In the Waning Light Read Online Free Page B

. . . wow.” She tore her gaze from his, but he cupped the side of her face, forcing her to look back into his eyes.
    “We’ve been together three years now. It’s over two years that you’ve worn this ring, since we made each other this promise in France. The first time I suggested a wedding date, it was that you needed to finish your book, the research. Then it was conflict of interest in the coming trial. There was travel. Time. Then it was financial.” He paused. The silence in the restaurant felt loud—pressed against her ears. The air thickened, tightening her throat. “You have it all now. Your books are all bestsellers. Offers to do more. You’re independently well-off. You’ve checked it all off the list. So, let’s just do it. Tomorrow. This weekend. Next month.”
    Blood drained from her head. She felt dizzy. She opened her mouth to speak, but the waiter came. Frustration sparked through Jonah’s striking face.
    “Are you ready to order, sir?”
    “What’re you having, Meg?” Jonah said, not bothering to look at the menu, nor the waiter.
    “Uh . . . I’ll have . . . the special.”
    “Same.” He handed his menu back to the server, his attention fixed solely on her.
    “Everything all right for drinks?” the server said.
    “Yeah.” Still, his gaze didn’t leave her or waver for a second.
    As the server left, Jonah said, slowly, quietly, “You can’t do it, can you? You cannot commit. Look at you . . . you live in my house, sleep in my bed, but you park your truck and camper and Jetta in my driveway. You keep a supply of clothes in there, a backup laptop. Ready for what? Emergency escape?”
    “The camper is my office.”
    “You could get a real office, you know, with foundations and walls and a roof.”
    “I like the mobility.”
    “You can’t put down roots.” His eyes challenged hers. “It’s just a matter of time before one of the monsters you write about will be released from prison. You should consider security. A proper house, a condo—”
    “I have a house.”
    Compassion entered his features. “Yes, a house in Shelter Bay that now stands empty and borderline condemned. A house covered in graffiti, and tempting squatters, that is now earning you warning notices from the city.”
    “I’ve been meaning to list it, but it’s in a bad state of repair—no one will buy it as it stands.”
    “Then tear it down, for God’s sake. It’s not like you don’t have the money. It’s sitting there sheltering ghosts.”
    “My aunt might want to move back—”
    “ Listen to yourself, Meg. Irene is in an assisted living facility. The prognosis is not good. You’ll be forty in a few years. I’m forty already. It’s a fair time for us to enter a new stage.”
    “What are you trying to tell me, Jonah? That it’s time to grow up? Because maybe I like—”
    “I’m trying to tell you that there are only so many growing seasons to a life, Meg. Only so many years to have children. We spoke about this—kids. A family.”
    Tick tock bio clock.
    She inhaled deeply, drawing on anger now, using it to beat back the biting edge of truth in his words.
    “You haven’t even been to see Irene since she went into that home. You haven’t returned in eighteen years. You can’t put roots down here, yet you can’t go back, either. See? You have not put it behind you. This is not about your work. It’s about your problem with intimacy, with letting people in. You want connection, yet you push people away. You push me away.”
    The server brought food. Meg stared, unseeing, at her plate. Throat tight. Unable to breathe. Skin hot.
    “If you ask me—”
    “I’m not asking you.”
    He continued anyway. “It’s the same thing that cost you the crime desk at the Times .”
    Heat flushed up her chest, neck, and into her face. The curse of a redhead. An anomaly of genetics that embarrassed her into wearing her emotions on her sleeve.
    “Why tonight, Jonah? Why push this