All of Me (8 page)

Tish was an auburn-haired beauty who was almost as tall as Jillian. Delaney had passed the wedding veil on to her, and Tish
had reconnected with the love of her life, former secret service agent Shane Tremont. They had a son, Max, who just turned
two, and a three-month-old daughter, Samantha.

“And you’re not eligible to practice law in Colorado,” Tish said.

Her friends might not realize it, but she’d thought this thing through. “Not yet. But I have some money saved, and I’ll sit
for the Colorado bar as soon as I can. In the meantime, I’ll take a job as a law clerk. It won’t hurt to brush up on the basics.”

“Jilly, are you really sure this is what you want?” Rachael Henderson Carlton asked. “We’re all going to miss you something
terrible.”

When Tish had remarried Shane, she gave the wedding veil to blond-haired, blue-eyed Rachael, who—after she’d started Romanceaholics
Anonymous—ended up falling madly in love with Brody Carlton, the sheriff of her hometown of Valentine, Texas. Rachael was
roundly and radiantly seven months pregnant with their first child due sometime around Christmas.

“I’m going to miss you guys, too, but come on, let’s be honest. You’ve all got your own lives now. It’s time I found my place
in the world.”

They’d been friends since they were suitemates at Rice University, and Jillian loved them all dearly, but they’d moved on
with their lives, and she’d been the one left standing still. But the minute she’d told them she was going to Colorado, they’d
organized a moving party and shown up, even pregnant Rachael, who lived four hundred miles away. They truly were special friends.

“You’re going to be so far away from us,” Tish bemoaned.

“We’ll call each other every week. Plus, you can come visit me during the summer or during ski season. There’s a ski resort
on the other side of the mountain from Salvation.”

Rachael’s eyes misted with tears. She was the most emotional of the four and Jillian’s polar opposite. “Oh, Jilly.”

Jillian pointed at her. “Now, now, no waterworks, missy.”

“B-but … you’re going to be up there all alone. No friends, no family.”

“Except for you guys, I haven’t had a real family since I was five,” Jillian said. “And besides, I’ve got Mutt now.”

At the sound of his name, the dog trotted up, wagging his tail. He’d just come back from the vet after having his little snip-snip
operation, and he wasn’t his normal peppy self.

“And isn’t he adorable,” Tish cooed, and scratched Mutt under the chin. The dog ate up the attention.

“Where’d you get him?” Rachael asked.

“He just showed up the day after Blake’s funeral,” Jillian said.

“No kidding?” Tish looked uneasy.

“Oh my.” Rachael sucked in her breath.

“Oh my, what?”

“The dog, it’s Blake’s way of sending you a message that he’s okay,” Rachael said as if she completely believed what she was
saying and it made perfect sense.

“What?” Jillian frowned.

“You’ve never heard that?” Tish asked. “I’ve heard it.”

“Heard what?”

“That if a dog shows up right after a loved one dies, it’s the loved one communicating to you from beyond the grave. It’s
a sign telling you everything is okay,” Delaney added.

“You too?”

“It’s a common folklore,” Rachael said. “Google it when you get a chance.”

“You said the operative word. Folklore. As in fable, old wives’ tale, blarney.”

“She has such little faith.” Rachael sighed to Tish. “What’s it going to take to make a believer of her?”

Jillian looked at Delaney. “Speaking of folklore, I’ve got something for you.”

“Oh?”

She stepped to her car, picked up the sealed garment bag, and handed it to Delaney.

“What’s this?”

“The wedding veil. Please take it.”

“No, no, Jilly. It’s yours.”

“I don’t want it.”

“How do you know? You’re starting a new life. It might be exactly what you need.”

“The bride thing?” Jillian splayed a hand over her chest. “So not me.”

“Jillian …” Delaney made a you’re-being-difficult sound in the back of her throat.

“Delaney …” She mimicked her friend’s tone.

Delaney gave her the sweetly tolerant look a mother gives a willful child. “It’s going to hit you one day; you
do
know that.”

“What? A bus? A train? A milk truck? Should I up my life insurance?”

Delaney ignored her sarcasm. “Love. You can’t outrun it.”

“Not even in Nikes?”

Delaney smiled and shook her head. “Salvation’s not going to know what hit them.”

“Seriously, take the veil.” Jillian thrust the bag toward her. “You bought it; it’s yours.”

“I don’t need it anymore.”

“I don’t need it either.”

“On the contrary. You’ve never needed anything more. You’re at a crossroads in your life. Make the wish, Jilly.”

“Too late, I already did and nothing happened.”

Delaney exhaled and her eyes widened. “You? You wished on the veil?”

“Yep, and like I said, nada, zip, zero.”

“I can’t believe you wished on the veil. You swore you’d never wish on it.”

“Like you said—crossroads, desperation. I had a moment of weakness. Lost my head.”

“And …”

“And nothing.”

Delaney’s smile grew sly. “I get it. Something
did
happen, and it scared the underpants off you.”

“Hey, hey.” Jillian spread her arms. “Check it out. I’m completely clothed here, people.”

But her underpants sure as hell hadn’t been on in that dream. She wanted to fan herself just thinking about it, and she hoped
the expression on her face didn’t give her away.

Delaney giggled and clapped her hands. “It happened. You saw him.”

“Did not.” She heard the defensiveness in her voice.

“You saw your soul mate.”

“Pfttt.”

Rachael came around the side of the moving van to where Jillian and Delaney were standing. “What happened to you?”

“Jilly made a wish on the veil,” Delaney said gleefully. “And she saw her guy.”

Oh great, tell the romanceaholic
.

“There was no guy. I saw no guy,” Jillian lied.

Rachael rubbed her palms together. “So what did he look like? Handsome? Hot?”

“There’s no guy.”

“You put on the veil,” Tish joined in. “Made the wish and absolutely
nothing
happened?”

Dammit. She knew she should have just thrown the stupid veil in the trash. “That’s right. I just fell asleep.”

“With the veil on?” Tish quizzed.

“Um … yeah. So what?”

Tish and Delaney and Rachael all exchanged meaningful glances as if they were party to something significant that Jillian
could never understand.

“What?” Jillian demanded.

“Did you have some kind of dream?” Delaney raised her eyebrows.

“I don’t remember,” Jillian lied.

“She dreamed about him.” Tish nodded her head knowingly. “She dreamed about him, and it scared the underpants off her.”

“Why does everyone keep accusing me of losing my underpants?” Jillian sighed in exasperation. “I’m not Britney Spears.”

“I bet it was a sex dream. Was it a sex dream, Jilly?” Rachael leaned in closer. “Tell us all about your sex dream.”

“Geez, you people …”

“It was a sex dream,” Tish said.

Jillian rolled her eyes. “And you wonder why I’m moving a thousand miles away from you lunatics.”

“Fourteen hundred away from me.” Rachael made a sad face.

“We’re just teasing you, Jilly.” Delaney touched her forearm. “If you really don’t want the veil, I’ll take it.”

“Good. Thank you.” Jillian sighed again, this time with relief as Delaney accepted the bag. “It’s all I ever wanted.”

“That and the hot guy from your sexy dream.” Rachael giggled, her eyes crinkling merrily.

Despite their good-natured ribbing about the veil, Jillian knew her friends truly cared about her. She was closing a chapter
in her life. She could see the significance of it reflected in their faces, and she knew they could see it on hers. These
three women were the closest thing she had to a family.

“I’m gonna miss you guys,” she said earnestly.

“Group hug.” Rachael held her arms open wide.

Normally, Rachael’s insistence on group hugs got on Jillian’s nerves, but this time, she let it happen and didn’t even blink
away the mist of tears.

T
wo days later, at five forty-five in the morning, Jillian drove into Salvation.

She’d made poor time, what with the drag of the U-Haul on her Sebring’s bumper hitch and having to make frequent pit stops
for Mutt. But since no one was expecting her, the time of her arrival wasn’t much of an issue. The weariness of two days on
the road clouded her brain. Yellow asphalt stripes disappearing beneath strumming tires. Eighteen-wheelers jockeying for position.
The dry flat taste of too-strong coffee. The sitting-too-long ache in her knees and tailbone.

Jillian rounded the last curve in the road, and there it lay dead ahead. Through the damp windshield, she watched the streetlamps
wink off as the orange wash of morning scrubbed the horizon a hazy blue.

Salvation.

Small, sleepy, and so adorably cute she almost turned the car around and headed straight back to Houston. Jillian didn’t do
adorable or cute, but Rachael would have loved the place.

The first thing that came into view was the picturesque town square. Decorated quaintly with festive pumpkins and hay bales
and scarecrows. There was a faint dusting of snow on the ground mingling with the fallen autumn leaves—orange, yellow, red.

The architecture was a mix of Swiss Chalet, French farmhouse, and Queen Victoria. There were carved window boxes and wrought-iron
streetlamps and quirkily painted wooden park benches positioned outside the shops—bookstore, green grocer, novelties and souvenirs,
yarn and fabrics, drugstore and sundries.

On the corner was a diner dubbed the Bluebird Café. A clot of SUVs and pickup trucks were parked outside. Ninety percent of
them American made. Smoke swirled from the chimney, filling the air with the scent of mesquite. She’d had breakfast on the
interstate an hour earlier or she might have stopped, eaten some eggs, met a few of the residents.

Her new town.

Jillian drew in a deep breath. This was where she was going to be living. Salvation, Colorado. Population 876, according to
the sign she’d just passed.

She’d never lived in a small town.

A warm gush of sudden panic swept aside her stubborn resolve. Anxiety hunkered on her shoulder. What in the hell was she doing?
Yanking up her life to relocate to a place she’d never been. She was jumping the gun. Blake’s will wasn’t even probated yet,
and she’d moved all her earthly possessions up here. She’d quit her job, given up her condo, and taken on a dog.

What if the townsfolk didn’t like her? What if she didn’t like them? Was she crazy? Was she having a midlife crisis twenty
years early? Was this all just a knee-jerk reaction to losing Blake?

What’s done is done. Make the best of it.

Resolutely, she shrugged off her doubts and reached for the hand-drawn map on the seat between she and Mutt. The map that
she’d found in the envelope Hamilton Green had given her. According to the directions, Salvation Lake was a half mile outside
of town. She would be there soon.

Butterflies fluttered in her stomach.

“This is it,” she told Mutt. “Our new home. What do you think?”

The dog put his paws on the side of the door and licked his lips as they passed by the Bluebird Café. Apparently, whatever
they were serving for breakfast smelled tastier than the kibble he’d just eaten.

The houses on the road to the lake were just as adorable as the buildings circling the town square. The place was a fairy-tale
town. Like something from the books she’d read when she was a kid and dreamed about but was too afraid to hope such places
really existed. Honestly, it was too perfect for words.

“I don’t trust perfect,” she muttered under her breath. “There’s no such thing as perfect.”

Mutt looked at her.

“I know what you’re thinking. Okay, so I’m not the most trusting person in the world. Especially when it comes to men. Consider
yourself very lucky I adopted you.”

Mutt barked.

“You’re welcome.”

A garbage truck rumbled past. The driver waved.

Jillian didn’t wave back.

Mutt’s ears dipped.

“What? Don’t look at me like that. I know what you’re thinking. Get to know the garbageman, maybe he’ll throw you a bone.
But you don’t know this guy. He could be a serial dog killer. He could throw you poisoned meat. Best motto—trust no one.”

Okay, it was official. Too many days on the road with only a dog to talk to had made her nuts. Once she got settled in, she
simply had to introduce herself around town.

And maybe see if she could hire someone to help her unload the U-Haul.

Off to the right, she spied the lake in between gaps in the pine trees, the deep blue of the water melding with the orange
cream sky. The lush evergreens were dusted with powdered-sugar snow. The paralyzing beauty took her breath away, and she fell
instantly in love.

“It’s incredible,” she murmured, and her earlier misgivings were swept away by the azure majesty of the early morning sun
shimmering off the lake.

“Maybe we can go fishing in the spring,” she told Mutt. “You’d like that. Lots of sitting in the sun.”

One of the few memories she had of her father was when he’d taken her fishing. She’d been quite small, three or four at most,
and all she could remember of the trip was the tiny pink plastic tackle box with yellow daisies on it and the way her little
hand had felt in his big palm as they’d walked to the water.

“Oh, oh, here it is. Enchantment Lane.” She made a right. “Is that a corny name or what?”

Mutt yawned.

“Are you bored already? But we’re only three weeks into this relationship, buster.” She carefully navigated the twisty one-lane
road. “Hey, be on the lookout for number 1414.”