The Alpha For Her

Chapter 12

“Jennifer James, if you do not open that damned envelope, I am going to commit a felony and open it myself.”

It was Trash Day. Jennifer had been home a week, and in that time, her phone, e-mail and text inboxes were brimming with messages from Flint. She couldn’t read them. She couldn’t face his wrath. Then she got a registered letter from Serenity.

“Three days ago I trudged that letter up here,” Lisa said. “I forced you to sign for it, and then what did you do? You stuck it in a pocket and went back to building that silly bridge. Are you ever going to open it?”

“I know what it says,” Jennifer responded, sorting through the catalogues.

“Oh, so you’re suddenly clairvoyant? Cool. I been at this job eighteen years, and I still can’t divine what’s in a personal letter. What’s it say?”

“He is going to berate me for abandoning his conference, or something like that.”

“Yeah,” Lisa said, frowning, “why’s that?”

“It’s complicated.”

“That usually means something romantic. You fall for him or something?”

“Or something.”

“That does it,” Lisa said, crossing to the bookshelf and snatching up the letter. “Federal prison, here I come.”

And so saying, Lisa tore open the letter and ripped out the contents. She stood looking, and looking stunned.

“Jennifer,” she managed. “There’s a check here. It’s a cashier’s check for – for two-hundred-thousand-dollars.”

“What?”

Lisa turned the check to her.

“What’d you do?” Lisa asked. “Or – what did he do?”

“Nothing,” Jennifer said, rushing to her and gaping at the check. “There was this contest…”

“Jennifer! You’re rich!” Lisa screamed.

“What all the commotion?” Chaz asked, popping into the room.

“Jennifer is rich!”

“What?”

Lisa and Chaz ogled the check, staring from it to Jen and back.

“There’s also a letter,” Lisa said.

“I – I can’t.”

“Then I will. It starts, Dearest Jennifer, well, that’s a nice enough opening.”

“What? Wait, let me see.”

Jennifer snatched the letter and read;

“My dearest Jennifer, for the life of me, I cannot fathom why you left so suddenly and so abruptly. Nor can I understand why you will not respond to my phone calls or e-mails. Candice and Billie managed to shed some light, and Marla had some insight, and so all that I can imagine is that you, somehow, felt that I was leading you on – manipulating, as Candy had put it.

“Dear girl, nothing could be further from the truth. It is true that I had my time as a playboy, a womanizer, but you must believe me when I tell you that all of that is behind me. Marla has been the author of that. I told you that she was an inspiration to me. I mean that in a spiritual way; and, over the past few years she has inspired me to reflect. In my reflection, I have come to realize that my ultimate goal, the thing that has driven me all my life, is the simplest, most abstract, and seemingly most elusive one; happiness.

“Meeting you, being with you…”

Jennifer let the pages fall from her hand. Her vision blurred, and she ran from the house.

Lisa picked up the letter and read.

“Should you be doing that?” Chaz asked.

“I’m already going to prison.”

“Huh?”

“Chaz, look here. Jennifer didn’t get to this part. He says that he needs to see her. That he needs to talk with her. He says that he’ll be here on the twenty-third.”

“That’s today,” Chaz said. “Should we tell her?”

Jennifer ran to her bridge by her waterfall. Heedless, she stripped off her shorts and tank, and dove into the cold pool. The shock slapped her, and forced away her tears. But it didn’t ease her heart. She swam what little she could in the tiny lake. She swam until the chill forced her out and onto the soft grass.

There she lay, naked and uncaring. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t get her brain to focus. All she could feel was how that she had so totally messed up. Born from her haunted past, her fears took over, and she chose to believe wrong, and so with wrong information, she had made such an awful decision. Her stomach felt hollow, and she felt empty.

She remembered in one of the seminars, Lois had said that we always make the best decision that we can with the information that we have, and that if that information was wrong, it was a waste of thought and energy scolding yourself. You just move on.

But how could she move on? She had had the chance at her life’s dream, and she had thrown it away. Her mind reeled, and her world spun. She wanted to cry, but she knew that if she started, she might never stop. She began to feel dizzy, and, like a child, she imagined all sorts of miraculous rescues from her wretched state.

She heard Flint’s helicopter buzzing overhead. A rope ladder extended, and he climbed down, beckoning to her. She leapt into his arms…