How could she stand in the way of that?
She could not.
But did that mean what they’d shared this weekend had to end?
Her familiar self-doubts taunted her. She saw herself waiting here in Lake Perdue for Will to finish his program. Once in Washington, he would be back in the type of world he was used to. Glamorous restaurants, glamorous women. Women far different from her. Women more suitable for him.
She pictured herself as she’d looked this past weekend, dressed in the beautiful clothes Will had given her. Trying to be someone she was not. A wave of embarrassment washed over her. Did she really think those clothes changed her? Made her a different person?
For that little while, perhaps. But the truth was she was still Hannah Jacobs. Had she lost her senses in the past few days? Begun to think she could hold a man like Will Kincaid? A man who had seen far more of life than she could ever expect to see?
The questions sliced through her, every syllable an ax in her heart.
How foolish she’d been to think that her life had changed. To let herself think, even for a little while, that loving meant lasting.
Chapter Fifty-nine
Hannah wasn’t surprised three days later to find Will’s Jeep Cherokee parked beside her car when she left the library. She’d been expecting him and preparing herself for this moment.
Her pulse leapt at the sight of him. She noted the defined cut of his jaw, the familiar wide shoulders. Had any man ever looked so appealing? She forced herself to take a steadying breath and said, “Hello, Will.”
“Hannah.” The way he said her name was more question than greeting. “I was hoping we could talk.”
She took a deep breath. She wanted to get this over with. No point in delaying the inevitable. “Okay.”
“Then let’s take a drive.”
A few minutes later, they were headed out of town. Will drove slowly, and Hannah kept her face toward the side window, afraid that if she looked at him, she would suffer an onslaught of sorrow that would have her pleading for some way to stay in his life.
When he reached across and took her hand, she gave a start.
“Hannah, I’ve done a lot of thinking the past couple of days—”
“So have I,” she interrupted, desperate now to get the words out before she changed her mind. “I want you to know how grateful I am for everything you’ve done for me these past weeks.”
Will frowned, “Hannah-”
“Please. Let me finish. As hard as this is for me to say, I…I think it would be best if we didn’t see each other anymore.” There. It was out. She felt suddenly weak, deflated.
“What?” He looked at her, sure he’d heard her wrong.
She studied the field outside the window and dug her nails into her palms. “I’ve thought it over, Will. I don’t have to tell you we live in two different worlds. Last weekend was wonderful. But I think we both knew it couldn’t last.”
He remained silent, studying her as if looking for some physical proof she didn’t mean what she’d said. When he finally spoke, his voice was wary. “Why can’t it?”
She knew his weak point. She also knew that if he was to believe her, she’d have to use it. “We’re too different, Will. We’re not the same kind of people. We don’t have the same interests. People don’t really change. Our differences would eventually push us apart.”
He flinched, his face going pale. She saw that her arrow had hit home and she forced herself to go on. “So much has changed in the past couple of months. I’ve changed. There are certain things I want to do with my life. Things I need to accomplish.”
The pulse in his neck beat visibly, but his voice remained even as he asked, “So what is it you want me to do? Step back and pretend that nothing happened between us?”
She flattened her palms against her skirt. “I want us to part friends.”
“Friends?” His voice rose several notes, his eyes wide with disbelief. “After what happened between us, you expect us to be nothing more than friends?”
She looked down at her hands. She would get through this without breaking down if it killed her. She counted to five and said, “You’ve changed my life, Will. Made me face things I don’t think I ever would have without you. You can’t know how grateful I am for that.”
Will slapped a hand against the steering wheel. “I don’t want gratitude from you, Hannah.”
She went on as if he hadn’t spoken, forcing herself to string one word after the other. “We’ve been through a lot these past weeks. And maybe…maybe we were drawn together because we both needed someone.” She looked away and said, “It would be a mistake to read more into it than that.”
He sat studying her for several seconds before saying, “Do you really believe that?”
She willed herself to find the right words. “It’s time I stopped hiding from the world. And you, too. You have goals to accomplish. Dr. Edwards believes he can help you. And so do I. You’ll need all your concentration for that.”
He stared at her for a long moment. His voice wavered when he finally said, “Is this what you’d hoped for all along? That you could find someone else to help me? That you could stamp your debt of gratitude paid by showing poor Will Kincaid why he’s been such an academic failure all these years?”
She shook her head at the pain on his face. “Will, no-”
“You don’t have to tell me about our differences. I’ve been aware of them since the first day I laid eyes on you. I guess they’re not all that easy to overcome, after all.”
“Will, that’s not what I-”
“But you’re right about one thing,” he growled. “I do have things to do with my life. So I guess the sooner I get started, the better.” With his jaw set, he swung the Cherokee into a driveway, spun around and headed back toward town.
The rest of the drive was completed in silence. A silence that hung over Hannah like a wet quilt, choking the air from her lungs with its weight. A silence she could not bring herself to break. She bit the inside of her lip and kept her hands clasped tightly together. This wasn’t what she wanted. But it would have happened eventually. He would have come to realize that the fragile bond the two of them had forged would never stand the test of two such different life-styles.
When he braked to a halt at her place, she opened the door and slid out. He kept his gaze straight ahead, refusing to look at her. There were so many things she wanted to say. Will I ever see you again? Will you come back? But she said none of them. She blinked once, then merely said, “Good luck, Will. Please take care of yourself.”
She stood there on the sidewalk as he pulled away and roared off down the street. Tears welled in her eyes and dropped one by one down her cheeks. She watched until his taillights disappeared, raising one hand and then dropping it to her side.
Chapter Sixty
Will had never thought love could feel like this. Crushing. Hopeless. He lay in bed that night wondering why he’d believed he and Hannah had a future. Life had set them out on different courses, and when it came right down to it, nothing had changed. They were two people with little more in common than a temporary need for company. He’d been right about their differences all along. Why had he ever let himself think he could overcome them?
There in the darkness he closed his eyes and let his mind replay the images he kept trying to push aside. Hannah beside him in the gazebo by the lake. Hannah jogging along behind him down Main Street. Hannah declaring him Extra Ordinary Apple Bobber. Hannah in his arms. In his bed.
His eyes flew open. His jaw clenched.
So what if Dr. Edwards could help him? Inside, he would still be Will Kincaid, not good at much of anything without a football in his hands.
The next day he drove out to Tate’s to see Aaron. He climbed the steps to the old white store as he had a thousand other times, but this time, there was finality to it. As though he might not return again.
Aaron came in from the back, his arms loaded with a box of
canned goods, just as Will stepped through the front door. Will made the customary greetings to the regulars, then lifted a hand to Aaron. “Got a minute?”
Aaron dropped the box and said, “Sure. Let’s go outside.”
Will followed him out the door to an old poplar tree, where shade and rocking chairs beckoned. A crow flew over, its cry echoing in the stillness. Aaron took a chair and offered Will another before lighting his pipe.
“Word’s out you’re planning to leave us again.”
Will glanced away, grateful for his old friend’s directness. “Looks that way.”
Aaron leaned forward in the chair, one hand dangling between his knees. “Think it’s the best thing, then?”
“I think so.” He hesitated a moment, rubbing a thumb across the back of his left hand. “I’m going to be getting some help from a doctor up in Washington. It’s a program for people with dyslexia. I’m going up there to learn how to read, Aaron.”
The older man puffed on the pipe for a moment, nodding slowly, his gaze steady with approval. “Glad to hear it, boy.”
Will reached down and yanked a blade of grass from the ground beside his chair. “You don’t sound too surprised.”
“I’m gonna tell you something that I’m not sure it’s my place to say. I wanted to speak up a long time ago. When Betsy had you in her class, she went to your daddy and asked for his permission to test you for a learning disability. She couldn’t do it without his signature. But he wouldn’t hear of it. He pretty much strong-armed her into agreeing not to bring it up again. She didn’t even tell me until some years later.
She’s regretted it ever since.” He paused, then added, “I’m glad to see you’re gonna do something about it, boy. That takes a lot of courage.”
Will blinked and opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. When he tried again, his voice cracked. “Why would my father have done that?”
“Pride’s a curious thing. That’s something you and your daddy’re gonna have to work out.” Aaron took another puff from his pipe. “What about Hannah?”
Will’s jaw set. He looked down and began rubbing the back of his hand again. “What about her?”
“You two get anything worked out?”
“There’s nothing to work out.”
“Didn’t look that way to me.”
“She’s got things she wants to do with her life. We’re like night and day, anyway. I always knew it. Guess I just fooled myself into thinking otherwise for awhile.”
“Sounds like you’re feeling sorry for yourself.”
Will’s mouth thinned, but his voice held a note of resignation when he said, “She told me she didn’t want me in her life. There’s not much I can do about that, is there?”
Aaron shrugged and blew out a stream of smoke. “I don’t know. Is there?”
“Aaron, what are you saying?”
“Just seems to me that if two people want to be together, they ought to be. Simple as that.”
Will got out of his chair and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Only it doesn’t work when one does and one doesn’t.”
Aaron turned his pipe over and tapped out the remaining tobacco. “I guess you’re right then. If that’s how it is.”
After leaving Tate’s, Will drove out to his father’s house. The back door was unlocked, and he let himself in. There didn’t seem to be anybody at home. Fannie had left a note on the stove saying she’d gone out to the grocery store and would be back in an hour or so. Will stood in the middle of the kitchen floor, his anger rooting him to the spot until the front door opened and footsteps sounded in the hall.
“Fannie?” Will called out.
John stuck his head in the doorway. “Will. Fannie’s not here. I wasn’t expecting you.”
“I hadn’t planned to come.”
John crossed the room to open the refrigerator and pull out a jug of iced tea. “Get you a glass?”
“No. I don’t plan for this to take long.”
John set down the jug and turned to his son, his eyebrows drawn together. “What is it, Will?”
“When I told you what I’d found out from that doctor in Washington, why didn’t you tell me Mrs. Tate had come to you years ago wanting to test me for that very thing?”
John went still. “Who told you such foolishness?”
“Don’t,” he said abruptly. “Don’t even try to lie about it. Aaron told me. He should know, don’t you think?”
John hesitated, then finally said, “I did what I thought was best. I didn’t want you labeled. It could have hurt—”
“—my football career. That’s all you ever cared about, wasn’t it?” Will’s voice rose sharply.
“I cared about you making something out of your life.”
“But it was all right for me to grow up feeling like an idiot because I couldn’t learn the way everyone else did?”
“Will, I didn’t know-”
“You didn’t want to know. You saw what you wanted to see.”
John stepped forward, reaching toward his son.
But Will moved away, fumbling for the doorknob behind him.
“You know, I actually came out here the other day hoping to get your blessing on my decision to ask Hannah to marry me. That was too much to ask, wasn’t it? Don’t worry, though. You got your wish on that, as well.” He held his father’s guilty gaze for a moment, then turned and walked out the door.
He met up with Aunt Fan on the front steps, wrapped his arms around her and hugged her, grocery bags and all, before saying, “Once I’m permanently settled in my own home, Aunt Fan, I hope you’ll come live with me. You give it some thought, okay?”
Will left then, trying not to think about the look on his father’s face.
On the day Will left Lake Perdue, he gave in to the need to call Hannah. He told himself it was the civilized thing to do. She’d said she wanted to part as friends. Calling to say goodbye was something a friend would do.
He’d convinced himself of as much until she picked up the library phone and said hello. He knew then that the only reason he’d called was to hear her voice one more time before he left.
“Hello, Hannah.”
“Will,” she said a little breathlessly. “I hadn’t expected to hear from you.”
“I won’t keep you. I just wanted to say goodbye.”
“You’re leaving today. Someone out at Aaron’s mentioned—”
“If you need to know anything, just check in at Aaron’s place,” Will said with an attempt at humor.
“That’s right,” she agreed softly.
Before he could stop himself, he asked, “Are you all right?”
“Oh, of course. Yes, I’m fine. I know—” She broke off and then in a stronger voice went on, “I know you’ll do well, Will. This is the right thing for you.”
The right thing. Then why was he so miserable when she obviously wasn’t? He didn’t say anything for a moment, just sat there with the receiver in his hand, wondering how the wall between them had gotten so high. Before he had a chance to blurt out something he might regret, he said, “Goodbye, Hannah,” and hung up the phone.
She was sitting at the front desk staring out the window when Jenny returned from an errand and said, “Hannah? What’s wrong? You’re white as a sheet.”
Startled, Hannah glanced up and quickly wiped at the corners of her eyes.
“Nothing. I was just—”
“Was that Will on the phone?”
“Ah, yes.”
Jenny’s voice softened. “I heard he was leaving today. Do I take it you two didn’t work things out?”
“There was nothing to work out.”
Jenny sent her a look of disbelief. “That’s why you spent a weekend together, I suppose.”
Hannah shook her head. “I could never fit into his world.”
“Is that why you’re letting him go?”
“He was never mine to let go.”
“I’ve got eyes. I saw the way the man looke
d at you.”
“It never would have worked.”
Jenny frowned. “I know you didn’t ask for my opinion, but I’m going to give it to you, anyway. I don’t think you were ready for what Will Kincaid had to offer you. Somehow, some way, you’ve got to put what happened between you and Tom Dillon away for good. You haven’t done that yet.”
“Tom’s gone, Jenny.”
“That doesn’t mean you’ve resolved it. He may be gone from this town, but he’s not gone from your head. And until you work that out, you won’t ever believe yourself good enough for any man.”
Jenny reached for the bottom drawer and shuffled through her purse, then pulled out a newspaper clipping. Unfolding it, she handed it to Hannah. “I ran across this the other day. I thought you might like to read it.”
Hannah’s eyes skimmed over the paragraphs. “Jenny, I don’t need this.”
“There’s a meeting next Wednesday night. You say the word, and I’ll go with you.”
Hannah scanned the article once more. She stared at it for a long time before folding it and sticking it in her purse.
The following weekend seemed like the longest Hannah had ever endured. She tried to keep busy, running in the morning, reading in the afternoon, but found that thoughts of Will kept creeping to the front of her mind.
Had Jenny been right? Had she let her past get in the way of her future? There had been many times when she’d thought it was all behind her. But through it all, had she ever put aside the nagging belief that she didn’t deserve any of it?
The thought played through her mind again and again as she drove up to visit Sarah on Sunday. Sarah was disappointed to see that Hannah had not brought “that nice young man” with her. Realizing her aunt’s weakened state, Hannah could not bring herself to tell her that Will would not be coming back.
And so, she made up a story about why he couldn’t come, hoping that next week her aunt would be stronger so that she could tell her the truth.
Truths and Roses Page 21
