The One That Got Away (5 page)

“That must be Lulu,” Ginger said, her memory obviously better than his. “Do you think she’ll bite if we try to get her out?”

“Maybe that’s why Izzy has her in this travel bag.”

Ginger knelt beside the bag. “She looks harmless enough.”

“Famous last words,” Marcus joked, in spite of his grim mood.

He could tell by Nina’s tone as she called through the door that things weren’t going well upstairs. And he had no idea what to do. He didn’t know how to be a dad, and he wasn’t technically anyone’s dad except when it came to biology, so he was pretty sure going up there would only make things worse.

He’d opted to stay put for the moment.

When Nina came back downstairs a few minutes later, her expression twisted in a tense smile, Ginger rose from her perch beside the dog.

“Is she okay?” Marcus asked.

Nina sighed heavily. “I’m sure she’s about as okay as she can be given the circumstances. I think she’s just having a little bout of cold feet.”

“Should I go try to talk to her?” he suggested. “Or maybe leave and come back when she’s feeling better?”

“I don’t have a clue.”

The sound of a door opening echoed down the stairway, and a moment later a pair of feet clad in brown suede moccasin boots came into view. A tall, thin girl with a heavy curtain of dark brown hair descended the stairs. She resembled the photo in Marcus’s e-mail in-box, but she didn’t.

What took his breath away most was how much she looked like him. Like a small, wiry girl version of him in a purple tunic sweater and skinny jeans.

Big, sad brown eyes so like his own stared back at him, seeming to take in the same truth he’d just registered—that there was no doubt who was related to whom.

“Isabel—I mean Izzy,” he said. “Hello.”

His voice came out sounding stilted, too formal. Marcus wanted to kick himself. He’d rehearsed this meeting in his head at least ten different ways. He could hug her, or shake her hand, or hold back and see what she was inclined to do, or make a joke to ease the tension, or any number of other things, but not one of them struck him as the right thing to do at the moment.

Izzy solved the problem for him by eschewing contact entirely and kneeling beside the doggy travel bag. She unzipped it and withdrew the tiny brown mutt, which looked to be part Chihuahua and part something else. The dog shivered in her arms as it gazed up at her adoringly and licked at her chin.

“This is Lulu,” she said.

Marcus reached out and stroked the dog behind its small, floppy ears, grateful for something to do with his hands. He watched the girl’s expression relax as she focused on the dog. Then she glanced nervously at Ginger, the one person in the room she didn’t know.

“This is my friend Ginger,” Marcus said. “We’ll be staying at her house.”

Ginger smiled warmly. “It’s nice to meet you, Izzy. I think Lulu is going to love playing at the lake. Does she like water?”

Izzy grimaced. “She’s afraid of water.”

“Oh, well, that’s okay,” Ginger said.

Nina jumped in to rescue the situation. “Maybe I could help you load bags in the car, Ginger.”

The two women each picked up a suitcase and went out the front door, leaving Marcus alone with Izzy.

“I know this is hard for you,” he said. “Do you feel okay coming with me now, or—”

“It’s fine,” she said tightly. “Nina has to leave on her work trip to New York, and she said I can’t stay here alone. She wanted me to go with her, but I don’t want to.”

“I’m glad you found me, Izzy,” he said, trying to make eye contact. “We’re going to have a good summer getting to know each other.”

She avoided his gaze by keeping her focus on the dog, but after a few moments of awkward silence she glanced up at him, and he could see the sheer terror in her eyes. Also a bit of defiance, and a healthy dose of sorrow.

How did he go about making the acquaintance of a hostile teenage girl who’d just lost her mother?

He hadn’t a clue.

Perhaps he should have read a book, or consulted an expert, but now it was too late….

“Do you like animals?” she asked.

“Um, yeah, sure.”

“Are you just saying that? Do you have any pets of your own?”

“I don’t have a pet, no.”

“Why not?”

“I guess, you know, it’s a big commitment. I travel a lot. It would be hard.”

“Kind of like having a kid would be hard?”

“Sure, but—look, I’ll have to change my life around a bit, but of course I’m glad to. I want you to feel welcome.”

“Nina doesn’t like having a dog in the house. She’s too nice to say so, but she doesn’t.”

“Izzy, I’m happy to have your dog live with us, okay?”

“You have to say that.”

“I mean it.”

He felt off-kilter due to the strong undercurrent in their conversation, not quite sure if they were really talking about whether the girl or the dog or both were welcome in his life.

She glared at him with poorly concealed mistrust, then returned her attention to stroking the dog. Lulu had stopped shivering and was resting comfortably in her arms. Marcus was overcome with a wave of inexplicable gratitude for the mutt’s presence.

Ginger and Nina reentered the foyer, and Izzy seemed eager to get going.

“Um, well, we should leave, right?” she asked.

“I thought you’d stay and have coffee,” Nina said, glancing nervously around the group.

“Can we just get this over with?” Izzy said. “Your plane leaves in a few hours and I’m going to puke if we have to stand around like this much longer.”

Marcus silently agreed with her, but at the same time he didn’t want to rush her out the door. It seemed such an abrupt transition from a familiar place and person, to a world of strangers.

Nina sighed. “I guess we’ll all avoid the rush-hour traffic if we head out earlier rather than later. Are you sure?”

Izzy shrugged. “Whatever.”

She and Nina hugged briefly.

“Call my cell phone anytime you want, okay? Anytime. I mean it.”

“Okay,” Izzy said, sounding listless.

“I want to hear all about Promise Lake. And if for any reason you need to see me, I’ll fly you to New York, or I’ll come up to Promise once I’m back, okay?”

“Okay.”

They said their goodbyes and piled into Ginger’s car, Izzy in the backseat with the dog.

This wasn’t going the way Marcus had envisioned. He’d expected a bit more enthusiasm on Isabel’s part, maybe a bit more warmth. He hadn’t expected sullenness or hostility, which proved how far in over his head he was right now. He didn’t know a damn thing about teenage girls, so why did he think he could be a father to one?

He didn’t. He hadn’t chosen this situation. Not exactly, anyway.

Ginger started the car as the dog whimpered in the backseat.

“Is it okay if Lulu rides in my lap?”

“So long as she doesn’t pee all over my seat,” Ginger said, smiling into the rearview mirror.

Her light tone was met with steely silence, then the sound of the pet travel bag being unzipped.

“Have you had lunch yet?” Marcus thought to ask.

“No. I’m not hungry.”

“I’m famished,” Ginger said. “Maybe we should stop on our way out of town?”

“Know anyplace good?” he asked.

“There’s a great Puerto Rican place in San Rafael once we cross the bridge. Sound good?”

“Do they allow dogs?” Marcus asked.

“Hmm, I guess not. Oh, but I know a pizza place with outdoor seating. How’s that?”

“Perfect.” He turned around in his seat. “Sound good to you, Izzy?”

“I said I’m not—”

“I know, I know, but maybe by the time we get there you can force down a piece of pepperoni pizza.”

“I’m a vegetarian.”

“Cheese pizza?”

She sighed.

Marcus turned forward again and stared out the window. Why had she wanted to get to know him if she wasn’t willing to make an effort? He tried to recall what it was like to be thirteen years old. He had some hazy memories of teenage angst and raging hormones, but nothing to anchor him to Izzy’s reality.

Especially not after what she’d been through. His own childhood might have been a little chaotic compared to most, but he’d had both of his parents, and he’d always been secure in their love for him. Izzy, on the other hand, had lost her mother and only just met her father today.

Maybe she was worried about losing him, too. Maybe it was easier to reject him first rather than risk being rejected.

He didn’t know how she felt, but Ginger might. That had been his primary reason for asking her if they could spend the summer with her. She’d lost her parents as a child. She’d walked the same sad path Izzy was walking now, and maybe she could guide the girl through it.

Maybe she could guide him, too.

Of all the people he’d ever known, Ginger was the only friend he had who might be qualified to help.

And the fact that she was willing…

He owed her the sun and the moon for that.

She had the distinct feeling everyone in the car was regretting having agreed to make this trip, and now here they were, about to shack up in her house as if they wanted to be together.

She’d made a horrible, terrible mistake. She didn’t know Marcus anymore. She’d been a fool to think she could just invite him back into her life and everything would work out.

“This place is beautiful,” Marcus said as they got out of the car. “How’d you find it?”

“Do you remember Soleil Freeman from college?”

He frowned. “I don’t think so.”

“She’s the poet Anne Bishop’s daughter?”

“Oh, right.”

“Anyway, she went to school with us, and we’ve kept in touch over the years. I came here to visit the nonprofit farm she runs on the other side of the lake. She mentioned that she’d heard the local community college was looking for a writing instructor and, I don’t know, things started falling into place. I got the job, and then soon as I saw this place I fell in love with it.”

She popped the trunk and grabbed Isabel’s bags. The girl had her hands full of dog and purse, so Ginger smiled and said, “Let me show you where your room is.”

Izzy simply stared back, expressionless, then followed Ginger toward the front door. The girl was definitely depressed, Ginger decided, and she had every right to be, but it didn’t make the situation any easier.

Ginger had been nine when she’d lost her own parents, and she remembered the listless, strange year afterward as if it was a bad dream she couldn’t quite wake up from.

As she mused about how best to help the girl, Izzy let out a yelp from behind her.

“What is
that?
” she screeched.

Ginger turned and followed the direction of the girl’s gaze to the ground, where a fat slug was making its way across the porch.

“Banana slug,” Ginger said. “They’re harmless.”

Izzy made a face. “They’re disgusting.”

“That, too.”

“Are there many of them?” she asked.

“Nope. I’ve never seen one here on the porch. It must have lost its way in the woods. Oh, by the way,” Ginger added, “there’s quite a lot of wild-life around here. We’ll have to keep a close eye on Lulu.”

“What do you mean?”

“I just mean, you know, with hawks and coyotes around…”

Oh God, had she ever picked a bad topic.

Izzy hugged the dog closer and continued to glare down at the slug as if it might make a sudden attack.

Ginger felt like pointing out that they were surrounded by icky, slimy, unpredictable nature and the girl had better get used to it, but she figured she wasn’t going to win any points with that kind of talk, so she kept her mouth shut.

Izzy deserved her sympathy, not her sarcasm. Besides, Ginger remembered exactly how awful it felt to be thirteen. She could only imagine how painful it would be to lose you mother at such a volatile age. Nine had been bad enough.

The girl had gone through hell, and Ginger vowed not to add any more grief to her life, no matter how crappy Izzy’s attitude got.

Once they were inside, she led Izzy down the hallway, giving a quick tour as they passed the living room on the right and the bathroom on the left. “Down the hall is the kitchen and dining room,” Ginger said. “And this will be your room.”

She turned on the light in the smaller guest bedroom. Its pale lilac walls gave the room a soothing feel that made Ginger consider painting her own room the same color. The guest room was furnished simply with an antique white wrought-iron bed, a weathered white dresser and a cheval mirror.

“You’ll share the hallway bath with Marcus. I’ve set aside some extra towels in the bathroom—the pink set is yours.”

The girl stared vacantly at the suitcases Ginger set down next to the dresser.

“I’m going to take Lulu out to do her business,” she said. “Is there a place to walk around here?”

“You could take the path through the woods to the lake.”

Izzy said nothing.

“Just go out the front door and around the house and you’ll see the path.” Ginger pointed east as she spoke. “It’s a short walk.”

The girl pulled a leash out of her purse and headed for the door, the dog still in her arms. Ginger followed her out to the living room, where she found Marcus studying photos on the fireplace mantel. There was a shot of Ginger’s parents, one of Ginger with her grandmother, and one of Granny Townsend when she was a young girl.

He started to say something to Izzy, but she was through the door before he could get a word out.

“She’s taking the dog for a walk,” Ginger explained.

Marcus gave her a look that reflected a mixture of frustration and sympathy. He didn’t need to say a thing. She knew exactly how he felt—or at least she could take a good guess.

It was surreal to have him standing in her living room, larger than life, studying her family photos. He was in so many ways her fantasy come to life. But, she had to remind herself, the fantasy and the reality had never met up before. And he was here as a friend now, one who’d nearly lost his life. But he was safe and in one piece. That was what truly mattered.

The moment he’d asked her if she would have room for two houseguests, she’d know she was going to say yes. She definitely wanted to help Izzy and Marcus, but just as much, she wanted to help herself move on.

“Your room is behind the kitchen. Can I show you?”

“That’s okay. I already figured it out and put my bags in there.”

“Would it be good if I got lost for a while tonight, so you and Izzy can have some alone time?”

He grimaced. “I’m not sure either of us wants that right now.”

“It might relieve a bit of the pressure to have one less person in the mix.”

“Maybe.” He gave the matter some thought as he turned away from the mantel and strolled to the French doors that looked out on the deck and the backyard and, beyond that, the woods and lake.

He peered out the door into the fading light of late afternoon and changed the subject. “Do you think she’ll be okay out there alone?”

“Sure. The worst she might encounter is an overgrown banana slug.”

“No snakes? Scorpions? Hungry mountain lions?”

Ginger laughed. “Doubtful.”

“I never took you for a back-to-the-woods kind of girl. I thought you’d live out your life in the urban jungle.”

Ginger sighed. “I guess the urban jungle wore me down.”

“What do you mean?”

She shrugged, unsure herself what she meant. But then she opened her mouth and out came words she knew were true.

“I couldn’t spend any more time being perpetually single and living in an apartment and feeling like something was missing.”

“So you figured out that redwood trees were missing?” he joked.

She crossed the living room and opened the double doors onto the deck so that the early evening breeze could flow through the house. “I needed to get out of the city, and this place cast a spell on me. Well, it and Soleil’s baby girl,” she added, only half joking.

Ginger felt a little shy talking about the main reason she’d moved here.

“Oh?”

“I knew when I met Soleil’s baby that I wanted to have a child of my own. I mean, I knew it before, but when I held her little girl, I felt the wanting somewhere deep down, you know?”

Silly question. Of course he didn’t know.

“So your biological clock’s ticking, huh?” He flashed a wry grin that somehow annoyed her.

“That reduces what I felt to a cliché, and it didn’t feel like a cliché.”

He sobered. “I’m sorry. It must be hard, wanting a baby and not being able to afford one.” He added this last part as if it didn’t compute.

And truly, it was an odd dilemma when she thought of his own problem—accidentally having a child he’d never thought he wanted.

Ginger shrugged. “It’s an abstract problem at the moment. I’ve just been dealing with the more tangible problem of getting this house repaired, and the more I try to fix, the more I find wrong.”

He smiled. “It’s great to see you doing so well.”

His tone was warm, but… But that’s all it was. There wasn’t any interest on Marcus’s part about whether she had a boyfriend or a lover or anything else. Otherwise he would have asked by now. She’d known there wouldn’t be, but given that the last time they’d seen each other she’d still been pining after him, she supposed old habits were hard to break.

This was good. She’d moved on in her heart, and now her subconscious was catching up to it. This was exactly why she needed to spend time with Marcus, so she could prove to herself that what she’d had with him was a lasting friendship, not a missed romance.

She was older now, more mature. She knew better than to get caught up in those old romantic feelings again, that misguided longing.

“So what about the man situation? Anyone special in your life?”

Okay. He was interested.

“Special?” she repeated.

His smile turned playful. “You know what I mean.”

“No one,” she said, shrugging.

She hoped she sounded casual, but she feared the truth had slipped into her voice. She didn’t want him to know that she’d spent well over a decade finding out that one guy after another didn’t measure up to her standards—standards that she’d based on him.

How could she have let so many years slip past her with such unrealistic expectations?

“So what about this guy you almost married. Who was he?”

“Can I get you a drink?” Ginger said, dodging the question. “Glass of wine, maybe?”

“That sounds great.”

She led him into the kitchen, then retrieved a decent bottle of cabernet from the wine rack on the counter. “I was thinking of making a little spaghetti carbonara for dinner, but since Izzy’s a vegetarian…”

“I’m sorry. It doesn’t look like she’s going to make anything easy.” He pulled out a chair and took a seat at the breakfast table.

“It’s okay. She’s thirteen. She’s just doing what she’s supposed to do.”

“She’s supposed to drive everyone crazy?”

“She’s supposed to start asserting her independence.”

His shoulders sagged. “I’m so unequipped to handle this.”

“I was thinking… There’s a really good therapist in town. Maybe it would help to get Izzy into therapy with her. Or maybe both of you?”

“That’s a great idea.”

Ginger removed the cork and smelled it, savoring the spicy, oak-tinged scent of fermented grapes. She turned just in time to catch an odd expression crossing Marcus’s face as he watched her. But as soon as their gazes met, the expression vanished.

“I’ll find her card and give it to you.”

“Do I get to hear the story of ‘almost’?” he asked, grinning again.

“Oh.” She shrugged as she retrieved glasses from the cupboard. “I guess so. But first, how does pasta primavera sound? I think I’ve got enough vegetables to throw a decent dinner together.”

“Perfect. Thank you so much for thinking of Izzy. I’ll take her for a grocery shopping trip first thing tomorrow to make feeding her easier.”

Ginger poured them each a glass of wine and brought Marcus’s to the table.

“Cheers,” she said, toasting. “To new beginnings.”

“Cheers—to
you,
” he said, and something in his eyes set her insides tingling.

It was almost as if he was looking at her flirtatiously, but that was the old Ginger thinking. The new Ginger knew better. The new Ginger was going to learn from the past and remember that there wasn’t any reason to take Marcus’s warmth or his gaze or his anything else as a sign of romantic interest. He’d already proved himself incapable of seeing her as a desirable woman.

Right?

Right.

She just had to figure out how to get all the warm tingly stuff to stop happening, since he was still the same ridiculously attractive man he’d always been.

She took a drink of wine and allowed the sharp burst of flavor to distract her. Savoring the notes of plum, blackberry and spice gave her a few moments to decide how to explain her almost marriage.

“I was with Leo for eight years,” she finally said as she set her glass on the counter and began rummaging around for dinner ingredients.

“Leo? You almost married a guy named
Leo?
” His teasing tone caused Ginger to smile, but she didn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing it.

“It was short for Leonardo, if you must know. He was Italian.”

“Why didn’t you want to marry him?”

Because of you
was definitely not the appropriate response at the moment. Nor was it entirely true. “I…don’t know. He was great,” she said, shrugging.

He just wasn’t you.

No, she had to stop thinking that way. She knew she’d been unable to marry Leo because she believed there had to be a guy out there who could make her feel the way Marcus had once made her feel—only this time the guy would actually return her interest.