She climbed out slowly, the pavers warm through thin sandals, and walked toward the house with the weight of everything she hadn’t said yet pressing on her chest. From an open window, she heard the faint strains of something old and acoustic that made her heart ache.
He opened the door a second after she knocked.
“Tessa,” he said, surprised, stepping back. “Hey.”
He looked like he’d showered after a long day—hair damp, a clean T-shirt clinging to his chest.
“Can I come in?” she asked. “You’re not in the middle of a session?”
“No, I’m free. Come in.” He stepped back to let her in, quiet as she entered the house. She’d been here several times, and it was starting to feel somewhat familiar and comfortable.
But his expression was anything but comfortable. He watched her warily, quietly, then gestured toward the kitchen.
“Too late for coffee, too early for wine. What can I get you?”
“Nothing,” she said. “I need to talk to you.”
“Oh.” He exhaled softly. “The dreaded words.”
She smiled but didn’t elaborate, walking to the counter to take the same stool at the island where they’d had their first conversation.
“I saw Lorna today,” she said as he sat next to her. “She showed me a house.”
Dusty nodded slowly. “Yeah. She told me you were going.”
“She said you have an offer. And that you’re going to Vermont.”
“Thinking about it and…” He winced. “I should have told you that myself.”
“You think?”
He looked away, quiet and clearly embarrassed.
“When were you going to tell me?”
Stabbing his fingers into his silver-streaked hair, he pulled it back with a huff. “It’s not quite that…black and white.”
She waited for him to elaborate.
“I’m not sure I’m going, but”—he looked up at her—“you scare me, you know that?”
Drawing back, she let out a soft laugh. “I wasn’t expecting that.”
“I wasn’t expectingyou,” he retorted. “What I planned was a nice, quiet life of being a widower and therapist. I was going to live in dreamy isolation with no one ever caring where I was or wasn’t. Absolute monk-like solitude that would allow all the pain of the past to finally go away.”
She had no idea how to respond to that.
“And along comes Tessa Wylie,” he continued with a wry smile. “And she’s just as bright and beautiful and wild and wonderful as she was thirty years ago. Only now she’s lived and she’s smart and she’s got a good heart and she drives a boat and makes me laugh and has interesting opinions. She makes me…feel thingsI never wanted to feel again.”
“Oh.” The single syllable slipped out.
“So I’m running,” he finished.
“Why?”
Dusty exhaled, shaking his head. “Because I never, ever,everwant to love and lose again. I never want to know that pain—hell, I’m still feeling it. I never want to go unprotected into life and have my heart and soul crushed and chewed up and spit out.”
She stared at him, a thousand responses vying for their shot.
