just holding out for a great relationship. Her dream relationship. Which didn’t include this “good-night at the door” awkwardness that made her want to scream.
“This was great. I’m glad we finally got to go out,” Stewart said in a hearty tone, one foot forward already prepared to follow her into the house. For what? Coffee? They’d had it with dessert. A second round of dessert on her couch? Ha. Genna didn’t think so.
“Thanks so much for the lovely evening.” Before he could lean in for a kiss, Genna offered her brightest smile and slipped through the screen door, keeping her expression cheerful and giving a little finger wave. After a long second and a flash of irritation, he nodded and turned to go. She waited only until he cleared the bottom step before shutting the door.
Leaning against it, she held her breath and listened for the sound of his car. Too many of the guys she dated seemed to choose this point in the evening to suddenly forget their cell phones and need to make a call, or have a bathroom emergency, or worse, think she needed convincing that the night was so awesome it couldn’t be over yet.
“Fun time?”
Genna pried her lids open to give her temporary roommate a dead-eyed stare.
“Fun? The guy collects troll dolls, Macy.”
The pretty brunette snickered once before plastering a proper look of conciliatory concern on her face. It was hard to hold it with all that newly engaged, soon-to-be-a-bride smugness she was wallowing in, though.
“Troll dolls? Those ugly little things with all the hair? He was probably just joking. C’mon, he’s an attorney with great prospects. I don’t think you’re giving him a chance.”
Genna wrinkled her nose. How much of a chance did a girl have to give? Either the guy made her heart go pitty-pat or he didn’t. And Stewart definitely didn’t. Genna wanted a guy who made her feel special with just a glance. A guy she could count on to be her own true hero. She shouldn’t have to work at it.
“I went out with him, didn’t I?” She dropped onto the couch next to Macy, who was multitasking her way through addressing her wedding invitations, eating a disgusting-looking diet bar and watching reruns of Friends. “I’d have had a better time staying here with you. Lousy food choices and all.”
“Quite a statement, considering how much you love your food.” Macy winked before taking a bite of the dry-looking carob-coated cardboard she claimed was going to slim her down a dress size in three months. “But one date isn’t enough. You need to give guys more of a chance. When’s the last time you went out with someone a second time?”
Genna sighed. First dates were testing grounds. Nobody got hurt if she said no after a first date. But second dates built expectations. Made guys think there was a chance.
“If I know on the first date that I’m not interested, why would I go on a second date? That just leads to hurt feelings.”
“That’s silly,” Macy said dismissively.
“Oh, yeah? I dated Kyle for a year, and when we broke up, he moved away he was so upset. I dated that dentist for two weeks, and when I didn’t accept his invitation to a cruise to Greece, my mother cried for a week. My father pouted all through Christmas when I didn’t go out with his new deputy after a few dates.” Genna threw her hands in the air, as if to say so there.
“But that’s the point. Those were all perfectly nice guys. I don’t understand why you wouldn’t go out with them longer.”
“Because I didn’t feel anything for them,” Genna said, the words tight with frustration. Why didn’t anyone accept that she didn’t want to settle for just any guy? She wanted a special guy.
“But you’re in a rough place right now. Maybe the date wasn’t that bad, you just didn’t want to be there?”
Although delivered in a gentle tone, the words had the blunt force intensity that only two decades of friendship could offer.
“I’m not in a rough place,” Genna denied. “I just wasn’t interested.”
“And your brother was murdered two months ago,” Macy reminded her quietly.
Genna wanted to ask what that had to do with her lousy date. But they both knew it had everything to do with it.
Stewart Davis had moved to town a year ago. Being a lawyer, he’d gotten to know her father fairly well—and had quickly become the answer to Sheriff and Mrs. Reilly’s prayers. The perfect potential son-in-law.
But Genna had repeatedly turned down his invitations, not interested despite everyone’s claims that they’d be perfect for each other. Until two months ago, after Joe’s funeral. He’d asked her out in front of her father, and the way her dad’s eyes had lit up, she hadn’t been able to refuse.
So in addition to disowning his family, causing no end of stress for their parents, stealing her car and putting her in the unwanted position of the favored perfect child, she was laying blame for this date on Joe, too.
Damn him.
She sniffed, wiping a tear off her chin and looking at her fingers blankly. None of those were things to mourn. Why was she crying?
“It’ll get better,” Macy promised with a sympathetic pat on Genna’s knee. “And your next date will be better, too. Maybe give it a week or so. Give yourself time to heal.”
“I don’t want to go out with Stewart again.”
“You should, though.” Macy shrugged off Genna’s glare. “What? It’s only fair. And your dad wants you to, your mom is over the moon at the idea of you dating a lawyer and you need to do whatever you can right now to help them out, to make them happy.”
She paused and took another bite of her carob-coated cardboard, then offered a questioning look, as if daring Genna to deny it.
She wished she could. She felt like all she did was try to make her parents happy. The worse Joe behaved, the harder it hit their parents. The more miserable they were, the better she behaved to try to make up for it. It’d been a vicious circle.
Joe’s first arrest and time in jail had put their mother in the hospital, making Genna give up her plans for Stanford to stay close to home. Joe’s first stint in rehab had been followed by Genna’s quitting her job in San Diego because the hour-and-a-half commute worried her father. By the time Joe had hit prison, she was working the most boringly safe job imaginable to go with her boringly safe life. It wasn’t as if she wanted to jump out of airplanes or hitchhike across the country. But, man, she wished she had a little excitement in her life.
Instead, she’d been this close to being fitted for wings and a halo when Joe had been killed.
Now she didn’t know where she stood. If he was done behaving horribly, didn’t that mean she could ease up on trying to be perfect? Guilt poured through her, sticky and sour, turning her stomach.
“I’m getting something to eat,” Genna said quickly, pushing off the couch as if she could run from her thoughts.
“You have mail on the counter.”
Genna muttered her thanks as she headed straight for the freezer. She pulled out a pint
