“Um. A while?” Shelby asked.
“Okay, what happened was this—we had a fight. I got orders and she was going to get out of the air force, all at the same time. And she wanted to know…Thing was, I was transferring. I told her there was nothing stopping her from relocating to be closer to my next assignment and that pissed her off—that I didn’t exactly invite her to join me, that I didn’t make plans with her. I probably said I was sorry for that—I bet I did.”
“And you broke up over that?” Shelby asked.
“Sort of. Not exactly,” Sean admitted.
Luke put his elbow on the kitchen table and lazily leaned his chin into his hand, watching. Amused. And so glad some other Riordan male was taking the heat.
Sean took a breath. “She wanted to get married,” he said. “She said, either we at least get engaged and plan to get married, or I walk. Those were her words.” He made a slash in the air with his finger. “Line in the sand. Ultimatum.”
“Really,” Shelby said with a questionable tone. “After only two years of practically living together?”
“Okay, now you’re just making fun of me,” Sean said in a pout. “I admit, I shouldn’t have let her go. But I was younger. I was cocky then.”
“Oh, were you?” Luke asked.
Sean glowered.
“So, she said she was ready for marriage, you said you weren’t, you split up—is that right?” Shelby asked.
“That’s about it.” He made a face. “We might’ve said a few unnecessary things during the discussion. You know—angry things.”
“I’ll bet,” Luke said.
“And you tried to track her down? Later?” Shelby asked.
“After I transitioned into the new squadron. After training in the new jet. After I thought we both had time to simmer down a little bit. You know.”
Shelby looked at Luke and shook her head dismally. “Does this run in the family?” she asked. She and Luke had had a similar standoff, but she hadn’t let him get away with it and had pushed him hard. But Luke had been ready to be domesticated. All she knew about Sean was that he was considered a playboy by the brothers. This was the first time she’d heard about a steady girl.
“It’s possible,” Luke admitted with a shrug. “Except Aiden. He wants to get married, have a family, but if he didn’t have bad luck with women, he’d have no luck at all. He was married once. To a lunatic.”
“Lord,” Shelby said. “No wonder your mother is fed up with the lot of you. Sean, what happened when you ran into her?”
“She said I looked good and, no, she didn’t want to have coffee or anything else with me. She won’t talk to me. At all. And I even said I was wrong. Sort of.”
“Hm,” Shelby said. “Maybe she’s moved on.”
“Well, then, she has to tell me that. Explain that. Because—” He stopped. He couldn’t think of a reason why she owed him that, but he was sure she did.
“Now what?” Luke asked.
“I’m going to have to find her.”
“Why? You said you were done, she said okay, you caught up a few years later and it’s still done…I don’t see the issue.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” Sean said in a very impatient huff. “Because you don’t know Franci.”
“Sure I do. We all knew Franci. Nice girl, Franci. Hottie.” He grinned. “We kind of all thought you’d marry her. But then when you didn’t and went to Beale alone, we all said, ‘There goes another Riordan.’”
“Here’s the thing—I shouldn’t have broken up with her. What I should have done was explain why we should stay together and why we didn’t need any kind of old-fashioned contract to be okay with that. We were young, only twenty-six and twenty-eight. There was lots of time to consider big leaps like marriage. There’s still lots of time, for that matter.” Luke, thirty-eight and barely through a similar crisis, lifted a brow toward his twenty-five-year-old wife. “We should have gone to Beale and worked it out. But I didn’t do that because she made me so frickin’ mad.”
It was silent in the kitchen for a moment. “Well,” Luke finally said with fake cheeriness, “I’d love to stay and chat about your pathetic love life, but I need to grab Art and get over to the hardware store before—”
Shelby was shaking her head dismally. “So you had a little hissy and said, ‘Fine, just go, then.’ Is that it? Kind of like, ‘My way or the highway,’ huh?”
“Aw, come on, Shelby,” Sean said pleadingly. “You know I’m not a guy with a temper! I’m a sweetheart. I’m not a fighter, I’m a lover. And I don’t have any problem seeing myself with one woman. You know? It’s just the whole marriage thing—it was not for me. Marriage scared the hell out of me. A couple of my brothers tried it and it screwed them up bad. And kids?” He shook his head. “Maybe when I’m old and worn out like Luke I’ll change my mind, but at the moment I don’t feel like being tied down like that.”
“Ah,” she said. “I see. So you’d like to have a nice chat with Franci and explain all this to her?”
“Something like that,” he said, making perfect sense to himself. “It’s no crime to have a fight, but we never should’ve given up what we had. We were good together.”
Shelby stood. “Not good enough, I guess. Too bad I have to get to class, Sean. You have such a deep hole to climb out of and I’d love to talk you through it. You know I’ve loved you since the moment I met you, and I’d be happy to help. But school calls…”
Sean stood from the table, as well. “What do you mean, such a climb?”
“Okay, the short version. You let her go because you didn’t feel in charge. You didn’t bother to look for her for such a long time that her trail went cold—and I imagine, to her, it seemed as if you didn’t care. You didn’t even know the names of her best friends. Or her mother’s friends. You paid no attention to the woman, except where it was useful to you. You even socialized with your friends, from your squadron, and then you were surprised that they hadn’t heard from her. And now I think you’re a little hurt that she won’t forget all that and give you another chance to treat her like someone you might get around to later, when it’s convenient. While she, at least at one time a few years ago, wanted to be thought of as someone you couldn’t live without.”
“You don’t understand,” he said.
“But your real problem is, I do,” Shelby said. “You didn’t realize how much she meant to you until she was gone.”
Luke drained his coffee cup. He put it on the table. “When you have time, Sean, you should take a little course from Shelby. She’s seen every chick flick ever filmed. She knows things about this you and I have never thought of.”
Sean swallowed. Looking down he said, “Real quick, from a girl’s point of view, what do I do next?”
“Not what you think,” Shelby replied. “You better not do what you did before. Whatever it was that made you arrogantly think she’d never be able to leave you? Not that. You better do whatever it was you did that worked for her, that made her think she wanted a life with you. If you can even remember that far back. Because, brother, I think maybe you’re too late. And if you’re too late, you’re going to have to accept that and respect her space. If you turn crazy and give her trouble, I’m not on your side anymore.”
When Sean was alone in the house, he began asking himself what it was that had worked