“Wait, Aiden. I know you care for her, but—there’s more to this. It has to be me.”
“I’m the one she’s going to talk to.” Her son’s reaction convinced Clare that Izzy had confided in him, too.
She decided a compromise was in order. “Aiden should drive you, Jack. It will be faster. He knows the way. He can wait in the car while you talk to Izzy.”
She just hoped they’d make it in time to have that conversation before Izzy boarded the train.
21
Izzy
Izzy sat miserable and alone on the edge of the seat on the station platform, wondering where the train was. She’d never actually traveled alone in England before. She wasn’t sure if she felt sophisticated or scared.
The station was unlike any she’d seen before. She was used to Manhattan and the roar, shriek and rumble of the subway line, the chaos and grandeur of Grand Central Station, the press of people breathing the same air and pushing, always pushing, to get on or get off. Here the air was clean and fresh. No one was pushing. She saw a bird with a pinkish breast settle on the wall nearby and opened her mouth to point it out, but then realized there was no one to tell.
There were only three other people on the platform and they hadn’t even glanced toward Izzy, which was just as well because she knew she looked a mess. She’d cried all the way in the cab, and then almost died of horror when she’d seen Aiden driving the other way.
She was fairly sure he’d seen her, which was why she needed the train to arrive quickly.
Luck wasn’t on her side. She checked the time on her phone and when she looked up Jack was standing there.
She was trying to train herself not to think of him as “Dad.”
Her first instinct was to rush at him and hug him, the
way she’d done when she was a little girl and she heard his key in the front door at the end of the day. She craved that same feeling of security she’d had then when his arms had wrapped round her.
But she wasn’t that little girl anymore.
She assumed her most nonchalant expression. “What?”
“What? You took a cab to the station without leaving so much as a note, and you’re seriously asking me what?”
“I just—I have to go. You wouldn’t understand.”
He sat down next to her. “Try me.”
“I don’t want to talk about this.”
“I can see that, but it’s weird because the Izzy I know, my daughter, never runs from a problem. She looks it in the eye and handles it. Or she asks me to handle it, because that’s what dads do. What she doesn’t do is climb in a cab without telling anyone and get a train to a city she doesn’t know.”
“It’s time I started being more independent.”
“Maybe. We’ll talk about that at another time, but for now we’re focusing on why you ran away.”
“I’ve told you—I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Well I do, and I’m your father so you have to listen to me.”
“We both know you’re not.” She glanced at him and her heart lurched as she saw the hurt in his eyes.
“When did I ever give you the impression that I don’t think of you as a daughter? Because if I messed up as a father I deserve to know so that I don’t make the same mistake in the future.”
“You didn’t mess up.”
“Did I love you less than I should have done? Tell me, because something has made you think you don’t belong with this family and I need to know what it is.”
Crap, did they really have to have this conversation? “I’m not yours.”