Stonehill series collect.., p.36
Stonehill Series Collection, page 36
Paul nodded in agreement and drew another deep breath. “So…about last night. Are we going to analyze what happened or just chalk it up to alcohol and let it go?”
“I don’t know. What do you think?”
“We were hurting, and we crossed a line that we shouldn’t have.”
She worked her lip between her teeth for a moment. “I worry that it will change things between us. We’ve managed to become really good friends, but…”
“But if we kissed once—well, several times—it’s bound to happen again?”
“It usually works that way.” She drew a breath, trying to get a reading on how he felt about that.
He smirked. “And here we are having sleepovers in hotel rooms.”
She laughed, but she didn’t break away from the uncomfortable gaze between them. “If you hadn’t stopped things last night…”
“Yeah.” Paul was quiet for a few seconds. “I have this really bad habit of jumping in with both feet and worrying about the consequences later. I forge ahead and never realize what’s going on around me. I did that with my first wife. I did it with Michelle. And, if we’re honest, I’m doing it with you.”
“Yeah, you are. I’m not complaining.” She smiled. “But I think maybe we’ve probably traveled into relationship territory without realizing it.”
He nodded. “And we have no business being there.”
Dianna sighed, disappointed that he wasn’t more open to exploring what they could be together, even though she agreed that it probably was a terrible idea.
“I have this mixed up kind of co-dependency. I need to take care of someone to feel complete. Not that I don’t care about you or want to look out for you, but…it might be more selfish than I realized. You know?”
“Annie told me about how things were after your mother passed.”
He lifted his brows, clearly surprised. “She did? Why?”
“I think she just wanted me to have a better understanding of who you are, probably to avoid this very situation that we are finding ourselves in.”
He seemed to consider her words. “She thinks it’s her fault that I’m like this.”
“Like this? You say it like it’s a bad thing, Paul. It’s not. Looking out for other people isn’t a shortcoming.”
“It is when I take it too far. And I always take it too far. I pushed Michelle away—”
“Don’t. Please don’t. She’s a selfish bitch, okay? If she weren’t, she wouldn’t have gone after a man who had a family. She wouldn’t have hurt you and me and my kids. You’re a wonderful man, Paul. You really are. It wasn’t you.”
He looked up at her. “Well, it sure as hell wasn’t you either. When I’m with you, everything feels so easy, so right. I feel like we could be great together. But we’re still tied to them, whether we want to be or not. We can’t consider any kind of relationship right now. We’d just hurt each other.”
“I know.”
“I feel like a jerk for kissing you and then—”
“Hey, I kissed you, too.” She sighed heavily. “So what should we do? Just forget last night? Pretend it didn’t happen?”
“Can you do that?”
She forced a smile to her face. “You’re a pretty good kisser, but yeah, I think I can get over it. But there is one small issue that we keep brushing aside.”
“What?”
“There is an attraction here, and if we keep letting our guard down, something is going to happen. Is that because we’re moving toward something or because we’re convenient to each other right now?”
Paul ran his hand over his face and exhaled loudly. “Honestly?”
“Honesty would be great,” she whispered, even though she was starting to dread his answer.
A sweet smile curved his lips. “I’m so attracted to you I’m about to lose my mind. You’re amazing. Inside and out. Pulling away from you last night was damn near torture, but I have to take time to figure myself out. So do you. We have to finish this process of grieving and moving on before we drag anyone else into our misery.”
She nodded. “You’re right. Despite how much I wanted to be with you last night, he was on my mind. You deserve better than that.”
“We both do. I don’t know when we’ll be ready, but it isn’t right now, and I don’t want to lose you because of this.”
She smiled and took his hand. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Paul jumped up when room service knocked on the door, and Dianna exhaled slowly, forcing out the overwhelming sense of disappointment their conversation had stirred.
Chapter 13
Dianna slammed the bill folder shut and rubbed her eyes. She had one more week until payday. She could make it. It would be tight, but she could make it. She was just so damned tired of trying so hard all the time. Everything felt like a struggle now. She had bills that were due by the end of the week. Bills she couldn’t pay. Luckily she’d managed to get caught up with what Paul had paid her to redecorate and the money for the piano so nothing was going to get shut off. At least not this month.
She hated living like that, but she didn’t seem to have much choice in the matter. Which brought her back around to the thing she avoided thinking about until the first of every month rolled around. Her mortgage payment.
Though her car payment had decreased significantly, she still was struggling when the house payment was due. Even though Annie was paying her significantly more, she didn’t make enough to ever get ahead. She was living paycheck to paycheck, and the house took much more than its share. As much as she hated to admit it, it was time to let her home go.
She could still remember her and Mitch’s excitement when they moved in. Stonehill was an up-and-coming suburb of Des Moines. It was quite the coup to say they lived there. The house had been perfect. As soon as they’d stepped inside, she’d looked at him and he’d smiled at her, and she knew he felt the same. It was the perfect place to spend the rest of their lives. Rubbing her eyes, she silently insisted she wasn’t going to cry.
“Hey, Mom,” Sam said when he walked into the kitchen.
“I didn’t think you would be up yet.”
“I have to work in a bit.”
She searched her mind, trying to think of the best way to break the news to him as he fixed himself a bowl of cereal. “Hey, Sam?”
“Huh?”
She swallowed against the tightness in her throat. “Remember when I said eventually I was going to have to sell the house?”
Sam glanced at her as he yanked the refrigerator door open. “Well, I never really liked this house anyway. The neighborhood sucks. It’s full of thugs.”
Dianna laughed softly as he talked about the friends he’d grown up around, the ones he still hung out with. “I’ve heard that.”
“Well, you work for a real estate agent now, so I bet they can get us a kick-ass deal on a new place.”
“Yeah, I bet.”
He put the cap back on the milk after topping off his cereal. “You know, I’m going to be gone to school soon. You don’t need this big house anyway. You need something small that you can take care of. I bet you can sell this for enough to pretty much pay for a new house. You won’t have to”—he shrugged—“you know, stretch things so far to get by.”
She sank her teeth into her lip as he sat across from her. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For not being better at this.”
“Don’t do that. Okay? You’re doing fine.”
She swallowed hard, pushing her emotion down. “Thank you. I need to hear that every now and then.”
“I have a couple hundred in the bank—”
“No.”
“Just to help out—”
“No. I appreciate the gesture, Sam, but I’ll figure it out. You’re going to need that money when you get to school.”
“Okay. But, you know, I’m the man of the house now, so…let me be the man.”
She chuckled as he puffed up his chest and returned to his usual goofy persona.
Kara collapsed on the sofa next to Dianna. “Why didn’t you come to yoga?”
“Did you just let yourself into my house?”
“Yes. Why didn’t you come to yoga? You haven’t come for weeks. The old biddies have been chomping at the bit to hear about your date with Paul.”
“I got busy. I didn’t think they’d mind.”
“What’s going on, Di?”
Dianna curled her hands farther around her coffee mug. “What isn’t going on?”
“Is this about Mitch?”
“He didn’t get married.”
“What?”
Dianna shook her head. “Nobody showed up so he backed out.”
Kara snickered. “Serves him right.”
“I almost slept with Paul, though.”
Her grin fell. “Almost?”
“We kissed. A lot. There was a little groping and grinding.”
“Nice,” Kara teased.
“Yeah. But then he pointed out we were drunk and would regret it later. So we just passed out in a hotel room, and when we woke up, extremely hung over, we agreed that maybe someday but not right now. And that friend of his who bought the piano?”
“Yeah?”
“There was no friend. Paul just didn’t want me to sell it.”
“Wow. So chivalry isn’t dead, huh? Any other news from the last three days you’d like to share?”
Her lip quivered. “I’ve decided to sell the house.”
“Oh, baby,” Kara said softly. “I’m sorry.”
“I can’t keep putting it off. It’s like a rock around my neck dragging me down.”
“You’ll find something great.”
Dianna nodded. “Yeah, I’m sure. What about you? How was your New Year’s?”
She smiled. “Oh, you know. Harry and I just stayed in. Alone.”
Dianna snorted. “You two are too much.”
“You were missed at yoga, though. I think your love life has become the glue that keeps that group together.”
“Oh, God. That’s so sad.”
“Iris, that’s Greek lady number one, the one right next to me, says that if Paul doesn’t see what’s right in front of him, he’s a vlaka. I had to look that up—it means idiot. But, Karme, Greek lady number two, says that if it is real love, it will bloom in its own time and neither you nor Paul can push it. She also says her son Theos is a great catch. He’s a chef at their restaurant and would cook for you every meal. That would be a nice change of pace, huh?”
“They really talked about this?”
“Yes, for the last two Saturdays. Today, Elle, the woman beside you, said that you probably weren’t at yoga because you and Paul had finally hooked up and you couldn’t stand to be away from him. I told her I didn’t think so, but then I come here and you tell me you almost slept with him. How did that happen?”
“Um, about five or six martinis and a shattered heart at the thought of my husband marrying someone else made me think throwing myself at Paul would be a good idea.”
“But you said you guys kissed.”
She nodded. “We did, and then he pointed out it was very, very bad of us to do that.”
Kara frowned. “Well, that’s rude.”
“But he was right. Then he told me that he bought my piano and he wants me to keep it.”
“Which is romantic as hell.”
“But then he said we should just be friends, and I haven’t talked to him since.”
“I guess if all else fails, you can call Theos. His mother says he’s also very good at massaging feet. She apparently gets painful corns.”
“Ew.” Dianna cringed and sank down into her sofa. “I did not need to know that.”
Chapter 14
Dianna and Paul hadn’t vocalized their intent, but a week had passed before they saw each other again, and after a week apart, it had come down to this: board games and a platter of snacks rather than a movie and shared bowl of popcorn and sitting on opposite sides of the coffee table instead of close together on the sofa.
Dianna shook her head as Paul put letters on the Scrabble board. “That’s not a word.”
“Yes, it is. Just not in English.”
“You can’t do that.”
He made a face at her and gathered up his mismatched letters. “I told you I’m not good at this game.”
“You’re a lawyer. How can you not be good at making words?”
“I’ve made plenty of words. You just don’t like them.”
“Because you can’t use Latin. Do you want help?”
“No, thank you, Miss English Major. You just stay on your side over there with your seventy-point lead.”
“Seventy-six-point lead.”
“Whatever.”
She laughed and then picked up her phone. “What’s up, Sam?”
“First thing, I’m fine.”
“Okay.”
“Second thing, don’t freak out.”
“Sammy?”
“I’m at the ER.”
Dianna gasped. “What happened?”
“Some jackass ran a stop sign and T-boned me.”
“Oh, my God.”
Paul pushed himself up and rushed around the table to sit next to her. “What?”
“Sam was in an accident.”
“Is he okay?”
“I’m fine,” Sam said. “That was the first thing, remember?”
“He’s at the ER.”
Paul pulled her to her feet and took the phone from her. “Sam, are you at Stonehill Hospital?” He brushed his hand over Dianna’s head as he listened. “Okay, we’re on our way.”
Paul helped Dianna get her coat, grabbed her purse, and shuffled her out to his car. He drove fast—but not dangerously so—and found a parking spot close to the emergency room doors. He held her hand as they walked in. At the counter, he asked the receptionist about Sam.
“The doctor is with him now. I’ll let them know you’re here. Do you have a medical insurance card for him?”
Dianna shook her head. “He’s on his father’s insurance. He should have those cards on him.”
“He didn’t. We need that information as soon as possible.” She slid a clipboard across the desk. “Fill this out and bring it back.”
“When can I see him?”
“I’ll find out.”
Paul guided Dianna to a row of hard plastic chairs and sat next to her. “You need to call Mitch.”
“Yeah, I know.” She searched his eyes for a moment. “You can leave if you want. I’ll call Kara. She can come sit with me.”
“Do you want me to leave?”
Her heart sank. That was the last thing she wanted. “Do you want to? He’ll probably bring Michelle.”
He put his hand to her face. “Being here for you and Sam is more important.”
She took a slow breath as she looked at the clipboard on her lap. “He’s okay, right?”
“He said he was okay.” He kissed her head for what she thought was probably the tenth time in the last twenty minutes. “Call Mitch, tell him to bring the insurance card. Then fill out the paperwork so the doctors know what they need to in order to help Sam.”
Dianna swallowed and closed her eyes for a moment. She hadn’t talked to Mitch in months. He’d called a dozen times on Thanksgiving when the boys didn’t go to his family dinner, but she’d deleted his messages without listening to them. She hadn’t heard his voice or seen his face since their divorce hearing. She needed a moment to center her strength. Once she did, she took out her phone and called his cell.
“Dianna?” he answered, his voice filled with confusion.
“I’m at Stonehill Hospital with Sam. He was in an accident.”
“Shit, is he okay?”
“He said he was fine when he called, but I haven’t heard from the doctor yet. They need his insurance cards, and Sam didn’t have them on him. Can you bring yours?”
She closed her eyes when she heard Michelle’s voice in the background asking what was wrong. Swallowing her anger at the woman, she listened to Mitch explain what was going on.
“I’m on my way,” he said and then ended the call.
“He’ll be here in a few minutes,” she said to Paul.
He put his arm around her shoulder. “Get this filled out.”
“I keep telling myself he’s fine. I mean, he called and he sounded fine, but if anything ever happened to my kids…”
“I know. But he’s okay, baby.”
She took a breath and focused on the clipboard again. She filled out all of Sam’s crucial information and medical history, and then Paul carried it to the receptionist’s desk. Dianna was staring down the hall, so focused on silently beckoning for a doctor to emerge that she didn’t realize Mitch was there until he stepped in front of her, blocking her view.
She looked up at him, and her stomach clenched. Funny how he looked the same. Like nothing had changed. Somehow she’d thought he’d look different.
“They need his insurance card.” She nodded her head toward the receptionist. As she did, she locked gazes with Paul, who had hesitated on his way back to her side.
“How is he?” Mitch asked, pulling her attention back to him.
“I don’t know. The doctor is with him now. He sounded okay when he called.”
“Did he say what happened?”
“Somebody ran a stop sign and hit him. That’s all I know.”
He started to turn and then stopped and looked down at her. “How are you?”
“Fine. They need his insurance card.”
Mitch turned and walked past Paul, but then, as he dug his wallet out of his pocket, he turned back and a look of confusion washed over his face.
“Last chance,” she said when Paul approached her. “I promise not to be angry if you leave.”
He sat next to her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “I’m not going anywhere. Besides…” He glanced around. “She’s not here.”
“She’s probably around somewhere.”
“I’ll deal with it when she shows, if she shows. Hospitals aren’t her thing, and she’s probably not a real big fan of Sam’s right now. He did contribute to the cancellation of her wedding, remember?”
