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But how was that possible?
And why was he trying to be asecret? Why not just call her up and ask her out?
This was beyond bizarre.
She tried to talk herself out of the theory. Brent did not have a single romantic bone in his body. He wouldn’t think of making someone a CD, sending roses, or writing poems—even bad poems.
But it was him. She knew it was.
And each song further confirmed it.
She’d sat there and listened to the CD straight through, laughing aloud when stupid Rascal Flatts started playing and nearly dying of shock when some old dude sang her a hymn.
But this? What was this redneck attempt at Argentinian ballroom dancing?A song where the guy admits that he’d forgotten about the woman? She grew angrier and more annoyed with each word. But when he started to sing the chorus for the third time, the words changed to:
Less young, less dumb, now I’m pleading
I need to get back to what I vowed to
I want to, want to get back to the tango
God help me, I can’t forget you
Her breath caught. Well, there it was. Why Brent had included a hillbilly tango.
Because it was about them.
He wanted to try again.
She had no idea how to tango.
The song ended, and the CD started over with “Who I Am.” She let it play, picking up the CD case and staring at it. On the cover, he’d written:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
The man had lost his mind.
An interesting turn of events.
But sane or not, she did want him back.
The CD had come in a padded envelope postmarked in Carver Harbor, which was where Brent lived now. He wasn’t working very hard to keep his identity a secret anymore. Did he want her to reach out to him? Was that what he was doing? Because if so, that was pretty weird. He should at least have the courage to call her up or knock on her door.
But at least he was doing something. At least he wasn’t pretending that they were strangers.
This was all too much. She dropped the CD case on the end table beside her and stared at the empty cupboard.
She needed a drink.
No.
She needed God. “Help me, God. What do I do? What is going on? Are you really going to give Brent back to me? Calm me down, please. Tell me what to do.”
He didn’t tell her what to do, but she had a sudden desperation to not be alone. She looked at the clock. There was a meeting at seven, but that was more than an hour away. She didn’t want to wait that long. She dialed Carol’s number. She felt a little guilty bothering her, but the woman had agreed to be her sponsor, so she knew what she was getting into. But Carol didn’t answer.
Samantha hung up and stared at the CD case for a few seconds before jumping up and going to her kitchen table, which served as a depository for all homeless paper. She shifted the mess around until she found the church directory.
