Chose the Wrong Guy, Gave Him the Wrong Finger (11 page)

“So you still live in town, huh?” he asked.

It was like the nerve was exposed and he walked up and said,
Hmm, what’s this? You never got a life?
But I knew he didn’t mean it that way, I was just hypersensitive to begin with and I knew he’d become a huge financial success, which made my contrast even smaller. “I have the business here,” I said.

He took my meaning immediately. “I wasn’t being condescending. To tell you the truth, you’ve come to mind a few times and I wondered if you were still here or if you’d gone off into the wild blue yonder somewhere. I hoped you’d still be here.” He shrugged. “So I guess I’m glad you are.”

I poured cream into my coffee and stirred the swirl into beige. “Well, I’m not exactly a wild-blue-yonder kind of girl.”

He frowned. “No? You used to be.”

I had to laugh. “I think you have me confused with someone else.”

“Are you serious? Quinn, don’t you remember how you wanted to go to Ireland and become a nanny?”

That was true. I’d seriously considered that once. I’d even looked up agencies. How had I forgotten that? “That was just during my brief and ill-advised Colin Farrell crush.”

How would my life be different if I’d followed through on that?

“What about fishing in Alaska? You wanted to do that too.”

I groaned. Wow, did he remember every embarrassing, harebrained idea I’d ever had? “I just heard it paid a lot. Like working on the pipeline. I never would have done it.”

He smiled. Nice smile. I remembered being very fond of that face for a while. “You were pretty convincing about that one. Remember? When I questioned how serious you were, suddenly you had a place to live and everything. You were going to leave in June and—”

“Come back in September and buy my own farm in Middleburg,” I remembered. “I might have overestimated the pay
just
a little bit.”

He sipped his coffee. “Probably a good thing you didn’t go, then. Lots of disappointment in dark days, cold weather, and low pay.”

“More disappointment than flights home,” I agreed, but I remembered seeing some extremely beautiful pictures of Alaska and being genuinely interested in going. It was only for a few weeks, but I honestly
had
checked flights, lodging, and, I’m afraid, I’d made more than one public declaration that that was my intention.

I’d said the same thing about becoming a blacksmith once too. Also a lucrative profession, by the way.

And an acupuncturist. I don’t know why I’d thought that was going to be a quick study, though I am good with a needle, obviously.

“See, you had some blue yonder in you,” he said.

The waitress arrived with our orders, and we both leaned back in our booth seats, as if that would make more room for the food on the table.

“I don’t anymore,” I said, picking up my knife and fork. “Now I’m
literally
the spinster with a sewing room.” I cut into the sausage patty on my plate.

“Equally admirable.” He’d gotten an omelet. Onions, peppers, and jalapeños. No cheese, though I remembered that was because he had a thing against thick, gooey cheese, having nearly choked on it on pizza as a kid. Still, he probably thought I was a complete porker. Which I was, actually, when it came to buying breakfast. I love restaurant breakfasts. “How’s business going?”

“Really well, actually.” I was glad to be able to say something I was proud of and have it be the truth. “Better than expected. I have an employee and two outside seamstresses for the foundation work.”

“Dottie’s really excited about you making her dress.” He took a bite, then waved his fork in my direction and said, “She thinks it’s going to bring her good luck.”

We were making small talk when, after all these years, there were bigger questions and answers, and we both knew it.

“Because I’m so lucky with weddings?”

He hesitated before saying, “I’m not sure you’re not.”

Ouch. But good point. “What happened after you got back from Vegas?” I asked, knowing it could seem abrupt.

He didn’t look surprised. He just leaned back and sighed briefly. “He was pissed.”

“I’d imagine.”

“He made a lot of noise about me hurting you, accused me of doing it callously in an effort to get to you, but he never owned up to his part in it.”

The thought came to me immediately, and unbidden:
Had he played no part in it? Had he actually been falsely accused? Had I dumped him for no reason?

As if reading my mind, Frank said, “I think he would now, if you cared to ask him.”

I looked down. I knew enough. I didn’t need more details to whip me back in time and make the small part of my old self that still existed in me feel even worse. “How long was he mad at you?”

Frank gave a small shrug. “Not very. He knew it was his own fault.”

“So things just went right back to normal?” He couldn’t know how horrible the thought was to me, given how much I’d suffered.

So when he answered, I knew it wasn’t meant to hurt. “Whatever our
normal
is, yeah.”

Does he ever talk about me?
I wanted to ask.
Does he ever think about me?
But those were questions Frank couldn’t answer, and, more important, they were questions that shouldn’t matter in my real life now. It was my ego asking, not my heart.

“What about Dottie selling the farm?” I asked, making a conscious effort to change the subject. “How do you feel about that?”

“It’s up to her.” He didn’t shrug, but he may as well have.

“But aren’t you sad about it?”

He considered before answering. “There’s no point in going to that place mentally. If I think about it, allow myself to feel attached to an outcome I have no control over, what’s the good in that?”

Okay, now, I know that sounds really cold and impersonal, but I have to confess, that is one of the things I always liked best about Frank. His soft-spoken, hard truths, just like he’d just thrown at me about Burke. This one didn’t hurt, though. It made good sense. If I could genuinely face my life that way, accepting the things I cannot change (to recite a phrase), I’d probably be a much happier person. Certainly I’d have a lot less free-floating anxiety humming along in the background all the time.

“But,” I said, because I wasn’t that laissez-faire person, “even though that’s a good attitude, and definitely healthy in general, the thing is, she’s going to sell the place and it will be gone forever. Someday maybe you’ll have kids, or even if you don’t, someday you might want some feeling of connection to your heritage. Your history. Aren’t you at least a little tempted to take it over and keep it?”

“Yeah.” He cut off another bite of his omelet. “But it’s not practical.”

And if there was one thing Frank Morrison was, it was practical.

I didn’t say it, but the sentiment echoed between us.

“What about Burke? Is he thinking of buying it?”

Frank took another sip of coffee and shook his head. “I doubt it. It’s pricey. But I don’t think he’s all that happy about it being sold either.”

“No?” That he felt the same way I did about it struck me in a more personal way than it probably should have. “Why not?”

“Same reasons you said, basically. I think he referenced
history
, but it all adds up to the same thing. What can we do? It’s not our decision and we can’t make Gran feel like she’s letting us down by living her life. She should be commended for starting over at this stage. That takes a lot of courage.”

“I agree.” Then I sighed. “But I wish someone was going to keep it in the family. It would be weird for someone else to take it over and maybe change it. I honestly always thought Burke would end up there. I’m surprised he won’t.”

“You know how Burke is,” Frank went on. His voice was even, despite the fact that his words were somewhat harsh. “He wants things, but he doesn’t really want to do what it takes to get them. He expects everything to fall in his lap. I guess he thought the farm would too. Inheritance or whatever. Now that Dottie wants to sell, he’s pissed, but I don’t see him out trying to get a mortgage or investors, so he must not be that motivated.”

“Do you think he could?”

“I have no idea.” He waved his hand. “You never know with him. I gave up trying to help a long, long time ago.”

Around the time he “helped” me get out of a relationship with Burke?

Or did he consider that helping Burke?

Obviously there was an element of helping himself. He wasn’t entirely altruistic.

“That’s a shame.”

He shrugged. “He’s my brother. But I’m not his keeper. And he doesn’t want me to be. It works out fine. Not a shame at all.”

I remember how they had always had this dynamic. There were times when they were pals, and I think in the end that will be the ultimate story of them, but there were many, many times when they had conflict. Frank was sharp and condescending, often treating Burke like an incompetent child. Burke, on the other hand, was wild and immature, often acting like an incompetent child.

In its weird way, it worked.

Certainly it wasn’t an argument I needed to have right now. “As long as you’re at peace with the relationship.”

He was chewing his food and nodded vigorously before saying, “Oh, yeah, there’s no angst there.”

I sighed and probably shouldn’t have said, “I do wish one of you would keep the farm. I really hate to see it go.”

“That’s a lot of money for a hobby I’m not really interested in.”

“How much is the asking price?”

He told me, and everything in me deflated. Who could afford that? I could buy several nice houses in town for that. Not that it was an unfair asking price, but it was even more out of my league than I could have dreamed.

I wondered if Burke was too proud to admit to his brother that the price was just too much for him.

Then I chastised myself for even worrying about how he might feel about this.

Instead I changed the subject and forced myself not to ask any more questions about Burke, or anything tangentially involved with Burke, because I knew there was no point in going there. No good would come out of it, I’d just feel weird.

I’d moved past this a long, long time ago, and I had no intention of ever revisiting.

Not that it was all that comfortable revisiting Frank either. He did not loom large, as Burke did, in my heart, but he was a big part of my life, and of my memories. If I’d stayed with him, and he would have liked that at the time, it was possible that my life would have gone in a very different direction. Not that I was unhappy with how it was now, but, like I said, I really liked Frank. I’d always kind of loved Frank, though not in exactly the same way I’d loved Burke. Sometimes I wondered if we could have been happy together under other circumstances.

That is, if it was possible to have a happy life with someone when the relationship would necessarily involve someone else who had hurt you. If I’d met Frank independently, then sure, maybe we could have had a go of it. Or at least a longer relationship than the momentary blip we’d had.

But that couldn’t have been realistically possible. Ultimately, Frank implied Burke in too many ways. They didn’t look alike, but they were brothers, and there were similarities that ran deep and subtle. The same vocal inflection now and then. The same laugh. A similar stance, weirdly enough.

To say nothing of the very real fact that holidays, funerals, and other family events would necessarily put us all together.

I could never give myself wholly to Frank because I could never fully let go of Burke. With someone unrelated, maybe Burke would have become a memory that dimmed to sweetness with time. Or, better still, dimmed to obscurity. From a photo to a watercolor.

But as long as I was with his brother, there wasn’t a chance in the world I’d ever forget him and move on.

None of which is to say Frank would have actually
wanted
me. But there was no point in adding that to the mix, since I wasn’t really stirring it anyway.

Frank and I made small talk after that. Nothing about the farm, the wedding, his family, nothing even remotely incendiary. He told me about his job, the renovations to his row house in D.C., the market in general, and I, in turn, gave him a few anecdotes about my life as a small-town bridal gown seamstress.

And, to be honest, that part of the conversation went really smoothly. It was comfortable. Like a really good first date. Had he been a stranger and it
was
a first date, I probably would have agreed to see him again, but it wouldn’t have been with much enthusiasm.

I was sure he didn’t have that problem with all women. Objectively speaking, this guy was a catch. Good-looking, successful, smart, self-assured … there was no doubt about it, he’d survive the dating marketplace better than most.

I finished my meal and pushed the plate away, the universal sign for
Uncle
.

“It was good to see you, Frank,” I said, reaching for my purse and hoping I had some cash so we didn’t have the awkwardness of splitting the bill onto two credit cards. I found a twenty and took it out, figuring it would cover both of us.

“Put that away,” Frank said as soon as he saw what I was doing. “This is on me.”

“No, Frank, that’s not—”

“Quinn.”

I put my money away. There was no sense in dickering over this and asserting my independence. If he wanted to buy me a breakfast I hadn’t planned on sharing with him, fine.

“Thank you, Frank,” I said.

He met my eyes and smiled. And for a moment I could really see the man he was, apart from his family and our history and everything else.

He put some bills down on the table and we both stood up and walked, a bit awkwardly, to the door, past townspeople who would undoubtedly be speculating about this later. Even people who didn’t know about our history—that’s how small towns are.

I didn’t care anymore.

I couldn’t.

We stepped out onto the sidewalk in the already-blazing sunshine of a late May morning.

“I guess I’ll be seeing you around,” I said.

All of the awkwardness of that first meeting we’d had in the grocery store was back. All of my self-consciousness, and my questions about his own impressions of me. Isn’t that crazy? We’d talked about Burke, about the fallout from my Runaway Bride act, but I couldn’t ask Frank how
he
felt about everything that had happened.