Virtually Mine (The Lindstroms Book 5) Read online

  “Well, maybe that’s all it is? She needs a wee bit of time? To feel comfortable? You met online. Truly, Paul, you could be…anybody.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Maggie picked up a dishtowel from behind the bar and swiped it across the counter. She pulled out a coffee cup, poured a cup for Paul and slid it over to him.

  “I mean, you could say you’re Paul Johansson, high school principal, upstandin’ member of a small town in Montana. But, in reality you could be anyone. A murderer. An ax murderer.”

  “What? No! No way. We’ve talked on the phone. I’ve sent a picture. She knows who I am.”

  “She knows what you want her to know. What you’ve said. What you’ve told her. Maybe she just needs a little more time…to be sure she believes you are who you say you are.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. Why wouldn’t I be honest? Why would I lie to her? What would be the point?”

  “Not everyone’s as good a person as you are, Paul.” She smiled at him gently. “Many men aren’t as up front, aren’t as kind and honest. Give her a day or two as she asks. Let her adjust. She’ll think about who you are, who she’s come to know, and she’ll come around to trustin’. Don’t you have enough on your plate anyway with school startin’ on Tuesday? For heaven’s sake, maybe it’s a good time to take a wee break from Holly and give her a little space to figure things out.”

  She patted his hand and tucked the dishtowel behind the counter, nodding to a table across the room asking for their check. “Summer and Bethany will be here in thirty minutes to take over. We’ll talk more then?”

  “Sure.” He nodded, smiling at her weakly as he mulled over her advice.

  Could Maggie be right? Maybe Holly just didn’t trust him yet?

  He hated the idea, but he had to admit it had merit. Paul wasn’t a suspicious person – almost to a fault – and he probably missed a good bit of nuance around him because he was such a straight shooter. If someone said that they were born in such and such a year, in such and such a place, he’d believe them. He’d believe them until they gave him cause not to. It was sort of like: “Guilty until proven innocent.” Only with him, it was: “Believed until proven untrustworthy.”

  He’d stay the course. As up front as they’d been with one another, Holly had no reason not to trust him. She’d come to trust him as completely as he already trusted her. Anyway, they still had five weeks before Columbus Day weekend. He took a bracing sip of coffee, feeling much better. Maggie was right. He’d let her adjust. Trust would come. He was sure of it.

  CHAPTER 6

  Thank God the next day was Labor Day, otherwise Zoë would have called in sick, because she felt awful. She barely slept more than ten minutes all night long, tossing and turning, trying to figure out what to do about Paul and his impending visit, alternately worried then depressed, but always desperate.

  For the first time since meeting Paul, she didn’t start her morning by sending him a “Good morning” message.

  She simply didn’t know what to say.

  The bright sun made it impossible to go back to sleep, so she listened to the sounds of morning in suburbia: a sprinkler starting, cars pulling out of driveways, neighbors greeting one another. It all sounded so normal, when the space in Zoë’s head felt anything but normal. It felt chaotic. It felt despairing. She wished it was raining and gray to match her mood.

  Her plan had been to be “Holly-in-the-picture” again by Christmas, and then tell him all about the crazy way she’d embraced the dark side for a while…the accident, the way she grieved it by drinking too much and getting her two tattoos—one with the date of the accident and the other for Brandon—how she’d changed her appearance and quit her job…only to have him pull her out of the darkness and into his arms, into the light again. She would credit him with helping her find her way back to the part of her that was Holly, he would kiss her passionately, and they’d never be apart again.

  That had been her plan, but it wouldn’t work now. He had bought an airline ticket to come and see her. And seeing her was the problem—a big problem.

  She stared at the bright sun bouncing off the ceiling and frowned as she reviewed her options.

  She could tell him she wasn’t ready for a visit and put a hitch in the lovely momentum they’d managed to build despite the distance between them.

  She could break things off clean, beating him to the punch. It would break his heart, but at least he wouldn’t have to suffer through her deception.

  She could tell him the truth as she should have long ago. Of course, she’d never hear from him again, which would break her heart, but at least she’d have the satisfaction of knowing she’d done the right thing.

  The thought of stalling, of putting him off, felt awful. It would kill the excitement between them. And why would he want to invest himself in her anymore if she refused to see him? It would change everything between them, and frankly, what they had was too new and too unique to survive.

  But breaking things off clean with him was so upsetting it made her want to throw up.

  I won’t do it. I won’t lose him. I won’t push him away and turn my back on him when I lo—

  She sucked in a breath, truncating the direction of her thoughts, blinking her eyes furiously.

  You do not love him, Zoë. You’ve never even seen him in person. More importantly, he’s never seen you. Don’t bring love into this.

  Knocking out her first two ideas only left the last as viable: telling the truth.

  She groaned, turning over on her side, tears falling sideways down her face to soak into the pillow, making a wet splotch beneath her cheek.

  “I miss you, Mom,” she sobbed, feeling sorry for herself.

  As much as Sandy had tried to be both aunt and mother to Zoë, it just wasn’t the same…especially since losing Thea. Her older sister. Her only sister.

  Oh, God. If Zoë could go back and change one thing in her life, it would be that day. That terrible, terrible day.

  She tried to keep the memories away, but they rushed at her, taking advantage of her sad mood, the events of that day unfolding before her like a horror movie.

  The strap on her nephew Brandon’s car seat was broken.

  She’d noticed it right away. She should have called Thea to leave work, go home for the backup car seat and come meet her.

  If only she’d made that decision.

  If only she could go back in time and make that call.

  But she hadn’t. Instead, she’d used the regular seatbelt, buckling her small, four-year-old nephew across the lap.

  Why? Well, partially because Zoë was in a hurry, but partially because she resented single mom Thea for using her as a taxi service and free babysitting.

  It wasn’t fair that Thea had had a child, but Zoë, whose work hours more closely matched Brandon’s pre-school schedule, was responsible for him after school every day. It was a Friday, and Zoë had been invited to join some of the other young teachers for margaritas down by the harbor. If she could drop her nephew off at the pizzeria with Sandy, she might be able to still meet the girls for the second half of happy hour.

  While Zoë usually drove Brandon through neighborhood back roads from his pre-school to Sandy’s restaurant or his house, that day she had taken the highway to save time; moreover, she was distracted and annoyed, speeding so she could get to her friends. She didn’t realize the driver to her left was in her blind spot. By the time his pickup truck had blared the horn, it was too late. Her much smaller car careened into and bounced off of his. She lost control, spinning across two lanes, into two other cars, before smashing into the guardrail to the far right of the highway. She didn’t actually remember hitting the rail.

  The last thing she felt was an almost weightless feeling of flying, her entire body lifted away from her seat.

  The last thing she heard was Brandon’s scream, swallowed up by the high-pitched screech of colliding metal.

  “Stop!” she sobbed, c
lenching her eyes shut tight as she hugged her arms around her body, pushing the memories away with all her might. She pulled her knees up to her chest and ran her fingers down the two-foot scar on her leg—felt the twisted, mangled skin that would never look normal again. For a moment she imagined it throbbed with the memory of hot, jagged steel slicing into her skin.

  Almost unbelievably, Zoë and Brandon had survived. But not without lifelong injuries and a cache of nightmarish memories.

  She had lost her mother to cancer.

  Then, she had lost her sister and her nephew.

  She wasn’t losing Paul too, damn it.

  No. It’s not fair!

  “Zo? Zoë? You here? Me and Rob are going to a barbecue at the Tapley’s later and I was wondering…” Zoë sat up in her bed just as Sandy walked into her bedroom. Her aunt’s brows furrowed in concern. “…if you wanted to come with.”

  Zoë took a ragged breath. “N-No, thanks.”

  Sandy stepped to the side of Zoë’s bed, reaching out to hold her niece’s chin in a firm grip. “What’s going on?”

  “Don’t feel well.”

  “That’s obvious. You look like hell. You sick? Your stomach?”

  Zoë wrenched her chin away and looked down, shaking her head back and forth slowly, feeling miserable.

  Sandy sat down beside her. “Zoë, you’re scaring me. Don’t scare me in my condition.”

  Zoë raised her head, and then totally lost it when she saw the compassion and love in Sandy’s eyes. She hurtled her body toward her aunt, sobbing against her shoulder like the world was about to end.

  “What? Oh, Zoë, honey, what is it?”

  “I m-met a g-guy!” she wailed.

  “You met—”

  She felt Sandy’s strong hands on her shoulders, and she was suddenly jerked away from the comforting warmth of her aunt’s body.

  “This is about a guy?” Sandy’s eyes were wide, and her lips were pursed. “You’re scaring me to death over a guy?”

  Zoë nodded.

  “A really great guy,” she protested through sniffles.

  Sandy took a deep breath and shook her head. “I’m going to go make a pot of coffee and you’re going to get cleaned up. Then you’re going to come sit on my back porch in the sunshine and tell me all about it. You hear?”

  Zoë managed a small smile and nodded, taking a deep sobbing breath. “Okay.”

  ***

  An hour later, Sandy sat across from Zoë, alternately staring at her and shaking her head back and forth. She took a long sip of coffee then set her mug back down on the picnic table, crossing her arms over her chest and facing Zoë again.

  “It’s a mess. You’re right about that.”

  “I’ve totally deceived him, Sand. You remember how I looked at your wedding? Wearing that white sundress? Blonde hair. Blue eyes. Twenty-five pounds thinner. No facial and body scars. Art teacher at SB Butler Elementary. I was a totally different person. That’s who he’s expecting to see when he gets here. Not…” she looked down at her body then back up at her aunt. “…this.”

  Sandy pursed her lips. “If he only fell in love with a picture, he deserves a letdown. People aren’t pictures.”

  Zoë loved her aunt for defending her, but she knew Paul wouldn’t forgive her for deceiving him. If she tried to tell him, he’d hang up on her and no matter how many times she tried calling and texting him, he’d move on. She shuddered to think of his reaction if he actually traveled all the way to Connecticut only to learn the truth.

  “He won’t see it that way,” Zoë said softly. “He’ll see that I lied to him.”

  “But, if you explained…setting up the account so long ago…meeting his friend Maggie…how you kept meaning to tell him, but …but the right moment never came along? He might understand.”

  Zoë snorted lightly. “Maybe. If I had him tied to a chair and he couldn’t leave and was forced to listen to me. But, even then—”

  “What did you say?” Sandy uncrossed her arms, sitting forward, at attention.

  “Even then, he wouldn’t—”

  “No. The other part. About him not being able to leave.”

  “If I had him tied to a chair and he couldn’t leave and was forced to listen to me?”

  “Yeah. That part.” Sandy nodded. “That’s your answer.”

  “Kidnapping him?”

  “Not exactly…”

  “Then what?”

  “You have to go to him.”

  “Go to him? Let him see me like this? Um…is the sun too bright for you? Do you have heatstroke?”

  “Listen to me, Miss Smartmouth: if you’re face-to-face with him here, he can just leave and go home. You have to be face-to-face with him on his turf when you tell him the truth. He’ll have nowhere to go. You keep saying that if you tell him the truth he’ll shut you down, hang up, never write back, right? Or if you tell him in person, he’ll just go home. Well, you can’t run home if you’re already there.”

  “Sandy! Have you missed everything I’ve said? I don’t look like Holly. I don’t have Holly’s job. Holly doesn’t have tattoos. Holly isn’t emo. She doesn’t have black hair and dark brown eyes. Holly doesn’t have a foot-long scar on her face and a two-foot-long scar on her leg. Holly’s a whole human toddler thinner.”

  “First of all, stop talking about Holly and Zoë like you’re two separate people. You’re freaking me out. You are Holly. Last I checked, you’re Zoë Holly Flannigan.” Sandy shrugged. “Second of all, that stuff doesn’t matter.”

  She could feel her eyes bulging out of her head. “Doesn’t matt—Look, Sand. You love me and I appreciate it when you say that you can’t see my scars anymore, but that’s only because you look at me with love. You compare now to two years ago, and yes, it’s better. But I still get looks. I still get questions. I still get assholes like that guy last month at O’Byrne’s who make comments under their breath.”

  “But Paul’s not that guy,” said Sandy, quietly but firmly, taking another sip of coffee. “You gotta go to Montana, Zo. It’s the advice Carly would’ve given you. I know it.”

  Zoë smiled sadly and her shoulders drooped in defeat when Sandy said “Cah-ly” because it sounded so much like her mom, it was like she was there with them.

  Sandy folded her hands on the table, training her eyes on her niece. “Carly told me to go for Rob. Did you know that? I didn’t like him. I thought he was too straight and narrow. Too buttoned up. He’d come to the pizzeria every other week and do the books for Grammy and Pop. An accountant. Woo-hoo! What’s more boring than that? Carly said it was the way he looked at me. Always asked me out and always said ‘I’ll try again next time, Sandy’ when I said, ‘No way.’ Carly said, ‘Rob loves you. Rob’s always gonna love you, even when you’re gray and your boobs sag to your knees and you got three kids giving you wrinkles. Rob’s still gonna come home on time and say thanks when you put a hunk of meatloaf in front of him.’

  “You know, I didn’t even say yes to a date with Rob until after Carly was gone and I was so lonesome for her. I remembered what she said about Rob the next time he came in with white flowers for me and Grammy. I was so sad and he was so nice…I gave him a chance, almost more out of respect for my dead sister than any other reason. And you know what? She was right. She sure was right. Rob’s not a rock star, but I’m puking three, four times a day and Rob’s telling me I’m beautiful. Now, you listen to me, Zo, ‘cause it sounds like my voice, but it’s your mom talking here. You gotta go to Montana.”

  Zoë swallowed uncomfortably, hating the fact that there was a teeny, tiny part of her that loved Sandy’s suggestion, that embraced it, that had already decided then and there—without asking Stan for a week off, or buying a ticket, or figuring out how the heck to tell Paul what she needed to say—that she was headed to Montana.

  “But the way I look…”

  “Just be yourself,” said Sandy, reaching over to hold Zoë’s hand. “From what it sounds like, he’s already in lov
e with you.”

  “You’re a better aunt than I ever was,” Zoë whispered, tears springing into her eyes.

  “That’s not true. You love Brandon. You and Thea and Brandon will find your way back to each other again one day. I know it. And little Carly here knows it too.” Sandy rubbed her stomach lovingly then stood up, her palms braced on the table. “Speaking of little Carly, I’m gonna go throw up. Then you’re gonna buy a ticket to Montana. And then we’re heading to the mall to get you a few new things for your trip before I go in to work.”

  ***

  Holly never wrote her good morning email and by noon Paul’s heart ached from missing it.

  He started to wonder if he’d made a massive mistake in telling Holly he was coming to visit. But he kept circling back to the same thought: he was ready to meet her and his feelings weren’t just going to go away. He’d been straight with her from the beginning about not wanting to be pen pals. About wanting to know her on a special level. She hadn’t shut things down and had always seemed as into him as he was into her. He was taking Maggie’s advice and giving Holly a little time and he just hoped that she would come around, see things as he did, and trust him to come and visit her.

  But what if he had pushed her too far? He suddenly thought, panic sluicing through him like cold water. She lived in Connecticut. It wasn’t like he could stop by her house after school and put things right. If she chose, she never had to write to him again. She could change her cell phone number and never look back. And he’d have all his life to regret pushing her when she wasn’t ready to see him yet.

  He hated feeling regret. He hated feeling helpless. Today was not getting better.

  He could smell barbecue grills heating up all over town as he sat on his back swing next to Cleo, forcing himself not to text her or email her or call her. Some Labor Day for him. He’d been invited to many barbecues, but he didn’t have the heart to go. Later, he’d check out the fireworks in the park, but mostly just to be sure no high school kids were hiding out behind the school getting drunk or pregnant. The afternoon stretched before him open and endless, his thoughts besieging him no matter how hard he tried to keep them at bay.