Phoebe woke to the sound of someone cooking in her kitchen.
Patrick.
She put on a T-shirt and jeans and headed into the kitchen just as he was serving up a huge plate of pancakes, which he had sculpted into the shape of a skyscraper. Trust an architect to do that.
Trust Patrick to do that.
He turned as she entered the room and smiled. “You’re awake. Perfect. I made breakfast.”
“I can see that.” Phoebe happily sat down and claimed some of the small mountain of pancakes for herself. “Did you have to come up with blueprints for a stack that high?”
“It’s my signature architectural achievement,” Patrick assured her as he joined her at the table and picked off some of the remaining pancakes. “Buildings will come and go, but people will always remember my refinements in the field of pancake engineering.”
Phoebe laughed at that. She couldn’t not laugh. She hadn’t forgotten what he’d said just as she fell asleep, but right then it was hard not to simply bask in what promised to be a wonderful morning.
Yes, she knew that most people who said “I love you” didn’t hang around for long, but Patrick very definitely wasn’t most people.
And the most amazing thing of all was that just the sight of him sitting in her kitchen, his hair rumpled from sleep with dark bristles across his jaw as he smiled at her with an adoring look in his eyes, was almost enough to make Phoebe want to blurt “I love you” right back at him.
“How did you sleep last night?” he asked.
“Great,” Phoebe replied with a smile she couldn’t contain. “Better than great. This is nice too. Really nice.”
And it was true. When she thought back to the previous night, she couldn’t feel anything but happiness, and having breakfast with him now, she found herself wishing that even this moment would never end. Wishing that every morning could be like this.
Patrick understood her, the real her, not the version of Phoebe Davis that she often felt she needed to put on to make others happy. And with all that he’d done for her mother, he already knew her better than anyone else ever had. Even her friends didn’t truly comprehend how things were with her mother.
And now, she had a great breakfast, memories of a great night, and a wonderful guy who had already proven that he wasn’t the kind to run away.
Yes, it definitely seemed safe to relax and enjoy the moment.
Finally.
Just then, Patrick’s phone buzzed and he frowned briefly as he read the message before putting in back into his pocket. “I can’t believe it’s been two weeks already,” he was saying when his phone buzzed again.
Phoebe felt everything go still inside of her at his mention of the time since they’d met, the same amount of time that he’d been planning on spending in San Francisco before he left for Chicago again. For so long she’d celebrated that “end date” to their relationship…but now she realized she’d spent the past week with Patrick trying to erase it.
So when his phone went off a third time, Phoebe knew she had to ask, “Is something wrong?”
“No, it’s nothing that can’t be dealt with,” Patrick assured her. “There are just a few complications with the job I have lined up after Rose and Donovan’s house. I’ll take care of it later today.”
Tension knotted Phoebe’s stomach and she put down her latest forkful of pancake untouched.
“What job?”
“It’s for a newly married couple up in Chicago,” Patrick said lightly, as though it wasn’t a big deal. “They’re very nice, but I suspect they’re also going to be the kind of couple who have a hard time settling on what they want. They want me to fly out to take care of a few things. Honestly, it could be one of those jobs that takes practically forever. My assistant is texting me with the information for a flight back later today, actually. Hopefully, I shouldn’t need to be there long, just for a few—”
Phoebe couldn’t listen to any more of it. She pushed her plate away and stood up, stepping back from the table.
“Phoebe, what is it?”
She could feel the corners of her eyes stinging with the start of tears. But she wasn’t going to cry. Not over a man. Not when she’d known how things would end all along.
So then, why did it feel like she was heading straight for a dangerous tailspin?
Patrick rose, began to move toward her. “Phoebe, just tell me what’s—”
“You’re leaving for Chicago,” she said in a wooden tone. “You’re going to be there ‘practically forever’. You’re leaving.” She tried to keep her expression as blank as possible. She wasn’t going to show him how much this part hurt.
“It’s the twenty-first century, Phoebe,” he said gently, but firmly. “They have these amazing things called airplanes that mean I can travel back and forth from San Francisco to Chicago as often as I want to.”
“Yes, but you won’t want to come back,” Phoebe said. “At first, maybe, you will, when everything is fresh and new. But then, eventually, you’ll get caught up in whatever it is you’re doing next. You’ll forget all about our fling.”
She could see how much she was hurting Patrick with that word…just as much as he’d just hurt her by saying “I love you” and then planning his immediate escape.
“This isn’t a fling, Phoebe. Not even close. Not to me, and, I thought, not for you, either. Especially after yesterday—”
“How could you have said those words to me?” Her bleak question was barely above a whisper. “How could you?”
And how could she have been stupid enough to believe it, even for five minutes?
He reached for her, but she took a step back before he could make contact. Still, he said, “I told you I love you because I do, Phoebe.”
He waited for her to reply, but there was a huge lump in her throat and it was taking all her self-control not to break down sobbing…or, worse, to ask him to hold her tight again, the way he had last night.
When his arms came around her, she didn’t have the strength to push him away.
“From that first moment we danced, sweetheart, my heart has been yours.” He brushed his thumb across her cheek and she realized there was wetness there. “I didn’t tell you how I felt to try to force you to say you feel the same way. I wouldn’t do that to you, you know I wouldn’t. But I can’t keep in what I feel for you any longer.”
Phoebe had never been so confused, so torn in two between what she wanted and her long held beliefs about life…and love.
“What if,” he whispered in her ear, “the walls you’ve put up to protect yourself are only keeping out the very people who want to love you?
“We’ve only known each other two weeks,” she protested as she forced herself to step out of his arms. “We hardly know anything about each other.”
“You know that I love you. That’s all you really need to know, Phoebe. Everything else is just…details.” Patrick shook his head, and it broke her heart to see the strong man she’d fallen for despite herself looking so miserable. “I’ve tried to change your mind, but I can’t. You’re too strong for that. The only one who can change your mind is you.”
He let her go and as he headed for the door every cell in her body wanted to pull him back toward her. He was halfway out the door, when he turned back to face her.
“Have you ever thought about why you chose to be a florist for weddings, Phoebe?”
She was surprised enough by his strange question to reply, “It was a good job.”
“But it could have been so much more than that, couldn’t it?”
It was the last thing he said before he closed the door behind him…and walked out of her life.