CHAPTER THREE
The dream was familiar and Ellie sank into it without protest. She was looking down at the swish of the hem of her dress as she walked slowly along the stone pathway. The wide-brimmed hat on her head cut off her peripheral vision, but she knew he was walking next to her. She could see his dark gray trousers and black shoes keeping pace with her easily.
She spun the parasol in her fingers and laughed. It felt good to laugh again. There was a deep chuckle from the man next to her, and she knew that he understood. He didn’t care that she was different. In fact, that was something that attracted him to her. It felt peaceful and calm here. She looked to her left and took in the lake. It was so beautiful. She saw other couples strolling along across the far side as well, and she felt the sun’s heat warming her skin. It was a perfect afternoon.
Ellie closed her eyes and raised her face to the sun, welcoming its warm rays. That was when the high-pitched, screechy tone intruded on her tranquility.
Her eyes opened into blackness and her throat tightened. Ellie didn’t like the dark, and usually she left a small bedside table lamp on. The phone next to her bed was ringing, and a glance at the clock told her it was three a.m. She tried not to be suspicious, but she believed in the old saying that nothing good ever came from calls at three a.m. Ellie felt an old memory trying to surface, but she pushed it away. She fumbled for the receiver.
“Hello?” It sounded like her throat was stuffed with cotton.
“At your best, you were a sorry excuse for a wife.”
Ellie shot up fully awake, her heart racing. She heard the yelp from Skipper. She had shoved him off the bed. She forced her voice to be calm. ”Jake, you can’t call me at three a.m.”
“I can call you whenever the hell I want. You are my wife.”
Now Ellie’s brain cells were alive and firing. She sensed the undercurrent of alcohol in Jake’s voice. After eight years of marriage, she knew his nuances and moods perhaps better than he did himself. And the three sentences so far indicated Jake was drunk and angry. If she could see him, she had no doubt that his aura was a deep purple red.
“Ex-wife, Jake. I’m going to hang up the phone now.” Ellie had no desire to hear what other insults Jake had in store for her.
After the divorce was final six months ago, she heard from some acquaintances that he was trying to drink every drop of liquor in the state. She felt a small bit of elation at the thought that she didn’t have to deal with this now. She no longer had to worry about the consequences of leaving him alone in his angry squalor and what he would do to himself. From past experience, she also knew that whenever Jake stopped drinking and came to his senses, she’d get a pitiful “I’m sorry” phone call. She didn’t have to deal with that either anymore.
“You bit—” she heard him sputter as she dropped the phone back into the cradle. It immediately started to ring again, but this time she ignored it. After five rings it went to voicemail. Then it rang again. She reached behind the dresser next to her bed and pulled the cord out of the wall jack and was blessed with silence. Skipper paced the floor, watching her wearily.
“Sorry, boy,” she said softly. “C’mon.” She patted the bed next to her, and Skipper was up within moments. He dug around in the comforter at the foot of the bed until he had created a little nest and then curled up again. Ellie envied him.
Ellie lay back in bed and stared at the ceiling. She wanted to go back to that romantic dream with the mystery man, but she knew there would be no more sleep for her tonight. She had to stay alert, just in case Jake decided that it was worth the thirty-mile trip to her doorstep to harass her. She didn’t think he would now, but the first month after the separation had been a bit harrowing.
Jake would camp outside her building and yell up at her window trying to get her to come down and talk to him. The landlord called the police when Jake threw a rock and broke a window. Jake’s apology had been pitiful and he had looked so lost that she hadn’t had the heart to press charges.
Then he brought her the divorce papers and the calls and visits stopped. She hadn’t heard from him in months, and she thought the late-night tirades were over for good.
After tossing and turning until five a.m., she decided it was a better use of her time to get up and get on with her day. She felt miserable, but she was used to it. She rolled onto her side and stared out the window at the gray autumn morning. The leaves were just starting to fall off the trees, and the sun was coming out later in the morning. But in the end it was just another day with the same old routine. What was the point of being special if it meant being alone and depressed for the rest of her life?
Ellie turned her head and looked at the clock one more time. It was five-fifteen a.m. She wasn’t due at the coffee shop until later, but she could go in early and get some work done. That’s all she ever did anymore: work. She heard Skipper shuffling around at the foot of the bed. Sighing, she sat up, brushing her long brown hair out of her eyes. Swinging her feet over the side of the bed, she pushed her feet into the slippers waiting on the floor. She pulled her hair back into a sloppy ponytail.
Skipper was immediately at her side, gazing at her with big brown eyes. She smiled, which was something she didn’t do often, and ran her hand along his silky back. Skipper’s aura was always the calming color of harvest wheat. “Hey, boy,” she said gently.
Ellie counted few blessings, but Skipper was one of the best. He had been a gift from Jake in their better times, and even though she had been angry at him (she was a sworn cat person), the little dog had wormed his way into her heart. When she moved out of Jake’s house, there had been no question that Skipper would go with her.
She moved through the small apartment to her desk, pulled her jacket off her office chair, and headed for the front door, Skipper bounding behind her pushing against the back of her legs, eager to get outside. She swapped her slippers for tennis shoes and pulled her keys from the tray next to the door. Pulling on her coat, she snapped Skipper’s leash on his collar and headed out the door. She didn’t care that she was in pajama bottoms and a sweatshirt under her jacket. It was the crack of dawn, and she wasn’t out to impress anyone.
Ellie lived in the upper level of a house in Uptown not far from Hennepin Avenue and just south of downtown Minneapolis. The house used to be a home for a large, well-to-do family. Now it was compartmentalized into four units, with two apartments on each floor. Her studio apartment was the smaller one on the second level, but it was cozy and the owner didn’t mind dogs. The neighborhood had been quite stylish in the thirties, but these days the houses in the neighborhood had a look of shabbiness about them. Ellie didn’t care. Rent was cheap, the neighborhood was filled with other single working adults so it felt safe, and it was close to several dog-friendly parks and her shop.
She hurried down the back staircase and opened the door to the cool October morning. It wasn’t winter yet, but anyone who had lived in Minnesota for a while knew that it was never too early for snow. Ellie felt the chill and wished for a moment that she had dressed a bit warmer, but the air helped to clear her mind. She needed to forget about the call from Jake.
As Skipper sniffed around the backyard, she looked up at the barren trees and gray sky and felt a sense of emptiness. That feeling had become part of her regular routine. Skipper started tugging on his leash and she followed. He knew the way. Each morning they took a short stroll around a portion of Lake Calhoun, which was only a few blocks away. The crisp air should have soothed her nerves, but for some reason this morning she was jumpy. She was annoyed to know that Jake could still have this type of impact on her.
“I haven’t even had any coffee yet,” she explained to Skipper. He stopped for a moment and looked at her with somber eyes, and she felt like he was asking her to keep her misery to herself and let him enjoy his walk.
As they approached the lake, several joggers passed by. Ellie knew some of them by sight and was secretly envious of their motivation, sleek physiques, and calm blue
auras.
Ellie knew that if she told someone that she could tell their mood instantly because she could see their aura, they would dismiss her as a crazy kind of crackpot. This was the reason she never told anyone about it. Ellie had been able to see those brilliant colors since she was little, and it took her a long time to realize that she was the only one that could see them. She started seeing them around the time her parents died, when she was thrust alone into a cruel and unforgiving world. It wasn’t a world where she wanted to be different.
A few of the joggers waved at Skipper, and she started to feel self-conscious about her appearance. She looked like a total slob. She reached up a hand to smooth the flyaway strands around her face as much as possible. She waved back with a small smile.
“No use alienating the world any more than I usually do,” she whispered to Skipper. Ellie had always been a loner. It was hard to make friends when she could spot someone being disingenuous a mile away, and those that were honest got spooked at her uncanny ability to “read their minds.” She knew that it wasn’t healthy to always be alone, but it was certainly easier. Ellie knew that trusting people meant exposing herself to some degree, and given her “specialness” that was a risk that wasn’t lightly undertaken. She’d made an exception for Jake and look where that got her.
They finally reached the walking path that curved around the lake. Usually it took about an hour to walk the entire 3.5 miles. “I don’t have the energy for the whole thing today but we can walk a little ways,” she told Skipper sternly.
It was quiet at that time of the morning. Ellie could hear every approach behind her, and when she did she automatically shortened Skipper’s leash a bit and pulled him over to the side. The time and money spent on training classes with him had been well worth it. A short jerk and a quick command—“Sit!”—and Skipper would pause and do exactly that, waiting patiently for each person to pass by.
Ellie was wrapped up in her thoughts when she saw a jogger approaching from the other direction. She paused and gave Skipper his command, which he dutifully obeyed.
“Hey, Ellie, is that you?” she heard a husky, slightly out of breath voice say.
She looked at the man more closely and sucked in a breath in surprise. Even with red cheeks and a skull cap on, David Mitchell was handsome in that Harlequin-romance-cover kind of way. One tendril of dark blond hair had escaped the confines of his cap and was curled on his forehead. His deep blue eyes peered at her and matched his aura perfectly.
“Uh, David. Hi,” she finally stuttered, instantly feeling her cheeks start to burn. She reached her hand up to her hair again. Of all the people she could possibly run into at five a.m. in the morning, she ran into David Mitchell? She had the worst luck ever.
David was a regular at her coffee shop, and even in her recent state of self-absorption, she had been aware of the stares David received from her customers and staff. His comings and goings were well noted in the coffee shop crowd. According to the rumor mill, David was single, new to the area, and a doctor. Combined with how pleasant he had been in all of their interactions, David ranked just about perfect in Ellie’s book. But he was way out of her league.
“I thought that was you. I like your dog.” David nodded at Skipper as he continued running in place beside her. He put a finger to his throat and glanced at his watch. “You have the best coffee in town hands down. That’s why I can’t seem to stay away.”
“Oh, thanks,” Ellie said. She didn’t know what else to say and started berating herself for being so lame. He had just given her two nice compliments. What did she say now? She suddenly wished for better social skills. Her few friends always gave her grief that they didn’t think she could hold a rock’s attention with her off-putting demeanor.
Skipper was looking up at her expectantly. Everyone loved Skipper so that seemed as good a place as any to start. “This is Skipper. I bring him here most mornings for his walk. I don’t think I’ve seen you here before.” Ellie wracked her brain. Had she seen him before and never noticed? She hoped not. The thought was mortifying. God, she was pathetic.
“I’d love to have a regular schedule but things are just so chaotic when I’m on call. I just get my running in when I can. But the seasons are so strange here, I’m not used to it still being so dark in the morning,” David said with a smile. He was still slowly jogging in place, and he shifted his head from side to side, keeping his limbs warm.
Ellie was suddenly entranced by his muscular shoulders. She smiled faintly back at him, and felt like she was sixteen years old all over again and David was the first boy she had ever met in her life.
“Look at that, you can smile when you want to,” he said in a teasing tone.
Her small smile instantly turned to a frown. “What does that mean?”
“You just look so down all the time when I stop by your shop. You seem sad a lot,” he replied, continuing his slow jog.
Ellie start walking again. She didn’t know what to say. This is what happened when you talked to strangers. You got pulled into awkward conversations and then suddenly people brought up something you don’t want to talk about. She was surprised when David turned around and fell in beside her.
“I didn’t mean any offense,” he said.
She glanced out of the corner of her eye at him. His aura had turned to orange. That meant that he was distressed, so his intentions appeared to be genuine. “No. It’s fine. I guess I haven’t had a lot of things to smile about lately,” she said.
“Well, if you ever want to talk about it I’ve been told I’m a good listener. I know this great place to get an outstanding cup of coffee,” David said.
Ellie couldn’t help herself; she laughed out loud. David just shrugged his shoulders with a mischievous grin on his face. The orange aura was fading back to blue as he relaxed. She could imagine what he was thinking: the situation has been diffused. She wondered how many other people in her life thought of her as a ticking time bomb and that thought brought her back to reality.
David was certainly good looking and obviously witty; exactly the type of man who wouldn’t give her the time of day under normal circumstances. Not that she would have noticed or known what to do with that kind of guy anyway. But now she didn’t know how to respond. Was this an invitation for a date? Was he just being nice, or was it something more? And if it was, what should she say? She had to slow down and think about this.
“Well, I don’t know, David. I’m usually pretty busy at work,” she said slowly.
“Aren’t you the boss?” he asked. There was an amused glint in his eyes.
“I have to set a good example for my employees,” she retorted.
“I don’t think they’d mind,” he said.
Ellie cringed inside because she knew he was right. Her employees would be delighted to see her talking to anyone other than herself and her dog. She thought there had been discussion recently of committing her.
“Well, maybe. If I have time, and the shop isn’t busy.” She had no further argument, and she was fairly certain that they both knew it.
“Great!” David said. “I’m sorry, I have to go. I want to get this lap in before I head into work.”
“Okay.” Ellie felt a small twinge of regret. She was grateful he hadn’t pushed anything, and she realized that it felt nice to talk to someone else, if even for a few minutes. She was making progress after all.
David waved as he turned around.
After a few moments, Ellie turned around to watch him. He was keeping a steady pace and soon was a speck in the distance. Ellie pulled on Skipper’s leash. “C’mon, bud, it’s time to head home.”
She started home, dragging a reluctant Skipper the whole way.