Calmly, Tom set the muffins and coffees on the kitchen counter and walked back to face Jamie with his hands on his hips.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” Tom snapped.
Jamie considered the younger man. He didn’t launch into attack. He didn’t toss the muffins and coffees. Very cool. Very deliberate. Very in control. If a man was going to be sleeping with his daughter, Jamie figured liking the guy was the best he could hope for.
The bad news was he probably wasn’t going to get his fight.
Zhanna leaped off the couch. “Tom, calm down. I told you. Jamie is only friend.”
“Only a friend, who shows up here in the morning and is patting your knee and kissing your cheek. I like you, Zee, but I mean it. I can’t play this game. You’re either with me or with him—”
“He’s my father.” Zhanna turned to Jamie. “There. Now cat is out of bag. Speaking of cat you must lower your voices as Mary is still sleeping. She does not care to be disturbed.”
“You didn’t have to do that Zhanna.” Jamie stood. He knew she’d done it for him. To let him off the hook for telling their secret. Maybe freeing them both from it, too.
She touched his face. “It was time. There is nothing to hide.”
“Father?” Tom apparently was still in shock as he looked to each of them then back to Zhanna. “Father? As in dad?”
“Father as in dad. Although I can’t get her to call me that. She says it’s ridiculous for someone her age.”
“You are Jamie.”
“All this time you’ve been her father?”
Jamie didn’t dignify Tom’s bewilderment with an answer. “Thanks, Zhanna. For everything.”
“I have one last piece of advice. I know Gabby. I don’t think she is a fool. But I think if you let her get off the island…then you are.”
Jamie chucked her under the chin and made his way to Tom who was still processing the news.
“Oh, and Tom,” Jamie said before he let himself out of the apartment. “Don’t think for a second I couldn’t have taken you just then. Combat training. Needless to say if you ever hurt Zhanna, if you hurt my daughter— I’m not going to lie, Zee, I really like the sound of that.”
She smiled. “Me, too. Now finish your big threat. Very fatherlike.”
“If you hurt my daughter,” Jamie told him. “I’ll hurt you.”
Zhanna gave a fake shudder even as she wrapped her arm around Tom’s waist and rested her head against his shoulder. “Very scary. You make an excellent frightening father.”
Jamie left the couple to deal with their relationship and instead wondered what the hell he was going to do with his own.
* * *
GABBY STARED AT THE name on her cell as it continued to ring and wondered what the hell she was going to do. Of course Melissa wanted to know where she was and what she’d learned. She’d let her know after meeting with Cheryl where she was headed next and she had checked in with her again as soon as she confirmed Paula would actually speak to her.
No doubt Melissa was on pins and needles waiting for the big reveal, clicking her nails together in anticipation of a possible bestseller. The make or break moment, the biography to end all biographies.
What a story it was, too.
Gabby could care less about it. What did it matter if he was innocent for a day when he’d been guilty for years?
She tossed the phone on the bed without answering it and listened to the insistent reminder beep, which told her not only had she missed Melissa’s call, but also a voice mail had been left. There was no real need to listen to the voice mail. Not when she knew what Melissa would say. Give me the story or else…
What in the hell was she going to do? Leave the island, tell Paula’s story and redeem Jamie’s reputation all the way by not including the early years of his marriage? Or leave the island, tell Paula’s story but reveal the truth about what Jamie had been doing years prior with all those other women. He would be somewhat exonerated. Who wouldn’t forgive a man who had unwittingly married a lesbian for having a few affairs?
She would ask to write the book. It would be a huge hit. She would do the book tour circuit. Maybe someone would see her on TV again and realize she was witty and charming and more importantly see how easily she connected to an audience through the medium of television.
Offers for her own morning show would come in from various networks. She would feature serious interviews, her first, of course, being Paula Hunter.
Her life. Back and better than before.
There was just one problem. Jamie wouldn’t be in it.
It wasn’t as though she had to think about what he would do. If she wrote the book, if she told the world his story after he’d spent all these years protecting Paula, he would never forgive her. Protecting Paula was the only thing he’d done right for her in their marriage.
A soft knock sounded on the bedroom door and Gabby startled. Only Jamie and Susan knew she was here. Susan had left her with a pot of tea and some chocolate chip cookies she thought might help and Jamie… Well, Jamie wouldn’t come after her so fast. He would respect she needed space.
Wouldn’t he? Or maybe he’d come to say she was being ridiculous and demand she forgive him. Possibly this declaration could entail lifting her over his shoulder and taking her back to his home where they would live together and be happy in ways she never really thought were possible for herself.
Cautiously Gabby sat up, then made her way to the door. “Who is it?”
“It’s me. You need to open the door. Now.”
Definitely authoritative, but not who she hoped.
Gabby opened the door to a scowling Zhanna.
“You know you are a big idiot.” It was a statement not a question.
“You know you lied to me.”
“Pish.” Zhanna waved her hand. “We lied to everyone. It was no one’s business. People wanted to think things, and we let them.”
Gabby let Zhanna sweep inside. She sat on the end of the bed with her long legs crossed.
“I saw him this morning and he is hurting. You are making him hurt. You hurt him. I hurt you.”
Gabby considered the threat. While it was true she’d shed some weight after a couple of weeks of consistent exercise, she was still larger than the slender younger woman. “Please. I could so take you.”
Zhanna’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, but I will fight dirty.”
“Yeah, well, I—” Gabby snapped her jaw shut. She was engaging in the ridiculous. “Zhanna, I’m not going to fight you. The truth is, a long time ago I was hurt. My father left my mother when I was a teenager. Then I got cheated on and dumped by my fiancé.”
“The people leaving. I remember this is what scares you.”
“Then you know why I can’t be with him. Why I can’t risk it.” Or at least why she didn’t think she could be with him. She didn’t know if she could risk it. She was still working it all out.
“I know what fear is. Bravery is feeling this fear and overcoming it. I was very brave. I’m now Tom’s girlfriend.”
Okay, maybe she was going to fight the woman. Or at least give her a good slap. Gabby didn’t need to have someone else’s relationship success rubbed in her face right now.
“I look at you and I think in some ways we are alike.”
Young, thin, beautiful and Russian compared to Gabby. She wasn’t seeing it. She was, however, seeing more clearly than ever the resemblance to Jamie. It made her feel both sad and oddly poignant. The idea of him being separated from her all those years was wrenching. Zhanna, too, being separated from her father, not because he walked out, but because she didn’t know he existed was tragic.
It didn’t seem fair. Although why Gabby thought anything in life should be fair after what she experienced, she wasn’t sure.
Zhanna continued, “You have it in you to be brave. I see this in you, too.”
Did she? Gabby didn’t feel brave. Not while she was holed up in her room with tea and cookies
. Afraid to talk to her boss, her mother and, most of all, Jamie.
“Did you forgive your mother?” Gabby wanted to know.
Zhanna seemed startled by the question.
“She kept you from Jamie. I don’t know if she told you about him growing up but—”
“She didn’t. Said nothing of him until the end of her life.”
“Weren’t you angry? You could have been with him. You could have had a father all those years. She kept that from you.”
Zhanna nodded. “Yes, she did. Yes, I was angry when she told me.”
“But did you forgive her?” Gabby looked at the woman’s expression and it was suddenly like she didn’t speak English and couldn’t understand a word Gabby was saying even though she knew full well she did.
“Do you love your mother?” Zhanna asked in return.
“Of course. What has that got to do with anything?”
“When your father left, did you forgive her for not being strong enough, not fighting hard enough to hold him?”
The question was absurd. “There was nothing to forgive. It wasn’t her fault. He left us.”
“Yes, but she had something do with it. A marriage, it is two people. You must have been angry with her for not loving him enough, or making him love her enough to keep him.”
Anger spiked through Gabby’s body. “My mother did everything she could. She was warm and wonderful and a good wife. It wasn’t her fault.”
“A good mother to you, yes. But how do you know if she was a good wife? You were a child. You could not understand what their relationship was.”
“No,” Gabby barked. “She was good to him. She kissed him when he came home from work. She had dinner waiting. She listened to him. I was never angry with her because he left. Never. And it wouldn’t have even mattered if I was. Of course I would forgive her.”
“Why?”
“Because I love her!”
Zhanna smiled. “Yes. It is the same with me. Yes, I was angry my mother kept me from knowing my father, but it didn’t matter. We forgive those we truly love. We do this because we are helpless against this love. The question you have to answer is not whether or not you can forgive Jamie. It is simply whether you love him enough. If you do, the forgiveness will come.”
Gabby plopped on the bed next to Zhanna, her energy spent as she considered those words.
“You know, at first I didn’t really like you,” Gabby admitted.
“No, I did not like you. But I do now. Good thing, huh? Since maybe soon I will call you stepmommy.”
Gabby glared at her. “If you ever call me mommy anything in public, then I really will slap you.”
Zhanna laughed and stood. “You must think now so I will leave you.”
Gabby didn’t say anything as the door shut behind Zhanna.
How stupid she had been. Zhanna was right. There really was only one question and one answer.
So what was it?
* * *
JAMIE CHECKED HIS watch then looked around the beach. He felt like a fool. He’d given her the space she wanted, hoping a night to think things over would be enough. He came down to the beach at his normal time, expecting her to be here.
When she wasn’t, he waited. Then waited some more.
He felt ridiculous. She wasn’t coming and his hope that a little space and time would make everything clear to her seemed very naive of him.
How long did it take to decide if you had enough forgiveness in your heart? Obviously longer than a day.
Jamie cursed and kicked at the rocky sand. Zhanna said he would be a fool if he let Gabby leave the island. What good would it do to keep her here if she wasn’t with him in his home? In his bed?
They needed to talk more. All the relationship books and couples’ counselors said so. Communication. Fine. He would head to Susan’s and bring Gabby back here and they would talk and talk until she damn well figured out she loved him enough to stay.
If this involved a little struggle and possibly a kidnapping, then so be it.
Jamie turned then and headed for his house. He stopped in his tracks when he saw Gabby coming down the hill. Her work-out gear on, her luscious hair pulled into a ponytail. He could see she was trimmer than she had been the first day he met her—not that he cared, but he knew it would please her. Anything that pleased her pleased him.
His heart was beating erratically in his chest and he struggled to keep himself in check and not run up to her and shake her and ask her what her answer was. She had come to him. It was a good thing. He would let her take the lead even if it killed him. If she needed to yell at him, or be angry with him for a while, then that was okay, too.
As long as she forgave him in the end, they would be able to move forward. She was his future. He considered the consequences if she couldn’t get beyond his past. He thought about what the future would look like if she left for good. None of it would be pretty.
It would hurt. Like a bitch. But he was still standing here waiting for her to reach him. He wasn’t running away or doing anything to stop her from coming to him. It had only taken him forty-five years, but he was finally growing up when it came to relationships.
“You’re late,” he said to her when she was close enough.
“I know. I had some thinking to do. I figured you would have already started, but I knew I could catch up to you.”
“Really? You think you’re fast now?”
“I think in the not so very distant future I might even be faster than you. After all, you’re getting older, while I’m still in my physical prime.”
Jamie tried not to tie too much hope to her use of the word future.
“What do you think about that?” She poked a finger in his chest. “Someday you might have to catch up to me.”
“I’ll like that day,” he admitted.
“Why?”
“Because it means I’ll get to follow you and watch your ass in black spandex. That’s hot as hell.”
She laughed and he tried not to put too much hope in that, either. Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore. “Gabby, what does this mean? You being here? Are you here to stay?”
“You didn’t ask me if I forgive you.”
Because he’d never been more afraid of an answer in his life.
“The thing is, it’s not the right question. Zhanna was right. There was only one question that mattered. One answer. I’m late because I called my mother this morning. I wanted her to know I was okay. I wanted her to hear my voice and know for the first time in almost eight years I was really okay.”
He felt the pressure in his chest lifting. Being replaced by excitement. “Why are you okay?”
Gabby smiled. “Because I’m in love. The real thing. Deep down to the ground in love. A very wise person told me when you love someone, truly love them, you can’t do anything but forgive them.”
Jamie stepped forward and wrapped his hands around her waist. He pressed his forehead against hers and let himself believe, truly believe, that Gabby was right and everything was okay.
“I will never cheat on you and I will never leave you as long as you want me to stay. I promise.”
Gabby looked at him and he could see the love and trust shining in her eyes. It was humbling.
“I believe you. I will always believe you.”
He kissed her then, tentatively because he still couldn’t believe this was happening. So much happiness, he almost felt a little guilty. As though maybe after what he’d done he wasn’t worthy of so much. Then he pulled her in his arms and decided he would focus on the joy instead.
When he let her go, she gave him a little shove. “We don’t have time for monkey business. We’ve got to go on our run and then we need to pack.”
“Pack?”
“For Houston. You said you wanted me to go with you and I’m going. It’s time for you to get back to doing what you do best. You’re a hero, Jamie Hunter. You’ve got some people on an ailing space station who might like to have a piece
of your wisdom.”
“It’s going to be a zoo,” he warned her.
Gabby nodded. “Yep. But it’s going to make an excellent last chapter in your book.”
With that she took off at a pretty fast clip. Jamie gave her a head start to make her think he actually might have to struggle to catch up with her. At some point he was going to have to tell her he wouldn’t let her write a book about him. But he would wait for the right moment.
Like on their honeymoon.
EPILOGUE
One year later
“I THINK YOU should walk with Armstrong.” Jamie was finishing his stretching on the beach and Gabby envied him his fluid movements.
Gabby scowled. “I don’t want to walk with Armstrong.”
Armstrong, the Golden Retriever puppy, whimpered and rested his face on his mother’s sneaker.
“Are you going to leave him behind when you know his legs are too short to keep up?” Jamie asked, knowing the thought of leaving the puppy behind would make her upset.
Gabby shook her head. “I swear, I think you got him now on purpose.”
Jamie lifted his hands in the air innocently. “Tom had a litter of puppies, I was helpless to turn this guy away.”
Gabby once again looked at the new puppy who was waiting to see which one would stay and walk with him on the beach because he wasn’t ready to run for long periods of time yet. His sweet face and trusting expression was a guarantee, it was going to be her. Heck, she felt guilty leaving him to use the bathroom.
“Fine, it will be me. But I’m walking at a brisk rate.”
“Honey, you do whatever you want.”
“I want to run,” she said stubbornly. “Look at me, I’m huge. I need the exercise.”
Jamie came around her from behind and wrapped his arms around her waist, his hands joining over her significant belly as he nibbled a little on her ear.
“You’re not huge. You’re pregnant. And while I know the doctor said it was okay for you to run, I think walking is a much better idea in your delicate condition.”
The Way Back Page 21
