“We’ll go with you, check it out.”

“No, I got it. I’ve got some actual work to do. If anything else needs going over tonight, I’ll crib off your notes. See you later.”

“He’s got it bad,” Gage commented as they watched Fox head down Main. “Real bad.”

“Maybe we should go with him anyway.”

“No. We’re not what he wants right now.”

They turned, walking the opposite way as night crept closer.

Eighteen

COUNTING ON PAPERWORK TO KEEP HIM BUSY and distracted, Fox settled down in his home office. Flipping his CD player to shuffle for the variety and surprise factors, he prepared to make up for the fractured workday with a couple of hours at his desk.

He drafted some court petitions on an estate case he hoped to wrap up within another ninety days, shifted to fine-tune a letter of response to opposing counsel on a personal injury matter, then moved on to adjusting the language in a partnership agreement.

He loved the law, the curves and angles of it, its flourishes and hard lines. But at the moment, he was forced to admit, the work couldn’t light a spark in him. He’d be better off cruising ESPN.

The file he’d put together for Layla still sat on his desk. Because it annoyed him, Fox dropped it in a drawer. Stupid, he thought. Stupid to think he understood her simply because he usually understood people. Stupid to think he knew what she wanted because it was what he wanted.

Love, he had good reason to know, didn’t always do the job.

Better to stay in the moment, he reminded himself. He was good at that, had always been good at that. Much better to focus on the now than to push himself, and Layla, toward some blurry and nebulous tomorrow. She had a point about there being no clear future for the town. Who the hell wanted to set up shop in a place that might not exist in a few months? Why should anyone invest the time and the energy, plant the roots, sweat it out, and hope the good guys won in the end? They’d all gotten today’s ugly memo that the clock was ticking down for the Hollow, and for the six of them.

And that was bullshit. Annoyed, he shoved away from the desk. That was absolute bullshit. If people thought that way why did they bother to get the hell out of bed in the morning? Why did most of them at least try to do the right thing, or at least their version of it? Why buy a house or have kids, or hell, buy season tickets if tomorrow was so damn uncertain?

Maybe he’d been stupid to assume where Layla was concerned-he’d cop to that. But she was just as stupid to back away from what they could make together because tomorrow wasn’t lined up in neat columns. What he needed was a different approach, he realized. For Christ’s sake, he was a lawyer, he knew how to change angles, detour around obstacles and reroute to the goal. He knew about compromise and negotiation and finding that middle ground.

So what was the goal? he asked himself as he wandered to the window.

Saving the town and the people in it, destroying the evil that wanted to suck it dry. Those were the big ones, but if he set those life-and-death matters aside, what was Fox B. O’Dell’s goal?

Layla. A life with Layla. Everything else was just details. He’d fumbled the ball on the way to the goal because he’d gotten bogged down with details. The first thing to do was carve them away. Once he did, what was left was a guy and a girl. It was as simple and as complex as that.

He turned back to his desk. He’d toss the file, it was just a symbol of those details. As he reached for the drawer, the knock at the door had him frowning. It had to be Gage or Cal, he thought as he walked out of the office to answer. He didn’t have time to hang out. He needed to work on his more simplified, whittled-down approach to winning the woman he loved.

When he opened the door, the woman he loved stood on the other side.

“Hey, I was just… Are you alone?” His tone changed from flustered surprise to irritation as he grabbed her hand and pulled her inside. “What are you thinking, wandering around town at night alone?”

“Don’t start on me. Twisse will go under after a day like this, and I wasn’t wandering. I came straight here. You didn’t come back.”

“We don’t know what the hell Twisse might be able to do after a day like this. And I didn’t come back because I figured you’d want to get some sleep. Besides, before this afternoon’s performance, you weren’t real happy with me.”

“Which is exactly why I thought you’d come back, so we could talk about it.” She poked a finger at his chest. “You don’t get to be mad at me over this.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. You don’t get to be mad because I didn’t jump headfirst into plans you made without consulting me.”

“Wait a damn minute.”

“No, I will not wait a damn minute. You decided what I should do for the rest of my life, where I should live, how I should make my living. You made a file.” Indignation flashed from her eyes, her voice. From where he was standing, it all but flashed out of her fingertips. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it includes paint chips and possible names for this imaginary boutique.”

“I was thinking puce, color-wise. I don’t think puce gets enough play. As for names, topping my list right now is Get a Fucking Grip-but it probably needs work.”

“Don’t curse at me, or try to make this a joke.”

“If those are your two requirements, you’re in the wrong place with the wrong guy. I’ll drive you home.”

“You will not.” Feet planted, she folded her arms. “I’ll walk when I’m ready to go, and I’m not ready. Don’t even think about kicking me out or I’ll-”

“What?” How could he help but make it a joke? It was ludicrous. He lifted his fists in a boxing pose. “Think you can take me?”

The temper that gushed out of her was hot enough to boil the air. “Don’t tempt me. You sprang this on me. Out of the blue, then when I don’t do a happy dance and fling myself into the program, you walk away. You tell me you love me, and you walk away.”

“Sorry, I guess I needed a little alone time after realizing the woman I’m in love with isn’t interested in building a life with me.”

“I didn’t say-I never meant… Hell.” Layla covered her face with her hands, took several deep breaths. The anger evaporated as she lowered her hands. “I told you once you scare me. You don’t understand that. You’re not easily scared.”

“That’s not true.”

“Oh, yes, yes, it is. You’ve lived with this threat too long to be easily scared. You face things. Some of it’s circumstance, some of it’s just your nature, but you face what comes at you. I haven’t had to do a lot of that. Things were pretty ordinary for me, right up until February. No big bumps in my road, no particularly big moments. All in all, I think I’m doing reasonably well. All in all,” she repeated on a sigh as she began to wander the room.

“You’re doing fine.”

“I’m scared of what’s here, of what’s coming, what may happen. I don’t have Quinn’s energy or Cybil’s… savoir faire,” she decided. “I do have persistence, once I commit to something I do my best to see it through, and I have a way of putting the big picture into components that I can reason out. So that’s something. It’s not as overwhelming, not as frightening when you have those smaller pieces to work with. But I can’t seem to reason things out with you and me, Fox. And that scares me.”

She turned back to him. “It scares me that I’ve never felt for anyone what I feel for you. And I told myself it was okay, it was all right to have all these feelings rush in and grab me. Because everything’s crazy. But the fact is, it’s all crazy, but it’s all real. What’s happening around us, what’s happening inside me, it’s all real. I just don’t know what to do about it.”

“And I added to the mix with the idea of starting a business here, making it more complicated and scary. Understood. We’ll take it off the table. I didn’t look into it to put pressure on you. We’ve all got enough of that as it is.”