The Ivy House

chapter 42

“Don’t you have someplace better to be?” Noah looked at him. Chase had wandered back to Noah’s house and was now in the barn, sipping a beer as he watched his friend sand down the bubbled varnish on the little skiff.

“Work was a little slow,” Chase said and shrugged when he caught Noah’s disbelieving stare.

“I’m the president of a multimillion-dollar company, and I can take the afternoon off and visit an old friend when I want to.”

“Did you just call me old?”

“That’s not what I meant.” Chase scrubbed his hands through his hair. He hadn’t been able to sleep or think straight since his last conversation with Phoebe. It had gone even worse than the one before that. And she had thrown his words back in his face.

“Do you think I’m afraid of commitment?” he asked.

Noah looked startled and then he said carefully, “I think that in the past, you’ve been the type of guy who was offered a lot of options and hadn’t felt that any of them were right at the time.”

“You make it sound like a business deal,” Chase said.

“You look like hell,” Noah said affably. Chase knew he should have been irritated, but it was hard to ignore the truth.

“It’s Phoebe.”

Noah paused his sanding to take a swig of his own beer. “Thought it might be. What did you do this time?”

“Why do you think it was me?” Chase said. “Maybe it was her.”

Noah just looked at him.

“What?”

“Seems to me that she’s the kind of girl who wants someone who’s all in,” Noah said after a moment.

“What do you mean, ‘all in’?”

“Well, seems to me that she’s fixing up that house, trying to put down roots, and she wants to share it with someone—but really share it with someone. Not just a stranger passing through the night warming her sheets. Only thing casual about her is her decorating sense.”

“So, she’s looking for someone to be all in?” Chase still wasn’t sure what Noah was talking about.

“She’s looking for a commitment. Maybe it’s marriage, maybe it’s not. Never can tell these days, but she’s in love with you.”

“How do you know?”

“Let’s just say I know how it feels to be in love with someone and not be sure how they feel about you. And to tell you the truth, you have the same look about you.”

“But she’s ready to close up everything here and move to Los Angeles, and she didn’t even tell me. She doesn’t want me. She’s putting her career ahead of me.”

“Did you ever give her any reason not to?” Noah said. “Didn’t she get mad at you about the newspaper articles first? Did you ever give her any reason not to think that you weren’t just using her for your business?”

“She knows I would never do that,” Chase said sharply.

Noah shook his head. “Does she?”

“But why would she go back to him?” Chase was sure that it was this Dean Grant who was pushing her to go back to Los Angeles.

“Well, at least she’s getting something in return from him, right? What were you offering her? Or, more importantly, did you ever tell her what you were offering her? Remember, my friend: men and women speak different languages. You think you’re showing her how you feel, but she wants to hear it.”

“That’s it? That’s your great advice?” Chase was angry. “We’re great together. How could she not know?”

Noah shook his head. “See, different languages. You’re showing her when you need to come out and tell her. All in, my friend, all in.”

Chase thought about that. It was true. She’d never really said that she wanted to go back to California—just that it was a great opportunity. And he never asked her to stay. Or worse yet, he never asked her if she wanted to make it work. He had just assumed that she would be willing to take whatever he gave her.

“She wants me. All of me,” Chase said with some amazement. Women had wanted him before, but they had usually wanted his money or his lifestyle or some combination of both. In return, they had been willing to warm his bed, but not one of them had really wanted all of him. They had wanted to catch him.

“I think you’re finally getting it. I don’t think she bought into any of this romance-of-the-century stuff you cooked up.”

“I didn’t cook it up,” Chase began, but then stopped. He certainly hadn’t prevented it, figuring it was good for both of them. But she hadn’t wanted any of that either.

“I mean, do you think that stuff is true? This whole crazy love thing? Savannah and Leland…that wasn’t love, was it? It was just self-destructive lust, right?”

Noah smiled, a dreamy one, as he sanded down the wood on the boat. “Love takes many different forms, my friend, and when it comes to you, you shouldn’t fight it. Always seemed to me like your grandfather and Savannah Ryan were all in.”

Chase stood there glowering as he thought about it.

Noah laughed and continued with his sanding as he asked, “So, what are you going to do?”