Page 9 of Vanishing Point
“She had no right to call you,” she said firmly.
“No, she didn’t.”
Vi let out a sigh, but she said nothing else. He supposed she didn’t lookexactlythe same as she had in high school, but she was just as pretty as she’d been back then. Even with her deep auburn hair wet and her dark blue eyes full of sadness. He’d once had that little pattern of freckles across her nose memorized.
He kept thinking thisachearound his heart would ease, what with the passage of fifteen years, but it seemed to only twist. But the past—theirpast—wasn’t why he was here.
“I don’t want to get in between anything going on with your family,” Thomas said, choosing his words carefully. Or trying to. “I certainly don’t… Hell, Vi, I might feel like I know you because of high school, but I know people change a hell of a lot from eighteen to thirty-three. We’re practically strangers. I don’t expect you to just…believe I’m the same guy I was. Or trust me with something like this. I didn’t come up here to change your mind about anything.”
“Then why did you come up here?” she asked skeptically.
“To tell you that I believe in helping people. I always have, and Ialwayswill. No matter how often that’s been an incrediblycomplicated thing. I don’t expect you to want my help. I just want to make it clear. You can trust me, and I will help in whatever ways I can. Whenever and however that happens.” He held out his business card to her.
She looked at it, clearly not about to take it.
“You never have to use it if you don’t want to. What’s the harm in just having it?”
He could see her relenting, but she still didn’t take it from him.
So he tried to lighten the mood a little. “And you don’t have to use it for professional reasons.”
She frowned at him, but he saw a little spark of humor in her eyes, as he’d hoped.
“Are you flirting with me?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“I’m a single mother with a terrible ex-husband and tons of baggage, and I certainly don’t look like I did when I was eighteen.”
Maybe not. But the impact of her hadn’t changed, even if she had. “You look just fine to me.”
She shook her head, but her mouth had curved ever so slightly. “You always were a sweet-talker.”
“Lots of things change, but not everything.”
“Thomas.”
“Just take it, Vi.” And when she finally did, he considered that a win for the day. He knew when to retreat. He stepped back. “Hopefully I’ll see you around.” Then he turned and left.
And wasslightlygratified that he didn’t hear her door close until he was halfway down the stairs.
VI REALLY WANTEDto stay in her room and pout and sulk, but she was hungry. And, weirdly, Thomas had taken awaysomeof that cloud of embarrassment and shame. He’d made her smile, just a little bit.
Just like always.
But of course they’d changed. God, she wasn’t sure she’d even recognize eighteen-year-old Vi. So sure she’d become a doctor and conquer the world.
Now she was everything she’d told Thomas she was—a divorced single mom with a ton of baggage. Avictim.
You look just fine to me.
He was probably just saying that to be nice. Trying to cajole her into…whatever it was Rosalie was trying to make happen. She was going to have to convince herself there’d been no actual flirting.
She didn’t know him anymore. He was a cop. No doubt he looked at her and saw a pitiful victim.
But he hadn’t treated her like one, and the way he’d smiled at her had reminded her of all those years ago when he’d first done it and asked her to go to the homecoming dance with him in ninth grade.
It was a million years ago, but he made it seem like notsomuch time had passed. At least for a few minutes.
