Tell Me

by Strom, Abigail

  He regretted it, but he was glad it was too late to take it back. Because they didn’t belong together. They lived in different worlds, and all they could bring each other was misery and the slow wrenching away of two people trying and failing to make things work.

  His phone buzzed, and when he saw Jane’s name on the screen, he almost swerved into oncoming traffic.

  He forced himself to wait until it was safe to pull onto the shoulder. Then he put on his hazard lights, took a deep breath, and read Jane’s text.

  As it turned out, there was more than one.

  You son of a bitch.

  I always knew you were a coward, but I never thought you’d literally run away from me.

  I hope you get bitten by every insect in Australia. I hope a kangaroo kicks you in the head.

  If you think you can buy your way out of this, think again. I gave the taxi driver my card instead of yours. I won’t be taking a single penny from you.

  And don’t bother trying to call me, because I’m blocking your number on my phone. And don’t bother trying to email, because I’ve rerouted anything coming from you to my spam folder.

  That’s where you belong, Caleb. The spam folder of life.

  I hope I never see you again.

  His hand tightened on the phone. He could practically see her in front of him, her arms folded and her eyes spitting fire, and her words etched in fury.

  And all he could think about was how much he loved her.

  Shit.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  It’s too late, he reminded himself as he pulled back onto the highway. It’s too late to un-fuck this. But Jane will be okay, because she’s the most incredible woman in the world, and she’s going to meet someone a hundred times better than you.

  And for the rest of his life, whenever he saw something beautiful, he would think of her.

  An hour later his phone buzzed again, and he experienced a moment of feverish hope before he saw the name on the screen.

  Hunter.

  Right. He’d promised to phone his brother so they could figure out a joint visit to Rosemary this summer. Maybe he should stop somewhere for dinner and give him a call.

  As he thought that, a wave of bone-deep fatigue went through his body. In the last three days he’d driven for eighteen hours, hiked for six, and camped on a mountaintop. He hadn’t gotten much sleep, and if he didn’t want to cause an accident on this godforsaken highway, he’d better think about stopping somewhere, not just for dinner but for the night.

  There was a chain hotel twenty minutes down the road. It was overpriced, but it would have room service, and that sounded damn good right now.

  He checked in, placed a dinner order, and called Hunter while he was waiting for it.

  “Sorry I didn’t phone.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I knew you were going to Maine and Canada with Jane. How’s the trip?”

  If he had a week, he might be able to answer that question.

  “Fine. We scattered Sam’s ashes, which was the important thing. Jane’s still on Prince Edward Island. I think she’ll probably stay there for a day or two.”

  “You think? Don’t you know?”

  “We, uh, had a parting of the ways. I’m on my way back to New York now.”

  There was a short silence.

  “A parting of the ways? What does that mean?”

  “Jane found what she was looking for, and she didn’t really need me around anymore.”

  Another silence.

  “Caleb, you sound like shit. What’s really going on?”

  He sighed long and deep. “How much time have you got?”

  So he told Hunter the whole story—the night at Jane’s apartment and everything that had happened since. His dinner came when he was halfway through, but his brother didn’t seem to mind that he talked with his mouth full.

  “So that’s that,” he said when he was finished. “It’s pretty fucking ironic, if you think about it. I was always so afraid of turning into Dad, you know? I made my life as different from his as I could. Dad spent his life stuck in one place, and I travel around the world. Dad had the ranch and all those burdens he couldn’t deal with, and I’m fancy-free. He fell in love with a woman who gave him hell, and I swore I’d never fall in love. And now here I am.”

  “Yeah. Here you are.” Hunter paused. “But it isn’t Dad you turned into. It’s Mom.”

  Caleb froze. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Can’t you see it? Wandering around the world, determined never to be tied down. And walking out on the best thing that ever happened to you.”

  “You mean . . . Jane?”

  “Of course I mean Jane. Jesus Christ, Caleb. I’ve never heard you talk about anything the way you spent the last hour talking about that woman. You’re head over heels in love with her, out of your mind crazy about her, and you left her in a parking lot.”

  He was starting to wish he hadn’t eaten so much.

  “We don’t belong together,” he said gruffly. “It would never work. You saw what happened to Mom and Dad.”

  “Caleb. You’re not Dad, and in spite of the dick move you pulled today, you’re not Mom, either. Your life worked fine when you weren’t in love, but now you are. So you’re going to have to make some adjustments.”

  Caleb closed his eyes. “You make it sound so simple. But you don’t know Jane.”

  “I met her once. She seemed pretty fucking fantastic, to be honest.”

  “She is. But she’s a romantic. She’s got this big imagination. She’s always dreaming up ideal people. I’ll never be able to live up to that.”

  “That sounds like your own fear talking, not Jane. And you can’t love an ideal person. That’s hollow. Empty and cold. It takes real love from a real person to keep you warm.”

  To keep you warm.

  All he’d ever wanted was to keep Jane warm. He wanted to keep her warm and safe and loved, and he wanted to do it for the rest of his life.

  But he’d fucked up his chance to do that, and he’d fucked it up good.

  “It’s too late.”

  He didn’t realize he’d said that out loud until Hunter answered him.

  “What do you mean, it’s too late?”

  “It’s too late to fix things with Jane. I really screwed up.”

  Hunter was quiet for a moment. “Yeah, you did. But if you get off your ass, it’s not too late to fix it.”

  That was a bossy older brother for you. “It’s not, huh? Why do you think that?”

  “Because you’re both alive. As long as you’re alive, you can fix anything.” He paused. “Make a gesture.”

  “A gesture?”

  “Yeah. Some kind of big gesture to show her how you feel. Women like that.”

  “I question your expertise in this area. When was your last serious relationship?”

  “It’s been a while. But at least I’ve actually had one. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”

  For a long time after they hung up, Caleb thought about Hunter’s words.

  As long as you’re alive, you can fix anything.

  Was his brother right?

  There was only one way to find out.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Jane stayed on Prince Edward Island for three days.

  She was very glad she hadn’t flown straight home. By the time she woke up on the third day, she was feeling much calmer and less like tracking Caleb down and killing him.

  The hotel she stayed at was right next door to the Anne of Green Gables museum. This was the actual nineteenth-century farmhouse that had inspired L. M. Montgomery, and it looked just as she’d described in the book. It was surrounded by fields and gardens and the woodland paths that had given rise to Lover’s Lane and the Haunted Wood and all the other places Anne had walked.

  She spent a whole day wandering those paths, breathing the moss-scented air and looking for wildflowers and listening to the little brook that danced
over polished rocks . . . and remembering the quotes Caleb had showed her.

  It has always seemed to me that, amid all the commonplaces of life, I was very near to a kingdom of ideal beauty. Between it and me hung only a thin veil. I could never quite draw it aside, but sometimes a wind fluttered it and I caught a glimpse of the enchanting world beyond—only a glimpse, but those glimpses have always made life worthwhile.

  The house itself was furnished as it would have been during Anne’s time, and it was filled with little touches that evoked the book—a broken slate, and Marilla’s amethyst brooch, and a dress made of “soft brown gloria with all the gloss of silk”—and, of course, with the all-important puffed sleeves.

  Jane stood in the doorway of Anne’s gable bedroom for a long time, looking at the dress hanging on the closet door and thinking of the picture she’d shown Caleb.

  Everything she saw made her think of Caleb.

  He was everywhere. When she went walking along the ocean and saw the seagulls wheeling over the red sandstone cliffs, she thought about how much he would have loved that scene. And when she went out one night and ate her fill of fresh mussels and lobster, she wished he were there to taste it with her.

  No, you don’t, she told herself quickly. He’s the jerk who left you alone in a foreign land.

  A foreign land where people spoke English and everyone was friendly, but still. You needed a passport to get here, and that meant it was a foreign land.

  She tried to feel cheerful on the plane ride home. In spite of the mess with Caleb, it had been an incredible trip. She’d said goodbye to Sam, and she’d seen beautiful places she’d only ever imagined.

  And before the whole abandoning-her-in-a-parking-lot thing, Caleb had been the best part of the journey.

  His body had left some kind of imprint on hers. When she lay in bed at night, she could feel him—his bare skin and the hard muscle beneath and the fierce urgency of his need for her.

  No man had ever wanted her so much. Until, of course, he didn’t anymore.

  Three days had gone by since the night at the Lake of Shining Waters. As much as she wanted to blame Caleb for everything that had gone wrong, the truth was, she’d been the one to reject him first. She’d told him no when he asked her to travel with him.

  But she hadn’t meant that to be the end of the conversation. She’d wanted to find a way to make things work. He was the one who’d run away, not her. If she couldn’t count on him to stick around when things got hard, how could she trust him with her heart?

  Not that it mattered now. He must be back in Australia by this time. He’d made it clear he’d had enough of her, and she’d told him never to call or write or see her ever again.

  So much for trying to be cheerful.

  She wished she hadn’t told Kiki and Felicia that she’d go from the airport to the bookstore. But she’d said she would work for a few hours, and they’d be expecting her. Besides, she wasn’t really that tired.

  Just a little sad.

  It was raining in New York, which at least had the advantage of being appropriate to her mood. The taxi ride through the downpour was depressing, especially when she contrasted it with the last time it had rained this hard—when she and Caleb had hiked up Owl Mountain.

  It was a slow, quiet afternoon at the Bookworm Turns, with no need for three people to be manning the store. But Kiki and Felicia both stayed until closing, wanting all the details of her trip. She focused on the hike up the mountain and her stay on Prince Edward Island, even though she had a feeling that what her employees really wanted to hear about was Caleb.

  They were going for a drink after work and invited her along, but she declined with thanks. She thought about taking a taxi home, but she was craving deli corned beef and her favorite place was around the corner. She’d stop there first and decide if she wanted to take a cab or wheel her suitcase onto the subway.

  She put on the rain jacket Caleb had bought for her, which of course made her think of him, and set out for the deli.

  On her way, she passed her favorite boutique.

  WEAR THIS AND YOU’LL FIND HIM:

  THE MAN OF YOUR DREAMS.

  Just like that day in October, the sign brought her up short.

  It was the same dress. This display window had been changed out three or four times since the fall, but now here it was again.

  She stood in the rain, staring at the dress and remembering what Caleb had said about it the night he’d walked her to the subway.

  It’s the color of your eyes.

  She stared a moment longer. Then she checked the store hours on the door, saw they were open, and went inside.

  “May I help you?”

  The employee who came forward looked happy to see her, which, considering she was dripping all over the hardwood floors, was very nice.

  “I’m sorry about the water,” she said apologetically. “I was just wondering about the dress in the window. The blue silk? I remember seeing it last October, but I thought it was gone since then.”

  The employee, a tall redhead, looked enthusiastic.

  “The Alia Montero design? We debuted it here, and it went on to win an Indie Fashion award. So we brought it back for a return engagement, so to speak. We only have it in a few sizes, though.” She looked Jane over with experienced eyes. “Six?”

  “Yes, but I—”

  “You have to try it on,” the woman said firmly. “With your coloring and figure, it’ll be perfect.”

  And so Jane found herself in the dressing room, stripping down to her underwear and trying on the blue silk dress.

  She was still staring at herself in the mirror when the red-haired employee knocked on the door.

  “Mind if I take a look?” She stuck her head in without waiting for an answer. “Oh my goodness, that’s lovely. It’s like it was made for you.” She smiled. “Maybe you’ll find the man of your dreams.”

  And just like that, Jane burst into tears.

  “I’m fine,” she said to the anxious saleswoman, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “Don’t mind me. It’s just . . . the dress is so beautiful.” She gulped past the lump in her throat. “As soon as I change, I’ll bring it out to the register.”

  The other woman looked a little doubtful, but she retreated from the dressing room. “You must really love fashion,” she murmured as she closed the door behind her.

  Maybe you’ll find the man of your dreams.

  She’d already found him, Jane thought as she slipped out of the dress and back into her damp clothes. Caleb Bryce was the man of her dreams.

  But he’d never told her he loved her. If they were meant to be together, wouldn’t he have told her?

  Then again, she’d never told him.

  He wasn’t anything like the hero she’d once imagined for herself. He would probably never read Jane Austen, and he was a hell of a lot more annoying than any dream man ought to be.

  But he was hers. The fact that he was in Australia didn’t change that. If she had to fly halfway around the world to tell him she loved him, then that’s what she’d do.

  And she had the proper armor for the battle now. As she carried the dress out of the store—the employee had triple bagged it so it wouldn’t get wet—Jane decided that if she brought it to Australia, there was no way Caleb could resist her.

  She caught a taxi to Brooklyn, anxious to get home and plan her trip. The rain intensified during the drive, and even though she only had to make it from the cab to her apartment building, she was soaked by the time she crossed the sidewalk.

  She lugged her bags inside and trudged up the stairs to the third floor.

  Then she stopped cold. There was light underneath her door.

  Had she left a lamp on when she left? No . . . she was almost sure she hadn’t.

  She’d asked a neighbor to water her plants. Maybe it was her.

  But just in case it was a band of burglars, she set down her suitcase and dress bag, pulled out her phone, and got
ready to dial 911 as she unlocked the door and pushed it open.

  The phone slipped from her fingers and landed on the floor.

  Caleb was sitting on her sofa, surrounded by folded paper cranes in every color imaginable. Pale green and dark green and indigo and mauve, periwinkle and goldenrod and primrose and lavender, scarlet and white and silver and gold.

  Origami cranes, hundreds of them, covering her couch and the coffee table and the floor.

  She came in slowly, staring, and Caleb rose to his feet and looked back at her, a half-finished crane in one hand.

  He was wearing jeans and a red button-down shirt, and he’d shaved since the last time she’d seen him. He looked warm and sexy and good enough to eat, and she was very aware of her own sodden, bedraggled appearance.

  “What are you . . .” She stopped. “I don’t . . .” She stopped again.

  He set the crane down and took a step toward her. “Whoever folds a thousand paper cranes will be granted one wish.”

  She raised her icy hands and held them to her hot cheeks. Was this really happening? Was Caleb really here?

  She tried to focus on his words. One wish, he’d said.

  “What will you wish for?” she asked.

  “To be with you.”

  The fault line in her heart began to crack.

  He cleared his throat. “I was hoping to finish before you got back, but it turns out a thousand cranes really is a lot. I meant to write you a letter. Something romantic, to show you I could. I was going to leave it for you. I didn’t mean to be here in person. I thought you’d have some time to read the letter and think about things before you had to deal with me.”

  He closed the distance between them, walking carefully to avoid stepping on the cranes.

  “I should go,” he murmured. “You just got back, and you probably want to rest. I’ll write that letter and send it to you. Then we can talk, if you want to.”

  Instinct made her reach for him before he could leave, and she got hold of his right arm.

  At the feel of hard muscle under her hand, electricity shot through her. There was a buzzing, vibrating hum in her body and a ringing in her ears.