“I can’t believe that just happened,” she said. “For so long, I’ve been terrified my father would find us. I never considered Arianne didn’t want Chris back and that being found could be the best thing for Chris.”
“That remains to be seen,” Dan said. “Your father has a lot of making up to do with your brother.”
“Don’t I know it,” Jill said. “Chris is too young to understand how vulnerable a man in love can be.”
Dan’s gut clenched.
“What bothers me,” Jill continued, “is that Arianne is going to get away with what she did to my brother.”
“It might still be worth a shot to have someone look into her background,” Dan suggested. “It probably won’t help Chris, but it can’t hurt to have more information about Arianne. Maybe one day you’ll need it.”
“I’ll do that.” Jill let go of the porch railing, the decision to do something proactive seeming to fortify her. “I can’t thank you enough for today.”
“I was glad to help,” he said.
“Let me ask you something.” She watched him carefully. “Why did you believe I was doing the right thing for Chris? Not once did you question that.”
He shrugged, not sure he could put his reasons into words, uncertain whether he even understood them. “I just did.”
“I should go get Chris,” Jill said. Her chest heaved up and down in a heavy sigh. She seemed to have difficulty getting the next words out. “Will you come with me?”
He shook his head. “This doesn’t involve me anymore.”
“I’d like it to involve you.” She gazed at him with huge, pleading eyes. “You must know I didn’t mean what I said last night. I don’t want to break up with you.”
“You haven’t meant a lot of things you said.” He kept his hands shoved into his pockets, annoyed with himself that even now he wanted to reach for her. “You’ve been lying to me pretty much since we met.”
“Because I had to,” she said. “I wanted to tell you about Chris, but I’ve been burned before. I couldn’t risk it.”
Pain sliced through him. “You actually thought I’d betray you to your father?”
She shook her head miserably. “I was confused. I had doubts, but now—”
He didn’t let her finish. “I understand you couldn’t bring yourself to trust me. I even accept it. Now I’m asking you to accept that I can’t trust you. Not anymore.”
“Would it matter if I said I was sorry?” Her voice shook. “Because I am sorry. I didn’t think I had any choice but to lie.”
He wasn’t aware it was possible for a heart to physically hurt until just then. “There’s always a choice.”
He moved away from her, feeling as though he were wading through quicksand. His throat felt thick and his eyes moist. It seemed prophetic that her car was already packed, because this was the moment that felt like goodbye.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“ARE YOU READY YET, DAD?” Chris Jacobi paced the cool marble tile of his father’s house in Atlanta two weeks later, stopping periodically to bounce on the balls of his feet.
Jill thought the excitement radiating from her brother made it seem as if his whole body was vibrating.
“Give me a minute, son.” Mark Jacobi’s tone was indulgent. “Your sister needs to talk to me first.”
“We gotta get to the animal shelter before it closes!” Chris said.
“It’s not even one o’clock, Chris,” Jill pointed out, hiding a smile. “You’ve got plenty of time to get there.”
Chris pursed his lips, frowned, then said. “I’ll go wait by the car.”
He dashed away from where Jill and her father sat on tall stools at the granite breakfast bar in a kitchen as spacious as some small houses. The sound of his footsteps thundered over the tile, followed by the front door slamming.
“Chris thinks waiting by the car will speed you up,” Jill told him.
“I remember,” her father said, a simple phrase that conveyed a world of meaning. Jill and Chris had left Indigo Springs with their father the day after he tracked them down. Since then, he’d been getting reacquainted with his son.
“It’s a great idea to get him a pet,” Jill said. “He had a hard time leaving those pygmy goats behind.”
“I would have let him bring the goats with him if it hadn’t been for the zoning ordinance,” her father said. “I want Chris to be happy here.”
“I know, Daddy.” Jill could attest firsthand that he was trying his best to repair the damage to his relationship with his son. She’d taken Dan’s advice and was temporarily living at the Atlanta house to help ease the transition for Chris.
Now that Arianne was no longer in the picture, with the help of counseling the boy was rebounding surprisingly well.
Jill wasn’t faring as favorably. Every day she thought about the mistakes she’d made with Dan. No matter how much it pained her, she understood why he could never trust her again.
After all, her major mistake had been not trusting him.
“What did you want to talk to me about?” he asked.
“Arianne.” She noticed his muscles tense, as though he was preparing to take a punch to the gut. “That private detective I hired called with more news.”
He said nothing, simply waiting for her to continue, a marked contrast to his anger the first time she’d brought up the P.I. Much had happened since he’d claimed she had nerve to hire someone to probe into his wife’s background without his permission.
Her father had found out Arianne had emptied their joint accounts, and the P.I. discovered another state had a violation-of-probation warrant against her. It turned out Arianne had run up thousands of dollars on an ex-boyfriend’s credit card, and he’d pressed charges. A judge had sentenced her to a fine, community service and one year of supervised probation. She’d fled the state a month later.
“That warrant caught up with her,” Jill said. “She’s looking at a mandatory jail sentence for violating probation.”
“I know,” her father said. “Arianne called and asked if I could hire a good lawyer to get her off.”
Jill’s breath caught. “What about the man she left you for? Why wouldn’t he get her a lawyer?”
“Apparently he’s not as in love with her as she thought.”
“What did you say?” Jill asked.
“I said she could hire her own lawyer with the money she stole from my accounts.” He winced. “Then she swore at me and hung up.”
He spoke like a man whose heart had been broken.
“I’m sorry, Daddy,” she said.
“I’m sorry I was such a fool.” He wet his lips and took a deep breath before asking, “You really believe she did those things to Chris?”
“I really do,” Jill said. “I don’t think she had anything against him in particular. I just think the only person who matters in Arianne’s life is Arianne.”
Her father’s eyes watered. “Why couldn’t I see that?”
“Because you were in love,” she said. “It’s hard to see things clearly when you’re in love.”
Jill hadn’t recognized a good man worthy of her trust. The ache of her regret intensified.
“Have you heard from Dan Maguire since we got back to Atlanta?” her father asked.
Jill didn’t bother to try to convince him that she didn’t equate Dan with love. She was through lying.
“He called Chris to tell him Tinkerbell’s cast was off and he could come visit the goats any time. He didn’t ask to speak to me.” The admission hurt. “I lied to him about too many things. It’s over between us.”
“Maybe if you went back to Indigo Springs, you could start it up again,” her father said. “The people in our family make good on their second chances. Just watch me.”
She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek, feeling closer to him than she had in years.
“You better go, Daddy,” she said. “Chris is waiting.”
He stood, planted a soft kiss on the to
p of her head and went to join his son. Only when he was gone did Jill draw in a shuddering breath.
She couldn’t delay making a decision about her future much longer. Chris started back to school on Monday, and it had become increasingly clear that father and son would do just fine without her.
Her father’s suggestion that she return to Indigo Springs had struck a nerve. Both her employers would welcome her back, as would Felicia. Without Chris to take care of, Jill could cut down on her work hours and even run for borough council.
Or she could try to get her old job back at the bike shop. She’d be close to family and wouldn’t come into constant contact with Dan and her regrets over what might have been.
Then again, she didn’t have to be in Indigo Springs to experience regret. If she’d handled her relationship with Dan differently, right now she’d be with him at his cousin’s wedding in Ohio.
She abruptly got to her feet, went to the guest bedroom she was using and changed into a one-piece bathing suit. Swimming laps in her father’s backyard pool might help crystallize her thoughts.
Forty-five minutes later, her only coherent thought was that she was tired.
She stopped swimming and leaned her head back in the water, closing her eyes and letting her body float. She couldn’t hear anything except the muted sound of the water cascading down the stones artfully arranged in one corner of the pool area to resemble a waterfall. When she opened her eyes again, she saw a mirage. Dan stood beside the shallow end of the pool, looking tall and handsome and not quite real.
With no clouds in the sky, the sun was almost blindingly bright. She blinked a few times to clear the vision, but it persisted. He wore a short-sleeved shirt and khakis instead of the shorts in which her dream self would have dressed him. She righted herself so she was no longer floating but treading water. The man beside the pool, incredibly, was real.
“I let myself in through the gate when no one answered the doorbell,” Dan called to her. “I hope you don’t mind.”
Wordlessly she shook her head, her arms and legs working in tandem to keep her body afloat, her brain not working at all.
“Could you come out of the pool?” he asked. “It’s a little hard to talk to you from here.”
She swam to the ladder, feeling as though she was in a trance, and pulled herself out of the pool, water sluicing down her body. He greeted her with the towel she’d flung over the fence. She took it, wrapping it around her body, her eyes never leaving his face.
“Why aren’t you at your cousin’s wedding?” she asked, although that wasn’t the question paramount in her mind. What was he doing here?
“I was in Ohio last night. Not at the wedding, at the rehearsal dinner. That’s what I wanted to tell you about.” He nodded to the big umbrella at the corner of the deck. “Can we get out of the sun?”
“Sure.” She preceded him, taking one of the chairs underneath the circle of shade, trying to wrap her mind around the fact that Dan was in Atlanta with her.
He sat down at an angle to her. “Any news on Arianne?”
She filled him in as quickly as she could. He listened intently, nodding in all the right places, seemingly in no hurry to get off the subject. As soon as she finished, she blurted out, “You’re killing me here, Dan. What about the rehearsal dinner?”
He smiled. “I did mention that, didn’t I?”
“Yes,” she said. “Now tell me what happened.”
“Maggie was there,” he explained, his expression suddenly serious. “It was the first time I’d talked to her since she left me. I finally asked her why she did it. Know what she said?”
Jill shook her head.
“She told me she left because things had been wrong between us for a long time. And that she thought I must have felt it, too. Maybe I had—I’m not sure.”
Her pulse was suddenly racing. “Why are you telling me this?”
He reached across the table and took her hand, running his thumb lightly over her palm. “Remember when you asked why I believed you were doing the right thing for Chris? I finally figured it out. It’s because I believe in you.”
Her heart sped up, afraid she was mistaken about what she was hearing. “But…but I lied to you. I didn’t trust you with the truth about Chris.”
“I have some trust issues of my own,” he said. “I should have trusted you were doing what you thought was best for your brother. More than that, I should have trusted my instincts.”
She held her breath.
“What I’m trying to say is you’re the one for me. I love you, Jill.”
Her throat clogged. All she could do was stare at him.
He sighed. “I understand your feelings about me have changed. All I’m asking is that you give me another chance.”
When she still didn’t respond, he continued, “If you stay in Atlanta, I won’t give up. I’ll come see you every chance I get. If you’ll let me, that is.”
She put up a hand. “Dan, stop. The reason I’m not saying anything is because I’m about to cry.”
He scooted his chair closer to her, his deep voice growing lower. “Why are you going to cry?”
She felt a fat tear drip down her cheek. “Because I love you, too.”
She wasn’t sure how it happened or who reached for whom, but suddenly she was in his arms, laughing and crying and kissing him.
“The only thing that would make this any better,” he said when they came up for air, “is if you were coming back to Indigo Springs with me.”
She thought of all that was waiting in her beautiful adopted town. Friends who cared about her. A landlady who treated her like a granddaughter. And the opportunity to build a life with the man she loved.
“Just try to stop me,” she said.
EPILOGUE
Two months later
EERIE MUSIC DRIFTED through the night sky, sending a delicious thrill through Jill. The buzz of conversation from the crowd gathered in Whitmore Park for the first annual Halloween Lighting Ceremony grew louder.
“I’m frightfully afraid this ceremony will be a bust,” Jill remarked to Dan. She swiped back some of the hair from her blond seventies wig and tried to adjust the badge, poking through to her chest.
“I don’t know about that.” Dan didn’t seem to be experiencing any discomfort from his black wig and badge. He even moved well in his tight, flared jeans. “I think in Indigo Springs all things are possible.”
One of his arms gathered her close against the side opposite to where his toy gun hung from his plastic holster.
“I know what you mean.” Jill’s gaze touched on their friends Annie and Ryan Whitmore, who it seemed hadn’t stopped smiling since the teenage daughter they’d given up for adoption at birth had come to live with them. Annie and Ryan were watching Lindsey try to get Toby Bradford to come to her.
Two-year-old Toby tottered forward inch by inch, hampered by the oversize web feet attached to his green-and-orange body suit. A matching hood with huge fake eyes completed the look.
“Toby makes an adorable frog,” Sara Brenneman remarked to Kelly Bradford, Toby’s adoptive mother.
“Oh, good. Chase said nobody would guess frog.” Kelly turned to her husband with the sweetest I-told-you-so look Jill had ever seen. “I layered so many clothes under his costume for warmth, Chase said he looked like a dinosaur.”
“I knew what Toby was right off the bat,” Sara said. “But what the heck are Jill and Dan supposed to be? And why are they wearing sunglasses at night?”
“I was wondering why they’re the only adults in costume.” Michael Donahue stood behind Sara, his arms encircling his wife.
“It’s two days before Halloween. We figured everyone would come in costume,” Jill said. “I’ve got to admit, though, that our getups are a little obscure.”
“They are not!” Dan tapped his police badge and gestured to Jill’s. “These are the biggest clues. We’re Starsky and Hutch.”
“Your dogs?” Sara teased. “Then thos
e are really bad costumes.”
“Ha ha. Starsky and Hutch were TV cops from the seventies,” Dan answered. “I have all the shows on DVD. After I get through making Jill watch them, Sara, you can borrow them.”
“Thanks, but no thanks,” Sara said. “I’m not watching any shoot-’em-up shows. Babies in the womb can hear what’s going on outside, you know.”
“Sara’s been reading a lot of books for expectant mothers.” Michael rested his hands on Sara’s stomach. At two months pregnant, she hadn’t begun to show.
“I admit. I’m baby challenged.” Sara glanced over her shoulder at her smiling husband. “I’m going to need lots of advice. Good thing I’ve got Kelly and Laurie.”
“Where is Laurie anyway?” Dan looked around. “I don’t see Kenny, either.”
“Laurie would never bring little Miranda out in the cold,” Jill said, referring to the couple’s newborn daughter. “And Kenny wouldn’t come without his family.”
“Sierra wanted to be here, too, but she and Ben had to work.” Ryan referred to his sister, who’d stunned everyone by moving to Pittsburgh with her investigative-reporter boyfriend, Ben Nash. “She got hired at Magee-Womens Hospital in Pittsburgh as an internist. She and Ben are going to visit here over Thanksgiving, I think to announce their engagement.”
“That’s great!” Penelope Pollock exclaimed. She and Johnny had joined the group of friends without Jill noticing. Jill couldn’t miss Penelope now as the other woman sidled up to her. “Speaking of engagements, what’s taking you two so long?”
“Penelope!” Johnny uttered a familiar admonishment.
“What?” Penelope flipped her orange scarf over her shoulder and balanced her hands on her black coat. “Jill and Dan might not even be together if not for me. So why can’t I ask?”
“Because…” Johnny started to explain, then stopped and put an arm around his wife. “Never mind.”
“So?” Penelope asked, eyes speculative as she turned her attention once again to Jill and Dan. “Did you get her a ring yet, Dan?”
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