“Not serious?”
“Nope.”
“I hope you find somebody to share your life with.”
“Have you, Hayley?”
She stared over his shoulder. “I thought maybe. But now…who knows? I’m tired of thinking about him. Can you stay?”
“No plans tonight.” Actually, he’d reneged on his promise to go out with the people in his office. He’d rather be with Hayley when she needed him.
* * *
He’d dreamed about Finn Casella. The man had come to his condo and shot him with an AR-16. He didn’t need Freud to tell him the meaning of that. Maybe he was experiencing the PTSD the authorities mentioned, hence Finn carried the same gun as the ballroom attacker. Maybe Paul was reacting to the reaming out he’d gotten from Hayley’s brother. Whichever haunted his nocturnal adventures, he’d slept only a few hours and the rest of the night tore the covers off the bed thinking about Hayley and the images of her that Finn put in his head. Nothing he came up with would fix this situation. So, an hour after dawn, he got in his car and drove up to Hidden Lake, arriving at her house at eight.
No signs of life in or around the place, but he saw a car parked in the driveway. No lights on, nobody walking past a window. He thought about going to the back, but he didn’t want to scare her. Maybe he’d peek in the front window before he rang the bell. They’d been left bare because the trees in the front lawn gave them privacy. He sidled in between the bushes and the house.
And wasn’t shocked to see her curled up on the floor in sleeping bags with another man. Seth, he presumed. He still hadn’t met the guy. Finn must have called his cousin after all. Well, at least she hadn’t been alone all night, as he had. Picking his way back to the stoop, he knocked on the door. He thought that might be an easier mode of awakening them. It took a while, but finally Hayley opened the door. Her hair was mussed like it got after sex. Her clothes were wrinkled. And her eyes went from sleepy to fiery in sixty seconds. “Well, I lost the bet.”
“The bet?” He shifted on his feet trying to read her mood.
“Seth said you’d be here by morning. I said not.”
Since she was being sassy, he wasn’t going to betray how bad he felt. “What’d you bet?”
“Dinner at the Hidden Cove Inn. It’s the nicest place in town.”
“Maybe we can take him there tonight.”
She folded her arms across her chest and her eyes narrowed. “If we’re both still standing.”
“I’m mad.”
“I know. Now, I am, too. I felt contrite until you stood me up.” She lifted her chin. “I never took you as a coward.”
“I didn’t think that way of myself, either. I apologize.”
She stepped back. “You can come in.”
Once he got into the living room, he saw that Seth had roused. The guy bore a striking resemblance to her. His hair was blond, but his eyes were the same color. “Who woulda thought the hero of the day was a pussy?”
“Watch your language around Hayley.”
Both he and Hayley laughed. “We taught each other how to swear. Every time we heard a new word, we added it to a list we kept.”
“How old were you?”
“Maybe eight or nine.” Rising from the floor where they must have slept in front of the television, he crossed to his cousin. “Want me to stay, honey?”
“No thanks. I appreciate you being here last night.” She arched a brow at Paul. “I was sad and you cheered me up.”
“Some of us keep our promises.”
After he left, Hayley sat on the couch. Pillows and blankets and two sleeping bags were still scattered in front of it. Paul joined her.
But Hayley took charge. “So, I’m going first. I wasn’t pumping your mother. I noticed the woman you were with on the steps of City Hall was sitting alone. I went to talk to her and recognized who she was to you because you have her eyes. The only possible thing I did wrong was to ask what you were like as a boy.”
Her comments fueled the anger inside of him instead of calming it. “When you knew I was holding back everything about my family.”
“Do you think I shouldn’t have gone to sit with her?”
“Yes, I do.”
She shook her head. “Must be some secret you’re keeping.”
“I don’t want to share my background, Hayley! Plain and simple. My past is my business. Not yours.”
And suddenly he knew the real reason why he didn’t want her anywhere near his family. Maybe the insight came from being in the house where she’d told him about Bridget. She hated the fact that her mother had rejected her roots. It had caused havoc in her family, and taken her away from cousins like Seth, whom she obviously adored. That loss must have hurt, a lot.
And then her older brother deserted her. Like he’d deserted his siblings.
But something else niggled at him, something that didn’t concern her family. He had to make decisions about seeing his family now. Even being with Matka might not have changed his mind. But in a round-about way, Hayley had forced him to make a choice. He couldn’t bring her into that mess until he decided exactly what he was going to do.
She was saying, “It is my business now, Paul, when it affects us as a couple like yesterday.”
“You said you understood that I needed privacy.”
“And I did. But after I saw your reaction to me simply chatting with your mother, before we can go any further, I have to know what you’re hiding.”
“That sounds like an ultimatum.”
“Call it whatever you want.”
This was how she was in court. She hadn’t yet turned that aggressor side on him personally. So, he returned to his court persona, too. “I won’t be pressured into revealing things about my past.”
“Do you think I’d use it against you?” Her voice was filled with horror.
“I have no idea. I went to some length to bury all this, and I’m not resurrecting it for you or any other woman.”
Her hands clamped together on her lap. “Wow. And here I thought I wasn’t simply any other woman.”
“You know I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Do I?” She shrugged. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe we jumped into this thing between us too fast before we really got to know each other.”
“I didn’t say that at all, Hayley. Besides, you can’t change the past. We did get involved.” He waited for a response and when it didn’t come, he said, “I guess we’re at a stalemate.”
“You won’t give in on this?”
“I can’t live with you going off on me if I make a mistake.” His voice raised a notch. “I don’t lead my life that way.”
“I didn’t go off on you. But call it whatever you want. I don’t date men who get mad like you did over an innocent incident, either.”
“This was a special circumstance to me.”
“Which I have to live with? Is that what you’re saying?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I need time to process everything.”
“All right, Paul, take all the time you need. But I won’t be comfortable in your company right now. And know I’m not going into a relationship with any man where I have to worry about what I say.”