Stonehill series collect.., p.25
Stonehill Series Collection, page 25
Finally, she saved him by gesturing behind her. “There’s this café a few blocks away. It’s a little rundown, but the coffee’s good. Care to join me?”
He hesitated. He could say no and go back to work, where he’d likely bark at anyone who tried to talk to him. He could go home, look around his empty house, and replay Dianna’s testimony over and over in his mind. Maybe he could go visit his sister and hear how she’d told him so. Or his brother and hear how he’d be better off.
He nodded after a moment. “My treat. I owe you.”
She opened her mouth as he put his hand on her elbow and turned her toward the direction she had pointed moments before.
“Don’t argue,” he insisted.
She pressed her lips together and shoved her hands in her pockets. They walked nearly a block in silence before he glanced down at her.
“Are you okay?”
She laughed softly, but the sound was hollow. “I just thinking about…”
“What?”
“Nothing. It’s…embarrassing.”
He nodded, not wanting to push her, and silence fell between them again.
After a few moments, she said, “The last time I sat in a restaurant to have coffee with a virtual stranger was my first date with Mitch. We talked about everything from sports to art. I was so enamored by him. I couldn’t believe he was interested in me.” She looked up at Paul, and her wistful smile faded as her eyes grew wide. “Not that having coffee with you is a date. Nothing even close to that.”
He grinned at the way her stumbling admission made her blush.
“I just… It made me think… I’m going to shut up now.”
Paul chuckled. “I know what you’re saying. The smallest thing can trip a memory. There’s a woman at work who wears a perfume similar to Michelle’s. I have grown to detest that woman for absolutely no logical reason other than that she smells like my ex. I met Michelle at a bar. I was there with some co-workers celebrating a win on a case. A bunch of men in suits and ties drinking too much. I’m sure she felt like a fox in a henhouse. Just pick one, any one, and go for the kill.”
“Do you really think that’s all you were to her? A target?”
“Honestly? Yes. A target with the money to give her what she wanted. And when I started to get wise to her, she moved on to her next target. Unfortunately, that was your husband. For that, I’m sorry.”
“Please. I’m smart enough to realize a person can only be led astray if he chooses to be. He’s as much to blame as she is.”
Dianna pointed to a hand-painted wooden sign that read Stonehill Café. He pulled the door open, and they stepped inside. The small restaurant was rundown, as she’d said, but the dining area was cozy, and he wondered why he hadn’t visited the place before. They sat at a table by the big window overlooking the street. Pumpkin-spiced something filled the air, and Paul inhaled deeply as they slid into a booth. Within moments, they’d ordered two coffees and uneasiness fell between them again.
Finally, after taking a sip of the brew that had just been set before her, Dianna said, “I feel like we need to just get this out of the way.”
He lifted his brow. “What?”
“How long were you married?”
“Ah.” He sat back but left his drink on the table. “Three years. You?”
“Twenty-two.”
He winced as sympathy stabbed at his heart. “Ouch.”
“I’ve stopped thinking about how much time I wasted being married to him and have started thinking about getting the most out of the time I have left. He hated the theater and concerts and all those things that I loved doing, so eventually I just stopped asking to go. I’m hoping to get season tickets to the community theater next year. And I keep checking the concert lineup in the city. Mitch hated the noise and the crowds, but I love the excitement. I can’t afford to get tickets yet, but one of these days I will.” She bit her lip, as if embarrassed by what she’d blurted out. “I’m rambling. I’m sorry. I do that sometimes.”
“No, you’re excited. That’s good. Post-marital bucket lists are good. It gives you something fun to think about. I remember doing that after my first divorce.” He grinned when she stopped lifting her coffee cup to her lips. “I’m two for two now.”
“I can’t imagine going through this twice,” she said quietly. “I don’t think there’s enough of my heart left to survive it.”
Paul leaned forward and toyed with his silverware. “You heal over time. Forget how much this part hurts.”
“Like childbirth, right? If you remembered how much it hurt, you’d never do it again.”
He smiled. “I’ve heard that.”
“So, how much did you get marked off your list before getting remarried?”
“Not nearly enough. I think I’ll revisit it.”
The light mood faded a bit.
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” she said quietly.
“You didn’t.”
“I did. I can see it on your face.”
He shook his head. “It’s just that…when I married her, I thought I had things figured out. I thought I had her figured out. I knew she was self-centered and narcissistic, but when I was with her, I felt like I was part of something that had been missing in my last marriage. I thought, even though she was always more about herself, that we were partners in our marriage. I took care of her and convinced myself that she took care of me as well. I can see more clearly now. Everything between us was as one-sided as my family kept telling me it was. I loved her. But I don’t know if she ever actually loved me. When I think of the things I gave up to be with her…I feel so stupid.”
“Love has a way of blinding people, Paul. That doesn’t make you stupid any more than my contentment made me stupid. I trusted my husband. That’s what I was supposed to do, right? Believe him. Support him. Trust him. We weren’t stupid. We were betrayed. It’s hard to remember that sometimes, but that is the truth.”
Paul looked out the window, but he wasn’t seeing the world around him. “How are you doing, Dianna? Really?”
“Really? I don’t know. Mitch is gone. My boys are grown. All of a sudden, I’m alone. I go to work, I come home, and there’s so much quiet I want to scream, but I can’t seem to bring myself to do anything else.” She stared into her coffee cup. “It feels like too much work to try to find a new place in the world.”
“Your friends and family—do they still look at you like someone died?”
“Yeah. The ones who still talk to me anyway. An amazing number of people have simply disappeared from my life. But those who have stuck around have more pity than I care to see.”
“The disappearing friends thing happens every time a relationship fails. People either feel like they have to choose sides, or they don’t know what to say so they simply avoid you. Don’t take it personally. At least you know who you can count on.”
She nodded. “So how are you? Really?”
Paul turned his mug in his hands. He wasn’t quite sure when coffee cups had become so damned fascinating, but somehow that was easier than looking at Dianna. The way she gazed at him, with so much understanding, made him want to talk about things he’d rather not.
“I’m still pissed as hell,” he admitted. “I gave that woman everything she wanted. Everything. I did everything I was supposed to do. I sent her flowers, took her out, took her on vacations. She called it smothering. She said I expected too much out of her. The only expectation I ever had was for her to keep her goddamned legs closed when I wasn’t around.” He raked his fingers through his hair and exhaled harshly as he realized what he’d said. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“That’s okay.” Her voice was soft. Supportive. “You have every right to be furious. It sounds like you were a wonderful husband.”
He shook his head. “My first wife left me because I was a stranger to her and our kids. I thought my job was to provide for them, and that’s what I did. I worked day and night to give them security. But I was wrong. They needed more than that. I swore I was going to do better with Michelle, so I paid as much attention to her as I could. And guess what? That was wrong, too.”
Dianna frowned. “For a long time I thought all the anger I felt was because I caught them. But now I realize it’s not what I saw. It’s what I felt. It’s how he made me feel for so long, how I let him make me feel. Like he was doing me a favor by being married to me. Like I had to give up everything I wanted because I owed him the perfect wife and children and home.”
Something in the way she said the words, the way her voice was so melancholy, made the need to protect her from something unseen rise in Paul’s chest. “Was he bad to you?”
She lifted her gaze to his and shook her head slowly. “No. He was just…indifferent. He’d been so indifferent for so long that I didn’t even realize it anymore. I was his maid and his chef and his errand girl, but I stopped being his wife a long time ago.”
“You deserve better than that.”
“Well, so do you.”
“You know what? They did us a favor. I mean, sure we’re miserable as hell right now, but at least they gave us the opportunity to move on and find someone who wants to be with us. Now that I think about it, I’m lucky to be getting out before the facelifts, implants, and liposuction begin. You better believe in the next five years, her lips and chest will be as fake as her veneered teeth.”
Dianna’s mouth widened with obvious shock at his bitter assessment, and then she grinned. “Oh, Mitch can’t handle high maintenance.”
“Well, he’s getting high maintenance. I mean like…bow-before-me-and-blow-smoke-up-my-ass-every-day maintenance.”
A laugh erupted from her, despite the hand she put to her lips. Her amusement tickled his, and for the first time in months, a genuine laugh escaped him. She dropped her hand to her chest as she rolled her head back and the musical sound coming from her grew louder.
“I can’t…” She inhaled and shook her head as she met his gaze. “Oh, he has no idea what he’s getting into, does he?”
“Probably not. She kind of springs it on her victims when they least expect it.” He was breathless, his words coming out between gasps.
She chuckled harder. “He’s going to be so miserable.”
“Good. Maybe he can share his misery with her.” He shook his head as he regained control of himself. “God, I haven’t laughed that hard in months.”
“Me either.” Leaning forward, she put her elbow on the table and supported her chin in her palm.
Her smile, her real smile, eased the crease between her brows, making her look much younger. Her eyes lost the haunted shadows, and the parentheses around her mouth creased upward instead of falling into a scowl. She was quite beautiful when she wasn’t looking so damned sorrowful. Not that she hadn’t been attractive when she was throwing coffee mugs in her kitchen. He hadn’t missed the graceful way she moved or the soft curve of her face that day. But he certainly hadn’t noticed it as strongly as he was with her grinning at him.
He must have stared too long. She averted her gaze as she cleared her throat.
“So what are you going to do now?” she asked.
“Well. I’m going to finish my coffee. Then I’m going to go home.”
“And?”
He swirled his drink as the momentary lapse in his misery ended. “Hide in my office, probably. There’s too much of her in that house. I can’t escape her. I keep thinking I should just sell it and get the hell out while I’m still sane.”
Sadness returned to her eyes. “I’d love to stay in my house. My boys grew up there, but I can’t afford to keep it. However, with the holidays coming up, there is no point in putting it on the market right now. And my SUV. The payments are outrageous, at least for my budget. I have to trade down, but I don’t even know if that’s possible.”
Paul ignored the voices in his head—his sister telling him Dianna’s problems weren’t his concern and his brother warning him not to be the hero to yet another damsel in distress—and asked, “Did you get possession of the car at your hearing?”
“Yeah. The car, the house…the bills.” She looked down. This time when she blushed, it clearly didn’t have anything to do with him staring at her. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I’ve never had to worry about money before, and now it’s all I do. Mitch got a great job right out of college, and I had babies. That doesn’t pay well.” She laughed softly.
“Not to impede your newfound independence or anything, but call me when you’re ready to trade in the SUV. My brother has a dealership. He’ll take good care of you.” He reached into his suit pocket.
She took the business card he extended toward her. “Paul O’Connell. Attorney at Law.” She lifted her brows. “A lawyer? Wow. You seem so human.”
His mouth opened, but he couldn’t quite find the right comeback. She threw her head back and laughed.
“I’m sorry,” she said after a moment, but the smile on her face said otherwise. “That wasn’t nice of me. I…sincerely. I apologize.”
“I can tell by the way you’re still grinning.”
She pulled her lips between her teeth, but her smirk remained. Paul couldn’t help but be amused right along with her.
“Thank you,” she said. “I mean it. I appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome. And my sister is a real estate agent, so, you know. Let me know about the house, too. I bet she can sell it for you in no time.”
Her grin faltered at the mention of selling her home, and guilt kicked him in the gut. Before he could apologize, she grabbed a handful of her long red-brown hair and made a show of looking down at the strands.
“I would kill for a makeover. Do you have a sibling for that?”
“No. But if you’re ever in need of a fancy dress, my cousin does own a boutique on the square.”
“What? Really?”
He warmed at the way she scrunched up her nose. “We’re a diverse bunch.”
“I guess so. Well,” she said thoughtfully after a moment, “I’m a fantastic cook, so if you need help feeding yourself, let me know. I’m also very good at decorating, party planning, and raising money for the booster club.”
“Good to know.”
A young couple entered the café and shared a kiss as they slid into a booth. Paul’s good mood faded at the reminder of what he’d lost. That was how it seemed to go. For a moment he’d forget how miserable and alone he was, but there was always something to remind him. He shook the sting away and focused on Dianna again.
“This has been really nice,” she said.
“It has been. Thank you. I didn’t think my afternoon would go this way.”
She finished her drink and turned her empty cup from side to side a few times. Paul watched, almost as mesmerized by her turning cup as he’d been by his.
“He left me almost six months ago now,” she said quietly, “and I’m still in this tailspin. I can’t seem to get my footing. It’s just…a constant up and down of emotions. It’s going to get better. Right? It’ll even out?”
He sighed when she lifted her gaze and the sadness had returned to her eyes. “Yes. It will get better.”
She hesitated before reaching into her purse and pulling out a pen and a scrap of paper. She scribbled on the paper and held it out to him. “This is going to sound like I’m trying to pick you up, but I’m not. You’re one of the few people who doesn’t make me feel like my life is completely ruined because Mitch left me. I don’t want to feel like that, so call me if you need to talk or just want to grab a coffee.”
He took the paper and then reached for the business card she’d set on the table. He flipped it over and wrote on it. “That’s my cell phone.” He slid the card back to her. “Anytime, anything you need. Okay?”
“Okay.”
She tucked the card into her purse and zipped it while he put her number into his pocket. Standing, she slipped her arms in her coat sleeves and buttoned up the front while he dropped some cash onto the table. He walked with her to her SUV and held the door as she climbed in.
She looked at him and smiled slightly. “Thanks again, Paul.”
“Thank you, Dianna.” He closed the door and walked away. Looking up at the sun trying to break through the clouds, he tried to figure out how his day had gone from horrid to not so bad in less than an hour.
Chapter 3
Dianna held the mouse of her computer so the pointer hovered over the button she needed to click to accept Paul’s social media friendship request. They’d already traded numbers. It wasn’t like Facebook was some kind of personal commitment, but even so, she wasn’t sure they were at that level. Whatever that level was.
She stared at the button for at least a minute, debating the pros and cons, before she slammed her finger into the mouse and clicked to accept. Divorce certainly made social media an awkward place to be. She hadn’t changed her relationship status from married to single. She’d just hidden that bit of personal information.
What had Mitch said about the end of their marriage? Had he simply changed his relationship status from married to Dianna Friedman to in a relationship with Michelle O’Connell without comment or explanation? Now the site would be announcing to the world that she was friends with Paul O’Connell.
“What the hell?” she asked, speaking to no one since she was the only one home.
She was about to log off the computer and find something else to do other than dwell on what the online community would think of her new friend, when another friend called her cell phone.
Dianna put the phone to her ear. “What’s up, Kara?”
“Who’s the hottie?”
“What hottie?”
“The silver fox you just friended on Facebook.”
It was almost as if Dianna had foreseen this very conversation just a few moments ago. “He’s my husband’s girlfriend’s husband.”
“What?”
“Exactly.”
