Karina Bliss - What the Librarian Did

“Is that yours?” she said stupidly, pulling into the private parking lot. They’d taken her hatchback because it had a backseat, necessary for Mark. Devin had conceded when she’d made that argument. She hoped he wasn’t humoring her.

“Yes, but more often than not it’s subleased to other customers. Because of the short notice, we’re sharing it today, but I’ve commandeered the bedroom for you-you need sleep.” She stepped into the customs and immigration building, instinctively raising a hand to shade her gritty eyes from the bright lights and well aware she looked terrible.

Self-consciously, Rachel fumbled in her handbag and held out a wad. She’d withdrawn fourteen hundred dollars from her savings account to pay for her flight. “Obviously, it’s nowhere near enough but…”

He looked at it curiously, then at her. “You’ll use me to get to your son but you’re coy about accepting a lift?”

“I didn’t use you-” She broke off because the customs official was coming toward them. The flight, including a refueling stop in Hawaii, would be sixteen hours. Plenty of time to set the record straight.

After the formalities, Devin shepherded her aboard the aircraft. Already dazed, she found the luxurious interior only disoriented her more. While Devin went into the cockpit to talk to the captain, an attendant-Kristy-ushered Rachel past the camel-colored leather couches and armchairs, the four-seater dining room table and lavish bathroom to a smaller, private lounge, where she settled her in one of the armchairs. “I’m so sorry you’re sharing the flight,” she apologized.

Despite her gnawing anxiety for Mark, Rachel smiled. “That’s fine,” she assured her.

“Let me stow that for you.” Kristy took Rachel’s overnight bag and placed it in a lacquered maple cupboard. “Anything to eat or drink?”

“No, I’m not-”

“When did you last eat?” asked Devin from the doorway. When Rachel hesitated, he turned to the attendant. “Feed her, please, Kristy.” He glanced back at Rachel. “I’m assuming you don’t want to join the others?”

She shook her head. Small talk was the last thing she wanted.

“Then I’ll check on you later.” He disappeared again, obviously unwilling to spend any time with her.

Kristy looked at Rachel, the question evident in her eyes. What did you do? Then, recollecting herself, she smiled, indicated the bedroom and en suite, and said she’d be back with a snack. Left alone, Rachel stared out the porthole at the last traces of smeared gold and pink streaks on the horizon.

She didn’t see Devin again until halfway through the flight. By that time her thoughts were driving her mad.

He stopped at the door when he saw her. “I thought you’d be in bed.”

“Don’t stay away on my account.”

Devin glanced over his shoulder as a burst of laughter came from the main cabin, then shrugged and stepped in, holding a briefcase. “I have work to do that needs quiet.”

Rachel attempted a weak joke. “If you need help with your homework…” She’d meant schoolwork and realized too late that the comment could be read as sexual. It fell into an awful silence.

Grim-faced, Devin sat and opened his briefcase. “It’s copyright paperwork on some of my early songs.” Briefly, he filled her in on the reason for Zander’s visit-to rub salt into the wound, Rachel suspected.

“I knew Zander had invited you to rejoin the band. I thought you were avoiding telling me because you were embarrassed about…” She stopped, picked up her cold coffee and sipped it, for something to break the sudden tension in the cabin.

“Embarrassed because I’d said I was falling in love with you and didn’t mean it? No, my embarrassment came later.”

“I should have trusted you.” she said.

“Yeah,” he said, “you should have. But it wouldn’t have solved our basic problem. I was never more than a novelty toy to you, someone to play with while you waited for Mr. Right.”

He’d made that accusation before. This time it wounded the part of her she’d vowed never to expose again-her heart.

“You’re so wrong,” she said, but he’d already stood.

“I’m going back to the other cabin.”

“No!” Her anger came out of nowhere, explosively loud in the small space and catching them both by surprise. “I shouldn’t have let Mark walk away without an explanation and I’m damned if you will. Sit down.”

He folded his arms. “Make me.”

She launched herself out of the seat and kissed him, not lightly, not tentatively, but passionately, with everything she felt for him-all the love, all the aching regret. His lips tightened under hers. His hands closed around her upper arms like steel traps as he put her away from him.

Humiliated, she returned to her seat on the couch, but Devin made no move to leave.

“Steve-Mark’s father-talked me into smoking a joint the night I got pregnant.” Rachel couldn’t look at Devin, picking up a cushion and running her palm over the silky fabric. “I was crazy about him at this stage and he’d been teasing me about not drinking. He said it would make me happy. And oh, boy, it did. Happy and irresponsible.” She choked on a laugh, looked up. “When I smelled it on Mark…well, it was easier to blame you than admit I’d failed to protect him.”

Devin’s eyes were grave. “It was more than that, Rachel. You wanted to believe the worst of me.”

“No, that’s-”

“All the qualities that made me a danger to Mark-the wildness, the bad boy history-made me safe to you. Because I’d never ask you to marry me or have children with me, never make you confront the things you’d have to if I was the right kind of guy. Like why you’re so damn scared of anything approaching real intimacy. When I told you I loved you I broke the contract.”

“No guy is the right guy,” she cried. “I always chose men I couldn’t love. You were supposed to be another one. If anyone broke faith, it was you.”

“So you love me but you don’t want to. Thanks, that makes me feel a whole lot better.”

She had to make him understand.

“Just because I did the right thing in giving Mark up for adoption doesn’t mean there aren’t scars.” She hugged herself, but it didn’t help. “At seventeen, you think of self-sacrifice as something worthy, something good and ennobling that will carry you through the loss. You don’t know that the scab will still fall off on his birthdays, that you’ll still ache every time you hold a baby and smell that sweet, soft baby skin. At seventeen I made the sacrifice and at thirty-four I’m still paying. You’re just the latest price.”

“Rachel.” Devin sat down beside her and reached for her hands; she pulled them away.

“I know what you want. You want all of me and I can’t…love you like that. Giving up my baby changed me… I can’t love anybody that much again, can’t risk that kind of loss. It hurt too much. It still hurts.” She swallowed, forced herself to meet his gaze. “My only regret is that I hurt you.”

For the rest of her life she’d remember the compassion in his eyes. “I’m a big boy. I can survive a few rounds in the ring with the Heartbreak Kid.”

A laugh escaped her, then a sob. Ignoring her protests, he sat beside her and put his arms around her.

“I can’t do this,” she whispered against his shoulder, “not even for you.”

“It’s okay.” There was nothing but comfort in his hold. “You don’t need to explain. It’s going to be all right.”

She lifted her face. Devin had never seen such agony. “Is it? Now Mark’s making me doubt the only thing I thought I got right.”

Tears slid down her pale face, silent sobs shook her body. Rachel put her hands over her mouth, trying to stop.