Page 64 of No Kind of Hero
“Yep. She sure did. When Gracie was three weeks old. So you see, Evan’s not crushing beer cans on his forehead. He’s fixing up his house and building his company and giving his little girl her bath. And dancing with me on the dock, which I’m also sure you heard about, and which was one of the most wonderful moments of my life. Thirty might be the new twenty, but Evan didn’t get the memo. He’s all grown up.”
Silence for a moment. “Darling, I’m hearing infatuation. I’m sure he seems wonderful right now, but . . .”
“But what?”
“But you’re leaving.”
“Portland is seven hours away.” She’d never said it. She’d never let herself think it. But she did now.
“Right, then,” her mother said. “Then come to dinner. Bring him. Bring the baby, too. It’s casual. It’s a barbecue.”
He didn’t want to come. That was putting it mildly.
“What’s the point?” he asked Beth, who was in her overalls again, and joining him on the scaffold again, too. There was no flirting today, though. He was too wound up for that. He—or Beth—had set a train in motion, and trains could be destructive.
Only one way to deal with that. Work. It might not make anything better, but at least you got the job done.
“Distraction?” she suggested, like she was reading his mind. “It’s bound to be tense enough out there to take your mind off April. Anyway, you wanted to dance with me on the dock in front of the Farnsworths. Maybe I want something like that too. And before you say anything, I’ll just point out that you also wanted to, ah, let me know that whoever either of us is in this town, that’s not who I am when I’m in your bed.”
“Yeah, thanks for reminding me.”
She glanced at him sidelong and said, “Maybe I didn’t mention that I didn’t hate that. Maybe I’m just fine with making that statement out of bed, too. Maybe we both have a point to make.”
He didn’t exactly hate that idea. “Gracie, though? Dakota said they’d babysit. All night long.”
She hesitated. Why was that? “Wouldn’t it be interesting, though,” she said slowly, “to see what would happen if we brought her? Aren’t you at least a little bit curious?”
“Science experiment, that the idea?”
She smiled. “Social science? We could leave earlier, too, if it was her bedtime, and take her over to Blake’s then, if you still wanted the, ah, whole night. Self-limiting. Also . . .” She stopped, and she wasn’t flirting now.
“What? Go on and say it. We’ve been out there on that thin ice for a while now, hanging onto each other for support. What the hell. Go on.”
She studied his face, and she took it seriously. But then, Beth took most things seriously. “You’re right. I need you tonight, and that’s the truth. For a guy who doesn’t say much, you sure do understand a lot.”
He understood one thing. That having a woman think you were strong made you want to be stronger. “Maybe I’ll even understand whatever it is you aren’t telling me, too, if you go ahead and tell me.”
“Just that it would . . . help me. You don’t owe me anything. Of course you don’t. But I’m trying to do something new here, and it’s not easy. You’re the . . . the proof. Bringing you, I mean. And there’s something else, too. Maybe it’s not fair of me to say, or to count on, but knowing you’re strong enough for anything—when you’re with me, I feel stronger, too, because I know you’ll never back down and you’ll never run.”
There she went again. And there was that pressure in his chest, too. “You’re right,” he said. “I’ll never run, and I’ll be there as long as you need me. Pick you up when? Or do you want to drive?”
“No,” she said. “I want you to. Please. Six-thirty. And thank you.”
They were eating lunch together, sitting on that bench by the lake and sharing his sandwiches, when she got the call.
“Right,” she said. “Thanks for letting me know.”
That didn’t tell him much, but her body language did. She hung up, and he didn’t ask. He just looked at her, the bite of sandwich going down like lead.
She finally said, “Her parents refused service.”
It was hard to ask. He asked anyway. “Did they say anything?”
“They said she wasn’t living there, and they didn’t know where she was. The process server says that the first part might be true, but he didn’t believe the second one. And in his job, they tend to know.”
“So what do we do?”
“Serve by publication. Four weeks of legal notices in a newspaper here and one in Spokane Valley, since her parents’ home is her last known address.”
