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Chapter Twenty-two
“I’m looking for a birthday giftfor my husband,” the well-dressed matron announces, stopping in front of Aiden Young, her eyes sweeping across the watches on display inside the glass counter. “Nothing too expensive.”
“Well, I’m sure he’d be very happy with any of these,” Aiden says, although he’s sure of no such thing. In fact, he’s sure about absolutely nothing in his life these days. Not his wife, not his marriage, not even his sanity. He shudders, recalling his reaction when the ball slammed into his back during that impromptu game with his neighbors, the near-lethal mix of terror and fury that washed over him.
He’d come so close to losing it.
So how can he say for certain that a man he’s never met, husband of a woman he’s encountering for the very first time, will like any of the watches he’s about to show her? “Do you see anything that strikes your fancy?”Strikes your fancy?! Where the hell did that expression come from?
The woman points to a watch with a heavy silver-links band and a midnight-blue dial. “This one looks interesting.”
“Good choice,” Aiden agrees, suddenly realizing where he heard that expression last. His mother! She’d used it last night when she dropped over with a selection of fabric samples for the occasional chair she was buying them.
“See anything that strikes your fancy?” his mother had asked, before indicating the fabric that she preferred, and had, in fact, already ordered. “Of course, I can call the store back and change the order, if that’s what you want,” she’d offered. “I just thought this one would work best. But, of course, it’s entirely up to you. What do you think, Aiden?”
Aiden recalls the smile on his mother’s face and the frown on his wife’s, and knows that he can’t win either way. He removes the watch from its perch and holds it out toward the woman. “One of my favorites,” he adds, although it isn’t. He prefers a more casual watch, one with a wide leather band and an oversized face. This one is much too prissy for his taste. “It’s very elegant.” Elegant, but useless. The dial is so crowded with symbols, you can barely make out the numbers.
“Is it waterproof?”
“Water-resistant,” Aiden qualifies. “I wouldn’t wear it diving or anything like that.”
“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem,” the woman says. “My husband is turning seventy-nine. I think his diving days are over. What about that one?” She points to a rose-gold watch with a round brown face and a series of lines instead of numbers to indicate the hours and minutes.
Aiden removes it from the display case, thinking he’d never know what time it was. Which would drive him crazy.
Of course, there’s a good chance he’s already crazy, he concedes, thinking of the disturbing dream he had last night. In the dream, he was running down a deserted country road, pursued by an angry mob. Hands reached for his back, ripped at his shirt. He twisted around to confront his tormentors, only to discover that the mob had been replaced by a single man, a boy really, no more than ten or twelve.
The boy had no head.
“How much is it?” the woman asks.
“Sorry. What?”
“I was asking…”
Aiden’s phone vibrates in his pocket. He ignores it. There are only two people who call him at work, his mother and Heidi. And he isn’t up to speaking to either of them. He checks the computer as his phone goes mercifully silent. “It’s three thousand, four hundred dollars, plus tax.”
“Oh my, no. I said nothing too expensive.”
“Perhaps you could give me some idea of the price you’re considering,” Aiden says, trying to be helpful. “A thousand dollars? Five hundred?”
“Five hundred, tops.”
Aiden leads her toward the appropriate row of watches.
“I don’t like any of these,” the woman says, the lines around her mouth growing more pronounced as her lips purse with dismay, reminding Aiden of the look his mother gets whenever she looks at Heidi.
“What about this one?” He bends down to retrieve his favorite watch, the one with a round white face and a brown leather band. “It’s nice and sporty, and the big black numbers make it easy to tell time….”
But the woman is no longer there.
Clearly he has lost his touch where women are concerned.
Not that he ever really had one. His good looks and athletic physique have always been all that were necessary to attract the opposite sex. Good thing, because he’s not particularly charming. Nor is he a good conversationalist. He isn’t even all that bright. But girls, and later women, have always misread such deficiencies as shyness, assuming hidden depths where none exist.
Of course, he always disappoints them in the end.
He’s been disappointing women all his life.
