Chapter Nine
The time was late ― ten thirty ― too late for a visit, but it wasn’t the reason Noah drove the distance from Bracebridge to Hampstead. He hoped to catch a glimpse of Dallas in a window.
He coasted to a stop across from her garden house, turned off the ignition and stared at the structure she now called home.
Every window was brightly lit.
He knew the dark didn’t spook her, or that she needed to sleep with the lights burning, so he surmised she must still be awake.
Since her sister’s death, Dallas had become a different person. He knew how death could affect those loved ones left behind. After the tragic death of his parents, he almost retreated within himself. If it hadn’t been for Dallas, he would have. Dallas, however, handled Katie’s death by not grieving. He saw the mistake she was making and tried to tell her. Instead of listening, she turned a deaf ear to his pleas to seek professional help if she wouldn’t talk to him.
At the moment, Noah found himself in a similar situation. He knew he should talk to someone, but refused to. If he did, he would be admitting his marriage was over.
Dallas had wanted nothing from him when they separated. Her one demand was a divorce and on her pleading, he initiated the action. He had to coax a check on her for half of the fair market value of their marital home by telling her the settlement wouldn’t put him short, something she already knew. She wasn’t needy or a woman who couldn’t live without a man. He chuckled at the word choice. Could she live without a woman was the unanswered question now.
Was this a phase? he wondered.
Had Dallas been bored with her life and tried something different, something adventurous?
He didn’t want to believe Dallas had been a lesbian in denial all these years. Nor could he believe she faked it with him. No one could be that good an actor. He wanted to cry, to purge himself, to let go and admit she was lost to him forever and to see her as she was, for what she had become. The tears never came. Mainly, he supposed, because he refused to accept Dallas’s newfound sexuality.
He wished they had children. They hadn’t planned it that way. It just never happened.
Dallas might have thought differently about her choices and decisions if there had been children to consider.
He’d always wanted children. She had, too. Maybe that was a reason she ended up in the arms of another woman. Who was he kidding? He was just making excuses for his failure. The simple truth was that he didn’t please her in bed.
Accept it.
Accept your responsibility, Noah.
With a grimace, he glanced upward through the windshield. Clouds filled the darkened sky. Feeling gloomier, he turned his attention to the street. The occasional light in a bedroom window in the other houses and the old-fashioned lamplights every two hundred feet were the only illumination on the moonless and starless night.
He hadn’t intended on visiting her when he pulled into the small subdivision of garden homes. Just a peek’n-peep, he’d told himself. He should have known he wouldn’t be able to resist talking to her.
Without the virtually never-ending forethought or analysis he usually applied to a decision, he pulled back the handle and pushed open the door. Sultry air scented with freshly cut grass greeted him. He inhaled deeply and let the breath out slowly.
This is not a good idea, Noah. Not if you want Dallas back in your arms. You do want that, don’t you?
Of course I do.
Listen to the voice of reason, then.
I will. After.
It may be too late then.
It may be too late if I don’t do something now.
He walked a few more steps and halted. She wouldn’t take the visit well. He prepared himself for her negative comments. They would hurt, but if seeing him would make her realize how much she loved him, then he would gladly take whatever abuse she handed out.
It made him sound weak. Where Dallas was concerned, he supposed he was. And if that made him a lesser man, then he was.
So there.
Out of habit his hand fell on his hip holster and rested there as he sprinted up her front walk. It occurred to him as he stood on the wooden stoop in front of her red-painted door, Dallas could be entertaining her woman friend. Hell.
Walking in on that scene once was enough for him. He didn’t consider himself a bigot ― to each his own had always been his motto ― but seeing the woman he loved, the woman he had spent the last fifteen years with, the woman he vowed to love and cherish for the remainder of his days, in the arms of another woman had hurt. No, that was not entirely accurate. In truth, the sight had shot through his heart like a ten millimeter bullet.
Was he strong enough to witness it again?
Would he react with anger this time?
This was different. This was her home. She was free to do what she wanted without repercussions and without answering to anyone.
With that straightened out, he relaxed, rang the bell and waited.
Though Dallas was not a person who could be talked into anything not of her own choosing, he had argued with her that she didn’t know what she was doing. The other woman had seduced her, influenced her, goaded her into the act, he said. He had given her every chance to admit her mistake and back out gracefully from the divorce, and she wouldn’t take it.
He wanted to be right.
He couldn’t be wrong.
He would never love another woman like he loved Dallas. Without her, his life was meaningless and he, an empty shell.
Noah suddenly became nervous about facing her. Would she invite him in, and if she did, what would he say? Work was a safe subject, and he just happened to have two interesting and unsolved murders. Before he talked shop, he’d need a preamble. He couldn’t say he happened to be in the neighborhood since his neighborhood was forty-five minutes away. Dallas would see clear through any of the usual excuses an ex used to orchestrate contact. Now, with Dallas living in Hampstead, he couldn’t run into her as often as he had, making those accidental meetings appear authentic.
Suddenly, his tongue swelled to double its thickness; at least, it’s what his brain told him.
He peered through the peephole. Where was she? She should have answered the door by now.
Another minute passed.
What was taking her?
He rang the bell again and heard melodic chimes ring through the house.
The door opened and Dallas, wearing blue spandex shorts and a white mid-riff top, stood in the doorway. Her blond hair was fashionably tousled and perspiration pocked her forehead, her cheeks flushed.
“Were you working out?” He mentally chastised himself for the word choice. Then as though on cue, a vision of Dallas in the arms of a woman flashed in his mind. He wondered if the memory would fade over time, which prompted him to question whether he could forgive her anything, as he believed he could.
“What are you doing here, Noah?”
Nothing would have prepared him for her angry attitude. Was it with him, or with the turn her life had taken? He hoped for the latter and smiled.
“I wanted to see you, see for myself you’re all right.” He studied her from top to bottom. She looked fine…more than fine. He never wanted anything like he wanted Dallas at that moment. Keep it cool, Noah. Don’t bugger this up.
“Well, you have and now you can go.”
When she grabbed the door to close it, he stepped inside. He pretended not to hear the breath she huffed.
“Why are you doing this, Noah? Haven’t you said everything already? Nothing you say now will make me change my mind. We’re over.”
His inner voice had told him that, too. He wouldn’t believe it, and he wouldn’t believe Dallas.
The woman standing before him, with her pink toenails and navel ring, appeared a stranger to him. They had shared so much, had the same interests, had the same likes and dislikes, the same habits, and breathed the same air. It occurred to him he didn’t know her at all.
Maybe he never had.
“I hoped we could still be friends,” he said around a catch in his throat.
“It’s better if we aren’t.”
“Why?” Though he tried to remain calm, an edge had slipped into his voice.
“It just is.”
He felt as though he swam against rapids. After taking a desperately needed breath, he said, “I didn’t come here to fight.” The opposite, in fact. On the drive here he had visions of Dallas throwing herself into his arms, kissing his neck, his chin, his nose, his lips and telling him how much she loved him and what a fool she had been, what a mistake she had made.
He closed his eyes tightly and if he listened closely he could hear her voice in his head.
Will you take me back, Noah?
Is it too late for us?
Will you ever be able to forgive me?
If he truly believed that would happen, at best, he was an optimist. At worst, a halfwit.
His friends had told him he was a fool. Let her go, they said. You’re better off without the bitch, they advised. He couldn’t believe them. He wouldn’t. His life meant nothing without Dallas.
He caught a glimpse of hell these past few weeks, and though it might be an eternal state for him if he stayed with his current thinking, he couldn’t give up on her. Not yet, anyway; maybe not never.
“You haven’t cashed my check,” he said. “It’ll be stale-dated in a day or two. I can write you another, if you think you won’t be able to get into the bank before then.”
“I told you before, Noah, I don’t want your money.” She raked her fingers through her hair and looked him directly in the face. “I don’t want anything from you.”
From the tone of her voice and the coldness in her eyes, it seemed she found him guilty of something, something she couldn’t get past, something she would never be able to forgive, which didn’t make sense. He was the aggrieved, the innocent party.
He reflected on the facts, then looked at the situation from another direction and arrived at another conclusion, something which hadn’t occurred to him before. Maybe she held him accountable for her lesbianism. But, like he’d told Shephard, it didn’t work that way. Women, or men, don’t change their sexuality overnight, as happened to Dallas, or turn gay because of someone.
Satisfied with his thoughts, he asked, “Can’t we talk?” When she crossed her arms against her chest and planted her feet firmly on the hardwood floor, he decided the time was now or never. “We used to talk about everything. Remember? There was nothing you couldn’t tell me. Please, Dallas, open up to me like you did before, tell me what you’re feeling. Help me understand what happened. We can work this out. I know we can.” He thought about something else they could do. “We can go to counseling.” When she gave him a look that would freeze marble, he thought quickly. “I can go to counseling. It isn’t too late for us.”
She shook her head. “Please go.”
When, after a moment, he made no attempt to leave, she shouted, “Go.”
The door hit him on his way out.
Feeling drained and at a complete loss, Noah opened the truck door and climbed in behind the wheel.
He dug his keys from the pocket of his jeans and started the engine. The motor purred to life. He laid his head back against the headrest and listened to the quiet of the night.
His tears flowed freely.