“He told you he’s divorced, right?”
“Yeah,” I said slowly. “How did you know?”
She waved her hand at me dismissively. “I figured he did. I mean, most people are divorced, right?”
She gave me a tight smile. I sat up straighten There was more.
“What did you find out?”
“Nothing. I just...I looked him up on the Internet. I was just curious about him.” She pointed to a folded-up piece of paper sitting on the coffee table. “I personally don’t think it’s a big deal. But I know you will.”
I reached over and grabbed the paper and opened it. It was a printout of an article about Ian from People magazine. Spy Master Thrills Booksellers, the headline read. I glanced up at her.
“Second paragraph from the bottom,” she sighed. I turned my eyes back to the article.
Ebullient and gracious during the discussion on craft, Alistair Barnes clams up when asked about his personal life. Although he won’t comment on his divorce three years ago, he did confirm that he hadn’t seen his ex-wife since she was hospitalized in Seattle for complications from childbirth just before the split.
I folded up the paper and tossed it back onto the coffee table, trying to maintain a normal breathing rhythm. I clasped my hands together over my knee, disgusted with myself that they were shaking.
“I’m sorry, Portia,” she said. “I shouldn’t have shown it to you. I just didn’t feel right knowing something you didn’t know.”
Wish more people felt that way, I thought. “No, you did the right thing.”
Beauji skimmed her hand over her head. “I’m a horrible friend.”
She had tears in her eyes. I remembered a story Davey had told me about how she cried for an hour when the pizza guy brought ham instead of pepperoni, and decided to tread carefully. “What are you talking about?”
She reached behind her and pulled a tissue out of the box on the end table. “You really like this guy and I’ve ruined it. I confronted him on the hair-tucking thing and totally embarrassed you—Davey reamed me a new one for that, let me tell you. And now I’ve shown you this.” She motioned to the printout on the coffee table and blew her nose. “I keep ruining your life.”
“You’ve hardly ruined my life,” I said.
She reached over and grabbed my hand. “You know my intentions are good, right? You know I’m just insane because I’m about to have a baby, right? On a normal day, I’m okay, right?”
“Beau, you’re fine.” I patted her hand. “Thank you for being concerned, but it’s really not a big deal.”
She laughed and wiped at her eyes, then squeezed my fingers. “Portia, don’t let this ruin anything. I’d feel horrible if I ruined everything for you.”
I shook my head. “You haven’t ruined anything.”
Her eyes darted over my face. “So...you’re still going to see him tonight?”
“Sure,” I said, running my hands over my legs. “Yeah. Why not?”
“It was three years ago, Portia. And you don’t know what happened.”
“Am I arguing with you?”
“I like this guy,” she said. “He’s good people. I can tell. I mean, how many guys would put up with a cranky pregnant lady knocking down their door at the crack of dawn?”
I raised an eyebrow at her. “I know of only one.”
I took a drink of water, tried to squelch the sinking feeling in my gut.
“He’s not like your father.”
I smiled as brightly as I could. “You’re right. He’s not.” Beauji sighed and took another drink from her water. “Don’t tell Davey, but I think he’s right about me minding my own damn business.”
I stepped back and looked at myself in my full-length mirror. I’d pulled my hair back in a twist, done the natural-but-glowing makeup routine, and slipped into a semi-clingy red dress that Beauji loaned me with wistful eyes.
I sighed, pushing away thoughts of a wife and baby sitting alone in a hospital room.
“Just because he left the wife doesn’t mean he left the baby,”
I told my reflection. “Give him a chance. Don’t assume anything.”
Hell, it might even be why he was here in the States, to be closer to his kid. I’d only known him a few weeks. There was plenty of time to find out what really happened.
“It’s nothing,” I said, pointing a scolding finger at myself “It’s not a big deal. Do not overreact.”
I pulled on a smile. A little wine and some time in Ian’s company, and I was sure it would grow more genuine. I walked out into the kitchen and poured myself a glass of water, debating on whether I should wash the piling dishes or not.
The doorbell rang I looked at the clock. Six forty-five. Ian was early. I dumped the water in the sink and put the glass on top of the pile. I gave my dress a quick smoothing over, grabbed my jacket off the coat rack and opened the door.
The first thing I saw was the Syracuse English Department T-shirt, the very one I’d resented picking up off the floor for two years. My gaze drifted upward. Blue eyes. Sandy hair. Small scar cutting a thin line through the left eyebrow.
Peter.
“Portia?” He blinked at me. “Is...is that you? You look...” He shook his head and smiled. “Wow.”
I stared at him, somewhat tempted to reach out and poke him in the shoulder to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating.
“Peter?” I put my hand up against the doorframe to steady myself. “What are you doing here?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “I had to see you.”
I stared at him. He took a step closer. I moved back, still standing in the doorway, declining access. He stopped.
“I need to talk to you.”
“So you came all the way down from...?” I paused, shook my head. “I don’t even know where you’ve been. Where ya been, Peter?”
“Boston.”
“Boston. I should have guessed. How’s the family?”
He looked over his shoulder and then back at me. He seemed almost wary. Ashamed. Two emotions I’d never seen on Peter. “They’re good. Thanks for asking.”
“So, they don’t have phones in Boston, then?”
He held up his hands in defeat. “You’re right. I should have called. I’m sorry.”
Oh. Okay. He’s sorry. Well, that makes everything all right. I glanced out at the alley and saw Peter’s silver hatchback parked by the side door, just below the steps that led up to my apartment.
I turned my eyes back on him. “You drove.”
“I drove.”
“From Boston.”
“From Boston.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “What are you doing here, Peter?”
He inhaled, and his face reddened a shade. “I have something that belongs to you.”
“And so you drove nine hundred miles...”
“A thousand, actually.”
“Is it an elephant? Because UPS will ship just about everything else.”
Peter looked around to check if anyone was watching, then turned back to face me. “Can I come in?”
“No.”
“It’s starting to rain, Portia.”
“That’s not my problem.”
“Okay.” He inhaled again. His breathing seemed unusually labored for someone who was not asthmatic. “Okay, then, if it’s gotta be here, it’s gotta be here.”
Then he got down on one knee.
I bent at the waist and hissed at him. “What are you doing, Peter?”
“What I was too stupid to do six months ago.”
Oh, you have got to be kidding me. “Good God, Peter, did you fall on your head or something?”
“Portia Fallon, I love you.”
“What? Peter, what are you...?”
He talked over me. “I have always loved you, I will always love you.”
“You really need to get up now, Peter. Now.”
“Will you marry me?”
I shut the door, putting both hands
against the hard wood. This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening. Where was the distant, preoccupied person who got my birthday presents a month late and then forgot how old I was?
This couldn’t be happening.
I opened the door. He was still on his knee, staring down at the ring in his hand as though he couldn’t believe it, either. “Get up, Peter.”
He looked up. “Are you going to give me an answer?”
“No.”
“No, you won’t give me an answer or no, you won’t marry me?” My eyes narrowed. He stood up. I stepped back and let him inside, watching as he headed to the couch and sat down. I tossed my jacket over the back of the couch and shut the door behind me. “How did you find me?”
“Actually, it’s a funny story.” He put one hand over the back of the couch and smiled. “It was your mother.”
Fire shot through my stomach. “What?”
“I was thinking about you. All the time. Every day. But I was too scared to call you after...well, you know.”
I swallowed. “So Mags...How did she find you? I didn’t even know where you were.”
“She contacted my publisher, and they contacted me.”
“I’m going to kill her.”
He leaned farther over the back of the couch. “No, don’t. It was perfect. It was like a sign, the final thing that told me this is what I need to do.”
I crossed my arms over my stomach. “Then I’m definitely going to kill her.”
Peter stood up and walked over to me. He put his hands on my elbows and leaned his head into my line of vision. I pulled my head back.
“Portia, I was so stupid. I was so wrapped up in myself, in my failure as a novelist, in my fear of never being a success at anything...” His eyes searched mine, darting from pupil to pupil, his breathing still erratic. I pulled my arms out of his hands and stepped back from him.
“Well, gee, Peter. That might have been nice to know a while back. You’ve been gone for what? Four months?”
He pulled his eyes away from mine. “Twenty-one weeks.” He’d counted the weeks. Why was I not surprised? “Twenty-one weeks. Without a call. Without a letter. Just a note scribbled in the front page of your book. I can’t even donate the damn thing to the library now.”
“I know. It was awful. I wish I could help you understand...”
“Oh, I understand, all right.” The shock was in full retreat, and fury approaching the offensive line. “You left. I moved on. There’s nothing else to understand.”
“Yes, there is.” He stepped closer. “I was so stupid. I was jealous. You were so close to finishing your dissertation and being a professor...You were so successful...”
Wait. Successful?
“…and so smart...and so...”
His head tilted to the side and he reached up and touched my face. I put my hand on his chest and pushed him away. He straightened up and tucked his hands in his pockets, giving me a pained look.
“I just...I had to get away. To think things through. And once I got away...I knew.”
“Knew? Knew what?”
He took a half-step closer to me. “How much I love you. How much I need you with me. Portia, I’m miserable without you.
“Oh, please,” I said, my heart pounding in my chest. “You have no right to come back into my life with no warning and try to give me a ring, Peter.”
He squinched his eyes shut. “I know. I thought that might be a bad idea. Your mother—”
“My mother?” I shouted, then held my hands up. “No. Don’t tell me that was her idea. It’s not going to do anybody any good if you tell me this was her idea. This was her idea?”
“Not entirely,” he said. “I want to marry you. I want to be with you. Forever.”
My throat constricted on forever. Peter put his hand back on my arm. I didn’t move.
“Portia, I know I totally blew it when I left like that. I know I don’t deserve a second chance. But if you’d give me one...just one more chance...I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you.”
His hand trailed down my arm and locked onto my fingers. I felt a rush of dizziness ride through me.
Forever.
A year ago, I would have given my right arm for Peter to say these things to me. It had been all I wanted. A promise of forever. A promise to stick. Instead, I’d gotten notes on the fridge telling me he’d be writing at the library and not to wait dinner.
Peter put his palm on my cheek. “I know I screwed up. It’s haunted me every minute. All I want is a chance to make it up to you.”
No, I thought. But I didn’t say it. Forever was still ringing in my ears.
Peter stepped back, glanced at the door.
“Are you expecting someone?”
I blinked.
It was the doorbell ringing.
“Oh, holy Christ,” I said. I stepped back from Peter and opened the door.
Ian stood there smiling in a navy blue suit jacket with a white button-down shirt and jeans. I felt a small whine rise in my gut at how perfect it all might have been. He held out a bouquet of lilies and kissed me on the cheek as he ducked in out of the rain.
“You look beautiful,” he said.
“Thank you, Ian.” I stepped back. He shut the door behind him and his smile dimmed as his eyes locked on Peter. Resigned to a ruined evening, I made a gesture toward Peter with my hand.
“Peter Miller, Ian Beckett. Ian Beckett, Peter Miller.”
Ian’s eyebrows rose a notch with recognition, total recognition, and he held out his hand to Peter. They shook. Then both of them, in unison, rocked back on their heels with their hands clasped behind their backs.
Ian looked at me. “Um, perhaps this is a bad time...”
“No.” I gave Peter a look. “Peter was just leaving.”
Peter met my eye but didn’t move. Ian glanced at Peter, then back at me.
“I think another time would be best,” Ian said. He turned and put his hand on the doorknob. I grabbed his arm.
“No, Ian.” I pressed my fingers into his arm and looked him solidly in the eye. Ian took my hand off his arm and squeezed my fingers briefly before letting go. His face was tight, and his eyes held mine for only a brief moment before trailing away to a point somewhere behind my left shoulder.
“Well. Good night.”
He stepped out and shut the door behind him.
Crap, crap, crap.
I glared at Peter. He didn’t meet my eye.
“I’m sorry, Portia. I wasn’t thinking. I should have known there might be someone else.”
I grabbed my purse from the coffee table, rummaging through it for my keys. “There wasn’t. Not yet. Now there probably won’t be.” I pulled my keys out and yanked the door open. “I’m gonna go talk to him.”
Peter looked at the floor. His voice was quiet. “Do you want me to be here when you get back?”
I wanted to say no. I needed to say no. Instead, I stepped out into the drizzle and guided my shaking legs down the steps and out to the street, thinking, Crap, crap, crap in rhythm with the rain.
I pulled up to the Babb farm. Ian’s car was already there. I knocked on the door. No answer. I stepped back off the porch and looked around. I could see light coming from the barn. I took a deep breath and hurried over as the rain started to come down in earnest, soaking my dress.
I stepped inside the barn and saw Ian clearing off a table he’d set up in the middle of the open space. Two candles sat on a plank of wood next to a bottle of champagne tucked in a bucket of melting ice. The sawhorse sported a single rose in a bud vase as Ian pulled a tablecloth off the circular table that usually sat in the Babbs’ kitchen. The rain pelting the roof filled the barn with hollow echoes.
“It would have made a great first impression,” I said.
He stopped folding for a second and looked at me, then turned his attention back to the tablecloth. I took a few steps forward.
“Ian, I didn’t even know he was in town. He show
ed up literally five minutes before you did.”
Ian put the folded tablecloth on the sawhorse, but didn’t look at me. “Look, Portia, you don’t owe me any explanations. If you and Peter have things to work out, go and work them out.”
“We don’t have anything to work out.” Here with Ian, I felt fairly sure that was the truth. I stepped another foot closer. Ian’s eyes shot up to mine.
“I’m sorry, Portia,” he said. “I don’t think this is going to work.”
“Wow,” I said. “That was quick.”
His jaw muscles twitched. “I’m sorry?”
“This morning you were Mr. First Impressions, and now it’s don’t-let-the-door-hit-you-in-the-ass-on-your-way-out.” Ian was quiet for a moment. “Perhaps we should wait and talk about this tomorrow.”
“No, I’d like to talk about it now.” I paused and grabbed the first defense I could think of: deflection of guilt. “The way I see it, I’m still one up on you. At least you knew about Peter.”
He crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes at me. “Excuse me?”
“Were you ever going to tell me about the baby you abandoned?”
Ian’s eyes widened as though he’d been slapped. “Excuse me?”
“Beauji found an article on you from People magazine. It mentioned your ex-wife.” I paused as I tried to think of a way to say the important part without saying it, but my mind came up blank, so I choked it out. “And the baby.”
He inhaled through his mouth. “Ah. So Beauji pulls up a magazine article and suddenly I’m a deserter, is that it?”
The hurt expression on his face cut right through me, and I wanted nothing more than to run over to him and apologize until he forgave me. Instead, I stood where I was, clinging to my righteous indignation. Ian grabbed the tablecloth off the sawhorse and clutched it in his hand with an iron grip.
“Just to fill in some blanks for you, she had a baby; I did not.” I blinked and felt my stomach churn. “What?”
“The baby’s father is a fellow from her office,” he said, his voice gritty. His eyes shot ice through mine. “Guess the distracted husband is always the last to know.”
Crap, crap, crap.
“I’m sorry, Ian,” I said. “It never occurred to me—”
“No. I guess it didn’t.”
Ex and the Single Girl Page 11
