“She was as far from princess material as any woman could be. My father would never allow it.”
“I see.” Thomas drew a deep breath. “Do you intend to see her again?”
Jacob squinted at the row of beachfront cottages, so perfectly New England with their white clapboard fronts, breezy porches and dark green storm shutters. “Yes,” he said firmly. “I need to see her just once more. Then I’ll stop obsessing about her, comparing other women to her. She couldn’t be as...” He struggled to put his thoughts into words. “I don’t know what she was any more. She’s just clogging up my mind with ridiculous thoughts!” He lashed out angrily, bringing his fist down violently on the brass rail in front of them. “She’s unfinished business, Thomas. That’s all she is. I’ll find her—she lives in Nanticoke. One more time, just to get her out of my blood.”
“You mean, you’ll have another affair with her?”
“If that’s what it takes,” Jacob snapped. “Then I’ll return to Elbia and decide what must be done.”
It hadn’t been the worst day of her life, but it hadn’t been the best, either.
When Allison Collins had left for work that morning, little Cray was running a fever and crying fretfully, clinging to her as she tried to escape through the front door. Her sister, Diane, had her hands full with her own three kids—trying to get two of them off to catch their bus for school, while dressing the third. Within a few minutes her three day-care children would arrive, and she’d have a full house again. Tending a sick fifteen-month-old baby wouldn’t make her day any easier.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t leave Cray with you when he’s like this,” Allison apologized.
“Don’t start on the guilt trips again,” Diane said. “He’s just going through a clingy stage. I’ll give him some Tempra and he’ll be fine ten minutes after you leave.”
“I don’t know, maybe I should take the day off and keep him at home.” That sounded so good. More days than not, it was what Allison wanted to do anyway. Every time she left Cray, she felt as if a vital part of her were being torn from her body. She missed being with him, but what was a single mom to do? She was lucky Diane had been willing to add him to her houseful of little ones at half her usual fee. Day care was so expensive, and a librarian’s salary in a matchbox town like Nanticoke didn’t go far.
Their parents had moved to Florida, when they’d retired five years earlier, leaving the beach house to Allison. She felt grateful for being able to stay there. She still had to pay taxes on the property and manage utilities, food, clothing, medical bills and other necessities. Somehow, she squeezed out the pennies and stayed out of debt—but just barely. She wouldn’t have minded all that much. It seemed a lot of families had to struggle to make ends meet, these days. But she never felt as if she had enough time for Cray, and that she did mind.
At least they had a roof over their heads, she reflected. And Cray was a healthy, normal baby. Perhaps that was why leaving him when he wasn’t feeling well was so difficult for her. He didn’t seem himself. She felt like a heartless witch for deserting him when he needed her.
Finally, she extricated herself from Cray’s chubby fingers and made a dash through the kitchen. Before the storm door slammed shut, she could hear his wails of protest. Biting down on her lower lip, she threw herself into her little compact car and fled.
Her morning story-time group of elementary school children was waiting for her in a circle on the carpet when she arrived. She snatched up the two books she’d prepared the previous day and read with as much enthusiasm as she could muster, still exhausted from being up most of the night with Cray.
After the children left, she switched to her other job—cataloging new contributions to the library’s collection of first editions. A few hours later, she covered for other staff members during their lunch breaks. Afternoons, following school dismissal, were always busy. The children’s corner often turned into an informal baby-sitting service when parents dropped off their kids and left to do errands. It was a practice the staff was trying to stop, since youngsters left unattended sometimes got out of hand and required supervision from staff members who should have been helping patrons locate books or research materials.
By the time five o’clock rolled around, Allison was barely able to see through the dense cloud of fatigue that enclosed her.
“You look beat,” Miriam, one of the senior volunteers, remarked as Allison passed her at the checkout desk.
“All I want to do is pick up my baby, go home and sit on the porch with a tall glass of iced tea,” she murmured without slowing down. She didn’t even have enough energy for a decent conversation.
Tripping wearily down the library’s steps, Allison watched the worn granite slabs pass beneath her feet. Chips of color—quartz, feldspar, obsidian, she thought vaguely. Home...just get me home, car. She hoped she had enough gas.
“Alli?”
She froze where she stood on the bottom step. A flash of ice replaced the warm blood flowing through her veins. But her cheeks immediately flamed up. She didn’t need to lift her eyes to place the rich baritone colored with the faintest Germanic and British overtones. Her heart crawled into her throat. Her hand flew up to cover her mouth before the cry of dismay working its way to her lips could escape.
Only after taking four controlled full breaths, did Allison dare look up...and up...and up into the blue-black eyes of the man standing in front of her. “Hello, Jay,” she said, amazed at the control she was able to exert over her own voice.
He smiled.
She frowned.
“Not happy to see me?” he asked.
“Why should I be?” she clipped out. Stepping to one side, she tried to dodge around him, but he mirrored her side step, effectively blocking her path to her car.
He stood there, looking confident and handsome in casual tan chinos that hugged his hips and a turquoise golf shirt. The muscles of his chest stretched the fabric when he drew a deep breath.
“We were pretty good friends once,” he pointed out. His eyes teased, reflecting hidden meanings she understood all too easily.
Lord, she thought, after all these months, how can he make me feel like this? “That was a long time ago,” she stated crisply. “Now I have to get home.”
His glance dropped to her left hand, then flashed back up to her face, looking satisfied. “I see you haven’t married, either.”
“Why should I?” She faked to the left. He fell for it. She slipped past him and sprinted for her car, calling over her shoulder, “I can just keep on having meaningless affairs with guys like you! Great sex, no commitments, no responsibilities.” She didn’t care if she sounded bitter. She wanted to make him go away. Forever.
She was running now, and so were her thoughts. They rushed at her, in troubling abandon as she bounded across the parking lot. Why had he come back? Why? Just when she thought she’d moved on to another part of her life—one without painful memories of him and how it had felt in those heady, wonderful weeks he’d stayed with her at the beach house. What a fool he’d made of her!
She reached her car, jammed the key in the lock. A wide hand sprinkled with dark hair fell over hers, stopping her from turning the key.
“Don’t you dare touch me,” she ground out between clenched teeth. “I swear, if you—”
He immediately lifted his offending hand and held it up for her to see, as if demonstrating its innocence. “Fine. I won’t touch you. I just want to talk.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
She spun around and glared at him. “Why not? We were lovers for nearly two months, Jay! Then you pulled a disappearing act. Or don’t