“Not sure how long, but for now,” she quietly admitted.
Sadness had chased off the surprise, the girl standing there looking like the sight of me might make her cry, those big eyes watery and lips doing this trembling, distracting thing.
And fuck. I wanted to reach out. Stroke the lines of misery that marred her gorgeous face. Tell her I was fucking sorry. If I could take back every horrible thing I’d done, I would.
Wouldn’t change anything though, would it?
I would always be the same man underneath.
She glanced down and then jerked her attention right back up, another spear of shock seizing her expression. Though this time it was softer. A little hurt and a lot wistful. “You have a baby.”
“What?” My brow pinched in confusion, my mind struggling to catch up. Took me about two seconds to realize what she’d focused on—the box of diapers I’d grabbed for Ian. I had the urge to hide them behind my back or some stupid shit like that. Like worrying about her thinking I had a kid should even register as important.
But there I was, rushing to clarify, “No . . . No . . . I mean . . . these aren’t for me.”
Stammering.
Tongue tied.
Big, bad detective reduced to putty by a pretty face. But it was the only face that had ever mattered.
She shook her head a little bit, fighting for a smile to rise over the heartbreak muting that light that had always glowed from her. “You don’t need to explain. It’s none of my business.”
I swallowed around my unease, explaining anyway, needing a reason to keep her longer. To make her stay while I figured out what the hell I was supposed to do. “I mean, they’re . . . they’re not for my kid. They are for Ian’s baby boy.”
She pinned another one of those feigned smiles onto her mouth, one-hundred percent forced, pretending like everything was just fine when it was clear that it was not.
“What you do with your life is none of my business. I’m sorry I asked . . . I just . . .” Her brow pinched in regret, the girl tripping over her thoughts, and she squeezed her eyes closed and gave a fierce shake of her head. “It’s just been a long time and seeing you here caught me off guard. That’s all.”
I edged closer, not even able to stop myself. Not sure that I wanted to. “Maybe that’s exactly what you should do. Ask.”
What answer I’d give her, I wasn’t sure.
Her face pinched in more of that honesty. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“Excuse me.” We both jumped when the cashier lifted his voice, all kinds of irritated considering the two of us were completely oblivious to anything else but standing there staring into the past.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she mumbled.
Tearing herself from that tether I could feel stretching between us, she balanced her small bag next to the card reader.
“Twenty-seven, thirty-two.”
Hand shaking, she fumbled to get a card out of her wallet. She swiped it and fidgeted like she was counting the seconds until she could make a break for it, while I stood there trying to figure out a way to get her alone.
Just for a few minutes.
I wanted to know how she was.
Who she was.
If she was happy.
“It says your card is declined.” I tore my attention from the spiral of thoughts going down in my mind and whipped it to the prick who was looking at Izzy like she’d committed some sort of felony.
Just as fast, I darted my gaze to her, catching her in the moment she was slamming those eyes closed.
Like she was expecting this result but had still been praying for a different outcome.
“Oh, I-I guess I brought the wrong card,” she stammered. She dug into the paper sack and pulled out the lipstick. “Can you take this off, please?”
Her voice lowered, embarrassment rolling off her like a disease. For the barest beat, she glanced over at me.
Hoping I hadn’t noticed the exchange.
Highly unlikely.
The cashier rolled his eyes.
Little fucker.
I had the urge to reach out and grab him by the collar. Like he was raking in the dough? I forced myself to hold back, not to say anything.
Still, that thunder in my chest was growing louder by the second.
I could feel it collecting speed, something severe gathering at the horizon of my mind.
He re-rang it. “Twenty-two, ninety.”
He ran the card again, and she was already wincing before the punk had the chance to make her feel any worse, her card clearly being rejected again.
Defeat dropped her shoulders, and there was no missing the dejection that fully took her over. Looked like she wanted to crawl under a table and disappear.
Leaning around her, I handed the cashier my card. “Put the lipstick back on.”
She whirled on me. “I don’t need any handouts.”
Pain and defiance reverberated with the words.
I shook my head, not sure what situation she’d gotten into, but whatever it was, I didn’t like it a bit.
Didn’t like any of this.
“Not a goddamned handout if I’m helping out a friend.”
A friend.
That was probably an insult, but anything else would no doubt send her raging.
“You forgot your card, remember?” I cocked my head, giving her an out.
“Maxon, please, just don’t—”
I set my hand on hers to let her know it was no big deal.
The least I could do.
But that was a mistake, too, because at the contact, a fire consumed me whole.
Fucking flames and heat and need.
Everything coming alive in an instant.
I jerked my hand away, feeling like I’d been sucked into a vortex. Tossed thirteen years back in time.
Izzy froze beneath it, drawing in a shattered breath, and the cashier had swiped my card and handed it back to me before she’d regrouped and had the chance to argue.
The girl was clearly as shaken as me.
He handed her the receipt. She grabbed it and the bag.
She barely slowed to toss a whispered, “Thank you,” over her shoulder before she was bee-lining for the double-sliding doors.
I wanted to shout out for her, beg her to wait. To give me five freaking minutes.
But Ian was relying on me. Couldn’t bail on that.
As hard as it was, I forced myself to stand there and pay for the diapers, my attention flying toward the door about fifteen times during the transaction, and I let loose just as many silent curses when she disappeared out of it.
As soon as the little prick handed me the receipt, I grabbed the box and darted after her, jumping between two old ladies pushing carts, leisurely doing their shopping in the early afternoon, dodged a few stockers hauling in boxes, and basically took the store like it was my own personal obstacle course.
I almost laughed.
My entire life had been nothing but a long string of hurdles. No finish line in sight.
Except for Izzy.
She’d been my beginning. The girl had breathed her beauty and grace and goodness into my being. Made me think I could be something better. Saw me in a way I’d never seen myself.
In the same way, she’d been my ending.
My collision.
The breaking point of who I’d been and who I’d come to be.
By the time I made it out the door, eyes hunting the parking lot, an old, beater of a car rumbled to life toward the far end of the lot. It jerked out of the spot, engine sputtering and a cloud of exhaust billowing into the air as it lurched into drive.
I struggled to peer into the distance.
To get a read on the license.
But she was gone before I could make sense of her return.
Disappearing in a haze of smoke and dust.
Just like she had then.
Two
Izzy
If you could be anything when you
grow up, what would you want to be?
It was a question I would venture to say most every parent had asked their children, at least I knew it was a topic my parents had loved to visit.
Maybe they’d just always been hoping for a different answer.
Most kids typically responded with things like a doctor or a teacher or maybe even a rock star.
That answer had always come so easily to me.
I’d wanted to be Maxon Chamber’s wife.
Pathetic, right?
But that’s what happened when a four-year-old girl fell in love with the troubled boy-next-door. The boy who made her heart swell and hurt at the same time.
She became infatuated. She believed they were destined. That together, they made each other better. That they could overcome anything if they stayed by the other’s side.
It’s what I’d done.
I’d followed him around for years, nothing but a pest, nipping at his heels like a puppy, praying one day that boy would notice. I’d made up whimsical stories about him, somehow tricked him into a fake wedding in the meadow under the trees, and I couldn’t imagine a different outcome than that one I’d believed in as if it’d been prewritten.
Maybe it hurt all the more when I realized believing those things only made me a fool. Chasing after something that was never really there. When I realized that destiny was nothing but a fake, half-witted dream.
Only thing certain?
I’d never forgotten his face or those eyes or the heart I’d prayed would find something better, even when I’d come to accept that heart could never belong to me.
On top of that?
I’d never imagined in a million years that at thirty, I’d be standing in a dentist’s office, getting ready to beg for a job.
Praying no one would notice the tears that had been streaking down my cheeks. Praying even harder that the world might actually right itself, considering I’d never in all my life felt so off-kilter.
I had to pull this off.
I needed this job.
God, I needed this job.
That declined credit card was proof of that.
Panic still thunderin’ so hard I could feel it in my veins, I approached the reception desk. “Hi, I’m Isabel Lane. I have an appointment for an interview at 1:30.”
When I introduced myself, I pasted on the prettiest smile I could find, one that had never felt so brittle or fake.
Especially when my lips were coated in the same rose-petal pink lipstick that Maxon had just paid for, swooping in like some kind of devil or deliverer, I couldn’t be sure.
Something about it felt ironic.
The man being there to buy me a stupid tube of lipstick and not when I’d needed him most.
“Oh, hello, Isabel. You can go right in, down the hall, second door on the right. She’s waiting for you.”
“Thank you,” I murmured, pulling in a deep breath and hoping it would pull in a load of confidence with it.
“Good luck.”
“I’m gonna need it,” I said.
On wobbly legs, I moved down the hall, trying to refrain from reaching out and letting the wall help me along, my heartbeat still a clatter, running wild from the mere sight of him.
Didn’t even want to admit the way I’d been struck by his touch.
The overwhelming rush of lust that had slammed me from out of nowhere.
So gorgeous I’d momentarily lost function when I’d found him standing there, like a vapor in the recesses of my mind that had suddenly materialized.
Foreboding and arrogant and imposing.
That was all mixed up with that charm and the stupid adorable dimple in his cheek, those two things far more dangerous than the others.
When I made it to the second door, I drew in a steeling breath.
I could do this. I’d have time to fall apart later, but right then, I needed to focus on what was important.
I peered inside to find a woman sitting behind the desk, dark, frizzy hair and readers perched on her nose.
I lightly tapped my knuckles on the jamb.
Her head popped up.
“Hello, I’m Isabel Lane. I believe I’m up next.”
I wondered if my smile was wobbling as badly as my knees.
“Come right in, Isabel.” She stood and extended her hand over the desk. I tried to remain steady when I edged inside. “I’m Helen Montoya, the office manager and head of HR.”
“It’s so nice to meet you,” I told her, voice wispy and thin. I was searching all over for confidence as I returned her handshake.
She almost laughed, her attention dropping to where our hands were connected. “You don’t have to be nervous.”
“Oh.” I jerked my hand away, realizing it was sweaty, and wiped it on my skirt.
Wow, was I ever making a great impression.
Light laughter tinkled from her. “Or maybe it might be this humid weather. It’s so thick, I thought I was going to have to swim to work,” she said, sitting down and gesturing to the seat across from her.
Fumbling, I sat down, adjusting my skirt and clasping my hands tight on my lap. “Oh, yes, that might be the humidity. I’m also a little nervous,” I added, peeking over at her.
She smiled a soft smile. “No problem at all.” She glanced at my resume on her desk. “So, I see you previously worked in a dental office in Idaho?”
“Yes,” I said, probably sounding a little too eager.
“And what were your responsibilities there?”
I shifted forward, my knees angled to the side. “I did scheduling and appointment confirmations, checking in patients, answering phones, all the typical things in the office.”
“Good, good,” she said, glancing at my resume.
I sat forward a little farther, nerves rattling through my senses. “On top of that, I handled the office’s marketing . . . managed the website and some of the promotional flyers and graphics. Illustrations and that sort of thing.”
“That’s wonderful.”
“Thank you. I enjoy the hustle of the office, but I have to admit, I was really proud of that part of the job.”
She lowered the sheet of paper, one side of her mouth lifting at the side. “You’re an artist.” It wasn’t much of a question, and my thundering heart decided it would be a good time to give a little kick.
“I . . . well . . .I . . .” I stuttered.
Goodness, I sounded like a blabbering fool. I clenched my hands tighter like my own personal reprimand. Do not mess this up.
“I guess I would have liked to have been,” I murmured.
God, that was probably stupid, too. The last thing you were supposed to do in an interview was admit that you’d prefer to be doing something else.
“But you don’t have to worry about me doing a good job here. If I’m doing a job, I’m committed to it. One-hundred percent.”
I was inching forward again. At this rate, I was gonna fall off my seat.
She chuckled again and took off her glasses. “It’s okay, Ms. Lane. I totally understand. I think it’s safe to bet most of us might have different dreams or goals that we missed.”
A somber, appreciative smile pulled at my mouth, my chest squeezing and pulling, all the emotions I battled to keep down trying to break their way free. “Thank you. But I really do enjoy working in an office.”
“I like you,” she said.
I could feel the redness creeping up my cheeks. Great, now I was blushin’, too. “Well, I always hope to fit in. Help my co-workers. Make patients feel comfortable if they’re nervous for their procedures.”
“You mean, you’re nice?” She lifted her brows a bit playfully.
A tiny bark of laughter escaped. “I try to be.”
She blew out a strained sigh, and I almost jumped out of the chair, or just slid to my knees to do some begging because I could almost see the regret at having to tell me, in spite of all of those things, I wasn’t a good fit.
“Can you start on Monday?”
she asked instead. “I know that’s only a handful of days from now, but we’re in a bit of a bind, and we could really use you around here.”
I shot to my feet. “Oh, yes, of course.”
Why was I standing?
Oh my gosh.
Think quick, Izzy.
I moved for the desk and put out my hand. She shook it, chuckling.
“Thank you so much, you won’t regret this.”
“I think you’re right.”
I pulled my hand away. In all my excitement and relief, it flailed a little too far to my right. My eyes went round in horror when I realized it’d struck something—a glass vase filled with a bouquet of roses and lilies that was tipping to the side.
“Oh my gosh,” I all but shouted, scrambling to catch it, grabbing it right before the glass smacked the desk. Water splashed out, a river of it heading straight for her pile of patient folders. I righted the vase and then rushed to gather the stack before they got wet.
“I’m so sorry. Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry.”
She was laughing more. “It’s fine. It’s fine.” She grabbed a couple paper towels from a cabinet behind her, and I was laughing, too, as we sopped it up.
“You can put cleaning up the messes I make on the list of my qualifications.”
She glanced up, smiling wide. “Good. Considering I spilled my tumbler of coffee I brought in this morning, I’d say we’re going to make a good team.”
God, was I really getting cut this break? With my performance, she should have sent me packing. Instead, she was looking at me like I was the one who was saving her.
“I really am grateful for this job.”
“I’m excited to work with you. Now go on, take a little breather. I’ll see you at eight a.m. on Monday, if you can come in a little early to fill out the paperwork?”
“That would be great,” I said, shaking her hand once more, though this time giving it a squeeze with the other hand. I started backing away, then gasped out and whirled around when I ran into something hard.
A man.
A man wearing light blue scrubs and a bright white smile.
“Whoa there,” he said, hands darting to the outside of my shoulders to steady me.
Pieces of Us: A Confessions of the Heart Stand-Alone Novel Page 2
