Jane's Gift

by Abby Gaines

  “Hearing that you knew about Dad and Micki just reinforced that I was right not to trust you,” he finished.

  “Your father and Micki are good for each other. They deserved a chance.”

  “And you know this because you’re an expert on functional relationships?”

  She sucked in a breath. “That was uncalled for.”

  “What was called for was honesty.”

  A sound in the doorway had them both turning. Daisy.

  Kyle raked a hand through his hair, tried to think of something innocuous to say. Thought about faking one of those smiles.

  “Honey,” Jane said, “I thought you were upstairs.”

  “Are you and Daddy upset?” Daisy asked.

  “Just discussing stuff a bit too loudly.”

  Kyle crouched down at her level. “What do you want, sweetie?”

  “Sarah in my class said you’re not going to be the mayor anymore,” Daisy said. “Is that why you’re upset?”

  The concern in her eyes went straight to his heart. “No, sweetie. I hope I am going to be the mayor, but even if I’m not, I won’t be upset.” Not true, but the last thing Daisy needed was to worry about him. He kissed her forehead. “Love you.”

  “Love you,” Daisy said, and Kyle toppled backward on his heels.

  Did she just say...? A glance at Jane told him yes, she did. Jane’s eyes brimmed with tears, a tremulous smile hovered on her lips. For a heady moment, he was thrilled beyond measure to have shared this milestone with her—before he remembered he was so damn mad at her.

  Then Daisy started giggling at his clumsiness, and he made a production of needing her massive strength to help right himself, and the most tender moment of his life was gone, just like that.

  He would never forget it.

  He snuck in a kiss on the top of Daisy’s head as he sent her upstairs with a promise to come say good-night.

  Then it was just him and Jane in the kitchen once more.

  Them and everything that stood between them.

  “You and Daisy,” she said, her voice damp. “That was wonderful.”

  He nodded, not sure he could trust himself to speak.

  “It’s time I moved out,” she said. “Those extra two weeks were up on Sunday. I need to get back to Denver. To my work.”

  He found his voice. “There’s no rush—you could have a few days down in Denver with clients, then come back.” Because, angry though he was, he wasn’t ready to say goodbye.

  “What’s the point?” she asked. “You don’t trust me, and I don’t appreciate your attitude.” She paused, but he didn’t fill the gap. Her shoulders slumped. “I’ll go stay with Micki tomorrow, if she’ll have me.”

  The mention of his father’s girlfriend was enough to rile him up again. “Fine. Go.”

  “I’ll start weaning Daisy off my company,” Jane continued, “and plan to leave Pinyon Ridge next week.”

  Part of Kyle wanted to protest, to demand that she stay. But she was right. He didn’t trust her. He couldn’t be the man she needed.

  He nodded stiffly and followed his daughter upstairs.

  * * *

  “ARE YOU GOING to tell me why we had to leave that nice cottage and squish into a tiny apartment?” Cat asked.

  “I’m too mad to talk about it.” Jane pushed her suitcase under the bed. Micki had been generous to offer both her and Cat a bed. But the apartment above the Eating Post was petite—the room she and Cat were sharing was about half the size of the one in Kyle’s cottage with no storage. They’d be living out of their bags for the next week.

  “So you and Kyle did have an argument. Thought so.” Cat smirked. “What was it about?”

  “I don’t want to discuss it.” Jane hadn’t seen Kyle this morning, thankfully. She’d packed up her stuff and Cat’s, then after school, she’d dropped Daisy at Kyle’s new place. Daisy had been positively chatty in the car, and hadn’t seemed to mind the news that Jane was moving out. Which was the way it should be.

  Once she was used to the fact Jane wasn’t living with her and Kyle, it would be easier for her to accept Jane’s return to Denver.

  Also as it should be. Oh, yes, everything was hunky-dory.

  The fact that Jane felt as if her heart had been torn from her chest and skewered on a blunt stick was neither here nor there.

  Micki stuck her head around the door. “I made coffee. And there were friands left over in the café.” She wrinkled her nose. “The fancy stuff never sells well outside of peak season.”

  “We’re coming,” Jane said.

  Micki never seemed to tire of coffee; she sipped a cup of her favorite brew and gave a little aah of satisfaction as Jane and Cat joined her.

  “So are you going to tell me about your bust-up with Kyle?” Micki asked.

  “No.” Jane bit into an apple friand. “This is wonderful.”

  “As his potential future stepmother, I need to know what’s going on,” Micki deadpanned.

  Jane rolled her eyes.

  “And as a thorn in his brother’s side, I deserve to know, too,” Cat said. “We’re on the same team. If Kyle hurt you, I’m happy to make both Everson brothers’ lives a living hell.” She pressed her fingers to her lips. “Oops, Gabe doesn’t like me using that word.”

  “So much for being on my team,” Jane said drily. But she was touched by Cat’s offer. Her sister had been moody and withdrawn the past few days, which Jane had attributed to her ongoing feud with Gabe. And Micki’s genuine concern was a balm to her wounded heart. Ironic that as her time in Pinyon Ridge came to an end, she was starting to feel as if she would miss the place.

  “Give us a hint,” Micki pleaded. “We’ll make up the rest.”

  Jane rolled her eyes. “Okay, how’s this? Kyle’s a narrow-minded, judgmental, conclusion-jumping jerk. And he probably learned it all from his dad,” she warned.

  “Probably,” her friend said mildly. “I like Charles’s stiff-necked ways. I think they’re cute, but he also doesn’t mind when I call him on them.”

  “I’m still creeped out by you dating that old guy,” Cat said with a shiver.

  “Butt out,” Jane and Micki said simultaneously.

  Cat made a rude sign with one finger.

  “Classy,” Micki said.

  Jane yawned. “I don’t know why, but I’m exhausted.”

  “You can go to bed as soon as you’ve told us what your bust-up with Kyle was about,” Cat said.

  Micki nodded. “Consider it your rent.”

  Their inquisitive expressions told Jane they weren’t going to let it drop. She sighed. “Okay, if you must know, Kyle accused Cat of blackmailing him.”

  “No way,” Cat said, outraged.

  “What kind of blackmail?” Micki’s voice rose. “What about?”

  “I can’t tell you,” Jane said. “A...a family secret. You’ll just have to trust me that none of the Eversons have done anything wrong.”

  “But why would Kyle blame Cat?” Micki asked, mystified.

  “Because she’s a Slater. Like me.” Jane pressed some friand crumbs from the plate into her finger and transferred them to her mouth. “I’m amazed he didn’t accuse me, as well. I accused him of not trusting me, and he admitted it. End of relationship.”

  “What a creep,” Cat said fiercely. “I’m used to people thinking the worst of me, but he knows you.”

  “Kyle really screwed up,” Micki said. “No wonder you’re mad.”

 
“It’s not all his fault,” Jane admitted. “He was mad at me because I didn’t tell him about you and Charles.”

  Micki groaned. “I’m sorry. If I’d realized how serious you and Kyle were...”

  “We weren’t serious.” Jane leaned back on the couch. “We have too many differences for it ever to have worked out. Kyle’s never going to trust me—and nor is his dad. Which is a big deal, with a close family like the Eversons.”

  Micki snorted. “Charles isn’t infallible. If he’s rude to you, I’ll smack him upside the head.”

  Jane smiled. “Thank you. But I just need to go, leave Pinyon Ridge.”

  “Maybe I’ll come with you to the city,” Cat said.

  Jane sat back. “Really?”

  “Just for a while.” Cat stretched her arms behind her head. “I’m not expecting you to support me, by the way. I’ll ask Kyle for a reference, find a job. Even if he thinks I’m a blackmailer, he might give me a reference to get me out of town.”

  Jane found she liked the idea of Cat coming to Denver. Really liked it. “That’d be great. Unless you think you should stay here and get some closure with Gabe. Or whatever it is you’re trying to do with him.”

  Cat shook her head. “Not going to happen. Gabe knows an awful lot about forgiving other people, but he can’t forgive himself. The poor guy’s too tormented to have me around.”

  “You’re saying you’re leaving for his benefit?”

  Cat wrinkled her nose. “Mine, too. There’s something about those Everson men. They’re hard to get out of your system.”

  “Don’t say that,” Jane said, depressed.

  * * *

  CHARLES HESITATED OUTSIDE the door to Micki’s apartment. This was it, they were going public with their relationship today. Not that they were going to make a big announcement. But from today on, they would act in public the way they did in private. Without the making out, of course.

  Her door opened, startling him.

  “I saw you from the window,” she said.

  She looked charming in a peach-colored blouse and black pants, with little strappy sandals. She went up on tiptoe and kissed him before he realized what she planned. He reared back.

  “I thought we were out in the open now.” She sounded hurt.

  “We are,” he said. “Of course we are. Sorry, sweetheart, it might take me some getting used to.”

  “We can keep quiet a bit longer, if that’s what you want.” Disappointment underpinned the offer, so although he was tempted, he couldn’t accept it.

  “I want people to know how I feel about you,” he said. Besides, the deception had gone on long enough, and he wasn’t comfortable with even a lie of omission. So he’d warned Reverend Thackeray about his new relationship—the reverend had been surprised, but not disapproving—and now he was ready to widen that out to the population of Pinyon Ridge. At Reverend Thackeray’s suggestion, Charles had emailed the other elders last night. They were a good bunch; he could rely on their support. Once they got used to the idea.

  He took Micki’s hand. “Let’s go.”

  They walked hand-in-hand the two hundred yards to St. Thomas’s.

  On the church steps, Sheila Marshall, a friend of Patti’s, was on door duty, greeting folk and handing out the weekly newsletter. When she saw Charles and Micki, she stopped midway through her conversation with the reverend’s wife and stared.

  Huh, it seemed that the contents of Charles’s email to the elders hadn’t made its way through the church directory yet.

  “Morning, Sheila,” Charles said.

  Her gaze was stuck on his and Micki’s linked hands. “Chief,” she managed to respond, then added a strangled, “Hello, Micki.”

  “Hi, Sheila.” Micki sounded shy.

  “Just to make it clear,” Charles said, “Micki and I are dating.”

  “So I see.” She was still looking at their hands.

  Inside the church, Kyle and Daisy sat on the end of a full pew, with no room for Charles and Micki. Charles wondered if that was deliberate.

  So they sat three rows from the front, which would give an excellent view to all those who wanted to speculate.

  Charles wasn’t comfortable holding hands in church, never had been, but when the congregation stood for the first hymn, he and Micki stood close enough to each other that he could feel the heat of her arm against his.

  During the offering, Bert Munro, another elder, gave Charles a wink.

  “This isn’t so bad,” Micki murmured, as they sat down after the offering prayer.

  But after the service, where usually he would have been in the thick of any action, no one approached him with questions about the agenda for the next elders’ meeting or suggestions for how the working bee should be structured.

  “Let’s get coffee,” Micki suggested. Usually she spurned the less-than-excellent brew the ladies on the coffee roster produced.

  Charles procured two cups and carried them back to Micki. They stood to one side of the foyer. Plenty of people gave them sidelong glances, but no one came to talk.

  “I wish Jane was here,” Micki said.

  “I don’t.” Charles gave her an incredulous look.

  “She knows all about how to handle being the butt of speculation and disapproval,” Micki said. “You and I could take a lesson from her.”

  He certainly knew nothing public disapproval. “There’s speculation,” he said, “but I don’t think it’s disapproval. Folk aren’t sure what to say. They’ll think about it this week—” and talk about it over Sunday lunch “—and next Sunday it’ll all be fine.”

  Then he heard it. Quite clearly, the tail end of a sentence spoken by a woman he’d thought he was friendly with. “...he’s just a dirty old man.”

  Micki heard it, too. She wheeled around.

  Charles grabbed her arm. “Don’t.”

  “They can’t talk about you like that.”

  “There’s no law against it.” Heck, he’d think the same thing if, say, Bert Munro took up with a girl twenty-some years his junior. Charles shifted his stance, putting distance between himself and Micki.

  “You’re pulling away,” she said sharply.

  “Maybe, since it’s our first day out, we should be a little more discreet.”

  “More discreet than drinking a cup of coffee together? Like, maybe we should be in different buildings?”

  Her voice had risen slightly; Charles glanced around. “I just think we don’t need to rub it in.”

  Her cheeks were pink, her eyes bright with moisture. “The first day is the hardest,” she said, her voice shaky.

  “I’m sure you’re right.” He wasn’t sure at all. There would definitely be gossip. Backbiting, as the Bible put it.

  Micki would be lacerated. He wasn’t too keen on having his own reputation cut to shreds, either. He didn’t want to be the subject of public disapproval. Or worse, ridicule. He didn’t want his status as former police chief, pillar of society and all-round good guy undermined by what people would only see as a weakness.

  “Charles,” Micki said sharply. “I said, shall we leave now?”

  He nodded. Micki took both their cups to the serving hatch. She brushed the palms of her hands down her pants.

  “Ready?” she asked with forced brightness.

  He cleared his throat. “Yep.” He knew from that hand-wiping that she was expecting him to take her hand. He couldn’t do it.

  He turned and led the way through
the crowd, hoping she thought he was just clearing a path. Hoping she was following. He muttered a hello to a couple of subdued greetings that came his way, but mostly, he avoided the stares of the curious.

  When he made it outside, it felt like he’d come up for air after being trapped underwater. His lungs were bursting.

  Micki was breathing heavily, too; he saw the rise and fall of her chest beneath that peach-colored blouse.

  “We made it,” he said.

  “Do you realize what you did in there?” she demanded.

  Uh-oh, he had a feeling she was about to tell him.

  “You acted as if you have something to be ashamed of. And that something is your feelings for me.”

  “I didn’t— I just felt awkward....”

  “Charles, that was about the least hostile environment we’re going to get—your friends and mine, in an environment conducive to gracious behavior. Instead, you made me feel guilty.”

  “I’m sorry....”

  “I don’t want to hear it,” she said. “Either you’re with me and you’re proud of it, or you’re not with me at all.”

  “I just need a little more time,” he began.

  “No problem,” she said, and he grabbed her hand in relief. She disentangled her fingers from his. “Take all the time you like, Charles Everson, but don’t come back to me until you’re proud to be my man, proud to have me as your woman.”

  Before he could assure Micki that he was plenty proud already, and that was in fact the problem, she stomped down the road. Without him.

  * * *

  JANE HAD THOUGHT she’d feel relieved to be leaving Pinyon Ridge. Instead, her heart was a deadweight in her chest, and she had the dumbest urge to cry.

  “I’ll have to take you to Sally Sue’s BBQ,” she told Cat in Micki’s apartment Wednesday at lunchtime, trying to muster some enthusiasm for their departure. “The food’s great, and a real bargain.”

  “Sounds good.” Listlessly, Cat inspected the cheese sandwich she’d made a few minutes ago when she’d arrived back from her work on Kyle’s new place. There was almost nothing left to do there now.