It Takes Two (12 page)

“Shane?” Isabelle turned and saw him with the bottles.

He watched her.

She looked like a kid who had been caught hiding beer in her closet. Without a word, she reached out her hand.

He gave her the bottles and watched her tuck them into her purse.

“Let’s try that again,” the man said, stretching to his feet and handing her the purse again.

This time Isabelle firmly grasped the straps before he let go with a smile.

“Thanks,” Isabelle said.

“Sure thing.” The man moved off, perusing a collection of photographs of the area.

“We should go before I break anything else,” Isabelle said to Shane, holding her purse against her stomach.

Shane hoped it was to keep it from knocking anything else over, but it looked like she was using it as a barrier between them.

“We owe the lady for the corncobs,” Shane said, staring into her eyes, willing her to talk to him.

“Oh, right. I’ll go pay her.”

So she wasn’t going to say anything. Okay. Fine. She knew better than to think that he was going to let it go for long. “I’ve got it,” he said, reaching for his wallet.

He tracked the woman down and settled the bill—which was outrageous for four painted corncobs—and then headed back to where Isabelle was leafing through the postcards she’d dumped on the floor.

“You ready?” she asked, her smile a little too bright.

But he didn’t want to get into this here.

“Yeah, let’s go. You want to eat something?”

“Oh, I’m okay—” she started, then she saw his expression.

He was quite sure it said,
We’re going to eat
now
.

“Sure,” she said.

He grabbed her hand and headed for the parking lot. They’d take her car and find somewhere close to eat, then come back for his bike.

Shane opened the passenger door for Isabelle. She looked from the door to him. “You’re driving?”

“Yep.”

“I think—” She stopped when she saw the look on his face.

Yeah, he wasn’t happy. She had a secret. Maybe more than one. And that wasn’t okay with him.

“—that’s a great idea,” Isabelle finished.

“Me too.” He put her in the passenger seat, then headed around the front of the car.

He could tell that she was nervous as he started the car and pulled out onto the street. He didn’t like that either but damned if he could
not
be visibly tense about this. He needed to know if she was okay. He needed to know why she hadn’t told him about whatever it was. And he needed to know what this meant for the future. Was this why she was pushing him away?

He drove to the first place with food. It was a Mexican restaurant somewhere between fast food and fine dining. Mariachi music played from the speakers and the aroma of garlic, cilantro and other spices flavored the air. They were seated in a booth by a hostess and handed trifold menus. The chips came in a wicker basket and the salsa in a deep ceramic bowl, but there were definitely no cloth tablecloths or candles, and the napkins were paper.

Once they both had waters, the hostess left them alone to peruse the menus.

Shane laid his to one side and leaned his forearms on the tabletop. “Talk,” he said simply.

Isabelle leaned back in the booth, her menu still open. “I was going to tell you all about it after I got back from the cabin.”

“We’ve been dating for eight months,” he pointed out.

“Yes.”

“How long have you had the pills?”

“Ten months.”

His gut clenched. She’d known about whatever this was for ten months and hadn’t said a word?

“So this conversation is eight months overdue,” he said, working on calm.

“Eight months ago I was just beginning to get a handle on things. Then I met you. Eight months ago you were the guy I drank margaritas with and had hot sex everywhere but a bed with. Not the man I shared every detail of my life with.”

Okay. She had a point.

“Then it’s seven months overdue.”

She leaned in. “I spent the first month of our relationship caught up in this whirlwind of fun and the best sex of my life. I was sure it wasn’t going to last, but I decided to enjoy it while it did. The next two to three months of our relationship I spent thinking that it was still a lot of fun—too much fun. I was starting to realize I was a little in over my head with you, but couldn’t quite break it off because it was so great. The next two months I spent trying to figure out how to keep up with you, reading books about sex, buying toys and whipped cream and lingerie. Now I’ve spent the past two months trying to stay away from you.”

He’d spent the first month trying to convince himself that he was really with her, the next couple enjoying the hell out of every minute convinced it was going to last forever, the next three making plans for the future, and the last two trying to convince her to move in with him.

“Do the pills have something to do with you wanting to stay away?”

She nodded. “Yeah.”

He took one of her hands on the tabletop. “I
knew
it was never about my ex.”

She let him hold her hand. “No.” She sighed. “I mean, Candy is the kind of girl I wish I could be for you. Spontaneous, stay-out-all-night, adventurous.”

“But you—”

She stopped him with a squeeze. He clenched his jaw. He’d let her go on, but if she thought there were things that he wanted that she hadn’t given him already…

“I do some of those things, yes. Way more with you than usual. But I pay for it later.”

He frowned. “Pay for it?”

The waitress arrived, interrupting.

They each placed an order. Having not looked at the menu—and not caring about the food anyway—Shane ordered a number three combo. Every Mexican restaurant had a number three combo.

When she left, he turned his focus back on Isabelle. “What do you mean?”

She took a deep breath and squeezed his hand a little tighter. “Okay, do you remember the business trip I took to Denver right after Emma and I went to that outdoor music festival last October?”

He did. Isabelle traveled a lot for her work. It was usually only a day or two at a time and it was often last minute. “Sure.”

“I didn’t go to Denver.”

He frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“I didn’t go to Denver. There was no business trip. I went to a hotel downtown, got a room and climbed into bed for two days.”

“I don’t understand.” But the knot in his gut pulled tighter.

“I haven’t traveled for work in all the time I’ve known you, Shane.”

“You’ve been on four trips.”

She shook her head. “No. I told you I was on four trips. What I really do is go somewhere no one can find me, turn off my cell phone, order room service and get in bed.”

His throat and chest were now as tight as his gut. “Why?”

“Because I go and go and push and try to keep up with you and Emma until my body says ‘enough’ and I shut down. It’s been happening for a while—over a year—and getting worse. I thought at first I’d gotten a bad virus or something, but the doctor couldn’t find anything. Then I thought maybe I wasn’t sleeping enough or had too much stress. But I worked on both of those things and, while they helped, it wasn’t enough.”

She focused on the tabletop instead of him, but kept her hand in his.

Shane stroked his thumb over her knuckles, consciously keeping his grip from getting too tight.

“The first time I pulled away from everything was after a ski weekend with Emma. I was so much sorer than I ever had been before and was so tired that the idea of going to work on Monday made me cry. I thought, ‘If I could just be
alone
for twenty-four hours, I know I can get over this’. So I told Em I had to go out of town for work, I called in sick and went to a hotel and climbed into bed. It was awesome. I did it the next time I felt like that too. And the next. It became my coping mechanism. I had to do it about once a month.”

She took a deep breath and blew it out slowly before going on. “But it kept happening. I’d have great days where I’d feel fine and want to go and do anything and everything. But then, inevitably, I’d go through another bad time. I’d hurt, I’d feel depressed, I’d get so tired I couldn’t focus. I was convinced I was bipolar. But the doctor ruled that out. Then I thought I might have MS or cancer or a thousand other things that scared the crap out of me. But the doctor did all the tests and everything was fine. Finally she told me that she thought I had fibromyalgia.”

Isabelle looked up at him. “That was right before I met you. And the reason I said no the first several times you asked me out. I knew immediately that you’d run me ragged.”

She gave him a little smile, but his whole body was so tight there was no way he could even pretend to return it. He pulled his hand from hers, afraid he’d crush her fingers.

“And I did.”

She wet her lips and shook her head. “Do you know what fibromyalgia is?”

He shrugged. “I’ve heard of it.”

“It’s a chronic pain disorder. They’re not exactly sure what causes it. The counselor that I’ve talked to thinks it’s stress related for a lot of people and thinks maybe my dad’s death was the trigger for me.” She sighed. “Then the car accident made everything so much worse. I didn’t think I was ever going to get out of bed. I don’t know. I just know that my body doesn’t want to let me do all the things I want to do. If I stay out too late or have too much stress or drink too much or don’t eat right, I pay for it.”

“So things like spontaneous trips to Vegas and wild party weekends are the last thing you need.”

She gave him a sad smile and nodded. “Exactly.”

It was a lot to wrap his mind around. She looked fine. She didn’t seem sick. But he knew that there were a lot of conditions like that. And if she’d been putting on a good front for him, then it would be even harder for him to tell if she wasn’t feeling well.

Her trying to pull back from him made sense though. And really sucked.

“I need to learn more about it,” he said. “I’d like to understand it.”

She looked touched by that. “Thanks. I appreciate that.”

He took her hand again. “I
hate
that I made things worse for you.”

She pressed her lips together and looked at him for a moment. Then she said, “You didn’t do it on purpose. And I could have said no.”

“But,” he said, confessing it to himself as he said it to her, “enough no’s and it would have eventually split us up.”

When she’d said no to meeting him in Vegas, all expenses paid, the weekend he’d hung out with Candy, he’d been mad. He could admit that. There hadn’t been a good reason—or at least, it had
seemed
that there wasn’t a good reason—for her to turn that trip down. If she would have turned him down repeatedly for the things he wanted to do, like the demo derbies or the rodeos or the carnivals or the parties, he would have figured she didn’t want to be with him and their relationship would have ended shortly after beginning.

She nodded. “Yeah, it would have. And I kept thinking that’s what I should do before we got more serious. But I couldn’t resist. I kept thinking, ‘just one more weekend’…but every weekend we spent together I fell harder and harder.”

Shane took a deep breath, processing everything. He was in love with a knitter who not only preferred to stay home at night, but
needed
to in order to function and feel good.

Their waitress approached with their food and Shane bit into his supreme burrito without really tasting it. They ate for a few minutes in silence.

“So staying out late, drinking too much, too much stress are all bad for you. What else?” he finally asked.

She chewed and swallowed, then said, “Well, everything has to be balanced. Everything in moderation, as they say. I can drink, I can go out, but I have to not overdo. Too much noise, too much heat, trying to stay upbeat and not let on that I don’t feel well, pushing past the point when my symptoms start and I could nip them in the bud, the stress of making sure I’m not the party pooper, all of that can play into it.”

“The stress of dating a guy who overdoes it on a regular basis but not wanting him to know that you’re not up for it?” he asked, knowing he sounded irritated, but unable to dial it down.

Isabelle frowned at him and laid her fork down. “Yes.”

“The stress of hiding this from me, of making me think you’re fine, made things worse.”

“Yes.”

He chewed angrily for a moment, aware of her eyes on him.

“Telling me never crossed your mind?” he finally asked. “Letting me know what was going on? Going home early once in a while, going out one night but not three, telling me to just chill the fuck out once in a while—none of that occurred to you as a solution?”

Isabelle sat back in the booth and crossed her arms. “Of course it occurred to me, Shane. It also occurred to me that you could have closed your eyes and pointed in any direction in Trudy’s and found ten girls who not only would be happy to party all night with you, but who could have easily kept up and maybe worn
you
out once in a while. Why would you want to be with the girl who needs ten hours of sleep at night, gets a migraine if the jukebox is turned up a little too loud and has a meltdown if her massage therapist has to reschedule?”