“I’m not!” she protested.
“Then prove it. Go away with me.”
She shook her head. “What’s the point?”
He flipped the rocker back upright. “I care about you and I think you care about me. That’s the point. But you won’t even give us a chance.”
“Because we don’t stand a chance,” Hattie said sadly. “Our lives are literally a continent apart. Suppose we do run away for a weekend? What happens after that? You have a business, and family in L.A. You’re inevitably going back there. And I’m not. My roots, my life, are here in Savannah. Tug told me this week that in the next two years he wants to turn the business over to me. I’m not like you, Mo. I can’t just ‘take a meeting’ in New York one day, then fly out to L.A. the next.”
He knelt down on the floor in front of her and grasped both her hands. “I’m not asking you to do anything like that. Honest. I’m not. I’ve got this great idea, and I think I can make it work, but only if you’re a part of it.”
Hattie bit her lip and gazed down at him. She wanted to run her fingers through his dark hair, experience more kisses, take a long, sunset walk on the beach, and then spend a Sunday morning in bed with him, but she knew these could only be fleeting moments.
Giving up Mauricio Lopez might be the hardest thing she’d ever have to do. Losing Hank had been the worst, but she hadn’t had a choice in that, had she? He’d been taken, in an instant. It had taken her seven years to find a man as good, and decent, and kind as Hank Kavanaugh. And now she had to let him walk away.
“I can’t,” she said, disentangling their hands. “You say you work in reality television? But we both know it’s all a lie. Interior decorators in designer jeans swinging sledgehammers for the camera. Jury-rigged light fixtures. And phony romances. That’s your reality. But it can’t be mine.”
She pushed herself up from the rocking chair and took one last look at the sky outside. Only the faintest fingers of orange were visible on the horizon.
“Go back to L.A., Mo,” she said wearily.
“I’ll go, but I’m coming back, Hattie,” he said. “And when I do, you’ll have to listen.”
73
One Week Later
Hattie closed the lid of her computer and rubbed her eyes. She’d been looking at real estate listings all morning, but the pickings were slim.
“Find anything?” Zenobia asked, walking past to drop a stack of invoices on her desk.
“Nothing we can afford,” Hattie said. She leafed through the bills. “Damn. All these vendors want their money from the Creedmore job ASAP.”
“Looking at over twelve thousand for the windows alone,” Zenobia commented. “Lumber’s another eight thousand, and that’s after I talked Guerry into giving us a deeper discount. Scotty Eifird wants his money too.”
“I thought we got the HVAC in exchange for promotion,” Hattie protested.
“Yeah, but Scotty’s guys don’t work for free, and we only got the units donated. Not the ductwork. So that’s another six thousand.”
“Damn,” Hattie said.
Her phone rang and she picked it up. It was Al Makarowicz.
“Hi, Al,” she said. “How are things out on Tybee? Got any crime sprees going?”
“Oh, yeah, doing a booming business in jaywalkers and bike thieves. And yesterday I nabbed a guy who tried to run out of the IGA with a twelve-pack of Natty Lite shoved down his sweatpants. I’m headed into town and thought you might want to take a ride with me.”
Hattie looked around the office. It was nearly noon. Tug was in his office, with the shade pulled down. Probably taking a nap, she surmised.
“Want to tell me what this is about?” she asked.
“You’ll see.”
She was waiting on the sidewalk in front of the office when Makarowicz pulled up in his cruiser.
“Long time, no see,” she said, sliding into the front seat. “Anything happening with your case? I saw that big story Molly Fowlkes did in the Morning News on Sunday. I guess it’s good news that Davis is going to plead out, right?”
“It’ll save the county and the city a bunch of money,” Makarowicz said. “And he’ll escape the death penalty. The district attorney is asking for life without parole.”
“Part of me hopes he rots in prison. But I still feel bad for his little girl,” Hattie said. “What’s happening with the Creedmores?”