Page 12 of After You

“So you tricked her into coming early. Now what?” Kyle asked.

“Now we bake, and garden, and take walks, and have a big family picnic, and go through scrapbooks, and any other damned thing I can think of,” Alice said with a little frown. “It’s a goodplan.”

It was a terrible plan. “You can’t stand on your hip long enough to bake anything,” Kyle said, thinking he surely didn’t need to point out that he was the one with flour all over himself at the moment. “You can’t kneel to garden and you can’t walk more than a block.”

“I’ll make it work,” Alice said, lifting hercup.

Kyle turned the dough out onto the counter and punched it. He was onto her. Alice wanted Hannah to do all of those things to instill some sense of nostalgia in her granddaughter. But, Alice couldn’t do it all with her because of her bum hip. And Alice was assuming that, as with everything else, what she couldn’t do for herself, Kyle would jump in todo.

But there was no way in hell he was gardening or walking with Hannah.

“I’m…concerned,” he said, trying with everything he had not to say you’re bat-shit crazy if you think gardening is going to make her want to move backhere.

Alice waved her hand. “Don’t be concerned. If I can’t take a walk, we can take a drive.”

Kyle sighed. “Not about the walking.”

“Thenwhat?”

“You’re getting your hopesup.”

He’d do almost anything for Alice. He’d help her in any way he could. Even if it meant wearing ruffles. Even if it meant spending the morning in the childhood bedroom of the only girl he’d ever loved; the bedroom where he’d actually gotten to third base with her for the first time; the bedroom that had always been bright freaking pink. Kyle squeezed the dough harder.

But the one thing he would not do for Alice was let her believe that Hannah was coming home to Sapphire Falls for good. Alice had already held on to that belief for three years. And it had hurt her a little more every time she spent a Christmas without Hannah, or had to mail Hannah’s birthday present to Seattle, or heard one of her friends talk about spending time with one of their grandchildren. When Hannah left at the end of the six weeks—or sooner, if Kyle had anything to say about it—he did not want Alice to be heartbroken. Again.

“Hope is a wonderful thing,” Alicesaid.

Kyle couldn’t totally disagree there. In general. But in this case… “Realism is a good thing too,” hesaid.

Alice finally met his eyes directly. “Don’t tell me that you don’t want her to come home as much as Ido.”

Kyle focused on the dough instead of on the blue eyes that Alice’s granddaughter had inherited. He’d been a sucker for big blue eyes for a long time. “I realized after year one that what I want doesn’t matter, Alice.”

He’d hung on to the same hope Alice still had for the first year—that Hannah would miss home, realize what she’d left behind, and come running back to them. Year two he’d settled on being hurt and pissed off. Year three he’d decided he was glad that she’d realized she didn’t want him, them, everything, before they’d gotten married and were a few years and a few kids into the whole thing.

“You don’t mean that,” Alicesaid.

He lifted his head. “I do mean that. I’m not saying I like it, but she’s been gone for three years.”

“You’re still friends,” Alice pointedout.

Right. He and Hannah were friends. Supposedly. They hadn’t spoken in three years, but he couldn’t tell Alice that. He nodded. “Of course. I’ve known her my whole life. I still care about her. I want her to be happy.” And dammit, he meant that. Yes, she’d hurt him, and he was angry, and he hoped that being back in Sapphire Falls amidst all of the people and things she’d left behind tore little holes in her heart. But in all honesty, for three years he’d clung to the idea that she was happy. That her life in Seattle really was everything she needed and wanted. That was the only way any of this wasokay.

In spite of everything, he wanted to believe that whatever she’d chosen instead of a life with him was fulfilling and happy and…better.

He hadn’t been enough for her. He hated that realization, and it had affected pretty much every other relationship with a woman he’d had since Hannah, but it was clearly the truth. Hannah had helped him discover the one thing he wasn’t good at. Being a life partner.

And that was humbling, if nothingelse.

“If you want her to be happy, then you’ll help me,” Alice said. “Because Sapphire Falls is where she’ll be happiest.”

Kyle sighed and began rolling out the dough. “Hannah’s a grown woman. She can decide for herself what will make her happy.”

Alice shook her head stubbornly. “Clearly that’s nottrue.”

“Alice,” Kyle said, feigning patience. “She chose to leave.”

“She didn’t leave us, though,” she said. “She just stayed away. That’s different. Being away and never coming home, even to visit, has made it easy to forget or ignore everything she had back here. But once she’s here for an extended period, she’ll be reminded of everything she left behind and she’ll want tostay.”

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