The One That Got Away (9 page)

On the way to the airport, I am a handful of mismatched rhythms. My fingers drum the steering wheel in time to the Jackson 5. Too enthusiastically, my feet press the gas, then the brake, then the gas again. My pulse skids through me, picking up speed as I pass the sign for the terminal.

When I pull up to the sidewalk, Noah is asleep on a bench, his brown head buried in the arms folded over his small leather duffel. A cheerful plastic-wrapped bouquet of red and yellow daisies waits by his side. I sit down next to him on the bench. He starts awake with a sharp inhale, rubs his hand over his face before he notices me. Then I get that wonderful crow-footed smile.

When he wraps me in a hug, I press a kiss to my favorite spot, that vulnerable little spot on the side of his neck, right below his hairline. I close my eyes and enjoy the happiness washing over me. I've been waiting so long for it, and it feels so good.

“I missed you so much,” he whispers.

“Me too,” I tell him, hugging him tighter. Drinking in the feel of him against me, after all this time. “This
sucks
.”

“Only a few months left,” he says, pulling away and dragging himself to his feet. “Let's go home. I've slept five hours in the last two days, and I'm about to fall over.”

He falls asleep again in the car on the way back to my place. At a long stoplight, I study him—purple shadows stain the skin under his eyes, his cheekbones are more prominent than usual, and his jaw is rough with that unexpectedly reddish stubble that I love. It makes him look sort of rakish. I've never seen his hair brushing the back of his collar before, either, but I like it. I smile, knowing he won't listen to me when I tell him he should keep it that way.

Once we pull into the driveway, he wakes up exactly long enough to stumble up the walkway and collapse, fully clothed, onto my bed. I lie down next to him for a few minutes, watching his quiet breathing, but he doesn't stir. I climb out of bed, pull the door closed silently, and head downstairs to my office. So much for my daydreams of being ravished.

The plan was supposed to be that we would leave in the afternoon for Noah's parents' house, but as the hours tick past and he doesn't surface, I decide he needs rest more than anything else. He just got done traveling for fifteen hours; the drive to Horseshoe Bay can wait till tomorrow morning.

In the early-evening light, I can see that he hasn't moved since I left him, not even to crawl under the covers; his shadowed form looks like metal shavings bunched together on the magnet of the bed. I want to make him more comfortable, but I don't want to take the risk of waking him when he needs sleep so badly, so I just back silently out of the room. At the last second, though, Newman darts through the closing door and leaps onto the bed, landing with the force of a cinder block next to Noah's feet.

“Newman!” I hiss and pluck him off the bed, but Noah is already feeling groggily around for his BlackBerry.

“Babe,” he mumbles, “have you seen my phone?”

“I have it, and I'm not giving it back to you.”

He grunts, but he's smiling when he flops back onto the bed.

“And for god's sake, take off your clothes,” I say. “In fact,” I add with a smile, “why don't I help you with that?” I deposit both Newman and the BlackBerry safely out of the room and shut the door.

Noah lurches to his feet and into the bathroom. “Don't you dare come near me,” he calls over his shoulder. “The last time I brushed my teeth was in the Southern Hemisphere.”

He reappears a few minutes later with a towel around his waist. Mmmm. I've always loved how untidy his hair looks when it's wet. I reach my arms up to him. His skin is damp and sweet and cool to the touch, but his mouth is warm.

We kiss. And kiss, and kiss, and kiss. He painstakingly kisses his way down my throat, my breasts, my belly.

“Thank god,” I murmur as, after what feels like an absolute lifetime of kissing, he starts to pull off my jeans. The world-peace jeans, which he hasn't even remarked upon.

He glares up at me. “Are you in some sort of hurry here?”

“Damn straight,” I answer, wiggling my hips. “Good god, man, get on with it.”

I expect him to laugh, but hurt flickers across his face. “I haven't seen you in four months. I wanted to take my time and enjoy being with you.”

Shit shit shit. I forgot his stupid ex told him he took too long to move things along in bed. Although, right at this moment…“I'm sorry, sweetie, I didn't mean to criticize you. We've just been waiting so long, I guess I wanted instant gratification. Um, literally,” I add, running my hands over his arms encouragingly.

He is still frowning. “I wanted it to feel special.”

And I wanted to get laid
, my brain screams. Why does this have to be
special
? “It
is
special. I'm so happy to be with you,” I say. “C'mere.”

He reluctantly lets me pull him back up to me, and a minute
later we are finally having sex. Whether from lack of practice or lingering crankiness on Noah's part, it isn't the best it's ever been, but it's been so damn long that I barely even notice. We've got five more days to get back to how things are supposed to be.

We are snoozing in that last deep blue light of dusk, his head on my chest, when he looks up at me.

“I almost forgot,” he says. “I brought you something.” He clicks on my bedside lamp, then fishes around in his duffel until he retrieves a long, flat turquoise box with “Tiffany” stamped in black lettering on the top. “I hope you like it.”

Inside the box is a silver chain attached to a small pendant in the shape of a heart, encrusted with what I assume are tiny diamonds. A minuscule key charm dangles from the top of the heart. When I lift the pendant, the shimmering chain spills through my fingers; the metal is cool against my skin. It's a lovely, generous gift that any woman in her right senses would adore. And I realize, stomach shriveling with guilt, that I don't like it at all.

Noah is watching me hopefully, so I lean forward to kiss him. “I love it,” I lie. “It's beautiful. That was so sweet of you to remember how much I love silver, thank you.”

He gives me a you're-so-cute smile. “Sweetheart, that's not silver. It's platinum.”

I guess I should have known that, somehow. “Oh. Well, it's lovely.”

“I'm so glad you like it,” he says. “My co-worker helped me pick it out. I wanted to find the perfect thing for you.” He rests his forehead against mine and cups my cheek. “I love you, Ree. I can't wait until I'm home for good and we can just be together again. And then we can get married and finally get started on our lives together.”

It is the first time he's ever addressed marriage so directly. We've talked about it, of course, but always as something that would happen in the vague, general future, not as something imminent. We weren't in a hurry; with his divorce still fading into the past, and me quitting my old job to go out on my own, he understood that I wanted to get a little more settled before we took that next step. And now, I realize, we're actually there. He is going to propose in the next couple of months, I am sure of it. I want this to happen; I should be ecstatic. I should be melting with tenderness. Instead, the only thing I feel is panic.

I kick it into a box and shove it to the back of my mind. This is what I need. This is where I've wanted to be headed since he showed me what a real relationship was like. “I love you too,” I whisper. And I mean it; I have never doubted it before and I don't doubt it now. “I love you,” I repeat, for both of us.

Noah rousts me out of bed at 7:30 the next morning, wearing the straw cowboy hat John insisted on buying me from Allens, and he looks so goddamn cute in it that I pounce on him.

We are packed and on the road forty-seven minutes later. There's a hurricane making landfall over Galveston that's projected to drench its way northwest tomorrow, so we want to try to enjoy as much sunshine as we can before it hits. After fourteen more hours of sleep, Noah is in a great mood, loudly singing along with Garth Brooks on the radio, faking a deep Texas twang he's never had. I join in with him on the choruses.

As soon as we arrive, we dump our bags in his bedroom and head down to the dock. The house itself is an unconvincing attempt at Old World Spanish elegance, so I always try to spend as little time inside it as possible. But on the dock, I can lie right next to the water. With bold disregard for possible splinters, we spread
towels right onto the wooden planks, and I lie back with my head on Noah's stomach. He pulls my hair out of its ponytail and combs his fingers through it, again and again. I feel the sun soaking into my skin and listen to the waves slopping against the shore of the lake and, for a while, everything is absolutely, beautifully perfect.

Noah's parents arrive early the next evening, along with the hurricane clouds. We catch them up on our respective lives over an Argentine-inspired dinner at their kitchen table. I can't imagine how tired of grass-fed beef poor Noah must be by now, and even I am hitting the wall with Malbec.

“So, work must be busy, huh?” his father, Peter, says to me between bites of fillet. “Heard you were so busy you couldn't make it to Buenos Aires earlier this summer.”

“Yeah, unfortunately, it's been nutty the past few months. But cracking the whip in June made sure I could take these days now, so that's good.”

Peter chews silently, withholding comment.

“Sarina's business is really growing,” Noah volunteers. There is no tint of reproach or qualification in his voice, and I love him for that.

“That's wonderful,” says his mother, Anne-Marie. “What sorts of projects are you working on?”

I fill her in on everything I've got cooking, especially the proposal for Balm, which is just a few weeks away.

To my gratification, Anne-Marie sounds genuinely impressed. “So when will you start work on the new spa locations?”

“It's not a hundred percent certain until I actually present to the investors, but I know the owner wants me for the job. Which is amazing—it's enough work that I'll need to hire a couple people to help me, so I'll be an official small business owner. With
staff!” I can't keep the pride and anticipation out of my voice, and Noah hears it and smiles.

“Good for you, honey! That's fantastic. If you don't mind me asking, though, how's that going to work in the future?” asks Peter.

“In the future?” I repeat.

“When you have little ones,” he continues. “You can't be working so much when you have a little baby to take care of.” He spears another piece of steak and pops it into his mouth—my signal to speak.

I open my mouth to answer and realize that I literally have no idea how to respond to this. Foolishly, I close it again and try to recover from my shock. What could
possibly
have led him to believe that this was an appropriate comment to make?

“Well, she works from home, Peter,” says Anne-Marie, as though my temporary inability to speak has somehow also rendered me invisible. “Obviously not as many hours, but she could do some work part-time. Couldn't you, dear?” She turns to me, pleased at having solved this wicket before it even got sticky.

“I might be able to do that, yes,” I manage, as the power of speech returns. Sure. I might be able to do it if I didn't mind steering away from every commission that would demand more of my time than I could manage to squeeze in between diaper changes and nursing sessions. And, of course, if I didn't mind throwing away everything I've been working for the last thirteen years to build, and am just now on the verge of starting to achieve. But other than that.

Incredulous, I glance at Noah, who is staring attentively at his fork.

“Well sure, that sounds doable,” says Peter. “Good to hear you've thought about it. Just as long as my grandkids don't get passed off to some daycare to be raised. I don't believe in that.”

“Dad,” says Noah in a low, tight tone I've never heard before.

“What? It's ridiculous. People shouldn't have children if they're not going to raise them themselves. You don't agree with me?”

“I do, but…”

“But nothing. That's the way it should be. Your cousin Stacy went right back to work a couple months after she had her baby, and she missed the first steps, first word, everything. It's appalling.” He clunks his wineglass down on the table to show the matter is closed. Anne-Marie delicately rests her fork and knife on the rim of her plate, as if needing to free her hands for combat. Noah is staring at his lap, frowning. Why is he leaving me to fend them off all by myself?

I take a deep breath.
Tread carefully, these are your future in-laws
. “Well, I do think this conversation is a bit premature. We're still a few years away from that, so we have some time to figure it out.”

“Really, a few years?” says Anne-Marie softly, shooting a glance at Noah. “We were so hoping we'd hear some good news within the next year or so.” She sounds disappointed, not accusing. But where is she getting this from? Am I the last person in the room to find out that I'm supposed to be knocked up by this time next year?

My brain is buzzing with static. The panic I felt the other night, when Noah gave me the necklace, is back in full force.

“A year? No, I don't think…”

“Well, be careful you don't put it off for too long,” warns Peter. “Don't want to risk running into problems, you know.”

“Dad!” mutters Noah, slapping a hand over his eyes.

“He's right, Noah,” says Anne-Marie. “We got very lucky that Caitlyn was just fine.”

Noah's sister, fifteen years younger than he is, is fondly acknowledged within the family to have been a “blessed surprise.” But Caitlyn notwithstanding, I have absolutely no interest in discussing my own biological clock with my in-laws. “I appreciate
the concern, and I'm sorry to have to disappoint you, but no, no grandchildren for a little while yet,” I say firmly.