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She swallowed hard. "I don't know what to say."
"Tell me to leave, Chloe. Tell me you don't care if I break our contract."
She sucked in a breath. "Okay. I don't want you to go. But if you want to leave, you should."
"I should go—for a lot of reasons—and I'm not just talking about what I learned today."
She licked her lips, unable to read his expression. "What else are you talking about?"
"You know, Chloe. I've been traveling two dangerous roads, one leading to questions about my father's behavior and the other leading to a woman who's dating one of my good friends. And I can't seem to get off either road. But I have to get off."
She wanted to tell him she wasn't going to see Joel anymore, but that was something she should tell Joel first.
"You need to go, Chloe. You need to go right now."
He was angry, and he was hurting, and she was tied up in all of it. She wanted to ease the pain in his heart and feed the fire in his eyes. But she couldn't do either of those things. "Decker—"
He cut her off with a shake of his head. "Go home, Chloe. I can't do this." He stepped back and shut the door in her face.
She stared at it for a long minute, her breath coming hard and fast. She wanted him to open that door again. She wanted to throw herself into his arms and tell him she didn't want Joel; she wanted him.
But then what?
There was no good answer to that question.
Forcing herself to move, she ran down the stairs feeling shaken and terribly afraid she might have just lost something incredible.
ChapterTwenty
Decker spentmost of Sunday debating whether he wanted to put Whisper Lake in his rearview mirror, the way his father had done twenty-seven years ago. But despite getting into his truck and driving around the entire lake for two hours, he couldn't quite bring himself to take the highway leading out of town.
He'd made a commitment to Chloe, and he didn't want to leave her high and dry. It wasn't her fault that his family was a twisted mess of secrets, some of which he still didn't understand. The worst part was not having anyone to ask. He hadn't spoken to his mother's parents his entire life. And he hadn't seen his paternal grandmother more than twice in his life and that's when he was a kid. He didn't even know where she was anymore. He supposed he could track her down and ask her about her affair, but what was the point? It wouldn't change anything.
Running away wouldn't change anything, either.
But staying…well, that presented another set of problems.
He'd shut Chloe out last night, but if he stayed in town, he'd have to deal with his attraction to her and his loyalty to his friend.
As he drove back into the downtown area, he could see why his father had always wanted to keep moving. New people, new places are the best medicine, his father would tell him. And it was tempting to follow in his dad's footsteps and just move on, but he wasn't his dad. He couldn't just leave and not look back, not yet anyway.
When he finished the house, when his commitment to Chloe was over, then he could leave without guilt, but that wouldn't be today.
He drove to the rental house, happy to see that there was no sign of Chloe's car. When he got inside, the house felt different. Knowing his relationship to Eleanor made him see everything in a new light. So many things she'd kept for him. She'd wanted to preserve the family history. And he was finally here to see everything she'd gathered together.
He no longer wanted to throw it all away. He needed to look, really look, at everything. Eleanor had tried to bring his father and grandfather together. She'd tried to make his family more whole. He owed her for that, even if she hadn't been successful.
For the next six hours, he went through every drawer, every pile, and instead of seeing just junk, he saw history. In the hundreds of books in the house, he found his father's ten novels, and each one of them appeared to have been read at some point in time. He also found dozens of history books and military thriller novels, some written by a former air force pilot, who had autographed his books to Captain Hank Johnson. Hank had been in the military and loved history.
His father had never served, but he'd been a history buff his entire life, writing books in various historical periods and sometimes hard-to-reach locations. His father and grandfather had shared an interest in history, and neither one might have known that.
Once he'd sorted through the books, putting his father's novels aside, he boxed up the rest and put them in his truck. Then he started on the toys. But before he tore the train apart, he let it run around the living room, thinking about how Eleanor had set it up for him, to remind him of perhaps the one and only thing they'd done together. Or maybe it was to remind herself.
When he finally stopped the train, he took it apart and put it in a big box for Leo. He didn't want it to go to a kid he didn't know. But it would make him happy to think of Leo playing with it.
He moved on to photo albums, of which there were at least six. Thinking he might easily get lost in those, he put them in another box along with more letters and more journals, all of which would take time to read. He put that box in the cab of his truck. He'd look at it later.
Small pieces of furniture and knick-knacks to be donated filled up the rest of his truck. He made a quick trip to the donation center to unload and then headed to his apartment, taking Ellie's personal items upstairs. When that was done, he went down to the café. He wasn't sure he was ready to see Chloe or not, but it was a moot point, as she wasn't there.
