by Sophie Gunn
“I have another possibility for Paige’s new wardrobe,” Annie said. “Maybe a boy is buying her things.”
“She’s fourteen!” Lizzie protested.
“They say kids grow up faster now. Paige is just two years younger than you were when you—”
“Okay!” Lizzie cut her off. “We all know what I did when I was sixteen. Let’s not rehash it in front of the baby.”
“Don’t do like your aunt Lizzie. She was a bad, bad girl,” Annie said very seriously to Meghan. “Anyway, I have no idea. I’m just saying maybe. Did you ask her?”
“Of course. She says that she saves her babysitting money or borrows stuff from friends. But I just talked to Linda yesterday at the diner, and Paige hasn’t babysat for her twins in weeks.”
“Or for me. Tommy and I are too tired to go out.”
Lizzie waited for more information, but Annie didn’t seem inclined to elaborate on her and Tommy’s troubles. Lizzie was a little relieved. She didn’t want to fight. “I don’t buy what Paige is telling me, but I can’t just out and out call her a liar.”
Annie nodded. “Do you think this is about her father coming? Her own little self-improvement project for Dad?”
“Don’t call him that. Call him Ethan Pond, sperm donor. He’s no more her dad than Mr. Williams at the carpet store. Hell, Tommy is more a father to her than this guy. In fact, I was kind of thinking of asking Tommy to keep an eye on her. If she’s stealing, I don’t want her to get caught by anyone else, if you know what I mean. Do you think he could, you know, go to the mall sometime? See what she’s up to? Who she’s hanging around with.”
Annie got a funny look on her face.
“What?” Lizzie asked.
“Nothing. It’s just that you’re always asking Tommy for help.”
“Is this about what happened in the diner? Because it was nothing.”
“I know. And I’m sorry for flipping out there. I just still think that you treat Tommy sometimes like he’s your husband.”
Lizzie was as shocked by the fact of Annie’s frank accusation as she was by the content of it. She felt the urge to defend herself, but a stronger urge overtook it. She smiled.
“What?”
“You know, I don’t know what’s changed about you these past few weeks, but I like the new Annie. I’m glad you told me that. You’re right. I depend on him.”
Annie shrugged, as if embarrassed for being right. “How’s your quest for getting a new man before Ethan’s arrival?” Annie asked.
“Lousy. I’ve been on three dates, and they’ve all been busts.”
Annie stopped and sat up straight, as if she had just remembered something important. Her eyes met Lizzie’s, then skittered away. Lizzie braced herself for whatever Annie didn’t want to look her in the eye with.
“Speaking of men,” Annie said, “let’s talk about a fenceman.” She looked out the window as if expecting someone. Lizzie followed her gaze. Mrs. Griffin from the post office walked by outside. Her dachshund peed on Annie’s sugar maple.
Lizzie admitted, “I asked him in for coffee last week and he said no.” Lizzie felt a tug of wanting something more, but she ignored it.
“Great. So you won’t mind that he’s coming for dinner.”
“Annie!” Lizzie sat up. She had thought Tommy had been avoiding her gaze all night. “You invited him? Why?”
“If a strange guy is going to be on your property, we’re going to check him out in person. Oh, and looky. Here he is now!”
Sure enough, Tay’s red pickup rounded the corner, inched down the street, then pulled smoothly, albeit slowly, to the curb. The engine cut, not entirely smoothly, the door opened after hitching a bit, and out he stepped.
Lizzie looked after him for his animals, but for once, he’d left them behind.
Jeans. Button-down white shirt with collar. Brown boots. Bottle of red wine in hand. His truck might be glitchy, but Tay was one hundred percent smooth.
CHAPTER
24
Tay knew Lizzie would be here, but he hadn’t anticipated that she’d look so good. No raggedy pajamas, no waitress uniform. On her sister’s couch, feet curled under her, wavy brown hair loose, red skirt and tank top under a heavy fall sweater, she looked unharried and relaxed. Until she caught sight of him, that is. Her sweater had slipped off her right shoulder, revealing the spaghetti strap of the shirt underneath and her tanned, rounded, muscled shoulders. When she saw him, she yanked it back into place and crossed her arms over her chest.
Annie let him in, and as he stepped into the room, the baby on the floor started to tip forward. Annie was looking at him and Lizzie was studiously looking away, as if composing herself for a difficult ordeal. Neither of them saw the baby tipping. He jumped and caught her before her nose bonked the floor. Her warm, soft head was shocking in its vulnerability. Whoever decided it was a good idea to put something so soft and fragile on top of a baby? He tipped the baby back to sitting but didn’t want to take his hand away.
“Good catch!” Annie said.
“She can’t be trusted with that thing,” he said.
“What thing?” Annie asked, looking alarmed.
He caught Lizzie’s eye and she looked away. He shouldn’t have come. This was starting to get much too complicated.
“That soft head. Shouldn’t she wear a helmet or something?”
The baby batted her enormous blue eyes at him. He reluctantly pulled his hand away. “Well, you’re welcome,” he said.
“Not all the Carpenter women are that easy,” Annie said, but she smiled at him, obviously one of the easy ones.
Lizzie turned bright red.
He scrambled to cover her embarrassment. “Believe me, I know. That’s why I brought really, really good wine.” He handed Annie the bottle.
Lizzie still hadn’t spoken.
Annie studied the label. “Oh, very nice! French! You’re welcome in my house any time.” Then she jumped up and scurried to the kitchen, crying, “Just off to get the corkscrew!”
“Traitor,” Lizzie muttered under her breath.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi yourself,” she said. “How are you?”
“Good.”
“Good.”
“Good.” He repeated. This was awkward. He wanted to kiss her and he couldn’t possibly kiss her. Something was crackling between them that neither one of them knew what to do with. He’d move in, dart back, piss her off. He shouldn’t have come.
“They’re trying to set us up, you know. Just warning you,” Lizzie said.
“I had that feeling,” he admitted. “I wasn’t going to come.”
“So why did you?” she asked.
“Because I wanted to make it up to you. For not coming into your house for coffee,” he said, trying to ignore how good she looked. If he kissed her again and he couldn’t follow through, he’d have to jump into a gorge himself. Hold steady, big guy. You came to warn her about her sister. That’s all.
She looked him right in the eyes. “You know what I realized just now?”
“What?” He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear.
“Everyone’s trying to push me into some role that they need me to play for them. I’m supermom to Paige and little sis who needs protecting to Annie.”
“What role are you playing for me?” he asked. He was curious what she thought. His thoughts lately rarely jibed with other people’s.
“My role is to make you feel better about your accident. But Tay, I’m sick of playing roles. It’s making me feel worse.”
He tried to interrupt, but she stopped him.
“Wait. Just let me finish. I’ve been thinking a lot about this since our last conversation. I want to help you, Tay. Heck, I get that accidents happen. I’m not horrid, you know. But I can’t help you because I won’t ever be her.”
“Her name is Linda Goodnight.” He felt the chill that always gripped him when he mentioned her name. He hoped if he said it enough, the nausea would lesse
n. I lost my concentration and I killed a woman named Linda Goodnight.
Not in this lifetime.
“Okay. I’m not Linda and I won’t ever be. I can’t make you feel better, no matter how much you fix my place. That’s why I need you to stop coming around. Because maybe it makes you feel better, but it makes me feel bad.”
Sounds of Annie moving around in the kitchen drifted out to them. The back door slammed. Tommy’s and Annie’s low voices from the kitchen were buried under a burst from the laugh track of Paige’s television show. The calm domesticity felt alien to him, and he suspected, from the look on Lizzie’s face, that it was alien to her, too.
He looked around him at the sedate perfection and compared it with Lizzie’s mess of a house. He should back off, but this neat, tidy house was pissing him off because it seemed like an affront to Lizzie, although he had no idea why. What was her sister trying to do? What had she been doing at Lizzie’s house? He felt as if he was stepping into the middle of something, but he also felt as if being in the middle might help Lizzie somehow. He owed her.
Heat filled his body. Not sexual heat, but the familiar heat of desperate longing for the impossible—turning back time, being understood, human connection, the usual. He leaned in as close as he could. “You don’t need to tell me that I could turn your place into the Taj Mahal and I’d still feel a black hole of guilt sucking out my guts for the rest of my life. You’re not doing me any favors by letting me hang around, believe me. I came because I liked you and I fixed your fence because I liked you. I liked you when you said that freckled friend of yours was nuts for thinking the universe granted wishes and I liked you when you said that everything had to be equal. And when you were around, I could smell and taste and feel in ways I couldn’t when you weren’t around. You made me come alive in ways I haven’t in a long, long time. I haven’t told anyone my story in a long, long time except for you, Lizzie.” He looked around again, unable to contain himself. “Christ, Lizzie, look at this place.”
“Look at what?”
“Annie’s house. This place is practically shining it’s so clean and spiffy. Are these things even real?” He touched a begonia on the side table. “It’s real,” he reported. He sat across from her on the couch. He was too big for it, and it shifted under him, every fiber creaking.
The baby cooed and wobbled on her pillows on the floor between them. Lizzie handed her a toy, which the baby stuffed into her mouth.
“Tell you the truth, a place like this makes me want to break something, just so it’s not so damn perfect.” He glanced guiltily at Meghan. “Sorry, kid. So darn perfect.”
Lizzie gazed out over the lawn at leaves dropping from the fiery maple tree in the yard as if they were the most interesting things around. He wasn’t getting through to her.
“Dare me?” he asked.
“Dare you to what?” she asked.
“Mar the perfection?”
She sat up. “I don’t! What are you talking about?”
“Yes you do.” He looked around, then reached out and tipped a tiny potted plant right off the table. It thudded to the rug below, spilling dirt.
A crazy little laugh escaped from Lizzie’s throat. She covered her mouth.
“See, I knew you’d like that. ’Cause you’re a woman who can’t be trusted. You say what you don’t mean.” He felt a little easier as he knelt to pick up the plant. He pushed the stray dirt back in, then put the pot back in its place. “Why’d you wish for a freebie handyman, Elizabeth? Don’t think, just say it. Now. Fast. The first thing that comes to mind. Mar the perfection.”
“I already told you. I want to make Paige happy, to make her feel confident for when her father comes.”
“Bullshit. You don’t want that. You want her to stay. Try again.”
“You don’t know what I want.”
“Neither do you, obviously. But I have a feeling it has something to do with this place.”
“Here? Why?”
“I don’t know, but I think you do. Isn’t it kind of obvious, Liz? You do the opposite of what you want because you think it’s right. But I don’t give a shit about right or wrong. I don’t even believe in right or wrong. Just in the truth and being honest. Come on, talk to me, Lizzie.”
She uncrossed her arms. Then crossed them again.
“Your sister was sneaking into your house.”
“What?”
“Get pissed, Lizzie. What do you want? Stop thinking of anyone else. She was in there for a while.”
“When?”
“She has a key on a yarn string and she lets herself in. What’s going on with that?” He wondered how far he could push her. “Look at your house, Elizabeth. Look at your life. Now look at this.” He motioned to Annie’s perfect house around them. “Is this what you want? This perfection? Why? Why would you want Annie’s life?”
“I don’t.”
“No? Well, she wants yours. Or at least, something of yours. So what do you want? Don’t tell me you want Paige to be happy. Don’t tell me you want what’s right. Dig deeper, Lizzie.”
“I want my place to look nice for Ethan, to show him that we don’t need him and his stinking help.” The words rolled out of her so quickly, she looked shocked that she had said them.
“Paige’s father?”
“Yes. I can’t believe I just said that. It’s so childish to want revenge.”
He could tell that she had meant her voice to be defiant, but it came out barely a whisper. Her limbs betrayed her, too, shaking slightly. He was getting to her and she was getting to something honest—finally!—and he liked it. Maybe this was how he could pay her back for his inability to have coffee with her, for kissing her, then pulling away. He could challenge her to be honest with herself.
“I can give it to you. Fix your place up so it looks so good, Ethan Lake will think you’re a goddamned librarian married to a cop.”
“Ethan Pond.”
“Whatever.”
“How’d you know Annie was a librarian?”
“Lucky guess. It was that or a schoolteacher.”
Lizzie drew back. “That’s not what I want. That’s stupid. I don’t want Annie’s life. I don’t want revenge.”
“Why not?”
Lizzie opened her mouth, then closed it. “I’m sure Annie’s going into my house was nothing.”
He lowered his voice. “Lizzie, I’m sure it’s something. I think she’s toxic. Stop thinking about trying to please other people, especially toxic people.”
“She’s my sister.”
“I’m sorry. I just don’t feel good around her. And I think you don’t either, Lizzie.” He watched the baby, feeling odd to be talking about her mother this way. Good thing she couldn’t speak English.
“What happened? Exactly?” Lizzie asked.
“Said she wanted a sweater for the baby. She didn’t come out with a sweater. She was in there for a while. Just ask Mrs. Roth. She was watching the whole thing, too.”
Lizzie thought about that. What could Annie possibly have been doing in her house? She felt incredibly grateful to Tay. “Crap. I don’t need a handyman. I need a security guard.” I need you.
I want you.
She thought about his words—Stop thinking about trying to please other people.
Annie in her house. Paige getting ready to leave her. Ethan showing up out of nowhere and Lizzie wanting to make the world look perfect for him. “I just realized something,” Lizzie said. She stood up and came to Tay, her palms sweating just a tiny bit. She leaned down so their faces were almost touching. She could see him squirm, and she didn’t care. All her nervousness had vanished.
“Close your eyes, Meg,” she said to the baby.
Then she leaned down and kissed him ever so gently on the corner of his lips.
He didn’t move. His eyes were on hers, intense and unreadable.
So she kissed the middle of his lips, softly, lingering on the warmth. She felt the presence of his body under hers,
totally still, as if venom from her kiss had paralyzed him.
She stood up again and went back to her chair.
They looked at each other across the room.
“Wow,” he said. “That was a surprise.”
“I did it because I wanted to do it,” she said. “And because I don’t give a crap what you want. I’m going to fix you, Tay, whatever the hell you say. Because I want you. And I’ve decided to get what I want, no matter what it means to anyone else.”
For once he was speechless. “I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.”
“I’m not so sure I care what you think.”
And then, to her utter relief, he smiled.
Tay stayed for dinner.
It turned out both Tommy and Tay were mad for the Yankees and the Rangers, plus they both adored fly-fishing and old cars. When they had finished dessert and the men were doing the dishes, Paige was back in front of the TV, and Annie was upstairs putting Meghan down, Lizzie found herself alone in the living room.
She hesitated by the begonia.
She looked both ways. She could hear Annie moving around upstairs, talking quietly, the men laughing in the kitchen.
She tipped the plant right off the table.
She looked down at the spilled plant, its soil dashed across the carpet like an ominous shadow.
It felt good.
And she didn’t even pick it up.
CHAPTER
25
Tommy offered to drive Lizzie and Paige home.
“I’ll drive,” Tay said. “If you don’t mind going a little slow.”
“A little?” Lizzie asked. “I’ve never seen you drive faster than I could walk.”
“Yeah, well, that’s probably true,” he said.
“I promised Julie I’d sleep over,” Paige said. “Tonight,” she said pointedly. “I brought all my stuff. And I don’t have all night to get there.”
“I’ll drop Paige. You guys go up the hill,” Tommy said.