“But if he really did go out with her...”
“You thought so at the time.”
“But I also thought Frank was telling me the truth when he said I’d loved having sex with him.”
“Your trust had been broken, Faye. By Reese. Everything that came after...you were injured, working through broken trust.”
“If you’re trying to convince me that I did nothing wrong, that this is all Reese’s fault...”
Bloom’s quick shake of the head stopped her words. “You made choices—I’m speaking of after that night you went out. Your choice not to tell Reese what had happened. Your choice to marry Frank. What happened before that, the things that Frank did—those were in no way your fault. Period. And for the rest of your choices, you’ve taken ownership. You’re being accountable. But maybe too much so.”
Her choices were her own. No matter how many times she’d been told differently, she still felt like being too comatose to protect herself that night in the dorm room was her fault. But Frank’s behavior hadn’t been.
Two years of counseling had helped her see that much, at least.
“Maybe if you find out that your instincts were right, that Reese had been seeing someone else, you’ll start to forgive yourself for what you see as the mistakes you made afterward. Or at least give yourself credit for knowing that something was wrong. And look at what came later with a little more compassion for yourself.”
Give herself credit.
Wow. The effect of those words on her was huge. She felt it in her stomach. In the shakiness in her knees.
She’d always been afraid that Reese had gone out with the other girl. That he’d stood her up for the other girl. But she’d also always had doubts. What if he hadn’t and she’d ruined her life out of gossip and immature jealousy?
Sometimes she’d hated Reese for being unfaithful. And then others she’d hated herself for believing someone else, not trusting him and then acting so foolishly upon that assumption.
But what if instead she’d acted straight from the heart? What if she’d believed because her heart had been telling her so all along? What if she hadn’t been acting out of wrongful jealousy, but from truth?
It wouldn’t change the things that had come after.
But knowing would change her.
And a healthier her would help her son.
“I have to ask him,” she said, looking Dr. Larson right in the eye. “Because if I find out I was right, it’ll restore some of my trust in myself, which will spread to Elliott. How can I help my son trust himself—and me—when I don’t practice self-trust? Kids learn most by example.”
The therapist smiled. “Exactly,” she said.
And just like that Faye knew what she had to do.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
REESE COULD HARDLY refuse to meet with Faye on her home turf—citing the non-professional location as a reason—when he’d been the first one to request a meeting at her home.
She’d left a message on his office phone, which he’d received when he’d settled at his desk with a cup of coffee Friday morning.
“I need to speak with you at your earliest convenience, during one of my days off, at my home if at all possible.”
He listened to her message again. She was setting the stage for something big. The tell was not only in the odd note of...something not good...in her voice but also the extent to which she was controlling the details.
In sweats and a T-shirt, he’d been planning to spend the first part of the morning in the fitness center. And then out in the house, helping with equipment care. Maybe not the usual routine of a fire chief but Reese was, and always had been, a firefighter first. He didn’t want to lose that edge in the midst of administrative duties.
And that was just what he was going to do.
But he returned the call first.
* * *
HE WORE JEANS, a white polo shirt and boots to the meeting. Regulation boots. They were a conscious choice, part of his working arsenal, to remind him that the meeting was between boss and employee.
Not jilted man and ex-lover.
So she’d been unfaithful to him. That reflected on her, not on him. He’d been receiving offers ever since. From beautiful, intelligent, successful women. Had even married one of them. He was alone by choice.
The house was impressive, one of the antebellum mansions that faced the ocean. His truck was dwarfed in the long, circular drive.
With an eye on the front steps leading up to a porch with white wicker furniture, he exited the vehicle.
If nothing else, the porch looked inviting and in good repair. He took that as a good sign.
The sun was shining. He’d just finished a delicious lunch at the house with his crew. And it was Friday. A quick meeting with his paramedic and he’d be on his way to see a buddy from college to go over the series of gasoline fires that he was no closer to solving. A fleck of white paint. A size-ten shoe. And now two dead chickens.
Gasoline in a circular format—always—with a small pile of ashes in the center.
Someone had to be buying the gas. He’d been to every station in the city and outskirts, asking if anyone remembered someone filling up a gas can. His perp could just as easily be using various stations, or siphoning from cars anyplace between there and LA. It was what he would do if he wanted to escape notice.
“Reese?”
Almost to the front steps, he turned at the sound of Faye’s voice off to the left.
She’d come around the side of the house—what was it with her and the sides of houses? She’d dive-bombed him in his own driveway after her son had confessed to setting the fire in the bathroom at The Lemonade Stand.
“I’m out back,” she told him. “It’s private. Suzie and Elliott are at the Stand so we won’t be interrupted.”
She wasn’t having him in. Another boundary. He welcomed it.
More curious now than anything—hoping he’d be able to resolve whatever issue she had with ease, keeping things nice and clean—he followed her through a six-foot-high, heavy, wrought-iron gate.
Even the backyard grabbed his attention with its charm. Though the entire space was obviously closed in by the wrought-iron fencing, all he could see were perfectly manicured eight-foot shrubs around the perimeter of the luscious green grass. In the center was a fountain with seats around it. Interlocking pavers surrounded the fountain, and beyond them were flower beds that rivaled the botanical garden he’d visited the previous summer in LA.
Faye led him farther into the yard, to a small gazebo. Taking a seat at a glass-topped, wrought-iron table, she motioned him to another chair.
Pouring him some ice tea from a pitcher on a silver tray, she added two slices of lemon from a small glass bowl.
“It’s already sweetened,” she told him, sliding the drink his way.
They’d both preferred sweet tea and she used to make sun tea on the roof of her dorm. At home, she’d made it on the run-down back stoop of the house she and her father had shared.
He’d always loved her dad, though maybe he was embellishing his memories. A man without a father—especially one whose father had run out on him and his mother—tended to glom on to other father figures.
He wondered again what had happened to Len.
“Thank you for coming,” she said, ignoring her own tea.
If she didn’t want tea, she’d made it for another reason. Faye’s control of the situation, as though she’d made a list and was following it, was nothing like the woman he’d known.
Even her ponytail looked completely controlled. Like not even one hair dared to not follow protocol.
Her expression was serene, calm. Blank.
And he tried to go no further down than that. His trip to the beach the previous Saturday
, the cleavage he’d glimpsed in real time, not just in memory, had given him several nights of unrestful sleep.
He knew she was in a sundress, though. The soft blue, white and pink cotton hugged her slender waist and curved out over deliciously perfect hips...
He was a man, after all. And had followed her to the backyard, with that butt right in front of him the whole time.
“I need to speak with you about something very specific without my peers being able to see through the window of your office,” Faye said.
He didn’t like the sound of that.
Still somewhat at ease, he understood. Helped by the fact that he’d reached the same conclusion the week before.
Spreading his hands wide, he scooted further down in the chair, getting comfortable. A boss move to put her at ease. “I told you at the beach that the team and I are here for you. Anything you need. You’ve already proven that you’re an asset to us. When you join the Santa Raquel Fire Department, you join a family.”
Professional family.
No way were he and Faye personal family.
He glanced at the old house where she was living. The white paint on the surface of the structure, the rain gutters, the shingle roof, all appeared to be in as pristine condition as the backyard.
But those bars on the windows...
“I assume those bars have a release latch,” he said, looking at them. She’d said she and her son rented out the apartment on the top floor. Three stories up. Too far to jump. “And that there’s an emergency fold-down ladder in every room...” They hung on the windowsill, allowing occupants to exit quickly and safely in case of fire.
He felt her movement, her agitation, but didn’t turn from his view of the house.
“There’s no latch,” she told him. “They open with a key.”
“And the key’s in the lock in each room?”
“No. I have them all. The whole point of living here is because I can sleep at night knowing my son can’t get out.”
She’d told him about the nightmares. Had mentioned bars. But...
He looked her right in the eye. “Faye, these old houses, they were built before code and while there’s a lot you can do to make them fire-safe, you’re still more at risk. On the top floor...you and Elliott would be trapped...you have to have a quick exit...”
She stared at him, those big blue eyes seeming to see too much. She didn’t say anything. Just nodded.
Frustrated by her lack of immediate attention to this very real danger—one never had warning when a faulty hundred-year-old electrical wire would burst into flame—he tried to figure out what the nod meant. In the old days, it would have meant acquiescence. He had a feeling that had changed.
“Suzie had a sprinkler system put in when she had the wiring redone,” she said after a long moment of silence.
Rapping his fingers on the table, he decided to leave the matter alone for the moment. Sprinkler systems were expensive but effective. The “new wiring” comment appeased him, as well. He was pretty sure she’d chosen the statement deliberately.
“Sometimes there are no easy answers and you have to weigh all sides of a situation,” she said, looking toward the house. “In those cases, I find that you have to determine which avenue is the least dangerous, given the circumstances, and take that road.”
Avenues and roads. He preferred it when she didn’t speak in metaphors.
“In this case, the chance of my son throwing himself out a window while sleepwalking is far higher than that the house will catch fire. I have the keys to the bars in easy reach for me, not him, in every room.”
She’d told him about one episode. Maybe she’d alluded to others, but... “How often does he sleepwalk?”
He’d thought the activity to be an anomaly, not the norm.
“Lately, once or twice a week.”
And then he remembered more... “You said a lot of times he meets some ordinary physiological need and goes right back to bed.”
“Correct.”
“How do you know he’s not just awake and needing a trip to the bathroom?”
Back when they were together, he’d have asked her how she knew her son didn’t just wake up needing to pee. They’d been able to talk openly about everything back then. Her period or cramps. The time he’d had diarrhea for three days and had preferred death.
“You know,” she said. “You can stand right in front of him and he doesn’t react. He doesn’t see you. If you stand directly in his path, he’ll walk right into you.”
“But he doesn’t walk into walls?”
“Sometimes. A lot when we first moved here. But he knows the apartment now. I guess his brain remembers.”
He was studying her now, house and yard forgotten. Trying to get inside her head, where he’d once been welcome. To do that, he had to be able to envision the life she led.
“Do you make certain that the floors are cleared of anything that might have been put down or left during the day, just in case?”
“Yeah.” Her gaze softened. It was the first time he’d seen that look since before they’d broken up. He’d kissed her, long and hard, before she’d left his car to return to her dorm room. He’d had no idea that was going to be the last time he saw her.
A sharp jab of pain brought him back to his senses.
What in the hell was he doing?
That was when he remembered, he had no reason to get back inside her mind, her world. A quick self-check confirmed that he didn’t want to be there, after all.
He took a sip of his tea and pulled his ankle up to rest on his knee, avoiding her eyes.
He was there for business.
The End.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
FAYE HAD LEARNED the source of her strength the moment she’d held her newborn son in her arms for the first time.
Elliott was it.
She could do anything if it was in his best interests. If it was for his good.
She’d thought she was bearing Frank’s atrocities because it was best for their son that they remain a family. Because Frank didn’t beat her, or even belittle her in front of the boy.
She’d thought that part of her life was completely separate from her son. Elliott had never said a word to the contrary.
Not until the day he’d understood that he never had to see his father again.
She’d talked to a counselor before breaking the news to the then six-year-old boy. She’d been prepared for many eventualities: his anger, his fear, his refusal to go with her, his blame. They hadn’t prepared her for his one-word response.
“Good.”
She’d promised herself, after she’d left Frank, that she’d never go into a situation unprepared again. The promise had been comforting. She’d wanted to keep it.
But it was unrealistic. She could control many things but not everything.
Just as she’d been unable to predict Elliott’s reaction the day she’d told him about the divorce, she could not possibly know how the next moments in her life were going to play out.
And now, two years later, she couldn’t predict how Reese was going to react to the questions she had to ask. She felt like she might throw up, though.
He was in the middle of a work day. He wasn’t going to sit around wasting his time.
And she wasn’t sure she could work herself up to this a second time. She’d been awake far more than she’d dozed the night before, playing everything out in her mind.
The time. The surroundings. Where everyone would be. The tea. That last touch had been that morning as she’d stood in her bathroom and opted for light makeup. She sure as hell didn’t want him to think she was coming on to him. Which was why she’d worn her “old lady” dress, as Elliott described it. It embarrassed him when she wore it. She
was planning to change before picking him up from the Stand.
Her palms were wet so she touched the tea glass, letting glass sweat and nerves mingle.
Look him straight in the eye. That was next on her list.
Deliver rehearsed line one, came after. There was much she couldn’t predict, words she’d have to come up with on the spot. But she’d already planned out—actually had written it out that morning after dropping Elliott off—all that she knew going in.
Reese’s dark eyes were slightly hooded. He wasn’t sure of her. Wasn’t completely comfortable. But she didn’t think he seemed all that worried, either.
He was not going to be happy.
“I have something to tell you. And then to ask you.”
Line one had looked good on paper, had sounded better in her head.
Too late to change course. She had a plan and sticking to it was the way to keep herself healthiest.
“But before I get to that, I have a question to ask you.”
His answer wouldn’t affect Elliott’s paternity—but it mattered to her self-trust, and thus her son’s ability to trust himself.
Reese’s warm hand was so close to hers on the table. If she moved slightly, her knee would be touching his. She wanted to. So badly. More than she’d ever imagined.
She hadn’t planned to feel like this.
Panic pulsed through every vein in her body. Painfully. Taking her air.
For a second she sat suspended in a space where only throwing herself in Reese’s arms would bring her breath. Life.
He’d been her everything. There was a level, deep down, where they had met and everything was all right.
It had been there from the very beginning.
She needed to meet him there. Immediately.
“Ask away.” He’d turned his head, still looking at her but not quite head-on. This man didn’t trust her.
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