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“I remember.”
She smiled. “So do I. Do you know why you couldn’t work there? Why you think you couldn’t work in any city?”
“Not really. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. There was too much. Too much noise, too many people, too much turmoil.”
“Do you think it had something to do with your childhood? With your father?”
“It’s a thought. Looking back on it, yes. But at the time I only knew I couldn’t do it. Every minute of my life when he was around was a disaster. Or it seemed like it, anyway. I never knew what was going to happen. Whether he was going to come home drunk and we’d have to hide. Or even if he wasn’t stinking drunk, he’d get mad over nothing and start whaling on us. It was…chaos.”
“When you left…I thought you just stopped loving me. I didn’t know it was your work. I thought it was me.”
“It was never you.” He took her face in his hands, leaned over and kissed her. “It tore me apart to leave you. I never stopped loving you. But I couldn’t live there. And your future was in Miami.”
“Do you think if we’d talked back then we could have stayed together?”
“I don’t know. But I don’t think so. We weren’t getting along very well, if you remember.”
“No, we weren’t. It was a long time ago,” Dana said.
“Yes, it was. People say things happen for a reason. If we’d stayed together I might never have invented another thing. Maybe things had to happen the way they did.”
“Maybe.” Her heart broke a little when she said, “We haven’t solved this problem, Levi. I’m not even sure we can.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because we don’t trust each other. You don’t believe I’d never make a big move again without discussing it with you. And I can’t live with a man who doesn’t trust me. I don’t want to live walking on eggshells, wondering if you’re going to jump to the wrong conclusion every time my phone rings.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” he protested. “I made a mistake, Dana. Can’t you understand that and forgive me?”
“Yes. If I could be sure it wouldn’t happen again. But I’m not, Levi.”
“Then…what do we do?”
“I don’t know. I wish I did. Right now I’m exhausted. I’m going to bed.”
She was still awake when Levi came in a while later. The bed gave when he got in but he didn’t speak and neither did she. Eventually she drifted off and when she woke in the morning, Levi was gone.
*
Early the next morning, Levi did what he always did when faced with a problem he didn’t know how to solve. He went to his workshop. Not that it held any answers but at least he could work on something rather than sit around obsessing over what to do about his and Dana’s dilemma.
Dilemma. That was a mild word for it.
Was Dana right? He could see why she thought he didn’t trust her. After all, he’d immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion without giving her a chance to explain or even mention the job offer to him. But he did trust her. At least…he wanted to.
He wanted a life with Dana. He’d thought a lot about his conversation with Asher regarding children. Whether or not to have them. He knew it was something he should talk about with Dana. But what was the point if they couldn’t stay together anyway?
Late that afternoon someone knocked on his workshop door. “Come in.”
Dana opened it and asked, “Can I talk to you?”
“Of course.” His heart gave a little sprint at seeing her. He suspected she would always affect him that way. He’d been under her spell since the day they’d met and nothing, not the breakup, not being apart for years, no misunderstanding was going to change that. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t like her expression. It was resolute. About breaking up?
“I had a call from an old friend of mine. Do you remember Margary Reynolds?”
“The name is familiar but no, I don’t remember her.”
“She worked with me in San Antonio before I came here to design Wildcat Tower.”
