Big Girls Don’t Cry (Dundee, Idaho #6)(76)
Author: Brenda Novak

“They’re here!” Angela said, and hurried right in.

Following her daughter at a much slower pace, she forced a smile when Liz raised her eyes. “Hello.”

While she took the seat directly across from Liz, the children gathered around the other end of the table and began talking and laughing as though they met for brunch every week.

“Isaac wanted to come, but I told him no,” Liz volunteered softly.

Reenie nodded. “I appreciate that.”

Isaac’s sister fiddled with her water glass. “You really don’t want to see him?”

Worse than ever. But what good would it do? In another week, he’d drive to Boise to catch his plane, and she’d be no better off than she’d been when Keith used to leave. “I—I…” She searched for something to say that would fend off the question so she could continue to protect the part of her that was hurting so badly. But the way Liz was watching her, as if she could read her pain in spite of all Reenie’s efforts to conceal it, brought tears to Reenie’s eyes. She swallowed hard, struggling against the sudden emotion, but her throat was too tight to speak.

Did she have to break down in front of Liz? Of all people?

She started to stand. She had to escape, go to the restroom and pull herself together, something. But then she felt Liz’s hand close over hers and squeeze as though she understood.

“I love him,” Reenie whispered. She couldn’t hold it back any longer, couldn’t hold back the hurt.

Amazingly, she saw tears filling Liz’s eyes, too. “I know,” she answered.

They sat in silence for several seconds and, oddly enough, Reenie found Liz’s empathy comforting.

“If it makes you feel any better,” Liz said at last, “I think he loves you, too. He’s been going out of his mind since you started refusing his calls and e-mails. He actually shouted at me today when I told him he couldn’t come.”

“Why didn’t you let him come?” Reenie asked.

“Because you’re obviously working very hard to protect yourself against what’s happening, and I didn’t want to undermine you.”

Reenie couldn’t believe they could be talking so intimately. This was her ex-husband’s “other woman.” Yet Reenie felt a strange kinship. Maybe it was because they’d both been through so much. Or maybe it was because they’d both loved Keith, and now, although in different ways, Isaac.

“He won’t stay,” Reenie said simply.

Liz continued to grip her hand. “You want the truth, right?”

Reenie nodded.

“I don’t think he will. You’re the first woman who’s been able to get under his skin,” she said with what looked like a fond smile, then sobered. “But I can’t see him giving up his work. If he ever talks of marriage and family, it’s always as if he expects it to happen in another five or ten years, and he never seems to get any closer to it.”

Reenie closed her eyes and told herself to breathe deeply. “I knew that going in,” she admitted.

“Don’t be too hard on yourself. Sometimes we see the jagged rocks in our path, but we still can’t avoid them.”

“Was it that way for you, with Keith?” Reenie asked.

“Sometimes. I was working hard to overlook certain things because I didn’t want there to be anything amiss. I was…happy, you know?”

Remorse for what had happened washed over Reenie again. “And now?”

“I’m embarrassed that I was ever so gullible. But I’m doing better,” Liz said with a smile. “Much better.”

Looking at the situation from Liz’s perspective opened up a whole new vista for Reenie. Now that she was connecting with Liz on a deeper level—now that she was willing to care about her—she realized just how difficult it must have been for her to come to Dundee.

“Why’d you move here?” Reenie asked softly. “You had to have known it wouldn’t be easy.”

Liz nodded down the table at her children, who were laughing as Jennifer stuck a spoon to the end of her nose. “For them,” she said. “But also for me. I needed to come to terms with goodbye. That Keith could really let me go so easily seemed too horrific to believe.”

It was Reenie’s turn to squeeze Liz’s hand. “Those first few weeks, even months, were a nightmare.”

“Yes. But, fortunately, that’s all behind us, right?”

“For the most part, I hope.”

“You’ll get over Isaac,” Liz said confidently. “With time.”

Reenie nodded, hoping to heaven she was right.

ISAAC PACED in the parking lot of the Running Y. He’d driven out to the resort, planning to join his sister and Reenie for breakfast whether they liked it or not. Since Reenie would barely speak to him at school, and wouldn’t respond to his calls or his messages, he’d really been looking forward to having the chance to be with her again. But Liz had uninvited him this morning, and now he didn’t know how to force the issue without making more of a jerk of himself than he’d already been with his sister earlier.

Why couldn’t Reenie smile and laugh and enjoy the days they had left? he wondered. Why did it have to get like this? He knew she wanted to let the gossip die down. But school was ending this week, and Reg wanted him to fly back to Chicago to meet with the people from CTFS as soon as possible. That meant Saturday. Saturday, for Pete’s sake!

Reenie had known all along that he had to leave. What had she expected?

“Hello, Isaac.”

Isaac turned to see that Deborah Wheeler and her father, Melvin Blaine, had come out of the lodge. “Hello,” he said, but he knew he didn’t sound very friendly.

“Is something wrong?” she asked with false sweetness.

“No.”

“Food’s good in the restaurant, if you’re thinking of having brunch.”

“Maybe I’ll go in, in a minute.”

He wished she’d continue walking to her car and leave him alone, but she didn’t. “Word has it you’ll be moving away any day now,” she said.

He nodded.

“Poor Reenie. She bet on the wrong man again.”

If Mr. Blaine realized that his daughter sounded rather gleeful about this, he gave no indication. He studied Isaac curiously while waiting at her elbow.

“She’s inside, you know,” Deborah went on. “With your sister. That’s interesting, isn’t it? They’re eating together like old friends. I couldn’t believe it when I saw them.”