The Wrong Gentleman

It was so typical of her to be caring and understanding in the face of me being so unpleasant. I was going to have to sharpen my knife. I knew how to cut her to the core. I just didn’t want to. But I had no choice.

“Christ, Skylar, if your mother was this needy and desperate, no wonder your father couldn’t put up with it,” I said. “The apple clearly doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

She gasped and clutched her stomach as if I’d sliced her open. I shrugged, bracing myself for her anger, but it was only sadness I felt coming from her—disappointment in me—and it was like a bullet to my heart.

“I’m not listening to this,” she said. “I have no idea who you are.”

I’d done all I could, cut as deep as it was possible to do.

The fight had left her, and instead of saying anything more, she turned and ran. I hoped she didn’t stop. She needed to keep on running. I followed her. I wasn’t trying to catch her. I just wanted to make sure she was safe.

I needed her to be angry enough with me to give the captain her notice. I hoped the hatred she felt for me was enough to drive her to leave Europe and go somewhere far out of the reaches of Walt and the CIA.

I stuffed my hands into my pockets as I watched her get into a cab and drive away. I’d never see her again, but I wanted to burn the last memory of her into my soul.

She thought I’d been the one to change things for her, but she’d changed me completely. And she’d never know.

Thirty-Six

Skylar

As I poured the fourth top-up of coffee into the teenager’s cup, I looked out of the window of the diner and sighed. Maybe I should have tried harder to get another yachting job to finish out the season—at least then I would be waitressing for better tips. I just couldn’t handle the thought of being on the same continent as Landon, and if I knew nothing else, I knew now that I was capable of putting a roof over my own head and a meal in my stomach—I didn’t have to stay somewhere if I was unhappy.

I still couldn’t think about Landon without my heart growing heavy in my chest. My anger toward him was still there but quieter now, and disappointment rushed to fill the gap. How could I have been so completely wrong about him? The things he’d said to me had been so . . . The one man in all these years I’d opened up to and he’d turned out to be everything I’d spent my life avoiding.

I didn’t really know why I’d come back to Ohio. I’d been upset and fled back home, after making up an excuse about a family member who’d been taken ill. But this wasn’t home. It was just the town I’d grown up in. I didn’t have a home.

The clock on the wall above the door said it was three minutes past the end of my shift. I turned just as Hetty emerged from the back.

“You get off now, my dear.”

To do what? I didn’t know anyone in this town. When I’d left, I’d never looked back.

I’d take some food back to my motel room and stare at the pile of textbooks I hadn’t opened.

I’d rented a motel room the day I’d stepped off the bus, bought a secondhand car the day after. There was no getting about without it. This wasn’t the South of France.

“Thanks, Hetty. I’ll see you tomorrow.” I pulled at the white apron strings at my back and headed out.

My car was parked in the back, and I slid onto the old pleather seat. I could afford better, but I was saving my money. I just didn’t know what for.

I pulled out of the parking lot and took a breath as I headed across town. The only problem with where I was staying and where I was working was that I had to pass the group home I’d lived in after my mother died. I had no good memories of that place. No particularly good memories at all here.

So why had I come back? Florida was more home to me than Ohio. I hadn’t been back here since I’d left on my eighteenth birthday. Since I’d escaped.

As I turned left onto Washington Drive, I couldn’t even bring myself to look at the sign at the front of the building. I’d always hated the fact that the O in “home” was fashioned like a heart. It felt like more lies. There was no heart in the place. Just a bunch of people trying to get through their day. I exhaled as I passed the place and continued up the hill, then turned into the motel parking lot. This was home for me until I figured out what was next.

“Hey, Skylar,” the maintenance man called from across the lot.

I waved and pulled my bag from the backseat. I’d bought a salad and a slice of cheesecake for dinner.

My cell began to ring from inside my uniform pocket. I knocked the door shut with my hip and pulled out my phone.

I winced as August’s name popped up. I wasn’t ignoring her, exactly. I’d just been avoiding her calls and replying with texts. That way I could more easily skip the questions that I didn’t have answers to and reply I’m fine to her inquiries without worrying that she’d hear something else in my voice. But I couldn’t avoid her forever.

“Hey, August,” I answered as I locked my car and headed back to my room.

“Wow, you actually picked up.”