Darcy frowned. “You don’t like this house?”
“That’s not the point. If you’re never going to leave it, that means you never want to get married or live with anyone, or it means you expect whoever you marry to move in here.”
Darcy gazed around the room, this familiar, beloved room that had held her grandmother’s life and her own childhood.
“I guess you’re right. I mean, about what I said. I never really thought about it that way, Nash. I guess when I daydreamed about living with a man, having children, having grandchildren, it was always in this house.” She straightened her back; she met Nash’s gaze. “Could we just pause for a moment to be like fireworks happy that you and I love each other?”
Nash smiled, but his eyes were sad. “I’m glad if all this makes you happy. It makes me miserable.”
“Nash, no. If we love each other, we can work things out, right?”
“Can we? Can we really ‘work things out’? If I give you a couple of days or a couple of months, do you think you’ll be able to decide to sell this house? All this furniture”—his arm swept the room—“your grandmother’s garden?”
“But, Nash, why should I have to? Isn’t it a great house? Isn’t it wonderful to be in town, walking distance to the library, the post office, the shops?”
“What if I want to get a dog, a big dog that needs lots of room to run? What if I get an Irish setter or even a Lab? What if I want to live in a modern house with a large yard out of town, bordering the moors, where I could let the dog run?”
Darcy took a deep breath. “I think this is when I get myself a drink. Would you like one?”
“Please.”
“Wine?”
“A beer, if you’ve got it.”
Darcy rose and walked toward the kitchen.
Her head was spinning, and her heart had gone into some kind of gymnastic performance that sent tremors through her hands. She poured herself a glass of wine. She took a Heineken from the fridge, popped off the cap, and carried the drinks out to the living room.
She handed Nash the beer. “Would you come sit next to me on the sofa?”
“Thanks for the beer. No, I’m not moving. We can’t solve this problem physically. We’d only delay it.”
Darcy returned to the sofa. “But being physical is part of the solution, isn’t it?”
“Is it?” Nash asked. “If we make love, will you be a fraction more likely to sell this house and choose a house with me?”
“You’re making me feel so pressured,” Darcy said. She took a sip of wine. “Nash, when you think of the future, where do your dreams take you? I mean, do you think you could live on Nantucket for the rest of your life?”
“I’ve given this a lot of thought, Darcy. Yes, I could live here all my life. I’ve traveled a lot. I’m tired of traveling. I like my work here, I like the guys I hang with. I like eating fish I’ve caught right out of the ocean. I like seeing the stars without light pollution, and I like that I can admit that and it doesn’t make other people think I’m odd or weak. I’ve been part of the world of lawyers and judges and writs and summonses and that’s not for me. It’s not who I am. I’ve been discovering who I am and what I want since I’ve been here. And I want to live here, on the island, with you.”
Darcy nodded. “But not in this house.”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. But I don’t want this house to be what you choose over me.”
“So we’re kind of talking about deal breakers,” Darcy said.
“If you want to put it that way, yes.”
“It seems clinical. Cold.”
Nash shrugged. “You’ve often said you thought you got married to Boyz too quickly. You rushed it, you didn’t get to know each other, you were all about what you dreamed would happen and you never took time to understand the reality.”
“I did say that, didn’t I?” Darcy nodded, her mind working fast now. “So here’s another, I guess you could call it, deal breaker. I’ve come to care for Boyz’s stepdaughter, Willow. She loves books, like I do, like you do. She’s smart and funny and working hard to make sense of life, as if anyone can make sense of life. What I’m trying to get at is, Willow might be part of my life. Maybe not, I don’t know, but I’d like her to be part of my life. I’d like to have her visit here, by herself, without her family, but it means I’ll have to be in touch with Boyz and Autumn. Would that bother you?”
“I don’t think so. We both know we have complicated pasts. It would bother me if having Willow in your life changed whether you’d want to have children. Your own children. Do you want that?” Nash asked.