Rachel grabbed his arm as he started to turn away from her. “Don’t you go calling me a martyr. I’m a sensible, practical person trying to deal with a nightmare in a sensible, practical way.”
“Oh, right,” he said sarcastically. He smiled a rueful parody of a smile. “Maybe I should have taken my cue from you and behaved in a sensible, practical way, because I sure as hell didn’t need the kind of aggravation falling in love with you has been.”
It was Rachel’s turn to wince. The pain wasn’t entirely unexpected. She’d told herself from the start Bryan would cut his losses when the going got rough. That was what dreamers did.
“Well, don’t let me stand in your way,” she said softly, opening her arms wide in a gesture of resignation. “There’s no time like the present. I’m certainly not going to try to stop you.”
Bryan stared at her long and hard, doing everything he could to hide his own hurt while he looked for some evidence of hers. She was bitter and disillusioned and had meant every word she’d said. She hadn’t believed in his love from the beginning, not really, not in the way that mattered most. It was clear she was determined to carry out her plans for her penance, and he had no part in them. Or maybe in some perverse way he did. It made her sacrifice only greater if she could look back on their relationship and think of what she had given up, of what might have been.
“Fine,” he said, looking past her to the crumpled powder-blue Volvo, where Aunt Roberta was having an animated conversation with the erstwhile flower vendor. “I’ll move my aunt out to Keepsake. I’ll stop by tonight for our things.”
He didn’t look to Rachel for confirmation or approval. He didn’t look at her at all. He simply walked away. She watched him go, thinking he looked like a stranger. There was an air of cold authority about him as he took his aunt by the arm, murmured a few curt words to her, and led her away.
Rachel wondered if she had ever really known him. But the point was moot. She was never going to have the chance to find out now. He was walking out of her life, taking all the light with him. As the fog bank rolled in around her, she thought of her future and ached at how empty it would be.
THIRTEEN
“Now, keep your eye on the dollar bill,” Bryan said.
He sat back on his barstool, his concentration on the trick rather than on the small group of semi-interested onlookers. He folded the bill into an intricate bow shape, squeezed it between his palms, turned his hands. When he turned his palms outward again, the bill was gone.
“Great trick,” Dylan Harrison said from behind the bar. He wiped his hands on a towel and leaned against the polished surface. “Now make it reappear, Houdini. I want my buck back.”
Bryan sighed, took a sip of his whiskey, and performed the trick in reverse. The bill did not reappear. On three tries the best he could manage to produce was a wilted flower and a lint ball. He frowned, his broad shoulders slumping dejectedly as his audience wandered away.
Dylan reached across the bar and patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t sweat it, Bry. I’ll put it on your tab.”
“I’ve lost it again,” Bryan mumbled. “I’ve lost my magic.”
“You’re having an off day, that’s all.”
“There’s an understatement.”
Losing Rachel put the day in the catastrophic category. He’d seen it coming, of course. It was just that his unflagging optimism had convinced him he would be able to prevent it when the time came. He’d been wrong.
After the fight to end all fights, he had taken Aunt Roberta out to Keepsake-Faith and Shane Callan’s inn-dumped her there, and made a beeline for Dylan’s Bar and Bait Shop, the popular waterfront establishment owned and run by Alaina’s husband. He still needed to return to Drake House for Roberta’s and his belongings, but he hadn’t been able to face that task without a little fortification of the distilled variety. He needed something to dull his too-sensitive senses. Time, mostly, but in lieu of that a nip or two of Dylan’s Irish wouldn’t hurt-especially since Dylan was liberally watering the stuff when he thought Bryan wasn’t looking.
That wasn’t the standard practice at Dylan’s. It was a neat bar that catered to tourists and locals alike. The floors were swept, the glasses clean, and the booze uncut. He was getting special treatment because he was obviously in such rough shape. Dylan was looking out for him, like any good, conscientious friend would. It made him feel a little better to think that Alaina had ended up with such a good guy. If he had to be lonely and miserable for the rest of his life, at least his best friends had found happiness.
“My, you look like hell,” Alaina said mildly, sliding onto the stool next to his.
“I know, I know.” He sighed. “I need a haircut.”
“That too.”
She was immaculate as usual, every chestnut hair in place, not so much as a speck on her Ralph Lauren ensemble of gold slacks and a midnight-blue silk blouse. Bryan, on the other hand, knew he looked as if he’d been sleeping in an alley. His jeans were rumpled. Roberta had burned a hole in his sweatshirt, and the tail of his white T-shirt hung down beneath the hem. It might have been a style popular with the fraternity crowd, but it didn’t cut the mustard with Alaina, who probably would have given up her civil rights before her Neiman-Marcus charge card.
He shot her a look, wincing at the tender sympathy and concern in her gaze. He didn’t know if he was up to having Alaina feel sorry for him. She was more in the habit of giving a person a swift kick in the britches and telling them to buck up and get on with it.
“Oh, don’t get nervous,” she said, extracting one of her precious, rationed cigarettes from her monogrammed case. Ignoring her husband’s scowl, she lit it and took a deep, appreciative drag. As she exhaled, her shrewd gaze shifted to Bryan again. “I’m not going to do the poor-Bryan routine. Faith tells me she already failed in the attempt.”
“Have the three of you ever considered sharing your amazing communications skills with the intelligence community?” he asked, his brows pulling together in annoyance. “I could give you a phone number.”
Alaina ignored the remark if not its implication. “And if it’s spiritual analysis you want, Jayne will be more than willing to provide that. Practical advice is more my line of expertise.”
He cringed at the mention of the word. “Please. I’ve had all the practicality I can stand for one day. I think it’s giving me a rash.”
“Can we see?” Dylan asked with a bright smile. His wicked sense of humor actually managed to cut through Bryan’s cloak of pain and coaxed a chuckle out of him.
Alaina rolled her eyes. “Don’t you have to go gut fish or something?”
Her husband leaned across the bar, grinning as he touched the tip of his nose to hers. “Yeah, but I was saving that to share with you later, sweetheart. I know how you like to get slimy.”
“Beat it, Harrison,” she said without batting an eyelash. The polar ice caps would melt before Alaina Montgomery-Harrison would put her manicured hand on a dead fish.
“You don’t want me around?” Dylan shrugged. “I get it. I can take a hint.”
“Since when?” she said dryly, tilting her cheek up for his kiss.
He waved to Bryan and let himself out from behind the bar so he could help attend to the many customers who had wandered in before heading off for dinner at one of Anastasia’s several fine seafood restaurants.
“You’ve got a good one there,” Bryan commented.
“Yes, I have. How about you?”
“Dylan? Gee, honey, I like him, but…”
She gave him a look that ended his nonsense in mid-sentence. “Don’t pull that act on me, Bryan. I’m sure you fool the uninitiated on a regular basis, but I am hardly that, now, am I?” She paused with typical lawyerlike drama to let her point sink in, then started her line of questioning over. “Rachel?”