Axel:A Bad Boy Romance(8)

"All right. It's your choice," Hayden said with a shrug. "Go get on the treadmill."



Axel got on the treadmill and pumped the speed up to six miles an hour.  His legs pounded beneath him as he increased the incline. He felt his  mind relax as his every spare bit of energy went to keeping his legs and  arms moving. Nothing bothered him when he was training; he was like a  blank slate. Everything that wasn't the upcoming fight went away.



But he wasn't running to forget Tiffany. He didn't care about her. There  was someone else. The woman walking with Ingrid. He couldn't get her  out of his head. But as he ran the image of her disappeared as his heart  sped up.





Chapter Eight



Marie surveyed the master suite in the Hawks Mansion. It deserved its  name. Intimidation washed over her as she pushed open the heavy wooden  door. This one room was the size of Marie's entire apartment upstairs.  There were thick throw rugs on the floor and large, floor-to-ceiling  windows were covered with heavy draperies. The floors were wooden and  they creaked when she walked over them. The walls were covered in  beautiful purple wallpaper that featured interconnected lilies drawn in a  thick black line.



The bedroom was dominated by a large four-poster bed against the north  facing wall. The wooden frame was carved to resemble long, lean willow  trees. The bedpost branches spread out above the bed to form the top of  the frame from which heavy red curtains hung. They were stitched with  gold to show little birds flying diagonally up and around the curtains.  The bed was king-sized with a heavy mattress and two white pillows.



Marie reached out to touch the hand-carved bedframe. Ingrid told her she  didn't need to wear gloves. She just needed to make sure her hands were  clean and dry when she touched the antiques. She ran her fingers over  the smooth wood and then along the curtains. It was all so fabulous and  decadent. There was a huge black fireplace across from the bed and Marie  could easily imagine lying there with a roaring fire while her servants  prepared her lunch.



Hung on the wall in a golden frame was a portrait of the house's first  owner, Edith Hawks. In the classically styled painting, Edith looked to  be in her thirties. She was thin with dark hair and she was wearing an  elegant-looking black dress. In the painting she was standing next to a  well made of grey stone on a bright sunny day. There was a backdrop of  greenery behind her and her long, red hair was flowing in the wind. She  was giving the painter just the hint of a smile. She looked smart, like  she was the kind of women you turned to in a disaster to tell you what  to do.



Ingrid had told Marie all about Edith. She was the family's matriarch.  It was Edith who decided that what's now Harksburg would be a good place  for her and her new husband to settle down. Mr. Hawks wasn't sure. It  was 1762 and there was almost nothing on the land, just a small  settlement made mostly of rickety shacks. It was barely a village; just a  handful of families lived here. But the land was cheap and Edith  convinced her husband that if he created jobs, people would come to him.



So he started logging. Being right on a river it was all too easy to  ship the logs down to the sawmill. It was a good business and, just like  Edith promised, people followed. The town grew and while Mr. Hawks  dealt with the business, Edith created the town. She organized the  streets and dictated where houses could and couldn't go. She built the  library, the post office, the courthouse, and she really worked, too. It  wasn't rare to see old Edith down at the construction site demanding to  know why the men were behind schedule.



She built a school and personally went to Philadelphia to find good  teachers for it. She paid their salaries herself. She built an orphanage  and a hospital and the list went on and on. Nothing stopped her. If she  saw something was wrong or someone was being hurt or there was an  injustice she wouldn't rest until she solved the problem.



Marie looked up at the painting and stood up a little straighter  wondering what Edith would think of the woman living in her house now.  She walked over to the closet and flicked on the light.  Two-hundred-year-old dresses sat on dressmaker dummies along with modern  replicas that hung in a small wardrobe. Marie worked here now, so she  was able to lean forward and really look at the lace detailing and the  many of little buttons. She stepped up to the dummy and admired the work  and then did the same to the newer dresses. She held one up to herself  and spun around. It was black velvet with delicate lacing on the wrists  and collar. She sighed as she returned the dress to the wardrobe and  closed the door.         

     



 



She was looking at a lace veil when she thought she saw a shadow out of  the corner of her eye. She stood up but didn't see anyone.



"Ingrid?" she called out. But there was no answer. She walked out into  the empty bedroom, but there was no sign on anyone. She must have just  imagined the shadow. She gave one last look at the smiling Edith and  then closed the bedroom door and went downstairs to meet Ingrid.



The older woman was standing at the foot of the stairs glancing at her watch.



"Am I late?" Marie asked.



"You are just on time. Now, tell me your thoughts for the party."



"Okay, well I was thinking we could limit it to the downstairs. This way  we wouldn't need to worry about something happening to the antiques  upstairs. We could hang string lights from the chandeliers for soft  lighting and, if the weather permits, we could have drinks out on the  deck. There's already a table out there we can use as a bar. I also  thought we could reach out to the local college and see if we could get  any artists to volunteer to come do portraits of the party. They could  be spaced out in every room. I also thought that maybe some people could  come in period costume, but only those who wanted to," she stopped  breathlessly as she realized how she had been carrying on.



"That sounds very ambitious, but I like it!" Ingrid said. "It's fresh  and new. I bet we sell an additional dozen tickets because of your  idea."



Success wasn't easy. Ingrid liked her ideas, but now Marie had a lot of  extra work to do. This party wasn't going to plan itself. She sat behind  the computer in the office and took a deep breath. She wanted to do  well; she wanted Ingrid to think she was capable of more than just  caretaking the museum. But she felt nervous and self-conscious behind  the computer. She was supposed to be emailing the art department of the  local college to ask for volunteers, but her fingers wouldn't work. She  felt like a fraud with no real idea of what she should be doing. She  heard Austin's scoff in her head, his dismissive tone. She couldn't do  this, what was she thinking.



"Everything all right dear?" Ingrid called over.



"Yeah," Marie said with a jump.



"It's just letters to the college," Ingrid said walking behind Marie and  putting her hands on the other girl's shoulders. "Worst that happens is  they say no."



Marie smiled and took a deep breath. She knew how to write an email. She  knew how to do all of this. She was free of Austin now and she wasn't  going to let him haunt her.



At the end of the day Marie realized she had worked nonstop and somehow  had more to do. Having a party in a museum was more complicated than she  thought, but she knew she could handle it. At five she stood up  stretched out and walked into town to pick up Cate. People smiled and  nodded at her as she passed. She didn't know them, but they all seemed  to know her. Small town gossip at work, no doubt.



She passed a handsome man in a blue suit and when he smiled at her she  blushed and stared down at the pavement. But she did give him one last  glance after he had passed. Another man. She couldn't even think of such  a thing. While she had only just left Austin a few days ago their  relationship had been dead for a while, on her side anyway. She couldn't  remember the last time Austin said he loved her. She hadn't loved him  for a long time. If she had been able to, she would have left years ago.  But she refused to leave without Cate.



Finally, she had started to seriously wonder why she was still with him.  The answer was Cate and money and the fact that he would never actually  let her leave. His pride wouldn't take it. He could dump her, but she  could never break up with him. She had tried, more than once, but it had  been impossible. She had no job and no skills and only a high school  education; the best job she could get was minimum wage or waitressing.  The hours were awful and she would never get to see Cate.



She thought she could control it. She thought if she learned from her  mistakes and tried not to make him mad the fights would stop. But  nothing worked. Something that made him happy one day drove him to a  frenzy the next. He was always irritable and angry with her. Marie tried  to shield Cate as best she could, but it was hard.