She slowly raised her gaze, past the dark suit jacket, past the white shirt and faintly patterned blue tie. Past the squared jaw and straight lips to his eyes. The anger there, deadly and barely controlled, made her drop her hand and turn away.
While she struggled with her composure, several people came over and said hello. Some of the faces looked familiar, some did not. But they all stared. A few of the people she knew glanced from her to Adam, then back. The speculative look in their eyes made her blush. The rumors would sprout faster than kudzu. This had all the earmarks of turning out to be a crummy day.
Billie bounced beside her. “Oh, look. There’s Matt. I met him at the pool. He’s a catcher. I’m going to go say hi.” She darted off without waiting for permission.
“Charm school,” Charlene murmured quietly, before she, too, walked away to greet some friends. Adam also disappeared into the crowd to speak with someone.
Alone, Jane moved toward the front steps of the church. The old-fashioned white building had been recently painted. Green grass stretched out on either side of the path leading from the parking lot to the stairs. Lofty chestnut trees provided shade. They’d grown taller in her absence, she thought, glancing up at them. And the dogwoods had grown wider. Small changes really, not enough to keep her from remembering.
As she climbed the steps, she reminded herself it was all in the past. But it wasn’t. As she stepped through the open double doors, time shifted. It bent until that day and this one touched, and she once again stood in the back of the church, her long, white wedding gown dragging at her with each step.
The church had been full, the townspeople eager to see Adam Barrington wed his bride. White roses, always her favorite, filled every urn. Wide ribbons curved along the center aisle, holding small white bouquets at the end of each pew. Even now, the scent of roses swept over her. Someone jostled her gently and she stepped into a corner of the foyer. The shadows blurred, the sounds faded, until all she could hear was her mother telling her it was too late to change her mind.
“You can’t back out now,” her mother had said, an edge of hysteria in her voice. “The wedding, the reception. It’s all planned. What will your father say?”
A familiar theme growing up, Jane recalled. Her father had been the undisputed master of his castle. Her mother the eager subject. It was her mother’s willingness to be what her husband demanded that had first given Jane a glimpse of what life with Adam might be like. Adam also made politely worded requests. As she stared at the people waiting to watch her marry, she had wondered if he loved her. Confusion, as real today as it had been nine years ago, filled her. Was she the most convenient bride? Young and easily influenced? Did he want her or had she simply fulfilled his list? They were so different. Six years had loomed large between them. He’d been a man.
More than anything, that had frightened her. In those moments when her blood had run cold and her heart had thundered in her throat, she had seen that she wasn’t enough. She might love him with all of her being, but she wasn’t ready to marry him. It had been her first mature realization. Unfortunately, she had acted like a child. Even as her mother had begged her to reconsider, Jane pulled off the wedding gown and veil. She’d slipped on her jeans and shirt.
“What are you going to tell him?” her mother had asked.
“Nothing.”
With that, she had run. Pausing only to peek into the church one more time, stopping long enough to catch Adam’s eye and see him smile at her, warmly, trustingly, as any man would smile at the unexpected glimpse of his bride. He hadn’t seen she wasn’t wearing her gown. In that moment, she’d stopped to question her actions. Had his expression contained affection? Even love?
No, she’d thought as the tears had begun. Not love. Convenience. Suitability. She would never inspire the same kind of soul-stealing emotion that he created in her. Better to find that out now, rather than later. She’d escaped out a side door and had never looked back.
One cowardly, selfish act. Her life had never been the same. She’d lived with that mistake from that moment until this. Adam had been right, Jane thought, pushing away the past and looking around at the church. She hadn’t allowed herself to think about the consequences of her actions. Oh, she’d acknowledged that he might be hurt or a little embarrassed, but she’d never considered in detail what he must have gone through.
Her Adam, so strong and proud, handsome. She remembered how her heart had fluttered whenever he’d smiled at her from across a room. She’d publicly humiliated him, had rejected him in the worst way possible. He’d worked hard for all he’d achieved. To think that she might have destroyed that. She shuddered.
She had hoped that by getting him to admit his anger now, she might lessen her own guilt. Another selfish act. She had forced Adam to relive those horrible days. And now, they both felt worse. As she’d said earlier. Stupid.
A soft hand touched her arm. Jane blinked, then tried to smile at Charlene.
“Are you all right?” the older woman asked. In the church the shadows muted the bright color of her hair, but the other woman was still a robin in a flock of sparrows.
“Fine.”
Those wise eyes studied her. “There’s no way to escape the past, my dear. You must make peace with it.”
“Am I that obvious?”
“Only because I care about you.”
“I’m just beginning to understand all the trouble I’ve caused,” she said, averting her face from the probing glances of curious neighbors. “It’s not flattering.”
“You were young, child. You made the best decision you could at the time.”
“Everyone paid a high price for that.”
“Including yourself.”
“I don’t care about me. It’s Billie that I’m worried about.”
“And Adam?”
“Yes,” she admitted.
It was as if Charlene’s words conjured him out of the morning. He and Billie walked in together, the child’s small hand held securely in his. They were speaking about something. Both their heads tilted toward each other.
The best decision possible at the time, Charlene had said. That wasn’t true. All she’d accomplished by running was to keep father and daughter apart.
Adam said something and they both laughed. Their smiles were mirror images. How long before everyone guessed the truth? He glanced up at her, then turned away. Inside, a cold lump formed and pressed against her heart.
She’d been hiding, she realized in that moment of rejection. Hiding from the truth. The list of reasons she’d used for coming home—a good job, a small and friendly town in which to raise her daughter—had all been a smoke screen. She hadn’t come home for a teaching position, or even for Billie. She’d come home looking for forgiveness and a way to set the past right.
Chapter Five
Despite the board covering the broken window, night noises drifted into Adam’s office. He stared at the folders spread open in front of him and struggled to concentrate. The loan committee would meet Monday morning, as it had for decades. He could imagine the looks on his employees’ faces if he wasn’t ready.
Normally he could shut out any distractions. Whether it was neighborhood kids or grunts from Charlene’s favorite Sunday night wrestling. But tonight—He closed the top file and sighed. Jane had called Billie in for her bath about fifteen minutes before. The eight-year-old’s arguments as to why she didn’t need washing had taken the better part of ten minutes. At the end, he’d been grinning broadly at her imagination and inventiveness. What a kid.
But it wasn’t Billie’s chatter that kept him from working. Nor was it Charlene’s television shows or the crickets. It was Jane. He’d gone to church in that same building for the past nine years. Except for an occasional service missed because of illness or vacation, he’d been faithful in his attendance, and his attention. This morning, as now, his mind had wandered. The past, so easily disposed of when there was no reminder, slipped around the walls of his contro
l. It weighed on him, made him lose track of the sermon or his notes on a loan.
When she had left, all those years ago, he’d been able to occupy his mind with the details of picking up the pieces. All the things he’d complained about to Jane that she’d left him to handle had filled his time and his thoughts. The act itself had been pushed aside, first for a few days, then indefinitely, until he’d lost track of it all. Occasionally, something would happen to remind him. He would recall a conversation, a moment, then shove it back where it belonged and get on with his life.
It wasn’t going to be so easy this time, he thought as he dropped his pen onto the desk and leaned back in his leather chair. Violent anger had been his persistent companion most of the day. He hated her for making him remember, and himself for being sucked into something that should have ended a long time ago. He’d avoided the family dinner table, instead grabbing a snack in the kitchen and ducking out before Charlene could shanghai him. How long could he avoid Jane?
Damn her for coming back, he thought, staring out into the darkness. And for being the one who still got to him.
After taking a deep breath, he ordered his body to relax. She would be gone in the morning. He wouldn’t have to see her again if he didn’t want to. There had been weeks, even months between contact with the previous neighbors. Surely Jane was smart enough to want the same thing. If they both took a little time to plan this, they might never have to meet again. Would that be enough to shut her out? Not seeing her, not talking to her? He closed his eyes, but that didn’t help.
Memories from years ago filled him. He’d just gotten his Master’s degree in Money and Banking and had been putting in a lot of extra hours at the bank to make up for his time gone. Financially it had been touch and go for a couple of years. The town of Orchard had been amazingly tolerant and trusting of a bank president in his twenties. Dani and Ty had needed money for college, not to mention his attention when they were home. And there had been Jane.
Time with her was something he had put on his calendar, scheduled like any appointment. Perhaps, he thought now, he could have wooed her more, but he’d had responsibilities. She’d understood that. All that was to have changed after the wedding. But she’d never given him the chance.
She had been young. Maybe too young, he thought with a flash of insight. She’d wanted him to demonstrate his affection by playing those silly romantic high school games. He hadn’t had time to loll around on her porch and sip lemonade while gossiping about the prom. He hadn’t had time—
Upstairs, footsteps thumped. Billie, he thought with a slight smile. If things had been different, he and Jane could have been married for nine years. They would have had a child of their own by now. A daughter who looked like—
He sat up straight in his chair. Billie? He started to do some rapid calculations. They were cut short when he realized he didn’t know how old Billie was. Even as excitement and expectation flared inside him, he firmly squashed them. Billie couldn’t be his. He and Jane hadn’t made love often, and when they had, they’d used protection. She’d been embarrassed as hell about the diaphragm, he recalled with a grin. Her mother had refused to discuss any kind of birth control, so he’d been the one to take her to the doctor and wait during her appointment.
His smile faded. Sex. Another place he’d screwed up, he saw now with the twenty-twenty vision of hindsight.
“Adam?”
He glanced up, startled. He hadn’t heard her knock, let alone enter. Had his thoughts conjured her from the past? Was the woman standing in front of him real?
He studied her dark hair and the fringe of bangs that ended just above her delicately arched eyebrows. Hazel eyes held his gaze for a second, before flickering nervously toward the floor. One corner of her mouth quivered slightly, as if not sure whether to curve up or down. She still looked too damn young, he thought irritably. But she was real enough. The dress she wore—pale blue and loose fitting with a white blouse underneath—was the same one from this morning. He wouldn’t have imagined her in that. In his mind, he liked to think of her teetering on unaccustomed high heels, her upswept hair adding height and attempting to make her look older. Or sitting on his porch, watching the sunset, a sleeveless blouse exposing her tanned arms, while the gauzy full skirt she wore outlined the curvy lines of her legs.
“I’m busy,” he said curtly, as much to disconnect himself from his thoughts as to send her away.
“This won’t take but a moment.”
He made a show of closing the top folder, then glancing impatiently at his watch. “Yes?”
She took a step into the office. The room was large, and he’d taken advantage of the space. Bookcases lined two walls. The big walnut desk that had been his father’s was the centerpiece of the room. A comfortable chair with its own table and reading lamp stood in one corner. The couch sat between the desk and door. About five years ago he’d pulled up the heavy rug and had refinished the hardwood floors. It was a comfortable room; a place he could work in.
Her hands fluttered nervously around her waist. She linked her fingers together, as if to still the movement, then rubbed her palms back and forth against each other.
“Sit down and stop fidgeting,” he said, pointing to the couch.
“Sorry.” Jane walked the three steps, then perched on the edge of the sofa. The black leather provided a perfect backdrop for her delicate features. The harsh color outlined the shape of her head, the curve of her cheek and the graceful sweep of her neck. She wore her hair pulled back.
“A nuisance,” she’d said, when, years before, he pulled at the ribbons and freed the silky tresses.
“Beautiful,” he’d replied.
Her innocent blush had thrilled him, as he had then taken what no man had seen or touched.
He shook his head impatiently. “What do you want?”
“To apologize.”
He raised one eyebrow and waited.
“Not about Billie. She hasn’t done anything.”
“Yet,” he said.
The corner of her mouth raised slightly. “Yet. It is one of the hazards of raising a tomboy.”
“But worth the trouble.”
She looked surprised. “I wouldn’t have thought—”
“I’d never hold your behavior against your child, Jane. If you’d taken the time to know the man you were running from, you would be aware of that.”
Hazel eyes flashed anger, as their color darkened to green. “If I’d taken the time? You’re the one who couldn’t bear to be away from your precious bank. I always came tenth on a list of five items. Don’t talk to me about—” She stopped, her mouth still open to form more words. She clamped her lips together and sighed. “I didn’t come here to fight.”
“Why did you?”
“At church this morning…I’m sorry about all that. I should have thought…” She hunched her shoulders as if waiting for him to berate her for not thinking—again. When he didn’t, she went on. “Those people, they all stared at us. I’d forgotten what a small town can be like. There will be rumors. I didn’t want to cause you any more trouble.”
He rose from his desk and walked around it until he stood in front of her. After moving a couple of folders, he perched on the corner nearest her. “I can handle it, if you can.”
She nodded. “People will talk, though.”
He shrugged. “I’ve been through it before.”
“I know. I’m sorry about that, too.”
“Forget it.”
“I can’t.”
“Then it’s your problem.”
“You dismiss me so easily, Adam, but then you always did. I was too young and foolish. I was never like those other women you dated.”
His temper threatened to flare but was put out by her words from the past. “I’m not like those other women.” The phrase echoed over and over again. It had been winter. January, maybe, and cold for South Carolina. He’d started a fire and had spread a blanket for the two of them. They’d been ki
ssing for hours, petting. He’d touched her breasts under the wool of her sweater, but when he tried to take off her bra, she’d resisted.
“I’m not like those other women,” she said, her hazel eyes wide and afraid. “I’ve never done this before.”
He’d taken her further than she’d wanted to go. He folded his arms over his chest and tried to ignore the flicker of shame. Further and faster. She’d never resisted, or said no, but he’d been aware that Jane would have been happy to keep their physical relationship less physical. Lovemaking had been—he frowned—awkward at best.
The memories made him uncomfortable and he pushed them away. But this time the thoughts refused to return to their small box at the back of his consciousness. They intruded with images that made him wonder if he’d crossed the line from ardent suitor to horny jerk with her. She’d been a young nineteen, he admitted to himself. He looked at her, sitting on the edge of his sofa, her fingers twisting together. She still looked young.
But nine years had passed. She had grown up. She was a teacher and a mother. That reminded him. Billie.
“How old is Billie?” he asked.
Jane swallowed as her stomach flipped over. Why did he want to know? “Eight.”
He drew his eyebrows together as if doing the math. “And her father?”
“What?”
“Billie told me she’s never met him. You and he want it that way?”
Oh, God forgive her, she didn’t have the strength to say it. Not now. Not today. “It seemed like the best decision at the time.”
“A kid needs a dad.”
“Billie and I are getting by.”
“She deserves more than just getting by.”
“That’s why I brought her home.”
“Home?” His mouth curled into a cruel twist. “I’m surprised you’d still think of Orchard as home.”
A Dad for Billie Page 7
