Nora Roberts - The Hollow

But there was one thing he hadn’t factored into that strategy. He’d never considered that she wasn’t considering staying in the Hollow. Staying with him.

He dropped one of the balls, managed to snag it on the bounce. Setting himself, he started the circle again.

If he’d made a mistake it was in assuming she loved him, that she intended to stay. He’d never questioned, not seriously-her conviction matched his-that there would be something to stay for, something to build on, after the week of July seventh. He believed he’d felt those things from her, but he had to accept now those feelings and needs were just a reflection of his own.

That wasn’t just a bitter pill to swallow, but the kind that caught in your throat and choked you for a while before you managed to work it down. But like it or not, he thought, a guy had to take his medicine.

She wasn’t required to feel what he felt or want what he wanted. God knew he’d been raised to respect, even require, individuality. It was better to know if she didn’t share his feelings, his wants, better to deal with the reality rather than the fantasy. That was another nasty pill, as he’d had a beauty of a fantasy going.

Her smart, fashionable shop a couple blocks up from his office, Fox mused as he dropped the balls back in his drawer. Maybe grabbing lunch together a couple times a week. Scouting for a house in town, like that old place on the corner of Main and Redbud. Or a place a little ways out, if she liked that better. But an old house they could put their mark on together. Something with a yard for kids and dogs and a garden.

Something in a town that was safe and whole, and no longer threatened. A porch swing-he had a fondness for them.

And that was the problem, wasn’t it? he admitted, walking to the window to study the distant roll of the mountains. All that was what he wanted, what he hoped for. All that couldn’t be if it didn’t mesh with her wants and hopes and visions.

So he’d swallow that, too. They had today to get through, and all the others until Hawkins Hollow was clean. Futures were just that-the tomorrow. Maybe the foundation for them couldn’t and shouldn’t be built when the ground was still unsettled.

Priorities, O’Dell, he reminded himself, and sat back at his desk. He pulled up his own files on the journals to begin picking through his notes.

And the first spider crawled out of his keyboard.

It bit the back of his hand, striking quickly before he could jerk back. The pain was instant and amazing, a vicious ice-pick jab that dug fire under the skin. As he shoved away, they poured out like black water, from the keys, from the drawers.

And they grew.

LAYLA WALKED INTO THE HOUSE WITH HER SYSTEM still reeling. Escape, that’s what she’d done. Fox had given her the out, and she leaped at it. Walk away, don’t deal with this now.

He loved her. Had she known it? Had she slipped that knowledge into a neat file, tucked it away until it was more convenient or more sensible to examine it?

He loved her. He wanted her to stay. More, he wanted her to commit to him, to the town. To herself, Layla admitted. In his Fox-like way, he’d laid it all out for her, presented it to her in a way he’d believed she’d appreciate.

What he’d done, Layla thought, was scare her to death. Her own shop? That was just one of the airy little dreams she’d enjoyed playing with years before. One she’d let go-almost. Hawkins Hollow? Her commitment there was to save it, and to-even though it sounded pretentious-fulfill her destiny. Anything beyond that was too hard to see. And Fox?

He was the most beautiful man she’d ever known. Hardly a wonder she was reeling.

She stepped into the office where Quinn and Cybil worked on dueling keyboards.

“Fox is in love with me.”

Her fingers still flying, Quinn didn’t bother to look up. “Bulletin!”

“If you knew, why didn’t I?” Layla demanded.

“Because you’ve been too worried about being in love with him.” Cybil’s fingers paused after another click of the mouse. “But the rest of us have been watching the little hearts circling over your heads for weeks. Aren’t you home early?”

“Yeah. I think we had a fight.” Layla leaned against the doorjamb, rubbed her shoulder as if it ached.

Something ached, she realized, but it was too deep to reach.

“It didn’t seem like a fight, except I was annoyed, among other things. He took me up to the building where the gift shop used to be. It’s cleared out now. Then he started talking about potential, how I should open a boutique there, and-”

“What a great idea.” Quinn stopped now, beamed enthusiasm over Layla like sunbeams over a meadow. “Speaking as someone who’s going to be living here, I’ll be your best customer. Urban fashion in small-town America. I’m already there.”

“I can’t open a shop here.”

“Why?”

“Because… Do you have any idea what’s involved in starting up a business, opening a retail store, even a small one?”

“No.” Quinn replied. “You would, and I imagine Fox does, on the legal front. I’d help. I love a project. Would there be buying trips? Can you get it for me wholesale?”

“Q, take a breath,” Cybil advised. “The big hurdle isn’t the logistics, is it, Layla?”

“They’re a hurdle, a big one. But… God, can we be realistic, just the three of us, right now? There might not be a town after July. Or there might be a town that, after a week of violence and destruction and death, settles down for the next seven years. If I could even think about starting my own business with everything else we have to think about, I’d have to be out of my mind to consider having one here at Demon Central.”

“Cal has one. He’s not out of his mind.”

“I’m sorry, Quinn, I didn’t mean-”

“No, that’s okay. I’m pointing that out because people do have businesses here, and homes here. Otherwise, there’s no real point to any of what we’re doing. But if it’s not right for you, then it’s not.”

Layla threw out her arms. “How can I know? Oh, he apparently thinks he knows. He’s already talked to Jim Hawkins about renting me the building, talked to the bank about a start-up loan.”

“Oops,” Cybil murmured.

“He has a file for me on it. And okay, okay, to be fair, he didn’t go to Mr. Hawkins or the bank about me, specifically. He just got basic information and figures. Projections.”

“I take back the oops. Sorry, sweetie, that sounds like a man who just wanted to give you the answers to questions you’d have if this was appealing to you.” Considering, Cybil tucked her legs up in the lotus position. “I’ll happily reinstate the oops, even add a ‘screw him’ if you tell me he tried to shove it down your throat and got pissy about it.”

“No.” Trapped by logic, Layla let out a huge sigh. “I guess I was the one who got pissy, but it all just blindsided me. He said he was in love with me, and he wanted me to be happy, to have what I wanted. He thought my own place was something I wanted. That he was, that a life with him was.”

“If it’s not, if he’s not, you have to tell him straight,” Quinn said after a long moment. “Or I’ll be forced to aim Cybil’s ‘screw you’ in your direction. He doesn’t deserve to be left dangling.”

“How can I tell him what I don’t know?” Layla stepped out, walked to her own room and closed the door.

“Tougher for her than you,” Cybil commented. “You always made up your heart in a snap, Q. Or your mind. Sometimes both agreed. If not, you bounced. That’s your way. With you and Cal, it all clicked. The idea of marrying the guy, staying here, it’s a pretty easy slide for you.”