Assault and Batter(38)

“Oh, no. We’re not having a conversation as important as this over the phone,” I said.

“That’s not the reason. I’ve been sitting in the park near your place for the past half hour working up the nerve to come to the house.”

I looked outside. “I don’t see you anywhere.” Had he witnessed the confrontation between Peter, Max, and me?

“That’s because I parked down the road. I can be there in thirty seconds if you still want to see me.”

“Then I suggest you do get over here right now,” I said, and then I hung up on him.

Running my fingers through my hair, I didn’t have time to do much more to make myself presentable. Then again, why should I even bother even trying to do that? The chances were very good that I was about to be dumped, so I doubted that it mattered much what I looked like.

Jake drove up, but I stayed right where I was on the porch, sitting in the swing and trying not to look to anxious or eager.

“Hey,” he said heavily as he got out and approached me.

“Hey,” I replied.

He hesitated so long that I wondered if he’d temporarily lost the power of speech when he finally asked, “Could we walk around the park as we talk? It might make this a little easier to say.”

Oh, great. This was it. I thought about being difficult about it, but finally I decided that I might as well give in. “Fine,” I said as I got off the swing and walked down the steps toward him.

As we started walking together, I said, “You don’t need to worry. I won’t make a scene.”

“Why not? This is pretty upsetting.”

“I’ve had some time to deal with it,” I said, though that wasn’t entirely true. I couldn’t imagine ever having enough time to get used to the fact that I was about to get dumped by the only man I’d really cared about since my marriage had fallen apart.

He looked at me with a confused expression on his face. “Suzanne, what are you talking about?”

“You’re dumping me, aren’t you?” I blurted out.

“No! Of course not! What gave you that idea?”

What was going on here? Had I misread all of the signals? “Come on, Jake. You’ve been really distracted, cold, and distant, not to mention impossible to get ahold of. Plus, you act like someone just shot your best friend every time that we talk lately.”

“My feelings for you haven’t changed,” he said sadly.

“Then what is it? Why are you so glum?”

“I’m going to Alaska in four hours,” he said, the words clearly weighing heavily on him.

“Is that all? Jake, that’s not so bad. I understand that Alaska is wonderful this time of year. You’ll have a great time on vacation.”

“Suzanne, I’m not going on vacation. My services are being loaned out to the Alaska State Police Department for the next twelve months. It’s some kind of investigator’s exchange program, and I wasn’t given a choice in the matter.”

“Is it because of the bombing?” I asked. Jake had turned down an assignment to guard the North Carolina governor, and his boss had taken the job instead. When there had been an attempt on the governor’s life, Jake’s boss had been wounded, though the governor himself had escaped unscathed.

“No, of course not. They tried to present this as a promotion, or at the very least a way to advance my career. I almost quit on the spot.”

“Doesn’t it sound like an adventure to you?” I asked.

“Maybe with you, but I don’t want to leave you for a whole year,” he said. Was that a tear crawling down his cheek?

“You have to do it, Jake. I’m sorry, but I won’t have you turn something like this down because of me, let alone quit your job. A year’s not that bad.”

“It feels like a lifetime right now,” he said. “Is there any chance that you’d go with me?”

I thought about leaving my donut shop behind for a year, leaving Grace, leaving my mother. I loved Jake, there was no doubt about that, but I couldn’t just walk away from my life for him. I wasn’t expecting a proposal, but it shocked me to the core when I realized that was the only way that I’d leave everything behind. Who knew? I turned out to be an old-fashioned gal after all.

I must have hesitated too long, because he answered the question for me. “I know. I felt ridiculous even asking you to leave everything for me.”

“It’s not that I don’t love you, because I do,” I said.

“I know that,” he said, wiping away the tear I’d seen. “Forget I even asked. After all, you’re right. What’s a year, anyway? We’ll be back together before you know it.” He hesitated, and then Jake asked, “I can come back twice within the year’s time, but if you could come up once, we’d only have to be apart three months at a time at the longest. Will you come visit me?”