Chapter Twelve
We slept in almost until noon and had a quick brunch at the breakfast bar in his kitchen. Then he dropped me off at home so I could get some work done on my poor neglected blog.
“Come to family dinner tomorrow night,” he said on my doorstep.
I clenched my jaw. “Are we just going to keep ignoring this?”
His eyes flicked out to the road and then back to me. “Yes or no, Emilia?” And with that evasion, he answered my question: Yes, we are going to keep ignoring this.
I swallowed in a tight throat. “I’ll come.” Because this was almost over and part of me didn’t want it to be. I knew it must be, but I was willing to grab at the few moments that remained.
“Pick you up at six.” As always, he kissed me on the cheek and took the steps two at a time down to his car.
I shut the door and leaned back against it, trying to ignore the aching emptiness I felt whenever he left.
Checking my messages, I saw that both my mom and Heath had tried to reach me. I dialed my mom first and noted right away that she sounded unusually cheery.
“Mia! How are you?”
Still feeling guilty about the way our last phone call had gone, when I’d lied to her, I was buoyed by her high spirits. Was she in love? It sure sounded like something major had happened. Would she tell me, or was this an act to cover for the money situation?
“Hey, Mom. I’m doing fine.”
“How are things with your boyfriend?”
I blew out a breath. “He’s not my boyfriend.”
“I can be optimistic, can’t I?”
I shifted uncomfortably, twirling a lock of my hair around my forefinger. “I suppose, but that means I can do the same for you. You don’t have someone special in your life, do you?”
“Who am I going to meet up here in crusty old Anza? There are no available men up here who are still in their right mind.”
Good point there. “It’s about time you did find someone. I’ve been out of the house for almost four years.”
“Don’t you worry about me, sweet pea. I’m just fine and feeling better than I have in a long time. Worry about yourself.”
I contemplated that. Either she was putting up a marvelously good front or something had happened. How could this be, if the ranch was about to go into foreclosure? Guessing wasn’t going to get me answers, so I decided it was time to end the silence on this subject. “Mom, can I ask you something?”
“Sure, as long as it isn’t about my dating,” she said.
I took a deep breath and dove in. “When I was up there in January, I saw some of your mail…”
A long pause. “Uh huh.”
“I saw the mortgage notices.” I cleared my throat and continued. “They said foreclosure by July. I’ve been waiting for you to inform me yourself, but for some reason you must not think I can handle it.”
“First of all, this is not your problem, okay? I didn’t tell you because I was handling it. And I didn’t want to worry you with your big test coming up and all that you had on your plate. You’re about to graduate from college! It should be a happy time for you. And thank God it can be.”
I shifted where I stood, putting a hand on my hip. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that it’s taken care of. I can’t give you details yet, but I will when you come up in June. But it’s handled. The ranch is just fine and even better, I’m starting to work on getting it ready to take in guests again. I’m hoping by July I can get a little summer business rustled up.”
I shook my head. “What—really? You aren’t lying so I won’t worry or some other bullshit like that?”
“Language, Mia. I hope you don’t talk like that around your boyfriend.”
I sighed. “Mom.”
“Okay, okay. He’s not your boyfriend. Maybe I’ll get to meet him at your graduation?”
I gritted my teeth. “Mom, we were talking about your mortgage.”
“Yes. And now the subject is closed. It’s taken care of and I’m telling you the God’s honest truth. Okay? So stop worrying and stop trying to take care of me. I’m not a wilting chemo patient anymore. I feel better than I have in a long time. For a lot of reasons.”
I took a deep breath and decided to believe her. “Okay. Thank God. I’m so glad.”
“You’ve been fretting over this since January?”
Fretting. That was an understatement I was willing to let her live with. “Yeah. Kinda.”
“Well, don’t. I can’t wait to see you in a few weeks, my little graduate! You are going to look amazing in that cap and gown.”
“Yeah. Until then I’m turning off my landline for the next week and hitting the studying hard. If you need me, send me an e-mail or text me, okay?” Okay, so Mom had just come clean to me and now I’d shamelessly lied to her—again! Or at least, I didn’t tell her the whole truth—that my phone was turned off because I’d be out of the country.
She sighed heavily. “Okay. But if you don’t get back to me in a timely manner, I’ll be forced to harass Heath and you know how much he loves that.”
“Love you, Mom. Talk to you soon.” And I clicked off, sitting back and feeling like a fifty-pound weight had just been removed from my chest.
Her mortgage was taken care of. She didn’t have to give up the ranch. She was even preparing to take on new guests! Had she gotten a loan? A grant? It all seemed so improbable but there was no mistaking that she was telling the truth. My mom wasn’t as good a liar as I apparently was becoming. My eyes wandered up to the ceiling and I couldn’t stop grinning. I wasn’t even annoyed at the thought of probably being enlisted as a free ranch hand over the summer.
Then, of course, my mind wandered to the auction. To the conundrum I found myself in. To the fact that Adam would never fulfill the terms of our deal. I thought about the almost four hundred thousand dollars sitting in my Cayman Islands bank account—money I’d never properly earn.
And I came to a decision, quickly dialing Heath’s number. Minutes after I’d told him about the trip to St. Lucia, I dropped the second bomb on him. Heath was so blown away that I had to repeat myself.
“I said I want you to refuse the bank transfer.”
“What? Why are you sending money back to him? I thought terms had been fulfilled, so to speak?”
“No.”
“I don’t get it. Still?”
“It’s a really long story.”
“Maybe you need to fill me in.”
“I’m calling it off. I can’t do this.”
“Damn, that’s a fucking relief. Drake took it okay?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose with a thumb and forefinger and prepared to tell yet more lies. “Yeah, he thinks it’s a good idea, too.”
And truthfully, that is what he could have meant last night. He’d hardly said two words to me this morning. Whether it was because of fatigue or regret for having revealed so much about himself to me, I couldn’t tell. I’d tried my best to pretend everything was the same between us, even though everything had been turned on a ninety-degree axis and we were in uncharted territories now.
“And what about your money issues? What about med school?”
Half of the money issues no longer existed. “I’ll find another way,” I sighed. Maybe I could learn to pole dance. I coughed. “Loans or something.”
“Fuck, I can’t follow you two. You make my head spin.”
“Please, Heath. I promise I’ll tell you everything when I can. But, you know…the NDA.” I threw that out there as the dumbest excuse, hoping he’d swallow it.
He didn’t. “Yeah. Whatever. Listen, I’ve told you now and I’ll tell you again, I don’t like what all this has done to you. I still think he’s yanking you around and I don’t like it. Now he’s got you thinking you’re his girlfriend instead of his call girl.”
My chest tightened and I cleared my throat. “Not at all. We aren’t dating and there’s been no discussion about boyfriends or girlfriends or whatever. And I’ve already decided that once I get back from the Caribbean we aren’t going to see each other again.” Some unknown force coiled itself around my chest and tightened when I finally gave voice to the thoughts that had preoccupied me for the previous few hours.
Heath paused. “And he knows that?”
I squeezed my eyes closed and uttered the lie in a completely normal tone of voice. “Yeah, sure. He agrees with me.”
“And you aren’t going to sleep with him?”
“No.”
“So you aren’t going to see him again. You aren’t going to sleep with him. Why are you even going on the trip?”
I cleared my throat. “Because I promised I would.”
“I still don’t get it. But if you do end up letting him sleep with you, just remember the old saying about buying the cow when you can get the milk for free.”
“Shut the hell up. I’m not a cow.” I laughed, but the laugh had a manic quality about it, like I was on the edge of some weird kind of panic.
***
For Sunday evening family dinner, we made it to Adam’s uncle’s house early. Britt and her family had not yet arrived. Uncle Peter had the fixings for beef and chicken kabobs lined up to barbecue and I helped him spear them onto the sticks in preparation for cooking. Within minutes Adam pulled himself away to deal with a “quick issue at work” over the computer.
I was concentrating on pushing slimy pieces of raw chicken onto the wooden stakes without gagging. Raw chicken always grossed me out.
“So how’s the studying for your MCAT coming along?” Peter surprised me by breaking his usual silence to make conversation.
“Oh. Not so good. I keep getting distracted.”
“You need to tell him to leave you alone so you can study.”
I smiled, popping a cherry tomato onto my stick. “Oh, I can’t blame it all on him.”
“Adam’s a wonderful boy and I love him like he’s my son. He is my son in many ways. But he can be overbearing sometimes.”
That was an understatement. I picked up a chunk of sweet onion and kept going. “I’m not going to argue with you about that.”
“He’s strong willed. Always has been. It’s how he’s gotten where he is. But you are going to have to get tough with him when he gets like that with you. He’ll respect you for it.”
I suppressed a smile. My standing up to him aggravated him more than it engendered any respect, as far as I could tell.
“I hope you stick it out,” said Peter after a long pause. “He’s happier than I’ve seen him in a long time.”
My face burned, and I suddenly wished he’d change the subject. “That’s good to know,” I said quietly. “So, how many of these chicken kabobs am I making?”
And with relief, the subject was ditched. A good thing, too, because the doorbell rang and Adam called that he would get it. A few minutes later, he entered the kitchen with Lindsay and some younger man I’d never met.
I hadn’t known that Peter had invited his work colleague or I would have prepared myself for the casual gutting with the eyes she usually tossed my way. I took a deep breath and pasted on a fake smile. Lindsay didn’t bother, but moved up beside Peter, gave him a kiss and handed him a bottle of wine. “Thanks for having us over. It’s been ages.”
As usual, she was put together impeccably. Flawless makeup, beautiful clothes. She wore spiky heels and a designer dress—for a family barbecue. She was poised, elegant. I felt awkward and tomboyish next to her. And though she’d never been openly hostile to me, I also felt defensive around her—and downright aggressive whenever she went within three feet of Adam. Which, unfortunately, was often. And that wretched habit she had of touching him. It made my blood pressure soar.
After our kabobs by the pool, Adam quickly excused himself to take yet another phone call. Inside the house, I wandered down the hall to look at William’s figurines again. He wasn’t in the room but I hoped he wouldn’t mind my getting a closer look.
I wasn’t alone long, however, because Lindsay tucked her head inside the room and froze when I turned to meet her gaze. To my astonishment, instead of leaving, she entered.
“Hey,” I said awkwardly.
Lindsay looked around the room. “This is Liam’s room, you know, not Adam’s.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I knew that. I was coming to get another look at the figurines.”
“Oh yeah, his little statues. He’s spent hours on those for years. Poor guy.”
I looked at her in surprise. “He seems quite happy.”
Lindsay shrugged. I’d noticed little interaction between her and William. In fact, it seemed like William had studiously avoided her.
“I’ve known this family for a long, long time,” she said, giving her little factoid dump a nonchalant air but saying something completely different with her meaning. As if her having known Adam longer gave her some kind of weird seniority over me. I didn’t reply, replacing a tiny huntress on the shelf and picking up a musketeer.
Lindsay cleared her throat. “So how long have you and Adam been together?” she asked in that same blasé tone as she moved toward a bookcase that held some trophies. I squinted. They looked like track trophies but I couldn’t see the name on them. They must have been Adam’s.
And I had no idea at all how to answer her question. “Not very long.” I said.
“Really,” she said and I wondered when she’d spring her previous relationship with Adam on me. I almost yawned. How very predictable.
Surprisingly, she didn’t.
“Has he stood you up for work yet?”
I shrugged. “Once or twice,” I lied, wondering what she would do with that.
Lindsay looked taken aback. “It’s still new. You don’t have to worry much yet.”
“Worry? What about?”
“Adam’s a married man,” Lindsay said as she took out a trophy from the bookcase, studying it. The light reflected off the metal plate and I could easily see Adam’s name and his event—the Hundred-Yard Dash. First place. 2002.
My stomach dropped at her words. Adam? A married man? “What?”
She turned to me with an enigmatic, almost condescending smile. “He’s married to his first love: work. I’m afraid no woman could compete and will always come a distant second.”
What a shitty thing to say to someone whom she thought her “friend” was dating. Did she mean to scare me away?
“I’m always up for a good challenge.”
We were interrupted when Adam appeared in the doorway. Lindsay replaced the trophy and turned toward him with a smile. Adam looked at me. “We have to get going. Something came up at work. I gotta run in for a little while.”
I wished I hadn’t looked at Lindsay after he said it. The knowing smile she shot me made my blood boil. Adam had just confirmed every crappy thing she had just said.
He waited for me at the doorway, then took my hand and turned and bid Lindsay good-bye.
Okay, she was annoying but she wasn’t terrible. In fact, she could have been a lot worse. She had said some things that were blunt but nothing that was untrue. Anyone who knew Adam for any amount of time—and in my case, only a month—would have to be an idiot not to figure out he had a serious problem with work.
But it didn’t matter to me. It couldn’t matter. It was some other woman’s problem. Some distant woman in the future, maybe when he was forty, like he’d said. As we drove home and as those thoughts raced through my head, I felt twinges collecting in my chest, making it hard to breathe deeply.
My fists closed in determination. There was no future for us. There could never be. Our lives were speeding in completely different directions and our beginning had almost predestined one certain ending.
But I couldn’t commit to it with everything in me. Something was holding me back. Something deep inside didn’t want to see the end. When he pulled up at the curb, I didn’t move to get out of the car.
He turned and looked at me expectantly. “What’s up?” he asked.
I turned to him. “Why did you bid on the auction?”
He expelled a long breath, ran a hand through his hair and looked out the windshield ahead of him. The question had clearly taken him by surprise.
When he didn’t respond, I continued. “I know, now, how you must feel about this situation—because of what—because of your sister. And I totally understand that. But what I don’t understand is why you chose to participate in the first place.”
He shrugged and sent me a sidelong glance. “Do you have to? The point is that I did.”
I shook my head. “Adam—”
He pointedly looked at his watch. “You’ve got an early shift tomorrow if I remember correctly. And I have to get to the complex.” He opened his door, slammed it and came around to mine. I slowly exited, glowering up at him, but he studiously avoided my gaze.
At the doorstep when he bent to kiss me, I turned my face away. I wasn’t ready to give up yet. “This is a game for you, isn’t it?” I whispered, my teeth clenching.
He frowned. “You’re twisting things again.”
“Why am I going with you to the Caribbean?”
“Because I want you to,” he said without hesitation.
“But why? We aren’t—” He bent and cut me off when his mouth landed on mine. His large hand wrapped around my jaw, holding me in place while he explored my mouth with his. When he pulled away, his eyes held mine in a mesmerizing stare. I could see the reflection of myself in there—like staring into two tiny dark mirrors.
“I’m not going to discuss this with you now.”
“Will you discuss it with me later?”
His face took on a pensive expression. “Yes. Definitely. After the trip.”
I opened my mouth to protest. We weren’t going to see each other after the trip. But I remembered at the last minute that I hadn’t explicitly told him that. It was my sole decision. And I hadn’t told him about that or returning the money. So I clamped my mouth shut and said good-bye.
He had secrets, yes. But so did I.