“Keep going,” I muttered.
My chest burned and my knuckles whitened on the wheel, but I kept going. Then Ralph whined like he needed to do his business, and I turned that baby around. Turned down the road I’d followed Nick down nearly two months earlier, and took the curves with an increasingly loud pounding in my ears.
What if he got mad that I was there? What if he didn’t want to hear what I had to say and told me to leave? Or worse—what if he took me into his arms and told me he never wanted to let me go again? My breathing got erratic just thinking about that. What would I do? No question. I wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.
I’d sent his money to the account number he left for me, but I still hadn’t filed for divorce. I couldn’t do it. Not yet. If that’s what he wanted, he could take care of that.
The final turn came into view, and my palms started to sweat like crazy with anticipation. I swallowed hard and tried to take a deep calming breath, blowing it out as I rounded the clearing.
And stopped.
I clapped a hand over my mouth.
A large FOR SALE sign decorated the front yard. No lawn chair. No fern. No truck. No Nick. No anything. It was like he was never there. The hot tears streamed down my face for the five hundredth time in the last two weeks, as I realized this was it. It had been my last ace in the hole. If nothing else, if I could just get up the nerve to come here, that’s where he would be.
And I was too late.
Again.
I got out and let Ralph out to do his thing, staring at the home that I never knew him in, except for one fifteen-minute stretch and the first time I ever saw him in a towel.
We got back in and I turned around, refusing to look in the rearview mirror. I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t say good-bye—
I stopped, sucking in a deep breath. No. I wouldn’t do that to him. Even though he did it to me. Even though he wasn’t there to hear it or see us or know I was doing it. I looked at the house in the mirror.
“Good-bye, Nick,” I whispered. “I love you.”
And then I rounded the bend back to the highway.
* * *
Houston Intercontinental Airport was a beast. Highway construction nearly made me miss my exit, and then I couldn’t find the damn parking garage for nearly thirty minutes. Once I did, the little machine that spits out your ticket wasn’t working, and the guard who wasn’t expecting to do anything other than occupy space in the booth that day looked at me like I needed to fix it.
Fifteen minutes and several irritated drivers behind me later, I was parked and shouldering my two carry-ons. It was only two days, so I’d managed to pack professional but easy clothes and not need to check a suitcase. For some reason, that was important to me. Like a suitcase meant I’d get stuck there forever or something. Which was an odd issue to have, considering I was moving there. It didn’t get more stuck than that.
Luckily I’d planned in a ridiculously large buffer of time, because an hour in security, another twenty minutes by walk and tram to my gate, and I felt like I’d already been traveling for a full damn day. My shoulders ached from the carry-ons, my feet were already tired, and as I settled in to wait for boarding, I cursed the fact that I hadn’t included a bottle of Tylenol in my bag.
“We will begin boarding for Continental flight 1506 to Los Angeles shortly,” said a disembodied female voice over the speaker that wasn’t either of the chicks standing at the gate kiosk. “Beginning with first class and those with special needs or traveling with small children. Please have your boarding passes in hand.”
Of course I wasn’t first class. I was nowhere near first class. Back in the old steamship days, I would have been considered “steerage.” As in where the cows would ride. In the belly. I would have been one of the first to die on the Titanic.
Small children weren’t in my wheelhouse, but special needs? Maybe not, but if they really knew me right now, they’d make me a poster child.
I stared at the sign announcing IAH to LAX.
California. I’d been Googling the state since—well, since Nick left and there was nothing on TV and getting my laptop out was the next thing to do. I’d looked up things to do in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego. Of course I’d need to go to Disneyland. And the Lego place. Because.
Cali Dynamics was evidently on the outskirts of Los Angeles, so I mapped it and looked up apartments nearby. It would be nice to be close. I mean, I knew I wouldn’t get as lucky as the two-minute commute to work I currently enjoyed, but I didn’t want to spend hours in my car every day. My life was already depressing enough.
Just me, my dog, and—nope that was it.
Only months ago, that was fine. In fact, there wasn’t even the dog in that scenario. Ralph hadn’t entered the picture to pee on me yet, and my life consisted of me, myself, and I. Going to work, coming home, meeting up with friends occasionally, dating guys who only found me cute occasionally, and I’d been fine with that. Totally fine with that. Why did it now fall into the look-how-sad-this-is category?
Because I’d had more. I’d had a taste of coming home to someone. Grocery shopping for two. Going out to eat with a date. Having someone cook for me and letting me help. Sharing my work day antics with another person and listening to his. Hanging out and feeling that other person’s presence and knowing that a simple reach out would find me a warm hand.
Looking across the room at the other person reading, and feeling so comfortable in that silence that it fills you up.
Not being alone.
My eyes burned as the simple funny memories played in my head. I couldn’t do that. Sit and dwell. That had been fun, and sometimes not fun, and sometimes dramatic like life tends to be, but it was over. Nick was gone. He’d moved on.
Just like I was about to move on. Me and Ralph. I’d find us a little apartment that would be easy to take him out, figure out my work hours that I already knew would probably run late, and get on with it.
The job would certainly be better and more interesting than counting money out to people at the bank. Although even through its humdrumness, it had its charms. Old Mrs. Brewster who brought me the change she collected every few days from combing the park and the pond area with a metal detector. Dee Dee, the little girl whose mom worked at the donut shop two doors down, and her daily deliveries of donut holes to get us to buy stuff. Mr. Masoneaux from the candy shop down the block, who always threw in homemade lemon drops or freshly minted peppermints with his daily proceeds because he used to have a crush on Aunt Ruby. The other ladies were fun, even if one was a bit of a diva. There were plans in place to bring me out for Mexican food and margaritas next week before I left for good.
I just realized how many of those things involved food. Well, food is love. Especially when your husband is a chef.
Bam.
Those thoughts still kept coming. The zingers that poked their little stabbing prongs into me as reality dawned. I wondered if Nick experienced them. If I had gotten under his skin like Tara had.
A family of three sat down across from me, the mom and dad looking harried and preoccupied, but still holding hands while the little boy ran his matchbox car along all the chairs. Another single woman sat two over from them, and I smiled at her thinking she was more like me. We aloners needed to stick together. And then her eye caught something off to the right, and her whole face lit up. Her guy approached, looking at her the same way.
They had the more.
I blew out a breath and fidgeted, wishing the boarding would get going. The people watching wasn’t cutting it for me. Too many of them had friggin lives, and it was pissing me off. Then a lone guy walked up and took up a piece of wall, scrolling on his phone. An old lady said something next to him and he smiled politely and went back to scrolling. A good-looking girl asked if anyone was sitting in the chair nearby—something clearly unnecessary to ask, given the proximity, so it was an obvious flirt—and he just shook his head and went back to
his phone.
Seriously dude, this chick was hot. And maybe he had a girlfriend, or maybe he was a jerk, or maybe he was just stupid. But the hot girl sat down and shook her head and looked around the room. She caught my eye for a second and smiled and probably thought, we aloners need to stick together.
Nothing was going to change. It was going to be the same life, just in a different place.
“Attention passengers,” the phantom voice said over the loud speaker. “We are now boarding Continental flight 1506 to Los Angeles out of Gate 45. Beginning with first class and those with special needs or …”
I stood.
“When you need me, Lanie girl, close your eyes. I might not be upward. But I’ll be there.”
Chapter Twenty
“How do you want your bills?” I asked Mrs. O’Hara. An adorable elderly lady who wore wigs in a different shade of red every time I saw her. “Are twenties okay, or do you want them smaller?”
“Twenties are fine, sweetheart,” she said, patting my hand. “I’m not going to a strip club or anything.”
I laughed, realizing how good it felt to do that. I hadn’t done much of it in a while.
“Well, you never know.”
Mrs. O’Hara chuckled. “Your aunt was so proud of you,” she said. “Every time we played Bunko, she bragged about how good her Lanie was doing.”
“Aunt Ruby played Bunko?” I asked. “Blind?”
“We had to tell her the rolls, but she managed,” Mrs. O’Hara said, shrugging.
“And it stayed honest?”
She shrugged. “Mostly.”
I chuckled and shook my head. I was coming back. Coming back to me again. Slowly but surely, one baby step at a time my broken heart was healing. Like normal. I wasn’t my mother.
I’d fallen with all my heart, and it was amazing, and then it was gone, and I was broken for a bit. But not beaten. Like all the other normal people in the world who didn’t avoid love, I got hurt, and probably did the hurting as well. I know I hurt Nick, and thinking that he felt like I did killed me. But neither of us would curl up in a ball and quit. Heartbreak was part of life; it meant you’d been blessed enough to feel something.
I was good with that.
I was good with a lot of things. Like never getting on that plane to California, for one. I got up to get in line and walked the other way instead. Right out of the airport. Back to Charmed, to my house, to my dog, to my friend, to my lame-ass bank job, with people so non-lame that they still took me out to lunch after I told them I wasn’t going (back) to California. That I’d decided to stay.
Stay in the town that hadn’t always been kind to me but then again I hadn’t always stroked it nicely, either. It was time to change that.
Aunt Ruby was less ornery too. I’d only had one thing come up missing in the past week, and that was my favorite sunglasses. They’d been hers, too, so I liked to think maybe she was wearing them up there, sporting a little fashion, Barrett style.
I was okay.
And then I heard it.
That distinctive, incredibly familiar voice, low and commanding at the same time. It wasn’t possible, and yet all my spidey-senses turned on full blast. Mrs. O’Hara left, and another lady took her place. The bank lobby was pretty full for a Wednesday afternoon, and all the bodies I could see were not what went with the voice. I craned my neck to see who my cohorts might be talking to, but I couldn’t see.
Then there it was again. A chuckle and a full sentence about a deposit. My stomach felt like jet fighters were zooming around in there. I had to be imagining it.
“Ma’am?” said the lady in front of me.
I jerked back to reality, staring at the young woman in front of me.
“I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head free of the insanity.
I was crazy after all. I’d just comforted myself with the thought that I wasn’t. I was a loon. Certifiable, I believe he once called me. Yep. That was the case, because now I was hearing his—
The two people in the next line cleared away, and all coherent thought went out the door.
Nick.
Two lines down.
He was here. In my town. In my bank. In my line of vision. Talking to Tracey, the new teller that was transferred over. He—he was here. And he couldn’t even come to my kiosk? Then he looked my way, and our eyes locked, and I was pretty sure I was having a stroke.
“Ma’am?” the young woman repeated, louder.
“One moment,” I mumbled.
I got to my feet without stumbling, miraculously, so okay maybe no stroke, but what I was doing definitely qualified as not in my right mind. I pulled my badge from the keyboard reader, left the back of my area, and walked straight to Tracey’s, not giving him a single look.
“Trade with me,” I said.
She looked up from typing. “What?”
“Trade places with me,” I repeated. “Go take care of my customer. I’ll finish here.”
She looked at me like I was nuts. I was. Certifiable.
“I—We can’t,” she said. “You know that. I’m logged in. I can’t—”
I pulled out her card and handed it to her. “You aren’t anymore.”
“Hey!” she said. “I was in the middle of the transaction.”
“So he’ll have to start over,” I said, seeing too many shades of red for any of this to make sense. “Oh well. Please go take care of my customer, she’s waiting.”
“Lanie,” Nick said.
I gripped the cold marble that made up our workstations, willing the icy cold to chill what his saying my name just did to me.
“It’s her husband,” Lynn whispered from the next kiosk. “It’s okay.”
“Even less so,” Tracey argued. “We aren’t supposed to handle family—”
“Tracey,” I said, feeling the edge coming on. As in the edge of the cliff that I was about to tumble over. “Please.”
Something in my voice finally made an impression, thank God, because Tracey finally huffed over to my area.
And then I had to look at him.
Balls.
Shock, gut kick, and exhaustion emanated off him.
“Why are you here?” I managed, blinking away from the dark eyes that I was trying to forget.
“Why are you?”
I met his gaze again. “I work here.”
“You’re supposed to be in California?” he said. “I’m pretty sure that was the plan—”
“The plan?” I said, laughing bitterly. “How would you know anything about any plan? You didn’t stick around long enough to know of one.”
He inhaled like he was counting. “Okay. I’m the devil here, I get it. I was trying to get out of your way, Lanie.”
“My—” My air left me in a big rush. I shook my head. “My way? Don’t fool yourself. I’d just told you I couldn’t imagine life without you, and then I get blindsided with my aunt’s shit and you just couldn’t give me a minute. You had to make the decision for me, and leave me before I might leave you.”
The physical reaction in his face couldn’t have been more real if I’d slapped him myself. He gave me a long look and then picked up his wallet, moved out of the way of another customer, and walked out.
Again.
“Shit,” I breathed, feeling the burn take over my chest, my eyes, my everything.
“I’ll take you over here, ma’am,” Lynn said to the customer, nodding for me to go.
Go where? After him? No.
I refused.
To the bathroom? No, it would just get worse.
Home to wallow?
Hell no.
I got up and went to the breakroom fridge before pulling out a water bottle and downing most of it at once. I laid the cold bottle against the back of my neck and let it cool my blood. I had three hours left of my shift, and I wasn’t going to bail on it because of a man. Not even that man. I was okay ten minutes ago, and I’d be okay agai
n.
I blew out a slow breath.
I’d be okay again.
* * *
It was the longest three hours ever, in the history of time.
I went through the motions, dealing with customers, concentrating really hard on monetary transactions, but all that kept playing on long loop was that Nick was back.
Or—maybe. The look on his face when he left didn’t give much reason to think he’d stay. He might have bolted again. I didn’t know and I shouldn’t care. But I was also human and female and still married and heart-clenchingly in love with the guy, so I figured I could cut myself a little slack on the independent female I am woman mantra.
I felt like I’d done one of those events where you run a marathon and then ride a bike and then swim an ocean or something. I was drained. I just wanted to get home, curl up on the couch with Ralph, and watch something brainless that didn’t require thought. With ice cream.
The little tingle on the back of my neck when I rounded the corner wasn’t fast enough. I’d already seen it. Nick’s truck in my driveway.
My heart slammed against my ribs and just fell down. Spent. I didn’t have the energy to even get excited that he was there. Not if he was just going to give me some spiel about things working out as they should have or that he was moving back to town and we could coexist peacefully. Or if he came to serve me papers.
My stomach lurched. All things that I’d thought of all afternoon. All possibilities. Now he was here and—on my porch, I noticed when I got out. On my porch, with my dog. Sitting back in a rocker like it was the most normal thing in the world.
Ralph bounded down the steps to me, jumping up for his afternoon love-fest.
“I see how you are,” I said under my breath as I scratched his chest. “Traitor.”
When I could get my breathing stable, I stood back up.
“It’s been a day, Nick,” I said. “I don’t have the energy to fight with you. So whatever you came here to tell me, can you just do it and go?”
A Charmed Little Lie Page 21