I shook my head, dispersing the accumulated clutter that builds with time, knocking down the cobwebs veiling the memories, and dislodging the dust that dulled the colors until red was no longer deep and flowing.
I feigned a smile. “It’s been a long time since I’ve escorted anyone new around my house.”
Julia’s blue eyes glowed as she peered over the banister and up to the third level. “What’s up there?”
“Nothing really.”
“You have an entire floor for nothing?”
It wasn’t nothing. At one time it had been everything. “With over ten thousand square feet, there’s a lot of room for nothing.”
“How many bedroom suites?” she asked.
“Five, all on this level,” I added.
Julia’s head shook. “Why so much space?”
“Because it’s never enough.”
Her smile dimmed. It wasn’t a radical change in her beautiful expression, but I saw the way the light in her eyes faded. “Is that the title of your memoir—never enough?”
“I think that one is taken.”
“Every title is taken. When we add the byline ‘Memoir of Donovan Sherman,’ it will be unique.” She looked down the multiple hallways. From the landing there were three options that didn’t include up or down. To the far left was the hallway leading to my suite. In the center, two more suites could be reached. And to the far right, another two, including the one I had in mind for Julia.
“When I purchased the house, I had it gutted, expanded, and redone,” I said. “Suites seemed to be the thing to build. My architect believed that should I decide to sell, the suites would increase its value, making it a viable bed and breakfast. I’m not interested in selling.” I reached for her hand. As we touched one another, I immediately regretted my move and let our connection drop.
Even so, the tingle remained.
Red sin.
“This way,” I said, leading the way to the south wing, my thoughts filled with the woman at my side.
From the first time I saw Julia standing half-frozen along the road, I was pulled toward her. In all honesty, it happened before I saw her. It was as I found her car.
Never in my life had I been called a hero nor did I deserve that title. Never did I seek out the stranded or misguided to lead them to the straight and narrow path of goodness and safety. My motives were usually more self-gratifying and less altruistic.
And yet seeing the empty car buried in the snowbank, I felt an unexplainable urgency to search. With worsening conditions, when a sane man would have driven to the safety of his home, I slowed my speed and peeled my eyes through the darkening sky and blinding blizzard.
I didn’t know her name nor did she know mine, and yet once she was in my arms and I laid her down in my truck, I wanted to keep her.
A saying from my childhood came to mind: finders keepers.
I found her.
Julia was mine, and I wasn’t going to let her go.
Over the last eleven years, I’d reined in that all-consuming desire.
I’d refocused my needs away from the unthinkable to the goal of obtaining things. It didn’t matter what—I wanted it and took it.
I’d concentrated day and night on what I did well and made what I did better, more profitable, superior and grander than before. As I pushed to succeed, the name Sherman, one that was barely known or recognized, became equated with power and savvy in the world of high finance. Fifty-million-dollar deals became one hundred million. One hundred million became one billion. I moved up and over those blocking my path toward success.
I made enemies.
Some enemies became friends.
Others remain embroiled in their adversarial role.
Or perhaps it was me who was the adversary.
It’s the way I preferred to see it.
On the offensive, the predator ready to attack.
In general, I kept my distance, always appearing as the facade of the man society required me to be. The cloak of normality grew heavy at times, too heavy to maintain.
This home became my retreat, my place away from the world, a place where I could safely examine and overcome those things that needed to stay hidden.
It wasn’t because bringing light to that darkness would endanger my career—although it would. It was because to succeed in this world, one must be the lion appearing as the gazelle—quick and sure-footed, aware of one’s surroundings, and gentle enough to approach.
Is that the way Julia sees me—safe to approach?
I wasn’t.
Am I simply luring her closer for the kill?
I didn’t know. This was unfamiliar territory.
My senses were on alert.
Everything about her stimulated them—the perfection of her beauty, the scent of her perfume, the energy in her touch, the melody of her voice, and the memory of her taste.
Will having her present alter my mission for better and more, or will I find that drive also applies to Julia?
My need to succeed was my reason to wake each morning. I required that incentive to move beyond the darkness. This house provided my solitude and a place where I could allow myself to slip into the shadows.
That was why Julia should also rescind her decision to accept my offer.
She should move to the guesthouse or back to Chicago.
My home was a bubble where I kept the memories that mattered without any outward sign of those people, places, or things having ever existed. It was also secluded. I’d orchestrated that on purpose by buying five- and ten-acre lots and demolishing most structures.
It was easier to keep urges suppressed when there wasn’t another soul for miles.
I wasn’t a hermit.
I interacted with people at the office, in meetings here in northern Wisconsin, around the country, and around the world. I traveled and played nice, always with the plan to make it back here to face my demons alone.
Few people entered my bubble though I did have help.
Mrs. Mayhand, a widowed woman I’d known for a long time, came to the house once a week while I wasn’t home and filled my refrigerator and freezer with a week’s worth of easy-to-warm meals. Her daughter, Margaret Curry, drove Mrs. Mayhand, and while her mother cooked, Margaret cleaned the unlocked rooms. Jonathon, Margaret’s husband, cared for the landscaping near the house. This time of year that meant he plowed my lane and driveway. During the spring, summer, and autumn, he tended to the lawns and other landscaping. Farther away, beyond the main house and the nearby structures, the surrounding acres were left to nature.
If a tree fell, it remained a habitat to house chipmunks, mice, snakes, and insects. Pine needles and leaves fell in the autumn and created nutrition for the undergrowth. Saplings sprang to life wherever their roots held them. Wolves, foxes, and deer were some of the more prominent mammals that called my land home.
I preferred them to the two-legged kind.
There were few people I trusted enough to allow them inside my bubble.
As I peered down at Julia by my side and as we passed the locked door of another suite, I couldn’t come up with a reason why I’d chosen to trust her and invite her into a place where so few had been welcome. I didn’t know Julia McGrath and yet as we briefly touched only moments ago, it was as it had been upon seeing her car, as if a gravitational pull existed between the two of us, two masses in motion lured toward one another.
My negative energy was attracted to Julia’s positive energy and—I believed—vice versa. In physics, our speed would increase, drawing us closer, faster and faster until neither of us could slow the progression. Ultimately, we’d collide, the cosmic blast decimating everything within its pull.