Part 2


© Copyright 2004
by Elizabeth Delayne
For the first installment
of Fault Line click here

"I think he said he was going to grab a bite to eat in the hotel's restaurant. He—"

"The hotel's restaurant? I'm at the hotel. He should be—" Courtney felt the ire rise quickly as she glanced at the clock. It was after ten. She'd called Val to check up on things, feeling guilty for leaving things in Dave's hands for so long. "Never mind. I'll call you back."

She slammed the phone down, grabbed her room card, and walked out, letting the door close behind her. The aches in her side and back were nothing compared to the frustration she felt within.

She'd trusted him.

For once, she'd just let him have all the room he needed to make the decisions he thought he could make and here he was at the hotel. Doing what? Helping her with her job—his job? No. He was staying close to her, as if she needed someone to watch after her.

She was too old for a babysitter.

It didn't give her any satisfaction to realize that she'd been right. She couldn't separate her private from her work relationship. Opening up the wounds of her past only blinded him to her needs of today. Didn't he see—didn't he know—that what she needed was to succeed in the present.

As far as she was concerned she had overcome her past.

She ignored the sickness in her gut that reminded her of the pills—the pain pills he held on to because she was afraid. She was afraid that she would be like her mother.

The hotel he'd secured for her outside Sacramento was actually a sprawling resort. The hallways and lobby were decorated in lush plants, soothing indoor water features, and carpet you could sink your toes into. If the circumstances had been different, she might have enjoyed it all.

Instead, she worried over the frivolousness, the expense. She didn't need these fancy trappings. She didn't need—

Then she spotted him through the ferns that lined the outer edge that separated resteraunt form lobby. She scooted in, passed the hostess box, and let the emotions roll over her. It felt ... powerful, she thought, as she reached his table.

"Dave, you—"

But her words were cut off as she realized he wasn't alone. Three of her staff sat at the table with him. They looked up at her, somewhat surprised at the indignation rolling from her like waves of heat, but smiling none-the-less.

The anger drained as they quickly vocalized that they had mountains of paperwork to take care of, carting off pages of notes from what had obviously been a working brunch. She dropped down in one of the vacated chairs, relieved to see that the plate in front of her was empty. At least she hadn't interrupted what must be a needed meal with the day they had behind them.

"You headquartered here," she said at last. "I should have thought of it."

"There was no sense in trying to manage things out there. Form what I understand, there will have to be some major structural rehab first."

"How much?"

"That's one of the reports we're waiting on. The initial ones ... well, the only definite word we got was that there was damage."

"I could have made that one."

"It's why you get the big bucks. You feeling okay?"

She considered her words as she studied the dark circles under his own eyes. And yet, he still looked—seemed—strong.

She smiled ruefully. "I'm not at my best—and probably a lot worse off after that flight out here to find you," covering her face with her hands, she groaned. "I must have looked frightful."

"Well, they did leave quickly." He reached out and tugged one of her hands away from her face. "You look better. More rested. Ready to run a couple of more laps this morning?"

She tugged her hand away, but smiled as she said, "leave me alone."

"I would, but it seems I can't. If you're up for it, I have a surprise for you."

"What kind of surprise?"

"Order you something and have it sent to the Dells Conference room. Then you'll see."

* * *

He'd found Ruppie for her.

Even a week later, Courtney could only be grateful. He'd known how much she'd needed her dog, even when she hadn't been able to find the words to ask. He'd slept little, while she'd slept ... well, not enough for the doctor, but more than normal.

Dave had stayed as long as he could, had weathered the storm with her. They'd talked as they'd probably never talked before.

It had never been so easy to open up to him before.

"I thought Dave's plane leaves at eleven?"

Cuddling Ruppie in her lap, Courtney glanced over at Val. "It does."

"Shouldn't you be on your way?"

"To where?"

"To the airport."

She forced her fingers to relax. She ran them over Ruppie's back. "Dave left an hour ago."

"Why?"

"He wasn't sure what the traffic would be like."

"No," Val pulled out a chair next to Courtney and sat down. "Why aren't you going with him?"

"It wasn't necessary."

"Not necessary? With the way he was looking at you this last week? The way you were looking at him? Girl—what are you giving up? What are you telling yourself you're giving up?"

" We have a history—a good history for the most part."

"And you're ready and willing to let him go all over again?"

"I didn't let him go the first time."

She thought of their long walks, talks. Of how she'd joined him in the resort's exercise room while he worked out, strong and determined. She thought of how they'd laughed, releasing days, and even years wort of tension, over the meals they shared.

But it hadn't been the same, not a call to join the past ... not a move toward the future. Not really. How could it when she was here and he was ... there?

He'd found a new girlfriend, moved on to a new life. He'd approved the move for her to come to California. She could only be grateful that they were friends.

Friends.

"I'm not giving it up. I'm just ... it wasn't ..." Courtney sighed as Bill, one of their interns came through the door. With a sharp bark, Ruppie jumped from her lap and immediately ran over. Traitor, she wanted to say. She couldn't even count on him to stay when she needed him.

And it wasn't like she expected to count on Dave, or that she needed him right now. She just ... didn't want him to leave, and that wasn't enough reason for him to stay. They had their separate lives. He had his own girlfriend.

She thought. She'd never gotten the courage to asked. After all, it was none of her business.

"It was over a long time ago."

"Was it?" Val murmured. "That's not what I see when I look at you right now. You're not over him. You're missing him and he hasn't even been gone long yet."

"Maybe."

"Did he ask you to go to the airport with him?"

"Yes, right when a number of things were going wrong. I didn't think I could leave." She looked around the room, watched her staff handle things. "Now I can't seem to concentrate on anything. And he's already gone."

* * *

"Dave, I can't fly out to Chicago. Not right now."

Was that fear he heard in her voice, Dave wondered, or just his own wishful thinking. Was his cool, controlled Courtney feeling a little unsettled at the thought of seeing him again?

Before he could let himself revel in glee, he reminded himself that she had every right to be unsettled and upset. Returning to Chicago would mean returning to the bitter memories, to their arguments, her fears, to where he had put another woman between himself and her. It had been for his own protection then, but it had hurt her none the less.

And it had been fair to neither woman.

"You're not being asked, Court. Winston wants you here."

Winston was the President and owner of their company. His grandfather had started the business, his father had maneuvered it so that it could grow. Winston loved it.

"But things here—"

Dave could almost see her looking around her office for something to grab on to, much like he had the morning he'd left her for the airport.

"Leo's back and in full swing. I talked to him this morning. You're settled back in the building, all systems are go. You have a competent and reliable staff."

He wouldn't have left her there otherwise.

"You talked to Leo."

He smiled a little at the ice in her voice. No, she wouldn't be his Courtney if she didn't feel a little maneuvered and a little boxed in because of it.

After all, she was smart enough to figure out the truth.

At least, some of it.

"This isn't between you and me. Winston told me to get you here on Friday."

"This Friday?"

"A plane ticket for you and Ruppert has been reserved. A copy of the schedule will be sent to you and your assistant. See you then."

He hung up on that friendly phrase and smiled over it. He knew how her mind worked. She would come. She would plan all the things she would say to him when she saw him, calmly, but with flashing heat.

He would just make sure to stay clear until after her meeting with Winston. He thought he might have the advantage then.

* * *

Dave was leaning against the outer office desk, his arms crossed, when Courtney walked out of Winston's office. It was long after hours and the room was dark and quiet. Down below them, in the lower offices, there were people burning the midnight oils. On other nights, it would be Winston and his tight niched team working late into the night.

But tonight ... tonight it was just quiet. Tonight it was just her with Dave.

Holding onto the strap of her bag, she stopped before him, overwhelmed and unsure.

"What did you think?"

She frowned. Only a few weeks ago she would have walked right passed him—surely. Yet, she remembered the way he watched her, the way he slowed her down, the way he stepped in and helped her hold things up.

Helped her.

"I don't know. How much did you have to do with this?"

"Have you ever known Winston to need someone to make up his mind?"

"No, but it's strange. Sudden."

"Not so sudden. Maybe there are some things I should explain to you." He reached out a hand, let it run down her arm. "Let me take you to dinner."

She stared at him, at loss for words. All the things she had planned to say were suddenly like vapors in her mind.

Later she would wonder if he'd offered his hand to her, or if she'd just reached out to take it. However it had happened, his fingers closed around hers, strong and sure. Familiar.

Their dinner hadn't been at a five-star Chicago restaurant. It could have been. They both knew how to dine well, and were drawn to dine well.

They both were also both drawn to the city—just the city—with all of it's life, it's details, it's people. So they stopped at a side walk cafe and picked up pizza and walked the streets, watching the night.

"I've missed this," Courtney murmured, holding her pizza carefully in her hands.

"So have I."

She shook her head. "You couldn't have. I was talking about the city. The big city."

"And I was talking about walking with you."

"I know," she smiled sadly, knowing that she'd been comparing the walk tonight to their walks through the city. Dave was just as much a part of the city life.

"Where's Ruppie?"

"With Val."

"You didn't bring him?"

"I don't normally travel with him. He's not a pocket pooch." He'd been sleeping closer to her in her bed since the earthquake, and rarely left her side when she was home. "I do miss him, though."

"It's a good thing he's used to the city."

"Why?"

"So you can bring him with you."

Courtney stopped, turned to face him. "Dave I—I didn't tell Winston I was coming."

"What?"

"I don't know what to think," she said and shook her head and started to walk again. It was easier when she didn't have to look at him. "Wouldn't it make more sense to bring Leo in? He's higher up in the organizational chart then I am."

"You made a parallel move out to California. A little downshifted. If you had stayed here, taken the promotion that would have been offered, this is what you would have eventually been offered. Winston has had his eye on you for some time."

"Excuse me?"

When she stopped this time, he reached out and turned her to face him. Someone jostled passed. "Before there was ever a thing between you and I. Before the good and the bad between us, he was watching both of us. And seeing us together, it just fit right into Winston's family oriented heart. I signed the papers for you to move for all the wrong reasons. I didn't know about Winston's plans—not then—but he was sure to let me know that I had disappointed him."

"Then—"

"He decided to see how you would handle management without the top brass looking over your shoulder. You've been handling yourself and the company quite well."

"But Leo—"

"Leo's a traditionalist and valuable to the company. He doesn't have the ambition to move up further or to move away from his wife's family in California. And he's known, Courtney, for some time what Winston intended."

"So this all fits into Winston's plans? You coming out to California to rescue me? Being ... this all over again with me?"

He the remaining portion of his pizza into the nearby garbage can. Then he reached out and grasped both of her arms, mindless of the grease still on his fingers. "Thinking you might need help, I couldn't stay away."

"No—it was too perfect for you."

Her voice was scathing. Even she hadn't intended it to come out that way.

She shrugged off his grip, only to raise her hands and cover her face. How could she look at him, face him, when she couldn't face part of herself.

"I sound like my mother."

It was one of the few times she'd ever mentioned her mother to him. She hadn't known how. Yet, if there was anything she'd learned from her mother since finally getting her mother into rehab, it was that she was as just afraid of letting other people have access to her heart. Her mother had been queen of self denial.

"I don't want her to come between us again. She shouldn't matter to me."

She lifted her eyes to his, let him see the tears that had pooled in her eyes. He reached out, ran a hand down her arm.

"She's your mother."

"She doesn't want to be—not anymore. I got her into rehab with the help of my stepfather. She hated me for it. The things she screamed at me that day ... not at him, but me."

"When?"

"I don't know. A couple of months after I got to California." Courtney started walking again, weary all of the sudden. "She's ashamed, I know—even though the numbers of suburban housewives addicted to pain pills is growing at an alarming rate. Even though ..."

"It was you she hurt."

"Yes. I should be grateful she's better."

"I wish I had been there for you."

She nodded. She'd wished for him as well, knowing she'd lost him, not knowing how to reach him. Oh, she knew how to pick up the phone, she hadn't known how to scale the walls she'd helped to build.

It seemed an earthquake had brought all of the walls tumbling down.

They walked on, into the night, before coming up to the hotel where she was staying. Dave walked her into the lobby, empty of people except for the two of them. She glanced down at her watch, surprised to see how late it was. Too late to call Winston tonight.

"Courtney—"

She turned, looked at him, and reached up to place her fingers over his lips. "Don't make it easy on me, Dave. Don't ask me to come back. Don't tell me it's what you want. It would be too easy for me to come back for you."

"But—"

"I know it is," she told him. "Maybe it's time I take the step with you. Maybe it's time I try to step over the fault lines and tell you what's in my heart, trust you with what's in my heart. I let myself believe that I could be in control. Too ashamed, I guess, to let you see part of me. Parts of me."

Dave stepped back, crossed his arms. And waited.

"I love you, Dave."

As she'd said those words before, they both knew it wasn't what she needed to say. "I didn't know how to open up, to trust you with what was inside of me. That's what trust is, isn't it? Being able to give up control? Giving up part of the control and knowing it would be okay? It seemed easier to handle it. To just handle it."

"You were used to handling it on your own. Maybe I could have done things differently."

"Maybe."

"So what about now?" he asked. "What about us?"

She stepped up, pressed a hand to his heart. For a moment she just looked at him, at the face that had followed her through a thousand dreams. "It's time to admit that I—I don't want to walk through life alone. I can—I have. I want you to walk with me. To know you can. To help me ... deal with the part of me that I hide from, that I've let scar over, that I tried to hide from you."

He placed a hand over her hand and held it to his heart.

"I didn't fight for what was most important to me. I didn't trust you enough to give you the time and pressure I needed. I'm sorry for that."

"So we're both sorry."

"And we're both at a new beginning point together. Then tell Winston yes. And come back."

She stepped forward and leaned in close, running her hands up around his neck. She smiled. "I guess I can let you have you way this time."

"I guess you can."

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