by Liz Isaacson
“That’s her boyfriend right there,” Theo hissed. “Stop it.”
He swept the salt and pepper down from their perch and seasoned the steaks. “I’ll be right back.” He passed Dahlia coming in with an armful of corn as he went out to start the grill. Thankfully, it lit with the press of a button so he didn’t have to find matches or a lighter. He could’ve gone back inside, made polite conversation, but he didn’t.
She can’t find a decent man anyway.
He hoped he was decent enough for her—and her mother.
When the grill was hot enough, he put the steaks on and checked the time on his phone. His father had taught him to cook steak to a perfect medium by using time and temperature. He’d second-guessed himself his first few times, but he’d learned that four minutes on the first side, and four on the second would give him the results he wanted.
Eight more minutes until he had to go back inside and face her parents again. He finally returned to the house with perfectly cooked meat to find the tension had tripled since he’d left. Everyone sat in complete silence, and all three of them looked miserable.
“Steaks are ready,” he announced. “Dahlia, what do you need help with?”
“Setting the table,” she said. “Please.”
“Point me in the right direction for utensils and plates.”
She wouldn’t look at him, but opened a cupboard and a drawer, and he got to work. “What do you do now to keep busy, Theo?” he asked.
“Not much.”
So there would be no help in the conversation. Kyler fell silent and finished with the cups just as Dahlia pulled the corn from the boiling water. “We’re ready,” she announced.
Her parents got up and joined them at the dining room table. Her father said grace, and food got passed around, but Kyler didn’t feel anywhere close to how he felt at his family dinners.
This was horrible, suffocating silence that cut off his airway and made swallowing almost impossible. No one complimented him on the steaks. No one said anything.
“We have to go,” Dahlia said as soon as she’d finished eating.
“But we haven’t had cake,” Kyler said, wondering what had flipped her from his wonderful, giggly Dahlia in the bakery to this nervous, red-faced woman who couldn’t look anyone in the eye.
“You guys keep it,” she said, gathering her phone. “Gray texted, and I need to go.” She marched toward the front door, leaving him with her parents once more.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know—”
“We’re fine,” her father said, solidifying that the man was an eternal optimist, probably used to tense meals like this between his wife and daughter.
Her mother didn’t look at him at all, even when he said, “Thank you for having us, Darby.”
So he hadn’t passed the test. At least he could breathe once he’d left the house behind. Dahlia sat on her side of the truck, pressed right up against the passenger door like he’d contracted a contagious disease and she didn’t want to get it.
“Wow,” he said as he sat down and twisted the key. “That was intense. I mean, you said it would be, but—”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Dahlia put her elbow on the window ledge and leaned her head into her hand, completely closed off from him.
Kyler didn’t know what to do. In his family, they talked about their issues with each other. Came face-to-face and worked things out. Dahlia’s family was apparently much different in that regard.
He let a few minutes of silence go by as they put Vernal in their rear-view mirror. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“Dahlia.” He glanced at her, but she was immovable.
Miles went by, and Kyler’s mind churned. “Was it just because they went in the basement?”
“Just because?” she repeated, finally whipping her face toward him. “My father could fall and break his hip. He’d be dead before my mom could do anything about it. Neither of them seem to get that.”
“What happened to his leg?” he asked.
“He got injured on the job.” She turned back to the window, that conversation clearly closed.
Kyler didn’t know what else to say, especially because Dahlia didn’t seem like she’d hear anything he said anyway. But as he pulled into her driveway, he had to try one more time. “What did they say to you while I was outside?”
Because something had been said. She hadn’t been the color of boiled lobster when he’d gone outside. Her eyes hadn’t been slightly puffy. And he’d never seen someone eat so fast.
“Gray didn’t text, did he?”
Dahlia finally turned from her vigil out the passenger window. “Kyler…I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”
A load of bricks dropped onto his lungs, forcing all the air out. “What?” he gasped. “Why not?”
A single tear fell from her gorgeous eyes and trailed down her cheek. “I just don’t think we’re a match.” She twisted back to the door and opened it, practically falling out of the truck. “I’m sorry I wasted your time,” she said before slamming the door shut and striding away with a surety he couldn’t argue with.
Chapter Fourteen
Dahlia collapsed against the front door once she’d closed and locked it, her sobs coming quickly now. She’d held them in for the long drive back from Vernal, and just barely.
You think he’ll be satisfied being Mr. Mom?
You’re delusional, Dahlia. You can’t be a detective and a wife. It’s not possible.
Even when her father had tried to come to her rescue, her mother had silenced him with cruel words. You were never here, Theo. Never. You think that was a good life for me? For Dahlia?
And her mother’s eyes, so sharp and so penetrating, had cut them both into silence, the way she often did.
He seems nice, Dahlia, but he’s a doormat. If you think for one moment he can keep working and the two of you can raise a family, you’re wrong.
Wrong.
Wrong.
Wrong.
Her mom had always disapproved of Dahlia’s job, but these remarks had gone deeper than previous jabs. Dahlia honestly hadn’t given much thought to a family, because she’d never found the right man. As she thought about Kyler’s shocked eyes, his utter disbelief at her statement that they shouldn’t see each other anymore, she wondered if he could’ve fallen for her as fast as she’d fallen for him. Perhaps she’d made the biggest mistake of her life.
She stood and whipped open the door, sure Kyler would still be sitting in his truck. Maybe he’d even be standing on her doorstep, waiting for her to come to her senses and talk to him.
He was gone.
She stepped back and let the door swing closed. Her phone started chiming, one after the other, indicating five new messages. She half-hoped it would be Gray, telling her about a huge break in their case. If she could just get the coyote out of her life, maybe she’d have room for other things.
I don’t know what happened when I was outside, Kyler’s first message said.
It doesn’t really matter to me.
I really like you, and I think we’re a fine match.
I get you have a lot going on right now.
I can wait.
Dahlia stared at the last three words, hope taking root in her heart. At the same time, was it fair of her to put him on hold every time she had a difficult case? Every time something came along that she deemed more important than him, would he wait then?
Her hope withered as quickly as it had started to bloom. She’d heard some of Gray’s stories about his family falling apart. The job came first for him, and it always had for Dahlia too. She’d never had much to put before it—until Kyler.
Ally mewed, and Dahlia scooped the cat into her arms, tears coming again. “I’m being ridiculous, right?” she asked the animal. “I mean, we’ve been seeing each other for two weeks. It’s not like we’re in love or he’s asked me to marry him.”
The
cat squirmed in her arms, and Dahlia put her down before she got scratched. She set some coffee to brew and wondered what to do with herself for the rest of the afternoon. She’d planned to spend it with Kyler, falling madly in love—because she had started down that path, and she knew it.
She wished she had some cake to go with her coffee, but the bakery in town was closed on Sunday. So she pulled down a recipe book and got to work making one of her own. Every time her phone chimed, she jumped. And she couldn’t just ignore it, as the message might be from Gray.
But then the fact that she worried more about a text from Gray than from Kyler gnawed at her, making her stomach writhe and frustration boil inside her. With the cake finally in the oven, Dahlia sat down with her phone.
It’s unfair of me to make you wait, she texted to Kyler. There will always be another case keeping us apart.
She stared at the words, horrified at the truth in them. Did it really come down to that impossible choice? Her job or an opportunity to live her life?
Glancing around her house, she knew she didn’t really live. She never took time for herself the way Kyler did when he went to the cabin. She didn’t have any hobbies outside of work. She ran to stay in shape. She hiked to know the terrain she was responsible for knowing. She visited her parents out of obligation.
A sense of sadness draped over her as she realized the only bright speck in her life in the last several years had been Kyler. And she’d just removed him from the equation.
He didn’t respond, and she wondered where he’d gone. Was he sitting home too, miserable, with a chocolate cake in the oven he’d eat all by himself?
She texted Gray next. I need advice. Can I call you?
Advice? He always responded within seconds. Work stuff or personal stuff?
Personal. It’s about Kyler Fuller.
Her phone rang ten seconds later, and she swiped on the call from Gray.
“I’m not much good at this stuff,” he said by way of hello. “But I can try.”
Dahlia didn’t know what to say now that she had him on the phone. “Does the job always have to come first?”
A lengthy pause told her Gray was really trying to find the right answer. “I think that varies from person to person,” he said. “For me, I chose that. Was I right?” He exhaled, and his voice was heavier and more morose when he said, “I honestly don’t know. I lost my wife and my daughter. I love the job, but is it worth that? I guess at some point, I thought it was.”
Dahlia inhaled the scent of baking chocolate and tried to organize her thoughts.
“You’re serious with Kyler Fuller already?” Gray asked. “It’s been, what? Sixteen days?”
The fact that he knew that testified of what a great detective Gray Salisbury was.
“Sometimes you just hit it off,” she said. “How long did you know Julie before you knew?”
“Oh, I knew we’d get married after the first date. She took some convincing.” He chuckled, the sound petering out pretty quickly. “You went and visited your parents today, didn’t you?”
“Kyler came to meet them.”
“Dahlia,” Gray said with a sharp dose of reproving in his voice. “You’re letting her do it again.”
Dahlia wanted to play dumb. Ask something like, “Who?” or “Do what?” but she knew. She’d told Gray about her previous boyfriends and how her mother had always run them off.
“Why do you think she does it?” she asked. “We’re detectives. What’s my mother’s motivation for keeping me single?”
“I don’t know.” Gray sighed. “Maybe she doesn’t want to lose you. Maybe she thinks you’ll stop coming to visit on Sundays if you’ve got someone else in your life.”
Leaning back against the couch, Dahlia let her eyes drift closed, her feelings circling, chasing after her thoughts. “I don’t think that’s it.”
She heard her mother’s words in her mind again. You were never here, Theo. Never. You think that was a good life for me? For Dahlia?
“I think she doesn’t want me to be with someone, because she knows what it’s like to have a spouse that’s married to their job. She doesn’t want someone else to have to go through that.” As she spoke, Dahlia felt the truth in her speculation. “I never realized my mother was unhappy,” she added, her voice barely a whisper.
“I didn’t know Julie was either,” Gray said, just as somber. “Until the day I got home in the middle of the night to find she’d taken Carla and left.”
Dahlia hadn’t heard this story, and she said, “I’m so sorry, Gray. Kyler told me about his previous girlfriend and how she left town in the middle of the night too. He said it was devastating, and he looked so sad….” She imagined the anguish on her partner’s face, matching it with that she’d seen in Kyler’s eyes.
He’d asked her to communicate with him. Let him know she was safe and that she’d be coming home at night. She knew that he couldn’t handle another ghosting, and she wondered if she’d just done that. Broken up with him with little to no explanation.
“Dahlia,” Gray said. “Maybe for you, this job doesn’t have to come first.”
Dahlia wanted to protest, say she’d worked her whole career to have this job, that she couldn’t give it up. But the words wouldn’t come. “I’ll think about it,” she said. “I have to go. The timer on my cake is going off.”
“All right. Text me later.”
Dahlia hung up and stared at the blank television in front of her. So she’d lied. The cake still had twenty more minutes in the oven. She wanted to stop thinking about what she should do about Kyler, but he absolutely wouldn’t leave her mind.
He didn’t text until the next morning, five words that left her reeling.
Only if you let it.
She’d said there would always be another case keeping them apart, and that was what he’d said.
Dahlia didn’t know what to do. When she wrote the wrong thing in her report for the third time, she growled and got up from her desk.
“Kyler?” Gray called after her, but Dahlia ignored him, gripping her phone too tight, too tight, as she went outside.
She dialed Kyler and put the phone to her ear, already at an utter loss as to what to say to him.
“Dahlia,” he answered, his voice a balm to her anger, calming her weary soul and her frenzied mind.
“I don’t want to let it,” she blurted. “But it’s my job, and I don’t know how to be anything but who I am.”
After several beats of silence, each one increasing Dahlia’s anxiety, he said, “Come to my family dinner on Wednesday, like we planned.”
She’d not been expecting him to say that. Or anything remotely close to it. “I—”
“Dinner’s at six-thirty. I’ll make sure there’s chocolate cake.” He wasn’t leaving her any room to get out of it, and Dahlia didn’t want to get out of it.
“We need to iron some things out,” she said, a non-committing answer.
“Let’s go to dinner tonight.”
An ache started in her chest, right where her heart beat. “Kyler….”
“Dahlia, I’m trying here,” he said. “I’m choosing you. I want to be with you. I think we’re great together, and I haven’t felt about anyone in a long time the way I feel about you.” He paused, an angry, frustrated sigh coming through the line. “If you don’t feel the same, I can accept that. Eventually. But I think you do feel the same, and you’re just, I don’t know what. Scared? Worried about something that hasn’t even happened yet? Something.”
Tears pricked Dahlia’s eyes at the same time Gray stuck his head out the door and gestured to her. “I have to go,” she said, her voice much too high. “I’ll text you later.”
“I’ll be at Ruby’s at seven,” he said. “You’re welcome to join me.”
She didn’t commit either way, but said, “Goodbye,” and hung up before hurrying to see what Gray needed.
Chapter Fifteen
Kyler waited at Ruby’s until eight-thirty. Dah
lia didn’t show up. He felt like she’d ripped his lungs out and hung them up to dry on a clothesline. He couldn’t get a proper breath, and he lay in bed, staring at the ceiling until utter exhaustion forced his eyes closed and his body to rest.
She didn’t come to the family dinner on Wednesday either. Thankfully, he hadn’t told anyone she would be there, so he didn’t have to endure endless questions about why she hadn’t made it.
They ran through his mind though. She texted him several times throughout the day, and he responded. Nothing too serious, he realized. She was letting him know she was safe, still working on the case, and that she hoped it would be wrapped up soon.
Kyler pushed the potato salad around his plate, wondering if it even mattered if this case ended soon. As she’d said, there’d always be another one.
“What’s wrong with you?” Berlin, the youngest Fuller child, asked as she sat down next to him. “You usually inhale the potato salad and have seconds before we’ve all had some.”
“Nothing,” he muttered, forking a bite of the salad into his mouth. It tasted too acidic today, and he could barely swallow it.
Milt sat down directly across from him, putting his son’s plate beside him. The long picnic table had been built to accommodate the whole family, and Kyler usually loved sitting out in the yard, the tall trees above them whispering in the breeze as they ate.
“Oh, boy,” Milt said after one glance at Kyler. “Things over with Dahlia already?”
Kyler cut a look at Milt and then Berlin. “Dahlia?” she asked. She hadn’t been at the last family dinner, where the rest of his sisters had grilled him mercilessly.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“You don’t know?” Milt took a bite of his hot dog.
Kyler shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Milt wiped the ketchup from his mouth. “How do you not know if you’re dating someone or not?”
“I just don’t.”
“What did she say?”
“She said we shouldn’t see each other anymore, but then she calls me and texts me and…I don’t know what we are.” She wouldn’t go out with him, hadn’t met him here tonight though he’d texted the address and menu and what time they ate hours ago. She hadn’t responded to that message at all.
