That Runaway Summer (18 page)

“Thanks for the coffee and the muffins,” Mark Jacobi told Mrs. Feldman once they were indoors. Dan sat at one end of the kitchen table, between father and daughter.

“Think nothing of it.” The landlady hovered over them, her tears dried but her eyes red rimmed. She’d seemed as surprised as Dan to be introduced to Jill’s father. He wondered if she’d also been under the impression that Mr. Jacobi was dead. “I’ll be upstairs if you need me.”

Nobody spoke until the sound of Mrs. Feldman’s foot steps faded as she climbed the stairs. Even though the landlady must be brimming with curiosity, she hadn’t asked questions.

Jill’s father, however, was full of them.

“I keep asking myself how my own daughter could do something like this to me.” Mr. Jacobi focused on Jill’s solemn, worried face. “So make me understand.”

The house smelled of coffee and the homemade blueberry muffins none of them had touched. Starsky and Hutch barked playfully in the backyard where Dan had left them. Mr. Jacobi hadn’t blinked at Dan’s continued presence, apparently believing Dan was in Jill’s circle of trust.

Trust.

Dan’s gut twisted at the irony intrinsic in the word. He’d wholeheartedly trusted Jill ever since they’d met, positive she was the opposite of his secretive ex-fiancée.

Yet Jill had lied to him, too.

Her father wasn’t dead, her brother wasn’t an orphan and she wasn’t the woman she’d claimed to be.

“I never meant to hurt you, Daddy,” Jill pleaded, sounding every inch a Southerner. Dan had once teasingly accused her of toning down her accent. Now he understood he’d been on the money. “I did what I had to do to protect Chris.”

A muted buzzing noise sounded. Mr. Jacobi started, then patted his pocket where the outline of a cell phone was visible.

“I can look out for my own son.” Mr. Jacobi put both hands on the table, the veins in them visible. “It’s insulting for you to imply that I can’t.”

“How can you protect Chris if you won’t accept there’s something to protect him from?” Jill asked. “I know you don’t believe Arianne abused Chris—”

“The social worker who came out to investigate didn’t believe it, either,” Mr. Jacobi repeated.

“The social worker said she couldn’t prove abuse because Chris didn’t have any marks or bruises,” Jill rejoined. “That’s not the same as saying he hadn’t been abused.”

Dan let them talk, trying to put together the puzzle from the bits and pieces he’d learned. He knew Mr. Jacobi had married Arianne after Chris’s mother died, yet didn’t have a read on the woman. He did remember, however, that Arianne was the name of the bully Chris had told him about.

“Arianne never touched Chris,” Mr. Jacobi stated forcefully.

“But she told him he was worthless!” Jill protested. “She said she wished he’d never been born. She locked him in a closet so nobody would know when she left him home alone.”

“None of that happened.” Mr. Jacobi’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “You know your brother has a problem with lying.”

“He wouldn’t lie about those things!” Jill said. “He wouldn’t lie about Arianne threatening to kill him if he told anybody what she’d done!”

“That doesn’t sound like something a child would make up,” Dan interjected, figuring he’d been quiet long enough.

“Chris would do anything to break up me and Arianne,” Mr. Jacobi said. “You’ve got to understand where he’s coming from. He doesn’t want anyone to take his mother’s place.”

“That’s just ridiculous!” Jill cried.

“What’s ridiculous are the accusations Chris made.” Mr. Jacobi’s mouth set in a stubborn line. “I never heard Arianne say any of those things to him.”

“Now, I’m an outsider here,” Dan interjected, painfully aware of that fact, “but it seems to me your wife would try to keep the abuse from you.”

“What abuse? Why would she abuse him at all?” Mr. Jacobi leaned forward and posed the questions that had been rattling around in Dan’s mind.

“Let me tell you what I think,” Jill said. “Chris hasn’t talked about Arianne in months, but he said some things when we first left Atlanta.”

So Jill was from Atlanta, after all. A shaft of pain shot through Dan at the verification that she’d lied about her hometown. He quashed it and concentrated on her story, for Chris’s sake.

“Arianne told Chris she wouldn’t be stuck home taking care of a snot-nosed brat when she could be out enjoying herself,” Jill continued. “I think Chris interfered with the lifestyle she wanted to live.”

“You’re grabbing at straws,” Mr. Jacobi said. “Arianne knew when she married me I had a son.”

“She probably thought you’d hire a nanny,” Jill said.

“Chris had enough nannies after his mother died. He didn’t need another one. I told Arianne that up front and she was fine with it.”

“Except she might not have been,” Jill said. “Think about it, Daddy. You’re a good catch. Since you married Arianne, you bought a fancier car, moved into a bigger house and joined a country club.”

“What are you driving at?”

“Arianne suggested all of those things. Maybe she didn’t realize how much a child would cramp her style.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Mr. Jacobi shook his head back and forth. “You hardly know Arianne. She loves me.”

“How well do
you
know her?” Jill countered. “You said she wasn’t from Atlanta. How do you know anything she’s told you about herself is true?”

“Jill has a point. Not everyone’s truthful.” Dan’s eyes touched on Jill. She looked away. “For your son’s sake, why not have somebody look into her background?”

“I don’t have to listen to this,” Mr. Jacobi said, and Dan could almost picture a steel door slamming shut. “Arianne is my wife!”

“And Chris is your son!” Jill countered. “I know you love him. So why don’t you do what’s best for him?”

“You think believing his lies about his stepmother is what’s best for him? It’s clear Chris needs counseling and I’ll get it for him,” he said. “But I’m through talking. I want my son. I demand you take me to him.”

His phone buzzed again. He took it out of his pocket with an impatient jerk of his hand, checked the small screen and frowned. “I need to get this.”

He excused himself, then went to the back porch to take the call, leaving Dan and Jill alone.

“He’s not listening to me.” Jill turned to Dan, her eyes huge and beseeching. “What am I going to do?”

Dan had been giving that very question copious thought. Despite how he felt about the lies she’d told him, his entire focus was on helping her do what was best for Chris. “Running away isn’t an option. I believe your father would call the police.”

“Me, too,” she said miserably, “but I can’t have my father take Chris back to Atlanta, either.”

“You could if you talked him into letting you stay in the house with them,” Dan said. “That way, you can make sure Chris is safe. In the meantime, hire Sara Brenneman to see if you have any legal recourse. Lawyers know who the reputable private eyes are. She can refer you to one who can check out Arianne’s background.”

“That makes perfect sense.” She reached across the table and laid a hand on his, her gaze soft. “You’ve been so great, Dan. I don’t know how I’d get through this without you.”

He slipped his hand out from under hers. “I’m doing it for Chris.”

Her brows drew together, her expression pained. Her lips parted, but before she could say anything the door opened and Mr. Jacobi walked back into the kitchen. His complexion had lost color, and he looked as though he’d aged ten years.

“That was Arianne.” He spoke in a monotone, his gaze unfocused. “She’s leaving me and filing for divorce.”

“I don’t understand.” Jill got up from the table and went to stand by her father. “I thought everything was fine between you.”

“She’s been having an affair.” Mr. Jacobi swallowed, and his chin shook slightly. “I even know the guy—this pretentious jerk who’s always at the country club. She says they’re in love.”

“Is he married, too?” Jill asked.

“Divorced. No kids. And about ten years younger than me.” Mr. Jacobi recited the facts in a monotone. “Arianne says he’s a better fit for her than I am.”

Jill looked as stunned as her father, even though the comments her father relayed seemed to confirm she’d been on the mark about Arianne. Dan couldn’t help thinking, however, that there was another chapter of the story to be written.

“Take a few minutes to yourself, Daddy,” Jill said gently. Dan was struck at how quickly she’d gone from protective of her brother to supportive of her father. “I’ll go to the Whitmores’ house and bring Chris back here.”

Mr. Jacobi nodded, then sank into one of the kitchen chairs. Despite the mistakes he’d made, Dan felt sorry for the man. He knew what it felt like to be blindsided by a woman.

The fog had burned off and the sun struggled to peek from behind the clouds when Dan walked with Jill onto the porch. She clutched at the railing the same way Felicia Feldman had earlier that morning.

“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.

“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 top 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.