Page 29 of Vanishing Point
“Not my forte. Though with as much work and social engagements I have these days, I don’t mind a night home alone every once in a while. Well, as long as you’re there.” He grinned at her across the table.
And this domestic moment, that grin, his patience with her daughter maybe finally gave her the courage to ask a question that had been in the back of her mind since she’d seen him again.
“So, why didn’t you ever get married?”
He shrugged. “Nothing stuck.”
“Why? Anddon’tsay me. You haven’t been pining after me for fifteen years.”
“I guess not pining. You were always in the back of my mind, but you’re right, it wasn’t like I was expecting you to come back.”
He didn’t offer anything else. And maybe she should have let it go, but she…couldn’t. “So?”
“I don’t know. Nothing ever got serious.”
“You are getting all the terrible nitty-gritty about my terrible relationship. The least you can do is tell me about your failures.”
His mouth quirked at that. “I’ve got a demanding job, which isn’t conducive to dating. If I ever got past the first few last-minute date cancellations, it is not my experience that women are particularly comfortable with me having a female partner, particularly one I think so highly of. That’s mellowed out the past few years, what with Laurel’s heap of kids and all and being out on maternity leave half the time. But it’s been a sticking point.”
Vi thought of the woman she’d met in his office yesterday. Pretty. Confident. In the same profession, so lots to talk about and lots of time spent together. “Was it ever fair to be a sticking point?”
His gaze went down to his plate. Then he took a verylargebite of pasta. “This is delicious.”
“Thomas.”
“What? Itisdelicious.” When she gave him alook, he sighed again. “Nothing ever happened with Laurel. Even before she got married what seems like a million years ago. And it never will. She’s like a sister to me now.”
“That isnotwhat I asked.”
“What did you ask?” he asked innocently.Tooinnocently.
“Thomas.”
“It was nothing.”
“Oh. My. God.” But she found herself laughing in spite of it, and that in itself was kind of amazing. Because she just…knew he loved her. In the here and now. He never made her question it, never used it like a weapon or an excuse. How could she sit here and pick that apart?
“It was a very brief crush when I first started at county,” he said.
Of course, believing he lovedherdidn’t mean she wasn’t curious. “How brief?”
“I don’t know. It was a long time ago. She met Grady not long after that, and then they just became…like my family. The whole lot of Carsons and Delaneys. Well, after Jen and I stopped dating anyway. Kinda swore off any Delaneys after that.”
“Who’s Jen?”
He reached down to pick up Magnolia’s sippy cup. “Laurel’s sister.”
“You had a crush on Laurel and then dated hersister?”
“Very, very briefly. A long,longtime ago.” He got up, took his empty plate to the sink. Then grabbed a washcloth and used it to clean up Magnolia while Vi watched him and finished her dinner.
Once Mags was clean, he took her now empty plate to the sink. Vi got up to put the leftovers away, trying to picture the Thomas she’d known. Skinny and baby-faced, becoming a cop, dating other women. Living a life, just like she had done.
And somehow they’d both ended up back here in Bent, in each other’s lives. She didn’t believe in fate anymore—no matter what he’d said at that party months ago about picking a dime up off the floor because of her.
Fate would have meant she’d been in an abusive marriage for years because it was meant to be.
No, there was nofate. There was only the choices you made.
