A Man for All Seasons (3 page)

He met her eyes before giving her a rueful look. “She was okay. Tried too hard.”

“Poor you.” She snickered. It felt good. For the first time, Marlie experienced something other than bewildered hurt and anger when she thought about the horrible day Eric left. And who would have thought she'd be confiding in Ty, of all people?

Astoundingly, he seemed to care. Sure, it was self-serving, but it was genuine caring. And the clunky way he tromped all over her feelings might be just what she needed. She wasn't ready to admit it, though. He was smug enough already.

“Go ahead and laugh,” he said. “But be glad you're not That Woman. At least you know Eric's issues had nothing to do with you.”

Did she know that?

Ty settled back into the bed. Marlie wondered what he'd say if she told him he was the first man to be in it. But she didn't wonder enough to tell him.

“So he calls off the wedding and then what?” he prompted while he fiddled with the control panel, figuring out which buttons controlled the head elevation and the lights.

“He told me to keep his half of the down payment on the townhouse to cover the deposits I'd lose by canceling the wedding.” Marlie thought of what she went through and got mad all over again. “Like that even began to make up for it. We were within sixty days of the date. The invitations hadn't been mailed, but they'd been printed. My dress had already
been altered. The bridesmaids' dresses couldn't be returned and I couldn't make my friends pay for those, so I reimbursed them. Everybody had bought their plane tickets—”

“Focus,” Ty cut her off. “What else did he say?”

“He just said ‘sorry' and got back on the elevator.”

“I mean, later. After that.”

“There was no later,” Marlie told him. “I haven't seen or talked to him since. No text, no email. Nothing.”

“That was it?” Ty stopped playing with the buttons and stared at her. “You're kidding.”

“No,” she whispered, her throat tight. That was probably the most difficult aspect for her to accept—that Eric could walk away as though their life together had never existed.

“Jerk.” Ty looked outraged. “What about his stuff?”

She swallowed past the tightness. “The movers told me he packed his car. He knew I had a couple of appointments that morning before I was to meet him at the title company and he must have come back after I left.”

“So the coward planned it all in advance.” Ty was gratifyingly incensed on her behalf. It helped.

“I thought it was stress. I thought he was having a meltdown and he'd get over it in a few hours. I mean, it happens. Even I— Anyway, they called me in for the appointment and what was I supposed to do? We had to vacate the apartment. The movers were already loading the truck. I had nowhere else to go. This was supposed to be our home. So I bought it. I went in and signed the papers and I bought it. Not that moment, because the papers had to be redone, but I moved in and paid the bank rent for a few days.” Marlie breathed deeply, just as she had after walking into the room and indenturing herself to a mortgage.

“I would have done the same thing.” Ty leaned over the side of the bed. “I'm going to drink your water.” He opened
the fridge, took the bottle she'd forgotten was in there, and twisted the cap.

Marlie smiled as he drank while the door clicked shut. He looked good in the bed. Very much at home. Nice broad shoulders, the kind she could rest her head on after he'd thrown an arm around her while they watched a movie.

Marlie thought all kinds of warm, fuzzy thoughts until the rational part of her pointed out that she was fantasizing about Tyler Burton.

It's only because he's here and he's male,
she told herself.
You do not want Tyler Burton in particular; you want a man in general.

Ty lowered the bottle. “How long did it take you to figure out he wasn't coming back?”

“A couple of days. He wouldn't answer his cell phone and I had visions of him lying in the hospital in a coma. I went by his work and they told me that he'd quit to take a job overseas.” Yeah. His coworkers had to tell her. An echo of the humiliation she'd felt reverberated through her. “
Overseas?
Like any country would do as long as it was on a different continent than the one I was on?”

“Marlie.” Ty leveled a look at her. “Drama free.”

No coddling from Ty, which was probably the only reason she was able to get through her story without crying. “I just couldn't believe it. He'd never said anything about wanting to live in another country. Why didn't he ask me? I would have been up for it.”

“Do I really have to answer that?” Ty asked. “Do I really have to tell you it was because he didn't want you to go with him?”

“That's cold.”

“Marlie!” He looked pained. “This cannot be news to you. Forget about it. You went to his office—he wasn't there, then what?”

Marlie skipped the part about crying for hours after discovering he'd put her name on the “block personal information” list at his new company. As if she was a stalker. “I called his mom, who, by the way, was under the impression that Eric had bought me this house as a lovely parting gift. I set her straight on that, as well as what it was going to cost to cancel the wedding.”

“Details I don't need.”

Marlie exhaled in frustration before continuing, “She expressed her opinion. I expressed mine.”

Ty gave her a thumbs up.

“And she refused to tell me where he was. Not even what country he was in.”

“You're not looking too good here,” Ty said.

Marlie's jaw dropped. “
I'm
not?”

“You're the one who fell in love with that turkey.”

“I didn't know he was a turkey.”

“We'll work on your turkey-detecting skills after I fix this problem,” he said.

“Other than a really large mortgage and a really small income, I don't have a problem.”

“Yes, you do.” Ty sipped more water. “You're not over him yet.”

“Oh, I'm over him. But I don't know how I missed the signs that something was wrong.”

“Hey. Listen to me.” Ty leaned forward, holding her gaze intently. “There weren't any signs. He made sure of it because he wanted out. Confronting you in public, breaking your heart, and taking away your dream home was calculated to make you hate him.”

Marlie believed him. She didn't want to, but she knew Ty was giving her the unvarnished truth. “But why?” It was the question she'd asked herself way too many times. If Ty could answer it, he was a genius.

“Because then you wouldn't want him back. No hoping you could ‘work things out.' It would be a clean break and you both could move on. Like ripping off a bandage. It stings, but it doesn't hurt for as long.”

“It was a lot more than a sting.”

“For you, yes. But he'd been planning his move for a while. He'd already checked out of the relationship. You don't do what he did to somebody you love.”

Unvarnished truth hurt. “You're saying he'd fallen out of love with me?”

Ty nodded.

“But he, but we still—”

“That would be him hiding the signs.”

“Did he have to hide them twice just the night before?”

“He was being thorough,” Ty said implacably.

Details from their last night together flooded her memory. “We talked about our future that night. We talked about having
children
.” Marlie swallowed. “I feel sick.”

“Now, if you had a bed pan in here, we'd be all set.”

She stared at Ty. “You are unbelievable. How can you say such a thing? He broke my heart and you act like it was nothing more than a broken date. Don't you have any empathy at all?”

Ty offered her the water bottle.

“I don't want any water!”

“Still feel sick?” He tilted the bottle to his mouth.

“I'm too mad at you to feel sick. Oh.” She watched him, or rather she watched his neck as he drained the water. “You made me angry on purpose. I suppose you think that was clever.”

“Yeah. I'm getting better at this.”

“You're getting lucky.”

“That is
not
what I'm getting.”

“Aaaand we're back to that.”

“I never left.”

As much as Marlie wanted to be mad at him, she wasn't. Ty was blunt and sometimes annoyed with her, but he was here and he'd never lied to her.

Marlie suddenly looked back on all those summers in a different light. He'd hated having to be responsible for her and yet, not once had he failed to show up when he was supposed to. He hadn't taken it out on her, either. Sure, he obviously resented babysitting her, but other than that, they were friends. Just not friends who liked each other. Ty was the kind of friend who told her the truth because she needed to hear it and he didn't care how it made him look.

He screwed the top back on the empty bottle. “Okay, here's what happened with Eric.”

Good,
Marlie thought.
Finally I'll know.

“He took one of those overseas jobs for single guys.”

“Why do they have to be single?” Because women were involved? Marlie tried to imagine Eric as a sort of exotic male escort. No. Now Ty…

“It's common in the oil business. Some countries don't allow foreign women and children to live there, so companies recruit unmarried men. That way, they're not separating families. It's less complicated all around. The deal is you sign a contract for a year or two years, work twelve hour days and live in on-site corporate housing.”

“You're saying he'd rather do that than marry me?”

“It's the cash,” Ty said. “You make a pot full. I've seen these guys when they come back stateside after finishing a contract. They party hard and throw a lot of money around. They get the flashy cars and the flashy women and it looks pretty sweet, especially when you're stuck in a cubicle earning a lot less and about to take on a wife and mortgage.”

“Eric proposed to
me,
” Marlie clarified. “
He
is the one who
asked me to quit my job and move halfway across the country with him.”

Ty nodded to himself. “Now what he did really makes sense.”

“Not to me.”

“Say I'm Eric.” Ty paused. “Do I look like him?”

“You look exactly like him,” Marlie said, and then watched the emotions flicker across Ty's face. She added a gooey look and saw the beginnings of panic. Good. He was entirely too smug. “Except that Eric's hair is dark and curly. And his eyes are brown.” She touched her chin. “He had a beard thing here and he wore glasses. He might have been a
little
chunkier than you, not that he was out of shape, but he was buying the relaxed-fit Dockers, if you know what I mean. But you two could be twins.
From different families.
”

“You could have said no.”

“Where's the fun in that?”

A slow smile slid across his face. “You'll be okay.”

Marlie had not been the direct recipient of such a smile from Tyler. It warmed her middle and caused her heart to give a few syrupy thuds.
Remember that he reconnected your buttons. Just don't connect with him.
She poked his foot with hers. “Keep channeling Eric.”

“Right. Eric.” Ty gazed up at the canopy. “So I'm Eric and these guys head out for drinks and whatever, but I can't go because I have to taste wedding cake samples with Marlie and her mom and her girlfriends.”

“It was just me, you were late, and you'd been drinking beer, so none of the cakes tasted good to you.”

Ty looked at her. “For real?”

“Yes.”

“You were mad.”

“Well, yeah.” Eric had embarrassed her in front of the other couples who'd been there.

“When I told the guys, they gave me a hard time about being on a leash.”

“A leash?”

“Words to that effect.” Ty waved his hand. “There were more instances like that and I started thinking the ‘if onlys.' If only I weren't getting married. If only I could take a year or two and make some big bucks and buy the kind of car I really want, go where I want and do what I want. If only I didn't have to follow Marlie around to caterers and florists and invitation makers—”

“I didn't bother you with any of that. And I thought it would be fun to taste a bunch of cakes. You like cake.”

“Marlie, work with me.” Ty gave her an impatient look. “It's not the details. I'm showing you his frame of mind and how he got there. While you were all involved with the wedding and the house, he was seeing a really great life pass him by. These guys had money and freedom and no responsibilities. What would he have? Kids and a giant mortgage.”

“He'd have me,” she said in a small voice.

“But you wouldn't be you—you'd be a mother.”

“Of his children!”

Ty spread his hands. “I'm telling you the way a guy thinks.”

Truly, it was like watching a special feature on a DVD, the one where the director explained different scenes. “That's the way all guys think?”

“Nah. Some guys are into it.”

“Is that the way you think?” It would explain why he never dated the PTA mom type.

Ty considered her question. “I'm in the middle—buying a house, but definitely not ready for a wife and kids.” He regarded her with a touch of sympathy. “He wasn't ready, either, Marlie. You need to find a guy who's ready.”

She'd thought she had. “Why didn't he just tell me?”

“He felt guilty after dragging you halfway across the country.”

“I would have waited for him.”

“And he knew that.” Ty shook his head. “I hate to say it, but the guy actually did the decent thing. He just didn't expect you to mope about it for so long.”