by Oram, Jean
Jen tightened her ponytail and smoothed her hands down her sides. The last time she’d seen her parents—in the same room—was the courthouse in what felt like a whole different lifetime ago. But if she was making changes in her life she may as well go for the gold and do it all—Ken, a public apology to Rob, and hey, why not her parents, too.
All she had to do was step into the coffee shop and she would be talking to her parents after years of silence. Assuming they were actually there and hadn’t had a massive fight in the middle of the cafe and stormed home already. What if they forced her to choose a side in a fight?
Her hand paused over the door handle before she heaved it open, entering the shop. She was different now. She’d be okay.
She found her parents at the back, her dad already backed into a corner. Or did he choose that position at the table to be sure his ex-wife didn’t flank him?
She paused, watching them. They hadn’t seen her yet. She could still leave.
But maybe things had changed. Maybe her family was similar to Rob’s again and she could have parents back in her life. After all, she wasn’t running from Ken anymore. Or at least she wouldn’t be after she signed some papers with John tomorrow afternoon.
She watched her parents, looking for a magical Disney ending in the way they were interacting. She sighed and began walking toward their table. Her mother had her arms crossed, chin tipped up. Her father had drifted into his own world as a defense. It wouldn’t be long until her mother had had enough and stormed out.
Jen moved down the aisles of tables, almost tiptoeing, until she was beside their table. She watched for the moment when they spotted her, when their expressions would betray their true thoughts and feelings.
Her father’s head swiveled toward her, a smile breaking open as if someone had just handed him a million dollars. He stood and Jen’s mother immediately did the same, her eyes on her ex-husband. She turned in Jen’s direction, her face wary. Concerned. No open joy. She actually looked kind of scared.
Her father embraced Jen. “Jen! You look great.” He held her in his strong arms for a long time, whispering into her hair, “Thank you for calling us.”
“Jen.” Her mother gave her a stiff hug. “Good to see you.” She sat again, resembling a cardboard cutout in her stiffness.
Jen saw it laid out like a smorgasbord. Her father had worried. Maybe even missed her. And her mother had felt rejected, betrayed, run out on. So many emotions, all of them directed at her for consumption.
“Coffee?” Her father raised his eyebrows to a passing waitress. He was fighting emotion and it surprised Jen. “Coffee here, please,” he said to the waitress, clearing his throat.
He addressed Jen, who slipped into the vacant spot beside her mother. “It’s so good to see you.”
“What is this about?” her mother asked. “I heard you’re in trouble.”
“Yeah, kind of.” Jen’s cheeks flushed as though she was a child about to be scolded.
“A nature guide?” her father asked, pride tipping his voice into a deeper timbre.
Jen nodded.
“I’m sorry we haven’t been there for you during your troubles,” he said.
“Which ones?” she snapped before realizing it made her sound like a bitter, unloved teenager, and not the mature woman she was supposed to be now that she’d made it through the storm. Besides, her problems had to be getting better if Scott had let her leave town in order to see her parents. No questions asked. Which was really odd if she was the primary suspect in two forest fires. She frowned in thought.
Her mother gave a small sniff in reply to Jen’s attitude.
Her father swallowed, paused as he cupped his hands together on the table, looked up to meet her eye. “All of them. We weren’t there for you in the way parents should. We shouldn’t have let someone else raise you. We should have come after you.”
“Why didn’t you?” Jen was afraid to hear the answer.
“I didn’t know where you were,” her mother said quickly. “One day you were living with Ken all happily, and the next day nobody knew where you were or if you were okay. It’s one thing to not choose one of your parents, but it is another thing to just disappear from your boyfriend’s as if nobody cared.”
As if nobody cared. Jen let the words wash over her like water in a carwash.
“I’m sorry. I called and told Cody to spread the word. I’m sorry he led you to believe that I didn’t want you to know where I was and that I didn’t want or need help.”
“Oh, I knew where you were,” her father said. “I had you followed.”
“What?” Jen leaned back in surprise.
“Yes, for the past three years I’ve had people checking in on you.”
“People?”
He nodded. “A private investigator at first, then two lovely sisters in the town you live in. They’d let me know what was happening in your life. I almost came to see you with this forest fire business, but…” He paused, swallowing hard as he swiped at his eyes.
Jen gaped, unsure where to start thinking and sorting on this revelation.
“You didn’t call me.” Her mother crossed her arms and sat back, closing her inner walls, blocking Jen out.
She turned to her mother. There was no way she’d come all this way to let her mom pull back and shut her out.
No way.
Jen leaned forward, getting into her mother’s space, which wasn’t that hard seeing as she was sitting beside her. “Did it ever occur to you that I was a child? That I needed parents? Parents who weren’t fighting over me and forcing me to choose who was going to be the loser in your big war?”
“Jen,” her mom said, her voice etched with a weakness Jen wasn’t familiar with. “If there was ever anyone who was going to come out ahead in the divorce, it was you. You were always independent, resourceful, competent. You made it out okay. We,” she said, pausing to point to her ex, then herself, “did not.”
“But I didn’t,” Jen said, her voice tight with emotion.
“We didn’t treat you right,” her father said. “I can see that now. We both do.” He gave her mother a look. “It wasn’t fair or right of us.” He clasped his hands, shoulders rounded. “We thought it would be best for you if we didn’t pretend to be in love, to lay it out straight.” He cleared his throat. “We may have become caught up in trying to make the other person pay. I know I wanted to make your mother the guilty party so I could lay the blame at her feet as a way to ease my own pain and guilt. Especially for the way our divorce was tearing you up. If I could make her the bad guy, I could be the good guy.” He sighed, the lines in his forehead deep with grief and Jen’s throat closed up. “Your mother and I are the same, Jen. But you aren’t like us and you stood up for yourself and found what you needed. I’m proud of you.”
Jen blinked. “Proud?”
“Yes, proud. It was as though you raised a hand and said, ‘Enough. Call me when you grow up.’ ”
The table grew quiet.
“Except we never grew up.”
Jen was shocked to see her mother blinking back tears. “We love you,” she said, her voice wobbling. “We’ve missed you. But we both believed you needed space.” Her mother was gulping air, trying to act as though she was under control. “That you would call us when you were ready to forgive us.”
Jen stood and pulled her mother into a hug. “I’m ready, Mom.”
CHAPTER 11
“Are you sure you don’t want to claim you were distressed by his infidelity and claim emotional damages? You said he’s doing well financially.” John sat at Jen’s small eating table, papers from Ken spread out in front of him. Ken was requesting she not only sign over the house deed to him, but that she dissolve her rights to everything they’d jointly owned and everything he’d gained since she’d left. Judging by his bottom line, it wasn’t just her that had been held back career-wise when they’d been together.
“There wasn’t much value in anything when I left.”
Jen debated how hard she should fight for their house. His parents had paid the downpayment, but she and Ken had made the monthly mortgage payments. By the time she’d left there really wasn’t that much equity in the house. Out of principle she should probably fight him tooth and nail, but she just didn’t have it in her. With Rob in trouble at work and her looking as though she could be the primary suspect in two forest fires, fighting for what was likely to be about a thousand dollars didn’t seem worth the energy. Although it was still weird that Scott was being so laid back about it all. His heart hadn’t even been in it when he’d come to ask her about the Woodchuck fire. She’d heard he was looking to fill the forest ranger position so he didn’t have to keep stepping into the role. But that still didn’t explain why the second fire felt like less of a big deal. Maybe because it was further away from town?
“And your point is what, exactly?” John said, interrupting her thoughts, his mouth drawn tight. “You know you might need the cash to fight some of these fire costs should Judge Radcliff find you guilty. I’m—with your permission—going to get Ken to cover your legal costs for this stupid paperwork.” John shifted in his chair. “Does it feel to you as though he is hiding something?”
“Such as the fact that he and my best friend were an intimate item while Ken and I were living under the same roof?”
John let out a choked cough and loosened his necktie. “Maybe. Although, I didn’t see that in the exclusive interview you granted Liz the other day.” He shot her a wink. “Just that some people from your past were worried that your current plight was going to taint them. Good job, by the way. Liz really spun you as an innocent victim. I think the town is pretty pissed with this whole forest fire thing and you possibly being persecuted because of it.” He shuffled the papers. “Anything you want to add to these? In case you get rich? Cover your ass as well?”
A lawyer with a sense of humor. How refreshing.
“Alimony?” John asked.
Ha ha.
She shook her head. “Just get rid of him. I’m done. Moved on.”
“So then…” He consulted his papers, cleared his throat, then gave her a quick glance. She knew he was thinking about the apology Liz had added to the interview. The one from her to Rob. It didn’t reveal anything that would incriminate herself or Rob any further, but she had a pretty good idea that it had caused some gums around town to do some flapping and speculating—especially since the rumors were now flying about Rob’s suspension and demotion at work. “Relinquish your rights to the proceeds of the sold joint items such as the home, truck, and minor household items?” She nodded. “No settlements other than those attached?” He cleared his throat and glanced at her again.
“Divorce us, John.” She shot him a wry smile. She just wanted him gone. Now.
He sighed. “Forego your right—and Ken’s—to any future renegotiations and ensure an agreement for Ken to ship any remaining items of yours still in his possession to you at his expense. Is there anything specific you need back?”
She shook her head. “Sole ownership of the Corolla to me, right?”
“Right here.” John tapped a spot on a list, sliding papers toward her.
“So, Ken and Kimmy are ready to walk off into the sunset after I sign this?” she asked, pen poised.
“Yes, after they sign it as well.”
“Can I somehow add that it be off a cliff?”
John choked on the laughter he tried to hold back. “I’ve never heard of that one, and I’ve heard a few good ones.”
“How about they walk off the side of the earth where they will implode into a million tiny specks of dust so they can be sucked up by a giant Hoover in the sky, such as a black hole?” She gave him a hopeful look.
“Going to have to talk to God on that one.”
She scrawled her signature on the papers.
“Now…what advice can you give me in regards to going to a wedding where Rob will be playing best man and I’ll be playing smitten guest who wants to have contact with him?” She waved a wedding invitation that had come from Dina. “I have a wedding to go to in a week and a half.”
* * *
Jen’s armpits swamped themselves with sweat, and her butt prickled with nerves. Whatever those reactions had to do with the survival of the species in order to be passed down through millennia, she didn’t even want to guess.
She smoothed her hands down her legs and looked at Scott, who was sitting behind his cluttered desk in the cabin that served as police headquarters in Blueberry Springs.
“What?” she asked, barely able to speak. Had he brought her here to arrest her or remove her name from the suspect list? “What’s happening Scott?” She’d tried to tap into the rumor mill on her way up to the station after his call, but it was just as confused as she was. Nobody had heard a thing. Which scared her.
A lot.
He leaned forward, his grin spreading as he clamped his hands together on his desk, casual and relaxed. “Your name has been cleared.”
“What?” The silence rushed like white noise through her brain as it struggled to register the words she’d been waiting to hear for weeks. “I’m cleared?”
“No longer a suspect. For either fire. Congratulations.”
She let out a shaky laugh. “I’m cleared!” She stood up, looking around the small station as if expecting the world to be different somehow. She sat again. Rob. What was going to happen to Rob? How had her name been cleared?
“You will not be put behind bars for your remaining child-bearing years,” he said with a grin. “I’ll bet you are wondering about your boyfriend, huh?”
She nodded, not bothering to correct him that she and Rob were not officially dating and that just because she was a woman with a man in her sights, it didn’t necessarily mean she was worrying about having children.
He gave an easy shrug. “I dunno. But you aren’t a suspect any longer so I am guessing you two can…well, whatever.” He blushed and pushed away from his desk.
She leaned back in the chair, her mind immediately running through naked scenarios that involved her and Rob. That night of bathroom kisses had rotted her brain. Well, maybe more like a computer virus that had taken over all her systems for its own nefarious affairs rather than allowing programs to run properly. Such as her brain.
Scott adjusted his shirt and cleared his throat. “What’s going on with Amber and Russell?”
“Sorry?”
“He’s always gone. Are they…uh, are they having problems?”
Jen saw the hope in his eyes, and wanted to help him let it grow. She wanted him to feel the hope she did right now, and that anything was possible. “I don’t know. I’ve kind of been absorbed in my own problems, but she hasn’t said anything.”
Scott cleared his throat again. “Just wondering.” He guided her to the door, but she paused and turned to face him.
“How did the investigator clear my name? There was probably no evidence left.”
“Well, apparently finding jerry cans at the new fire ignition site with fingerprints still intact that don’t match yours was helpful evidence.” He leaned closer. “I may not be the best police officer in the world, and I may not be the best forest ranger, but with my powers combined, I can dig up some pretty compelling evidence.” He shot her a smile. “Nothing speeds up an investigation like having someone such as myself finding a lot of the same evidence that had been thrown out in Rob’s investigation. Seeing as I still had my objectivity, it couldn’t be ignored. And so I shared it with the new investigator while he worked on the Woodchuck case. A lot of it matched up with what he was finding over there. Early this morning we got a confession from that guy in the old truck you’ve been looking for.”
“But you and I are friends of friends. They could have claimed you didn’t have objectivity either.”
Scott smiled and raised his palms.
“And how did you find a lot of the same evidence as Rob?” Something was missing.
“I have
my ways, Jen.” He applied a firm hand on her lower back. “Now, go find that man.”
CHAPTER 12
“Okay. Now, no touching your hair. No water. No wind. No ponytail. No hanging your head upside down.” Mandy looked over Jen’s dress. “And no climbing trees, rowing of boats, hiking, cartwheels…”
“I’m not a kid,” Jen laughed, fluffing the skirt of the dress she planned to use for a little Rob wowing at Dina’s wedding in approximately three hours. Her stomach took a rollercoaster down to her high heels. This was going to be an amazing night. She’d ask for forgiveness, then he’d smile and let out his laugh that sounded like rain, and they’d makeout until their lips were swollen and live happily ever after.
These pangs of loneliness were going to go away tonight, because the reality was, she was lonelier now than before he’d sidestepped into her life.
She looked at her friends as they crowded around her on the couch, their focus intense, their nervousness for her, the way they wanted to swoop in and make everything better for her. Grasp her happily ever after out of the sky and hand it to her.
“And no touching your face. No wiping. No patting. No tears. Dab. Reapply gently.” Amber bit her lip and studied Jen with doubt. To Mandy she said, “Maybe we should drive her. Don’t release her from our hold until we have Rob in our sights, then shove her into his path.”
Jen pushed Amber’s hands off her. “I’ll be fine.”
“Liquids and hands off your face. Unless you want to look like a Picasso painting.”
Jen let out a snort of laughter.
“If you get too much shine, use this powder.” Amber pushed a smooth container into Jen’s hand. “You want matte.”
“Where?”
“On your face!” Amber said with exasperation.
Jen held back giggles. “Matt? On my face? I don’t even know him! I’m not a bridesmaid, Amber.” Her giggles broke loose and Amber gave her a light shove, making her crack up even more.
