Chapter 6: Moving In?

It was 11:30 by the time we got back to the house. I pulled in the garage beside the old car I was restoring. We went into the house through the door that led from the garage to the kitchen. It wasn't that I was afraid to be seen with Rachel but there was no sense in giving the old biddy across the street something to gossip about.

I was barely inside the door when Rachel pressed against me and gave me a kiss that about knocked my socks off. When we broke apart slightly she gasped, "I've wanted to do that all day."

I gave her a cockeyed grin, "And just who was stopping you?"

She turned serious. "We need to talk." (Oh-oh, I thought. That's the way Karen started out. I started to worry.) "Come on," she grabbed me by the hand, led me into the living room and sat down on the couch. I sat down beside her and she moved to the other end. "I can't think if you're that closed to me," she said and smiled. (I began to relax. Maybe this wasn't another Karen scene.)

"Pete," she said slowly. "How do you really feel about me?"

"That's really easy," I said. "Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's not so easy. I mean, I know I like you and I'm really happy when you're around. Maybe I even love you but I thought I loved Karen too and look at how that turned out. I guess maybe I'm more than a little scared of making another mistake."

"I know how you feel because I'm scared too," she said. "When my marriage fell apart I thought it was the end of the world. Then when George came along I thought maybe was all I deserved. I mean, I knew he was weak but I could be fairly sure he would never cheat on me. I never even thought of you as a possibility. After all, you were married and, as far as I knew, fairly happy. I never knew how to judge Karen. When a bunch of us got together to talk she was always putting you down but I mostly thought it was all talk. Then when she left and I saw how broken up you were I felt sorry for you. I knew you would have questions about how to raise Cindy as a single party and thought if I came every so often it might help. Then I began to really like you and that scared me a lot. I didn't want to a bounce-back replacement. The other night when you came over I thought it would be a good chance for me to let you down easy. You sort of shot that down. I mean, you were so nice and caring and so obviously badly hurt that I just couldn't do it. And now I'm really mixed up and don't know what to think."

I thought for a moment, "Rachel, if you want to break it off and just be friends, I'll understand. I don't know, maybe we're both so broken that it would never work. But I think that if we just go slowly and each give all that we can give it might turn into something great."