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you’ve changed a lot, we don’t want the same things out of a relationship, out of life. It’s too late for couples’ counseling. I’m willing to think about us being friends, but we have to take even something like that very slowly. The world didn’t just stand still after we parted ways, Sean. I went on living.”
“Of course you did, Franci,” he said, reaching for her hand. He held it on the tabletop. “We both tried to get on with things, and both ended up back here.”
“I’m sure we’re not talking about the same things,” she said. “I’m sure your dating was a lot different than mine,” she said, meaning he’d slept with a lot of women. He’d been a real playboy when she met him and she had been a little surprised when he became exclusively hers. Sean going back to his old ways of making the rounds was more what she had expected of him.
“I dated,” he admitted. “Not anything very…Nothing worked out.”
She lifted her chin. “And I became very independent. I hadn’t heard from you in years. I didn’t see this coming.”
“It’s coming,” he said, in a low voice laced with meaning. “Let me take you out to dinner tonight.”
“No,” she said. “I’m busy.”
“Tomorrow night, then.”
“I’m going out—I have plans. I’ll have coffee with you on Sunday afternoon, if you’re free. I’ll talk with you, Sean. Maybe we can put some of our conflict to rest and work out friendlier terms.”
“I want to spend time with you—”
“You better let me think about that. There have been too many changes in my life to step back into a relationship like I had with you.”
“Are you thinner?” he asked, changing the subject. “You seem thinner.”
“I took up running after…Once I moved up here, I started running. I finished two marathons.”
“No kidding?” he said, impressed. He grinned, then winced and touched his cheek. “Well, you look fantastic. I guess running is your thing. It works for you. And the hair—if you’d have said you wanted it cut to the scalp, I would have had a fit, but it’s…it’s hot, that’s what it is.”
She hated that she felt warm all over when he said that. “I’m completely different in a lot more ways than looks,” she said as a warning. “I have baggage that I’ve accumulated in the past few years. I have commitments. For example, my mother and I moved up here together. She was widowed, I was single—it made sense.”
“Sure. How is Viv?” he asked.
“Great. Working in a family practice as a physician’s assistant. She’s glad she made the change—she likes the area and has friends here. And I have two jobs, Sean. I pull a couple of twenty-four-hour shifts with the airlift unit in Redding every week and I teach a couple of courses at Humboldt University—nursing courses. It’s a great schedule for me—gives me the time off I need so I can balance work life and home life. It works for me. I’m committed to both.”
“You’re teaching nursing?” he asked, surprised.
She nodded. “I’ve been doing that for the past year or so. Turns out I like it.”
“My new sister-in-law, Shelby—she’s a student there, in nursing. Cutest thing you’ll ever see. Best thing that ever happened to Luke. Any chance you know her?”
“What year is she in?” Franci asked.
“First year. She got married in her first semester because Paddy and Colin were done with their deployments—she waited for all the Riordans to be available. She’s way younger than Luke and is just starting college.”
Franci tilted her head and smiled, thinking how sweet it was that cranky, womanizing old Luke ended up with a sweet young girl who was determined to get an education. “I’m pretty sure I haven’t met Luke’s wife. Most of the freshmen are stuck in liberal-arts courses the first year. I teach one medical-surgical course and one that boils down to charting ER patients. I’m just one of many instructors. Mostly, I teach juniors and seniors. I share an office on campus with another nursing instructor and I only teach a couple of days a week. Except for meetings, of which there are too many.”
“You never did go for the meetings,” he said with a smile. “I’ll have to tell Shelby to introduce herself. You’ll love her. You’ll—”
“One thing at a time, all right?” Franci asked patiently. “How’s your mom?”
“She’s great. Greater since Luke got married and they’re on the baby trail. She might finally get a grandchild out of one of us, after all.”
Franci flushed. Oh, God, so many people were going to be pissed when they found out about Rosie. She had no idea how she’d have done it differently, however. Well, there was that one way—she could have told Sean about the baby. Good Catholic boy that he was, he’d have married her right off or his mother would have killed him. As she recalled, Maureen Riordan had powerful influence over her sons. “Good for her,” was all she could say. “Sean, this is going to take time. Things have probably changed too much.”
“Not as much as they’ve stayed the same,” he said.
“There’s only one way I can even think about this, and that’s if we get to know each other all over again,” she said. “We can’t go back four years and try to untangle that mess—we have to accept ourselves as the people we are today, and go from here. You said you’re not that guy anymore. And you know what, Sean? I’m not that woman anymore—the one who cried every day after we split up. I’m a lot stronger. We’re both different.”
“Maybe so,” he agreed. “Maybe better,” he suggested. “But, Franci, like it or not, we have history.”
She felt her heart take a fearful jump. “Yeah. You have no idea.”
As it happened, there had been a man in Franci’s life for the past few months. Meeting Dr. T. J. Brookner had been one of the great perks to that little part-time teaching job she’d taken at the college. He was a terrific guy—a marine biologist and professor of oceanography. The forty-year-old was a divorced father of two preteen girls. Franci was one of the few certified divers in the nursing department and was the instructor with the most “open time” in her schedule, so she had been recruited to teach a short first-aid course to freshman dive students. Since she loved diving she jumped at the chance, which is how she met T.J. They ended up going on a couple of dive dates, which led to a few phone calls, which led to a few getting-to-know-you dinners, and what she found was an entertaining man who enjoyed many of the same things she did.
She liked the fact that he was ten years older than she; he seemed settled and he was definitely sure of himself. He had a stable career and was happy with where he was in life. She respected his parameters for a relationship: if they were intimate, they had to be exclusive, and while he was open to the idea of a long-term relationship, it had to be understood up front—he wasn’t having more children. After his second daughter was born, he’d had a vasectomy and he steered clear of women with ticking clocks and the expectations that went along with it. As far as what he was looking for, Franci knew he wanted to meet a fun, attractive, intelligent and mature woman to spend time with.
Franci had no trouble signing on to that deal. It was nice to have someone to dive with, to go on long runs with, even to have sex with. Up to that point, Franci hadn’t done any serious dating—just the occasional evening out with a work colleague, or one of the guys from her running club. For the first time in a long time, she’d been feeling content—she had her little girl, her mom, a job she loved and a guy. What a relief it was to feel settled and on track!
Since Franci hadn’t been associated with the college for long, the gossip about T.J. didn’t reach her right away. She’d already been going out with T.J. for a couple of months when she learned he was known as Professor Hottie by the coeds.