by Tawna Fenske
He squeezed her hand, hoping to soothe her. He didn’t understand her need to be twelve steps ahead of the game at all times, but he could be supportive. He could offer that, at least.
“You don’t get it.” Her voice wobbled. “TechTel, my mom busted her ass to get that job. It was the dream she gave up to have me, to marry him. This was my chance, Grady. My chance to land them as a client and make her proud.”
“She’d be so proud of you already, Willa.” He felt lost for what to say, but that seemed like a given. “Wherever she is—heaven—she’s looking down and thinking what an amazing woman you’ve become. I’m positive about that.”
She shook her head, her eyes wild and heartbroken. “You don’t know anything.” The paper slipped from her fingers, landing at his feet like an injured bird. “My mother’s not dead, Grady.”
His breath snagged in his throat. “What?” He stared at her, not comprehending, not breathing. “I don’t— You said—”
“I said she left,” Willa said. “That she was gone. And you heard the story about my grandparents sitting me down to say she’d died. Those things are all true.”
Grady’s head was spinning, and he wished he could grab hold of it with both hands to steady it, to process what Willa was telling him. “But she’s not dead?”
“I thought she was,” Willa said, dashing tears from her face. “For a long time, I believed what my grandparents told me. It was easier that way.”
“Easier,” he repeated, still not understanding.
“Easier than the truth,” she said. “Which is that she didn’t die. She just didn’t love me enough to come back. She abandoned me—abandoned us, my dad and me—but she could have come back.”
He wanted to reach for her, started to do it. But she stepped back and out of his reach. It stung that she didn’t want his comfort, but this wasn’t about him. He couldn’t make it about him.
“How long have you known this? Are you in touch with her?” He had so many questions, but those ones hooked their claws in him.
“Two years.” She dashed away tears again, seemingly frustrated that they kept falling. “For years, my dad would get drunk and say things like ‘she’d come back to us if she could,’ and I thought it was just drunk rambling. That he meant she couldn’t because she was dead.”
“I don’t understand. She faked her own death?”
Willa closed her eyes. “I don’t know, okay? I haven’t spoken with her. She obviously didn’t care enough to get in touch, and I assume she knows her parents told us she’d died.”
It seemed like a big assumption to Grady, but that wasn’t the biggest issue here. “So your father knows she’s not dead?”
“I have no idea,” she said. “I hired a private investigator to figure it out myself. What’s the point of bringing it up with him now?”
Grady frowned, not sure if she wanted a response. “Answers? Closure, I guess?”
She laughed, but it wasn’t a happy sound. It was a brittle, dry laugh with angry cracks around the edges. “You obviously haven’t met my father.”
“No,” he said softly. “I haven’t.”
Which should have told him something, shouldn’t it? All this time he’d been letting Willa into his life, offering her his dreams, his fears, his family.
And she hadn’t let him in at all. Not really.
He clenched his fists at his sides and ordered himself to breathe. Not to make this about him. “Willa, I’m so sorry.” What a lame thing to say. “It’s not your fault,” he said. “No matter what happened, whatever the reasons, you have to know it’s not your fault your mother left. That she didn’t come back. That’s on her. Not you.”
She shook her head, tears dripping down her face. “It is my fault,” she said. “Her leaving. Me losing my grip on my career. All of it, that’s on me.”
Christ, she was spiraling fast. He couldn’t let her stumble down this path. He reached for her hand, and this time she let him take it. “Let’s go inside,” he said. “I’ll make you some tea and we’ll sit on the couch with Stevie and the cats and you can tell me all about—”
“No,” she said, fingers curling into his palm as she squeezed her eyes shut. “No, I can’t. I’m sorry, Grady. I can’t do this.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want. I can just hold you and not say anything at all.”
“No.” She stepped back, shaking her head. “I need to make a plan. I need to rework my schedule and figure out if there’s some way to bid for their next project. Maybe in a couple of years when they redo their site again, or maybe—”
“Willa, slow down.” Grady slid his hand into his hair, not sure how to reach her. “Can we just take this one thing at a time? Maybe live in the moment just a little bit, give yourself a chance to process this.”
It was the wrong choice of words. He saw it in the way her eyes blazed, the way her hands balled into fists.
“Easy for you to say.” Her voice came out raw and brittle. “You throw money around like it’s confetti, and anytime I ask about actual future plans, you make it into a joke.”
Ouch.
But she wasn’t wrong.
“Look, maybe I don’t plan out my life and my future down to the absolute minutiae, but—”
“You don’t plan at all, Grady.” She took a shaky breath and a step back from him. “That’s fine for you, but it’s not how I can live. Don’t you see? We’re too different.”
“What are you saying?” He knew damn well what she was saying, but he wanted to pretend a little longer that he didn’t. That this wasn’t crashing down around him while all he could do was watch.
Willa looked at him with sadness in her eyes. “I think you should go.”
He swallowed hard, lacing his fingers through hers. “Okay,” he said, taking a few steadying breaths. “All right, you need to be alone tonight. I get it. How about tomorrow morning, we—”
“No, Grady, that’s not what I meant.” A tear spilled as she shook her head. “I can’t do this. I can’t date you. I was right all along; there’s no room in my life for a relationship. I’m sorry I let you think that. Let myself believe it when I know deep down it could never work.”
He stared at her. “You’re kidding.”
“I’m not. I lost focus. I never do that, and I can’t do it again.” Her shoulders shook with the force of all that grief. Years of it, grief that had nothing at all to do with him, with the two of them together. “There’s too much at stake. I can’t let my career slip. All the stability I’ve worked so hard to build. I can’t give that up.”
He fumbled for straws, fighting to find a way to salvage this. To give her some hope. “You’ll get other jobs.” His voice cracked, but he kept going. “Or maybe you can get an extension on this one. Maybe if we—”
“It’s not just this job, Grady,” she said. “It’s about the big picture. The fact that every time I take my eye off the ball for even one second, everything falls apart. Everything.”
How was this happening? Not ten minutes ago, they were racing down the highway with Willa’s hand on his thigh. He was this close to telling her he loved her, to holding her in his arms and making love to her again. They’d talked about moving in together, for crying out loud.
How had everything gone sideways?
Her hand was still in his, so he tried pulling her closer. If he could just get his arms around her, he could hold her and soothe her and tell her things would be okay. They had to be.
“I can’t.” She drew her hand back and stepped away from him. “I’m sorry, but I have to go. It’s been wonderful knowing you, but—”
“Stop right there,” he said, needing her not to finish that sentence. “Look, I’ll call in the morning when you’ve had a chance to process things. We can talk then, and—”
“I’ll have my phone off.” She gave a choked little laugh. “That’s what you wanted me to do, wasn’t it?”
“Not like that. Never like that.”
She shook her head and took another step back. “I shouldn’t have let this happen,” she said. “Shouldn’t have let myself fall for you.”
Fall for you.
The words that had meant so much just minutes ago hit like a slap. She said them like it was a sentence worse than death. “Maybe in the morning, things will seem better,” he offered. “You’ll calm down and—”
Shit, that was also the wrong thing to say. He knew from the way her eyes flashed, her nostrils flared.
“Calm down?” She folded her arms over her chest, hands still trembling. “This is all just a joke to you. A game. Win over the woman who doesn’t want to be won, turn her life upside down. Was that the plan?”
“Jesus.” The sting of accusation smacked him hard on the cheek. He shouldn’t let himself react, but pride made his chest flare. “So this is my fault? I didn’t exactly hold you against your will. I didn’t drag you to that hotel or tie you up and force you to watch the star show. You chose those things, Willa.”
“I did.” She squeezed her eyes shut tight, like the words hurt her, too. “And now I’m choosing to undo them. I need you to leave, Grady.”
He stared at her, eyes pinched shut, hair sticking to the tear tracks on her face. He could still reach for her, still save this.
Only he couldn’t. He’d finally found a situation that didn’t call for a hero. It called for a miracle.
“Go,” she said again, eyes still closed.
This time, he listened. He took a step back, then another. There had to be a way to save this.
“Don’t call me,” she said. “I’ll block your number, Grady; I mean it. It’s not personal—I swear it isn’t. This is just what I need.”
Of course it was fucking personal. How could it not be?
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll respect your wishes if that’s what you want.”
Tell me it’s not what you want. Change your mind, please…
“It’s what I want.” Her voice didn’t shake at all. It was firm and strong and final. “It’s what I want.”
So that was it. Grady nodded, even though she couldn’t see him. Even though her eyes were still pinched shut, blocking him out. “Goodbye, Willa.”
He turned and walked to his truck, wishing on the stars and everything else that she’d call out to him. That she’d change her mind.
But he knew damn well she wouldn’t.
Chapter Twenty
There was no saving the TechTel deal.
Willa knew that and accepted it. She got her hands on the hard drive Monday morning and sent it back with a note apologizing for the missed opportunity and thanking them for considering her.
They didn’t write back, and she knew that was one door closing firmly behind her. She couldn’t regret it, not really. Not if their expectations were so unrealistic, so demanding. If she’d learned nothing else from Grady and his family, it was the need to be gentler with her own mental health. Even so, she felt the loss of that potential business, of disappointing a potential client.
It wasn’t the only loss she felt.
She knew there was no repairing things with Grady. Even if she wanted to, she’d said too many things she couldn’t take back. He’d pursued her and won her and worked his magic until she came around, but he wouldn’t do that twice. She’d made sure of that, even though the passing days left her wondering if she’d been too hasty.
“No.” She said the word out loud to herself as she gripped the steering wheel harder with both hands. “It’s better this way. You have too much at stake. Too much to lose if you take your eye off the ball.”
Besides, they were completely incompatible. Yeah, it had been fun being with someone so spontaneous, so capable of living in the moment. But who was she kidding? Willa needed to plan everything, to foresee every possible land mine and schedule her way around them. And Grady…well, planning wasn’t exactly his forte. She’d loved that about him in some ways, but she had to be sensible.
And there was no sensible way for the two of them to be together. It was that simple.
The pep talk helped, but only a little. She was headed to see her father, which was a dumb idea. It sure as hell never made her feel better, but could she really feel worse?
“Dad?” She knocked twice on his door, then waited a bit. No response, but that wasn’t unusual. She knocked again. “Hey, Dad, are you home?”
She tried the knob, which opened easily. The stale, greasy, familiar smells filled her lungs, but she pushed through the door and let a dusty slab of sunlight fall across the sofa.
Her father lay there slack-jawed with an arm over his face. Willa stopped breathing, watching for the rise and fall of his chest.
“Dad?”
He snorted and tossed his arm off his face, and Willa breathed again. As his eyes focused on her, he smiled. “Hey, sweetheart. What time is it?”
“Just after noon,” she said. “It’s Wednesday,” she added, since he might not know that, either.
“Oh. Good.” He sat up, rubbing his eyes as Willa glanced at the open spot on the wall where his TV had been. There were only wires and a hole in the plaster.
She opened her mouth to ask, then closed it again. That’s not why she was here.
“Have you eaten today?” she asked instead.
“Yeah. Yeah, I had eggs and bacon and toast and orange juice.” He planted his feet on the floor, toes peeking through the holes in his socks. Willa made a mental note to buy him some new ones.
“You’re sure you ate?” She knew he was lying. Either he’d forgotten or he didn’t want to worry her, which made her sad and angry all at once.
Mostly sad.
Turning away, she walked to the kitchen and set her grocery bag on the counter. Slowly, she began to unpack. “How about peanut butter and jelly?” she asked. “I’ll have one with you.”
“Sure. That’d be great.”
She got to work laying out slices of whole wheat bread. She could give him that, at least. Protein. Fiber. A handful of grapes for more vitamins. She set them on two cracked plastic plates, concentrating on her work so she wouldn’t have to meet his eyes.
“I wanted to ask you something, Dad.” She could do this. Just like this, while her focus was firmly on the task of spreading Jif on slices of spongy bread. She couldn’t do it looking at him; she knew that, at least.
“What’s that, sweetie?”
“It’s about Mom.”
Silence. She knew he’d heard her, could feel the tension crackling from all the way over in the living room where he still sat. She didn’t lift her eyes, couldn’t look at him.
“Your mother,” he said at last. “Thought you didn’t like talking about her.”
That was true. They never had. Not for a long time, anyway.
Just say it. Ask what you need to know.
She looked into the peanut butter jar, steeling herself to put the words out there. To say them out loud after all this time.
“She’s alive,” Willa said softly. “Did you know?” Her voice cracked, and she couldn’t make it say the rest of the words until she stood there breathing in and out for a few more heartbeats. “When Grandma and Grandpa came and told us she’d died, did you know she really hadn’t?”
Long silence. Willa couldn’t look up, couldn’t meet his eyes.
But she felt his answer like a punch to the gut. “No.”
She looked up then, daring herself to meet his eyes. To look deeply into those bloodshot brown irises as familiar to her as her own face in a mirror. She could read nothing at all in his expression, not a thing.
But the one thing she didn’t see was surprise.
“You
don’t seem very shocked by what I just said.”
Her father shook his head, slow and defeated. “Not much surprises me anymore, Wills,” he said. “What are you asking? What is it you really want to know?”
“I’m asking if you knew she wasn’t dead.”
“No,” he said again. “Not for sure.” A pause, and that said so much more than he already had. “But I wondered.”
She gripped the butter knife tighter, the smell of crushed peanuts making her eyes water. “You thought your wife—my mother—might actually be alive, and you never thought to do anything about it?”
“What was I going to do, Willa?”
The burst of life in his voice caught her off guard, and she dropped the knife with a clatter. She picked it back up again as her father lowered his head into his hands. “I wasn’t enough for her,” he said, his words aimed down at the floor. “We weren’t enough. Why would I want you to carry that burden, too?”
Jesus.
She’d suspected as much, but it stung hearing him put the words out there, just lay them naked on the carpet like a corpse.
“So you let me think she was dead,” she said softly.
“I let myself think that,” he said. “It was easier that way.”
“I see.” She gripped the knife again, willing herself not to react with judgment or anger. Sadness was her overwhelming emotion anyway, so she let herself fall into it.
“Is that why you started drinking?” she asked.
He shook his head slowly, not lifting it from his hands. Like it had become too heavy for him to hold up anymore. “Maybe that’s why I started,” he said. “Who really knows?”
“You do,” she said. “You’re the only one who does.”
He lifted his head, eyes flashing with something she couldn’t quite read. “I drink because I’m a fucking drunk. That’s what you think, right?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think,” she said carefully. “I’m not the one who can make the choice to change things.”
Another snort from her father. “It’s too late for that.”
Where had she heard those words before? From her own stupid mouth, that’s where.