Terms of Service (23 page)

The first tab was to an Etsy shop.  Did she have an Etsy shop?  He recognized some of the candles.  Apparently she did.  He glanced at the number of sales.  She seemed to be reasonably successful.  Of course she would be.  Hannah was smart and he couldn’t imagine her failing at anything she set her mind to or put her heart into.

Again he found hope.  She had put her heart into him.  She had told him so.  They had something here.  They couldn’t possibly lose it already.

The next tab was her bank account, which had timed out from lack of use.  The final open tab was MapQuest.  Wilmington.  Her family was there.  His heart sank.  Maybe she wasn’t coming back after all.

Standing, he moped out of the room, wondering what to do with himself next.  What he knew for certain was if he couldn’t be with Hannah, he wanted to be alone.  Madge deserved some time off anyway.  Decision made, he trudged to the kitchen to tell her she was on vacation.

***

The first day, all Hannah wanted to do was sleep.  She was worn out from the drive and lack of sleep the previous night.  She felt drained from the emotions coursing through her ever since she discovered Gavin’s motives for moving her in.  Her mother had taken one look at her and announced she would love to spend some time with her granddaughters.  Relieved, Hannah had walked down the hall to the guest room and slept.

When she woke in the middle of the night, she made a cup of tea and some toast to eat out on the balcony.  She had always loved the sound of the water she could hear from that spot.  There was a scent of ocean air on the gentle breeze.  It was quiet and there were few stars in the sky.  The best night sky she had ever seen was when they were sailing.  Those nights were some of her happiest memories and even now she was glad she had them.  Soon, she was exhausted and tired again.  Not long before dawn she’d gone back to bed.  Finally, she managed to have a dreamless restful sleep.

***

Madge didn’t want to leave.  Quite frankly, she was worried about Mr. Meyers’ state of mind.  She worried what he would do left to his own devices.  The small taste of freedom had gone badly the other night.  Still, she left, although reluctantly.  Then she did something she never dreamed she’d do.  She called his mother.

***

Unbelievable.  He owned a house, a really nice big house, and a boat.  He had land and lake rights and yet, he had nowhere to sleep.  Apparently Hannah had the right idea.  She left.  He couldn’t leave.  Even if he did, there was nowhere he wanted to go.

Instead, he was wandering around his house assaulted by memories, unable to find solace in any room.  Even his study, which had been the one place India had never decorated, the one room she never entered had partially become Hannah’s domain.  They shared the space every evening.  He no longer found peace there, just emptiness.  The patio had really comfortable furniture, but he and Hannah had spent the night in it.  There went that idea.  He couldn’t sleep on the sailboat.  Every square inch of it held memories of Hannah.  Even his bedroom, a room she’d never entered, seemed so closed in and stuffy, he couldn’t breathe there.  All he could think about was how Hannah should’ve been upstairs above him, lying on the bed.  Having left the house to restock his liquor cabinet, he now went back to his office to make sure the trip wasn’t for naught.

Just before noon the doorbell rang.  Gavin didn’t even consider getting it.  No good had ever come of answering the door.  It rang more insistently two more times.  Then silence.

Minutes later, he heard the front door open, and then his office door.  He didn’t even lift his head.  If he was getting robbed, he didn’t care.  If he was getting attacked or murdered, he welcomed it.

“Honestly, would it kill you to answer the door?”  Bitty stood over him with her hands on her hips.  She glanced about the room.  “And did you have to crawl into a bottle?”  She was moving about the room, muttering in disgust.  Just as Madge had done, Bitty opened the curtains, threw open the door.  She left the room, leaving the study door open, and stomped to the kitchen.

When she returned all of fifteen minutes later, she carried a big pot of coffee, and two big mugs.  In her absence, Gavin had only managed to sit up and hold his head in his hands.  With a sigh, she disappeared again.

“Take these,” Bitty ordered shoving acetaminophen at him, a glass of water in the other hand.

Without arguing, Gavin reached over and took the offered medicine, the small cup of water, and even started to accept the coffee when he paused.  “Not that mug.”

Bitty stared at it.  “What’s wrong with this mug?”

“It’s Hannah’s,” he explained.  He looked at his other option.  “Pass me that one.”

After doing so, Bitty spoke.  “You need to pull it together, Gavin.  You have a lot of responsibility.  You don’t have time to fall apart.  Since when do you fall apart over a woman?”  She seemed to be studying him for a reaction.  He made sure his face was blank and his hands were holding the mug, betraying nothing.       

“I don’t want the responsibility.  I don’t want the company.”  He growled angrily.  “I’ve wasted my life trying to make our father happy.  And he was never happy.  I’ve tried to make him proud, carry on after the accident.  I don’t remember him ever being proud of me.  Do you?”

“Sure,” Bitty shrugged.  “You were the favorite.”

“Well, he never let on, believe me.”  Gavin sighed and drank some coffee.  He loved the way the warmth trailed down his throat until it hit his stomach.  He slouched in his chair, silent for a moment until an idea occurred to him.  “I don’t suppose you want the company?”

Bitty looked at him.  “What do you mean?”  She spoke slowly.  “I’m going to need you to spell it out for me.”  Her eyes narrowed as she leaned in seriously.

“I want to be happy.  Doing everything I was supposed to do has never made me happy.  Look at my life.”  He paused to see if Bitty was listening.  “You love the company.  You were always better at the business.  The only reason father didn’t want you to have it is one of the lamest reasons of all.”  He stared into his mug for a moment. “He’s not why you’re a lesbian, is he?”

For the first time in a long time, they were talking again like siblings should.  It felt good.  They should have done this all along.

“No, I would still be a lesbian,” Bitty said with a chuckle.

“Oh.  I thought maybe the thing with India was to get back at me.”  He smiled and shrugged.

“Oh, well, that was.  Or…that’s how it started anyway.”  She stood up and walked to the fireplace.  “I hate to admit this now, but the truth might as well come out.”  She sighed before turning to face him.  “India was supposed to be my revenge on you for stealing the company.  I wanted to make you pay for getting something I wanted.  I wanted to hurt you.  Only…I fell in love.  I guess India did too.”  She sat down on the couch in front of him.  “So, I can’t even look at you and say I never meant to hurt you, because I did.  I’m sorry, just like I’m sorry you’re suffering now.”

Gavin stared down at his mug.  Slowly, he raised his face to look at her.  “Well, it seems we have more in common than I would have thought.  You’re not the only one to fall in love and complicate a perfectly planned revenge scenario.”  He smiled sadly as he explained to Bitty everything she had missed.  When he finished, he said simply, “And I don’t know how to fix it.”

“Let’s put our heads together, Gavin.  I’m sure we can come up with something.  After all, we’re pretty crafty,” she joked.  “First, however, we’ve got to get you cleaned up.  Hannah can’t see you like this.”  She stood and put her hands on her hips.

Gavin smiled at her.  Once again, hope made an appearance.

Chapter Nineteen

The beach had always been therapy for Hannah.  She had spent the first two days with her family sleeping on and off.  She hadn’t interacted with them or even with the twins.  Finally by Sunday she felt ready to face her life again.

“So, the mind is healing,” her mother commented when she emerged from the bedroom.  “Let’s see what we can do for your soul.”

Hannah smiled weakly while she sipped her hot tea.  “What do you recommend?”

“Let’s go walk the beach, see what we find.  The girls would enjoy it and you need it.”  She seemed confident in her decision.

“I don’t know,” Hannah said.  She wasn’t sure she was ready to face the world again.

“Yes.” It was an edict, a command.

Studying her mother, Hannah realized she was going to the beach since her mother wasn’t going to back down.  “I guess I’ll go get ready,” she mumbled.

In the end, she was glad she went.  She had planned to merely sit and stare at the waves while the girls and her mother walked around with a bucket collecting all kinds of sea debris.  So she found a spot and sat.  She ran her hands through the sand, enjoying the feel of the moist abrasive material against her skin.  Then she started looking at some of the shells, stones, and sea glass she inadvertently raked up.

A black jingle shell first captured her imagination.  She held it up and saw it, saw it as it could be, wrapped in wire, dangling from a ribbon or chain.  She saw sea glass earrings.  She pictured stone anklets.  Suddenly, Hannah had joined her family, filling her hand with the raw materials for a new project.

Her eyes met her mother’s.  There was a grin, her version of ‘I told you so’.  Then they each returned to the task at hand.

***

The drive back seemed longer.  Hannah smiled to herself.  Part of her impatience stemmed from a desire to create.  When they had gone back to her mother’s house after the walk on the beach, she had started designing some new pieces.  She played with some wire.  She toyed with some ribbon.  She was so glad her mother had once dabbled in jewelry making. Otherwise, she would’ve had to wait until she returned to the studio at Gavin’s house.

For the second time this trip she was disgusted with herself for letting her emotions keep her from taking the SUV Gavin bought her and the phone she had found so useful as of late.  For example, if the phone were with her, she could’ve already loaded those new jewelry pieces on her site.

Hannah smiled as she realized she was well on her way to healing.  It wasn’t just the beach.  It wasn’t entirely the outlet for her emotions through jewelry making.  It had a lot to do with the conversation she had with her mother their last night together after the girls and her father had gone to bed.  Her mother had found her staring out at the dark night sky and announced they needed to talk.

Sitting down, Hannah knew somehow this was going to be important.  She wasn’t disappointed.

“Did you know that I wasn’t your father’s first choice?”  Her mother looked at her with a gleam in her eyes.

“No, I didn’t,” Hannah admitted, surprised.  The way they looked at each other, the way they acted together, she had always believed theirs was a tale of true love.

“My friend asked me to double date with her and her boyfriend.  Apparently he had a friend who was lonely.  I had nothing better to do, so I agreed to go.”

Hannah smiled.  It sounded right.  Her mother was ever practical.

“So we went out to dinner and a movie.  I didn’t like this guy from the start.  Oh, but I did like the looks of her boyfriend.”  She chuckled.  “I was terrible to my date.  I ordered the most expensive items on the menu.  I had an appetizer and a dessert.  I made him pay.”  She leaned back in her chair, smiling at the memory of it.  “Your father was my friend’s boyfriend.”

Hannah’s eyes widened.  “You stole someone’s boyfriend.”  This sounded nothing like her mother.

“We weren’t friends so much as we worked together.  Of course, by the following weekend we weren’t even speaking.”  She looked Hannah in the eye.  “You may find this hard to believe, but I was quite attractive in the day.

“No, I don’t find that hard to believe at all,” Hannah said truthfully.  “I’ve seen pictures.”

“Well, did you know your father was in the Coast Guard?”  She gave Hannah a look, almost a challenge.

“But you hate boats!”  Hannah was shocked.

“Yes, so I made him quit.”  She leaned back and smiled at her daughter, waiting for her to understand the meaning behind the story.  “Boats were your father’s life, his livelihood.  Then he met me and was willing to do anything to keep me.  People change.  Motives change.  And situations can change.”  She stood and walked to Hannah.  “Good night, my darling.  See you in the morning.”

It was all Hannah could think about all night.  People do change.  Gavin had changed in the short time they were living together.  So had she.  She was happy.  She
had
been happy.  Maybe if she could figure out how to forgive, she could be happy once more.  She just wasn’t sure if she could ever trust him again.  Without trust there was nothing.

***

The vehicle pulled into the driveway around three in the afternoon.  Passing the girls their travel bags, she ordered them to their room to unpack.  Then she grabbed the remaining bags and rushed into the house.  Gavin was there, waiting in the foyer.  He looked nervous, maybe even scared.  There was something else in his eyes. He was hurting too.  For some reason she took some pleasure in his pain.

He opened his mouth to speak, but Hannah stopped him.  “If you’re about to lecture me about common courtesies, save it.  I just want go upstairs and unpack.  We can talk after if there is something you’re just dying to tell me.”  Then she walked past him and marched up the stairs.

When she closed the bedroom doors behind her, she felt bad.  What had happened?  One minute she was in the car, mentally prepared.  The next minute she saw him and all the hurt and anger flared up again.  Her head and her heart were in serious conflict.  If only she didn’t feel so much.

***

Downstairs, Gavin had retreated to his study to think.  She had snapped at him.  Hannah took one look at him and just snapped.  He deserved it.  He sighed.  At the same time, at least she was speaking to him; at least she had offered to speak with him later, too.  Hope.  More hope.

Gavin didn’t want to wait until after the girls went to bed to speak with her.  He had waited four days already.  The wait was killing him.  So he decided to be patient enough.  He waited for her to come back downstairs.  He waited for the girls to come down in bathing suits begging to go sailing.  Then he initiated his plan.

“Hannah, can we just go for a sail before we have to all get back to work in the morning?”  He waited quietly for a response.  The girls wanted to go, too, so he had that working in his favor.

She looked down at the girls, wearing their bathing suits and their pleading looks.  Both girls had their hands laced in front of them and kept mouthing the word ‘please’ over and over again.  She hated to disappoint them.  There would be disappointment enough when they realized they were moving out.  She still had no idea where they were going to go.  All she knew for certain was she wasn’t going to dust off her ad and try to find a new man to take care of them.  This had been disastrous.  Lesson learned.

“Fine.  Let’s go sailing.”  She went upstairs to get ready while Gavin and the girls wandered out to ready the boat.  Fifteen minutes later, the boat was pulling away from the dock.

“Wait!”  Hannah tensed.  “We forgot to pack food.  The girls will be starving and miserable in half an hour.”

Gavin shook his head.  “I’ve got it under control.  I didn’t want you to have to cook tonight so I ordered take out.”  Then he smiled as they sailed over to a nearby marina where a delivery guy waiting for them.  

“You have got to be kidding,” Hannah said shaking her head.

***

The girls swam later and then went below to play.  Gavin took it as his cue to talk to Hannah.  The talk should come easily since he had been practicing it for two days.  Bitty had given him the idea and helped him with it. As much as he hated to admit it, he was glad she had come over.  They had a lot to work through, but their time together over the weekend was a great start.

“Listen,” he began slowly.  “I’ve been thinking.  And I know that you have turned in your written notice.  I don’t suppose you decided to rescind it over the weekend?”

Hannah shook her head.  “I’m afraid not, chief.”

Ah, so they were back to that.  He liked ‘handsome’ better.  Gathering his courage, Gavin continued with what he had rehearsed.  “So, I’m thinking you’re probably no better off now than you were when you first moved in.  Would that be an accurate assessment?”  He could see she was hesitant to answer, worried about where the conversation was going.  “You don’t have to say anything yet, just hear me out.”

Hannah leaned down and looked through the hatch to check on the girls.  They were oblivious to the intense conversation taking place topside and she intended to keep it that way.

“Whether you choose to believe it or not, Hannah,” he said, “I care about you.  I don’t want anything to happen to you, or Rory and Zoe.”  He swallowed hard.  “I really do love you.”

Hannah’s breath caught in her throat and it sounded like she was trying to choke back a sob.  She had turned away so he couldn’t see her eyes.  He let her have the time she needed to pull herself together before he continued.

“I can’t just let you move out and worry about how all of you will survive.  That’s not the man I am.  I’m not Brett.  I can’t just leave you to your own devices and carry on with my life.”  He shook his head.  “I have no idea how I’m ever going to recover from this.  Seriously.  But I’m going to do my best for all of us.”

Hannah’s head cocked to the side.  “What do you mean?  What are you getting at?  Just say it.”

“Okay,” he smiled shyly.  “I have a proposition for you.”

“Great.” She rolled her eyes to the heavens.

“Here’s what I propose.”  He waited to make sure she was listening.  When she faced him again, he started.  “We’ll keep doing everything as we have been.  We’ll have our breakfasts together and our dinners together.  We’ll go sailing.  We’ll have our story time.  We’ll keep everything nice and pleasant, for the girls, for all of us.  We’ll share the study in the evenings.  We’ll talk.  In a week and a half, we’ll spend the last two weeks of the month sailing in the Caribbean.”

“So far this sounds like a wonderful deal for you.  Why should I go along with it?  And at the risk of sounding mercenary, I’m dying to know what’s in it for me, other than a peaceful co-existence.”  She crossed her arms over her chest.

“Well, since you mentioned it, I would give you an incredibly generous severance package which would help all of us sleep better.”  Gavin stretched.  He hadn’t realized how tense he was until that moment.

“You are asking an awful lot.  Just how generous are we talking?”  She stared at him, clearly unconvinced any of this was really working out in her favor.

“To begin with, I’ll pay for you to live in the apartment of your choice for a year.”  He watched her eyes widen.  Hope grew.  “I’ll pay off and give you the Edge.  You seem to like it and you need it.  It’ll be yours, in your name, free and clear.”  Her mouth opened in surprise and she clapped a hand over it.  “Finally, I’ll pay for your phone for another year.”

***

Her head was spinning.  Really.  This would be the answer to her prayers.  She wouldn’t have to worry about anything.  She could take time to find a good job, instead of feeling pressured to take the first offer she received.  She could save money and never be dependent on anyone again.  It was perfect.

Hannah struggled to process it, struggled to find the downside.  Well, she had to spend a ridiculous amount of time with Gavin for the rest of the month, which was almost to be expected.  Other than that, there were no negatives.  The girls would be happy.  She’d be happy.  Then when they parted ways, she’d be independent.  Mostly.

“I won’t be able to relax in the Caribbean if I have to worry about the three of you.”

“Wait.  What?”  She did a double take.  “You are staying?  If I go along with this then when our time is up, you’re staying?”

He smiled shyly.  “Yeah.  I’m staying.  I’m taking this beauty,” he patted the boat they’d spent so much time on, “and we’re going to follow my dream.  I’ve decided to live a little before I die.”  He shrugged.

“What about the business?”  Hannah sat in shock.

“That was my father’s dream.  That’s Bitty’s dream.  It’s not mine.”  He shook his head.  “I’ve given enough out of guilt.  I’ve been more than responsible.  In the end, it only made me miserable.  You showed me I deserved more.  You taught me how to be happy.  I can’t give that up.  It’s hard enough losing you.”  He looked away, unable to face her after making such revealing admissions.

“Can I think about it and let you know in the morning?”  She suddenly felt nervous, no longer confident in her decisions.  “I mean, the last time I made an impulsive decision…it didn’t turn out so well.”  She gave him a genuine smile.