He shrugged.
“Am I imagining things? For some reason, I have the distinct impression you aren’t talking about Tara.”
Jake slowly turned, tossed a package of buns onto the counter. “You’re right. I’m not talking about Tara.”
“Are you talking about me?”
He clenched his jaw and nodded.
“Well, isn’t that rich!” she said sharply, tossing down the knife. “Suddenly I am too wrapped up in myself?”
He picked up his wineglass, took a swig. “Well, now that you mention it—there doesn’t seem to be any us with you. Dallas, Robin? Since when?”
“I don’t know!” she exclaimed hotly. “Evan keeps telling me about a new vice presidency—”
“Yeah, I knew he figured in there somehow.”
“Just stop it, Jake! This insane jealousy—”
“Not jealousy, baby. I despise him.”
“Well, stop despising him. You really have no reason—”
“Like hell I don’t. But that’s not important. What’s important is that we have to figure out where we are going, Robin. What are we doing? Anything? Or am I the only one in this? Why the hell are you thinking of going to Dallas?”
“Please don’t start this now,” she said wearily, turning back to the salad.
“Not now? Then when? When do we decide what we are doing?”
“Why do we have to decide anything?” she cried to the ceiling.
“Because I love you and you are talking about moving to fucking Dallas,” he said low. “We have been dancing around this ring of fire since we left your father’s ranch.”
“Don’t push me, Jake,” she warned.
“I don’t push you, Robin, I never push you,” he said hotly. “Maybe that’s what I’m doing wrong!”
She turned so quickly to dispute that ludicrous statement that she knocked the salad bowl to the linoleum. “Dammit,” she muttered and went down on her knees.
Jake joined her, helping to pick up the lettuce and radish. They cleaned it up in cold silence; when Robin stood again, Jake caught her by the wrist. “Look,” he said, his voice much softer, “I love you. And I can’t help that I want more.”
Robin bit her lip, looked down at the bowl of spoiled salad.
“I have an idea,” Jake was saying, brushing a tress of hair from her temple. “Let’s take Cole and go down the coast for a couple of days. Maybe do some fishing. But let’s just get out of Houston and decide what we’re doing. We owe that to ourselves at least, right?”
Yes, they owed it to each other. Jake’s question was legitimate—it wasn’t his fault that that she didn’t know the answer. “Where?” she sniffed.
“I know where there are some nice fishing cabins down around Port Aransas. We’ll just go down there, turn off the phones, and talk about what we want to do.”
“Okay,” she murmured, nodding. “Okay. When?”
He shrugged. “Tomorrow afternoon? We can make a long weekend of it. I can finish up what I have left to do at your house in the morning, and then we’ll go, okay?” he asked, gathering her in his arms, holding her tightly to him.
“Yeah,” she sighed and buried her face in his shoulder. “That would be great.”
The next day, as planned, Jake finished up the work on her house while Robin packed for the long weekend and made a call to Lucy, to tell her she’d be out of town for a few days.
“Oh yeah? Where to this time? London? Madrid?”
Robin laughed. “Port Aransas. I’m going fishing.”
“Fishing!” Lucy exclaimed. “You don’t fish! You never fish!”
She never did anything before Jake came along. “I’m going to learn.”
Robin and Jake said good-bye to Zaney when he left early that afternoon, his destination, “to see a dude about a band, man.” Then Robin reviewed the alarm instructions with Grandpa for the hundredth time since buying the place, in case he felt the need to come over and check on things. Which he often did. But for what, exactly, he couldn’t say. And finally, she paid Raymond, who gave her a dozen gargantuan tomatoes to take along to the coast.
They had just finished packing her car (the tomatoes posing a bit of a problem) when the phone rang. “Thank heavens, I’m glad I caught you,” Evan said breathlessly when Robin answered. “What is this about you going fishing?”
“I’m just getting away for a couple of days,” Robin said as Jake walked in the front door. Self-consciously, she pushed her hair behind her ear and turned away from him.
“Well, you need to postpone your little outing. We have to get to Minot right away.”
“Minot? Why?”
“Lou Harvey has a new twist we need to consider, one that may make this look a lot better than we originally thought. But American Motorfreight has already offered for Girt’s outfit, so we need to wrap this up before she accepts.”
Robin laughed. “Girt’s not going to accept their offer—they lowballed her.”