She was probably going to be in trouble with Jacob but, she wanted the girls to believe they could count on her even if he didn’t. She’d realized when Jessie was missing just how much she’d come to care for these children. She wasn’t going to desert them ever—not even if, or when, Brian came home.
Jessie’s brow furrowed. “Borrow?” she asked.
“Yes, like a loan, except we can make it a kind of permanent borrow.”
Jacob stirred restlessly but Michelle wasn’t going to let him intimidate her. He was just going to have to trust her.
“Kind of like puppies are on loan from their mommies when they go to live with people, only you won’t be living with us?” Allie asked.
Michelle smiled. “Yep. Kind of like that. For as long as you guys want me you’ve got me.”
Meggie shifted, backing away from the circle a little. “But what about when your husband comes home and you have your own kids and don’t need to borrow us no more?” Meggie was certainly her father’s daughter.
“Even if Brian comes home, even if I have my own children someday, I’ll still love being there if you need me. That’s how love works. It doesn’t run out—it just keeps growing.”
“You mean you love us?” Allie asked, frowning.
Tears welled in Michelle’s eyes again. “Of course I love you guys. You’re a pretty special threesome.”
Allie and Jessie grinned, throwing their arms around Michelle. “I love you, too, Michelle,” Jessie whispered, while at the same time, Allie left the same soft message in Michelle’s other ear.
Meggie stood back, watching them, her face still solemn. Even Jacob, standing behind her grinning, was melting more than she was.
“Come here, Meggie,” Michelle said, her heart breaking as she saw the little girl looking so alone.
Meggie moved forward slowly and joined in the hug. But Michelle didn’t miss the fact that Meggie’s small arms hugged her sisters, not Michelle.
* * *
“I
WORRY
ABOUT
M
EGGIE
sometimes,” Jacob said later that evening. He and Michelle had just put the triplets to bed and were having a drink at the kitchen table before Michelle left. She was driving Jacob’s Explorer home and would return with it the next morning when she came to work on the costumes.
“Because she’s so independent?” Michelle asked.
Jacob shrugged. “She’s always been that way. When the girls were babies, Meggie was the first one to hold her own bottle, the first one to insist on dressing herself, even the first one potty-trained. But it’s more than that now. She’s so withdrawn.”
“I’ve noticed.”
Hearing Michelle’s hurt, Jacob said, “Believe it or not, she’s more open with you than she is with most people. Meggie’s teacher put her arm around Meggie a couple of months ago, and Meggie told the woman to never touch her again.”
“Do you have any idea why?”
Jacob shook his head. “She’s still affectionate with me and her sisters, and Nonnie gets a hug now and then. But that’s as far as it goes. She doesn’t seem to trust anyone else.”
Michelle eyed him across the table. “Sounds like someone else I know.”
Jacob drained his glass. “Maybe,” he said, getting up to rinse it and set it in the dishwasher.
“I guess I should get going so I can be back here bright and early tomorrow,” Michelle said, following him to the sink.
“Yeah.” Jacob didn’t want her to leave. He walked with her into the living room.
“It’s going to be weird going home without Noby there.” She picked up his car keys from the coffee table.
Jacob approached her slowly, tentatively. Something had changed between them that day. Running his fingers across her cheek, he held her startled gaze. “You don’t have to go, you know.”
She stared up at him. “I don’t?”
Jacob shook his head, still watching her closely. He kept hearing her words to the girls that afternoon. She’d said
if
Brian returns, not
when.
“You could sleep on the couch. It pulls out into a bed. The girls would love to wake up and find you here in the morning.”
She started to say something but looked away from him, instead. He knew she was feeling some of the same things he was. He just wasn’t sure whether she was ready to admit it. Or what, if anything, he should do about it.
“I’ve even got a spare toothbrush around here somewhere. The girls have a tendency to lose theirs.”
She leaned toward him, turning her face into his hand. Her lips brushed his palm.
“And I fix a mighty mean breakfast,” he said. She’d reduced him to rambling. He slid his hand down her silky blond hair to her shoulder as her eyes—filled with confusion, but not fear—met his. “You’re tempting me,” she said. Jacob knew she wasn’t talking about his offer of breakfast. It was all the encouragement he needed.
With his thumb under her chin, he guided her face slowly upward until her lips were just beneath his. She didn’t resist. She didn’t turn away. Most importantly she didn’t cry.
Jacob lowered his mouth and finally kissed her. She dropped his keys.
Her kiss was everything he’d fantasized it could be—and more. Jacob wanted more. But then he looked at her.
She wanted to kiss him…yes. But she hated herself for it. He could see it in her eyes.
His movements were jerky as he stepped back. He wasn’t sure what had just happened or where they went from here.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Yeah, me, too.” His hands clenched into fists.
“You’re angry,” she said.
“Maybe.” He wasn’t sure what he was feeling, but it wasn’t good.
“I led you on.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I let it go too far.”
“Kissing isn’t the problem here.”
Michelle watched him pace to the window and back. “Then what is?”
“Your loyalty to a man who was declared dead more than a year ago. Why do you do it, Michelle? Why do you hide behind him?”
She stood, gathering his keys up off the floor. Her hands were trembling. “I wasn’t all that loyal a few minutes ago. But it’s just like you to call being faithful hiding, Jacob.”
“Don’t turn this back on me, Michelle. You’re so scared of losing again, you’re never going to risk loving again, either, are you? That’s what this is really about.”
“Loving?” She laughed incredulously as she headed for the door. “What do you know about loving, Jacob? The more the merrier? Let’s see, who was it last week? Gwen, Darlene and Yvonne. Tell me that you didn’t date three different women in one week and then we’ll talk about loving.”
Jacob clamped his jaw shut before he said something he’d regret. The woman made him madder than anyone else ever had. What did she know about his dates? He wasn’t about to tell her that while he cared about the women he dated, he was looking for more. And fool that he was, he couldn’t stop looking.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said, letting herself out.
Jacob watched through the window until she was in his Explorer and pulling out of his drive. He wondered if she’d stick around when she brought his car back in the morning.
CHAPTER TEN
“Y
OU
DO
THE
SPOT
on Ryan Reynold’s new movie. I’ll take the trial.” Jacob marked the program sheet in front of him. He hadn’t looked at her in days, not since the night they’d kissed in his living room.
Michelle studied her copy of the day’s program. “What about the seismologist, Morgon? We’ve got him on from seven to eight. How was he when you talked to him?”
Jacob shrugged. “He’s all right. Not much of a sense of humor, but he’s got some interesting stuff on earthquake survival. He said he’d bring some up-to-date predictions, and we can always open up the phone lines if we need to.”
Michelle nodded then reached for a newspaper. Jacob checked the news blogs. The silence in the booth was interrupted only by the rustling of paper and the clicking of a keyboard as one or the other of them found something worth mentioning on the air.
“There’s a good piece here about a mountain rescue over the weekend,” Michelle said.
Jacob looked over the article. “Let’s do it,” he said, handing it back to her. His fingers were long and tanned and—
“You guys ready?” Bob’s voice piped into the room from the control booth next door.
They slid their earphones into place and clicked on their mikes. “Ready.”
“Ready.”
They watched the seconds tick down and waited in silence for the on-the-air globe to light.
“Good morning! This is Jacob Ryan along with Michelle Colby getting your day started for you, and a great day it’s going to be… .”
Michelle listened to Jacob, waiting for her cue, and sailed through the show saying all the right things at all the right times. At least on the air she and Jacob were still magic. He went for a coffee refill during their first commercial break, bringing a diet soda back for her. He set it down beside her, rather than handing it to her. She knew she should be thankful that he was respecting her choices, that he wasn’t pressuring her to explore the possibilities that had sprung up between them over the weekend. But her gratitude didn’t quite cover the hurt. She missed him.
“I won’t be coming over tonight,” she said finally, breaking the silence that had fallen over the booth.
“The girls can’t expect you every night.”
“I have a lot of email to catch up on.”
“Fine.”
If Jacob saw through the flimsiness of her excuse, he was gentlemanly enough not to mention it. Either that, or he just plain didn’t care.
* * *
M
ICHELLE
DROVE
straight home after the show, shutting herself in the home she’d made with Brian, hoping to recapture the certainty she’d always felt about the love they shared. She didn’t let her silent answering machine discourage her. Frank had said it might be a while before she heard from him again. She reminded Noby of that when the cat jumped up on the desk beside the answering machine, purring.
Taking the cat into the bedroom with her, Michelle changed out of the jeans and sweater she’d worn to work, then pulled on a pair of Brian’s running shorts and one of his old Southern Cal sweatshirts. She dusted the tops of his shoes while she was in the closet and on a sudden impulse decided to climb into the attic for the box of college memorabilia she and Brian had packed.
Noby watched as Michelle carried in the ladder, pushed open the ceiling panel in the guest room and climbed up to retrieve the box. The cat continued to stare, unblinking, when Michelle struggled to get back down with the heavy box in her arms.
Two hours later, surrounded by pictures and ticket stubs, programs and awards, Michelle still felt torn, incomplete. She picked up a letter Brian had written her from San Francisco. She smiled when she saw his decisive handwriting and started to cry when she read the part about how much he missed her. Sitting on the living room floor, she leaned back against the couch and remembered the summer, shortly after she and Brian were married, they went there together. They’d spent three days in that city made for lovers, strolling down on the wharf, exploring Chinatown and looking at the incredible view of the Golden Gate Bridge from their hotel room.
Noby started to meow at Michelle sometime after six that evening. She wasn’t loud in her demands, but she was persistent. It was time for dinner. Michelle opened a can of tuna, emptying half of it into the cat’s bowl before adding mayonnaise to the rest. She wondered what the triplets were having for dinner.
Eating her sandwich, she carried on a desultory conversation with Noby. But while Noby did her best to be captivating company, no matter how Michelle tried to deny it, she was lonely. She rinsed her few dishes, thinking of the times she and Jacob had shared the same chore at his beach house. She remembered other things they’d shared, too. She couldn’t forget the feel of his arms around her, no matter how hard she tried.
She spent the rest of the evening watching videos. She had two of her wedding and at least one from every trip and major event she and Brian had shared. There was his graduation, and her graduation, their honeymoon trip to Hawaii, the time they’d rafted down the Colorado River and move-in day at their house. No matter where they were or what they were doing, one thing was obvious in every video she saw—she and Brian were very much in love.
But none of the movies, none of the letters or pictures, none of the memories stopped her from wondering as she climbed into bed that night if Jacob had missed being with her that evening anywhere near as much as she’d missed being with him.
* * *
“G
OOD
NIGHT
,
SLEEP
TIGHT
and don’t let the bedbugs bite.” Jacob leaned against the door and watched as Michelle bent to kiss Allie good-night.
“’Night, Michelle.” Allie looked like the cat who’d swallowed the cream.
Jessie was next. “Sweet dreams, punkin.” Michelle tucked Jessie’s stuffed bear under the covers.
“I love you, Michelle.”
“I love you, too.” As Michelle hugged Jessie again, Jacob had to fight the feeling of contentment settling over him. The scene was one he’d imagined a hundred times when he’d been planning his future. Except for one very wrong thing. Michelle wasn’t here to stay.
She sat down on the edge of Meggie’s bed, one hand on each side of his daughter’s small body. “Try and keep your covers on tonight, ’kay, Meg?”
Meggie nodded, her wide dark eyes set on Michelle. Michelle leaned down and whispered something in the child’s ear. Jacob had no idea what, but as she got up and slipped past Jacob, Meggie snuggled into the covers with a smile on her face.
Jacob did his rounds and enjoyed the nightly ritual more than he had in a long time. He wished his girls pleasant dreams, just as he did every night, but for once the burden wasn’t entirely his. Someone else was wishing with him.
He thought about the evening they’d all shared, about the costumes that were far from finished. He wasn’t any expert, but he could count. Although Michelle had been working on the dresses for weeks, there was only one completed ball gown hanging in the girls’ closet. Jacob had a suspicion her helpers were “helping” a little too much. And she still loved them. Amazing.
When Jacob returned to the living room, he discovered Michelle with her jacket on, her car keys in hand. “I’m going to the gym in the morning, and then Mom and I are going to a craft fair tomorrow afternoon, but I could come back on Sunday if the girls are going to be around,” she said.
Jacob didn’t know why he was surprised. She loved his daughters, not him. That much had become obvious in the past two weeks. He’d never thought two people could spend so much time together and yet be so far apart.
“Why don’t you stay awhile tonight? It’s Friday. We don’t have to work in the morning, and you’d probably get three times as much done with the triplets in bed.”
Michelle shook her head. “I’m teaching the girls how to sew. They’re supposed to be involved in making the costumes, remember?”
“They’ve already helped you finish one of them. They don’t have to
help
in triplicate.” He was tired of their cold war. He wanted his friend back.
“Still, they’ll probably be upset if I don’t wait for them.”
Jacob thought of the number of interruptions Michelle had put up with that night. “Michelle, they have the attention span of seven-year-olds. They’ve seen it all once, which means all that’s left is getting in the way. Why do you think we spent half an hour picking pins out of the carpet tonight?”
Michelle grinned. “Meggie was sorting them by color.”
“Exactly.” She hadn’t smiled at him in weeks. “So stay already. Unless of course you’re afraid to be alone with me.”
He’d been teasing her. Just as he’d been doing for years. But he knew he’d made a mistake as soon as saw the frozen look on her face.
“It’s just like you to make a joke out of this,” she said. Jacob felt as if he’d been slapped.
“What’s with you, Michelle? You’ve been avoiding me for two weeks and now you can’t even take a little teasing. Where’s your sense of humor?”
“I haven’t been avoiding you. I’ve spent more evenings here than I have in my own home. Noby’s going to put herself up for adoption pretty soon.”
“You
have
been avoiding me and we both know it. And to be honest, until now I’ve been just as happy to avoid you, too. But…”
She looked at him, her eyes pleading. “Then why can’t we just leave well enough alone? It’s worked for the past couple of weeks. It can keep on working.”
He wanted to shake her. “It’s not working, Michelle. I feel like I’m walking in a mine field. What happens if it explodes when we’re on the air?”
“I won’t let it.”
“We’re going to have to face this sooner or later.”
“There’s nothing to face.”
“There you go, avoiding the issue again. So I’ll say it straight out. I like you, Michelle. And what’s more, you like me, too.”
“Your ego amazes me, Ryan.”
She was driving him crazy. “There’s a difference between truth and ego. You think if you pretend long enough that we’re not attracted to each other it’ll just go away?”
“I’d hoped.” Her tough act was gone, leaving her vulnerable.
Jacob clasped her shoulders. “Is it so awful to live again, honey?”
She stared at him for a long silent moment, and then shrugged off his hands. “I’ve been alive all along, Jacob,” she said, swinging the shoulder strap of her purse onto her shoulder. “If I were already dead, I couldn’t be dying of loneliness. But I’d rather do that than be unfaithful to my husband. Which is the problem in a nutshell.” Her laugh was bitter. “Because for the first time since Brian’s disappearance, I’m not sure I’m strong enough to resist.”
She was out the door before Jacob had a chance to reply. He wanted to run after her. He didn’t want her going off into the night by herself, hurting. He knew what it was like to be alone and in pain. But he didn’t go. He couldn’t help her.
Locking up, he wondered why his life was one irony after another. He’d just been told by the woman he cared for above all others that she cared for him, too. And yet, he was still very much alone.
* * *
T
HERE
WAS
A
MESSAGE
from Frank when Michelle got home from the gym the next morning. Sweaty and uncomfortable in her workout clothes, she listened to the message a second time.
“Frank Steele, here, Mrs. Colby. I managed to track down Jazmin’s younger sister. She’s been living away from the village since she was a child, but Jazmin confided in her some. According to her, Karim paved the way for Brian’s acceptance into the village four years ago, and then Brian left on Karim’s orders. Still nothing on Karim’s whereabouts. I’ve put out word that I’m looking for him, but he’s showing no signs of surfacing. Guys like Karim have been known to disappear for years, so you may want to reconsider my employment. I’ll be in touch…”
Clicking off the machine, Michelle picked up Noby and headed for the bedroom. Her mother was going to be here in half an hour and she still had to shower. She opened her closet door and then just stood there, her tears once again soaking Noby’s coat.
* * *
M
ICHELLE
TRIED
to enjoy the day with her mother, but she didn’t fool either one of them. By the time Grace pulled into Michelle’s driveway late that afternoon she was wearing a worried frown.
“I wish you’d let your father and me take you out to dinner, honey. Choose anywhere you’d like.”
Michelle smiled and leaned across the car to hug her mother. “Thanks, Mom. Maybe next weekend.”
“It bothers me to think of you all alone on your birthday. It’s not right.”
“It’s the way I want it, Mom, honest. I’m going to spoil myself rotten, eat everything in sight, watch a couple of old movies and work on the Cinderella cross-stitch I’m doing for the girls.”
Michelle knew it was her last statement that convinced her mother to go. She saw Jacob’s girls as the beginning of Michelle’s journey into the future. Michelle knew they were the only things getting her through the present.