The Mason Dixon Line (A Horizons Novel) (13 page)

He lifted a skeptical eyebrow.

“You do,” she insisted. “Like that temper
of yours that got you into trouble at the diner. Maybe we both need someone we
can lean on. Not someone who needs so much.”

He made a dismissive gesture. “Lots of
people have tempers. Lots of people spend too much money. So what? They don’t all
end up alone. Who says we can’t lean on each other? That’s the way love is
supposed to work, right?”

Love. Was that was this was? Even if it
was, it didn’t matter. In books and movies, love solved everything. That never
happened in real life. She shook her head. “Both of us need someone strong, to
fill in our gaps. I’ve got too many gaps for you, Mason.”

She opened the door and he grabbed it,
keeping her from leaving. “What about the book?”

“I’m not a very important part of the
project. My draft of the story is done. You’ve got the sketches nearly
finished. I think you can work with what I’ve done.”

“No.” His vehemence surprised her. “I’m not
letting you quit on this like you have everything else in your life. Like you’re
quitting on us. You agreed to do this and by God you’re going to follow
through.”

She affected a casual shrug, not wanting to
let him see how his words pierced to her core. He was right. She’d quit on
everything else. What was one more thing?

She picked up a sightseeing flyer from a
nearby table and jotted her e-mail address down on it. “Here. We can keep in
touch this way as far as the project is concerned.”

“What about your stuff? It’s all down at my
aunt’s cabin.”

“Send it to me. I’ll pay you for it. Or
maybe I’ll come back and get it. I don’t know.” She rubbed her forehead. She couldn’t
think straight right now. She only knew she had to get away from Mason before
she turned into a blubbering mess.

“Goodbye, Mason.” He said nothing, but he
moved his arm to let her pass.

All right, then. “After I go, you’re going
to realize this is the best thing for both of us.”

He shook his head. “I’ll never think that.
Carolyn, you’re making a huge mistake. You’re scared. Change is scary, I get
that. But don’t let your fear make you quit again. Don’t let it make you walk
away from something that could be the best thing that ever happened to you.”

She dropped her eyes. If she had to hold
that earnest, angry gaze one second longer, she’d lose it. “I’m sorry, Mason.
Not that I’m leaving, but that I didn’t figure this stuff out sooner.”

“I’m sorry too. I’m sorry I was wrong about
you.”

“Wrong about me?”

“When I first met you, I thought you were
like most of the teachers I knew in school. No imagination, no ability to think
outside the box. Obsessed with rules and doing things the way you’ve always
done them. But for a while there, I convinced myself I was wrong. I thought you
had the imagination to dream something bigger for yourself. A life with less
stuff
and more—” he waved his hands
around as he searched for the word. “Heart. But now I see I was right the first
time. Your problem isn’t your bills or even liking nice things. Your problem is
a serious lack of imagination. You can’t imagine being different than you are.”

She lifted her chin. Leave it to Mason to
say exactly what he thought, no punches pulled. She’d argue, but she wasn’t
even sure she disagreed. What did it matter anyway? She couldn’t change. “Goodbye.”
She ought to give him a hug but she didn’t know if she could handle it right
now. She walked away. Five feet out in the hall, she stopped. “Hey, Mason?”

“Yeah?” He stood in the doorway in his
boxers, arm on the door jamb, looking like he didn’t give a damn if anyone saw
him or what they thought.

Because of course he didn’t.

“Say bye to Barney for me, will you?”

His face turned shuttered. “Will do.” And
without another word, he went inside the suite.

Well. That was that, then. Time for the
ultimate walk of shame, in an evening gown and heels, through a hotel lobby. He’d
get over this and soon realize this was for the best.

She reminded herself of that all the way
down the elevator, through the lobby, and out to the taxi stand. He would get
over it. He would. Too bad she had no such confidence about herself.

Mason loaded the last of Carolyn’s things
into the Subaru. Packing her stuff and handling her things had been
bittersweet. The scent of her shampoo wafted up from the bottle when he put it
in her suitcase. Here was the glitter nail polish she’d worn. Packing her blue
bra reminded him of when she’d first bared her breasts to him in the wood.

The memory made his groin tighten and his
heart ache, not necessarily in that order.

He went back inside for his stuff. Last of
all, he loaded Barney’s cage into the hatchback of the Subaru. “Looks like it’s
just you and me, buddy.”

Whatever Barney thought about that, he wasn’t
talking. He looked a little less bright-green than usual, though, a sign of
malaise in a chameleon.

Mason understood the feeling. If he was a chameleon,
he’d be a little less than emerald himself right now.

Ever since Carolyn had dumped him in the
hotel suite, he’d been all over the place, unable to focus, unable to think
straight. He hadn’t finished a sketch since she’d left. He’d start one and ten
minutes later rip it to shreds, or put it off in favor of something else that
he wouldn’t finish either. One minute he’d be furious at her for her deception,
angry that she’d ruined something that could have been beautiful with her
stupid consumerist tendencies. The next he was sad, convinced he’d overreacted.

He couldn’t sleep. He’d drawn for fourteen hours
straight overnight in an orgy of frustration, producing nothing worthwhile. Bad
as it had been, it had still be better than staring at the ceiling above the
sofa bed again. He wouldn’t sleep in the main bed even though he could now. It
still smelled of Carolyn. Meals were lonely without her around. Every time he
went for a walk in the woods, he remembered what he happened the last time they’d
been in the woods together.

His fists clenched. He wanted so badly to
hit something, he shook. Breaking his drawing hand by punching a wall when he
was twenty had cured him of the habit of hitting anything other than a punching
bag, though, so he took several deep breaths, closed his eyes and tried to make
his mind a blank. After a minute, the trick worked and his frenetic heart rate
slowed.

For some reason, he always had to learn
things the hard way. And sometimes, he didn’t learn them at all. He shook it
off and hit the road, listening to angry music way too loud because it matched
the way he felt.

He’d emailed Carolyn to tell her he’d be
dropping by her apartment with her stuff. She’d answered with one line, telling
him she’d be home this afternoon and thanking him.

He’d half hoped the gesture would
accomplish—what? She’d be so happy to hear from him, she’d develop self-control
and a sense of financial responsibility? Right.

His hands tightened on the wheel as he
pulled into her neighborhood. She lived in a newly renovated apartment in a
gentrified area of Indy, no doubt heavily subsidized by her dad. She’d have to
do some work there to get back in
his
good graces after the scene at the anniversary party, but she could do it, he
was sure. The thought of her crawling back to her dad after her too-brief stab
at independence gave him a sour taste in his mouth.

He took her suitcase and laptop up to the
door and rang it. Faced with an imminent encounter, his mind went blank. What
would he say to her?

He never had to figure it out. He didn’t
recognize the woman who answered the door.

He craned his neck to double-check the
apartment number.

“You’ve got the right place. Carolyn’s
feeling a little under the weather, so she asked me to answer the door. I’m
Kayla.” The smiling strawberry blonde extended her hand to shake his. “You must
be Mason.”

“Yeah, that’s me.” His heart skipped a
beat. She knew his name. Had Carolyn told her friend about him? Did that mean
something?

Of course
it means something, idiot. It means she had to tell her friend somebody was
coming by so she could answer the door.

His heart sank. Kayla glanced down at the
stuff at his feet. “Is that everything?”

“Yeah.” He picked up the stuff and headed
inside. He glanced around, half-hoping to catch a glimpse of Carolyn, but nothing.
He sat everything down next to the sofa.

He looked around, hoping to catch a glimpse
of her before he left.

“Would you like something before you leave?
A cup of tea? I can put on a pot of coffee.”

“Nah, I turned off the car and Barney’s out
there. I don’t want him to get cold.”

“Oh, your friend is out there? Why don’t
you invite him in?”

“He’s a reptile.”

“Oh.” Kayla looked nonplussed, so he
explained.

“He’s a chameleon. Cold-blooded. If he gets
too cold, his body might shut down and he could die.”

“Really?”

“Did Carolyn tell you about Barney?”

More
importantly, did Carolyn tell you about me?
He couldn’t bring himself to ask
what he really wanted to know.

“No, no, she didn’t. Not a word.”

“Oh.” Well, that was a little
disappointing. “I’m kind of surprised. She seemed to get kind of attached to
him.”

“Did she?” Kayla seemed to find the notion
fascinating.

“I thought so. I thought she really liked
him, but then she just kind of left. I guess I was wrong.”

Wait, were they still talking Barney here?

Kayla nodded solemnly. “I see.”

She was acting so weird. What the hell? Did
she know about him and Carolyn or not?

Well, hell, tact had never been his thing.

“Did Carolyn tell you anything about me?”

“Sure. She told me you were working on a
book about Horizons together. I teach there. Carolyn is my aide.”

“Oh.” Once upon a time he would have shot
her a baleful look at the very least, and lectured her about the mind-numbing
conformity of school at the most. Carolyn seemed to have broken him of that
habit. His old judgments and black-and-white views no longer seemed to fit him,
like a suit of old clothes he’d outgrown.

Problem was, he didn’t have any new ones
that fit better yet.

“So is Carolyn good with kids?” He didn’t
know where that came from.

“Carolyn is
great
with kids.”

“Really?”

“Really.” She crossed her arms and looked
at him more closely. “You sound surprised. Didn’t think Carolyn had it in her?”

“I did, actually.” He realized it was true.
Hearing someone else confirm his suspicions about Carolyn felt good though. “I’m
not sure Carolyn thinks she has it in her, though.”

Kayla smiled, and he had the weird feeling
she suddenly approved of him or something. “Exactly!” She leaned toward him. “You
shouldn’t fall for that spoiled rich girl act she puts on.”

“Hmmm. I
guess
it’s an act. I mean, I know she likes the kids, and I believe
she’s good with them, but she also cares an awful lot about expensive crap that
she can’t afford on a teacher’s aide salary. I don’t think she’ll ever give
that up.”

“She needs a reason to give it up.
Something—or someone—to make her see there’s a different way to live.”

He might not be the sharpest tack in the
box when it came to women, but even he couldn’t miss the significance of the
way she looked at him.

So obviously Carolyn had told this
perceptive woman
something
. His heart
sped a little, but he talked himself down.

He shrugged. “Maybe so, but I don’t think I’m
the guy to do it.”

Kayla’s tilted her head. “I wouldn’t be so
sure about that.”

“Oh, I’m sure. She said so in no uncertain
terms.”

“Carolyn says a lot of things. Some of them,
you should listen to. Others?” She waved her hand. She shot a look down the
hall that presumably led to wherever Carolyn was hiding. “You want to talk to
her?”

Hell, yes.

“I thought she was sick.”

Kayla rolled her eyes. “Gutless, more like
it. She didn’t want to face you yet. You really shook her up, you know.”

“I did?”

“Yeah, you did.” She jerked her head toward
the hall. “You game?”

A part of him wanted to. He really did. But
what was the point? Until she decided to change, they had no future together.
Why put them through the misery of an awkward encounter that Carolyn obviously
didn’t want either?

He shook his head. “No, thanks. I’m on my
way back to Chicago.” He was done banging his head against the wall named
Carolyn Hart.

“You sure?”

“Why are you trying to talk me into it? You
don’t know me. For all you know, I could be the worst thing that ever happened
to Carolyn.”

“I don’t think so. And hey, give me your
number just in case she wants to talk to you. Maybe I can arrange something.”

She pulled out a cell phone and typed in
the numbers he recited. “You should put my number in your phone too so you can
give me a call if you change your mind.”

“I don’t have a cell phone. I like being
inaccessible.”

Kayla laughed and shook her head. “Carolyn,
the queen of texting, involved with a man with no cell phone. I guess opposites
really do attract.” She jotted down her name and number and handed it to him.

“They say opposites
attract
. Nobody ever said opposites live happily ever after.” But
he carefully folded the slip of paper and put it in his wallet nonetheless.