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“I’m not leaving until you talk to me!”
Her dad motioned to the door. “Trouble in paradise?”
“It’s not paradise.”
“So it seems,” he said. “Do you want me to take care of it?” he offered again.
The pounding started up again.
“He won’t stay long. It’s better to just ignore him.”
After a moment, he seemed to accept that and motioned to the kitchen. “Are you hungry?”
“No,” she said automatically. Then, putting her hands on her stomach, she changed her mind. “Well, maybe a little.”
“I found another good recipe online. This one has onions, mushrooms, and tomatoes cooked in olive oil, served over pasta, and tossed with Parmesan cheese. Does that sound okay?”
“I don’t think Jonah will like it.”
“He wanted a hot dog.”
“Now there’s a surprise.”
He smiled just as the knocking sounded again. When it continued, he must have seen something in her face because he opened his arms.
Without thinking, Ro
“How about I give you a hand with di
Ro
Will. It had been four hours, and the guy still hadn’t left. He’d stopped knocking a long time ago and simply perched himself just beyond the crest of the dune, his back to the house. Technically, he was on the public beach, so neither she nor her father could do anything except ignore him. Which was what she and her dad-who, oddly, was reading the Bible again-were trying to do.
Jonah, on the other hand, simply couldn’t ignore him. He seemed to find Will’s vigil transfixing, like a UFO landing near the pier or Bigfoot trudging through the sand. Though he was wearing his Transformers pajamas and should have gone to bed half an hour earlier, he’d begged his dad to let him stay up for a little while, because, in his words, “if I go to bed too early, I might wet the bed.”
Right.
He hadn’t wet his bed since he was a toddler, and she knew her dad didn’t believe a word of it. His acquiescence probably had to do with the fact that it was the first full evening they’d all spent together since she’d arrived and-depending on what Officer Johnson told them tomorrow-maybe their last. She figured her dad simply wanted to prolong the experience.
Which was understandable, of course, and sort of made her feel bad about the whole wanting-to-leave thing. Making di
Which was impossible, of course.
“How long do you think he’s going to sit out there?” Jonah mumbled. By her reckoning, he’d asked the same question at least five times, even though neither she nor her dad had answered. This time, however, her dad set aside his Bible.
“Why don’t you go ask him,” he suggested.
“Yeah, right,” Jonah snorted. “He’s not my boyfriend.”
“He’s not my boyfriend, either,” Ro
“He’s acting like your boyfriend.”
“He’s not, okay?” She flipped to a new page.
“Then why is he sitting out there?” He cocked his head, trying to solve the riddle. “I mean, it’s just weird, don’t you think? Sitting out there for hours, waiting for you to talk to him. I mean, we’re talking about my sister. My sister.”
“I can hear you,” Ro
“I’m just saying it’s weird,” Jonah mused, sounding like a baffled scientist. “Why would he wait outside for my sister?”
Ro
She returned to her book and began working through the same paragraph with renewed determination, and for the next couple of minutes there was silence in the room.
Aside from the sound of Jonah fidgeting and muttering by the window.
She tried to ignore him. She scooted herself down, perched her feet on the end table, and forced herself to concentrate on the words. For a minute or so, she was able to block out everything around her and was on the verge of slipping back into the story when she heard Jonah’s little voice again.
“How long do you think he’s going to sit out there?” Jonah mumbled.
She slammed the book shut. “Fine!” she cried, thinking again that her brother knew precisely what buttons to push to drive her crazy. “I get it! I’ll go!”
A strong breeze was blowing, carrying with it the scent of salt and pine, as Ro
A layer of marine haze screened out the stars, making the night seem colder and darker than before. Ro
“You’ve got my brother completely wigged out,” Ro
“What time is it?”
“It’s after ten.”
“It took you long enough to get out here.”
“I shouldn’t have had to come out here at all. I told you to leave earlier.” She glared at him.
His mouth tensed into a flat line. “I want to know what happened,” he said.
“Nothing happened.”
“Then tell me what Ashley said to you.”
“She didn’t say anything.”
“I saw the two of you talking!” he accused.
This was why she hadn’t wanted to come out here in the first place; this was what she’d wanted to avoid. “Will-”
“Why did you run off after talking to her? And why did it take you four hours to come outside to finally talk to me?”
She shook her head, refusing to admit how burned she felt. “It’s not important.”
“In other words, she told you something, didn’t she? What did she say? That we were still seeing each other? Because we’re not. It’s over between us.”
It took a moment for Ro
“Yeah,” he answered. “For two years.”
When Ro
But Ro
Vaguely, she heard Will going on. “What? You’re not even going to talk to me? You make me sit out here for hours and you won’t even dignify my question with a simple answer?”
But Ro
Why? Because Ashley was trying to win him back? And she feared Ro