Past Imperfect. Crystal Green
for her. It clawed at her to know that she’d already gotten her big chance for love and it was gone for the rest of her days. After all, who found that sort of connection twice in a lifetime?
“Everything’s okay.” Rachel glanced up at Ian again. “But I don’t date much. I’m…too busy, you know?”
The journalist nodded, but she couldn’t say he was convinced. He still had a knowing look about him. “I’m up on your schedule. Three days a week working for Nate Williams as a paralegal. The rest of the time you’re helping the professor by rounding up evidence…. Check that. You were helping the professor.”
Rachel swallowed at the mention of it. So he’d noticed the way she’d pulled away from Gilbert. You couldn’t fool someone who made a living digging into places his nose didn’t belong.
As she started walking again, Ian fell into step with her. He was tall enough so that she had to lift her head to steal a peek at his face, but he wasn’t too tall.
Good kissing height, she thought, her lips tingling as she glanced at his mouth.
She saw him forming more words, heard them through her filter of loneliness and yearning.
“I noticed,” he said, “that lately you haven’t been very social with your friends, either, Rachel.”
“Told you.” She tore her gaze away from him and focused on the steamed window of a bakery, pastries and cakes decorating the display. “I’ve been busy.”
Oddly accepting, Ian merely nodded. Had he somehow gotten wind of what her friends were saying about her? Fellow Gilbert-admirers such as Sandra and David Westport who often asked her why she’d recently retreated into herself?
The adoption documents. The secrets of her life held in a safe.
As she and Ian continued moving past the boutiques and bookstores, she thought of all the rumors constantly circulating around Gilbert—questions about his relationships with some students, speculations about the tone of his friendly office meetings where the kids would hang out to shoot the breeze and get a good dose of optimism and counseling.
Dammit, Rachel thought. She should know better when it came to her mentor. He’d been nothing but caring and supportive with her, so how could she doubt him so much now?
She and Ian approached the Thai restaurant, and he slowed down, jerking his head toward the entrance.
“Come on,” he said. “Just a snack.”
Rachel brushed a hand over her flat belly. She’d grown up listening to parents who’d told her that she wasn’t worth the food they fed her, so, more often than not, she’d gone without the extras.
It was a pattern, she thought. Something to cling to.
“I’m not really hungry,” she said, even though her stomach was a little flitty. But maybe that wasn’t because of the lack of grub.
Maybe it was a different kind of hunger altogether.
Her heart thudded once again. Ian Beck.
Pure junk food.
“Don’t give me excuses,” he said, tugging on her jacket. “Let’s go inside. It’ll be warmer.”
She protested, but he wasn’t listening. No, instead she found herself easily giving in—yeah, like she put up a real fight—and followed him down a small stairway into the spicy aromas of the restaurant. Five tables clustered around a bar, where a lit menu offered dishes such as panaeng nuea and tom yam goong.
He got the pad thai and turned to her expectantly, blue eyes shining. “You like it hot?”
Somehow, she got the feeling he was referring to more than food. Her face flushed, and she returned his saucy grin. Heck, why not? Miss Popularity—that was her. But, honestly, she was tired of fretting and could actually use a laugh with the reporter—even if she was dangerously close to flirting with him.
“I’m really not in the mood for anything heavy,” she said, hoping he understood her meaning on more than one level. Then she spoke to the counterperson. “Just an iced tea and a glass of water, please.”
“Oooh. Push that envelope.” Ian dug in his back pocket for a wallet, producing several bills that would cover the total.
Rachel told him that she didn’t have any money on her, and Ian answered that it was his treat. Still, she knew she wouldn’t have been able to afford even this tiny bonus splurge on her budget, anyway. Ever since Isaac had fallen ill, she’d been burdened with financial troubles. It had even gotten to the point where she was ready to sell her home to pay all the outstanding medical bills. Thank God for her boss, Nate Williams, who had worked up a payment schedule when she’d refused his offer of assistance. Thank God for Gilbert, too, because he’d mailed her small loans on occasion over the years, even if the two of them hadn’t been as close as they’d been during her college days.
Before she’d let him down by dropping out.
Consequently, she swore she’d pay Gilbert back once she lifted herself up again, swore she’d become the type of person who could handle life on her own, even if it killed her. She would’ve liked to have accomplished this by her thirtieth birthday, but even that had passed by without success.
But what was new?
Ian retrieved a plastic marker with their order number on it and led Rachel to a table by the high window. Here, the two of them could see everyone’s feet as they walked by on the sidewalk: Ugg boots, business shoes, high-fashioned heels and Timberlands, just like the ones he wore.
With a flippant exhalation, he leaned back in his chair, stretching out his legs again, showcasing his boots as he ran a hand through his hair, leaving it sticking up.
“So, Spike,” she said, gesturing to his careless coif, “this is it, then? We’re just hanging out, getting heart-burn, oohing and aahing over noodles?”
“If you were eating anything, I’d be all for it.” He flashed another smile at her, and a slow beat of silence fluttered between them.
“What?” she asked, fidgeting, taking off her knit cap and adjusting her hair. It fell down to her shoulders in the usual tangle of dark curls.
“I’m just…” Ian leaned forward, lowering his voice. “I’m wondering about you, Rachel James. I can’t quite figure you out yet, and that’s pretty rare.”
“Do more research.” She smiled at the waitress who set the beverages and food on the table.
“Don’t worry, I’ll get to more than the basics about this whole story.” Ian dug into his meal as soon as the waitress left. Plastic fork halfway to his mouth, he said, “As far as you go, though, I know about Isaac, obviously. And your job and schedule, because I like to keep tabs on where my sources are when I need them.”
Wow, how heady, she thought as she downed most of her water. I’m his source, in spite of this incredibly intimate snack break and everything.
Not exactly a heart-pounding, fantasy-inducing revelation.
But it was better this way, business-only. Right?
While Ian stuffed noodles into his mouth, Rachel finished her water and began to sip her tea. It was thick and sweet, laden with cubes of ice.
Funny how they didn’t have much to talk about when he wasn’t trying to get a headline out of her. Was now a good time to get personal? Even at first sight, she’d wondered about the details of him: the way one ear was slightly higher than the other, the scuffs on his leather jacket, the been-there-done-that shade of his gaze. The occasional shadow that passed over his eyes during their interviews.
But…no. She didn’t have the gumption.
Instead, to cover the awkward pauses in conversation, she resorted to babbling, even though she’d made it clear that she didn’t want to talk about the hearings. But Gilbert was