by Ev Bishop
Brian’s footfalls made no sound on the lush carpet installed in this part of the building to mute noise and increase privacy, but his arrival didn’t go unnoticed. Just as he neared the hallway that would take him to his own workspace, his father’s big doors swung shut and latched with a dull thud. Brian turned the corner toward his own office, again unsurprised. Extended leave of absence or no, what would’ve been shocking was if Duncan interrupted his precious early morning routine to do something as mundane as welcome him back. But he hadn’t called his old man upon his return to town either, so he couldn’t really fault him.
He sank into the deep chair behind his leather-topped desk and swiveled in a slow circle. His secretary—bless her—had obviously kept track of his return date. There were fresh flowers by his window and the coffee pot in his coffee station had been set to brew by timer. The aroma of a rich espresso blend he especially enjoyed filled the room. He might never have been gone at all. Then a sheet of yellow legal pad paper caught his eye, and he had his first surprise since returning to work. A bona fide note from his dad. Wow.
It read, in full:
Let’s do lunch.
– Archer
P.S. I can lend you whatever you need to get set up again while you’re waiting on those insurance losers to send you a check. Three percent interest. That’s better than the bank.
Brian snorted and reread the note. It practically made a guy need a minute to get over the sentimentality . . . but it was a gesture, an acknowledgement of his loss at least, and Brian did appreciate it. The “Archer” bit cracked him up though, like it would kill the guy to refer to himself, or be referred to, as Dad in the workplace.
Brian powered up his Mac and sent an equally tender response. “One o’clock, Don’s. Got it covered, thanks.” Then he got down to work. He had about two hours before the place would be buzzing like a madhouse; he’d power through his eye-bleed of an inbox and get himself up to date as much as he could before then.
The little restaurant was jam-packed, and it took Brian a moment to locate Duncan.
“Hey,” Brian said, sliding into a seat across from his dad.
“Hey yourself, sons,” Duncan said, and Brian half smiled at the old joke. When Callum left the firm, leaving only Duncan and him—one son—working there, Duncan had started calling Brian “sons” as a nickname.
“What looks good?” Brian asked, turning his head to peruse the menu written in chalk across one wall.
“I’m having ribs.”
Brian nodded and requested the same when their server delivered a complimentary basket of artisan bread and whipped butter.
Duncan, to Brian’s shock, was interested in where Brian had traveled and what he’d seen—because he was thinking of going on a trip himself.
“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” Duncan said when he saw Brian’s surprise, then reached for a piece of dark rye bread.
“So they say, but I’m not sure I believe it,” Brian said. “I like to work.”
Duncan grunted his agreement and changed subjects abruptly. “So you’ve seen your mother, I take it?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
Brian fiddled with the paper sugar packets on the table, even though he took his coffee unsweetened and hadn’t ordered one. “And . . . I don’t know. She seems well.”
“You’re really going to make me ask?”
“She’s going with a better lawyer after all.”
Duncan dropped his chunk of rye and stared. “So she’s . . .”
Brian narrowed his eyes. “What exactly do you know, Dad? Were you aware that while I’ve been agonizing over what I should do, she’s been rethinking things?”
“She said that?” Duncan retrieved the fallen rye and buttered it vigorously.
Another server arrived and deposited large plates of delectable smelling roasted meat, but Brian’s appetite had waned. He scrubbed at his face with his hands.
“I don’t get you guys. Has this all been some kind of weird game or power play or something?”
Duncan took a mouthful of the garlic mashed yams that accompanied their meals, waggled his fork like he was about to give a lesson, then swallowed. “Relationships are always a game, sons. Always. And the number one rule in the marriage game is that women say one thing and always mean another.”
“That’s . . . ” Brian shook his head and lowered his own potato burdened fork without tasting it. He recognized the relationship game comment. He’d made it himself more than once, but hearing it out of Duncan’s mouth it sounded ridiculous. Jo and Callum didn’t play games. Cade and Noelle had learned not to. Even his mom . . . it wasn’t fair to say Caren played games. She just didn’t always do or say what you expected. She thought differently than other people.
“You don’t agree?”
Brian shook his head again. “I don’t actually.” And he was as surprised by that as Duncan seemed to be.
“Well, it just goes to show a man’s gotta have four kids to get one smart one.”
“And you had three. Good one.”
Duncan washed a mouthful of ribs down with a big swallow of iced tea. “So your mom said she’s taking me back?”
“No . . . she said she’s thinking of not divorcing you. I don’t know what that means.”
“Will you ask her?”
“No, I won’t ask her. Ask her yourself.”
“You’re better at talking to her than I am.”
Heaven help them all, that was probably true—and it didn’t say very much. At all. Brian sighed, then recalled something Katelyn said and sat up straighter. “Mom’s your wife, for better or for worse, until she isn’t, and that makes your relationship—talking about it, fixing it, demolishing it—your job, not mine. I’m the kid.”
Duncan looked up from ripping two rib bones apart. “Is that so?”
“Yeah, that’s so.”
Duncan shrugged. “And what about the Wilkerson contract? Is that your job?”
Brian had to smile, but it wasn’t without sadness. The old man was the game he always accused everyone else of being—and Brian could suddenly see he was losing. He wanted his wife back, but didn’t have the guts to tell her himself or to do the work. “Yes, that’s my job.”
And just like that the conversation moved to work stuff, and Brian was pleased to find his appetite returned. Before he headed back to the office, he ordered a peanut butter pie to take home to Katelyn and the kids. She might not have a lot of time to see him right now, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t drop off treats.
Chapter 20
Recent rain had left the air smelling sweet and heady with hints of pine and earth and water. The soft duff trails on the forest floor were dry, however, protected by the heavy canopy of cedar, hemlock and various other conifers. Katelyn, panting slightly, slowed to a walk and pressed a hand to her ribcage to ward off a stitch. “That’s enough for me today.”
Brian slowed immediately, falling into step with her.
“No, no, you don’t have to stop. I’ll walk back.”
“Not a chance. Being with you is the highlight of my day.” He shook his head. “I mean . . . well, no, that is what I mean. I’m really glad we’re going to keep running together even though we’re back to work.”
Katelyn’s cheeks were warm from more than just the workout. She actually believed he meant his words. “Ditto.”
“Ditto?” he repeated, then laughed. “How heartwarming.”
She smiled and tugged at his long-sleeve T-shirt—the closest thing to physical contact with him she’d allow herself now, the most touch she could trust herself with. “You know what I mean.”
Brian’s eyes crinkled. “Yep, I do.”
They walked on in easy silence. “So how are things with your mom?” she asked eventually. “And the first days back at work with your dad?”
He shrugged. “Surprisingly good. I took your advice.”
“I gave you advice?”
“
Words of wisdom, actually.”
Katelyn laughed hard. “Okay, now I know you’re teasing.”
Brian grinned too. “No, seriously. I used your ‘I’m a kid, your relationship is not my job’ line with both my parents at different times. It worked like a charm.”
“You know, I always wonder about that . . . Does stating that kind of truth change the person who hears it or does recognizing it and putting it out there just somehow change us?”
“Good question, but I have no idea.” Brian shrugged. “Maybe it doesn’t matter which?”
“Yeah, it probably doesn’t.”
They were comfortably silent for a breath or two, then Brian asked, “How was the kids’ weekend?”
“Fine, I guess. Dropping them off and picking them up was a simpler process than usual, but because I’m a freak, that has me more on edge than if there’d been a small blow up.”
“You think it’s just a calm before a storm.”
She nodded. “I was, I am, a bit worried about fallout from the Spring Fling.”
Brian’s stride lengthened, though consciously or unconsciously she wasn’t sure. “Makes sense you’d feel that way.”
They were almost back at River’s Sigh. The newest cabins at the back of the property, in various states of construction and renovation, were still out of sight, but Katelyn knew they were there, just beyond the next curve in the trail. Brian stopped walking abruptly, as if he too realized their run was coming to an end and he, like her, wanted to extend it.
“Tell me the truth?” he asked.
“Of course. About what?”
“Are you going to get back together with Steve? Go back to him?”
It was so far from whatever she’d expected, it took a moment for her to register what he was asking. When she finally answered, her voice was so shrill she didn’t sound like herself. “How can you even ask that? It’s like the one thing, the only thing, I do know. I’m not going back to Steve. Ever. Ever.”
Brian raised his eyebrows, but nodded. Then he plunked down on a huge fallen log near the edge of the trail. He held his water bottle out to Katelyn. She took the bottle, but didn’t drink from it.
Instead, she sat down beside him, straddling the log so she could watch his face while they talked. “Sorry if I sounded mad. I wasn’t—just . . . shocked.”
Brian took his water back and chugged it, squinting into the unseen distance. She nudged his forearm softly and tried to ignore the fact that she was counting how many times she’d touched him today. He started at the gentle pressure, looked down at her hand, then into her face. It was a rare moment: for once she had absolutely no clue what he was thinking.
“It’s just . . . I don’t know. Lots of women repeatedly leave their husbands, abusive or not, only to end up going back, not seeing their decision through. It’s sort of a classic move actually.”
Katelyn warred against the indignation surging through her. She was not “lots of women,” but she suspected this wasn’t really about her. Or she hoped it wasn’t. “Um, I’m not sure what you’re getting at, but trust me, if I was ever going back to Steve, it would’ve been in the early days when it was so hard. Not now when I’m so close . . . when I know I can make it. Know I can be free.”
“That’s what I thought, or maybe hoped is a better word, but I see it all the time at work. Women—and men—leaving the courthouse hand in hand with the same loser that minutes earlier received a restraining order from the judge. And my mom’s no different. I thought I didn’t want to represent her in the divorce because I didn’t want to be stuck in the center between my parents, but now I don’t know. Maybe it was really because I knew she’d backpedal again, that no matter how serious she’d seemed or how public she’d made her last decision to leave him, it was too good to be true.”
It was quite a speech and it made Katelyn wonder all the more about the real Brian Archer. She was so used to this thoughtful, quiet, puzzling side of him that she almost couldn’t reconcile it with side of him she’d known all those years ago and that Callum and Jo still seemed to identify with: Brian as a playboy, Brian as a shallow, womanizing boy-man.
“I know how it must look, or I can imagine, when you see the same case, different face, time after time . . . and I don’t know tons about your parents or their marriage or whatever, but all I can say is despite whatever similarities you might see, I’m not them. If you can’t separate me and my life and my decisions from case studies and what you see at work or in your family of origin, we’re going to have a problem.”
He didn’t respond right away, which made her tight with anxious, irritated energy. She sprang to her feet and started walking again.
Brian caught up with her in one leap. “Case studies and family of origin. You sound like a textbook.”
She kept moving. “Well, I’ve read enough stupid books on how to do this that I could probably write one.”
He reached out and touched her shoulder, and she faltered and came to a standstill. “I’m sorry if my question hurt you. I wasn’t trying to say you would go back to him, or that I thought you were any kind of specific person. I just . . . I just needed to know.”
All Katelyn could feel was the heat of Brian’s hand, the strength of it, on her shoulder. It was a weight that somehow lightened all the things she carried around with her. Suddenly she wanted, more than anything, to repeat herself, to stress her words.
She wanted Brian to truly, deeply, positively know that she wasn’t going back to Steve, not just because he was a friend who cared, but because whether she liked it or not, her feelings for Brian were growing, were changing . . . or maybe they weren’t, maybe they’d always been romantic. Either way, she couldn’t just ignore them anymore.
It was on the tip of her tongue to ask Brian why he needed to know she wasn’t going to back to Steve, what the answer meant to him, and she opened her mouth to speak. Then closed it again. She knew full well why he wanted to know.
The only true question, or the only one worth pursuing, was what, if anything, she could do to slam this door? She had to protect them both from a complication they absolutely didn’t need.
She shifted uneasily. “We . . . I . . . should get going.” Before the words were fully out of her mouth, she shifted into a dead run. And this time she didn’t make it a silly game. She pumped her arms and legs like her life depended on it. If the change in her demeanor struck Brian as odd, he didn’t say it. He just followed her lead, keeping close, but maintaining a distance as if he was not only running with her, he was also guarding her back.
Chapter 21
Katelyn was beyond grateful for their early morning running dates, but at the same time, they made her all too aware that seeing Brian every other day for thirty to forty minutes was not enough for her. Not even close. She missed him with a hollow dull ache in her center that felt like hunger. But she was back to working full-time at the shop now, and she coveted the two hours or so between getting off shift and putting the kids to bed to spend quality time with them. Then she spent a few hours at her sewing machine on piece work before falling into bed herself.
Brian, likewise, seemed busy readapting to a regular work schedule again. He left for work, as far as she could tell, pretty much the minute he took his runners off—maybe he even showered and dressed at the office—and was never back until after she’d returned from work.
She wondered though, busy or not, if there was more behind Brian’s decreased visits than just a hectic work schedule. Maybe he too was hyperconscious of their hours apart, feeling the lack, counting the days, and missing being together so acutely that it was terrifying. Maybe he, like she, was hoping a bit of distance would, well, create some distance. Or maybe he didn’t feel anything remotely like that at all. She honestly couldn’t tell which she hoped was the case. And she still didn’t know if she’d been right or wrong to quell her impulse to tell him how much he was starting to mean to her when they had their awkward “are you going back to Steve” chat
.
Then late Friday night, just as she was stretching her arms and rotating her stiff neck, thinking she should call sewing quits for the night, he texted. “It has been too long. What are you doing tomorrow?”
It made her a total geek, but she loved that he used proper punctuation and grammar even when he texted. “No plans. S has the kids.” She inserted a frowning face. “Doing something sounds great!” She added a smiley.
A second later her phone rang.
“Hey,” she said a bit too breathlessly. She could’ve kicked herself for being so obviously thrilled to hear from him.
“Hey yourself.” The smile in his voice made her realize he was as happy to be talking to her as she was to be talking to him. She forgot about feeling self-conscious, and went warm and melty inside instead.
“So what’s your idea of a perfect date night?” he added before she could say anything else.
“Um . . .”
“Sorry, let me rephrase. I mean if you were dating, hypothetically—what’s your dream date? Like, not with me.”
Except she was afraid her dream date was to have one with him. Damn it. She might have to use her free to be a wimp card after all. “Why?”
“Well, it’s been a long while since I planned a big night and I may want to date sometime again in my life. I don’t want to get too rusty.”
Katelyn inhaled sharply, unsure whether it was relief or disappointment that made her breath hitch. “Well, okay, as long as it’s for charity.”
He laughed, giving her the stalling time she’d been aiming for.
