The One That I Want (7 page)

“I was sorry to hear about your husband,” Kristopher added. “Your friend Sharlene said it was a car accident.”

I nodded and noticed he was staring at my wedding band. In the past week I’d suddenly become very self-conscious about it. I found myself reaching for it now, twisting it on my finger, recalling the quiet ceremony that had resulted in it being placed there.

It
had
been over seven months since Adam’s passing. When he slipped the gold band on my finger those years ago, the reverend had said it was “until death do you part.”

Well, I guess I could put a checkmark next to that requirement, huh? I was no longer obligated to wear the ring.

But until Dane called attention to it on Thursday night—and now Kristopher today—I hadn’t considered separating myself from a symbolic piece of jewelry that had been on my hand 24/7 since my wedding day.

How long was a widow supposed to wait before pulling it off?

Kristopher cleared his throat. “Maybe we should talk about something other than the death of family members, eh?” He fiddled with his stirring stick. “Maybe a cheerier topic like the global recession…third world poverty…or the latest Ebola outbreaks.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. I’d forgotten about his sense of humor. How, when he wanted to, he could charm almost anyone.

“Yeah, that sounds like a much lighter discussion,” I said. “Although it’s hard to compete with funerals. It’s got the word ‘fun’ right in there.”

He threw his head back and laughed loudly, as if he’d never heard that joke before. “Right you are. So, you’re doing okay, Jules?”

“I am. At least as well as can be expected.” I appreciated his asking, but I wasn’t really in the mood to talk about
me
today. I remembered that about Kristopher, too—his gift for deflection. He always managed to turn a conversation away from himself if the topic was uncomfortable or too personal for his liking.

“But we were talking about you,” I reminded him. “Aside from playing handyman, what brought you back here? You said you’d been working as a recruiter in Oklahoma. Did you transfer to the Chicagoland area?”

Kristopher had been in ROTC during high school and had served in the U.S. Navy for a few years. Then he went to college out of state, earning a degree in general business. I wasn’t entirely clear on the timeline, but he’d somehow hooked back in with the military after that, and he’d become one of their recruiters.

“Yeah, I’ve been in Tulsa for the past eight years. I needed a change.”

Why would he voluntarily leave a comfortable position in an area he’d lived in for that long only to return to a place where he’d been so anxious to escape at age eighteen? Why would anyone uproot themselves from a well-established lifestyle…unless there had been a big problem of some kind?

“You were bored with the position?” I asked.

Kristopher answered—reluctantly, I thought, “Not exactly. It was for personal reasons. Not job related. I just needed to get away.”

“A broken heart?” I ventured.

“Something like that.”

He was quick to move off that topic and return to our easy standby: High school.

“Sorry again for blowing you off after graduation,” he said, a wry grin playing at the corners of those sexy lips. “I was in a weird head place then.”

“Who isn’t at that time of life? The transition between the last year of high school and the first year of anything else is always hard.” I paused to take a couple of sips from my own coffee and broke off a piece of my peanut butter chocolate chunk cookie. This shop had the best cookies. “I’d probably have been more understanding of what you were going through that summer if I’d been a senior then, too. The following year was pretty stressful for me, and I wasn’t moving nearly as far from home as you had.”

He exhaled, long and slow. “Yeah, I needed to get out of here and go away. Start with a fresh slate. The navy was a good choice for that.”

“Where were you stationed?”

“Mostly out in California. The San Diego area. For the first time in my life, I had a really deep tan.”

We both laughed. Kristopher, like me, had very fair skin that burned easily.

“Bet you went through a lot of sunscreen,” I said.

He nodded. “By the crateful. But that got old after a while, too, so when I started college, I chose somewhere different. Philadelphia.”

I raised my eyebrows at this. “That is pretty different. Did you like it?”

He shrugged. “Sure, but I was itching for a new environment once I’d gotten my degree. Then the Tulsa job turned up, and off I went.”

I was starting to see a pattern here. He’d move somewhere for a few years, become ensconced in the region, get bored with it for whatever reason (or maybe he’d cause some interpersonal turmoil that he needed to escape?), and then move somewhere new.

For the first time it occurred to me that Kristopher’s return to Mirabelle Harbor might not be a complete move back home but, instead, just another landing spot for a few years until he got cabin fever again. And decided to move to Seattle. Or Juneau. Or somewhere just off the Florida Keys.

“Being there for eight years was a pretty long time for you then, wasn’t it?” I asked.

He inclined his head in agreement but didn’t offer up any additional details about his reasons for leaving Oklahoma.

Instead, he said, “Hey, do you remember that night we drove out to Barrett’s Pier? The moon was almost full and we just sat there and talked for hours, holding hands—kissing a little, too—and listening to that Backstreet Boys CD of yours?”

I remembered. I could still recite the lyrics to every one of those Backstreet Boys songs. Particularly “I’ll Never Break Your Heart,” which held a certain degree of irony, given the company I was keeping. “Yeah.”

He smiled and reached across the table to lightly grasp my hand. “It’s memories like those that I missed most when I was away from home for all those years.”

I didn’t move or speak for a moment. I wasn’t sure what to say or do. Couldn’t guess what he expected, or even what I expected of myself. Finally, I smiled, squeezed the hand that held mine, and gently pulled away.

Looking into his warm brown eyes just then I saw something that reminded me of both Dane’s facial expression from a few nights ago and Ben’s recent reunion email. I realized Kristopher had a similar need to be regarded with the kind of admiration somebody like me had given him during his younger years. To be, once again, the center of someone else’s world.

His seemingly open reminiscing about high school made it easy to get caught up in a fervor of adolescent love. But I couldn’t escape the feeling that there were many things left unspoken. And that an intimate spring night almost two decades ago between two fairly chaste teens wasn’t really the driving force behind all of this nostalgia. I enjoyed those sweet recollections from high school as much as anyone, but I didn’t actively want to
relive
those years.

Kristopher pointed to my cookie. “Hey, I think I’m going to get one of those. Want another?”

I shook my head. “I’m good, thanks.”

When he returned, it wasn’t only with a bakery item but, also, with a bright, new tactic for steering our conversation in a different direction.

“What do you think of dinner?” he asked, motioning between him and me. “Just us. Are you still a fan of cheeseburgers and crispy fries?”

“Tonight?”

“Sure, if you’re free,” he said.

I checked my watch. “My daughter is going to be finished with her class soon, and I’d planned to spend the evening with her.” I thought he’d understood that from the beginning but it seemed he didn’t. “She’s going to camp this coming weekend and will be gone for an entire month—”

“Ah,” he said, interrupting me. “Say no more. These next few days will be busy and you’ll want to maximize your time with her. I get it.” He nodded in a show of understanding, but I strongly suspected he didn’t
really
get it. He wasn’t a parent, and there were some things you just couldn’t explain.

Still, I appreciated his attempt at empathy. “Perhaps later next week, though?”

He jumped at this suggestion. “Perfect. You name the night, Jules. Coffee and cookies are great, but the truth is that I’ve enjoyed seeing you again so much, and I’d like to graduate to a real date.”

Who could say no to that?

We’d just decided on next Thursday night for what appeared to me to be a recreation of our first date from high school—burgers at Sloppy Joe’s and a movie at the Mirabelle Harbor Cineplex (both Kristopher’s idea)—when Analise pranced into the coffee shop, still flushed from dancing. Her jazz class was held across the street, and I’d told her I’d be here to meet her when she was done.

“Can I have a cookie, Mommy?”

“May I,”
I corrected, “and yes. Which kind would you like?”

“Sugar with sprinkles.”

I handed her some money and followed her with my gaze as she went up to the counter. Kristopher glanced between the two of us.

“She’s lovely,” he said. “She looks like you.”

“Thanks.”

He turned to study Analise for a longer moment, his inquisitive expression reminding me of someone out birdwatching for the first time. He looked at her like she was an unusual species of egret. With her long legs and fair coloring, I supposed there was more than an average resemblance.

When my daughter came over to us again, I nodded at Kristopher and said, “Analise, I’d like you to meet my friend from high school, Mr. Karlsen.”

She frowned slightly, but she shifted her cookie to her left hand so she could stick out her right. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Kristopher said, shaking her hand rather awkwardly. I got the sense that he didn’t often interact with children. “It’s very nice to finally meet you, Analise,” he said, all politeness and formality.

“You, too,” she replied, taking a step back as soon as she could. Then she squinted up at me. “He’s the high-school boyfriend, isn’t he? The one who
didn’t
send the flowers, right?”

Kristopher looked confused. “What flowers? Should I have sent flowers?”

I stifled a laugh. “No, of course not,” I reassured him, though it seemed clear to me that my daughter felt otherwise. That she didn’t altogether approve of my high-school flame. “We should probably go.” I gathered up my things and handed my keys to Analise. “Why don’t you open up the car, sweetie?” When she was out the door, I turned to Kristopher, “Thank you so much for the coffee. See you next week?”

He nodded, still appearing more than a little bewildered. And he reached out to give me a quick hug and a peck on the cheek.

It felt…all right. Strange, but not entirely unwelcome. Maybe I was a little more prepared for dating again than I’d thought.

“Looking forward to it, Jules,” he said.

Me, too
, I added silently as I broke away.

Chapter Seven

The Fourth of July was on Saturday night, and we’d had longstanding plans to join Shar, her older brother Derek, Derek’s wife Olivia, and their three boys for dinner and fireworks.

Analise had always been a girl’s girl, one who kept to herself more often than not and, when seeking out friends, chose other girls as her companions. She rarely hung around boys if she could avoid it, so spending an evening with Shar’s adorable but rambunctious nephews—ages eleven, nine, and five—always gave her a new perspective.

“C’mon, Analise,” Riley, the middle son, urged. “We’re gonna play Freeze Tag. James is it!”

James, the eldest, crossed his arms. “Yeah, that’s right. I’m a ninja, you little brat. And you can bet I’m gonna get you first.”

“Boys, be nice,” Olivia called out to them then rolled her eyes at me. “And don’t forget about Peter.” She patted her youngest son on the back and then began rubbing his shoulders like a coach readying a boxer for the big match. “Go chase your big brothers, honey. Go, go!”

“Okay!” Peter said, sprinting away, arms pumping, like a mini superhero on the move.

Olivia and I laughed.

“You’re lucky you have a girl,” she said. “You can still have some breakables in your house.”

I smiled. “Well, there was this one time when Analise decided to practice her
fouettés
in the living room. There was a vase and a couple of porcelain figurines that didn’t survive the day.”

The other mom grinned at me as Shar walked into the room.

“Hey, I just saw Chance’s jeep pull up in the drive,” Shar said. “Are he and Nia joining us?”

“They are,” her sister-in-law said brightly. “It’s been hard to nail those two down for many events this summer—”

“They’re always ‘working out’ together,” Shar said, using air quotes.

“Is that what all the kids are calling it these days?” Olivia quipped.

“Shh! They’re coming,” Shar said.

I couldn’t help but smile at this. Chance and Nia had been an unlikely pair when they met at Harbor Fitness, the local gym, this spring, but they’d been inseparable from the moment they finally got together. Ahh, young love.

“Hey, everyone!” Nia said, entering the family room like a sprite emerging from the forest. She was a mass of long dark hair, sparkling eyes, and youthful femininity. I might only be ten years older than her, but it felt like four decades at least.