Isaac sucked in his breath. “How do you get unstuck?”
Good question. Do I have an out clause if I end up working for this chap? Of course, going to England the next day made that whole scenario pretty unlikely. James seemed to be on a mission to start pronto and she couldn’t commit to anything before the school year started.
“How do you get rid of your hiccups?” James asked.
“My mom drops an ice cube down my back.” Isaac gave an exaggerated shiver. “Yuck.”
“Well, if your mother can help me create a garden—” James tugged off his sunglasses and gazed at Tilly “—that will be my ice cube.”
“Cool,” Isaac said, and reached for James’s hand.
James hesitated. “I’m not good at holding hands. Another bad habit.”
“No biggie.” Isaac slotted his arm through James’s, and they smiled at each other.
Poor James. She couldn’t imagine not being able to hold hands. She loved that feeling of being weighted to another person. Holding hands was the best of the best, and the one thing she missed most about her marriage. More than sex, more than kissing. David had been a hand holder. He couldn’t even sit next to Tilly on the sofa without reaching for her.
Tilly flattened her hand over her heart…and shrieked. Her sugar cone had collapsed, and icy sludge oozed down her legs.
Chapter 6
James paced the apartment with his hands clasped behind his neck, and tried to ignore the irritating flopping noises his leather slides made on the wood floor. He could take a Clonazepam, that might help. But there was no specific anxiety to dull, no chemical that could alleviate the tumble of emotions racking his mind, half of which were contradictory. The silhouettes of furniture surrounding him were exactly where they had been the day before. Nothing in this room—including the stack of week-old New York Times in the corner and the four remotes lined up on the right side of the coffee table—had changed, so why did the world around him feel so different? Was it because Tilly had gone, or was it because the hope of her had gone?
He tugged open the balcony door and sat heavily on a hard, wrought-iron chair, one of a pair he’d picked up earlier in Chapel Hill. He should have tried them out for comfort, but he needed, he came, he saw, he bought. He had relocated with nothing but essentials and too few even of those.
A fat moon as luminous as an Illinois harvest moon lit up the sky and unleashed a rush of adolescent memories. All of them involved sneaking out at night, but not to find pleasure. His ongoing mission had been to plant evidence. He had flung joint butts into the barn, abandoned Jim Beam bottles on farm machinery and placed ripped condom packets in the back of his dad’s truck. God Almighty, it was a miracle that he and his father hadn’t killed each other. Maybe that was the reason his dad had caved on the Kawasaki. Why else would a parent let his teenager buy a motorbike designed only for speed and danger? Although James had never taken risks with that bike, never gone near it when he was high or drunk, never let anyone else touch it. He still wheeled it out once a month to clean it and to reminisce, but he would never ride it again. He was many things but irresponsible was no longer one of them.
See, Dad? James raised his face to the moon. I’m a fully functioning adult, despite your predictions.
How many years since he and his father had exchanged words? James knew the exact time his garbage was picked up every Thursday, but he couldn’t remember how long it had been since he had talked with his dad. And now, of course, it was irrelevant. His dad was dead. Both his parents were.
The Carolina night skies were spectacular. He’d never seen stars like this. Maybe he should get a telescope. Isaac would like that, wouldn’t he? James groaned and buried his face in his hands.
Get real. Isaac isn’t your kid.
Fatherhood—another relationship he’d screwed up. Yes, Daniel took his phone calls these days, but he still refused to call him Dad, which was fair enough. James had done little to earn the title. In fact, he lacked the whole happy-family gene. That wasn’t self-pity; that was honesty.
James flipped his hand over and stared at his lifeline in the moonlight. He rarely looked at it, since it splintered into three. Nothing good ever came from an odd number.
It was time to shake off his preoccupation with Isaac and Tilly. A widow and single mother had enough to deal with; she didn’t need someone as demanding as him. And Isaac certainly didn’t need him as a male role model.
Maybe he should treat thoughts of Tilly and Isaac as if they were obsessions, tackling them with the big three of cognitive-behavioral therapy—boss back the thought, use logic, use disassociation. Or maybe he should give up the fight. Roll over and play lovesick.
He glanced at his watch: 9:00 p.m. or 2:00 a.m. in England. How many times had he checked the American Airlines website? Tracking them was easy, since there was only one flight a day from Raleigh to London. They would land in five hours, then clear customs and immigration. How long before they arrived at Tilly’s mother’s house?
Let it go, James. Stick with the plan.
But he couldn’t. Meeting Tilly and Isaac felt almost inevitable; he was incapable of resisting. For years, James had struggled with trust, a one-way street that led only to a dead end. But Isaac and Tilly had sneaked under his defenses, and he wasn’t sure how.
Those not-so-subtle hints he’d given Tilly at Maple View Farm were the closest he’d ever come to revealing his secret: “Hi, my name is James and I’m obsessive-compulsive.” Had he been testing them on some subconscious level? If so, they had both aced the quiz.
He glanced back up at the Milky Way. When light came and his day started, Tilly’s would be half over.
Chapter 7
Tilly breathed in recycled air, heavy on the antiseptic and burned coffee, and grinned. She loved night flights with the dimmed cabin lights, the stirring of passengers settling to movies or sleep and the constant thrum of engines. She and Isaac were submerged in airplane twilight, wrapped up in blankets in a row of two. Life didn’t get any better.
“I like James.” Isaac nestled into her, and Tilly fought the urge to tug him closer. “Do you like him, Mom?”
She mussed his hair with her nose. Just For Kids mango splash shampoo. Best smell ever. “I’m not good at meeting people, you know that.” Not exactly an answer, but then she hadn’t prepared for the question. She hadn’t given James a second thought since the ice cream incident. Although she was still miffed that he had asked her to sit on a towel for the short ride home. Who kept a clean towel, in a ginormous Ziploc, in the trunk of his car?
“But do you like him?”
The people in front had left their blind up. Tilly peered through their window, but there was nothing to see beyond the small, white light blinking on the tip of the wing.
“I guess.” She sat back. “Although I have no idea why.”
“Does that matter?”
“I suppose not. It’s just normally when you make a new friend you find common
