Been In Love Before: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

Five
    Sunday morning Robert Macgregor sat on the old wooden chair on the porch of his seaside bungalow and sipped his coffee as he watched the glory of the beautiful sunrise over the Keys. Bobby had left hours earlier, but the elder Macgregor was lingering as long as he could. He didn’t want to leave.
    He secured the boat to the dock for rough weather, shut off the hot-water heater and the main water supply for the small house, locked the doors, and closed the shutters at the cabin. Time to go, he thought. Then he started on his long drive home to Boynton Beach, some five hours away.
    The narrow two-lane road leaving Key West had but a few cars heading north from the southern Keys. He loved life in the Keys. On the drive home, he had a long time to think about his life.
    Maybe I should just move down to the cabin permanently and then head north for family events. Bobby can run the store. I have everything I need here at the cabin. I can hunt and fish anytime I like, and the town of Key West is only minutes away. That makes sense. Yes, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll just wait until after the wedding before I tell everyone. There is plenty of time. Time to get on with my life. He could always come up for a few days to see everybody, including his new grandson. Now content and with a plan formulating in his mind, he began to hum an old Harry Chapin song, “Mail Order Annie,” a familiar tune from his childhood. It was one of Tess’s favorites. Yes, that is exactly what I’ll do.
    Five hours later Robert turned off I-95 at the Boynton Beach exit and headed west on Boynton Beach Boulevard. He passed a golf course and a country club and then a canal, and finally a cornfield. He made a sharp turn onto a narrow, dusty road running beside the canal, which led to his home. At the end of the dead-end road, he stopped in front of a solitary house with a view of the seventh fairway of the nearby golf course on the other side of the canal. He liked to tease his younger brother Ryan, the doctor, because he too had a waterfront home. The only difference was that Ryan had paid millions of dollars more for his.
    Robert’s two-bedroom cottage was small, with a porch at the front and the back. The front entrance featured a leaded glass door, which he had salvaged from the demolition of an old mansion nearby. He had also secured matching twin French doors for the rear, off the living room. There was a broad expansive deck off the back, with a boat dock and a fishing pier in the canal. He had everything he needed right here and knew he would miss it when he moved to Key West.
    “I’m home,” he said aloud to the empty house as he walked inside, and upon hearing no response, he repeated himself. “I’m home!” A mouse scurried from the mass of discarded cartons of Chinese food in the corner of the kitchen.
    The pungent odor of half-eaten pizzas, emanating from a pile of pizza boxes stacked high on the kitchen table, welcomed him as he entered. Inside, the floor of the house was littered with newspapers, dirty clothes, fast-food containers, beer bottles, fishing gear, and soda cans. It was hard to tell the color of the carpet underneath all the clutter inside the house. The kitchen sink was filled with half-empty soda and beer glasses, and stacks of plates with strands of spaghetti still clinging to them.
    The master bedroom contained an unmade king-size bed with the bedsheets bunched together at the end of the mattress. Pillows were scattered about the floor. The bed was pushed against the window, the heavy, dark mahogany headboard still stored in the garage attached to the house.
    He looked around the small house and knew what Tess would say if she saw it. Since she had passed away two years earlier, he had kept meaning to clean the place up, but never seemed to find the time. His house and his life . . . were in shambles.
    He looked around his home. Just because I’m living alone does not mean I need to live like a pig.