Angel's Peak (Virgin River #10)(62)

“What are you doing up? And in your fancy dress?”

“I dunno,” she answered with a shrug. “Can we twick or tweet again?”

“It’s two in the morning, Rose. Everyone is in bed. Everyone but you.”

“The candy,” Franci moaned. “A sugar charge, then a sugar drop-off, and then a recharge.” She lifted up on an elbow and looked down at Sean. “Your turn, Daddy. You’re on bacation.”

Franci was a little surprised by how much relief she felt when Maureen left town; she hadn’t realized that Sean’s mother made her tense. Once it was back to just the three of them, life seemed calmer. Simpler and easier. When Franci worked, Sean was in charge; when Franci was home, Vivian didn’t interfere, but left them to what passed for family life. It wasn’t as though she and Sean had made concrete plans, though they couldn’t until Sean had some idea what was next for him with the air force. They were still rolling along, one day at a time. They did a lot of talking about the possibilities, but so much was up in the air until Sean had some idea what his next assignment would be.

They hadn’t said the I love you’s yet, at least not in the clear light of day. She’d heard him whisper it in the dark of night when he thought she was asleep. But everything they talked about had them moving forward as a team as best they could under such uncertain circumstances.

Franci decided that when Maureen came back to town, which she was planning to do fairly soon, she would make the time to have a private conversation with her, make sure they were on the same page, so their relationship could be as smooth and tension free as possible—for all their sakes.

One thing that she had to deal with immediately, however, was T.J. She hadn’t spoken to him in more than a week—ever since that last call he’d made to her cell phone while she was working in Redding. She could almost feel the trouble brewing like a storm cloud—he had stopped calling and she had made no effort to get in touch with him. It was a standoff. She had to put it to rest. Even if she and Sean didn’t go one step further in their relationship, she’d never again spend time with T.J.

She knew he kept office hours on Thursdays when he was in town, so after teaching her two classes she went to his office. She found he was in conference with a student when she arrived, so she jotted a note on the clipboard hanging outside the closed door. Went to get a soda, she wrote. Be back in ten minutes to see you. When she returned, his door was ajar and he was seated at his desk in the small campus office. She tapped on the open door and he looked up. Then he sat back in the chair, pulled off his reading glasses and swiveled in her direction. “Come in, Francine. Close the door. I’ve been wondering when you’d show up.”

“I should have stopped by sooner, but life got real hectic,” she said, entering and pulling the door closed. There was one chair beside his desk and she sat there.

“I can imagine,” he said. “How’s the new guy working out?”

She laughed uncomfortably. “That was direct,” she said. “He’s not new, as you already know. And he came with a mother and four brothers and lots of other complications. But we’re getting along just fine, thank you.”

“I can see that,” he said.

She tilted her head and frowned a little bit. “You can?”

He leaned toward her. “I used to be the one to put that shine in your eyes.” Then he laughed when she took on a slight blush. “So…I guess it’s all settled. You’re taking the leap. You’ve moved on.”

She didn’t know what to say for a moment. She was frankly surprised to find he was as pleasant as that. “I guess you’re letting me off without any explanation.”

“Don’t waste your breath. No matter what you say, Francine, we both know you’re making a big mistake here. And we both know you’re going to do it, anyway.”

“Mistake? Do you have any idea what it is I’m doing? Because I don’t recall explaining my plans to you.”

“As if that’s necessary,” he said with a harsh laugh. “You’re going to give up everything you’ve established here—the stability of your job, your friends, the option of a normal relationship with a man you can count on who will make sure your happiness comes first. And you’re going to do that for some flyboy kid who wouldn’t commit to you in the first place. You’ll end up sorry. Unhappy and full of regrets. He let you down before and he’ll let you down again.”

Ah. Now that was what she expected. She almost smiled—she’d never seen this side of T.J. when he was ordering her meals and asking her to grow out her hair, and she wondered now how she could have been so naive. Undoubtedly he thought he had been doing her a great service. But the second Sean turned up, he’d let his true colors come out. He must have thought she would defer to him forever. He thought he owned her. She leaned toward him. “When did you turn into this person?” she asked, her voice rather soft under the circumstances. “Were you always like this and I just didn’t realize it? When you were telling me what to eat and how to wear my hair—was that just the tip of the iceberg and I was too accommodating to understand what a mistake it was to allow that behavior?”

He actually sneered at her. “How like you to see the worst in a good situation. I should have known better than to get mixed up with someone like you. You’re a child.”