Revisiting The Past
Part 12
By Kellie
"I was so pissed off that you hadn�t called or come to the cabin like I had asked you to in the note I left. I was getting ready to call and let you have it with both barrels," she answered with an exasperated sigh. "Plus I was dealing with Claire�s innuendoes about you still being involved in the business, so I was pretty hot. That�s when Carlos showed up."
"Hmm�" he responded.
Michelle turned and looked in his eyes, "What�s that supposed to mean?"
"I�m trying to decide if I should thank Carlos for sparing me your wrath or throttle him for helping Claire manipulate you into leaving me."
Michelle slapped at his arm, "Are you insinuating that I�m difficult when I�m angry?"
"I think I�ll take the fifth on that one," Danny answered.
She rolled her eyes and shook her head as she turned to look at the falls. "After Carlos left the cabin, Claire talked me into transferring to med school at the university she had been working at in Chicago. A few phone calls later, it was all lined up. I called the club and made sure you would be busy for a few hours and went home and packed my things."
"That�s when you left the note I actually did find, telling me you were leaving me and going to Chicago with Claire," he added as he watched her nod affirmatively. "I called so many times, left messages on the answering machine�even had terse words with Claire when she wouldn�t put you on the phone."
"I know � but I knew that if I heard your voice, I wouldn�t be able to go through with it. When Rick called and asked why I wouldn�t talk to you, I told him the whole story. Until he came to Chicago yesterday, he hadn�t said a word to me about you unless I asked. Somehow he understood, but he made it clear from the start that he didn�t approve of my decision."
"Rick�s the one who convinced me not to go to Chicago after you. He said that I needed to let you come to me � he didn�t tell me what was going on; but the implication that there was more to all of this than I knew or he could tell me has always been there." Danny placed a kiss on her neck before continuing, "Rick told me that he knew that somehow, eventually you�d come back and we could straighten this mess out. He told me I needed to wait until you were ready to deal with everything. Of course, I was beginning to think that would never happen."
Michelle leaned her head back against his shoulder, "I can�t tell you how many times I picked up the phone and dialed the airline ticket counter, but then I�d remember why I was doing this. After Claire impersonated me to hire that lawyer, I made it all the way to the gate before I chickened out."
"Why didn�t you come back then?"
"So much time had passed � this wasn�t days or weeks since I�d left, it�s been a couple of years. I guess I was afraid you had moved on and wouldn�t want me back," she explained as a tear rolled down her cheek.
"Honey, listen to me � I promised I�d love you forever and that has never changed," he answered as he turned her face towards his and wiped the tear from her face with his thumb.
"I know that now." Michelle looked into his eyes; "We�ve lost too much time because of other people�s interference."
"I know, but we�re together now and we�re not going to let anything or anyone interfere again," he said before kissing her forehead.
Michelle stood and walked over to a patch of daisies growing beside the rock they had been sitting on. Danny came up behind and put his arms around her as they silently looked at the falls together for several minutes.
"I�d almost forgotten how beautiful it is here," Michelle remarked.
"Almost as beautiful as you," he remarked as he took the daisy she had picked from her hand and ran it down her arm. Michelle reached behind her ran her hand through the hair at the base of his neck.
"So, you know I�ve thrown myself into my work since I left, what have you been doing?"
"Well, I expanded Millennium."
"Rick told me about what a success the expansion was when I asked about you not long ago. I knew you would be successful," she remarked.
"There�s something else you should know."
"What�s that?"
"Right after you left, I was so angry�I did something you�re not going to like," he said as he released his grip on her and stepped back.
Michelle turned to face him as she asked, "What did you do, Danny?"
"Carlos brought this guy Xeno to the club one night � he was the guy who supposedly did the hit on my mother. " Danny�s voice wavered as he tried to figure out how to tell Michelle what had happened, "I got him to confess�Carlos offered to take care of him for me and I let him."
