So she should be happy. And she was. But as the train emerged from the Penn Station tunnel system and trundled past the high-rise apartment buildings and the projects, she felt as though she was leaving something important in the city.
Gray.
God, she missed him already. Even though she had no idea what she was to him. Did they have a relationship? She wasn't sure. He called her, took her out, treated her with kid gloves and the utmost respect. But he never talked about feelings, or the future, or where they were going. It was, she supposed, like dating a ghost. When they were in front of you, they had your total attention. When they disappeared, you realized how little of them you'd seen.
Shaking her head, she flipped through the most recent issue of Vogue with quick fingers and careless eyes. She barely noticed the clothes, taking more interest in jettisoning the subscription flyers and ripping out the perfumed inserts that made her sneeze.
From across the aisle, she heard the soft, electronic dialing of a cell phone. She glanced over as a businessman put some NASA-worthy silver gadget up to his ear. The guy must have been in his late twenties, just like her, but he seemed way out of her league with his Wall Street clothes and his stylish, dark-rimmed glasses.
"Hey," the guy said softly. "I'm glad you got my message. No, nothing. I was just calling to see how you're doing."
Joy looked away, trying not to eavesdrop.
"Today was awful, but thanks for asking." He laughed. "You're sure you want the gory details?" Another chuckle. "Okay … "
Definitely talking to his wife. Sharing his life with her.
Joy shifted in her seat. Crossed and then recrossed her legs. She tried to imagine Gray unloading his stress the way the guy across the aisle was doing with his woman. She couldn't.
In the past week, Gray had reestablished himself as a great listener and a lousy talker. He always asked how she'd spent her time, where she'd gone, who she'd seen. But he never volunteered anything about himself. And when she inquired about his day? Like the politicians he worked with, he always gave her a smooth, solicitous, empty answer.
Last night at the bar, she'd been so hopeful when his friend had brought up Gray's work. But then he'd changed the topic. Sternly.
The man across the aisle laughed again. "You're right. I probably shouldn't have gotten on my high horse. But the guy was undermining me in front of- I know. Yeah."
The respect in his voice was hard to hear.
Joy looked down at her lap and realized she'd linked her fingers together and was sitting up straight. It was a pose right out of Grand-Em's old-fashioned playbook. The proper way for a lady to sit.
As if good posture might make her worthy of being Gray's confidante.
How pathetic.
With a series of jerks and shuffles, she tried to loosen herself up and to not dwell on how Gray saw her. The former was a success as she curled one leg under her butt and slouched against the window. The latter was an abject failure.
When she'd pressed him on why he wouldn't talk about his work, afraid that he didn't think she was sophisticated enough, all he'd said was no, that wasn't it. Which was not the same thing as, No, you are not hopelessly provincial and incapable of understanding the big, bad sandbox I play in. It just meant there was another reason he kept to himself other than her being simpleminded.
Which she knew she was. At least compared to him and the kinds of people he was used to. After all, she hadn't come to him as a woman of the world, but as a virgin from the sticks.
God, when she thought of it like that, what in good heavens had given her the confidence to get into his bed in the first place? Or to stand up to him the following morning? Or to turn him down at Tiffany's?
Certainly she'd done all of those things. It just seemed, as the train got farther and farther from the city, she couldn't remember how.
Maybe there was something in the Manhattan water. Like a mineral that activated the brain's chutzpah receptors.
"About twenty minutes," the businessman was saying. "Which is a godsend. I'm half asleep as it is."
Joy pictured the woman on the other end of the call and wanted to be that person in Gray's life. The one he sought out for counsel. The one he called when he was unsure. The one he held at night-
"I love you, Mom," the man said as he hung up.
Okay, strike that. She didn't want to be Gray's mother.
But she would have loved the opportunity to be his equal. His partner.
Although that wasn't likely to happen anytime soon. He wanted her, but he wasn't willing to take her to bed. He liked her well enough, but affection wasn't love. He felt badly for treating her as he had, but that was hardly a basis for a relationship.
And as she'd told him, fielding his regrets wasn't something she was interested in.
After all, how many romantic movies had the hero and heroine embracing in the rain, their future finally clear as the man whispers, I guilt you, I truly, truly guilt you.
Yeah, right. Now there was a happy-ever-after.
So the question was, Why was she holding on?
Hope, she thought. Hope and … love.
There was just something that drew her to him. And that pull was making her resent every mile that took her farther north.
She wiggled around, drumming her fingers on the armrest. As the city receded and the suburbs began to dominate the landscape, she thought it was a little bizarre that she now knew how to get around the Big Apple. Sure, she was far from being a native, but she was familiar with the basic layout of the streets and avenues and the locations and characters of the different neighborhoods.
Heck, the Flat Iron District now meant something to her. And she could actually find it without a map. Although why Sixth Avenue had to be called the Avenue of the Americas she couldn't understand. And circumnavigating the subway system was still a little scary.
She actually wanted to be pounding the pavement right now, heading to the garment dealers to look at samples. She'd grab a deli sandwich on the run and eat it quickly. Maybe stop later for some Zabar's coffee that she could take out onto the street with her. She'd rush along with the other pedestrians, visions of the gowns she would make for her clients filling her mind.
As night fell, she would meet Gray for dinner at some interesting, out-of-the-way restaurant. And this time, when he took her home, he would kiss her. Come upstairs with her. Stay until morning.
By the time the train pulled into the Croton/Harmon station, and the young businessman got off, she realized she didn't want to go home. At all.
The reticence struck her as a betrayal.
But if she was honest, heading toward White Caps made her feel as though she was strapping on a yoke. Or stepping into clothes that no longer fit. She didn't want to go back to being the younger sister of super-competent Frankie. The sole keeper of Grand-Em. The one who'd missed and now worried so much about Alex. She didn't want to be the good old reliable, never-ruffle-the-feathers, follow-the-rules, Joy Moorehouse.
She much preferred being a woman in the big city. Who was starting up a new business. Who was free to go where she wanted, when she wanted, without worrying about who would cover for her with an elderly person. She wanted to be that person who could tell Cassandra Cutler what would look good and be right about it. Who could find her way around New York and be comfortable in the back of a taxi all by herself.
Most of all, she wanted to go back to being a lover capable of making Gray Bennett burn until he lost his voice.
She buried her face in her hands, feeling selfish. Frankie had given up so much to become a parent after their mother and father had died. Grand-Em hadn't asked to lose her faculties and she deserved to be cared for properly by someone who loved her as Joy did. And Alex needed support now, even if he shrank from it.
Maybe it wasn't that she didn't want to see her family. Maybe she just wanted them to see her in a different light.
Until recently, it was as if she'd gone through life as a kite in the wind. Tethered to her family, to White Caps, she'd skated this way and that, never choosing her direction, just responding to the currents. She'd taken business courses in college out of necessity, not because they interested her. She'd known the B&B was losing money and a practical major would mean she could get a higher-paying job and help out more. And while she was at UVM, she'd worked those jobs to save on living expenses, foregoing all that dating and partying. After graduation, she'd come home and cared for Grand-Em because their grandmother desperately needed help and there wasn't enough income to support a nurse.
Put in that context, it seemed like designing a dress for Cassandra was the first thing she'd chosen to do.
Well, that and giving herself to Gray.
Chapter Eleven
WHEN THE TRAIN PULLED into the Albany station, Joy dreaded getting off. Leaving the railcar made her feel as though she were cutting ties with the new parts of herself she'd discovered down in the city.
But then she looked out of the window and saw Frankie.
Her sister was scanning the passengers as they disembarked onto the platform. Dressed in a pair of blue jeans and an Irish knit sweater so big it must have been Nate's, she was so achingly familiar, so beautifully the same. She was home and comfort and stability.
Joy felt tears spike her lashes as she jostled her suitcase and portfolio down the aisle. How could she not want to be with her family? How could she even think of leaving them behind?