“You’re right, I do wish you were like every other woman I’ve screwed, but you’re not. I think that’s why I’m hesitating here, which isn’t like me. I’m talking about bringing my show and maybe a restaurant to Gilbert Corners, but I’m keeping it from you.”
“Why?”
He put his head down and she saw him struggling for the words. It was easier to smash things, she thought, easier to fight than to talk things through. But she needed to know. “Is it because you don’t care?” she asked.
He didn’t say anything, and she walked around the island and leaned on the other side of the counter. He looked up and she saw some unfathomable emotion pass over his features. For a second it looked like hope and regret mixed together.
“Did you get that from reading a book in your bookshop where you hide from the world?”
She knew he was trying to rile her, but this was too important to let anger come into play. “No. I got that from talking to you. From riding behind you on your bike and walking through this ghost-filled home of your childhood. You might think you are keeping your emotions locked away but you’re not. Not to me anyway. I see you.”
He put both hands flat on the counter and leaned over so that only a few inches separated them. “You see what you want to see.”
No one had gotten under his skin the way that Indy was today. He hated it, and yet at the same time a part of him enjoyed it. He was afraid to admit too much to her, but he had been alone for so long he’d sort of thought life was better that way. But with Indy...it wasn’t. She’d awakened something in him that he wanted to explore, but it was becoming increasingly obvious that he couldn’t control her or her responses.
Why couldn’t she just eat pasta and make love to him again and let this day be a happy memory?
Probably for the same reason that he was trying to make it into one. Both of them were seeing in the other what they needed. Not what the other one did. He needed this one day of happy memories in the place that still haunted him, and she needed a lifetime of happy memories to replace the date that had stolen her innocence from her.
“I see you,” she said. “But I’ll stop pushing, if you come to town and build your restaurant. I’ll keep my distance. I know what it’s like to be confronted every day with someone you don’t want to see.”
She stepped back and went to her stool, sat down on it.
He wanted to be a different man. Wanted to give her this thing she thought she wanted with him. Even though he knew if he did, he’d hurt her. He’d disappoint her and become a regret. This wasn’t him guessing or trying to make himself feel better. He wasn’t into lying to himself even when it would be easier.
He was difficult and hard to be around. Even Dash had said so, and Dash was the one person on the planet who truly knew him.
“I want to see you. I don’t want to hurt you,” the words were torn from somewhere deep inside him. A place that he wasn’t sure he wanted to acknowledge he had.
“I know.”
Those quiet words tore him apart.
“There. You see it too.”
She shook her head. “I see us. We have both been pushed past limits that would have broken others, but instead we both took those scars and the pain and made ourselves stronger. I know you need someone who can be light and make you laugh—”
“You do that.”
“Until I get like this,” she said.
He wasn’t sure what she was getting at. “Oh, lady, this is a Conrad problem, not an Indy one.”
She shook her head. “Nothing is all your fault. I want to take a chance on us. And I know we had sex and have had what, one and a half dates. So there isn’t really an us, but I feel like maybe there could be. I guess...well all of this is me trying to ask you to take a chance too.”
Take a chance.
No one had ever said those words to him. He had simply just always done what he wanted and dragged people along with him in his career and he had no real personal life. Could he do what she was asking?
Sure. Of course he could. But could he do it and not hurt her or get hurt himself in the process? Because he wasn’t sure he could handle letting down another woman he cared about.
And there were no two ways about that. He had let Rory down, and the consequences had left her in coma. He knew he hadn’t been driving, hadn’t caused the accident, but that didn’t change the fact that he’d exacerbated an already tense situation and made it harder for his cousin.
“Conrad?”
He was taking too long to respond. But he didn’t know if he could. How was he going to do this? Since he’d woken up in that hospital bed nearly ten years ago, his life had been about learning to live with the pain, then relearning to walk, then figuring out how to cope with life, then the restaurant, then TV. All solitary prospects, but she wanted him to agree to something else. To try something with her.
“Forget it. So what do we need to do for the rest of this dish? Make some kind of sauce?”