“Get down here and help me with these weeds.” She tossed a spare pair of gardening gloves his way. Obediently, he got down there and started plucking weeds from among the peas.
“I’m not wrong,” he said after they had worked side by side for a while. “She told me herself she wants to move back to New York. If I start seeing her, and we hit it off, and she leaves …” He left it open, because the rest was understood. If she left, he’d be moping and brooding for months in the wake of her departure, just like he had with Tara. The other thing he didn’t say was that he suspected this time would be even worse, that the blow to his hopeful heart would be dire enough that he wouldn’t recover as easily. He wasn’t sure how he knew that, since he and Gen had only been on one date. But his instinct told him that once the idea of her settled into him like the smell of the grass or the feel of the sun on his skin, she would persist in his heart in ways he wasn’t sure he could handle.
“Ry,” his mother said in a tone that was uncharacteristically patient, “you can’t be afraid of things because you don’t know if they’ll work out. How are you ever going to find what you’re looking for that way?”
“I don’t know that I’m looking for anything.”
“Of course you are. I see how you are with Lucas and Michael. You want kids, you want a family of your own. That’s obvious. What’s also obvious is that you’re never going to get it if you’re so scared of being hurt that you don’t take any risks.”
It irritated him that she was right, and he felt that irritation like a burr under his skin.
“That Lacy Jordan was never going to be the one,” Sandra went on.
Ryan looked up from the peas in surprise—first at the very mention of Lacy, since she’d been absent from his thoughts for weeks now, and second at the fact that his mother knew about the crush he’d harbored. A crush that seemed silly and distant now.
Sandra chuckled. “You thought I didn’t know about that torch you were carrying for Lacy Jordan?” She waved him off. “Of course I knew. And I’ll tell you what else I know: The biggest attraction for you—aside from the fact that she’s pretty—is that she’s lived here her whole life, same as you. You were playing it safe, but that’s just stupid, because she and you aren’t a match. The two of you ...” She shook her head. “It’d never be right.”
He plucked at the weeds and wondered whether she was right. Had he been interested in Lacy just because she was as anchored in Cambria as he was? Maybe, he had to concede. But it was more than that. He’d thought of Lacy as a safe bet not only because she wasn’t likely to move away, but also because she wasn’t interested in him and never had been.
It was hard to crash and burn when things never got off the ground in the first place.
I’m a wuss, he thought. Then he said it out loud: “I’m a wuss. Aren’t I?” He didn’t look up from his work with the weeds, and in a way, his reluctance to meet his mother’s gaze further proved his wussiness.
“You sure are, son,” she said, chuckling.
Ryan wondered why she couldn’t just be comforting and reassuring like other mothers.
Chapter Seventeen
Gen was about to give up on Ryan. She’d put herself in his path so many times he was lucky he hadn’t tripped over her, and still—nothing. No phone call, no invitation to dinner, no suggestion that they take a sunset walk on the beach. It hurt, no question. There was no sense pretending she wasn’t disappointed, after longing for him and then, finally, kissing him, and finding that kiss to be everything she’d imagined.
Who wouldn’t feel the sting of rejection?
She’d just about decided that he was a lost cause when she got a call at the gallery on a Monday morning and was surprised to hear his voice.
“How’s the artist like his skylight?” he asked without a greeting, and without preamble.
“Ryan?” she said.
“I was just wondering,” he went on. “It was my first skylight. I wanted to know if it was working out okay.”
And goddamn it if her heart didn’t speed up just hearing his dusky voice. Stop it. You are not going to get all moony over a guy who doesn’t want you. Screw that.
“It’s fine,” she said, keeping her voice as businesslike as possible. “The light in the barn is much better now. Thank you again.”
To her own ear, she sounded like a telemarketer, or maybe a pollster.
“Well, good,” he said. “You’re welcome.”
He didn’t say anything else for a while, and she stood behind her desk, wiping her clammy palms on her dress and scolding herself for her physical reaction to him. As though she could control it.
“Well. I’m expecting a client in a few minutes, so …” It was a lie, but she needed to get off the phone because, might as well admit it—it hurt to talk to him knowing that he didn’t want her.
“Ah. Okay. I won’t keep you,” he said. But he still didn’t hang up. After a few more seconds of awkward silence, he said, “Um, Gen. I … ah … I was just wondering if you’d like to go out again sometime.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Another dinner, maybe. Or we could go riding again—you were really good at it for a first-timer. Or … I don’t know. Whatever you’d like to do.”
Now she was the one who was silent for an awkwardly long stretch.
“What took you so long?” she demanded finally.
“What?”
She’d gone from cool and businesslike to confrontational in a heartbeat. She hadn’t planned it, but her emotions were seesawing.
“We went out,” she said. “We kissed. You kissed me. And I thought it was a very good kiss. And then … nothing. Do you know how many lame excuses I made to show up at your house, thinking that if you saw me, if I were right there in front of you, then you’d make a move? Jeez. What the hell was your problem?”
At first, she was horrified by the words coming out of her mouth. She’d intended to play the part of Cool Woman Who Couldn’t Care Less, but she’d ended up portraying Vulnerable Woman Carrying a Torch. Then she thought, screw it. This is who I am. This is how I’m feeling. He can take it or leave it.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Okay.”
“I should have called you.”
“You’re right. You should have.”
“But I’m calling now. I guess I just … I had to figure out where I was going with this, what I wanted to do.”
“And did you?” she demanded.
“Yeah. I figured out that I really want to see you.”
Still in offensive mode, lips pursed, one fist planted on her hip, Gen nodded. “Well, it’s about time. Pick me up tonight at seven.” She hung up on him before he could answer.
She looked at the phone in her hand and smacked it down onto the desk.
“Goddamn right,” she said.
Ryan didn’t pick Gen up at seven. He didn’t pick her up at all, though he wasn’t to blame. The blame lay squarely with someone else: Gordon Kendrick.