Shouldn’t she be happy with that? Why did she need more? Why did anyone need more? There were a whole lot of people who didn’t even have what she did.
“I’m fine,” she hurried to assure him. “I was just thinking about what happiness really is. And you and mom always seem so content, I figured you must know.”
“You always said contentment was a fate worse than death,” her father reminded her, though he laughed when he said it. “When you were thirteen, you and your sister made solemn vows to leave this town and never come back, because neither one of you had any intention of settling. You were very sure of yourselves.”
“I’m always sure of myself, Dad.” That was true enough, but saying it out loud gave her pause. Why was she so sure? That she was bad at school. That she was shallow. That she only wanted what she knew she could get, and even then, only for a little while. She found herself rubbing at her chest again, though she already knew it wouldn’t keep her heart from aching. “But that’s why I’m calling. I’m asking what you’re sure of, for a change.”
She expected him to shrug that off. Make a little joke, maybe. Keep things light and easy.
“I think that a happy life is earned,” her father said instead, sounding...thoughtful. “Because life itself isn’t one thing or another. It’s not happy or sad. It just is. Like anything, it’s what you make of it. Your mom and I have had some hard times and we’ve had easy times. But the hard times are better, and the easy times sweeter, because of the work we put in.”
“That’s something people like to say,” Indy whispered. “Putting the work in. But they don’t ever say what it means.”
“It means you don’t let your life just happen to you, Indy,” her father said, not unkindly. “You have to live it, good and bad, boring and exciting, one day after the next. It’s not meant to be fun all the time. That isn’t to say you can’t enjoy it, but a life that’s only one thing isn’t much of a life.”
And though she changed the subject then, even talking to her mother for a while when her father passed the phone on because Margie was actually up before nine for a change, it was that part that resonated with her.
A life that was only one thing wasn’t much of a life.
She couldn’t let it go. She tested herself, finding her way into a bar, and, sure enough, letting a few men flirt with her while she sat in it. But she did not take them up on any of their invitations.
Or their candy-coated anything.
Because her life had been only one thing for a long, long time.
And she hated that Stefan had seized on the reason for that being Bristol, because she loved her sister. Adored her. Supported her, cheered her on, and wanted nothing but the best for her. That didn’t change the fact that way back when they were kids, Indy had decided that she was going to go a different way.
Maybe because it was different.
Was it that easy? If you made a decision when you were young were you doomed to repeat it ever after?
But no, she thought as she found herself in Old Town Square again. She watched the statues of the apostles appear in the famous Astronomical Clock, doing their thing while the crowd cheered and took pictures. The statue of death waved. And Indy felt a kinship to the funny old thing. Because the clock put on its show at the top of each hour, and it was wonderful. But the rest of the time, no matter how beautiful and old, it was just a clock.
Maybe, for the first time in her life, she didn’t want to be the same old thing she’d always been.
And she could admit, then, that Stefan was right about this part, too. Intensity terrified her. The things that Stefan said to her, and all the implications, terrified her even more.
But maybe she’d come all the way to Prague to be terrified. Maybe it was good for her. The fact was, if she paid attention to her orgasms alone, the man knew what he was talking about. Everything with him was dialed up to one hundred or more. Everything with him was more. Longer. Deeper.
Better.
What did it say about her that all she’d wanted was to finally come to Prague, to meet him here, and yet she’d run off the minute it got to be too much for her? Was she really that person? Deep down, she knew she’d woken up scared silly that first morning and had been running ever since. Because he’d touched things in her she hadn’t known were there.
Over the past two years she’d convinced herself that she’d imagined the intensity. That it had been the circumstances, not the man.
But the truth was, Stefan still felt like fate.
Like destiny.
She might like to tell anyone who asked that she was shallow and silly, but deep down, she didn’t think of herself that way. And Stefan was the only person she wasn’t related to who didn’t take her at face value. Who looked at her and saw depths. Who saw more than her body or her face or what she might look like beside him.
And she knew she should have been horrified that he’d treated her like a research project, but she wasn’t. Who else had she ever met who wanted to know more about her when they’d already had sex with her? Who refused to accept what they saw?
Even though she’d run off from his house and even though she hadn’t been faking her outrage while she’d been there, Indy knew the real truth was she liked it. All of it.
She liked how intense he
