A Reason To Stay by Julieann Dove Page A

as the perfect mixture of ingredients drowned her taste buds. The intoxication from her two glasses of wine was obviously taking the sting of reality from their dinner conversation. “Not really. Well, maybe once, a very long time ago.”
    He leaned in closer, his tie in jeopardy of becoming another fatality in the stained basket at home. “Do you ever want to...I mean...ever?”
    That did it. That broke the trance she had made with her entree, the one that tasted nothing like what sat on Darren’s plate, getting cold from his examination of her. She slowly looked up, fork and knife in mid-air.
    “Darren, some people are meant to wander the world single.” She twisted her knife, using it as a pointer for her argument. “I’m not saying it’s a good way to find yourself at the age of sixty-two and no one to take care of you after foot surgery.” She was certainly referring to her very much alone mother. “I’m just saying that sometimes that’s where you find yourself. That’s all.”
    “Sounds like a lonely zip code.” He leaned back, picked up his fork and knife and began cutting into the meal that no longer seemed to match his appetite.
    Elise looked up from her dwindling mound of peas and chicken. “It can be, but it’s a curse, not a choice.” Her sobering eyes fell from his and she pushed the plate an inch away from her. This wasn’t just a girl fearing the fact of settling down. She was running from the ghosts in her past, the ones that haunted her in her nightmares, somewhere still lingering, where perhaps only a professional could help her see past.
    They finished their meal with little more to say on the half-beaten horse of moving forward. Dessert was turned down, the check was paid and they walked to Elise’s car. No ounce of joy could be found in his face when she finally looked at him. He stood next to her car door and played with her fingers. “I’m going to miss you more than you know.”
    Elise hated endings of any kind. “I’m going to miss you, too. But I am coming back, you know?” She lifted his chin with her finger and gave him a smile that felt sweet. False hope alert.
    “Let me spend the night and drive you to the airport in the morning?” His eyes perked up with the notion that allowed him more time with her. A bubble too full of expectation for even her to pop.
    She turned the toes of her shoes in and out, unable to step out of this web so easily. “All right, Darren.”
    He kissed her profusely on the lips and cheeks. “I’ll follow you.” He waited to shut her door and ran to his car to keep up with her.
    This was certainly not the plan she had devised for the evening. No hint of it. What the hell? Now he was spending the night? Again? Had he penetrated her force field? Withstood the rumble and aftershocks of the nine months’ earthquake? She took a cleansing breath and revised her outlook. He’d spend the night, drive her to the airport, and wait very neutrally until she returned. She would have to limit phone conversations during the week, too, of course. Once every other day should be enough. She would wean both him and herself of their dependency of one another. But was distance enough to stop this runaway train of commitment?
    She grabbed her bags out of the car and met him on her front stoop. She opened the door and set her things inside. “I have to give my flowers some water, first.”
    “Who’s going to water them when you’re away?” he asked.
    “I’m just going to put the hanging baskets in the back where it’s shady and hope for some rain.”
    He helped her unwrap the hose and turned the spigot on. “I’ll come over and water them for you.”
    She laughed and sprayed her marigolds. “You don’t even water your own. You have a gardener.”
    His jaw pinched shut and he tilted his head down while flashing her a don’t-get-me-started look. “I have a gardener because I don’t have time to plant, weed, and maintain the outside of my house. But I