Hannah's List (18 page)

“Do you want to give me a call before Saturday?” she asked as she held open the apartment door.

Suddenly, I couldn’t remember why I’d need to call her.

She obviously noticed my blank look. “For the movie.”

“Oh, right.” I felt foolish, but Leanne put me at ease with her smile.

Once I was home and sitting in front of the TV with my feet up, I reconsidered that invitation to the movies. Quite frankly I don’t know what had prompted me to suggest it. My plan had been to give myself a day or two to analyze the evening before I pursued the relationship any further.

Instead, I’d arranged another date. Perhaps I felt obligated to repay her for the meal. I didn’t know.

Not until I turned in for the night did it occur to me that I’d spent most of the evening talking about Macy.

A
lix Turner stuck her head inside Winter’s tiny office at the French Café. “You have a visitor,” she said. Judging by her smile, Alix seemed pleased about something. She was noticeably pregnant now, and the whole staff was thrilled. Everyone had adopted Alix and, while Winter had never given birth herself, she couldn’t help offering dietary advice and concocting nutritious smoothies.

Jordan, who was the most attentive husband she’d ever seen, wanted Alix to stop working, but Alix had convinced him she could continue until she felt too uncomfortable to bake. She also served at the counter when Winter needed a substitute. There were only a few weeks left before her due date, and Winter suspected Alix would work right up until she went into labor. One thing was certain; this baby would have a number of doting godmothers, and she intended to be one of them. Alix’s
previous pregnancy had ended in an early miscarriage last summer. That accounted for the extra care Jordan and all her friends lavished on her now.

“A visitor?” Winter looked up from the food order she was about to complete. “Who is it?” she asked automatically. Even as she spoke, she wondered who’d feel a need to be announced. Michael or possibly—

“It’s Pierre.”

The pen Winter had been holding slipped from her fingers. “Pierre is
here?
”

“Should I send him in?” Alix asked, her smile widening. She’d always been a champion of his. At times Winter had actually been a little jealous of how well Pierre and Alix got along, of the easy camaraderie between them.

Now Pierre was here, when she least expected him.
Where
she least expected him. She remembered his anger when she’d dropped in to see him, the distant way he’d treated her. In Winter’s opinion, he deserved the same treatment. She dared not let him see how glad she was, how happy his visit made her, how much she craved the sight of him. Contemplating her response, she leaned back in her chair. A moment later she decided he could wait.

“Tell him I’m busy with an order. I’ll be out as soon as I’m done.”

Alix frowned, her hands resting on her protruding stomach. “Are you sure?”

“I’m positive.”

Alix left and, smiling to herself, Winter chewed on the end of the pen. So Pierre had actually made the effort to
seek her out. This was an interesting development. But seeing how rude and unwelcoming he’d been, a lukewarm reception on her part seemed fitting. Although she suffered a twinge of doubt, she held firm.

She tried to concentrate on the order, but her mind kept drifting to Pierre. He’d never been a patient man and she guessed that after ten minutes he’d be furious. Good. Served him right.

When she felt he’d probably reached the end of his patience, Winter sauntered out of her office. She paused in the kitchen long enough to pour herself a cup of coffee and then casually walked around the counter to the front of the café. Pierre sat at a table next to the window, gazing out at Blossom Street. No one else was seated nearby, although there was a short line at the counter.

By ten-thirty, the morning crowd had dwindled to a handful who’d stopped in during their coffee breaks. In another hour, they’d get a rush of lunch orders. The soup du jour, baked potato sprinkled with grated cheddar cheese and fresh chives, was popular with her customers, so the café was bound to do brisk business.

Pierre looked up as she approached, and it gave her a degree of satisfaction to see his eyes narrow. His coffee cup was empty and the croissant only half-eaten.

“I hope you didn’t find anything wrong with my croissant,” she said as she slipped into the chair across from him.

“Quite the opposite. It was excellent as always.” Pierre’s spine was as stiff as his compliment.

Winter shrugged lightly. “I apologize for keeping you waiting.”

His mouth tensed, and he shook his head as if he’d grown tired of the old games, the playacting they both indulged in. “Don’t say things you don’t mean.”

“Like what?” She opened her eyes wide in exaggerated innocence.

“That you regret keeping me waiting. You did that intentionally and we both know it. You wanted me to be aware that you had more important tasks requiring your attention.”

Winter didn’t bother to deny it. She hadn’t fooled him in the slightest. She’d meant to punish him. But the pleasure of vengeance had already begun to recede.

“What can I do for you?” Winter asked smoothly.

He didn’t answer for a long time. “
Rien du tout.
Nothing at all.”

He started to rise, and Winter stretched out her arm, placing her hand over his. “Surely you had a reason for coming here.”

Pierre had half risen from the chair. He sat back down, his dark eyes holding hers. “I thought we should talk.”

She smiled and nodded, wanting to encourage him, wanting him to acknowledge that he missed her as much as she missed him. Nothing seemed truly right without Pierre and yet she wasn’t sure how to make their relationship work.

Spending time with Michael Everett had been pleasant, but while she enjoyed his company, it was Pierre she loved, Pierre who was her soul mate, Pierre who was always on her mind.

After a lengthy hesitation, he said, “I came because I felt bad about the last time we spoke.”

She frowned at the memory. “You were rude.”

“I was busy,” he snapped. “I had three banquets that evening, and two of the kitchen staff phoned in sick. What would you have me do? You could have checked with me first, could have given me some warning. You know what it’s like in the kitchen.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this at the time?” If he could snap at her, she could snap back. Then, because she did know how crazy life could get in a large hotel kitchen, she added, “Okay, I should’ve phoned first. But I didn’t deserve to have my head bitten off. Besides, if I
had
called, you wouldn’t have answered and then I would’ve come anyway, so it’s irrelevant.”

“How do you know whether I would have answered or not?” he demanded. “To say I would ignore a call from you is an insult.”

“Then consider yourself insulted.” Winter drew in a deep breath and closed her eyes. It always ended like this. She’d be so happy to see Pierre, and then they’d start sniping at each other, and before she could figure out why, they’d be in the middle of an argument.

One look at Pierre told her he was as frustrated as she was.

“Why do we always fight?” she asked, sick at heart. No one else affected her this way. Only Pierre was capable of twisting her emotions into such an impossible knot.

Pierre was silent for a few seconds. “Why do we fight?” he repeated, as if he, too, had lost any hope of finding a
solution. “If I had the answer to that, you and I would be married by now and starting our own family.” His eyes went to the counter, where Alix was serving coffee and croissants.

They’d talked of marriage and children. That, at least, was a subject on which they could easily agree. It was everything else that ended in argument. Neither of them wanted this constant bickering and yet they seemed unable to avoid it.

“I suppose you expect an apology for what I said that afternoon,” he muttered, returning to their earlier conversation. “Getting me to admit I was wrong seems inordinately important to you.”

“You should apologize.”

“What about
you?
” he blazed.

“What did I do that was so wrong?”

“Do you actually need me to tell you?”

“Yes, I do,” Winter said.

“First of all, we both agreed upon no contact for three months.
N’est-ce pas?
”

Okay, she’d broken their agreement. So what? She’d had something to tell him and it seemed best to do it in person. “I had a reason.”

“Sure you did. You wanted to shove the fact that you were dating some other man in my face.”

“That is not true.” She clenched her hands involuntarily. Pierre turned everything back on her, made everything her fault. He had no idea how unfair he was being, how unreasonable.

“Don’t deceive yourself, Winter.” He wagged his index finger as if he’d caught her in a lie. “That is
exactly
why you showed up on the most hectic day I’ve had all year.”

“We’d never discussed it, and I felt you should know.”

“Why? So I would miss you more? So I would beg you not to go out with this doctor? To remain faithful to me? If you’re waiting for me to plead with you, you’ll have a long wait.”

“Fine, whatever.”

“Fine with me, too.” Pierre crossed his arms and scowled at her.

This was getting them nowhere. It felt as though they performed the same roles, recited the same lines, every time they were together. She’d grown so weary of it; Pierre had, too.

“If it makes you feel any better,” she said, “you should know I’ve always been faithful to you.”

He arched a brow, implying that was no concern of his.

His nonchalant attitude irritated her even more. “Don’t you care if I date another man?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Why should I?”

“At one time we seriously considered getting married!”

“Thank God we didn’t make that mistake.”

His words were like a knife he’d sunk into her heart. Pierre knew how badly she’d wanted to marry him. Swallowing painfully, she asked, “Why do you have to say such ugly things to me?” She hated the small quaver in her voice.

“Ma chérie,
be reasonable. If we’d married we’d have killed each other by now.”

“That’s not true!”

“Look at us,” he said, gesturing toward her with one hand, then bringing it back to his chest. “We can’t even have a conversation without aiming for each other’s throat. Something is very wrong with us. I don’t know what it is…I wish I did. I thought…I hoped that when we got back together the last time our problems had been resolved, but nothing’s changed.”

The sadness in his voice echoed her own feelings, although pride wouldn’t allow her to show it.

“This three-month separation idea of yours is for the best.”

Winter disagreed, but it was hard to admit that; as he’d pointed out, it
had
been her suggestion. She’d regretted it almost every day since. At the time she’d been so sure Pierre would fight to keep their relationship intact. Three months apart had felt like an eternity then. It still felt like one now. She’d been the first to break their agreement. That should’ve told him something about her feelings. She didn’t know why it was like this with them. How she longed for the early days of their relationship, before they’d fallen into this pattern of destructive behavior, of belittling each other in this crazy reflexive way.

“So you want to continue with our separation?” she said.

Pierre flicked her an incredulous glance. “Of course, don’t you?”

“Yes,” she said, using the same tone. “But since you’re here, when we agreed to have no contact—well, naturally I assumed you might’ve changed your mind.”

“I didn’t.”

Winter managed to hide her disappointment. “S-o-o,” she said, “you stopped by despite our decision not to see each other…to tell me we shouldn’t see each other? Or was it because you were in the neighborhood and had a hankering for coffee and a croissant?”

“I already told you why,” he said sharply. “To clear up any misconceptions from the day you came to see me.”

“Misconceptions?” she repeated. “You couldn’t have made your feelings any more obvious if I’d asked.”

Pierre waited a heartbeat before responding. “Then we understand each other?”

“Well, actually, I don’t.”

“Do you need me to explain it to you again?”

“Maybe you should,” she answered. Impatience seemed to radiate from him, making any kind of rational discussion impossible.

“I felt bad about that day and wanted to apologize,” Pierre said.

“You
should
have felt bad.” Winter regretted her words immediately.

Pierre’s jaw hardened. “I can see it was a mistake to come here. It was an even bigger mistake to think the two of us could communicate. Our relationship didn’t work before and it isn’t working now. I’m afraid we were both fooling ourselves into believing we ever had a chance.” He stood so abruptly that the chair wobbled before righting itself. “I won’t say it was good to see you, because it wasn’t. Frankly, this visit told me everything I needed to know,”
he said. “Everything I needed to remember.” He started for the door.

At first, Winter was angry enough to let him go. But almost instantly she realized that if she allowed their conversation to end like this, the memory of it would always stand between them. She had to make at least an effort to reconcile.

She got up and hurried out the door. “Pierre!” she called, surprised to see that he was already halfway down the block.

He ignored her.

“Pierre,” she called again, louder this time.

He paused, but didn’t turn around.

Winter quickened her pace until she caught up with him. But then she didn’t know what to say.

“I hate it when we fight,” she blurted out, close to tears.

“Moi aussi,”
Pierre admitted, his shoulders slumping. “Me, too. Nothing ever changes with us. I love you and am crazy without you and then we’re together for five minutes and I am crazy
with
you.”

“I love you, too,” she said in a low voice, “and yet sometimes I think I could hate you.”

“We are not good together,” he said, looking away from her, every syllable weighted with sadness.

She opened her mouth to disagree and found she couldn’t.