Jodie wasn’t sure how she felt about that. “Even the good memories?”
“I don’t think he was talking about tossing everything out the window, just the things that keep you from moving on.”
“Then he is a wise man,” she said, looking straight at him. “You going to take his advice?”
He smiled slowly. “I’m thinking about it.”
“Good to know I still have a little influence around here,” Warren Davis announced, joining them with a tray loaded down with thick sandwiches and slices of decadent-looking chocolate cake. Laurie was right behind him with a bowl of salad.
Jodie flushed at the realization that he was the one who’d been giving Trent advice, apparently about her. Still, she was grateful to have another person—someone Trent obviously respected—in her corner.
She wasn’t sure it was possible to recapture what the two of them once had. There was too much water under the bridge. But maybe they could find something new together. She knew she wanted to try.
Because from the minute she’d laid eyes on Trent in that classroom a couple of months ago, she’d known that she was still very much in love with him. She hadn’t been willing to admit it, even to herself, until now. The thought that he might not love her back was too scary.
But if there was a chance—even a very slim one—that she could have him back in her life, she wanted that chance more than she’d wanted anything in a very long time.
CHAPTER
SEVEN
Trent didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but he couldn’t help himself when he heard Mike’s voice rise in anger. He didn’t intend to step in unless things got out of hand, but he wasn’t happy hearing anyone speak to Laurie in that tone of voice. Then he listened to the point Mike was trying to make and that his daughter apparently wasn’t hearing. It was difficult to stand by and listen to them struggling to reach an understanding on something so complex that many adults couldn’t manage it. Both of them had valid viewpoints, and finding the middle ground seemed all but impossible.
“I did not blow off today,” Mike told her heatedly. “Come on, Laurie. Don’t you know me better than that?”
“I thought I did,” Laurie responded just as angrily. “But when you didn’t show up at Granddad’s today, I felt like it was a slap in the face. You know how hard I’ve worked to make this happen and you couldn’t even be bothered to be there.”
“Because I was working,” he retorted impatiently. “I told you I had to work. What part of that don’t you understand? I need to work as many hours as they’ll give me. My family needs every dime I can earn and I have to start putting away some money for college next year. The scholarship won’t cover all of my expenses.”
“I know that,” Laurie said, sounding somewhat apologetic. “But today was really important to me. It should have mattered to you.”
Mike sighed heavily. “What’s happened to you, Laurie? If things don’t go exactly the way you want them to, then I’m disrespecting you? You never used to be like that. You never used to act like a spoiled brat.”
Trent heard Laurie’s gasp, then silence. He could feel her anguish, but he could also understand Mike’s frustration. When Laurie finally spoke, her voice was thick with tears.
“I had no idea you felt that way,” she whispered. “Do you want to break up? Is that what this is about?”
“Are you crazy?”
To Trent’s relief, Mike sounded incredulous, as if nothing could be further from the truth.
“Laurie, if you and I are going to stay together, we have to be able to work through stuff like this. We come from very different backgrounds, that’s just a fact. You take things for granted that are out of reach for me.”
“I was just trying to put them within reach,” she told him. “Just for prom, not for anything else. You’re fine the way you are. In fact, I love who you are. You’re smart and you care so much about your family. You work hard and still keep your grades up and find time for sports and for me. You’re terrific. Don’t you know how much I admire you?”
“I wish you’d said all that a few weeks ago,” Mike told her. “I thought you were ashamed of me.”
“Never!” she said fiercely.
“You know, if you’d just said that prom was important to you, I would have found some way for us to go,” he told her wearily. “You said it didn’t matter, and then, all of a sudden, there’s this huge production to make sure all the poor kids like me get to go. And to top it off, you got Ms. Fletcher on my case about it. Do you know how that made me feel?”
“I just meant for you to feel included,” she whispered.
“Well, I didn’t. I felt embarrassed and humiliated, and worse, I got drafted to talk the other guys into it. It’s not that I don’t appreciate your motives, but did you ever stop to think about how it would make me feel to have to take all this free stuff from somebody? I was brought up to pay my own way, and if I couldn’t, then I did without. The only time I’ve broken that rule is when I asked Ms. Fletcher to help me get free school breakfasts and lunches for my brothers and sister. It about killed me to ask for that. I only did it because my mom was too proud to, and they were going to school hungry.”
“I’m sorry. I guess I didn’t think this through. Do you think the others feel the same way?”
“No, and if I can shove my pride aside, I get that you’re doing a really nice thing. And prom is going to be great this year, because almost everyone will be there. It’s just hard, you know, feeling like I can’t provide everything you want.”
“I just want you,” she told him softly. “Just you.”
Silence fell then and Trent didn’t want to think about any making up that might be going on, so he slipped away and went down the hall into his office. As he sat at his desk, he thought about what Mike had said, that he and Laurie had to work through things, not make assumptions and run off to lick their wounds.
Was that what he had done years ago with Jodie? Had he been so hurt by her decision to break up that he’d failed to fight hard enough for what he believed they had? Oh, sure, he’d made plenty of calls. He’d even gone by her place a few times, but he could have done more and he knew it. He’d been afraid to push too hard for answers because he thought he already knew what they would be—that she’d tired of him, that she no longer loved him. He hadn’t wanted to hear those words spelled out any more clearly than they already had been. He’d made assumptions rather than having faith in what he knew they had between them.
Before he could change his mind, he picked up the phone and dialed the number he’d written down when he’d looked up her address a few weeks before.
“Hello,” she said cheerily, with yet another symphony booming in the background. “Hang on a sec. The music’s too loud.”
Once it was muted, she came back on the line. “Sorry. I always thought Beethoven was meant to be heard at full volume.”
“You never liked classical music when we were together,” Trent commented.
“Trent?” She sounded surprised.
“It’s me,” he said. “When did you develop this fondness for Beethoven and the rest of the classics?”
“When I was married. Adam liked it and I developed an appreciation for it, too, though to be honest my preference is for Mozart’s pieces for the flute. What about you? Have your musical tastes changed at all?”
“Sorry, no. I’m still a little bit country, a little bit rock ’n’ roll.”
She laughed. “Like the Osmonds.”
“Pretty much.”
“I assume you didn’t call to talk about music,” she said. “Is there something in particular on your mind?”
“I was sitting here thinking about some things,” he began, not entirely sure what to say now that he had her on the phone. He just knew that everything that had happened wa
sn’t entirely her fault, after all.
“The past?” she asked.
“Mostly,” he acknowledged. “I owe you an apology.”
“Oh?”
“I still don’t like what you did all those years ago, the unilateral decision you made that affected our future.”
“Yes, you’ve made that clear enough,” she said dryly. “I’m not quite hearing that apology yet.”
“Hold on. I’m getting to it.” His lips curved slightly, but the smile faded as he formed the rest of his thoughts. “You made that decision, Jodie, but I’m the one who let you get away with it. I should have owned up to my part a long time ago, but it was easier to blame you. I could have fought harder, made you talk to me about why you decided to end it, instead of just running off with my tail between my legs. Maybe if I’d forced things and we’d really sat down and talked it all through, things would have turned out differently.”
“Oh, Trent, I don’t know about that. I was pretty stubborn and pretty darn certain I was right. I spent my entire childhood being told by my parents that I wasn’t as pretty or as smart or as clever as my sister. When I was in that car accident—remember, I told you about that when we first met—things went from bad to worse. Oh, my folks were there for me, but they couldn’t seem to help reminding me afterward that I was less than perfect. When I met you, I was still pretty much convinced that I could never measure up. You were going places and I didn’t think I could keep up. Even my folks commented one time that I would probably hold you back.”
“That’s ridiculous,” he said heatedly.
She sighed. “I know that now, but I didn’t have the kind of self-confidence and strength then that I do today. That comes with maturity and getting away from all that nonstop negativity.”
“I wish you’d explained all this back then,” he told her. “I could have told you how wrong you were.”
“I wouldn’t have believed you. After all, the message had been ingrained in me for a very long time, if not with overt criticism then with comparisons in which I always fell just a little short of my sister.”
“But I could be awfully persuasive when I set my mind to it, or have you forgotten that?” He chuckled as a memory came to him. “I got you to go parasailing at Ocean City despite your fear of heights, didn’t I?”
She groaned. “I have definitely tried to forget that. Maybe that was when I saw we didn’t have a real future. I wasn’t sure I was prepared for a lifetime of taking outrageous risks. I’d always pictured myself as a sedate schoolteacher, setting a proper example for her students.”
“You could have done both,” he said.
“I’m not so sure about that.”
“Let me prove it to you, starting with prom.”
“I’ve already agreed to go with you,” she reminded him.
“I know, but I’m not sure when I asked and you agreed to go that either one of us was doing it for the right reason.”
“And what is the right reason?”
“Because I want to hold you in my arms and dance with you,” he told her, his voice low and seductive. “I want to start over, Jodie, see what’s left of what we once were or maybe find something new altogether. How about it? Just take the first step on the long road toward a future with me.”
She was silent for so long, he thought maybe she wasn’t anywhere near as ready as he was.
“One step,” she agreed at last. “And then we’ll see.”
“That’s all I ask,” he said. “Good night, Jodie.”
“Good night, Trent.”
He held the phone after she’d disconnected, not ready to break that fragile tie with the woman he’d once loved with all his heart... and just might love again.
* * *
The May evening couldn’t have been more perfect. The sky was littered with stars, the temperature balmy. Inside Oak Haven, the ballroom quite literally took Jodie’s breath away. It looked different than it had when they’d held their shopping spree there a few weeks earlier. The massive chandelier sparkled like diamonds and spilled light over polished oak floors inlaid with elaborate designs. The part of her that had once dreamed impossible dreams could imagine a full orchestra at one end of the huge room, music soaring to the rafters and mingling with excited chatter and high-pitched laughter. That was the world to which Trent was accustomed. She tried not to let that intimidate her. Instead, she focused on the chatter and laughter around her tonight.
A dozen girls were at the center of a beehive of activity, their dresses nipped and tucked one last time until they fit perfectly, their hair in giant rollers as they awaited a turn with one of the four stylists who had volunteered to help. They jockeyed for position in front of the half-dozen full-length mirrors that had been brought in for the occasion, their eyes bright with wonder as they saw themselves transformed. Several moms had come along for the special night and they sat on the sidelines, smiling at the joy on their daughters’ faces.
Laurie darted among the girls, her own pastel-pink dress a fairy-tale confection of tulle and silk and glittering rhinestones. She was a never-ending font of helpful tips, of glowing compliments that kept the other girls beaming with pride.
“I had no idea I could ever look like this,” Mariana Padrone whispered to Jodie as she stared at the image in the mirror in front of her. In the white dress threaded with gold, she looked like a delicate princess.
A shy girl with decent but not extraordinary grades, Mariana was destined for community college classes that could fit around her work schedule. Tonight was giving her a little bit of the magic that had been missing from her life.
“You look beautiful,” Jodie told her. “Miguel is going to be blown away when he sees you.”
“I am so grateful to Mr. Winston for talking him into this,” Mariana said, glancing toward the portable dividers that separated the girls’ dressing area from the boys’. “He is going to look so handsome in his tuxedo. I wish I had a camera to take pictures so we can always remember tonight.”
“Done,” Jodie said, grinning at her and pulling a disposable camera from a bag filled with two dozen of them. “There’s one for each of you. Allow me to take the first picture.”
She snapped it, capturing Mariana’s beaming smile forever.
Over the next hour, she took dozens of photos of the girls alone in their finery and then of the couples as they prepared to ride in one of the limos that Warren Davis had arranged to take them from his home to the hotel. The drivers would wait and deliver the students to one of several parent-supervised after-prom parties that would last until dawn.
When the final limo rode away, Jodie turned to find Trent behind her. She’d found him attractive enough in his work clothes, but in a tuxedo he was devastatingly handsome. He looked as if he’d been born to wear one. All those years ago, she had known that his life was meant to be like this, from the fancy clothes to the extravagant events.
Then she reminded herself that this was a high school prom they were about to attend, an event from her world, and he looked as if it were as important as any big-dollar charity event.
“Unlike the boys, you look very comfortable in that tux,” she commented. “You must have had it specially tailored.”
“I had to,” he said. “Laurie took all my old ones for this project.”
He pulled his hand from behind his back and held out a florist’s box. “You never did say what kind of flowers you wanted, so I had to rely on a tip from my daughter.” He glanced from her shimmering sheath of cream silk, which Carmen had talked her into paying way too much for, to the ivory camellia resting against delicate lace and waxy, dark green leaves.
Jodi regarded the corsage with amazement. He’d gotten it exactly right, simple and classy, just like Trent himself.
He grinned at her. “Trust me to pin it on, or would you rat
her do it yourself?”
She had to swallow against the tide of emotion clogging her throat. “You do it, please,” she said softly.
When his knuckles grazed bare skin, she trembled, but she kept her gaze level with his, felt the heat stir between them. The once-familiar sensation was exactly the way she’d remembered it. For the second time in her life, she felt as if her prince had come along.
She’d just never expected to have to wait so very long for him to find his way back to her.
* * *
Trent stood at the edge of the dance floor, Jodie beside him, and felt an unexpected swell of pride that his daughter had turned this night into something special for so many people. Sure, some of the students here were having the night they’d anticipated, taken for granted, in fact, but he could pick out those for whom it was an unexpected blessing. There was an air of bemusement about them, a sense of wonder that was lacking in the other kids.
Even Marvin and his oh-so-resistant cohorts were standing taller, gazing with genuine amazement and appreciation at the girls on their arms. And Mike had finally relaxed and let himself enjoy the party. He and Laurie couldn’t seem to take their eyes off each other. Trent couldn’t help rooting just a little bit for the two of them. He was impressed more and more with Mike’s maturity.
Jodie said something he couldn’t hear over the music so he leaned closer, breathing in the scent of the camellia that he’d noticed her touching from time to time as if it were a talisman.
“What?” he asked.
“I said I haven’t heard Marvin refer to a single person tonight as a dude,” she said, grinning. “That alone is miracle enough for me.” She glanced across the room. “Laurie and Mike look happy. Did they settle their disagreement or is this just detente?”
“They talked and settled things, I think,” Trent said. “At least for now. Who knows what’s in store for those two, but I have to say my respect for Mike has increased lately. He’s got a good head on his shoulders. Maybe they can make it, after all.”
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