Kate & Walker: The Collection

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

“So you’re a dentist?” she asked.

What was it about meeting someone for the first time and having to figure out what to say that was so damn hard? For some it was easy, that art of directing a conversation. Then there were those who’d only mastered the art of talking about themselves. She’d dated many of those, the type of guy that made her feel so comfortable that, for a minute, she wanted to trust them with anything and everything, to open up and tell them her biggest, darkest secrets. Big mistake.

It hit her why she was wound so tightly, sitting there in that trendy restaurant, combing her brain, trying her damnedest to think of something intelligent to say: because Ryder was not the typical guy she dated. He was different, and she was determined to remain hopeful that he was, in fact, the real deal.

He flashed her that spectacular dimpled grin, showing off a perfect set of straight white teeth. Of course, being a dentist, he’d had his own teeth fixed, because no one could naturally have been born with such a perfect set of teeth. He held up his hand as he steered the conversation. “I need to clear up a few things first. Just so you know, I’m thirty-five, not twenty-eight. Don’t like to put all my personal information on the Internet. You know, hackers.”

He had a deep voice. Normally, she loved a man’s deep voice, but Ryder’s lacked something. It seemed so practiced and unauthentic. Maybe it was just guilt in his voice from lying about his age, or maybe she was getting surface talk without anything genuine. She considered what he’d said, doing the math in her head. She liked older, but thirty-five? That was thirteen years on her. Then again, he did look good—but there was a big difference between five years and thirteen years, considering women lived, on average, longer than men. Her technical mind kicked in. When she’d be in her prime, he’d be an old man.

“Wow, I just can’t get over how gorgeous you are.” He gestured at her from across the cozy table for two in the corner by the window. It was a nice spot, and she wondered how he’d managed to snag it, considering the wait list for tables in this restaurant was weeks, if not months, long.

“Thank you,” she said, still ruffled from her ungraceful fall in the doorway. She still wondered whether he’d seen it. Maybe it was the gentleman in him that prevented him from mentioning it. She actually looked around, glancing quickly to see where the attractive man who’d helped her up had disappeared to.

A waiter appeared with menus and took their drink orders. She ordered a glass of their house white, he the red, and they chatted about the weather, the tourists, and then about him. He liked to talk about himself—a lot.

“So you’re a Red Sox fan, living in Oregon, grew up in Kentucky, one brother, two sisters, you don’t like to dance, you raced in a triathlon last year, and you hate the water,” she said just as the waiter approached. She took a healthy sip from her glass of wine. It was good, fruity, something different. “Hmm, yummy. How’s yours?”

He was watching her. “Ah, haven’t tried it.” He picked up his glass, took a sip. “Good,” he said as the waiter pulled out his notepad to take their orders.

She ordered the restaurant’s trademark shrimp dish. Ryder ordered the curry. The waiter left with their menus, and an uncomfortable silence followed, so she took another generous sip of her wine.

He was watching her with light blue eyes, not green. Why did that stranger keep popping into her mind? He wasn’t gorgeous like Ryder. No, he had a roughness about him that had been so damn attractive. Stop thinking about him!

“I guess I talk a lot about myself. Sorry,” he added. “You must think I’m strange, living so close to the ocean but hating it. Never liked boats either—get seasick. What about you?”

“I like the water, boats, being on the ocean. My dad was a commercial fisherman at one time, so you could say I spent a better part of growing up on a boat—”

“Wow, really? I knew a commercial fisherman, was one of my patients. He had bad teeth, crooked, needed bridge work. Very depressed and very negative about life in general, always on about what a crappy year it was, happy only if he could complain about something…”

She couldn’t believe he’d cut her off. It was as if he hadn’t even heard her, and he was still talking about Joe Shmoe, whom she didn’t give two hoots about. Like, seriously?

“Sorry,” he said, this time looking about as uncomfortable as she felt. “I can see I’m taking over again. You’re so quiet. Tell me about you,” he added with enthusiasm.

Really? Talk about putting her on the spot. It was kind of hard to talk when he kept interrupting, and there was something annoying about people who didn’t know how to listen. There were, as far as Kate was concerned, two types: those who talked and those who listened. This guy was a talker.

She had to remind herself to try. After all, she had enjoyed their emails back and forth, and the phone chat had been good. He wasn’t bad looking even though he was thirty-five. Most important, he had a job, a very good one, a professional career. That said a lot, right? Maybe he was nervous. Yes, that had to be it. First dates always sucked.

“Well,” she said, “I know one way to learn about each other is to talk, but as I learned a long time ago, it’s not what you say, it’s what you do. The first time someone shows you who they are, believe them.”

“Wow, very philosophical.” He smiled, sitting back and lifting his wine. “I like it. Tell me more about yourself. What do you do?”

“Me? I’m an assistant front desk manager at the Hotel Monaco. I’m single—that’s why we’re here. I love to jog, play baseball, read. Grew up here in Portland. You know, I find talking about myself really difficult. I do find that getting to know someone is more about spending time with them.” She wondered for a moment whether he understood what she was saying. Talkers were quite often just that, all talk. The quiet ones, who were deliberate and just did…well, that said a lot about them.

He appeared to consider what she was saying, then smiled again with another uncomfortable silence. Maybe she was boring him, being vague. Hell, she was boring herself trying to think of something exciting and novel to say.

“So,” she said, “how come you moved all the way out to Oregon from Kentucky?” May as well get him talking about himself again.

“School brought me here. I just stayed after. Married and divorced here,” he said.

She tried to remember his profile. It had said single, not divorced. He had never once mentioned anywhere that he had been married. She wondered whether he had kids. Eek, at twenty-two she wasn’t looking to be a mom to anyone anytime soon. His profile had said no kids, hadn’t it? Now she was struggling to remember what exactly it had said.

“Kids?” she asked, and he flashed her that million-dollar smile again.

“Two. I share custody with my ex. They’re five and ten, cute as buttons. Here.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet, flipping to the photos. He was right, they were cute—and so was the woman standing behind them. Not cute, gorgeous. She had long red hair, a great figure.

“Your ex in the photo?” Her voice sounded off, but that had to be the shock of realizing she’d been hoodwinked again, or so it seemed as she stared at the family photo that had them appearing so happy.

“Yeah, that’s Jenna. Great mother to my kids, and I’ll always love her, but we were just never right for each other—like oil and water.”

Unbelievable. How dense could this guy be, showing his date a photo of another woman with his kids—whom he’d neglected to mention? That was just so wrong.

“So why’d you two break up, if you don’t mind me asking?” She had a feeling, watching how cavalier he was, that he was considering what to say.

He shrugged sharply as he lifted his glass of wine, swirling the liquid. “Stuff happens, you know. I was busy with my career, and she wanted something different, something more than I could give her.” He was quiet again and looked down into his wine. Now who was being coy?

“What, did you cheat?” she said. She was kidding, really, but he was being awfully closemouthed after offering so much information about himself moments before. It took her a second to realize she’d hit the nail on the head, because he wasn’t laughing.

“We all do things we’re not proud of. It was a momentary lapse. It meant nothing.”

Oh my good God, she thought. He wasn’t kidding. So he was one of those fuckers. Her dad had been a cheater, always sorry, and then he’d even cheat on the one he’d been cheating with. Kate had watched the merry-go-round of her parents’ marriage: her mom leaving, then going back. She’d spent most of her teenage years feeling as if she were a yo-yo, bouncing back and forth.

“It was one time, Kate. I’m not one of those guys.” When he looked at her, it was the first time she felt as if he really meant what he was saying. He’d suddenly become serious. “I screwed up. My wife and I had been fighting. She’d given everything to the baby, completely ignoring me. I was being a selfish bastard because my needs weren’t being met, and we drifted apart. I was lonely, so I did something I wasn’t proud of. I signed up on an online dating site, looking for…I don’t know what I was looking for, really, but I asked for something casual, and that was where I met her. It was supposed to be no names, just a hookup. I never expected to hear from her again, and that would be the end of it. Felt like crap too, after.”

She didn’t know what to say, so she swallowed more wine and waited, as he seemed to be thinking some pretty heavy thoughts. Gone was his killer smile. He chugged the rest of his wine and slid the glass to the edge of the table, flagging the waiter and gesturing to his glass for another. Of course she didn’t miss how tense he’d become.

“I heard that many guys who sign up online are married even though they say they’re not,” she said.

He gave her a look as he leaned back. “It’s true, many are. Men can be dirty dogs, you know. It’s not an excuse. What I did was deplorable, and I paid the price, but I’m not the same guy.”

“Oh?” What could she say as she started ticking off all the strikes against him? He had lied about his age in a big way, lied about not having been married and the fact that he had kids… What else in his profile was false, she wondered?

“She showed up at my office,” he said, dragging her from her thoughts as she tried to think about whether she could skip dessert with the excuse that she had to work early.

“Who?” It took her a minute to realize he was talking about either his wife or the other woman.

He flicked his gaze to her, and gone was the lightness she’d seen there moments ago. No, she could see the weight of something he was carrying as he took his hand and wiped it across his chin. “The woman from online. Two days later, she showed up, sitting in a chair at my dental office when I walked in, getting readied by one of my hygienists. I thought, what are the odds she was suddenly a new patient? That was a line I never crossed, bringing my personal bullshit into the office. But I let it go and kept it light, worried that my hygienist would pick up on what I’d done.

“I gave her the quickest checkup I could and got her the hell out of there, and I made sure my receptionist understood that she was to be referred to another dentist if she called back, with strict instructions that we wouldn’t be able to accommodate her. Of course they had to be wondering what the hell was going on, but at least they didn’t ask. Then she somehow got my cell number, the one I don’t give out to anyone but friends and my staff at work. One night she was waiting by my car as I closed up for the night.”

“Holy s**t, that sounds very stalkerish,” Kate said. She couldn’t believe a woman would stoop to that, and for a second she felt sorry for Ryder.

He rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. “Yeah, well, it was starting to really piss me off, and I told her to back off or I was going to call the cops.”

“Did you?”

He shook his head. “Not right away. I should have, but I was too worried about having something official out there for my wife to find out.”

So he really had cheated on his wife and then stayed with her as if he’d done nothing wrong. Bastard! “That’s so awful. I can’t believe you had to threaten her with the cops. I’ve heard of this happening, but…”

“She didn’t go away,” he said.

She wondered if her jaw could drop any lower.

“Then one day I came home, and she was holding my six-month-old baby daughter. She was in my house. My wife walked into the living room with tea as if they were the best of friends, introducing her to me. I was watching this crazy woman—Cindy was her name—and I realized then, I’m so totally screwed. This woman wasn’t going away. I pulled her aside when my wife was down the hall changing the baby, and I asked her what the hell she was doing in my house, with my wife. She touched me and said if I hadn’t ignored her calls, she wouldn’t have approached my wife at all. She had the gall to say they met in the park. And you know what really scared me?”

Ryder glanced up at the waiter, who set another glass of red in front of him. He smiled politely, took another swallow of wine, and then flicked his gaze, all serious now, back to Kate. “She talked about my oldest daughter, and she knew things about her: where she went to school, what she’d worn the other day, things I hadn’t even realized about my own kid. It was enough that I knew she’d been watching my kid, my family, my house. I knew then that I couldn’t ignore her, or this, anymore. So I called the cops, told my wife, and my marriage was over. That same night, I was packing my bags and moving out. The cops went and talked with her one on one and told her to go away and stop bugging me. Then I got a restraining order. She was good for a while. She stayed away.”

Gone was the happy, charming Ryder. This Ryder was humbled, not the cocky bullshitter who had been sitting there moments before. Kate really did feel kind of sorry for the guy. Although she didn’t like cheaters, what Cindy had done was almost psychotic and way over the top. Talk about learning your lesson! “You mean she kept coming around, broke the restraining order?”

“Not in a way that the police could arrest her, but yeah. Just far enough away.”

“Well, what did this woman want?”

“Me,” he said, and it wasn’t arrogant or cocky. It was sad and pathetic.

She didn’t know what made her look—the flash of lights she caught from the corner of her eye or the sedan squealing and speeding up onto the sidewalk through the front window, coming right toward them. In that moment, when time froze, she saw every detail: the car, the GM logo on the front, the person behind the wheel, the shattered glass, the dishes on the table, the screams, the shouts…

However it happened, the next thing she knew, she was on the ground. In a moment of quiet, she looked up at the c*****e from the floor.