C01 Take a Chance on Me

by Susan May Warren

  “I can’t forgive God, Jens. I don’t trust Him anymore. I . . . keep blaming the fact that I’m stuck in Deep Haven on Felicity or my grandfather. But the truth is, it just . . . it just confirms that I was right.”

  He frowned.

  “God isn’t kind.” She clamped her hand over her mouth, horrified at her own words. But she kept going, speaking through her hand. “He’s not kind. He took away Felicity—”

  “I took away Felicity.”

  “No. God could have protected her on that road. He could have . . . Why didn’t He protect her? Why didn’t He stop—?” Her voice grew soft. “She. Was. So scared.”

  Jensen licked his lips, swallowed. “She never woke up, Claire. She died almost instantly.”

  She closed her eyes. “I know.”

  His touch on her cheek startled her. She opened her eyes and he cupped her face. “We’re not talking about Felicity, are we?”

  She stared at him, began to tremble. “No.”

  “We’re talking about you, in Bosnia. About the men who attacked you, beat you, scared you. Nearly killed you.”

  She drew in a shaky breath.

  “We’re talking about the fact that a terrible thing happened and you haven’t felt safe since. Even here in Deep Haven.”

  He knew her that well? She swallowed, nodding.

  “Because . . . it’s not about Deep Haven,” he said softly. “It’s about God. How can you trust Him, put your future in His hands, when He lets bad things happen to . . . people like you?”

  She clenched her teeth together, but a moan emerged and her control broke. “Yeah. Me.” She gulped a deep breath. “It shouldn’t have happened to me.”

  Jensen touched her forehead with his, his arms still around her. “You’re safe here, Claire. I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise. I’ll figure out a way for you to stay. You don’t have to leave Deep Haven.”

  Oh, she wanted to believe him. Especially when he pulled her to himself. They sat there in the pocket of the night as she listened to his heartbeat, strong against her ear.

  It wasn’t until she finally looked into his eyes, ever so briefly, that she realized the truth.

  She was jealous. All these years, despite her best efforts, she had hated Felicity, at least a little. Because Felicity had what Claire had always wanted.

  The heart of Jensen Atwood.

  Claire had turned Felicity’s gravesite into a debris field. Flowers littered the lawn, and tomorrow, the cemetery gardener would think wild dogs had trampled on Felicity Christiansen’s grave.

  Unless—worse—someone had seen his Mustang parked outside the entrance, done the math, and again assigned blame.

  Jensen had no doubt that there might be formal charges, at the very least some sort of probation violation cooked up.

  See, he didn’t have to leave town to find trouble. But he didn’t care. Not really. Not with Claire in his arms.

  Not that it didn’t seem a little awkward, sitting here at Felicity’s grave. He couldn’t escape the irony. Felicity, between them again.

  He probably should have kept driving tonight. Should have put the past behind him, at least until the authorities caught him. But he’d seen Claire’s shiny red bike leaning against the entrance, and . . . well, he worried.

  He always worried, just a little. Ever since her story, so many years ago. It kept him up at nights sometimes, how close she’d come to being killed.

  Of course she felt betrayed by God. He did too, although he knew better. The only person who’d let him down was himself.

  “I never asked . . . what are you doing here?” Claire said.

  “Uh . . .”

  He didn’t want to let her go. But she pushed away from him. “Jensen? Why are you here?”

  He leaned forward, began gathering the flowers. “Can these be replanted?”

  “No,” she said. “I’ll have to buy more.”

  He scraped them all into a pile.

  “Were you following me?”

  “Nope.” He pricked his hand on a couple thistles at the bottom of the pile.

  “Jens!”

  “Okay, fine.” He got up, holding out his hand, the other still gripping the flowers. “I . . . I was out for a drive.”

  She took his hand, let him pull her to her feet. “A drive.” Her gaze went past him, to the entrance. “Is that your Mustang out there?”

  His attempt at a smile fell flat, so he walked toward a receptacle and dropped in the mutilated flowers.

  She followed him. Then, quietly, to his back, said, “You were leaving, weren’t you?”

  He closed one eye, a half wince. “No,” he lied.

  “Please. Seriously? I know you, Jensen. You haven’t driven that car for three years.”

  And how could he? First, the police had impounded it, and then he didn’t want to see it, even once his father had it repaired. It sat in the garage until today, when Gibs turned on him.

  Jensen had driven home, changed out of his work clothes, packed a bag, and bidden this town good-bye. He’d had plans to at least get to Duluth. Maybe hop an airplane.

  Try to live with himself in Jamaica. Or the Bahamas. Or . . .

  “Where were you going?”

  He sighed and told the truth. “I don’t know. I just . . .”

  “You just decided after all this time, with only a couple weeks left on your probation, to ditch town? To throw your future away? To give up and finally land in jail?”

  “I don’t want to go to jail, Claire!” He took a breath, hitched his tone lower. “I want this to be over. I’m tired of being a disappointment. Of walking around like I’ve got a wanted poster hanging from my neck. I’m never going to redeem myself, as your grandfather so nicely pointed out.”

  “What?”

  “He reminded me that no matter what I do, I’m a mess—”

  “My grandfather loves you. He’s probably the only one in this town who fought for you.” She made a face when she said it. “Sorry. But we had a huge fight over the editorial letter he sent in to the Deep Haven Herald.”

  “What letter?”

  “You never read it? It took up nearly an entire page. He talked about the boy you’d been, the man you’d become, reminded people that they couldn’t convict on circumstantial evidence—”

  “It’s true!”

  “Yeah, well, he got two death threats, and someone dragged one of our canoes out in the middle of the lake and shot it full of holes.”

  He sobered. “I didn’t know that.”

  “Maybe you also didn’t know that he went to your initial arraignment. And that he spoke to the county attorney on your behalf.”

  Now he felt a little ill, his conversation with Gibs replaying in his head. “No, I didn’t.”

  “He missed you, you know.” She swallowed and bit her lip as if trying not to say something more.

  “It doesn’t matter. I don’t know why I keep trying. This town will never forgive me.”

  “For pete’s sake, Jensen, you never asked!”

  He stared at her, his mouth open. “I couldn’t—I . . . Listen, the second I stood up there and asked forgiveness, it would have been over for me. I . . . I wanted to,” he said softly. More than anyone could know.

  Her eyes were shiny. “Don’t quit, Jensen.”

  “I’m not quitting, okay? I’m staying. But it doesn’t matter, Claire, because the truth is, I’m going to jail anyway.” He held out his hands as if in surrender. “So whether I violate my probation by going on the lam or simply wait out the inevitable, it’s happening.”

  She was staring at him now, her eyes bright, her face still a little soggy. “No. You’re not.”

  “Claire, unless you have some sort of secret pull with the court system, yes, in fact, I am.”

  “My neighbor is the new assistant county attorney. We’ll just talk to her. She’s really nice. You’d like her.”

  “In case you’ve forgotten, my father is an attorney. Believe me, if
he wanted me off, he’d get me off.”

  Who knew but his father had orchestrated the entire community service bondage. Jensen couldn’t prove it—not with another firm handling his case—but he believed his father had somehow come up with the plan to indenture him to Deep Haven.

  Maybe he’d been trying to help. At the very least, avoid the embarrassment of having a son in prison.

  And although Jensen had been ready to defend himself, when his lawyer blindsided him with the plea agreement, his father pulled his financial support. Right then, Jensen had looked at his future, and what choice did he have?

  “I don’t think your neighbor can help me.”

  “Maybe you could let her try?”

  Oh, he wanted to believe the hope in Claire’s eyes. The way she looked at him as if she saw something more than the man he was.

  “I’m sorry I let you down,” he said softly, not sure where that came from.

  “You didn’t . . . I mean . . .” She shook her head. “Listen, the past is the past; let’s try to move on.”

  It cost her something to say that—he saw it on her face. “How?”

  But she stepped up to him, pressed her hand to his mouth. Smiled, something honest and without judgment.

  The sense of it swelled inside him, washing over the wishes and the regrets.

  He smiled back. “Okay. Yes.”

  “Yes?”

  “Let’s go talk to the assistant county attorney. What’s her name?”

  “Ivy. Ivy Madison.”

  Ivy sat in her yoga pants, eating a bowl of ice cream, staring at her cell phone. The night pressed against her windows, only her overhead fixture splashing light onto the table. Dishes were piled in the sink, and in the next room, a bath filled.

  Maybe Darek would never call. After all, after four days . . .

  Could she live with that? Only one date, no explanation, even after he’d kissed her so sweetly?

  Yes. Maybe.

  Or not.

  Especially when she thought of Tiger, the way he nestled into her lap, throwing rocks, then playing with the glow stick she’d purchased for him.

  He had a sweetness about him, a little-boy charm that he must have inherited, at least in part, from Felicity.

  Felicity Holloway Christiansen.

  Her file lay on the round pine table. Ivy had pulled it after lunch today, in between writing up complaints, summonses, and evidentiary briefs, not to mention following up on cases and answering about a hundred e-mails. Her brain had turned to mush, and the accident report and evidentiary briefs and memorandums in Felicity’s case couldn’t be considered light reading.

  But she had to know.

  So she’d read every detail, remembering it from when she’d read it the first time. Although, instead of Felicity being labeled as “the victim,” as Thornton Atwood had done in the file she’d been given, and Jensen as “the accused,” in this file, she’d discovered names. And witnesses. Including Darek.

  If she’d been less eager three years ago, she might have dug around a little, instead of wanting so much to please her boss, to impress him. Though she hadn’t known the accused was his son until after she handed in her recommendation—Thornton had masked the entire file and made her believe it was just a teaching exercise.

  She easily pieced the scene together—a fight with Darek put Felicity in a running mood, and she’d ventured out, probably still angry, just after 9 p.m., in her Jeep, parking at the Cutaway Creek overlook. Maybe to just sit and think. They’d discovered her Jeep there, later that night.

  Sometime after 9:35, she took off running, downhill, toward town. With traffic.

  Jensen, on his way into town for pizza, came around the curve and an oncoming car’s headlights hit him in the eyes. He’d blinked and taken the curve too tight.

  That’s when he felt the car hit Felicity. Investigation indicated that he hadn’t run into the ditch—on the contrary, they supposed she might have been crossing the road and hadn’t seen his lights.

  She died almost immediately, her skull shattering.

  Ivy had read the obit, too, and every single article she could dig up on the court case. Jensen had been accused of texting, a thin case built around negligent driving, and Ivy used that to tear holes in the prosecution in her memorandum. Still, with his cell phone open, a text recently sent . . .

  She could still remember turning in her memo on the community service option to her junior associate, the pride she’d felt as she handed it to him. Then she’d marched into Daniel’s adjunct professor office at the University of Minnesota and shown it to him.

  He was impressed, especially when the plea made the evening news.

  She took another bite of ice cream, and it shivered through her.

  Yes, maybe it would be best if Darek never called again.

  Ivy put the bowl down, her appetite souring. Oh, why did the world have to be so terribly small?

  She’d always known that fate—or God—was against her. And this was just more proof. No matter what she did to reach for her dreams, something always destroyed it.

  I’ve made it this far on my own. I guess I’ll keep it that way.

  You’re never on your own, Ivy. Claire’s words, in her head.

  Yes, she was. Because God certainly wasn’t on her side, and with Daniel gone . . . No, she had no one.

  She got up to stop the bathwater.

  “Ivy?” A knock came at her door. “It’s me, Claire.”

  Claire? Ivy went to the door, flicking on the outside light. “Hey—”

  Her gaze stopped on the man standing behind Claire. Jensen, offering her a sheepish smile. Shoot. How she hoped her face didn’t fall, that he didn’t see the minute hiccup of breath. “Hello.”

  “Hello,” he said, reaching past Claire to shake her hand. “I’m Jensen Atwood. I’m sorry to bother you—”

  “We need some help,” Claire said. “Can we talk to you?”

  The moths bounced around the light, a big one dive-bombing the open door. “Come in,” Ivy said, shooing it away.

  Except now Jensen Atwood stood in her tiny kitchen. With his sun-bleached and tousled hair, she saw the arrogant playboy the media had portrayed him as three years ago. No wonder Deep Haven wanted to crucify him.

  Claire looked at him and smiled. So maybe not everyone in Deep Haven.

  “How can I help you?”

  “I was wondering if we could ask for some legal advice.”

  Advice? Oh, please let it be about a traffic ticket. Or a recovered wallet. Or maybe they’d saved someone’s life, needed to know about Good Samaritan laws.

  Ivy had a sick feeling here.

  “It’s late, Claire. We shouldn’t bother her,” Jensen said. He put his hand on her shoulder.

  If there is anyone you should stay away from in this town, it’s Jensen Atwood. Ivy couldn’t tear her gaze from that hand on Claire’s shoulder.

  Wow, how quickly small-town prejudices tangled her thoughts, her opinions. She stepped back. “No, that’s okay. How can I help?”

  “It’ll only take a minute,” Claire said. “I know it’s late, but . . . well, us being neighbors, I figured it was okay.”

  Huh. “Sit down.”

  Ivy turned toward the table and froze. The file on Felicity Christiansen. She rushed over, closed it. Dumped it all onto a chair. “How about on the sofa?”

  She’d inherited the sofa from the previous tenant, something green and a bit smelly, but she was rarely here . . . Still, she cringed when Jensen and Claire sat down, their faces so expectant. As if somehow she might save the day. As if she hadn’t had a conversation with Jensen’s probation officer about the very real threat of his probation violation.

  And then there was the little matter that she’d set up his probation in the first place. At least that he’d be behind bars if it weren’t for her.

  Which, if she stood in Darek’s shoes, might be a good thing.

  But she wasn’t dating Darek, and right no
w, Claire had a clear grip on Jensen’s hand.

  This town had suddenly become microscopic.

  Ivy tried not to look at the file, some of the papers scattered on the floor like grenades.

  Brilliant, Ivy.

  “What’s going on?” She crossed her leg, her foot tapping. Forced a casual, neighborly, how-can-I-help? smile.

  “Well, Jensen is on probation.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “And he has a bunch of community service he has to fulfill.”

  “Hmm.”

  “The problem is, he doesn’t have time to complete it, so we were wondering if there is any way to get more time.”

  “Mmm.”

  Claire smiled at Ivy.

  Oh, her turn. “Jensen . . . uh, do you have a defense attorney? He could file a motion on your behalf to extend your probation.”

  “I’m self-represented, ma’am.”

  Oh, boy.

  “Okay. Have you talked to your probation officer?” She hated this part.

  “I have. He . . . Well, see . . .”

  “The thing is, Jensen was unfairly charged. He—he didn’t do what they accused him of,” Claire said, a little too brightly.

  Ivy swallowed. “Hmm.”

  “Vehicular homicide,” Claire said.

  Jensen cringed, looked away.

  “But he was innocent—it was an accident.”

  Ivy nodded.

  “No, really!” Claire said.

  Jensen had his eyes closed now.

  And that’s when Ivy’s heart went out to him. Wasn’t that why she came to Deep Haven? To help people? And frankly, when he met her eyes and offered a sad smile, she wanted to like him. Once upon a time, she’d read his statements as a mere clerk, unbiased, and in her dark cubicle, she’d believed in his innocence so much, despite the circumstantial evidence, that she’d spent hours and hours finding him a way out.

  Maybe she was naive, but back then she’d believed in second chances, in the law helping people change their lives, and most of all, in doing her very best to see that justice won, even in no-win situations.

  Which was why the words came to her. “You could try for clemency. It’s rarely given, but sometimes—”