Julia,

Please call me. I want to talk to my little girl.

Dad

“I’m not a little girl,” I whispered, but his reference didn’t upset me. It added to my guilt. Maybe I’d been selfish. Maybe my father would have more understanding for my situation. Then again, he was Marlin Butler’s best friend, or he thought he was. If I called, I could warn him.

I took a deep breath as I looked at my phone. The signal was currently good with five bars and the battery charged.

Leaving both the information Van had left me and my laptop in the library, I stepped out into the main level. In the distance, I heard sounds as well as pots and pans and smelled the aromas of more and different foods. As I climbed the steps, I heard Margaret’s vacuum in what I’d been told was Van’s suite.

Curiosity pulled me toward her.

I made it to the hallway. Unlike the one containing my suite, there was only one option in this hallway, double doors at the end, currently ajar. All I’d have to do was take a few more steps to be at the threshold.

It was as if there was an invisible tug-of-war occurring in the realm beyond my ability to see. I was pulled toward the doorway, hoping for more personal touches to Van’s life and history. Surely a man as passionate as Van Sherman had mementos to remind him of others. And at the same time, there was a wall. It wasn’t as if I could touch it, but it was there nonetheless. It was a barrier that I didn’t want to cross.

It was as if I were on a precipice.

Will I learn more about the man I am attracted to or will I lose his trust?

18. Julia

Julia

One more step toward his suite and I changed my mind, quickly redirecting my destination. I’d enter Van’s suite if and when he invited me. Van had opened his home to me. I wasn’t going to snoop where I wasn’t invited.

For some reason, as I passed the other door in the hallway to my suite, I twisted the handle. It didn’t move. The door was locked. A locked door was not an invitation. When I stepped through the threshold to my suite, I found all the rooms exactly as I’d left them. My clothes from last night were still strewn on a chair in the sitting room. The large bed was unmade. The towel from my shower was hanging haphazardly from the towel bar.

It wasn’t my lack of tidiness that made me smile but that Margaret respected my wishes—the boundary that I’d set. At least one person in my new life could do that.