“Hey, this is my time with Izzy,” he declared indignantly. “Who the hell are you?”
“I’m Brandon Slade, the writer.” He added the last part when the seminaked man on the table stared at him as if he was beneath him.
Bobby frowned, clearly at a disadvantage. “You write books?” Apparently replaying Brandon’s name through his head, he shook it. “Never heard of you.”
Brandon’s less than genuine smile never faded. “Well, that makes us even, because I’ve never heard of you, either.”
While he followed football and basketball fairly regularly, he’d never cared for the game deemed to be the great American pastime. In his opinion it moved much too slowly.
Unable to take it a second longer, Isabelle interrupted the exchange. “Brandon, I’m working,” she pointed out unnecessarily. “What are you doing here?”
He would have thought that was self-explanatory. This “invasion” was uncharacteristic of him, but then, so was what he was feeling.
He’d given up pretending he didn’t care where Isabelle was or that she’d left without saying a word. Rather than just call where she worked, he’d come down to see her in person. He’d found Zoe in the front office, which had saved him the trouble of trying to charm information out of the receptionist. Isabelle, she’d told him, was here, in the back, working with a client.
She’d then proceeded to surprise him by asking, “Do you need to see her right now?”
He hadn’t even had to think about his answer. “More than you could ever know.”
The woman had nodded, seeming to understand what he was going through. “Tell Isabelle I’m sending in another therapist. Go do what you have to do.” Her eyes had been shining as she’d added, “Good luck.”
He could have hugged her. Digging into his pocket, he’d left a hundred-dollar bill on the desk. “In case the guy complains about the interruption.”
And then he’d gone in search of the room.
When his heart had accelerated at the sound of her voice, he’d known he hadn’t made a mistake coming here. They belonged together.
“What do you think I’m doing here?” he said in response to her question. Taking her hand, Brandon firmly pulled her toward the door. What he had to tell her had to be said without an audience. Opening the door, he looked at the ballplayer over his shoulder. “Game over, baseball boy. You’re cured,” he announced.
For once Bobby Johnson was utterly speechless. They left him that way.
She might not have had a word for Bobby, but she had plenty for Brandon. “Brandon! You can’t just interrupt a session like that.”
“I’m not interrupting it,” he informed her, crossing the threshold with her in tow. “I’m ending it. Don’t worry, I paid for his session, so he can’t complain. Zoe’s getting another therapist to come in and take your place.” Looking back at the fuming baseball player, he called out, “Don’t worry. If you feel shortchanged, there’s another therapist on her way.” Facing Isabelle again, he said, “Let’s go.”
Not wanting to cause a scene, she waited until she was outside the office—her sister was conveniently gone, and the receptionist looked at her wistfully as they passed by the front desk.
Once the door had closed and they were out in the hall, she abruptly stopped walking and yanked back her hand.
When he turned around to look at her, Brandon saw that she was furious.
“You had no right to embarrass me like that,” Isabelle fumed.
He’d never seen her angry before, and for a moment, he just took it in. And then, as in a poker game, he matched her. And raised her one.
“If I embarrassed you, I’m sorry. But you had no right to just walk out on me, on us like that,” he amended, thinking of what Victoria would say once she returned from camp and heard what had happened. “Without so much as a damn word! Like I was just someone you’d passed on the street.”
Don’t you know that you’d never be just like someone I’d pass on the street? That you were and are so very special to me? Too special, she underscored.
Out loud, she merely said, “I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it.”
“Well, by not saying anything, you did. You made a hell of a very big deal out of it,” he informed her, all but yelling into her face. He struggled to get the better of his anger. Shouting at her wasn’t going to bring her around.
Isabelle couldn’t wrap her head around the logic of his words. “I just assumed you would have preferred it that way. Quietly,” she emphasized.
His eyes were dark with suppressed anger. “What I would have ‘preferred,’” he informed her, “was a chance to talk to you.”
She took a deep breath, telling herself that she wasn’t intoxicated by the very scent of him. That her heart wasn’t beating harder than a bongo drum, racing to a strange, exotic beat. That this rush was normal for someone in an argument.
She ran the tip of her tongue along her very dry lips to moisten them. “Well, you’re here now. Talk.”
He should just go. Ignore her. Not let her know that she’d succeeded in shredding him into teeny-tiny little slivers. That was the only way to save face. To save his pride.
But the truth was, he didn’t give a damn about his pride. What he gave a damn about, now that he’d found her, was Isabelle.
He struggled not to take hold of her shoulders, afraid he’d wind up hurting her by holding on too tightly. “Damn it, Isabelle. Was it all one-sided? All that time together, was I just there by myself? Fooling myself?”
She was having trouble catching her breath, centering her thoughts. Trouble staying where she was instead of throwing herself into his arms and just holding on for as long as he’d let her. She’d missed him more than she had ever thought possible.
Taking in a shaky breath, she tried to sound calm as she asked, “About?”
“About us!” he shouted. “About you. About you caring.” He took a breath. “Damn it all to hell, Isabelle, you can’t just leave like that. I need you.”
Isabelle shook her head. It sounded too good to be true. Or maybe she had just imagined she’d heard him say that. Ached for him to say that. “You need me?” she heard herself asking, praying that if this was a dream, a hallucination, she wouldn’t ever wake up.
“That’s right, I need you,” he all but shouted, struggling to get his voice under control. “I need you very much.” His voice softened, and he smiled down into her face. “As does my mother and Victoria. Nothing’s going to be the same in the house until you decide to take pity on us—on me—and come back.”
“Come back as what?” she asked. “Your mother doesn’t need a physical therapist. Anastasia’s going away on that cross-country tour. And Victoria’s still at camp—I talked to her yesterday,” she told him before he had a chance to question how she knew his
