Rachel waited, grateful to the point of tears for the small thoughtfulness, a knot of anger in her chest that it was necessary.
“Did you see my goal?” Cassidy called.
“I did. It was amazing. And the assist you gave in the third quarter was downright brilliant.” She caught her beautiful, sweaty daughter to her in a fierce hug.
Cassidy leaned her head back and looked up at Rachel. “How long have you been here?”
“Since the beginning of the second half.”
She frowned. “Why didn’t you watch with Daddy and John?”
A quick lie sat on the end of her tongue, one that would satisfy Cassidy and stop the questioning. Lies and half-truths were becoming commonplace in this new world they inhabited. Would trust be the next victim? “I felt more comfortable in the car.”
“Because you and Daddy are getting divorced?”
While it was reasonable to assume this was the direction she and Jeff were headed, neither of them had said so. At least not to each other. “Who told you that?”
“Becky’s mom.”
“I don’t know Becky. Is she a friend of yours?”
“She’s the new girl on my team.” Cassidy turned and pointed. “That’s her next to coach Brady.”
Impatient with his father’s slow progress, John let go of Jeff’s hand and ran to Rachel. She hugged him without letting go of Cassidy and bent to kiss the top of his head. With a quick glance at Jeff, she said, “Does everyone know our private business?”
“No one knows, Rachel, they guess.”
In a classic case of not realizing what she had until it was gone, Rachel was only beginning to realize that by losing Jeff, she’d also lost her best friend. She had no one to talk to about what was happening to them, no one to give her helpful clichés that promised a better life at the end of this hellish journey. In the middle of the night when the loneliness was overwhelming, she could imagine a day when she would get past the affair, but would she ever forgive him for destroying their friendship?
Parents were headed their way. “Did you bring their clothes?” she asked Jeff.
“The suitcases are in the car.” He gave her a pointed look. “Do you want me to get them now?”
The way he asked made her recognize just how big a mistake she’d made suggesting they meet where they would be on exhibit. For the past month, while they’d tried to work out what would be best for the kids, she’d stayed at the house on weekends and Jeff had gone to a motel.
Finally, in the middle of a sleepless night, she’d decided it made more sense for Jeff to stay at the house and for her to get an apartment. He was the primary caregiver and needed to be there to take the kids to school and pick them up and to take care of all the day-to-day moments that made up their lives.
This was the first time the kids would be staying at her new apartment. She’d been so caught up in trying to make the adjustment run smoothly that she’d missed the obvious.
“Why don’t I drop their clothes by later?” Jeff suggested.
His kindness, so typical, so Jeff, infuriated her. She wanted him to act as small and deceitful now as he had when he’d been in the middle of the affair, not remind her why she’d loved him. “I made plans.”
“Then I’ll follow you now.”
“All right.” Her stubbornness touched on stupidity. Rachel opened the back door to the Lexus. John got in first and crawled across the seat. Cassidy followed, leaving the door open halfway.
“Cassidy has a birthday party tomorrow at three. I can pick her up at your place and take her if that would be easier.”
Rachel nodded, fighting the urge to tell him that nothing was easy for her anymore. She’d been in her apartment a week and still hadn’t gone grocery shopping—one of the “plans” she had scheduled for that weekend along with a trip to the cleaners and half a dozen other errands Jeff used to take care of for her. “What about John?”
“He can come with me when I come for Cassidy or you can bring him by the house later.” When she didn’t answer right away, he added, “Or I can meet you somewhere.”
She didn’t know what she wanted. “I’ll let you know tomorrow.”
“Call me on the cell. I’ll be out all morning.”
It was everything she could do to keep from asking where he would be. She moved to open the front door. “Are you sure it won’t be inconvenient for you to take Cassidy to the party?”
“I’ll be back by then.”
“If you’re sure.” She mentally cringed. Cellophane was less transparent.
“I’m going to be at the lumber yard. I figured it was time I fixed the back porch railing.”
Jeff had threatened to tear the entire railing off and start all over again so often it had become a running joke between them. “Why now?”
He looked away, took a deep breath, and shoved his hands in the back pockets of his jeans. “I’ve been working on getting the house ready to sell.”
Of course. They couldn’t afford the house and an apartment long term. Still, hearing the words was like adding another mile to the distance between them. Soon everything they knew, everything they had been would be gone. The life she had loved and taken for granted would be a questionable memory. Tears filled her eyes, yet another thing she’d lost control over. “I hate you for doing this to us.”
He automatically started to reach for her, then at the last second drew back. In a voice only she could hear he asked, “What can I do? How can I make it right between us again?”
“You can’t.”
“I won’t accept that.”
Foolishly, her heart did a skipping dance of hope. Her mind refused to follow. Out of the corner of her eye she saw one of the parents headed their way. She got in the car and opened the window. “Don’t bother meeting me. I’ll pick up whatever the kids need for tonight at the store.”
He nodded and bent to wave to Cassidy and John. “I’ll see you tomorrow then.”
Rachel backed out and started to drive away. Almost as an afterthought, she glanced into the rearview mirror and saw Jeff watching them. The anguished look on his face stole her breath. For an instant, unwillingly, she was drawn into his pain.
The apartment was like a new toy to Cassidy and John, one to be explored, played with, and tossed aside after a couple of hours. The novelty had worn off by bedtime, and they were ready to go home.
Up for the third time to go to the bathroom, John stood at the doorway to the living room and stared at Rachel. “When is Daddy coming to get us?” he asked softly.
Rachel put her laptop aside and fought a flash of frustration bordering on anger. The feeling was gone as quickly as it had come. John and Cassidy were suffering as much as she and Jeff, if not more. “Tomorrow,” she said gently. “Now go back to bed.”
“I don’t like that bed. It’s too hard.” The Spiderman pajamas he’d chosen at the store were so big they would be worn out before he could grow into them.
“I can make it softer, but not tonight. We have to wait until the stores open in the morning.”
His lip quivered. Another minute and he would be crying. “Do you want to try my bed?”
He considered the blatant bribery, then bobbed his head in a slow nod.
Rachel crossed the room and took John’s small warm hand in her own, leading him down the short hallway. Her bedroom looked even less inviting than his, the only furniture a queen-size bed with no spread. The clothes that couldn’t be put on hangers were in boxes lining one wall, and there was only one light, a lamp that sat on the floor beside the bed.
John stopped at the doorway and stared at the sad-looking room. The only way he was going to stay without argument was if she stayed with him. She sat on the edge of the bed and patted a spot beside her. John climbed onto her lap instead.
“I’m not very happy, Mommy.”
She put her arms around him and hugged as hard as she dared, knowing any harder would scare him. “I’m not very happy either, John.”
“I don’t want you to live here. I want you to come home with me and Cassidy and Daddy.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because sometimes mommies and daddies stop loving each other, and when that happens they can’t live together anymore.”
“Daddy loves you. He told me so. He told Cassidy, too.” He sat up to look at her. “See? You don’t have to stay here. You can come home.”
Damn you, Jeff. By telling John he loved her, in their son’s eyes, the separation became her fault. He would undoubtedly grow up believing she’d broken his father’s heart. When he was old enough to be told what really happened, it would be too late.
What was it with her and men? She wasn’t good enough for her real father to stick around when she was a child, she’d been everything from a nuisance to a temptation to a half-dozen stepfathers, she’d married a man who’d betrayed her, and she had a son who preferred his father over her.
What was it that she lacked that men looked for in a woman?
She’d not only loved Jeff, even more important, she’d trusted him in a way she’d never trusted any man. Implicitly. Without question. He’d had her from the moment he climbed onto the lab stool next to hers in chemistry class their junior year and told her he’d had to bribe his friend to let him sit there. She’d believed him. More importantly, she’d believed in him.
“Mommy?”
She opened the covers for John, then settled in beside him. “What?”
“Do you love Daddy?”
She knew where he was going and how it was bound to end. “John, is it okay if we don’t talk about this now?”
“How come?”
“I’m tired.”
He didn’t say anything for a long time. Then, softly, “Will you still be tired in the morning?”
Under other circumstances she would have cheered his tenacity. He was fighting for something he wanted in the only way he knew how. She pressed her cheek against the silkiness of his freshly shampooed hair. “Would you like to hear a story?”
“What kind of story?”
“About a little boy and his big sister and their mommy and daddy and how they started a new life that seemed really scary at first but turned out okay.”
“I don’t think so. I’m kinda tired, too.”
Rachel kissed him again and brought him closer. “Maybe in the morning then.”
Chapter Sixteen
Lucy
Impatient with the delays that had kept her in the office that afternoon, Lucy looked up from the phone and waved off her assistant, Patty, when she appeared in the doorway. Patty stood her ground. Lucy glared at her. Patty didn’t flinch.
Lucy cut the caller short by promising a return phone call the next morning. “Well—what is it?” she asked Patty.
“There’s a Ginger Reynolds on line three.”
Lucy came forward in her chair. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
“I told her you would call her back, but she said she didn’t mind waiting. I thought you might want to make an exception for her.”
“You’re right. Thanks.” Lucy picked up the phone again and switched to line three. “This is Lucy Hargreaves. What can I do for you, Ms. Reynolds?”
“I want to see Jessie Reed. Can you arrange it?”
There was no mistaking the thread of hostility in Ginger’s voice. “Would you mind telling me what this concerns?”
“Yes, I would.”
“There’s something you need to understand about my relationship with your father, Ms. Reynolds. I’m his attorney—but more than that, I’m his friend. As much as I know he would love to see you, I’m not going to let him be harassed by an angry woman who can’t seem to understand that giving a child up for adoption can be an act of love. He doesn’t have much time, and I want whatever is left to be as peaceful as possible.”
“He doesn’t strike me as someone who’s led a peaceful life. I find it hard to believe he cares all that much about dying peacefully. And he really doesn’t seem the kind of man who wants a woman running interference for him.”
The words brought her up short. Wasn’t this what Jessie had been telling her all along? “All right. When would you like me to arrange this meeting?” Before Ginger could answer, Lucy added, “The sooner the better.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Morning is best. He’s stronger then.”
“I’ll be at your office at nine.”
“It would be better if you met him at home.” She gave Ginger the address and directions.
“Will you be there?” Ginger asked.
She wanted to be, but couldn’t do that to Jessie. Ginger was right. He’d spent his entire life on the edge and never asked to be protected. He sure as hell wouldn’t want it now. “Unless there are legal questions you want answered, I see no reason to be there.”
“I just thought—never mind. It isn’t important.”
Lucy was about to end the conversation when something stopped her. “I know this has been hard on you. After you left I tried to imagine what it would be like to live thirty-six years believing one thing and then be told it was wrong. I couldn’t. Not really. It’s not possible for anyone who hasn’t gone through what you’re going through to understand what you’re feeling.”
“You’re good,” Ginger said. “But that doesn’t surprise me. Jessie strikes me as the kind of man who only hires the best.”
“I wasn’t trying to work you. My comment was simply an observation. As I told you, Jessie is my friend as well as my client. I care about him, and in extension, his family.”
“You can save it for the others. I already have all the friends I need or want.”
The oddly defensive reply puzzled Lucy. Ginger was acting like the last kid picked for a softball game, pretending she didn’t care. Was it possible that a woman who naturally possessed the looks and figure that made other women run to their plastic surgeons was lonely? The possibility was too much of a cliché for Lucy to swallow.
“I’ll call your father and let him know to expect you. If there’s a problem with the time, I’ll let you know.”
“Thank you.”
Chapter Seventeen
Ginger
Warm, heavy air swirled around Ginger as she opened her car door and stepped outside. Nine o’clock and according to the temperature readout in the car, two degrees shy of eighty. It was going to be a tar-oozing-through-the-asphalt kind of day, and she’d stupidly put on heels and SPANX for her meeting with Jessie. She wanted to look her best, wanted him to know that she’d gotten along fine without him. Most of all she wanted him sorry he had missed knowing her. By looking as much like Barbara as she could pull off, she hoped to make him just a little sorry he’d given up his only link to the woman he’d lost all those years ago.
Her only other trip to Sacramento had been for the “family” get-together at Lucy Hargreaves’s office. She had no idea what to expect from a city whose skyline was developing with the speed and abandon of carelessly planted flower bulbs.
Jessie lived in an area east of downtown filled with stately homes on tree-lined streets. The residential community didn’t so much scream money as whisper it with a genteel accent. Whether the mostly two-story houses were brick or stucco or wood, there were no lawns that needed mowing, no weeds to pull, no peeling paint or crooked shutters. Windows sparkled in the dappled sunlight and elaborate summer wreaths hung on front doors. Sidewalks were swept, driveways clear, yards free of children’s toys. People who lived here had help maintaining these houses. Lots of help. Expensive help.
Marc dreamed of living like this but was two or three promotions shy of what it would take to make the move. She’d be content with a three-bedroom, two-bath in the suburbs as long as it was with him. And soon. The wait was an anchor on everything from her mood to her ability to have children. The biological clock she heard ticking every month was starting to sound like Big Ben. She’d foolishly assumed her mother’s late pregnancy was
evidence she could pull it off, too. Now, no matter how hard she tried to convince herself nothing had changed, she knew it was a lie. Her life had turned into a game of checkers with her pieces on the red squares, her opponent’s on the black. No matter how well she played, winning wasn’t possible.
She didn’t want to be here, had fought coming, but the need to know more about her mother grew stronger every day, as did the realization that time and opportunity to ask Jessie about her was running out. She’d told no one she was coming, not even Marc. Her mother would say she understood, but she wouldn’t, not really. It would hurt her, feel like a betrayal when it was nothing more than curiosity.
Ginger’s need to know Barbara had gone from a pride-filled spurning of the woman who’d rejected her to a fantasy-filled belief that Barbara had grieved over her decision the rest of her short life. Jessie was her one chance, her last chance, to learn the truth.
Ginger adjusted her jacket, smoothed her skirt, and headed for the front door. A middle-aged woman, dressed in slacks and a polo shirt, her hair in a ponytail, answered immediately, as if she’d been standing on the other side of the door waiting.
“I’m Ginger Reynolds. I have an appointment with Mr. Reed.”
“He’s expecting you.” She stepped aside for Ginger to enter. “I’ll take you to him.”
Ginger’s heels clicked noisily on the foyer’s travertine floor, disturbing the quiet like an inept cat burglar. At the beginning of a short hallway the travertine gave way to dense wool carpeting. The woman stopped outside an open door and rapped lightly on the frame. “Ms. Reynolds is here.”
She glanced at Ginger, an unmistakable warning in the look. Plainly Jessie engendered a loyalty in all of his employees that went beyond their paychecks. “If you need anything, I’ll be in the kitchen. My name is Rhona.”
“Thank you.”
Ginger entered the room in time to see the effort it took Jessie to stand to greet her. She resented the wave of compassion that swept over her. She didn’t want to feel sorry for Jessie Reed. She didn’t want to feel anything for him. “Please, don’t get up.”
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