?”

“Cute. We’d better be heading back, it’s starting to get dark,” Alex tried putting his buttonless shirt on. “You do have a sewing kit at your place, don’t you?”

“ I don’t think so,” she tried unsuccessfully to suppress a giggle. “I don’t sew.”

“You don’t cook. You don’t sew. What good are you, anyway?” The moment he asked the question, he wished he hadn’t.

“Quite good!” She snapped, more than a little irritated by his remark. “Look, you use a loaded gun to kill innocent four-legged animals. When I was with the DA’s office, I hunted guilty, two-legged animals who used guns, and the only weapon I had was my four-year law degree. I wasn’t perched at a nice, safe distance in the middle of the woods, either. The courtroom was my hunting grounds and sometimes I’d be three inches away from a cold-blooded killer. Winning a difficult case using your mind is much more challenging than simply sitting in a tree and shooting a defenseless animal. It takes a lot of hard work and long hours. So, no, I never had time to learn to sew or cook. I leave the mundane things to mundane people.”

“Like me?” Alex stopped when they arrived at her front door.

“No, no, I didn’t mean...”

“ I think we both know what you meant,” his voice was a mixture of anger and hurt.

“C’mon Alex,” Rachel tried to lighten the conversation. “I’m sure I can find a needle and some thread inside, someplace.”

“I don’t think so. I have some mundane stuff to do at home, like sew on these buttons. I’ll call you,” He turned abruptly, stomped across the driveway and got into his truck.

Damn. Rachel said to herself as he watched him drive away. Why the hell did I say that?

Rachel turned on the light and went into the bedroom. She began taking the dried leaves out of her hair, and wished the memory of how they got there, and the argument she just had with Alex, were as easily removed from her mind.

So what if she didn’t know how to cook, or wasn’t Martha Stewart when it came to sewing on a button? She had other, more important skills. She had been a very successful New York City prosecutor and she just signed a lucrative publishing contract. So, why did his comment about her lack of domestic skills cause such an explosive response?

She thought back two years ago to the last conversation she had with Mark. He won a big murder case and was in line for a major salary increase. She was happy for him, but it had been difficult for her to share his enthusiasm. After almost six years of practicing law, she had become bored. During closing arguments, she would find herself taking notes, not of the facts of the case, but of a fictional romance called “Legal Briefs”.

Without telling Mark, Rachel began sending query letters to literary agents. Three weeks later, she signed with Sandra’s agency. Sandra put her in touch with an editor who suggested she take a leave of absence to concentrate on her novel.

When Mark came home with the news he’d received the raise, Rachel had news of her own. She was quitting law to work on her writing full time. She thought he would have been supportive, but his reaction had been just the opposite. He accused her of throwing away her future, of using her writing as an excuse to quit and he wasn’t about to spend the rest of his life with a quitter. He also said that she had better learn how to cook and sew like other women, so she could find herself a husband when she failed as a writer. She tried to explain to him that it was only a temporary leave of absence. When he walked out that night, Rachel knew Mark’s leave of absence was going to be permanent.

 When Alex accused her of not being good at anything because she couldn’t cook or sew, Rachel heard the echo of Mark’s voice calling her a quitter and a failure. Her lawyer’s instinct had immediately responded the way she would have in court, she’d gone on the offensive. She hadn’t meant to insult Alex, or to imply that she was better than him, she’d simply defended herself the only way she knew how. If he had stayed, she would have told him that, but he left before she’d been able to explain, or apologize. And after the way he left, Rachel wondered if she’d ever have the chance to do either, or that it would even matter to Alex if she did.

What did she know about him, really? She knew where he worked, and that he could cook and, she assumed, sew. He killed deer for sport, was offended easily, and ran away from confrontation even more easily. She also knew that he made love with a tenderness and a passion that was fiery and intense, like the character from her romance novel. But that was really all she knew about Alex Bentley. Was it possible her writer’s imagination had created a person who, in reality, didn’t exist at all? After two years of living between her real world and her literary one, Rachel was beginning to wonder if she could tell the difference.

She finished the leftover salad, made herself a pot of coffee, and began the long, tedious job of proofreading the publisher’s galleys. She was almost relieved that Alex had not stayed. Without any distractions, Rachel could work through the rest of the weekend, and have the final proof copy on her publisher’s desk first thing in the morning. Her agent had a private messenger service and they picked up and delivered packages-even on Sunday.

The pick-up truck made a sharp turn as Alex swerved to miss a rabbit that wandered onto the road. Ordinarily, he would have simply run over it, but he didn’t want Rachel to accuse him of murdering “Thumper” too.

Alex almost drove his truck through the garage wall, but managed to slam on the brakes just before the bumper hit. He got out of the truck, slammed the door and went into his house.

Just who the hell does she think she is, anyway? Alex thought. Some hot-shot lawyer from New York who was only playing with a local country boy for a few sexual kicks? Think she’s so much better than me because I don’t have a college degree? Like that really matters.

Alex retrieved a beer from the refrigerator and turned on the television, but his mind was watching a different scene than the one on the local network. A re-run of an episode in his life, a long time ago, when it had indeed mattered. He had been a shy kid in high school, a typical underachiever whose only motivation to even consider going to college was to be with Laurie, the one girl who hadn’t treated him like a total loser. They had dated their junior and senior years. She was his first love, and his first lover, so when she suggested they attend the same college, he applied and much to his surprise, was accepted. They celebrated his achievement in the back seat of his Buick.

But after a year of below C grades, Alex knew he wasn’t cut out for the academic life, so he quit school and started working at the local post office. It was good pay, an easy job, and it would only be temporary, he had thought, until he earned enough money to ask Laurie to marry him.

He saved for three months to buy her the ring. Alex remembered that night in vivid detail. He spent hours preparing dinner at his apartment, bought two dozen long-stemmed roses and a very expensive bottle of champagne. When she arrived at his apartment, looking absolutely gorgeous in a denim shirt and jeans, it took every bit of self-control for Alex not to spoil the surprise.

Laurie loved the dinner, and the roses. After finishing the champagne, she'd insisted on thanking him in the bedroom. The sex had been incredible. The heightened anticipation of his proposal mixed with the love he felt for her created the most intense passion he had ever experienced. In the afterglow of their lovemaking, he knew it was the perfect time to take the ring off the bedside table. But when he turned around, he was surprised to see that Laurie was out of bed and starting to get dressed. Puzzled, he asked her where she was going. In a voice that was cold and impersonal, she told him their relationship was over.

Alex was stunned. At first he thought she was joking. He took the ring out of the box and showed it to her. She laughed at him; a mocking, degrading snicker that sent razors slashing through his heart.

She was not about to spend her life with anyone less than a professional, she’d told him. The sex had been fun, and he was a nice guy, but without a college degree, she would always feel intellectually superior to him. After all, she said before walking out, he was just a mailman.

Alex never saw her again. He returned the ring and didn’t talk about her to anyone for a long time. He decided to continue working at the post office, since he didn’t have anyplace else to go. Over the years, he worked hard and took advantage of every opportunity to advance his career. The day he was promoted to postmaster, he sent his new business card to Laurie’s parents and asked them to forward it to her. Eight years after she walked out on him, he still needed to show her that she had been wrong about him and that the postmaster’s certificate he had hanging on his wall was just as important as the college diploma hanging on hers.

He thought he had buried those feelings of inadequacy years ago, but when Rachel brought up her professional background, he was thrown back into that room, and he felt like a failure all over again. He should have told Rachel, should have explained why he became so angry, but at the time he hadn’t known himself. And now, he didn’t know how he was going to explain his irrational behavior, or even if it would matter to her if he did.

He wanted to call her, but he wasn’t sure what he would say. After all, What did he know about her, really? He knew she’d left a very good job to pursue a writing career. He knew she was an excellent lawyer and, after reading her manuscript, an excellent writer. He also knew she made love with a tenderness and a passion that was fiery and intense, like the character from her romance novel. But that was really all he knew about Rachel Clark. The one thing he was absolutely certain of: he was falling in love with her.

Alex tossed the empty beer can into the trash and turned off the lights. When he impulsively altered her manuscript, his only thought had been to help Rachel succeed. Now he wondered if trying to help her get everything she ever wanted, might just have caused him to lose the one thing he never thought he would ever have.

And how was he going to tell her?