Love Is Fear by Caroline Hanson Page A

over his eyes like he was trying to ignore her. “No. You said your goodbye at the hospital. He wouldn’t have wanted a funeral. He wouldn’t have wanted other people’s lives to be interrupted to come see his grave. He loved you. You don’t need to do this. It doesn’t prove anything.” The last bit was mumbled, his hands sliding down his face as he spoke.
    “ Don’t say that,” Val said quietly.
    “ Which part? That he loved you?”
    Val didn’t respond, felt the cream from the coffee curdling in her stomach. They should just go to the beach. Where was the pretend happiness she’d signed up for?  It’s pretend, is it?  She wondered if the conversation was over.
    “ Everything he did was about keeping you safe.”
    Nope, this conversation is still happening . “No, it was about avenging my mother. It had nothing to do with me.”
    Jack blew out a breath loudly. “Look, he didn’t have the greatest paternal instincts.”
    She couldn’t help but laugh at the understatement. “Ya think? Jack we met when I shot Marion in the back as she tried to steal you away. I was nine. That is fucked up. Who needs a Barbie when you can have a Colt, right? He threw me to the vampires at sixteen. ‘Good luck. Hope you survive! Jack would!’” she said, mimicking her father.
    He laughed unhappily. “Don’t bring me into this.”
    “ We can’t have this conversation without bringing you into it.”
    “ Maybe we shouldn’t have it at all.”
    No, we shouldn’t , Val thought as she stepped away from him. She went out to the balcony and looked at the ocean. There was a cute little girl in a sunhat, her mom sitting next to her, reading a book as the little girl dug with her shovel. Envy snaked through her, strangling her tight.
    That was normal life. Maybe the father was snorkeling or playing golf. Or on a walk with his son or daughter. At the end of the day they’d put the kids to bed, sit out on the balcony and have a glass of wine. Just another day in paradise.
    Val was sure that envying thirty-year olds who spent all their time tending to little people’s runny noses and filthy bottoms was a bit pathetic.  Fabulous. Jack  won’t  give me that and Lucas can’ t give me that. How much is eHarmony?
    She turned to go back into the room but Jack was standing behind her.
    “ Oh,” Val gasped in surprise.
    “ Alright, let’s do it. We have the argument once and then it’s over,” he said, sounding resigned.
    “ Why the change of heart?” She squinted at him suspiciously.
    “ Because this is a problem. You’re mad at me and I…” What would he say?  I don’t want you to be mad at me? I want to work past it?  Either of those things and she would let it go, but she knew that wasn’t it. There was a long list of moments where Jack could have done things for her, or for them, and he hadn’t.
    She waited, hoping that sex had somehow changed things.
    “ I’m pissed at you, too. So let’s have it out. This relationship goes nowhere with this hanging over us.”
    Oh. No apologies, he was mad too.  Big let down . Val chewed her lip. She hadn’t expected that. No, she had, she just hadn’t wanted it to be true. And that pissed her off even more.
    “ Okay, then I’ll just sum it up for you so I can get down to the bar and get my Pina Colada,” she said. “I loved that man, I really did. I wish I hadn’t been a disappointment, that I had been tough enough to be who he wanted me to be. But I wasn’t   and it pisses me off that he didn’t realize that. He didn’t adjust his expectations based upon the person that I was, I just became a failure. I’m smart and capable, there are good things to me ,  but to him I was a failure. He’s dead and I feel—“
    “ No. Stop. It’s not a good idea. Let’s just go downstairs and sit by the pool.”
    “ Yeah, cause that’s going to be the most romantic day ever! Sitting by the pool, having the rest of this argument in my head all day. Hell,