Lucy told me she loved pruning the roses, loved this house. She told me all about her shabby chic furniture, and suddenly I can see it all ahead of me like a trap, like a spider’s web. Before I know it, Lucy Beston will not only have another diamond ring. She’ll force me back into this old maddening, demanding house; back into my old routine, into the routine I hated.
I am not doing it. I am never coming back to this house, to be its slave. I don’t care how alluring Lucy Beston might be, and I like her, I do. I’m a little bewitched by her, I’ll admit, but I am no college boy. I’m a grown man and I will not be trapped again.
Walt was right. I am free; freer than I’ll ever be. Jamison keeps telling me I was a sportsman, and sportsmen need sports cars. He says a man with a sports car can date anyone, any time. Not that I want to. But I know what I don’t want, and that is to be trapped back in a house like this beside any woman with her eyes on a rose garden and a house as pretty as a picture. Never needed it and don’t want it now. Not ever.
Chapter 32
Lucy
Dirk is quiet thismorning. Did I disgrace myself somehow? We’re both still fully clothed when I wake.
He paces back and forth rubbing his arms, clearly in a hurry to leave. I’m slightly hung over. We drink water, upend the cups on the counter to dry themselves, and he rushes to the car to get the heater working. As I approach, he lowers the roof, and we speed through the countryside. When it starts to sleet, Dirk pushes a little button and the roof appears out of an invisible partition in the back. It slots itself into place. Magic.
“Amazing,” I say.
He stays silent.
“This car just does what it’s told and doesn’t even talk back,” I say.
He slings me a look, as if maybe there was more to my comment than the obvious, which is true, then goes back to studying the road as the scenery glides by. There’s a lot of emptiness around us. I shiver.
He cranks up the heating and I thank him. We’re polite as strangers.
As we pull up near the apartment and he kills the engine, he turns to me, all serious.
“We can’t take this anywhere, Lucy,” he says, and I’m stunned. “I’m sorry.”
“So you admit there’s a ‘this’ between us.”
“There’s nothing between us.” He holds himself at a distance. Did I do something wrong? I need to know.
“And why can’t we take this ‘nothing’ anywhere, Dirk? I know you like me. Are you afraid of what your children will think? Would you really give them that much power over your life? They’re adults. They might understand that their father enjoys some company now and then, or even more often – some companionship in life. You wouldn’t want them to be perpetually lonely, would you? Set them a good example, Dirk.”
“There are so many things wrong with your argument.”
“Explain.”
