The Last Goodbye (19 page)

Tyler pulled her into his arms despite her wordless protests, pressing her close and holding the back of her head in his hand as though she was incredibly precious to him. It only made her cry more.

“I don’t deserve you. I don’t deserve you,” she said over and over.

“Jesus, Ally.” There was a ragged break in his voice. “Stop saying that. It’s not true, and it’s killing me.”

She shook her head.

“You don’t believe me? You don’t believe you have a right to be happy?”

“This isn’t about happiness. This is about knowing yourself. I should never have let this happen between us. Not when I knew this would happen.”

“What is
this,
Ally? Explain it to me.”

“You know what it is. I told you. I have to go. I can’t stay here. If I try to settle, it’ll only be worse in the long run. Harder. Messier.”

“Why can’t you settle?”

She pushed away from his chest. “Because that’s what I do. I leave. I’m my mother’s daughter. A faith less, feckless gypsy who can’t stick.”

“You’re the least faithless person I know. As for being a gypsy, I’ve never met a person who wanted a home more in my life.”

Ally stared at him. He lifted a hand and started counting off points.

“Your favorite pastime is reading decorator magazines, looking at other people’s homes.”

“I like the pictures.”

“No, Ally. You like the
homes.
You’re a Peeping Tom, a voyeur, looking through the window at what you want.”

“That’s not true.”

“Then there’s Dear Gertrude. You think it’s an accident that you get so much out of helping other people? That you feel ‘connected’ to them and like the fact that you help them? You need them every bit as much as they need you, Ally. They’re the family you’ve never allowed yourself to have.”

It was like a slap. She flinched.

“
Allowed
myself to have? As though I had a choice, when my mother didn’t want me and my grandmother died on me and my aunt resented me. As though I
chose
any of those things.”

Tyler didn’t say a word. It took a second for her own words to sink in. She pushed herself farther away from him.

“No. This has nothing to do with my family.”

“This has everything to do with your family, Ally. This has everything to do with a little kid who learned early on never to get comfortable and never to trust anyone. A lesson you learned so well you’ve spent your entire adult life rejecting people before they could reject you.”

She stood. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Tyler remained on his knees, looking up at her.

“I’m not going anywhere, Ally. I love you, and that’s never going to change. I’ll take any vow, sign any contract, climb any mountain it takes to prove it to you. I love you, and I will never let you down, and I will never stop loving you.”

“This isn’t about love. I know you love me. It’s not about that.”

“What’s it about, then?”

“I told you. I’m my mother’s daughter.”

“No, you’re not. You’re not a selfish, self-involved woman who takes what she wants and then moves on. You’re the kind of woman who appoints herself champion for an old man facing his own mortality. You’re the kind of woman who doesn’t think twice about helping others. You’re the kind of woman who cares and loves deeply. And I am not letting you go without a fight, Ally Bishop. I believe in us and I believe in you and I know this is right.”

Ally stared at him, utterly caught by his words. Wanting to believe him, so badly.

She closed her eyes and scrubbed her face with her hands. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I do. I know you. But I don’t think you do.”

“I have to go.”

She left the room blindly, coming to a halt in
the hallway. She looked left, then right, then faced Tyler.

“I need my car keys.”

He looked at her for a long moment. “They’re on the hook near the phone in the kitchen.”

She swiveled and walked to the kitchen. Her keys were hanging next to Tyler’s. She grabbed them, then headed for the door.

She half expected Tyler to say something, to try to stop her again, but he didn’t. She saw him out of the corner of her eye as she walked past the bedroom, sitting on the bed, looking at his hands.

She made herself keep walking, telling herself that she’d done the hard part. She simply had to leave now, and Tyler could get on with his life without her.

The door swung shut behind her and she stepped out onto the veranda.

He’d be better off without her. He’d see that soon. Once he’d stop being angry with her, he’d see that she’d done the right thing, pulling out before they became so entwined in each others lives that it would be impossible to separate him from her. It was far better that she leave now rather than later, when he would have invested so much more in her.

She carefully didn’t think about
her
feelings, about what she would be losing and all that she’d invested in him. The important thing right now was to escape. To remove herself from the temptation that Tyler and his beautiful home and the future he offered represented.

She strode to her car, pressing the remote to un lock it.

I’ve never met a person who wanted a home more in my life.

She paused, shaken all over again as his words echoed in her mind. No. She slid into the driver’s seat.

Tyler didn’t understand. He was simply seeing things he wanted to see. Trying to hold on to something that was never meant to be.

You’re a Peeping Tom, a voyeur, looking through the window at what you want.

She started the car and pulled away from the curb.

She liked the pretty pictures in those magazines. That was all. She liked imagining the families who lived in those glossily depicted homes and the parties they had in their perfect yards and the meals they’d cook in their state-of-the-art kitchens—

Her foot eased on the accelerator as it hit her that what she’d just described to herself was, indeed, a form of voyeurism.

So perhaps Tyler had been right about that one thing. But was it so crazy that a woman with no fixed address might fantasize about how the other half lived?

The moment she acknowledged the doubt in her own mind, the rest of Tyler’s words rushed her.

This has everything to do with a little kid who learned early on never to get comfortable and never to trust anyone. A lesson you learned so well you’ve
spent your entire adult life rejecting people before they can reject you.

She was shaking so badly she had to stop the car. She felt sick, as though she might throw up. She told herself over and over that Tyler didn’t know her, that he didn’t know her personal history. But his words struck a deep, resonate chord inside her, a true note on the tuning fork of her emotions.

Things had been good with Daniel before she’d ruined them by chipping away at their happiness and finally leaving. She’d told herself that it was because she was a gypsy, her mother’s daughter, that being unable to settle was in her blood. But what if Tyler was right? What if she’d simply hit the emergency button and abandoned the relationship because she’d been afraid that Daniel would abandon her first? What if she’d bailed because she was afraid to trust another person with her happiness?

She wrapped her arms around her torso, her head bowed as she tried to understand herself. She remembered that day by the river and the story she’d told Tyler about her nightmares. She hadn’t told him that they’d been worse when her mother had brought her home, that for the first six months she’d lived with her aunt she’d woken with night sweats on a weekly, if not daily, basis. She used to lie in bed trembling in the aftermath, then she used to climb out and creep into her aunt’s room to make sure she was still there, that she hadn’t been abandoned again. Then, because it was the only way she could calm herself, she would
drag her pillow and quilt to her aunt’s doorway and sleep across the threshold for the remainder of the night. She’d told herself it was because she wanted the comfort of being close to her aunt, but in a belated flash of insight Ally saw it for what it really was—her childish attempt to prevent her aunt from going anywhere without taking her.

The way her mother had. And her grandmother be fore her.

Ally pressed her hands to her face, but it didn’t stop the tears. All these years she’d been roaming, telling herself it was in her blood—and all the time she’d been running from her childhood fear of being abandoned.

It made her feel small and weak and utterly defenseless. What woman got to the ripe old age of thirty-three before she learned these things about herself?

The kind of person who learned early that pretending fear didn’t exist was the only way to survive. The kind of person who was taught through bitter experience that people were unreliable and that love means nothing.

The answer came from the pit of her belly. Visceral. Instinctive. She’d learned early that insecurities and neediness and dependence would not be tolerated. And she’d trained herself to move on whenever she’d felt herself putting down roots and connecting deeply with someone. Neediness equaled rejection.
And the only way to avoid becoming dependent on someone was to leave.

Tyler had been right. About everything. He’d seen the truth of her before she had.

And he still loved her.

The knowledge made her gasp. The ache in her chest expanded.

Tyler loved her. He’d said it a million different ways, with his hands and his eyes and his body and his mouth. He knew her, and he loved her, and he understood her—better, perhaps, than she understood herself.

He said all that—but he didn’t try to stop me from leaving. He said he’d fight for me, that he wouldn’t give me up—but he let me go.

The voice in her head spoke with a child’s fear, trembled with a child’s uncertainty.

Then Ally remembered the almost last thing Tyler had said.
I believe in us. I believe in you.

She reached for the gearshift. Didn’t think. Didn’t second-guess herself. She put the car in gear and pulled into the street. She’d turned one corner since leaving Tyler’s house, so she simply drove in a circle until she’d completed the block and once again turned onto Tyler’s street.

She saw his house, lit up with warm golden light. And she saw him, sitting on the bench out the front of his house. Waiting.

He looked up when he heard her car. Pushed
himself to his feet. She stopped and got out. She walked across the sidewalk and up the path, her heart banging a nervous tattoo against her ribs, her stomach cramping with uncertainty.

What she was about to do was utterly new to her. Revolutionary. She was about to trust another human being. Completely. She was about to hand over her happiness and her safety and her love to another person and trust that he would never grow tired of her or resent her or stop loving her.

She stopped at the bottom of the single step to the veranda. Tyler looked at her, and she could see the pain and doubt in his eyes. But she could also see the hope. The belief.

For a moment the old fear choked her. She closed her eyes for a long second, then opened them again. “I don’t know how to do this.”

It was true. All her experience was with leaving and running. She didn’t know how to stay.

“It’s easy. As easy as falling off a tire swing into the river,” Tyler said.

He stepped forward and she was in his arms, being held tightly, fiercely, possessively.

“I’ve got you,” he said, and she remembered the other time he’d said those words to her, when he’d stepped between her and a tree.

This man—this amazing man—had protected her with his body. He’d stood by his abusive father with compassion and love until the end, despite great provocation, despite never hearing the words
he needed to hear to lay his own ghosts to rest. He’d let her go and waited for her to return. He was all heart.

And he was hers.

If she wanted him. If she had the courage to want him.

“I love you,” she said.

“I know. I love you, too, Ally. And I’m not going anywhere.”

“Neither am I.”

Tyler stilled. Then he pulled back a few inches so he could look into her face. “I’m going to hold you to that.”

“Good.”

She held his gaze, wanting him to know he could trust her, too. That they were in this thing together.

“I’m sorry for freaking out. So sorry. You must have been—”

He lowered his head and kissed her, cutting off the rest of her words. She kissed him back, meeting his passion with her own. After a few minutes Tyler kissed his way to her ear.

“Let’s try this again,” he said.

He stepped backward and took her hand, then he led her inside his home. This time, he took her straight to the bedroom.

They moved onto the bed together, needing the confirmation and reassurance of skin on skin. They made love slowly, murmuring praise and encouragement to each other, savoring the closeness. Ally didn’t
look away from his eyes as she came, baring herself to him utterly. Then she watched as he lost himself, and afterward she curled against him on the bed and listened to the steady, reassuring thump of his heartbeat beneath her ear.

She lifted her head after a few minutes as a thought occurred.

“You were waiting for me out front, weren’t you?”

“Of course.”

“But what if I hadn’t come back?”

“I knew you would. I know you.”

She stared at him, stunned by his utter confidence in her. He smiled and reached out to brush her hair from her forehead.

“You once told me that I was the strongest person you knew. Well, you’re the strongest person I know, Ally Bishop. You’re honest and you’re brave and I knew that you’d choose to face your fears rather than run from them.”

“I don’t deserve you.”

“Yes, you do. We deserve each other. If the past few months have taught me anything, it’s taught me that. We deserve to be happy, Ally. And we’re going to be.”

There was so much love and certainty in his face. She touched his cheek, then pressed a kiss to his mouth. Then she settled her head on his chest, over his heart.