Chapter Nineteen
D ana drove a short distance away before she pulled over and parked. She was so angry she didn’t trust herself to drive. She cried a little, to let off steam, she assured herself. Not because he’d hurt her. Though he had, the big jerk. How could he think she would leave again? Without even discussing it with him?
She’d made a mistake when she was young and, frankly, stupid. And Levi had just proved that he was never going to forgive, much less forget. If only she’d been more honest with him before. Or at the least, talked to him before she accepted the damn job. But she’d been so sure he’d be willing to come with her. At least, that’s what she’d always told herself. Maybe she hadn’t told him because she’d been afraid of his response.
Dana pounded a hand on the steering wheel. She tried to look at things reasonably but she was still too mad. She thought about going to Booze’s and having drink. If Siobhan was working she could talk to her. But she didn’t want to be around anyone. Not even her friends. They would commiserate with her, of course, and agree that men were clueless, but they didn’t know the whole story and she didn’t feel up to explaining it to them. So she drove to the Gas & Go and picked up her favorite comfort food.
Ice cream. Chocolate ice cream.
Half an hour later she’d finished the ice cream—two pints of it—and was feeling a little nauseated. But she was calm enough to consider that she couldn’t totally blame Levi for his visceral reaction when he heard about the job offer. As annoying as it was to admit a fault, she had never told Levi why that job had been so important to her that she hadn’t thought to tell him until after she’d accepted. And he’d never told her why he not only didn’t want to, but couldn’t live in the city with her. Certainly not at the time. Not since then either. Hell, she wouldn’t have known as much as she did if Asher hadn’t mentioned what Levi had told him years ago.
But her reaction to the problem had been to do what she always did. She’d taken off so they not only wouldn’t but couldn’t talk about it. It was long past time that she changed that behavior.
By the time she got back to the house at least an hour had passed. She unlocked the kitchen door and noticed he’d left the lights on for her. Dana tossed her keys and purse on the counter and stopped short, realizing Levi was sitting at the kitchen table. Waiting for her.
“I wasn’t sure you were coming back,” he said.
“Neither was I. If I’d still had my apartment I probably wouldn’t have. ”
“I’m glad you came home.” He paused a moment. “Still mad?”
Dana pulled out a chair and sat down. “Yes. But not nearly as mad as I was when I left.”
“You were gone a while. What did you do?”
“I ate a pint of ice cream.”
His lips twitched. “Did it help?”
“No. So I ate another one.”
“Did that help?”
“No, it just made my stomach hurt.”
“I’m sorry, Dana. I jumped to a conclusion that was obviously wrong.”
Dana sighed. “Did you really think I’d do that to you again? After last time was such a disaster?”
“I wasn’t thinking. I just reacted.”
“A reaction that proves you don’t trust me.”
“That’s not true, Dana. I do trust you.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “If you trusted me you wouldn’t have immediately assumed I’d do the same thing as I did last time. I’m not that young and thoughtless anymore.”
“I don’t know what to tell you other than I’m sorry.”
“It’s partly my fault. I never explained to you why I took that job and why I didn’t tell you until I’d accepted.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“We never talked about Craig, did we?”
“Who’s Craig?”
“He was my college boyfriend. We got engaged my junior year.”
“No, you never told me.”
She laughed without humor. “It was an episode I was trying to forget. Even to this day I can’t believe I was so gullible.”
“What does he have to do with us?”
“You’ll understand when I tell you. Nothing, directly. But my experience with him impacted how I handled things later.” She got up and went to the refrigerator to get out a bottle of water. “Want one?” she asked Levi.
“Sure.”
She brought a bottle back for him and sat down. “I had applied to graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania. It’s one of the top graduate schools for architecture. I applied to several but that was my number one choice. To my absolute shock, I got in. I was so excited, I couldn’t wait to share the news with Craig. We’d just gotten engaged. I was happy. I was in love.” She drank some water.
“I was a fool. Craig didn’t want me to go. He said if I wanted to marry him I’d have to turn it down. I could go to school another place. Somewhere closer. I suggested we do the long-distance thing but he wouldn’t hear of it. So I turned it down.”
“What happened after that?”
“Two months later he called off the engagement. He’d met someone else he thought would ‘be a better match.’ That’s what he said. Not that he’d fallen in love. Just that she would be a better match.” She made a sound of disgust. “He never loved me. I did it for nothing. I didn’t go after my dream because Craig didn’t want me to. After that I vowed I wouldn’t ever do that again. I wouldn’t ever turn down an opportunity I really wanted for a man.”
“I can understand that. What I didn’t understand and still don’t is why you accepted that job before you even talked to me.”
“I don’t know, Levi. I shouldn’t have. But I couldn’t imagine why you wouldn’t go with me. I thought you could do your work anywhere.”
“No, you didn’t think about my work at all.”
She hated to admit it but he was absolutely right. “You’re right, I wasn’t thinking of you. I’m sorry. I was wrong.”
“Did you think it didn’t matter? Because I’d already made a fortune that meant I didn’t want to work? That I didn’t need my work?”
“No, that’s not what I thought. But I believed you loved me enough that you would go with me and once you did I thought you’d like it.”
“You didn’t know me at all, did you?”
“Apparently not. Asher said you told him you could never live in the city. He was shocked you moved to Florida at all. But you never told me that. You never told me why you left. All you said was you couldn’t do it anymore. You couldn’t live in Miami. To me that meant you couldn’t live with me . ”
“Did you know I didn’t make a single new thing during the three months I lived there? I didn’t have a single new idea. I couldn’t even work on projects I’d begun working on before I moved. It was as if Miami zapped any creativity that I had.”
“No, I didn’t realize that. But you were awfully closemouthed about your work. I never knew what you were working on.”
“That’s true.” He looked at her with a half smile. “We really didn’t talk a lot, did we?”
“We didn’t, no. Mostly we had sex.”
“I remember.”
She smiled. “So do I. Do you know why you couldn’t work there? Why you think you couldn’t work in any city?”
“Not really. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. There was too much. Too much noise, too many people, too much turmoil.”
“Do you think it had something to do with your childhood? With your father?”
“It’s a thought. Looking back on it, yes. But at the time I only knew I couldn’t do it. Every minute of my life when he was around was a disaster. Or it seemed like it, anyway. I never knew what was going to happen. Whether he was going to come home drunk and we’d have to hide. Or even if he wasn’t stinking drunk, he’d get mad over nothing and start whaling on us. It was…chaos.”
“When you left…I thought you just stopped loving me. I di dn’t know it was your work. I thought it was me.”
“It was never you.” He took her face in his hands, leaned over and kissed her. “It tore me apart to leave you. I never stopped loving you. But I couldn’t live there. And your future was in Miami.”
“Do you think if we’d talked back then we could have stayed together?”
“I don’t know. But I don’t think so. We weren’t getting along very well, if you remember.”
“No, we weren’t. It was a long time ago,” Dana said.
“Yes, it was. People say things happen for a reason. If we’d stayed together I might never have invented another thing. Maybe things had to happen the way they did.”
“Maybe.” Her heart broke a little when she said, “We haven’t solved this problem, Levi. I’m not even sure we can.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because we don’t trust each other. You don’t believe I’d never make a big move again without discussing it with you. And I can’t live with a man who doesn’t trust me. I don’t want to live walking on eggshells, wondering if you’re going to jump to the wrong conclusion every time my phone rings.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” he protested. “I made a mistake, Dana. Can’t you understand that and forgive me?”
“Yes. If I could be sure it wouldn’t happen again. But I’m not, Levi.”
“Then…what do we do? ”
“I don’t know. I wish I did. Right now I’m exhausted. I’m going to bed.”
She was still awake when Levi came in a while later. The bed gave when he got in but he didn’t speak and neither did she. Eventually she drifted off and when she woke in the morning, Levi was gone.
*
Early the next morning, Levi did what he always did when faced with a problem he didn’t know how to solve. He went to his workshop. Not that it held any answers but at least he could work on something rather than sit around obsessing over what to do about his and Dana’s dilemma.
Dilemma. That was a mild word for it.
Was Dana right? He could see why she thought he didn’t trust her. After all, he’d immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion without giving her a chance to explain or even mention the job offer to him. But he did trust her. At least…he wanted to.
He wanted a life with Dana. He’d thought a lot about his conversation with Asher regarding children. Whether or not to have them. He knew it was something he should talk about with Dana. But what was the point if they couldn’t stay together anyway?
Late that afternoon someone knocked on his workshop door. “Come in. ”
Dana opened it and asked, “Can I talk to you?”
“Of course.” His heart gave a little sprint at seeing her. He suspected she would always affect him that way. He’d been under her spell since the day they’d met and nothing, not the breakup, not being apart for years, no misunderstanding was going to change that. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t like her expression. It was resolute. About breaking up?
“I had a call from an old friend of mine. Do you remember Margary Reynolds?”
“The name is familiar but no, I don’t remember her.”
“She worked with me in San Antonio before I came here to design Wildcat Tower.”
“Oh, right. I do remember her. We met a few times when she came to visit you here.”
“Yes, she was a good friend of mine. She still is. Margary has a major problem and asked me to help. She broke her leg in three places and is in a hip to ankle cast for the next six weeks, at least.”
“That’s rough. What does she need you to do?”
“Finish a job for her. It’s in the last month of construction and if they don’t meet the deadline they’re going to have to pay through the nose because of the contingency clause. She needs someone to take her place on site and finish up the project. Someone who knows what they’re doing and can step in for her.”
“And that someone is you. ”
“Yes. I told her I’d see what I could do. I’m supposed to call her back with my answer tonight.”
“Where is the job?”
“Phoenix.”
Phoenix. She’d have to live there until the job was finished. “You’re going, aren’t you?”
“Yes. Unless there’s a reason I shouldn’t.”
What could he say? Any objections he made would just make him sound petty. “When do you leave?”
“Tomorrow.”
Tomorrow? “You’ll be there for Thanksgiving?”
“Yes.”
“Will you…will you come back?”
“It’s temporary, Levi. I’m not leaving for good. Unless…” Her voice trailed off.
“Unless what?”
“Do you want me to come back, Levi?”
“Yes.” God, yes.
“Then I will.” They looked at each other for a long, intense moment, then she said, “I’d better go pack.”