He had her at “hello again...”

After the prom night accident that had stolen the innocence of his small lakeside hometown, Jack Llewellyn had run. The guilt—especially facing his high school sweetheart, Arlie Gallagher—had been too much. Now he had no choice. He was back in town, and on Arlie’s radar.

Arlie couldn’t believe that after all these years, she still had him under her skin. He was such a changed man...a responsible business owner, a single parent. Would he understand the changes she’d gone through, the secrets she lived with? She was ready to forgive him but was he ready to forgive himself? And did they have to say goodbye this time?

He loved her face.

When he touched her, trailing his forefinger down the sweet line of her cheek, he was surprised at the strength of his emotional response. He wanted to be Rhett Butler or Mr. Darcy or at least one of Louis L’Amour’s Sacketts and take her in his arms. Maybe carry her up a flight of stairs since the Dower House had such a nice wide set. This wasn’t a book and he was definitely no hero, but he wanted to protect her from all harm, to lend peace to her soul tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

Regret worked its way inexorably into his thoughts. Regret because they didn’t have tomorrows.

But they did have now. He lowered his mouth to hers, keeping the kiss light, almost friendly. But more.

Dear Reader,

I’ve never written with a partner, although I kind of envy those who do. How cool would it be to have someone cover for you on those days when every word you write needs to be unwritten as quickly as possible! However, when I started Every Time We Say Goodbye and I couldn’t seem to name anything, the then-mayor of a town near me, friends on Facebook and Cole Porter took care of that for me. I’d never been in flag corps, cheerleading or marching band, so more friends lent me some of their considerable knowledge. When it came time to choose a title, a genius in Marketing came up with Every Time We Say Goodbye. (I was completely torn between being in love with the title and being jealous because I didn’t think of it—love won. It always does.) My name is the only one on the cover, but a lot of other people helped “put music to my words.”

I hope you love Arlie and Jack’s story—and Miniagua and its residents—as much as I do.

Liz Flaherty

Every Time We Say Goodbye

Liz Flaherty

www.millsandboon.co.uk

LIZ FLAHERTY retired from the post office and promised to spend at least fifteen minutes a day on housework. Not wanting to overdo things, she’s since pared that down to ten. She spends nonwriting time sewing, quilting and doing whatever else she wants to. She and Duane, her husband of...oh, quite a while...are the parents of three and grandparents of the Magnificent Seven. They live in the old farmhouse in Indiana they moved to in 1977. They’ve talked about moving, but really...thirty-seven years’ worth of stuff? It’s not happening!

She’d love to hear from you at lizkflaherty@gmail.com.

MILLS & BOON

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Many thanks go to Jim Walker, who named Lake Miniagua, to the Facebook friends who named Wally and Caruso, and to songwriter Cole Porter, whose song titles made Miniagua such a fun place to write about. A special thanks to Joey Kubesch, who helped put the right names with the right businesses.

A few miles from our house, sitting smack in the middle of the cornfields, is a school campus containing grades K–12 plus preschool. It’s where my kids, some of my grandkids, and I all graduated from. It’s where my daughter and son-in-law teach. It is one of the safest, best, most loving places I know. It’s because of what I learned there that I grew up to write books—the best job in the world.

So it is to the past and present staff of North Miami Community Schools that this book, with my heartfelt gratitude, is dedicated. Go Warriors!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

IT HAD BEEN sixteen years since he’d seen Arlie Gallagher. And three months and four days. Not that he was counting.

But he knew, as he stepped out of the rental SUV he’d parked in front of the Come On In hardware store, that the woman standing in front of the tearoom across the street was indeed Arlie. She was dressed in turquoise scrubs and wearing sunglasses that covered half her small, heart-shaped face, but he recognized her compact build, riot of red curls and hey-world-it’s-me movements as though he’d seen her only yesterday. He thought the woman with her, whose dark hair was a perfect foil for the rich copper of Arlie’s, was her stepsister, Holly. He couldn’t look away long enough to be sure.

The coward in him urged him to hustle into the hardware before Arlie looked across Miniagua’s gravelly Main Street and saw him. But that would have meant looking away.

Which he couldn’t have done under penalty of, well, death, he guessed, because that was something he knew. He’d looked away from her once, actually walked away from her, and dying would have been a whole lot easier.

He closed the car door firmly. Sounds carried on the breeze from the lake, and Arlie looked up, meeting his eyes. She raised her arm, then dropped it with the wave unfinished. Her smile, that wide, generous expression that grew like one of those sped-up videos of a rose blooming, started but faded before the rose made it out of bud stage.

He still couldn’t look away. He couldn’t breathe, either, so he just drank in the sight of her. This must be what a person would feel like if he came in from the desert after not having anything to drink for, say, sixteen years. That first glass of water would be wonderful. It would be life-affirming and fresh and would end way too soon.

The brunette, whose brisk, loose walk didn’t give away the fact that her left foot was prosthetic, nodded in his direction. She didn’t smile, though, and he didn’t either, just lifted his chin and let it drop. When the women went into the Seven Pillars Tearoom, he was finally able to turn and walk toward the hardware store’s front door. Mostly without seeing where he was going.

He and his half brother, Tucker, had been raised on the estate that filled a chunk of the frontage property on the south end of Lake Miniagua’s six hundred acres, but Jack Llewellyn seldom came back. When he did, he paid his stiff respects to his grandmother and stood silent and stoic sentinel for an hour in the cemetery beside the Miniagua Community Church. He’d learned to move quickly on these visits, making it on the afternoon flight home so that by midnight, he’d be relaxing in front of the TV with a beer. He wouldn’t have seen anyone but Margaret Llewellyn and her household staff.

This time, he didn’t get off that easily. Not only would he not get back to Vermont today, he wouldn’t make it tomorrow, either. From the looks of his grandmother’s will and her estate, he’d be in Indiana for a good long time settling the estate.

That meant he’d have to see all those people whose lives had been irrevocably changed the night his father drove drunk and failed to stay to the outside on one of the tight curves on Country Club Road. Jack might have to try to explain things for which he had no justification. Things like why he’d left.

He’d known he would see Arlie, whose heart he had broken, but he had wanted—no, needed—time to prepare himself. Sometimes if he was ready, if he tightened his jaw and focused on other matters—any other matters—he could think about her with barely a twinge of the hurt he’d caused them both. Sometimes.

But that was before he saw her across the street. More than a twinge, the pain that ripped sharp and unexpected down the center of him nearly brought him to his knees.

The bell over the hardware store’s door rang when he stepped inside. Sam Phillipy’s voice, the deepest, truest bass the high school choir had ever heard, came from the back of the hardware store. “Can I help you?”

Jack had to catch his breath yet again. Why hadn’t he thought about it longer before coming into the store? Before coming down to Miniagua’s two-block business district at all? He should have known Sam would be here, should have been ready to face the only man who’d ever been as close to him as his brother. There had never been a better friend than Sam Phillipy. Or a worse one than Jack Llewellyn.

“I’ll need a remodeling crew. I figured this would be a good place to start looking.” Jack sauntered back, striving for casual. Hard to do on legs that still felt shaky.

The old wooden floors echoed with the same hollow sound as they had in high school days. He could almost hear the dribbling of basketballs on the boards. It was an indicator of just how small Miniagua was, he reflected, that teenage boys had hung out in the hardware store.

Sam met him in the middle of the store beside the endcap of paint colors. They sized each other up much as they had more than twenty years ago. Sam looked good even with a patch over his left eye. Lasting damage from the prom-night wreck. Jack had to stop himself from flinching. “Sam.”

“Jack.” Sam nodded, not offering his hand. “My condolences on your family’s loss.” If there was a sneer in his voice, Jack couldn’t hear it, but there was no warmth in his old friend’s expression, either. Nor even a hint of welcome.

“Thank you.” Jack shuffled his feet on the worn floor, feeling as he had that first day he’d come to school at Lake Miniagua, the only eighth grader in high-dollar khakis and Italian loafers. Sam had greeted him then, walking through a gaggle of lakers with an outstretched hand and an offer to share his locker. The move had been both curiously adult and a harbinger of what was to come—they’d shared a locker until the day they graduated.

“When is your grandmother’s funeral?” Sam poured coffee for them both, handed Jack a cup and lifted the pot in invitation to the pair of Amish farmers who were examining the harness that hung across the back wall. They came forward for refills, then went back to the wall.

Jack wasn’t sure why Sam had given him the drink but was grateful nonetheless. Maybe the motivation had been pity because Jack was once again wearing designer clothing in a Levi’s-and-T-shirt kind of place. It had been bad enough being the overdressed new kid at thirteen—it was worse at thirty-four. But he’d gone from a business meeting straight to the airport. His assistant had met him there with a suitcase. “Tomorrow at two.”

“Will you be staying on? How about Tuck?”

“Looks like we both will.” Jack drank deeply. Sam definitely knew his way around a coffeepot. “At least until we can sell the plant and figure out what to do with the Hall.” He smiled without humor. “Know anyone who wants a ten-thousand-square-foot albatross?”

Sam shook his head. “So, you’re selling the plant?” His face was tight, his knuckles white on the curve of his cup.

Jack nodded, then remembered that Sam’s father, Paul, was the production supervisor and had been since the boys had been kids. “Your father’s job will be safe, unless he’s ready to retire. There’s no need to worry about that.”

“I’m not worried. He won’t be, either, I imagine, but those other fifty-some people who work there—they might have some concern.” Sam’s voice was mild, but the look in his good eye was anything but.

Irritation crawled along Jack’s hairline, and he tightened his jaw. He’d bought and sold a handful of businesses since he’d graduated from Notre Dame. He’d made himself a success by flipping companies the way those guys on television flipped houses, and he hadn’t done it by causing irreparable harm to labor. Didn’t Sam know that?

No, of course he didn’t. Why would he?

“We’ll do what we can to protect all the jobs.”

“Well.” Sam nodded abruptly. “That’s good. Did you say you were looking for a remodeling crew?”

“A couple of them, probably. If we are going to sell the alba...the house, it needs to become more like a home and less like a museum.”

“Are you and Tucker living in it?”

“Tuck is. I’m in the Dower House.” He looked at his watch. Not that he cared what time it was, but it was hard maintaining eye contact with Sam, as hard as it had been seeing the redhead across the street. “I’ll check back with you, all right?” He set down his cup and headed toward the front door of the store, needing air, needing something to ease the grief of being back in this place he’d loved so much and being completely alone.

Sam’s voice followed him. “I’ll check around.” He cleared his throat. “I’ll see you at the funeral.”

Jack stopped, turning around to meet Sam’s gaze. “That’s very kind of you.” He knew the words were stilted, but he meant them.

“Your grandmother was a customer. Not that she ever came in the store, but she’d call and tell me what she wanted and I’d take it out there. And she was your grandmother. We were best friends in high school—all the way through. You walked away and the truth is I don’t like you very much right now, but on some level we’re still best friends.”

Jack smiled, but the expression felt cold on his face. He doubted if it looked any warmer than it felt. “Really.”

“Yup.” Sam sketched him a wave. “When you drive down Country Club Road, those little crosses that are all rough and the paint’s worn off? They’re the only sign that the accident ever happened. The road’s been repaved, even widened a little. They couldn’t do anything to straighten out the curves, but it’s a lot safer than it was then. Other than those of us who were in the wreck and our families, people have forgotten. The scars have healed. I don’t know why you saw fit to leave the way you did. I may never know why. But you’re back now, at least for a while, and it’s time for the exile to end. It’s been long enough.”

“Long enough?” Jack kept his voice mild, maintained the smile, but everything inside him tightened. “For the Gallaghers and the Benteens? The Worths and Linda Saylors’s parents? For you, Sam?”

Sam hesitated, lifting his free hand to straighten the patch that suited his face so well it was as though it had always been there. “Maybe not. I don’t know.” He sighed. “The accident wasn’t your fault. No one blames you for it.”

“I know.” Not that he believed it for a New York minute, but maybe if he said it often enough, he would. Maybe.

* * *

“SERIOUSLY. RENT-A-WIFE IS cleaning the Dower House and I drew the short straw? No one will be there while I’m working, right?” Arlie Gallagher filled her plate with a little more spaghetti than was probably good for her, but her stepmother was the best cook on the lake. “You told them that everyone should be out of the house so I can get the job done quickly?”

“Yes, I told them that.” Holly, her six-months-younger stepsister, followed her, filling her own plate as full as Arlie’s.

Gianna Gallagher topped off their wineglasses and waited for the daughters she’d raised more alone than not to join her at the table. “I’m glad you girls are here.” She swirled the liquid in her glass and took a drink. “I don’t get lonely much—there’s no time—but mealtime’s when I miss your dad the most.”

“We should come for dinner more often.” Arlie covered her stepmother’s hand with her own and smiled into her eyes. “It would be a struggle, but I could eat your cooking occasionally as opposed to standing over the kitchen sink scarfing a Hot Pocket. Goodness knows, Holly could use some more pasta, too.”

“No, I couldn’t.” Holly shook her head. “If I gain more than ten pounds, my foot doesn’t fit right and I have to get a new socket.” She rapped the side of her prosthetic ankle, a result of the accident that had claimed her stepfather’s life.

Gianna squeezed Arlie’s fingers. “I wanted to talk to you both before you started hearing things. Lakers may blame the summer people for starting rumors, but the truth is that gossip travels even faster in the wintertime when people are bored.”

“What is it, Mama?” Holly spun her pasta expertly onto her fork.

“The Llewellyns.”

Arlie laid down her fork again, her appetite gone. “We’re cleaning the Dower House as requested, Gianna. We already know Jack’s coming back for a while. He won’t stay—he never stays.” The words made her stomach twist, the way it had when she’d seen him on the street today.

She leaned back in Gianna’s comfortable dining room chair and sipped wine, enjoying the immediate comfort of it. Sycamore Hill’s red was extra good this year. Not that she could tell the difference, but Chris Granger’s family owned the local winery and he said it was.

Gianna hesitated. “Apparently the estate is very complicated. I don’t pretend to know what all’s involved—the beauty-shop grapevine’s intel wasn’t that in-depth—and both boys will be coming back here to stay for a time.” Gianna’s eyes softened on Arlie. “Will you be okay with it?”

After the accident, there had been so much pain between them they couldn’t seem to get through it. When he left for college, he never came back. It still hurt to think about it, though not as badly as it had then. Nothing hurt as much as it had then, but seeing him across the street today had opened the old wounds.

If Arlie gave the word, her stepmother was completely capable of telling Jack Llewellyn the streets of Miniagua weren’t big enough for him and her daughter both and he needed to find his way back out of town.

She sipped her wine, enjoyed its warmth, then drained her glass. “It’s not as though I’ve spent the last sixteen years in mourning. I’ve lived half my life since then. I have a career, my own house, and Chris is a sort-of boyfriend. I can deal with seeing Jack.”

It sounded good, she thought, but her stepmother didn’t look entirely convinced.

Gianna glanced at her watch, then poured the last of the red into their glasses. “We’ve buried our dead and gone on with our lives. Jack and Tucker are here to do the same thing. Miniagua is home to them just like it is to the rest of us. It’s time for peace in all our souls.” She firmed her voice and met Arlie’s eyes, her dark gaze compassionate. “If you think you can welcome them back, then I know I can.”

Holly nodded. “Me, too.”

Arlie didn’t think she was ready for that. Cleaning the Dower House was one thing. Seeing Jack from across the street without losing her lunch had been entirely doable. Getting friendly with the Llewellyns was something else entirely.

“I’ll try.” Arlie stared back into the eyes that still held hers. “I promise I’ll try.”

Once dinner was over and they were standing in the driveway of Christensen’s Cove, Gianna’s house, saying good-night, Holly offered Arlie a ride. She shook her head. “I need some air. And maybe to think some.”

“Don’t overthink it, sis.” Holly hugged her hard.

Arlie nodded. “See you in the morning.”

The evening was warm for mid-October. A full moon danced on the water, and Arlie could hear people chatting on their porches and docks, hanging on to all the comfortable outdoors time they could. Sometimes during the day, Lake Miniagua looked big, but in the evening it seemed to shrink, its streets becoming the bumpy and narrow throughways they actually were. People rode by on bicycles, calling out greetings as they passed. Golf carts whizzed along in near silence. Teenagers walked close together in couples and groups, both sibilance and new huskiness in their hushed laughter. The playground above the beach was deserted, although Arlie thought if she listened hard, she could hear echoes of the past ringing through it. But maybe that was just the rustle of dry leaves as they scuttled across the ground in the breeze.

Arlie’s father had built the house she lived in, though he’d sold it when he and Gianna married. The red Cape Cod sat at the end of a narrow inlet that had been dubbed Gallagher’s Foot. When Arlie bought the house three years ago, she painted Gallagher’s Big Toe on the mailbox. The name had shrunk to “the Toe” and stuck.

When she’d opened the garage door the first time after she took possession of the house, she found a scrap of a kitten curled up in an old Easter basket. Jesse Worth, a veterinarian whose office was halfway between Miniagua and Sawyer, had said it wasn’t old enough to leave its mother. He’d given Arlie enough eyedroppers and a recipe for formula to keep it alive.

The kitten, whose meow was so loud Gianna had christened her Caruso despite her gender, now weighed fifteen pounds and owned Arlie, body and soul. Caruso was not amused that her housemate was so late coming home, but a couple of treats accompanied by an intense chin-scratch and belly-rub helped matters considerably.

After showering, putting on a faded Ball State University sweatshirt and black flannel pajama pants, and wrapping her tumble of red hair in a towel, Arlie lifted a scrapbook from one of the bookshelves that flanked the gas fireplace. She clicked the fireplace’s remote, then sat in the recliner, drawing a quilt over her legs—warmth had receded fast once darkness fell. Caruso settled in beside her, her purr a companionable roar in the cozy room.

“What do you think, Caruso?” The book of memories was her first effort, put together when she was trying to get her mind and hands to work together after the accident. Holly had replaced cheering and dancing with writing after losing her leg in the accident. Arlie had learned to scrapbook in lieu of singing and playing the piano and clarinet when neither her throat nor her hands returned to what they had been previously.

She’d been seventeen when she put together the first album, the one with covers in their school colors, so she shouldn’t have been surprised that the first picture was of her and Jack. She shouldn’t have been, but she was. Every single time.

She jumped when the doorbell rang. It wasn’t that late—just after nine—but visitors in Miniagua usually phoned or texted first and came by before dark unless it was summertime, when everyone was sitting outside anyway.

The cat accompanied her to the door, her ringed tail at stiff attention, and Arlie bent to pet her. “You’re such a good girl. It’s probably some of the senior class selling magazine subscriptions—that and car washes are the only way they get the prom paid for. Did you want to go with me if they ask me to chaperone? You saw that picture when Jack and I went. You and I would be at least that cute.”

Caruso leaned against her legs when they reached the entryway. Arlie turned on the porch light, the wattage guaranteed to blind whomever was on the porch, and pulled open the door.

Somehow she wasn’t surprised when she saw Jack standing on the other side of the threshold.

His hair, curly and unmanageable when he was a boy, was straight now, still blond but streaked with brown. She’d always accused him of wearing tinted contacts because his eyes were such a bright blue. They were still spectacular, still fringed by thick lashes, but the blue had darkened and he wore glasses with wire frames. His face had been a boy’s when she saw him last, with all the softness of adolescence in it, but now his cheekbones were sharper, his jaw more square and covered with a well-trimmed beard. His build was lean, still broad shouldered and flat stomached, but more spare somehow than sixteen years before.

He wore jeans and a leather jacket that hung open over a faded blue cotton sweater. An earring glinted in his left ear, and she wondered for a suspended moment if it was the same one with his birthstone that she’d bought him for his September birthday. She’d given it to him early, before he left for college, and then she’d never seen him again.

“Jack.”

“Arlie.” He nodded, his gaze not leaving hers. “I just wanted to tell you, you don’t have to clean the Dower House. I can’t believe the lawyer’s rep asked you. Well, I can, but I’m sorry she did.” His smile was so slight it almost wasn’t there. “I also can’t believe that’s the best excuse I could come up with for coming over here this late.”

She didn’t smile back. “She didn’t ask me. She asked Rent-A-Wife, which is Gianna’s business. I just help out once in a while. Unless you no longer need our services, we’ll do the job.” Angry for a reason she couldn’t name, not to mention insulted, she started to push the door shut.

“Wait.” He stopped the door with his hand around its edge. “May I come in?” He hesitated. “Please.”

It’s time for peace in all our souls. Gianna’s voice echoed gently in Arlie’s mind. She took a deep breath and stepped back, Caruso winding around her ankles. “Sure. Go ahead and have a seat. Would you like something to drink?” She made the offer grudgingly, but she wasn’t Gianna Gallagher’s daughter for nothing.

“Do you have coffee? I know it’s late for that, but it’s tasted good all day.”

Friendly. That was how he was going to play it. Let’s just pretend the past sixteen years didn’t happen. Okay, she could do that. Sure she could. “There’s an organic market on the lake. I think everyone buys coffee there now.” She went to make a fresh pot, breathing deep when she opened the coffee canister. The scent was definitely therapeutic.

He leaned on the counter between the kitchen and the dining area. “I had supper at the Anything Goes Grill on the north end. I guess it’s new? It was good.”

“It is good. It’s nicer than the Silver Moon, although the food’s about equal on the quality scale, and it has booze.” Chris’s family had opened Anything Goes within the past year. He didn’t work in the restaurant, but he spent a lot of time there. She wondered if he’d been there tonight.

Jack looked around. “Your house looks pretty. Was it nice to come back to where you lived as a little kid?”

“It was after a while. At first, until we painted everything and put down the hardwood floors, I just kept thinking of it as the house where we lived when my mother left.” She lifted cups from the cupboard.

“Do you hear from her? Your mother?”

“No. Well, yes. At Christmastime. Usually. She’s forgotten a few.”

Arlie handed him his coffee, then filled a plate with cookies and led the way back to the living room, carrying the plate and her own mug. The cat glared at her from the seat of the recliner. “I didn’t introduce Caruso, did I? She’s my roommate.”

“What a beauty she is.” Jack had always loved cats. He set his cup on the table at the end of the couch and lifted Caruso into his arms. She leaned into him, purring politely and eyeing him adoringly with bright green eyes. “I thought Russian Blues didn’t like strangers.”

“She does. Especially males.” Although the cat wasn’t crazy about Chris. She always climbed onto her perch on the front windowsill and lay with her back to the room when he was there. Arlie wasn’t so sure Caruso’s instant adoration of Jack qualified her as a good judge of character.

When they were seated, Jack sipped from his coffee, closing his eyes for a moment in appreciation. “Rent-A-Wife?” He raised an eyebrow. “Weren’t you wearing scrubs today?”

“I’m a nurse at the hospital in Sawyer. I just help at Rent-A-Wife when Gianna needs me.” He was trying to make conversation, and she had to give him points for the effort, but she didn’t know what to say to him.

He picked up the scrapbook that lay on the couch beside him. “I remember this. You made it that last summer, didn’t you?”

She nodded, and quiet settled between them as he leafed through the heavy pages. Partway into the book, he began to ask questions. She progressed from two-word answers—“Sophomore year”—to short explanations—“No, I was grounded”—to unwilling laughter when he buried his head in his hands after seeing a picture of himself in drag during the high school production of Hairspray. After that, they laughed more, argued over things that didn’t matter and played the “do you remember?” game. At some point, it was almost as though he’d never left Miniagua. Never left her.

They were on their second cups of coffee and yet another plate of cookies when Jack reached the end of the album. He fell silent, looking at the five-by-seven studio shot of the ten of them who’d driven together to the dance. The last dance.

“Do you ever talk about it?”

She looked at where the book lay open across his lap, then up at the clench of his jaw, the set of his mouth and the tragic look in the eyes behind his glasses. She set down her cup and clasped her hands between her knees. She kept her voice quiet and steady, trying to downplay the huskiness of it. “We mention it sometimes. We say ‘the accident’ because you can’t just pretend away something that changed your life to that extent. We talk about Daddy—he was Superdad, after all.” She smiled, feeling her cheeks wobble with the effort. “But we don’t play the ‘if only’ game—at least not out loud, because it would drive us crazy.”

Jack nodded and looked at the picture again.

“Do you talk about it?” she asked gently.

“No.”

“Do you see Tucker?”

Grief darkened his eyes and stiffened his features once again. “Not often, though we’re both here now.”

She tried to imagine her life without Holly and couldn’t. “Maybe we should talk about the accident. Gianna says it’s time to let things go.” She said the words, but she didn’t mean them. She could be polite to Jack, even friendly. But she didn’t think she could quite forgive him. At least, not yet.

“How is Gianna?”

“Wonderful. She had a heart attack three years ago—that’s why I came back here to live—but she had surgery and has done great ever since.”

“Maybe I’ll get to see her.”

Arlie didn’t ask about his grandmother’s last days or her death. She was afraid if she delved too deeply into the well-being of any of the Llewellyns, she’d never be able to come out of the morass of memory again.

But there was Jack, for the first time in nearly half her life, sitting so close she could feel the warmth of him. That same warmth she’d felt before—

Before everything changed.

“I remember screaming,” she said without meaning to. “I didn’t realize no one could hear me because my larynx was injured. I wanted to comfort Holly because her foot hurt so much. Daddy wouldn’t answer us. I couldn’t find you. That’s all I remember.” There was more. But she wouldn’t go there. Couldn’t.

The prom had been the event of the school year for high school juniors and seniors. They’d rented the ballroom at the country club, having car washes and selling magazine subscriptions and candy bars to cover the expense.

Even in a high school as small as Miniagua’s, everyone knew there would be drinking at the prom, so the parents came up with the idea of hiring vans to provide transportation to the club.

Jack’s grandparents, under the auspices of Llewellyn’s Lures, owned their own limo, but Margaret said it was needed for business. This was how Arlie, Jack, Holly and Tucker ended up riding to and from the country club in the back of a twelve-passenger church van. Jesse Worth and Linda Saylors sat in front of them with Sam’s date, Cass Gentry. Sam, Nate, and Libby Worth sat behind Arlie’s father and stepmother in the front seat.

No one was particularly comfortable, and hardly any of them fastened their seat belts around their formal clothing. Arlie’s father—who always started every drive with the words “seat belts on?”—turned an unaccustomed deaf ear to the lack of clicking buckles from the backseats.

At first the girls had been embarrassed, but had joined in with the others when Dave Gallagher’s rumbling baritone and Gianna’s sweet soprano started singing “Dancing Queen.”

The next thing Arlie remembered was screaming.

“One time,” Arlie said, her throat aching, “Gianna came into Libby’s tearoom while I was cleaning. I had ‘Dancing Queen’ playing loud and my mop and I were dancing away. When I saw her face, it just killed me what I was doing to her. I went to shut it off, apologizing like mad all the way, and she just said, ‘Oh, no, honey, it’s like singing with your dad again,’ and turned it up some more. We danced through the whole song. I think I’ve played it a thousand times since then.”

Jack’s face was pale, his features set, and Arlie knew that whatever it had cost her to talk about that night, he’d paid a heavy price for listening, too.

“We’ve all healed,” she reminded him, keeping her voice level and quiet. She got up quickly, needing to move, not wanting to remember anything else about the accident and its aftermath. “More coffee?”

“Yes.” He followed her back to the counter. “The real reason I came here tonight was to apologize, but I don’t have any idea where to begin with you or with anyone else. I don’t know how to be back here. What to do when I run into Jesse or Libby or Holly. Do I say, ‘Gosh, guys, sorry my family’s limo came out on top when it did a head-on with the church van’? Or maybe, ‘Hey, look at the bright side—at least you lived’?”

His pain was palpable. She felt it on her skin, in the dryness of her eyes and the heavy beat of her heart.

“You were the only person who ever blamed you for the accident, Jack. Your father was driving the limo, not you, and he died, too. It wasn’t like your family didn’t suffer loss.”

She knew as soon as the words were out of her mouth that they were wrong. She set the coffee carafe back on its heating unit and came to lean her elbows on the bar between them. “One person blamed you, that is,” she said quietly, holding his gaze, “but I didn’t blame you for the accident. I blamed you for leaving me.”

CHAPTER TWO

LAKE MINIAGUA WAS a small community. Most of its businesses and many of its residences were named with the titles of Cole Porter songs. The prolific songwriter had grown up in nearby Peru. The Anything Goes Grill and the Silver Moon Café were the primary restaurants. A salon and spa called It’s De-Lovely was near Rent-A-Wife, Gianna Gallagher’s business. Nate’s golf course was Feathermoor. The greenhouse was Old-Fashioned Garden. The Sea Chantey Convenience Store and Bait Shop and Through Thick and Thin Barbershop filled Main Street storefronts. Even some of the wine bottles Jack had seen at Anything Goes had names like The Beguine and Midsummer Night.

On the other side of the lake, near the fishing huts and Hoosier Hills Cabins and Campground, there was a second convenience store, a Laundromat and a usually closed pizza parlor—Miniagua’s abortive attempt at a strip mall.

At the end of the business district, before the bridge that led to the golf course, the old drugstore and sundry shop sat empty. Out for a morning run, Jack slowed as he passed the brick building, looking at it with eyes both contemplative and assessing.

He thought of the evening before. Of being in the same room with Arlie and wanting to stay and stay and stay. Of talking and laughing and drinking coffee that tasted like home.

They’d talked about the past and—to a lesser degree—about the present. Jack knew Arlie worked in a nearby hospital as a nurse but that her heart was with midwifery, even if she had little opportunity to practice those skills since returning to the lake. He knew and disliked—even though he had no right to even have an opinion—that she’d dated Chris Granger for two years. She’d said she loved quilting and cooking and working with Holly on choreography for the marching band.

He’d told her he loved woodworking more than anything else he’d ever done and that even though he’d lived and worked in several states, he liked the Northeast Kingdom and thought he’d stay there for at least the foreseeable future.

But he hadn’t told her about the twelve-year-old who was the real reason Jack made Vermont his home and had done things like buy life insurance and stuff a college fund with conservative investments. The boy who’d made him understand, finally, why he’d survived the prom-night accident. Whose grandparents would drive him down from South Bend for tomorrow’s funeral.

The geeky young genius who’d made him a father.

He hadn’t mentioned Charlie. Not even once.

* * *

ARLIE HATED FUNERALS, especially when she was only there because it was the polite thing to do. She’d loved Jack Llewellyn with all her heart and soul when she was in high school. Tucker had been a great friend. But she hadn’t loved their grandmother. Not even close.

“I still don’t know why we’re here.” She pulled Gianna’s car into a parking place at the large mortuary in Kokomo. “Margaret Llewellyn didn’t like our family and we weren’t all that cracked on hers, either.” Her thoughts backtracked and it was as though she could feel Jack’s blue gaze on her. “I mean, later on, we weren’t. After the accident.”

Gianna sighed. “She and I made our peace over the years, fragile though it was. Now Jack and Tucker are back here to stay, at least for a while. Judging from what I’m hearing on the grapevine, Jack is not being treated kindly.” She patted Arlie’s cheek. “I know you welcomed him when he stopped by last night, and I’m proud of you for that. I also know how much you were hurt. I think if we make our ‘welcome back’ public, it will be a good thing.” Her dark eyes were damp, but her smile caught her stepdaughter in an aura of warmth. “I love you, Arlie.”

“You already got me here. You can stop being sniffly over me.” Arlie gave her a one-armed hug. “But I love you, too.”

The service was dignified and brief. From where she sat between Gianna and Penny Phillipy, Arlie could see Jack and Tucker in the alcove reserved for family. Tucker’s mother sat between them. A boy who appeared to be about twelve was in the chair beside Jack. Arlie wondered who he was. As far as she knew, other than his half brother, Margaret Llewellyn had been Jack’s last living relative.

Many people from the lake attended. When it was over, most of them spoke to Tucker, though there wasn’t the exchange of memories that usually took place at memorial services. No one said, “If there’s anything I can do...” or “She’s in a better place now.” No one hugged anyone. No one laughed or cried.

And hardly anyone talked to Jack. There were nods of recognition from townspeople. Sam, Nate and Jesse shook his hand. Even Jack and Tucker seemed to have little to say to each other. The boy stood between them, shaking hands when he was addressed.

The night before, when Jack had appeared at her door, Arlie hadn’t wanted to talk to him, either. Seeing other people purposefully snub him broke her heart. She turned an anxious gaze to Gianna. “Can we fix this?”

Just as her stepmother had never led her astray, she’d also never failed her when it came to knowing the right thing to do.

With Arlie in tow, Gianna walked straight to Jack. “Oh, sweetheart, we’ve missed you so.” She drew him into a hug he couldn’t have avoided if he’d wanted to. “You remember that you and Tucker are expected for dinner at the Cove tonight, don’t you?” She smiled at Tucker’s mother. “Ellen, it’s been too long. Can you come, too?”

“I can’t.” Ellen Curtis beamed at her, gratitude shining from her eyes. “I’m having dinner with other friends tonight because I’m flying back to England tomorrow, but I’m so pleased these two will be in your capable hands.”

“Yes.” Jack had to clear his throat. “Thank you, Gianna. Is it all right if I bring another guest?” He drew the slim-built boy forward, his hands resting either protectively or possessively on his shoulders. “Mrs. Gallagher, this is Charlie. My son.”

The earth didn’t move. Most of the people around them didn’t even look surprised. Of course, they were probably too busy squirming from being shamed by Gianna’s openhearted acceptance of Jack into their midst.

But Arlie couldn’t breathe.

They’d spent two hours together the night before and he hadn’t seen fit to mention a son. Or—go ahead and twist the knife—a wife. Not that being married was necessarily a prerequisite to parenthood; Jack and Tucker’s father hadn’t married either of their mothers. But the conversation the night before had been one that went well beyond the parameters of just being polite. They’d shared memories; they’d laughed. They’d talked about the accident and he’d apologized even though he hadn’t specified exactly what he was apologizing for. He’d said he didn’t know what to say to people now that he was back.

I have a son named Charlie would have been an extraordinarily good start.

* * *

“THEY DIDN’T KNOW I exist?” Charlie stood stock-still at the rear door of Tucker’s car when they finally left the cemetery after the private graveside service Margaret Llewellyn had requested. “How could they not know I exist? I’m arguably the best thing that’s ever happened to you.”

“You’re twelve years old.” Tucker stared over at his nephew in disbelief. “No one uses the word arguably when they’re still wiping their noses on their jacket sleeves.”

They did when they were Charlie, who’d skipped third grade and was well on his way to passing over the eighth, as well. He was both brilliant and funny. Neither of those traits led to appropriate behavior, which he insisted against all parental objections was part of his charm.

“Get in the car, Charlie.” Jack waited for him to obey, then closed the door behind him and got into the front passenger seat. “You know I never come back here unless I have to.”

He was still trying to process the look on Arlie’s face when he’d introduced Charlie. She had looked, for just a heartbeat in time, completely stricken. She’d paled so much that the spray of freckles on her nose had stood out in stark contrast to her skin. He’d reached to touch her, but she’d backed away a step, shaking her head slightly before turning a smile on Charlie.

Tucker looked at Jack from behind the wheel. “He’s right, you know. Other than continuing to have me for a brother whether you wanted me or not, Charlie is probably the best thing to come into your life since you walked away from the lake.”

“See?” Charlie spoke up. “Except for the brother part, Tuck’s got it.”

Jack turned enough to look at the adolescent behind him. “You know, I can probably get your grandparents to take you back to South Bend with them. They can run you over to O’Hare and put you on a direct flight tonight instead of me flying with you tomorrow afternoon. Your mother would be glad you weren’t missing another day of school.”

Charlie grinned at him, metal from his braces glinting in the afternoon sun sifting through the car window, and Jack grinned back. He could no more resist the boy, who really was the best thing in his life, than he could fly.

“We need to stop and get Gianna a bottle of wine or some flowers.” He looked out the side window of the car. The autumn colors were beautiful. “Is there anywhere on the lake or do you need to stop in Sawyer?”

“We go right past Sycamore Hill, the winery the Grangers started up a few years ago. It’s between the golf course and Jesse Worth’s vet clinic on Lake Road.”

“Chris Granger?” He’d been Jack’s age and had lived next door, but they’d never been friends. The fact that he was Arlie’s boyfriend made it fairly certain they never would be.

“Yeah.” Tucker looked over at him, his expression undecipherable. “I guess he and Arlie have been seeing each other for a long time.”

“They have.” Jack continued looking out the window, noting the colors of the leaves as they went under the canopy of trees on the stretch of road they’d always called “the tunnel.” Jesse’s place would be next, where he’d opened his clinic on the family farm, and then the winery the Grangers owned.

Arlie and Chris Granger. Even thinking about them as a couple made his insides jump around. It had been so much better not knowing. In all the time he’d been gone, he’d managed not to call her, though he’d dialed the number at Christensen’s Cove at least a thousand times. He’d thought maybe Gianna would answer and he could just ask about Arlie to make sure she was all right. But he always hung up before anyone picked up on the other end. He’d written letters all through his first two years at college, trying to explain, to make her understand. He’d never mailed any of them, but he hadn’t thrown them away, either—they were in a wooden box he’d made, stuffed into the back of his closet in his house in Vermont.

Sometime during the summer after sophomore year, he stopped dialing her number, stopped writing letters he would never mail. He started dating again, albeit without his heart in it. He and Tracy, his study partner, shared a propensity for vintage TV shows and Chicago-style hot dogs. They spent most of their evenings together.

That winter, he married her, entering into a union they later referred to as the best marriage of convenience that ever took place on the campus of Notre Dame University.

Tracy was pregnant by a man she found out too late was married. When he was running one night, Jack found her standing on a bridge over the St. Joe River. “I can’t get an abortion and I can’t jump,” she’d said, turning tear-filled eyes to him. “It’s not the baby’s fault its parents are losers.”

As much as Jack liked Tracy and enjoyed her company, there was no real attraction there. Not to mention, he believed his time to love had passed him by. He didn’t particularly want children of his own, but neither had his father—something he and Tucker had known every day of their lives.

What if this had happened to Arlie? What if she’d been alone and pregnant? She hadn’t been—they had never been intimate after the accident—but what if she had and he’d never known? He’d have wanted someone to do what was right for his child.

Life had granted him no illusions about marriage, happily-ever-after or being a proud father at someone’s graduation. But he’d hated that his father hadn’t wanted him and Tuck.

“How can I help you?” He’d wrapped his jacket around Tracy and laughed, the sound nervous. “We could get married for a while. Get you through finals and decide what you want to do.”

They’d spent the first months of their marriage studying, learning to cook without poisoning themselves, watching Matlock reruns and deciding what to do after the baby was born. Finally, eight months into Tracy’s pregnancy, they’d made the decision to release the baby for adoption and have their marriage annulled. No harm, no foul, just gratitude for getting each other through a rough time.

But then there was Charlie. In the space of time between the obstetrician saying “you can push now” and a red-faced baby squalling his head off, Jack and Tracy learned that while love had definitely complicated their pasts, it just as certainly defined their future. They had ended their marriage, but that was the only part of the plan that came together.

Jack brought his mind to the present, looking back over his shoulder to smile at the boy who’d changed his life. Who’d made him decide maybe living was worthwhile after all. Whom he was afraid to spend too much time with.

“Did you bring homework with you?”

The boy rolled his eyes, their whiskey color reminding him of Arlie’s. “I did. It’s algebra and it’s probably going to be the sole reason I’m never accepted to a reputable college.”

“Good. Tucker can help you.”

Tucker tossed Jack a look of outrage. “I flunked algebra. In my freshman year. Remember? He’s in the eighth grade and can already run rings around me in anything mathematical.”

“I know you flunked it, but you did okay when you took it the second time. I, on the other hand, only passed it because Arlie helped me.”

“She’s a girl and she helped you with algebra?” Charlie scoffed.

“She did.” Jack unbuckled his seat belt when Tucker pulled in at the winery. “And I double dog dare you to take that tone with her. Unless she’s changed a lot, you won’t come out of it real well.”

Charlie squinted. “Double dog dare?”

Tucker laughed. “Don’t do it, Charlie. You’ll be sorry.”

Twenty minutes later, having bought two bottles of wine and a carryout pan of apple dumplings Charlie had salivated over, they pulled into the driveway of Christensen’s Cove. Jack sat still in the passenger seat, a white-knuckle grip on the bottle of zinfandel in his lap. He met his brother’s eyes across the seat. “I don’t know if I can do this. Or if I should.” He was aware, peripherally, that Charlie had got out of the car, but he was incapable of calling him back. He seemed to be just as unable to move. “I should go.”

“No.” Tucker gripped his shoulder hard. “You’ve done that. To her and to me both. It didn’t work worth beans for any of us. It’s time to stay, Jack.”

Charlie was already taking off his jacket when they stepped through the front door of Gianna’s house. “We brought enough apple dumplings for everyone, but if Dad doesn’t eat his, I already called dibs on it. Did you really help him with his algebra?”

“I did.” Arlie hung up his coat. “But in all fairness, he helped me with biology—I couldn’t get the whole mitosis and meiosis thing—and Holly helped us all with English.” She grinned at her sister, the expression all delightful wickedness that made Jack’s heart do the jumpy thing again. “However, she charged us.”

Holly nodded. “Believe me, Charlie, I earned every nickel of it, too.”

“Is there any chance you’d help me with my algebra?” Charlie asked Arlie. “Dad said Tucker could, but I don’t trust him much.”

“Well, sure. We’ll let...uh...your dad and Tucker help Holly with the dishes and we’ll do your homework.” Arlie put an arm through his. “Let’s go in and talk to Gianna. I hope you like spaghetti—she cooks enough for an army—and her bread sticks are the best thing since burgers and fries.” She tossed a smile over her shoulder at Tucker, ignoring Jack entirely. When they walked into the kitchen, there was a definitive martial aspect to her posture.

Dinner was more comfortable than Jack expected, even though it was obvious Arlie had nothing whatever to say to him. It shouldn’t have bothered him, since he knew very well it was his own fault, but it did. When they’d spent time together the evening before, it had felt as though one of the letters he’d written had been sent and delivered. She’d understood and he’d been forgiven.

But he hadn’t been. Of course he hadn’t. Forgiveness for sixteen years didn’t come about in a single day, especially when a whopping lie of omission was added to the mix. He asked himself once again, in the long span of silence between Arlie and himself, why he hadn’t just told her about his marriage and his son.

He knew the answer. Because it had been the ultimate betrayal. Raising a family had been the life Arlie wanted and he’d been ambivalent about, yet here they were in their midthirties and he had Charlie and she had a cat.

She was nice to Charlie, though, and that was what mattered. By the time dinner was finished, the kid had charmed her last bread stick off her plate and extracted a promise from Holly to show him how her prosthetic foot worked as soon as the dishes were done and he and Arlie had finished his algebra. When Jack objected to Charlie’s over-the-top curiosity, the Gallagher women had all rolled their eyes at him, so he’d thrown up his parental hands and eaten another helping of spaghetti.

“You should either bottle this sauce for public sale or be arrested for leading innocent young men astray with it,” he told Gianna.

She laughed. “I do bottle it, but not for public sale. I think the girls and I spend most of August canning tomatoes in the form of sauce, juice, salsa and catsup.”

“Catsup?” Charlie’s eyes widened. “You make catsup?”

Gianna nodded. “And Arlie and Holly help me. It’s kind of like homework—they don’t want to, but they do it.”

“That is so cool. I had to google a tutorial to show my mom how to open the Heinz bottle.”

“Charlie!” Jack objected, although he couldn’t stop the snort of laughter that went with the remonstrance. Tracy was the worst cook in the Northeast Kingdom, and she made no pretense at being anything more.

“She’s a lawyer,” Charlie explained to his captivated audience. “She says she can’t cook because she has to use her legal prowess to keep me from getting arrested for being a smart-a—”

“Charlie!” Jack and Tuck spoke together that time.

He gave them a withering look. “Smart aleck. That’s all I was going to say.” He turned his orthodontic-wonder smile on Gianna. “May I have more?”

When the dishes were washed and Charlie’s homework done, Holly demonstrated removing her foot, then put it back on and made Charlie dance the length of the house’s center hall with her.

“We have to go,” said Jack regretfully when Charlie fell against him on the deacon’s bench near the front door. He hugged him, breathing in the scent of him. “You can come back for Thanksgiving. Your mom already said.”

“Splendid.” Gianna handed a bag of leftovers to Tuck and kissed his cheek. “Then you’ll be able to spend the day with us.”

“Thank you.” Jack got to his feet and took her hands. “For everything.”

Everyone hugged Charlie and the Llewellyns left on a chorus of goodbyes. The last one out the door, Jack finally caught Arlie’s eyes and held firm, as if to say, I’m sorry. It was as though no one else was there.

She looked away, the stiffness of her demeanor making her taller, straighter. “Good night, Jack. Be safe.”

Be safe. He wondered if she said those words whenever anyone left. He did; Tucker did. He wouldn’t be surprised if the other survivors did, too. In some ways, prom night would never end.

CHAPTER THREE

JACK FLEW BACK to Vermont with Charlie the next day. Tracy met them at the airport and they all had dinner together before Tracy took Charlie back to the town house they shared.

Jack checked on his house, standing outside it for a long moment and reflecting that no matter how much he liked the two-hundred-year-old brick Cape Cod, it should have been a family house. And wasn’t, because he only had a family on occasional weekends and vacations.

After a restless night, he drove his own car back to Miniagua, spending the night somewhere in the middle of Ohio. He pulled into the keyhole drive of the Dower House behind the Rent-A-Wife van late in the evening of the second day. There were lights on in both the first and second stories of the house—only the attic and basement windows were dark. He frowned at the clock on the dash of his SUV. He didn’t know how long her workdays were normally, but he thought Arlie might be overdoing it. Twilight came early to the lake these days, but she didn’t need to work after the sun had slipped below the horizon. Not on his house, anyway.

It felt strange to ring the doorbell of the house he was going to live in when the keys were in his pocket, but he didn’t want to scare her by walking in unannounced. He could see her coming through the sparkling lights beside the heavy front door. She was wearing ragged jeans rolled above her ankles and a scrub shirt that had seen better days—maybe even better years. Her hair was tied into a messy ponytail and her face was completely devoid of makeup.

She looked wonderful.

And she didn’t even check to see who was ringing the doorbell.

“You didn’t look,” he said, scowling as she swung open the door. “I could have been an ax murderer.”

“Well, yes, I suppose so.” She raised a questioning eyebrow. “Are you? I thought you were an entrepreneur and a weekend dad who was embarrassed to tell people he had a son.”

He couldn’t look away from her. After all these years and everything that had happened, he still couldn’t look away from the lights in her eyes.

Something inside him shifted. They had laughed together through learning to ice-skate, sliding down snow-covered Sycamore Hill on the detached hood of a junkyard Chevy and being stuck at the top of the Ferris wheel at Indiana Beach. Was it realistic to think they could laugh together again without reopening old wounds? Was it even possible?

Not until he explained about Tracy. About Charlie.

“I’m not an entrepreneur. I just get bored easily. And I never get embarrassed about Charlie—only by my own parental inadequacies.”

She stepped back, her expression not changing. “Come on in. It’s your house, after all.”

He went in, inhaling the fresh smells of vinegar and linen and something flowery. “It looks great.”

“This floor does,” she said. She looked cautiously pleased. “The basement is still an adventure, and I haven’t even been in the attic.”

“You have cobwebs in your hair.”

“I think it’s crummy of you to notice.” She moved ahead of him through the clean rooms. “Have you been in here at all?”

He shook his head even though he knew she couldn’t see him. “I haven’t been in this house since the housekeeper and her husband lived in it. I don’t know how long it’s been empty.”

“Four years. Your grandmother offered to let the housekeeper live in it even when she retired, but the woman wanted to live in Florida, so she turned her down.”

Jack snorted. “Knowing Grandmother, she probably wanted to charge her an arm and a leg to stay in it, or better yet have her keep working without pay to cover rent.”

They continued through the downstairs. “I can set up an office in here,” he said, standing in the doorway of the dining room. “There’s plenty of room in the kitchen for a table and chairs.”

“That’s what I did at my house. I had the counter built in to divide the kitchen from the dining area. It’s not very big, but it’s convenient.” Arlie counted outlets. “Of course, my whole downstairs would fit into this dining room and kitchen. But you have plenty of outlets in here, and your wiring is up to date, so you won’t darken the whole neighborhood the minute you start plugging things in.”

“That’s a plus.” He smiled at her, hoping the sheer comfortableness of being together would come back to them the way it had the night before his grandmother’s funeral. Before Charlie had arrived. “What’s upstairs? I don’t really remember.”

“Take a look.”

The stairway was enclosed, but the stairs were wide and easy to climb. “It won’t be too bad bringing furniture up.” The handrail felt smooth under his hand, and he smiled. He didn’t know where his appreciation for good woodwork had come from, but he was glad he had it.

There were four bedrooms and two baths upstairs. At the end of the center hall, lit by a wide window that overlooked the garden in the back, was a little cove of a library complete with shelves and a built-in desk under the window.

“I’d forgotten this.” He stepped down three stairs into the area. “It’s over the glassed-in porch off the kitchen, isn’t it?”

She nodded. “You may have forgotten it, but I covet it. It’s beautiful.”

“Do you have a library in the Toe?” He knew she loved to read—it was one of the things they’d shared.

“Sort of. There was a closet under the stairs I really didn’t need. For my birthday the year I bought the house, Gianna hired a carpenter to take the door off it, line it with bookshelves and put lighting in it. There’s even room for a chair, but when you sit in it your legs stick out in the hallway.”

“Sounds great.” He moved down the hall, peeking into the bedrooms. “I’ll use this one—Charlie can be across the hall when he’s here. How’s the plumbing—do you know?”

“I checked it when I got here. It all worked, but I imagine you’ll want to put showers in the bathrooms. All that’s in there are eighties-era tubs. I do have the master bedroom and bath clean, though. I thought they’d be the ones you’d use. You can move in whenever you’re ready.”

“I don’t want to get in your way.” He frowned at the walls. They were clean and smooth. “Is the entire house painted this color? It’s so bland, it makes off-white look exciting.”

“Yes.”

“Does Rent-A-Wife do painting?”

“No, but Sam’s wife, Penny, does.”

He’d heard that. “I’ll see if I can get her in here first. Does Sam help her?”

Arlie laughed, and he felt the ice begin to melt. “Not with painting. She won’t let him. But he helps her set up scaffolding and hauls materials. She does great work and plays good music while she’s doing it.”

“That would be better than interrupting the crew that’s going to work in the Hall. Tucker wouldn’t want me to do that, either.” He stepped into the walk-in closet and spoke over his shoulder. “I forgot. There was a reason I stopped by.”

“I thought you were checking up on the work.”

“No.” He came back out, pleased with the storage space the house had to offer. “Why are you working this late?”

“Oh.” She looked embarrassed. “The van won’t start and my cell phone’s dead. I went ahead and worked awhile, thinking Holly might stop by when they got back from the casino—she and Gianna took a group today—but I forgot they were staying for dinner. I was getting ready to turn off the lights and walk home when you got here.”

“I’ll take you home. Or, better yet, to dinner.”

She shook her head. “There’s chili in the Crock-Pot at home. If you’ll give me a ride, I’ll share it.”

“That sounds great.” He agreed before she could change her mind, as the look in her eyes told him she might have wanted to.

When they walked past the company van, Arlie patted its crumpled front fender. “We’re going to have to give her a decent burial.”

Jack gave the vehicle a doubtful look. “It looks as though she’s had a long and hard life.” He opened the passenger door of his car for Arlie.

“Don’t hurt her feelings. She’s been with the company from the first, when she already had a lifetime’s worth of miles on her. She did look better then. Now I’m the only one who will still drive her.” Arlie flipped down the sun visor and frowned at herself in the lit mirror, pulling at the cobwebs in her hair. “Of course, I looked better then, too.”

“There’s nothing wrong with how you look now.” He meant it, and her eyes flashed something that might have been appreciation in the semidarkness of the car.

* * *

AT THE TOE, Arlie asked Jack to get the mail out of the rural box at the end of her driveway while she went inside and made peace with Caruso. “I know I’m late,” she told the fussy cat, scooping her food into her bowl, “but it couldn’t be helped. Have you been a good girl today?”

Caruso ignored her, going to the front door with her tail twitching.

“Well, fine. He’ll be right in.” Arlie shrugged at the cat’s lack of loyalty and took bowls from the open cupboards above the counter. The chili smelled good and it had been a long time since she’d had a bologna sandwich at lunch.

“Your mail’s a lot livelier than mine.” Jack’s voice came from inside the front door. Caruso meowed sternly.

“Not another frog, I hope—the neighborhood kids do that occasionally. It scares the mail carrier to death when she opens the mailbox.” She set the table with soupspoons and cloth napkins that matched the quilted table runner then put a sleeve of crackers into a basket.

Jack came into the kitchen carrying a stack of mail in his right hand and something else in his left.

Something fuzzy that definitely wasn’t a frog. Winding around her ankles like a blue-gray wool muffler, Caruso meowed again.

“What is it? I don’t think I’ve ever gotten any mail I’d describe as ‘lively,’ unless you count the obscene birthday cards Holly sends me.” Arlie came to where Jack stood. “Oh, it’s a puppy. A teeny, teeny one. Look at its little white feet.”

His eyes danced behind his glasses. They were standing so close she felt his breath against her temple. It was a warm feeling she didn’t want to think too much about. “You get puppies in the mail here on the lake?” he asked. “It must be really interesting when someone has a baby. Do you deliver them after you deliver them?”

She crossed her eyes at him. “It’s so little. I’ll bet it’s too young to be away from its mother. Where’s your baby basket, Caruso?” Arlie went into the laundry room, scrabbling through the cupboard above the dryer until she found the old Easter basket Caruso had slept in until she figured out how to climb onto Arlie’s bed.

“He’s cold.” Jack cuddled the puppy between his hands. “Do you want me to go get him some formula?”

“I made it when I found Caruso. It should be the same for a puppy, shouldn’t it?” Arlie scrounged out the cloth diapers she’d used to keep Caruso warm when she was a kitten. “I’m afraid I’m going to be a hoarder—I seem to keep way too many things.” She wrapped the diaper around a rice bag, microwaved it and tucked it into the basket.

“You have room.” Jack laid the whimpering puppy on the soft flannel bed and stroked his little fuzzy head with his index finger.

She foraged for the ingredients for homemade puppy formula. “Caruso was only a few weeks old when we found her,” she explained, opening a can of evaporated milk and pouring some of it into a glass measuring cup. “Jesse taught me to do this stuff. He’s a great vet.” She added thick corn syrup and an egg yolk and poured in some distilled water, then whipped the mixture with a whisk. “You want to feed him while I brush the cobwebs out of my hair and finish getting dinner on the table?”

“Sure.”

She handed him the cup of warmed formula along with an eyedropper and wondered for a heartbeat how Chris would have responded to that question. He was a good person—funny and smart and generous—but nurturing was so far down his list of attributes she thought it probably wasn’t there.

Of course, she didn’t think Chris had any secret children he hadn’t mentioned, either.

A short time later, they put the snoozing puppy in the basket on the brick hearth in the living room. Freshly showered—the cobwebs had made her feel sticky all over—and with her hair once more in a towel, Arlie lit the gas fire, petted a curious Caruso and joined Jack at the table.

“So, what are you doing at Llewellyn’s Lures?” she asked, laying a napkin across the lap of her favorite brown sweatpants.

“Getting ready to sell it.”

She looked up in dismay. “Really?”

He shrugged. “Neither Tucker nor I are interested in running it. Most of my business concerns are in Vermont and his are in Tennessee.”

“Llewellyn’s has been here for a hundred years.” Wasn’t it enough that he walked away from things so easily? Did he have to be so cavalier about the nearly sixty employees whose jobs he was selling off?

“And I hope it stays. I truly do,” he replied quickly. “We’ll do everything we can to keep the status quo, to pass Llewellyn’s on to someone who wants to keep it in business and run it the way it has been. After all, it’s a profitable company.” His expression didn’t change, but his eyes did. They looked distant. Sad. And conflicted. “The truth—for me—is that Charlie lives in Vermont most of the time. I don’t have custody. I don’t even see him nearly as much as I should. But he’s there, and I need to be there, too.”

She couldn’t argue that, though she’d have liked to. She’d have liked to throw things and shout at the top of her voice, What about our baby? She’d be fifteen now.

But he didn’t know. Other than Gianna and Holly and herself, the only ones who knew were the medical staff who had attended her the night of the accident, the ones who told her the trauma was too much for the fragile life she’d carried.

Gianna had wanted her to tell Jack about the pregnancy, but Arlie had refused. It had been over nearly as soon as it began, one more loss added to a night already too full of them. He’d had enough on his plate, she thought, losing his father and dealing with the knowledge that Victor Llewellyn had caused the accident. She would tell him later, she’d promised her stepmother, when life was calmer. He would share her grief and make it easier to bear.

But by the time “later” came, Jack was gone from her life. Only in her heart did she know the lost baby had been a girl. Only in her heart had she nursed her, dressed her and taught her to sing. Only in her heart had she named her Sarah Angelina after her grandmother and the woman who’d been the only mother who mattered.

Most of the time, it was easy. As the nurses in the hospital had promised, time had healed the wounds of the accident—even the emotional ones. Grief had settled and smoothed and memories had dimmed. Delivering babies had provided healing and joy beyond what she’d been able to imagine even when she was training in midwifery.

“You’re right.” She felt as though she was speaking from the end of a tunnel, and she cleared her throat. “You need to be with him.” She smiled, thinking of the boy with the beautiful eyes and shiny dark brown hair. “He’s a sweet kid. Ornery. More like Tuck than you, I think.”

“He is.” Jack sounded surprised. “He looks like his mother and biological father, and he definitely got his mother’s brain, but he does have a lot of Tuck in him.”

Arlie frowned, not understanding. “Is he adopted?”

“Not exactly.” He gestured with his spoon. “This is really good.”

“Thank you.” Arlie was glad he liked the chili, but wouldn’t be diverted. “Would you want to explain ‘not exactly’? I don’t remember the term from my nursing or midwifery classes.”

“Tracy was my study partner at Notre Dame from the beginning of freshman year. We dated some,” he said. “Kind of like you in high school, she was good at things I wasn’t and I needed all the help I could get. Her parents lived right there in South Bend—still do—but she lived in the dorm because she had an unbelievable course load. She also had an ex-boyfriend her parents hated. He drank, doped and gambled. When Tracy came up pregnant, she found out he had a wife at home.”

“Oh, man.” Arlie shook her head and offered him a half smile. “Her folks were upset?”

“She was afraid to tell them. Not that they were bad parents or mean or any of that, but they were older and very conservative. Bottom line was, she didn’t want to hurt them. An abortion wasn’t even a consideration. She was out of her mind with not knowing what to do. One night, it was really late and she still wasn’t in from the library, which wasn’t like her at all. I went looking and found her standing on the bridge over the St. Joe River. She swore she wasn’t going to jump or do anything stupid, but she was feeling pretty desperate.” He shrugged. “Scared the bejesus out of me.”

It would have. His mother had taken her own life when he was a toddler. He had no memory of her, but Arlie knew Janice Taylor’s mental illness haunted him—it always had.

“What did you do?”

“We talked about it. She was just so scared, and, you know—” He stopped for a moment, taking a drink and looking past her into the kitchen. She wondered where he’d gone, what memory was adding to the sadness in his eyes.

He set down his glass and took another bit of chili. “I felt like my life was a waste anyway. I’d survived the accident with no visible scars. I’d walked away from you. I’d even walked away from Tucker. I hated that my father went through life tossing other people’s pain around like so many dry leaves, and yet I’d done the same thing. I thought if I helped her, it wouldn’t cost me anything and maybe it would mean I wasn’t a complete waste of space. So I offered to marry her and take care of her until the baby came. She wouldn’t have to come clean with her parents and it wouldn’t be a shock if a marriage between an eighteen-year-old genius and a nineteen-year-old loser didn’t work out.”

Arlie thought of Chris. If he asked her to marry him for the sake of convenience, she would probably do it, and she was thirty-three years old. It made the fact that two teenagers had done just that a very believable scenario.

“Pregnancy and going to school was a bear for Tracy. She was sick the whole time. We talked about what she was going to do when the baby was born. She wanted to be a corporate lawyer, not a mother. Finally, we made the decision together to give him up for adoption and then have our marriage annulled. Neither of us wanted to be parents and had no emotional or physical investment in the baby. I was just trying to be a nice guy for a while and she was just trying to get through the pregnancy without her whole life imploding.”

Arlie put down her fork. “Then what happened?”

“Then he was born.” The look of torment left Jack’s eyes, replaced by the purest kind of joy. “Our marriage wasn’t a physical one, but I was still her delivery coach, so I was there. They handed him to me, and I was so scared of breaking him. I was amazed at how tiny his fingers were and that his feet were so disproportionately huge. When I touched his hand, he clutched my finger. We became an instant television commercial. I just told Tracy he wasn’t going anywhere. She said that was what she was thinking, too.”

“But you’re not married anymore?”

“No. We’re still good friends, but we stuck with that part of the life plan. We finally told her parents everything. They weren’t all that surprised, and they’ve been more than helpful with Charlie. Tracy travels even more than I do, so he sometimes spends months at a time with them.”

“How did you end up in Vermont?”

“Tracy’s home office is in Burlington. Llewellyn’s has a plant close to there, so it seemed a good place to base out of. And it has been until now. I have a house there, a business I no longer own but still consult for.”

“Can’t you live and work in both places? Chris Granger spends half the year here and half in California.”

“I probably could, and staying here wouldn’t be bad at all,” he admitted. “I like it. I’ve always liked it. But you know what kind of scars the Llewellyn family has left on the whole community. Like it or not, it’s my family. It’s me.”

“It is your family, but you didn’t make the scars.” On anyone but me. She got up. “Do you want more? There’s dessert.”

“Then I’ll wait for that.” Carrying his empty bowl, he followed her around the counter into the kitchen. “I did make scars, Arlie, when I walked away. You know that better than anyone.” The pain was on his face, as stark and deep as it had been the week of the accident. “Because of my father, everyone in that car was hurt except me. Everyone.”

Arlie took lemon meringue pie—made by Libby Worth at the tearoom—out of the refrigerator while he loaded their supper dishes into the dishwasher. “Do you think they hurt less because you left?” Do you think I hurt less?

“Maybe they did. Your mom didn’t have to be reminded every time she saw my face. Holly and Jesse, Linda’s folks—don’t you think seeing me was a reminder that I walked away from that wreck?” He closed the dishwasher door and met Arlie’s gaze, his eyes dark and tortured behind his glasses. “Holly lost a foot, Jesse his girlfriend, the Saylorses their only daughter. Libby and Tuck both had head injuries and I freaking walked away without a scratch. Yeah, I have to think my leaving was good for them.”

Arlie didn’t know what to do. Her hurt had eased over the years until days would actually go by without her thinking of what she’d lost. Her father and the baby she’d carried were beloved memories, she didn’t notice Holly’s foot and even singing had been replaced by other things. Being in Miniagua had been her saving grace, a luxury the boy she’d loved hadn’t allowed himself.

Watching his face as he talked, seeing the pain come and go, she realized his leaving may have been better for some of the victims of the accident. But not for him. Never for him.

She set down the pie and lifted a hand to his lean face, feeling the soft brush of his beard against her palm. “You lost your father, Jack. I know you and he weren’t close, but as long as you were both alive, you believed someday you might be. You may have walked away, but it wasn’t unscathed. Everyone knows that.” She thought of the cold shoulder he’d received from the community since he’d been back. “No, I can’t speak for everyone, but I can say I know that. And I do.”

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