Bolted (23 page)

“Would you like us to help you?” Greta knelt down beside her.

Hyacinth shook her head quickly. “No. I don’t want anybody around when I let her go.”

Greta blew out a breath, then stood up again. “Okay, then. We’ll leave you.” She turned back toward the door.

“People do too eat turtles.” Ryan sounded triumphant. “Turtle soup. They eat turtle soup.”

“Oh for Christ’s sake, Ryan,” Greta exploded. “Not now. You can correct me later. For now, zip it!”

“No,” Hyacinth wailed. “No, no, no! You can’t eat Carolina.”

Hank took hold of Ryan’s elbow, propelling him speedily toward the door. “Who are you, Anthony Bourdain? Let’s go for a walk.”

Greta turned back quickly toward Hyacinth. “Nobody will want to eat Carolina. She’s not the kind of turtle people eat. Besides, turtle soup isn’t something people like to eat much anymore. That was a long time ago. Don’t worry, Hyacinth. Nobody will use Carolina for dinner.” She hurried outside after Ryan and Hank.

They stood on the path outside, their shadows caught by the lights from the hotel. Hank had Ryan’s collar bunched in his fist, yanking him up so that he was resting on his toes. “What the hell is it about you and eating turtles? Hasn’t anybody ever taught you how to keep your friggin’ mouth shut? When the lady says zip it, she means zip it!”

“We ate snapper soup, Greta and me,” Ryan retorted, squirming against Hank’s grip. “In Philadelphia.”

“You heard the man,” Greta said through clenched teeth. “Zip it! I do not care what we ate anymore. Besides, those were snapping turtles and we’re a long way from Philadelphia. And people don’t really eat it much anymore even there.”

“But—”

Greta balled her hands into fists. “Ryan, for the love of heaven, stop trying to get the last word. If you say anything more on this topic, either Hank or I will bash you. Possibly both of us. And we will enjoy doing it. Do I make myself clear?”

He narrowed his eyes, his chin squaring mutinously, but then he nodded.

Greta stepped back inside the shed door. “We’ll leave now, Hyacinth. I know you’ll do the right thing. If you love Carolina, you’ll want what’s best for her.”

She turned without looking at Ryan. He wouldn’t have any reason to stay outside the shed to wait for Hyacinth and Carolina once she and Hank had left. Unless he just wanted to cause trouble, in which case she really would bash him.

Hank stepped beside her, taking her hand again as they walked. “Snapper soup?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Nasty stuff. Snapping turtles are really boney and sort of awful, but it used to be a big deal in Philadelphia so we had to try it. I guess they make it with stew beef now. Do you think she’ll do it?”

“Release Carolina?” He shrugged. “Yeah, I think she will.”

“Greta?” Ryan’s voice sounded from behind them.
Well, crap.

She turned, jaw tense, still holding tight to Hank’s hand. “What?”

“We still need to talk. Or I do anyway.”

She sighed. Losing her temper would feel wonderful, but it probably wouldn’t accomplish anything besides making her feel wonderful. And she
so
wanted to get rid of him.

Hank raised an eyebrow. “Want me to bash him now?” he murmured. “I can’t guarantee anything in terms of results, but I’d have fun doing it.”

She shook her head. “Give me ten minutes, okay?”

“If you say so.” He gave her hand a quick squeeze, then turned toward the back door.

Greta gestured toward a garden bench—not, thank god, the bench where she and Hank had done their owl imitations—and sat. “This is the last time I’m doing this, Ryan. Whatever you think you need to say to me, you should say it now. After this, we’re done.”

He sank down beside her, rubbing his hands on his thighs as if he were wiping off sweat. Nervous? Ryan was nervous? That made no sense at all—she didn’t think she’d ever seen him nervous in the entire two years they’d been married.

“I thought you might have hurt yourself,” he blurted.

She blinked. Definitely not what she’d been expecting—not that she’d been expecting anything in particular. “Hurt myself? When?”

“When you left. When your mother called me. I thought…you know. You might have been upset.”

The penny slowly dropped. Greta stared at him. “You thought I’d try to kill myself? Over you?”

“Well…” He had the grace to look somewhat embarrassed, staring down into the dirt so that he wouldn’t have to meet her gaze. “I mean, I didn’t know what had happened to you. And I was worried. I thought, you know, I’d made you so unhappy…”

For a moment, she was furious.
Over you? Kill myself over you?
And then a giggle worked its way loose. “You thought…” Another giggle, then another. “You thought I…” And then she was whooping, resting her head against the back of the bench, laughing so hard she could hardly catch her breath.

Ryan stared, his mouth partly open, his forehead furrowed. “Damn it, Greta. That’s not fair.”

It took her a few more moments to stop, and then she shook her head, gasping. “What’s not fair?” She wrapped her arms around her waist, concentrating on breathing. At least she’d managed to slow the laughter down to the occasional eruption of snickers.

“Laughing at me. I was really worried about you. I didn’t know what might have happened. It’s not funny anyway. I thought I might have driven you to it, that it was one more thing I’d screwed up. I was…frightened for you.” He suddenly looked a lot like Hyacinth, chin up, lower lip extended.

Greta closed her eyes for a moment, steadying herself. “Okay, you’ve got a point. Maybe it’s not all that funny. But honestly, Ryan, what was the first thing I did after you came home that day when Dorothy dropped her little bombshell?”

He sighed. “You threw something at me.”

She nodded. “I threw my copy of
Larousse Gastronomique
, which I’d picked up because I was thinking of going back to work at that point. It’s a very heavy book.”

“You missed.”

“Lack of practice.” She shrugged. “People who throw things do not kill themselves, Ryan. They’re more inclined to murder than suicide. That’s what I was contemplating at the time.”

“I didn’t understand that was how you felt. We didn’t really talk. Besides, it’s been months. I wasn’t sure how you were feeling now.”

“You didn’t know how I felt.” She closed her eyes for a moment, then shook her head. “You didn’t ask. And I didn’t ask. We just sort of let it go, didn’t we? We really weren’t very good at being married, Ryan.”

He shook his head slowly. “I guess not.”

She put her hand on his arm. “Go back to Dorothy, okay? I think she knew what she was talking about when she said we weren’t right for each other. I don’t know whether she’s right for you or not, but I’m pretty sure I’m not. And she’ll look a lot better at company dinners than I ever did.”

Ryan stared down at his hands. “Dorothy’s gone.”

“She left you?” Greta blinked. “That does surprise me.” Dorothy seemed to have had their entire future worked out.

“I told her to go.” He looked up at her again. “That whole thing with inviting you to lunch and then telling you about her and me—that was a shitty thing to do.”

Yep.
She shrugged. “I hope you gave her a good severance package. She might have grounds for a harassment suit.”

“She got a great severance package.” He paused. “Dad gave it to her.”

Okay, tricky.
Ryan’s father hadn’t been one of Greta’s biggest fans. In fact, she was willing to bet he’d been expecting somebody more like Dorothy to be his daughter-in-law. But his company was definitely big time. And Ryan was one of his shining stars. Or he had been. Scandal would not be something he’d be crazy about. “Did your father send you here to find me?”

“What?” Ryan stared at her, shaking his head. “No. He doesn’t know where I am.”

“But he’s unhappy with you?”

“You might say that.” He rubbed his eyes. “I’m on leave of absence for a few weeks. He wants to make sure there are no repercussions.”

“Repercussions?”

“I guess Dorothy talked a lot about the two of us. A lot of people around the office knew we were…seeing each other.”

Screwing each other, actually. Terrific.
Well, she hadn’t planned on spending any time around Ryan’s office anyway, but it was another reason not to go back to Boston. No telling how many of their friends and acquaintances knew about Ryan’s little fling. “I’m sure it will all blow over. You should be able to go back soon.”

He shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t even know if I want to go back. I don’t know why I got involved with her anyway, to tell you the truth. She’s not nearly as attractive as you are. And she’s a real bitch sometimes. You’ve got a temper, Greta, but you’re not a bitch. And you’re more fun to talk to than she ever was. All she wanted to talk about was work.”

Which was nice to hear, but a little late. “Anyway…”

“Anyway, then your mom called, and I started worrying. And then I got this idea about coming down here and finding you. That it would be something I could do to sort of make it right. So, you know, here I am.” He shrugged again, his blue eyes wide. For a moment he looked around ten years old. “And I’m glad I came. Sort of.”

I used to love him. Or something.
Whatever it had been, she didn’t feel it now. On the other hand, she did feel a certain amount of sympathy for him. He looked like a lost child all of a sudden rather than the Master of the Universe his father had always wanted him to be.

“Go home, Ryan,” she said softly. “I can’t help you. I wish I could in a way. But I really can’t. You need to work this whole thing out for yourself and figure out what you want to do next. And you need to do it somewhere else.”

He glanced around the garden, regretfully. “Maybe. You know, this seems like a really nice place, a good place to think about things.”

She nodded. “Yeah, it is. But I got here first. And it’s not big enough for both of us.”

“Really?” He gave her one of those winning, boyish smiles she used to find so endearing. “Maybe if I stayed, we could sort of figure things out together.”

“No
,
we couldn’t,” Greta said firmly.

“No chance at all?”

She shook her head. Endearing smile and all, he was history. “No chance at all.”

He sighed. “Okay.” He gave her another one of those smiles, this time with a dimple attached. “How about a kiss for old time’s sake?”

You have got to be kidding me.
“Nope.”

He sighed again. “All right. If that’s the way you want it. Maybe I’ll head back to the city.” He pushed himself to his feet, his expression stoic.

“Wait.” Greta sighed, getting to her feet beside him. She leaned over and brushed her lips across his, running her fingers along his cheek. “Take care of yourself, Ryan.”

He nodded. “You too.” He turned and started toward the garden gate, then looked back just before he reached it. “If you ever need anything, just, you know, call.”

“Right.” She folded her arms across her chest, watching him walk away.

“That was interesting.”

She turned toward the darker part of the garden. Hank lounged on their bench.

“Were you here for all of that?”

He shrugged. “Pretty much. I thought about making noise so you’d know I was sitting here, but then I got caught up in the conversation.”

She walked deeper into the darkness of the maples. Hank leaned back, resting one shoulder against a cast-iron armrest.

“You shouldn’t have been eavesdropping, but I guess it doesn’t matter. Are you upset about any of that?”

He shook his head. “Should I be? I hadn’t planned on it.”

She sank down beside him. “He really is clueless. Believe it or not, he’s good at what he does. But he’s totally inept when it comes to people. I’m just beginning to figure that out.”

“Still. He should have known not to cheat on you.”

She sighed, pushing a lock of hair away from her eyes. “He should have. On the other hand, Dorothy was the determined type. A lot more determined than I am. My guess is he never knew what hit him.”

Hank pushed himself upright, running his fingers down the slope of her nose. “Do you really want to talk about your ex-husband right now?”

A shivery feeling seemed to circulate from her neck downward, tightening her nipples and spreading to her stomach.
The nose is an erogenous zone? Who knew?
“No, I do not want to talk about Ryan now. Or ever again, as far as that goes.”

“Good.” He slid his arm around her waist, bringing her closer. “We’ve got other things to talk about. Or not talk about as the case may be.”

“I vote for not.” She looped her arms around his neck, drawing his mouth down to hers.

The combination of moonlight and Hank was just as intoxicating as ever. She dug her fingers into his hair, feeling the short, silky strands under her fingertips, then moving her palms along the sides of his head, letting her thumbs skim across the tops of his ears.

After a moment, he raised his head, staring down at her, the corners of his mouth inching up. “You don’t play fair, woman.”

“Was I supposed to?” She let her lips skate down the side of his throat, then dipped her tongue into the indentation at the base.

He cupped her face in his hands, drawing her back to his kiss. His tongue plunged deep in her mouth, and heat pooled in her abdomen. She brought her thighs together, feeling the throb of desire between them.

After another moment, he rested his forehead on hers. “You know, this hasn’t happened to me all that often. I’ve never run into a woman who could send me from zero to a hundred and twenty in a matter of seconds. Not until now, anyway.”

She caught her breath. “It’s not all that typical for me either.”

He pulled back to look at her again. “We can’t stay here, you know. Another five minutes and we’ll be down on the grass. And this time we might actually run into Hyacinth, assuming she decides now is the time to release Carolina.”

“Oh.” Suddenly, she felt a little less excited than she had a moment ago. “Poor Hyacinth.”

“Poor Carolina. She’s a turtle. She needs to be out and around.” He stood up, extending his hand to her. “We, on the other hand, could be inside and down.”