Danielle Steel - The Cottage

“You know,” Jimmy said to her one night over Chinese dinner. He had taken a cab for once. His mother had a dinner date, and he didn't want to impose on her. Alex had said she would drive him back to the gatehouse. “I think you should start dating.”

“Really?” she said with a look of amusement. “And who appointed you as the guardian of my love life?”

“That's what friends are for, isn't it? You're too young to go into mourning for a guy you dated for four or five months, however long it was. You've got to get out there in the world, and start again.” He sounded almost fatherly about it. They always had a good time together, and there wasn't a single subject between them that was sacred. She was completely open with him, just as he was with her. They shared a special bond of friendship that meant a lot to both of them.

“Well, thank you, Dr. Strangelove. And for your information, I'm not ready.”

“Oh, bullshit. Don't give me that crap. You're just chicken.”

“No, I'm not. Okay, I am,” she amended, “and besides I'm too busy. I don't have time for a relationship. I'm a doctor.”

“I'm not impressed. You were a doctor when you went out with Coop. So what's different?”

“Me. I'm wounded.” But her eyes were laughing as she said it. She just hadn't found anyone she wanted to date yet, and Coop was admittedly a tough act to follow. He had been wonderful to her, even if it hadn't been a relationship meant to last for a lifetime. She was beginning to see that, although she still wished it had.

“I don't think you're wounded. I think you're lazy and scared.”

“What about you?” She turned the tables on him, as they polished off their dim sum, and she ate the last of his pot stickers.

“I'm terrified. That's different. Besides, I'm in mourning.” He said it seriously, but he didn't look nearly as devastated as he had when she'd met him. He looked healthier again. “But I'll go out with someone one of these days too. My mother and I have been talking a lot about it. She went through it when my dad died, and she said she made a big mistake not getting back out in the world again, and now I think she regrets it.”

“Your mom is a gorgeous woman,” Alex said admiringly. She had enormous affection for her and thought Jimmy was very lucky, and said so frequently.

“Yeah, I know. I think she's lonely as hell though. I think she loves being here with me right now. I told her she should move out here.” And he meant it.

“Do you think she will?” Alex asked with interest.

“Honestly, no. She likes Boston, she's comfortable there. And she loves our place on the Cape. She usually spends the whole summer there. She's going as soon as I get my casts off. I think she can hardly wait. She loves to putter around fixing the place up while she's there.”

“Do you like to go?” Alex was curious about it.

“Sometimes.” He had a lot of memories of Maggie there, which were going to be hard for him to deal with, he knew. He had decided to give it a rest until the following summer. By then, he thought it would be easier for him to handle, and his mother said she understood. She was always very sympathetic, and understanding about whatever he did. Particularly now. She was just grateful he was alive.

“I hate our place in Newport. It looks like Coop's place, only bigger. I've always thought that was stupid for a beach house. When I was a kid, I wished we had something simple, like the other kids. I always had the biggest and the best and the most expensive. It was embarrassing.” And the place in Palm Beach was even bigger, and she hated that too.

“I can see that was very traumatic for you,” Jimmy teased her as they sipped their tea, and she complained that she'd had too much to eat. They were like two kids kidding around with each other. “I mean look at you now, you never wear decent clothes anymore. I don't think you own a pair of jeans that's not ripped. You drive a car that looks like you bought it in the junkyard, and from what you tell me, your apartment looks like you furnished it in a dumpster. It's obvious that you have a psychotic phobia about anything decent or expensive.” He didn't realize it, but he could have made the same speech to Maggie, and had often.

“Are you complaining about the way I look?” She looked vastly amused and not the least bit insulted.

“No, you actually look pretty good, considering that you live in hospital pajamas ninety percent of the time. The rest of the time you look great. I'm complaining about your car and your apartment.”

“And my love life, or lack of one. Don't forget that. Anything else you want to complain about, Mr. O'Connor?”

“Yeah,” he said looking into her eyes, and noticing that they looked like brown velvet. “You don't take me seriously, Alex.” His voice sounded strange when he said it.

“What am I supposed to take seriously?” She looked startled.

“I think I'm falling in love with you,” he said softly, not sure of what her reaction would be, and terrified she would hate him for it. His mother had encouraged him to tell her when they'd had a serious conversation about it the night before.

“You're what? Are you crazy?” She looked stunned.

“That's not exactly the response I was hoping for. And yeah, maybe I am. I hated it when you were going out with Coop. I always thought he was the wrong guy for you. I just wasn't ready to be the right guy,” he said honestly as she looked at him in amazement. “And I'm not sure I am yet. But I'd like to be one day. Or at least apply for the job.

“It may be hard for me at first. Because of Maggie. But maybe not as hard as I think. It's kind of like getting the casts off my legs and walking again. Same thing. But you're the only woman I've ever known that I feel about the way I felt about Maggie. She was a hell of a woman, and so are you I don't know what

I'm saying, except that I'm here and I care about you, and I'd like to see what would happen if we both give this a chance. And now you probably think I'm a lunatic, because I'm not making sense, and I sound like a total jerk,” he was stumbling all over the place as Alex stretched out a hand to touch his.

“Hey, it's okay,” she said softly, “I'm scared too… and I like you too… I always did I was terrified when I thought you would die after the accident, and all I wanted was for you to wake up from the coma and come back…and you did…and now Coop's gone. I don't know what'll happen either. Let's just go slow, okay?… And we'll see “

He was sitting there smiling at her, not sure what either of them had said, or what they felt, other than that they liked each other. But maybe it was enough. They were both good people, and they deserved the right person in their lives. Whether or not they proved to be the right ones remained to be seen, but it was a beginning at least. It was a promise to promise to try to promise to maybe if they were lucky fall in love with each other one day. They had each opened their doors, and were standing on the threshold of a new beginning. It was all either of them could have hoped for, or asked for at that point in time. And for now, it was enough. Neither of them was ready for more.

And when she drove him back to the gatehouse after dinner that night, they felt both comfortable and awkward, hopeful and scared. And when she helped him out and up the stairs, he turned to her with a smile, and then leaned down and kissed her. He almost slipped and fell, and she yelled at him as she helped him into bed.

“Are you crazy to kiss me there, you could have fallen down the stairs and killed me, and yourself!” He laughed, watching her. He had always loved everything about her, and even more so now.

“Stop yelling at me!” he tossed back at her good-naturedly.