“Just water, thanks.”
“Cheap date.” He took a glass from the dish drainer and filled it at the dispenser in the refrigerator door. “There are a few factors,” he began. “One, as much as I hate to move anything from just how they left it, the fact that I’m living in a shrine is wearing on me. It’s hard to disturb it, but it’s hard not to disturb it, you know?” He cracked open the door and took a bottle of beer in his free hand. “Two, I had anticipated a divorce settlement being, you know, settled soon.”
Izzy nodded as he handed her the water and took a seat across from her. “I’m stuck paying rent on the apartment until the lease runs out, plus carrying the mortgage on this house alone. Presumably either she was going to buy me out of the house, or she and the twins were going to wind up moving too. And delaying the inevitable is expensive. Especially with legal fees, plus the cost of hiring a private investigator.”
“You’re going to do that?” Izzy sat up straighter. “What do the police think?”
He looked at her strangely. “Who cares what the police think? They haven’t found them. They can hardly object that I’m not content to let this just fade into the forgotten files.”
“Is that what’s happening?”
He shrugged. “I think we’ve at minimum segued into a ‘Sorry, pal, we tried!’ phase. No one’s exactly been jumping to my defense as stepdad of the year, right? Aside from having better things to do with their time, they probably think I had it coming.”
Everything he was saying made sense. So why did Izzy suddenly feel almost panicked, as if he’d trapped her here at the table? Just over a week ago, she’d been kissing him on the overlook. But that slight should-I-be-doing-this? thrill she’d felt then was taking a different form now. She looked out into the night, wondering if any of the neighbors could see in.
No one knew she was here.
“I have better things to do with my time too,” he said softly, smiling at her.
“Paul, listen. That phone call, it was—”
“A little over the top, I know. But I couldn’t get it out of my head after I came to fix your gate and heard the end of your interview with Hallie. I have to say, that was a pretty pathetic excuse for a happy ending on your show. I had a feeling we could do better.” Oh, Paul. He was proud of himself. “Good ratings for the show are good for you, right?”
She sighed. Maybe his heart had been in the right place, but everything else about it was still all wrong. Even that day in the garden, he’d come in too late to hear her admit she didn’t like the job at all. At best, he had habitually horrible timing. With her own history of the same, they were either a perfect match or a laughably bad one.
“I was flattered. I mean, I am flattered. But—” She took a deep breath. “I don’t think a date is a good idea.”
A self-assured disbelief surfaced in his eyes, then was gone. “You said yes just because people were listening?”
“No. I mean, you did kind of put me on the spot—but no.” He held his smile, as if he thought she might be setting him up for some hilarious punch line. “Now that I’ve had time to think about it, though, without being caught up in what you were saying…”
His face clouded over. “Did I give the impression a moment ago that I didn’t mean what I said? I meant it all. Those aren’t just words to get caught up in. That’s how I feel.”
“And it’s sweet. Really. It’s just—”
He gestured emphatically toward the dining room. “Don’t say bad timing. You can’t accuse me of not moving on. You can see that I’m moving on.”
It was so close to what she’d been telling herself about her time with Paul—Hey, look, I’m moving on! And so equally insincere.
“It’s me,” she blurted out. “I’m sort of on the rebound myself. I’m not sure I’m ready.”
“I have always believed,” Paul said quietly, “that with all that self-analytical stuff, if we don’t let it hold us back, it will work itself out.” There was still hope in his expression. “I say that as a trained medical professional, you know.”
She couldn’t bring herself to humor him, but she didn’t know what to say. This was turning out to be harder than she’d imagined.
He faltered, looking down at his lap, and when he peered up at her, it was with such intensity that she couldn’t look away. “I’m sorry. I’ve been…” He gave a nervous laugh. “Those relentless DJs already called me John Denver, and now I’m going to botch this too.”
They were relentless—he had that part right. “John Denver was a great lyricist. And you don’t have to—”
He put up a hand. “I want to say this. This past year has been the worst of my life, and then came rock bottom. It’s meant so much to me that you’ve been there. Everyone else looks the other way when I come by, but not you. That alone makes me feel like I’m still the person I’ve been all along. That alone makes me believe I’ll be able to crawl out of this.”
Oh, God. He seemed to have feelings for her—not just the possibility of feelings, but actual emotions. How could she add to his disappointment when he’d already lost so much? She couldn’t help the way she felt—or, rather, didn’t feel—but had he really done all that much to deserve it? So he’d called the radio station. Plenty of other women would have swooned.
“It’s not just about me,” she heard herself say.
“Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter. Let me be there for you the way you’ve been there for me.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Then what is it like?” He threw his hands up in the air, looking so despondent that she faltered.
“It’s…” She couldn’t do it. And there was something more to this tightening in her gut than run-of-the-mill discomfort. She needed to be out of here, now. For good. Her mind presented her with an emergency exit, and without stopping to see where it might lead, she took it. “My dad—he’s sick.”
He frowned. “Oh, no. Sick how?”
What was she doing? “We’re still not sure of the, um, stage, but … well, I can tell my mom knows more than she’s letting on, and it’s not good.” Even as the words escaped her, she wanted to take them back, to start over. “They’re going to need me. My sister is starting a family, and I’m the one who’s available to help. It’ll be a lot of back-and-forth to Springfield.” She could already see the depth of the hole she was digging, but there was nothing to do but press on. “I need to focus on my family right now. It just doesn’t make sense, in my head space or on my schedule, to be starting a relationship.”
“I could be a support.” He leaned in. “I know I’m not that kind of doctor, but I know more than you might think about—”
She held up a hand. “I don’t doubt it,” she said, with surprising conviction. “But I like to do things with my whole heart, and my heart’s just not in this right now. I’m sorry.”
“With your whole heart,” he said, his voice low and impassive. He seemed to finally accept this explanation, the hint of anger receding, the will to protest ebbing away.
“I like that, the way you put that,” he said finally, smiling a little sadly at her. “I might steal that.”
“I hope you don’t need it,” she said. And it wasn’t a lie, exactly.
34
The realization that someone is not just capable of killing you, but very well may, is surreal enough that you can almost talk yourself back into a state of denial. When he breaks in through your kitchen window and you jolt from sleep to find him standing over your bed, eerily holding the stuffed elephant that signifies you’re not the first one he came to see, you wake up in more ways than one. You have two choices: You can stay, biding your time, but knowing he’ll always be a threat. Or you can go, hoping he doesn’t find you but knowing he will try.
It hardly seems fair that he’d go to so much effort to track down someone he seems to hate with an intensity he equates with love. But he is that proud, that determined to have what he considers rightly his.
Or that determined that no one else will have it.