“You really just happened to turn up, Sarah? In my hotel?”
Oh, he could be frustrating! She was tired of being interrogated. “After visiting several others.”
“Ahh. The coincidence needed help.”
Sarah looked around for her purse. It was near the door, half under Ian’s jeans. She went to get it, then rejoined him on the bed while she opened it and pulled out a piece of folded newsprint.
“There I was yesterday morning, relaxing in my jammies—”
“Where’s ‘there,’ besides Vancouver?”
“In my apartment. Twelfth floor, oceanside.”
“Nice.”
“There I was, having my morning coffee and a delicious whole wheat, mega-iced, mega-cinnamon-sugar cinnamon bun, when I opened my weekend paper and found this.” She waved the clipping. It was an article describing how gold built Yellowknife in the 1930s and how diamonds under the rock and ice of the Barren Lands were behind another growth spurt now.
“‘All That Glitters Isn’t Gold.’ By Ian Kingsley.” She smiled. “I always knew your name would look good in print. This story is why I came to Yellowknife, Ian. You made me want to see the place for myself. At the end you said you’d be here for several weeks, working on a series of columns about the Northwest Territories. So I thought, why not?”
Before she finished speaking, she sensed his withdrawal.
“You dropped everything?” His voice had cooled.
What did that mean? She hadn’t dropped anything.
Slowly, she refolded the clipping. “Like a banana peel.”
“Right. Of course.” He went to the pile of clothes on the floor, purposeful, quick. He was already gone, more or less, before he finished getting dressed. “It’s none of my business what you do.”
“No.”
“Not anymore.”
“If it ever was.” She couldn’t believe what was happening. She’d finally answered his question and now the evening was crumbling, falling apart.
He pulled his shoelaces tight, and tied them with swift, sharp movements. “I’ll call you a taxi.”
He was throwing her out?
If she’d seen it coming she could have left first, left him dangling. Nothing to be done about it now. She certainly wasn’t going to bob up and down collecting clothes while he watched.
Settling back against the headboard, she turned to give him her left breast’s best angle. She could be just as cold as he was. Colder. “I’m not sure it’s that easy. You can’t say, ‘No, thank you’ right after, ‘Yes, please.’ Not if you’ve accepted what’s offered.”
“You’re right. It’s rude. It’s unfortunate.”
“Do you have a thesaurus? There must be a better word choice.” She took her time getting up from the bed, then padded toward him. He seemed unable to stop looking at her, his eyes lingering at all the expected places.
“I’ll shower and then we’ll talk.” That might give him time to settle down, to see that his behavior had gone way past unfortunate to absolutely mean.
But when she came out of the bathroom he wasn’t waiting, contrite and ready to apologize. He’d gathered her clothes together and left a note on top of them.
“TAXI’S PAID FOR AND WAITING.”
Scribbled under the block capitals was an apparent afterthought. “It was good to see you, Sar.”
CHAPTER THREE
TUNNELED UNDER THE covers the next morning, Sarah silently replayed the phrase Ian had used. Good to see her?
He’d actually said that. Written it, anyway, and writing it was worse. He’d had time to tear up the note, time to write a better one.
Good to see her, Sar. He’d thrown her out after great sex, and affectionately shortened her name.
How had she landed herself in this mess?
By ignoring a very important prefix, that was how. Ex-wives didn’t go to bed with ex-husbands. That was what ex meant.
But with Ian, look, don’t touch had never been an option.
The moment her body had gone into overdrive in that House of Taxidermy they called a bar, she should have headed straight back to the airport, alarm bells ringing.
She couldn’t, though. She’d already started to wonder about her choices where men were concerned, and when she’d seen his photo and byline in the paper her questions had moved front and center. What was she doing, embarking on relationship after relationship? Was it time to try again? Were she and Ian done? Really, forever and truly, done?
An odd thing to wonder after ten years, but the tumbling into bed, the complete and absolute wonderfulness of that, said no.
The turfing out said yes.
Maybe she’d expected too much from one short trip. As if she could stand in front of him and all answers would be revealed. As if he was some kind of oracle.
You dropped everything.
He’d said it so harshly, and cold went the eyes, on went the clothes. Why was he like that, leaping to judgment? “Dropped everything,” in that tone, as if she’d abandoned a child or left someone marooned on a cliff. Was that what he thought of her?
She didn’t care what he thought of her.
She did care, but she couldn’t change it. Couldn’t change him.
Muffled through the covers, she heard the room telephone ring.
Ian. She knew it right away. A mortified, shamed and sorry Ian. Haggard from tossing and turning all night—even more than she had, because he was the guilty one. She had only been unwise.
If he apologized, she would pretend she didn’t know what he was talking about. Note? You’re worried about that? Heavens, I was glad to see you, too.
She reached outside the comforter, felt around on the bedside table for the receiver and with as little banging against clock and lamp as possible, pulled it into her cocoon.
“Hello?”
“Good morning!” The voice on the other end was cheerful and wide-awake, medium deep. Not Ian. Oliver. “What a grumpy sounding woman. It can’t be the lovely, vacationing Ms. Bretton.”
She threw back the covers to see the clock. Eight? That meant it was seven at home. “Is something wrong? Is Jenny all right?” Jenny was her little mutt, rescued from an animal shelter a couple of years ago and living like a queen ever since. “Oh, Lord, not a car—”
“Jenny’s fine,” Oliver quickly reassured her. “Missing you, but hale and hearty. She’s here by my desk, cocking her head every time you speak.”
“Poor girl.”
“She’s not cocking it sadly. Curiously, that’s all.” His voice faded and Sarah heard him croon to the dog, saying ridiculous things about it being Mommy on the phone, yes, Mommy, who was far away….
“Stop it, Oliver. You’ll embarrass her.”
Sarah was coming to grips with two facts—one, that her demon lover hadn’t rushed to beg her forgiveness and two, that in another corner of her life she was something other than an idiot. In the eyes of some, in a faraway renovated gingerbread house, she was a capable, professional woman.