Read Online Ashleigh's Dilemma by J. D. Reid - Free Book Online Page B

called the power company and the first tree service company she could find in the yellow pages. It was the first time she had heard Patrick speak.
    She hadn't thought much of him then – a laborer with a wide smile that was meant to charm her, she supposed; well, ultimately, it had charmed her; she admitted that , at least. But getting to know him was hard. Ashleigh was an aerospace engineer; she was good at math and all things complicated. Her work consumed her. She was smart; she knew she was smart, but the simple things often evaded her. She didn't relate to people very well. Patrick filled that gap, though; not good at math, perhaps, but good at almost everything else, particularly with people. They were very different; at first, she didn’t like that, she thought that two people who were so different couldn’t possibly get along, not in the long run – and if not in the long run, why bother with the short run she had once reasoned. They complimented one another, she knew; that sometimes works, too. That is, after all, why she'd called him after their almost terminal argument almost six months earlier. I'm the forgiving one, she thought – but knew that was a lie.
     
    It was the pine that had drawn her back to him; the pine he had planted to replace the one that had fallen.
     
    “So I got us General Tso's Chicken, Singapore Noodles, Moo-Goo Gai Pan for you, Chicken Fried Rice, and four Spring Rolls.”
    “It smells good.”
     
    When Patrick wasn't cutting down trees and clearing brush, or planting new trees and staking them in place, he was writing short stories and sometimes the odd poem. He had written a story about the two of them walking in the park and he'd written her a poem for Valentine's Day the year before. She didn't like it at first – she didn't like the idea someone was writing about her, that she was being thought of like that, being studied so carefully. But she was used to the idea now. She could recite the poem he'd written. It was often on the tip of her tongue.  At the most unpredictable times a stanza or two would cross her mind and she would shake her head and inwardly blush, and smile at her foolishness.
    She found the words he'd chosen beautiful and yet puzzling. She still wasn't sure what they meant :  “The towering pine pins heaven, my love, as the snow slowly lowers down the mountain.” What could that possibly mean? Her pine fell in the storm. He'd cut it up and took it away and planted another one. But there had been no snow and no mountains. So, it was a metaphor, but of what? One day she'd have to ask him. Maybe it didn't mean anything; but she knew it did. She just couldn't figure out what. It was frustrating, as is everything to do with Patrick.
    That argument they'd had in those early nearly self-destructing days? It went something like this... “I don't like it! It feels like you’re watching me... You're... You're... obsessed by me!” Yes, yes, she did sound like that- Nasty . It was her temper; it sometimes got the best of her. “It's just a poem; just words.” “But I don't like it!” “You've never had anyone falling in love with you before, have you?” She hadn't; but it didn't help, not then. She didn't realize the significance of what was happening to her until later, in the spring, when the pine began to grow: the soft needles and the scent.
     
    Patrick topped up his glass with the last of the beer and cryptically said, “The pine will one day fill your yard, that and the Magnolia.”
    He was being puzzling again , but now she liked it; she had grown to like it.
    “I probably won't be living here when that day comes.”
    “The time is now – almost now. I can see the day coming. You and I...”
    She got a fleeting glimpse of what he meant and it startled her. She blushed deeply and turned quickly away so he wouldn't notice.
    “Ashleigh...?” he called her back.
    “When do you want to eat?” she asked over her shoulder; “Do you want to eat now or