According to Jane (22 page)

"Uh, you know, how afterward we didn't really have a chance to discuss anything, and--"

I finally looked at him. "There's nothing to discuss, Sam. It was fun. Now it's over. We're both going off to college in a few months, and I'll probably never see you again." I paused long enough to get in a good glare. "Well, at least not until our ten-year reunion. Although I might skip that one and hold out until the twentieth. I'm sure you'll be balding and getting kind of chunky by then. The perfect 'doctor' look."

"Okay, you're mad. I get it. I'm--" He stopped talking.

"You're what?" I said, expecting at least a measly apology.

"I--I guess there's no other way to say this." His face took on the pasty cast of someone about to walk into a confessional. "I'll be working constantly this summer to make money for school, and I know you'll be busy, too. Then, like you said, we'll be going to different colleges and won't run into each other much. The timing's really bad now. Things just wouldn't work out long term...right?"

I picked up the last of my books and papers, and I removed my school lock. "Congratulations, Sam. You've officially made me regret every second of Saturday night. You're a coward and an idiot and I'm glad to be rid of you." Then, dramatically, I slung my backpack over my shoulder and walked away. He didn't follow me this time.

I told myself I'd survive seeing him the coming weekend at our graduation, but I prayed I'd never have to lay eyes on him after that. I didn't want to put up a front like this ever again.

Jane
, I whispered,
I'm really sorry. Really. Sorry. You were right about him, I was wrong. I'll never ignore your advice again. I swear
.

But, as had been the case all week, she didn't answer, and I realized I was truly alone.

I'd been abandoned by them both.

There are very few of us who
have heart enough to be really in
love without encouragement.

--
Pride and Prejudice

S
o, nine years later, I found myself facing Sam again. This time over the grande mochaccinos he'd ordered for us along with a couple of chocolate-covered biscotti.

I couldn't believe we were sitting there.

Together.

The seventeen-year-old girl in me still cringed with pain at the memories that bubbled up just from sharing the same airspace with Sam Blaine. Even now. Even nearly a decade later.

I watched him try to get comfortable on the hard cafe chair. He inhaled fully (was he remembering us as teenagers, too?), tapped the handle of his coffee cup a few times and then opened the discussion on our past few years.

"When last we left things," he said in a somewhat forced, soap-opera narrator's voice, "you were walking out the door of that dive bar with your boyfriend glaring at your back. Whatever happened to that Dominic guy?" He checked out my left hand. "I don't see a ring on your finger."

Nothing like driving a stake through my heart.

"Dominic and I parted ways that night, as you probably guessed."

Sam raised a brow. "Breakup effective immediately?"

"Yep. Although I did receive a postcard from him about a year later," I confessed. "He'd just gotten engaged to a cosmetics company VP, and they were in Hawaii celebrating. I think he wanted me to know he'd made it big. And almost every Christmas he sends a holiday card to me at my parents' address, but we haven't spoken again since then."

"I see." Sam fidgeted with his biscotti before snapping off a sizable bite.

"How about you and Camryn?"

"She and I lost touch," he said, chewing.

"Breakup effective immediately?" I asked.

He grinned. "Yep. I left for New York. She headed off to Philly. I do know from some mutual friends that she finished med school, though. Went somewhere warm. San Antonio, maybe."

"Are you still in New York, then?"

He shook his head. "Boston. I start the second year of my residency in a couple of weeks, but my parents have their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary next weekend and my sister's kids wanted me to be here for the Fourth of July for once. So I came home. Didn't think I'd get to see you, too."

An unfortunate coincidence,
Jane grumbled.

I knew I had to tread carefully here. Jane had eventually stopped her silent treatment after the one-night stand with Sam, but this didn't happen until after college began and I was a good five-hour-drive away from Glen Forest. When she returned, she'd said it was because she was a woman of her word. Because I'd exacted that promise from her to be there with me during college, no matter what the circumstance.

I was lucky she came back.

The summer she didn't speak to me, I'd missed her like crazy, and I sure didn't want to incur her wrath again.

So, I made a conscious but very respectful request of her.
Please, Jane, can we suspend all commentary for just the next thirty minutes? I need to keep a clear head for this
.

She consented, but with a resounding huff.

I inhaled and looked sharply at Sam. I'd expected his typical sarcasm, but didn't find it. Present only was that strange light of curiosity and intensity that I hadn't seen in a man's eyes in what felt like ages.

This both frightened and saddened me.

It frightened me because Sam Blaine
was
a man. To me he'd always seemed more mature than our peers, but a nearly five-year absence since that night at The Bitter Tap (and, cripes,
nine years
since we were graduating seniors) put this growth in perspective. His adulthood was undeniable now. The next time our paths crossed, if ever they crossed again, he could be married. Or even a father. He was already a doctor, not the snotty teen I always thought of when I dredged up those old high-school hurts.

And that saddened me because Sam and I had never quite been on the same page. As teens or adults. We'd been kids together, we'd shared this intimate personal history, but that was all it could be or ever would be. He was going away again, and I was still trying to reconstruct my post-Andrei broken heart.

"What is it?" he said, his voice low, concerned.

I took a sip of my coffee and forced myself to swallow. "Nothing. Just wondering if you left any broken hearts behind in New York."

A deep crease appeared on his forehead. "Ah, well, I don't know if I'd say that. Not exactly. I had a girlfriend there my last couple of years, but I had to go to Massachusetts and she...she wasn't headed there."

"You mean she tried to get into the Boston residency program with you but didn't get a spot?"

He sighed. "You were always very sharp, Ellie. And, yeah. It was something like that." He eyed me again with that teasing inquisitiveness. "I don't think my leaving really broke her heart, though."

He said this with such male conviction I almost laughed. I'd bet, even a year later, his poor ex-girlfriend was still crying in her morning coffee over him. Men were so insensitive to women's emotions. I'd bet anything she didn't move on half as easily as he did when he'd abandoned her.

"I'm going to have to go soon, Sam," I told him, pointedly looking at my watch.

"What? Wait. It's only been ten minutes. You said you could take a half hour. What did I say wrong?"

"Nothing. You didn't say anything that wasn't true, it's just--I'm not really sure what you're trying to do here. A long-term relationship of mine ended a few weeks ago, and I can't--I just can't deal with this kind of thing right now."

"You can't deal with what thing?" he said, his face reddening a bit. "You can't sit and have a cup of coffee with an old friend?"

"Is that what this is? Is that what we are, Sam? Are we
friends?
" I looked him in the eye and saw that same excitement merged with that same fear I remembered from our one exquisite (and disastrous) night together. It was enough to bring me to my feet. I couldn't handle any more games. Not with anybody.

"We've never not been friends," he said quietly. "Look, about that day after we...you know, senior year...I knew I'd have to leave at the end of the summer. I knew I didn't have it in me to make things work between us then. Not long distance. I tried to tell you that part, but I was eighteen and really stupid, okay? I also neglected to tell you the rest."

He took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. "I really cared about you, Ellie. But you needed time and experience. You were so young. So naive. And I needed time, too. I was looking at a decade or more of school. I didn't want to lead you on when I knew it'd be years before anything more serious could happen. Do you know what I'm saying?" He raised his gaze to meet mine.

I closed my eyes and slumped back down in my chair, tears burning behind my eyelids. "Yeah. You broke up with me for my own good."

"Yes--"

"Well, I've been hearing that a lot lately." A few hot droplets leaked out and clung to my lashes before sliding down my cheeks. "Thanks for explaining, Sam. You're exonerated." I wasn't aiming to sound caustic. I meant this. I looked into those extraordinary blue eyes again and made sure he understood my words were sincere.

"Okay," he whispered.

"Okay."

I took one last sip of my drink. Memories of Dominic and Andrei and Sam mingled in my brain, and every additional second I spent in Sam's company only made them rush through it faster. I had to clear my mind, refocus, figure out how to move on again. It'd become an odd pattern. Whenever I was around Sam I was inspired to want a fresh start. It was just something I couldn't seem to do while still in his presence.

I pushed my cup away. "It was great running into you, it really was. Thanks for the coffee and for...talking. But I should go." I smiled at him. "See you sometime?"

He nodded. "Our ten-year high school reunion is next summer. Planning to attend?"

"I don't think so. All of my predictions about people are bound to be wrong. Look at you," I said with a small grin. "You're neither balding nor chunky. Yet. Guess I'd better hold out until the twentieth."

He gave me a look too intense to ignore. "I've got good DNA on the hair, Ellie. My grandpa still has almost a full head of it. And I will never be chunky. I promise."

"I guess we'll have to see in a few years, then, and find out who's right." I stepped away from the cafe table. And from Sam.

Are you still with me, Jane?
I asked her.

Yes,
she whispered.
I am here.

But Sam wasn't done with me yet. "We
will
see," he called out, as I turned to go. "You can bet on it."

What is the difference, in matrimonial
affairs, between the mercenary
and the prudent motive?

--
Pride and Prejudice

I
t's strange how time flies. One day you're twenty-six, sitting at a cafe table in the middle of a bookstore in summer, staring at your first love over mochaccinos...and the next day you're thirty-two, wandering around downtown Chicago on Christmas Eve, wishing you were drinking mochaccinos (or
anything
hot) with your supposedly serious boyfriend and wondering when the hell he planned on proposing to you.

No, I know it didn't happen quite that suddenly, but it kind of felt like it. Maybe because in the past several years--except for taking the occasional continuing ed class or going on a mini-vacation to break up the routine--nothing really significant had happened to me.

Aside from dating Tim, that is. And even this wasn't truly significant until our third Christmas together.

But that frosty night, Timothy Taylor Farthington III kept yanking on my arm in a somewhat less-than-aristocratic manner, abandoning his thirty-three years of inbred country-club behavior in favor of a childlike glee one might find among ten-year-olds at Disney World.

"These lights are so
cool!
" Tim said, tugging me along Chicago's Miracle Mile inch by freezing inch. "God, I've missed Christmas in the States."

"Yes," I told him. "I've always felt so bad for you having to suffer through a tropical December on Fiji. Must be real traumatic." I squeezed his hand tight and he ground to a stop, his lips a tiny bit pouty. "But I'm going to be an ice block soon if you don't get me some coffee. How about we enjoy the nifty lights from inside Starbucks?" I pointed at the coffee shop kitty-corner from us, my feet rooted to the sidewalk.

He kissed my frozen nose and broke into a reluctant grin. "Okay, but only until you warm up. I want to walk all of Michigan Avenue before dinner." He glanced down the famous street and exhaled, wisps of his breath billowing around us.

He ordered us a couple mugs of some special Colombian thing and I took a sip. Hot, thank God. "Thanks," I told him. "I think you just saved me from being a cryogenics experiment."

He glanced heavenward, then back at me. "Sometimes I can't believe you've been a lifelong Midwesterner, Ellie. You know, it's about twenty-five degrees colder than this in New Hampshire right now. You'd never survive one of our winters." He added a sprinkle of nutmeg to his drink, tasted it and added a bit more.

"You're probably right. Good thing you're the one who relocated. You're so adaptable." I made a face to ensure my mockery was noted.

Tim wadded up one of the paper napkins and tossed it at me. It bounced off my head and I retaliated by kicking him under the table. Our coffee mugs wobbled and a few droplets sploshed onto the table's surface.

He waved one of the napkins in the air. "Truce." Then, after a few gulps, he added, "I'll get even with you later."

I laughed. Tim's idea of retribution was, at its most dangerous, tickling. In our three years of monogamous dating, I'd never seen him get worked into a good sweat over anything--our sex life included--so a counterattack didn't frighten me.

Not that our sex life was
bad
, per se. But, like most things with Tim, it was refined, sophisticated, polished.

No wild-monkey sex a la Andrei Sergiov. However, for all of Andrei's explosiveness in bed, I realized later that he and I had never made love. With him, it'd been about pure sexual impulse...not about being gentle, sweet or earnest, qualities I believed Tim had in abundance.

I swiped the napkin off the floor and blotted the coffee on the table with another one. "I'm going to have to have a talk with your mother about your table manners."

"Oh, crap. Bad news," he said. "I forgot to tell you. My parents left me a voice mail at work today. They added a stopover in Hong Kong, so they'll be a week late getting home. I guess Mom wanted to do some serious shopping."

My jaw dropped. "A
week
late? Tim, I'll be back at work then--"

He looked at me, apologetic. "I know. I'll change our flights. I'll go out East myself after they get back, wish them a Happy New Year for us, and you and I can do our week with them over your spring break, maybe." He put his coffee cup down and reached for my hand. "I'm sorry. I was looking forward to our trip, too, but I think Mom and Dad just got carried away. They weren't really thinking."

Well, of course they were
thinking
, I thought, feeling mean and resentful. They were thinking about themselves. As always. And they let their only child cover for them. But I said, "That's okay. It's not your fault." I sighed. "So, now that we won't be spending a cozy week in New Hampshire at your parents' place, should we go somewhere else instead?"

He raised a light brown eyebrow and looked interested. "Like where?"

"Virgin Islands, maybe. We could get our hair braided. Or--" I said, going out on a limb, "Las Vegas to elope."

His brow plunged. "Hmm. Don't know about that." The thin wrinkle brackets around his mouth deepened. "I should probably work a few of those days anyway if I'm going to have to still go back home in January. I'll need to pack in some billable hours before then."

"Oh," I said. Tim was a dedicated contract lawyer. Of course, I suspected his reticence had less to do with how seriously he took his position in the firm and more with the mention of the "E" word. He didn't sanction the elopement idea. He thought marriage ought to be undertaken with only the greatest solemnity, and he intended for us to have a big wedding ceremony someday.

Someday
being the operative word.

"We could probably do a long weekend in the area, though. And something special for New Year's Eve." He drained his coffee and glanced out the window. "But tonight I want to see all the colored lights flashing and sparkling. I want to hold your hand walking down the chilly street. And I want to visit your family tomorrow for Christmas. Let's have a fun, stress-free holiday. Okay?"

This was classic Tim--dismissing the subject and putting a quiet end to any potential whining at the same time. What was I supposed to plead in my opening argument? Yeah, I embraced stress...No, he shouldn't do something reasonable like work when he could be doing something irresponsible like eloping with me in a place where secrets supposedly never left the city limits...

Only, was eloping
really
so rash and reckless?

We were, after all, mature adults who knew each other's families and, more impressively, got along with them tolerably well.

We had, after all, dated with the intent to marry.

And we did, after all, have our careers in order and jobs that supported our rather staid lifestyle.

What was wrong with us doing something kind of spontaneous if we planned to eventually do the "M" deed anyway?

I opened my mouth to ask this, but Tim cut me off. "Please, Ellie. Let's just enjoy the night."

And I gave in.

Why? Well, because of what he said next.

"I chose your Christmas present months ago." He tugged me out the door as a burst of Arctic air blew on our faces. "And I can't wait to finally give it to you tomorrow. I think you're gonna like it," he added with a wink.

If it was the gift I'd been hoping for this whole past year, I knew I'd love it.

Di, who'd been dating a string of patently unsuitable men for the past several years, showed up alone at my parents' house the next day. She had an odd cast to her complexion, part ashen, part edgy, part something else. It had me worried.

At the first opportunity, I cornered her in my childhood bedroom and closed the door. "What's going on with you?" I asked. "You look weird."

She laughed then kind of cringed. "That sounds like something I'd say."

I nodded once and waited.

She blinked at me a few times before saying, "I think I'm pregnant."

"WHAT?"

"I know you heard me, El."

"What makes you say--I mean, do you know for sure? And who's the--" I stopped the pointless rush of words. I couldn't speak any more. Hell, I could barely think.

"I don't know for sure," Di admitted. "It's not like I peed on one of those little sticks or anything. I'm kinda scared to buy a box." She sighed. "And as for the father, I don't know that for sure either."

Fuck.

"O-Oh, okay. Okay," I croaked out. "Um, what can I do to help you? Do you want me to get you a test kit? I can just run over to the--"

"It's Christmas Day, sis," she said wearily. "Everything's closed."

"Oh. Right." My mind raced. "No. There's got to be someplace that's open. The hospital pharmacy! I'll just drive there and--"

Di rested a thin hand on my shoulder. "It's all right. I can wait a day and, besides--" she shrugged, "it's not all bad news. If I am, I mean."

She was serious.

And that was when I recognized the something else in her expression. Excitement. She seemed anxious, too, of course and, yeah, she looked pretty tired. But she'd also sloughed off the apathy that'd crept into her demeanor since her divorce from Alex. There was the thrill of anticipation lurking behind those cagey brown eyes, an energy buzz I hadn't seen in her in a long time.

I gulped. "You
want
a baby?"

"Yeah." She looked at me and grinned. "Don't you?"

I nodded. I did, though I hated to admit it just then. "But what about--"

"The father?" she finished for me.

"Yeah."

"I made lots of bad choices in my life already, El. I don't want to make another one. In the past few months there've been two guys. Problem is, neither of them would make a good dad. They're not committed to me, and they don't even have half the sense that Alex had, the dweeb." She said his name almost affectionately. "And I'm just not going to settle."

I took a deep breath. "Okay."

"But you can't say anything to the folks until I know for sure. I don't need them having a conniption or anything unless there's a reason for it."

I fought back a few tears. "Of course," I assured her. But the damnable thing was that I wasn't sure why I was crying. Yeah, I was worried about my sister and nervous about how our parents would take the news, but there was a niggle of another emotion, too. If pressed, I'd have to call it envy.

Di, who in her potentially sensitive state, might have guessed this, said, "So, is Tim finally gonna make an honest woman out of you? You guys have been practically living together for a freaking eternity. You need to get married and go multiply."

I sniffled and laughed a little. "Well, he said my Christmas gift is something he picked out ages ago, and he thinks I'll like it. So maybe it'll be inside a little blue box and come with a proposal. But, Di, regardless, tomorrow we'll go get you a pregnancy test kit. Deal?"

"Deal. It'll probably take the both of us to figure out the directions anyway."

I bit my lip. "You know, there's always Gregory and Nadia. Maybe you could ask them some parenting questions." Our brother and his wife had just had their second kid. Two squalling boys in less than three years. And they'd all flown in from Colorado Springs to visit us. Next to my limited experience, those two were experts.

Di grimaced. "I'm not
that
desperate for help."

A few minutes later we rejoined the family in the living room, which included a lactating Nadia, our two young nephews and Tim, in addition to the original five of us.

"Put this on the tree," Dad instructed the elder of the boys, three-year-old Wyatt.

Wyatt snatched the candy-cane ornament and toddled over to a Christmas tree branch, already drooping from his past hour of decorating. He added this latest treasure to the collection and ran back toward Grandpa for more. Only, he neglected to notice the barrage of toys he'd scattered on the carpet, tripped over a plastic lawnmower and went sprawling.

He bawled with practiced fury, and his mom leaped up to comfort him.

"Here," Nadia said to my boyfriend, who was sitting on the sofa beside her. "Can you hold Bryce for a moment?" She dumped the squirming infant in Tim's unsuspecting lap and didn't give him a chance to answer.

Tim's eyes widened into huge blue disks, but he held the baby and kind of bounced him. His gaze never left Bryce's face, and Gregory, who should've stepped up to the plate to grab his son, stood back and just watched. Tim and Bryce were bonding.

My brother nodded slyly in my direction and Di shot me a saucy glance, although there were plenty of other emotions crossing her face as well. Mom's eyes sparkled, and even Dad grinned a bit. I could sense the swell of collective familial anticipation. Another wedding could well be on the horizon with more babies to follow. Or so they thought.

Two hours later, my fingers shook as Tim handed me my Christmas gift. The package was a little larger and a bit heavier than I'd expected, but the look on his face shone with such enthusiasm that I figured maybe he'd disguised the ring somehow. Hidden it inside a kryptonite container, maybe.

I slit the pretty red ribbon and opened the box. Underneath the tissue sat a book. An old book.
Pride and Prejudice
, in fact, with an 1894 publication date.

"I--I don't know what to say--" I began.

"Don't you love it?" Tim said. "I know what a huge Austen fan you are. It's not the original release of the novel, of course. There was no way I could find anything from that far back--1813, right?"

I nodded, and Jane whispered smugly,
My first novel was published a full two years earlier, though. Do not let Mr. Farthington forget that
.

I ignored Jane's authorial pride for the time being. I wasn't about to conduct a lecture on her books' publication dates (although, yes,
Sense and Sensibility
, the novel that launched her career, had been published in 1811).

Instead, I nodded at Tim again, fighting off a disappointment I wasn't sure I had the right to feel.