Authors: Emelle Gamble
Chapter 2
Jill arrived back at her townhouse to find the place dead quiet, and stuffy, the drapes closed to the views she loved of trees and sky.
The heartache she had been coping with the past months morphed into anger. She trembled as she walked to the bedroom, recalling how Dorothy had always said she was a good child, except when she threw tantrums, which she had done from two years of age to four.
I want to throw a tantrum now.
The reality of what her mother’s future held cut like a razor impaled in the beating tissue of her heart. All the facts said she had done the right thing moving her mother to a care facility. But Jill struggled every day, especially today, to accept that her mom was as sick as she was.
“Cancer of the personality,” the neurologist had commented. “Alzheimer’s erases the personality, which is of course made up of all our memories and habits . . .” he had added, as if that simple explanation might make her feel better.
Jill stood at the dresser. In the mirror’s reflection she looked ten years older than her age; her oval face was haggard, her blond hair limp. Her eyes had aged about a century since this morning.
“Yeah, taking this face to a reunion is just what I want to do now.” Jill shook her head wearily and took off her watch, then her blouse, then her earrings, feeling stiff and out-of-sync with grief. Her eyes rested on a photograph on the bureau, her mother smiling and content as she held baby Jill in her arms at her christening.
She turned away and forcefully yanked down the shade in her room, and grabbed her purse to get her phone. It was not inside the pocket she usually kept it in and she knew she had left it in the car.
She threw the purse at the wall.
Tears flooded down her face, as the dam of emotions she had kept at bay for weeks finally burst. She kicked off her shoes. One struck the lamp on the night table and over it fell, causing a crash that sent her reading glasses and uncapped water bottle onto the floor.
She picked up the bottle, sopped up the puddle with her shirt, and fell on the bed. She pressed her face into the pillow and sobbed as hard as the night her father told her Rosie had gone to heaven to be with Jesus. Just as exhaustion was about to carry her away, she realized the front doorbell was ringing.
Jill swore, grabbed a handful of tissues, and blew her nose until her head spun, and the moron at the door escalated the noise to include knocking.
Really loud.
She stomped to the foyer to look through the peephole. There was a man out there. She saw shiny black shoes and pressed trousers, an arm covered by a suit coat. But she could not see his face because he was holding a huge vase of flowers in front of it.
Who the hell sent me flowers on Good Friday?
Quickly she combed her fingers through her hair. Feeling anything but presentable, and disoriented from crying, she opened the door wide.
“Happy Easter!”
The voice was vaguely familiar, deep, though not warm or sexy.
The dizzying smell of roses buzzed up Jill’s raw sinuses like wasps. “What address are you looking for?” She rubbed the side of her nose.
“This one. This is 16805 Laurel, isn’t it?” He still did not move the flowers so she could see him.
Jill considered saying he had the wrong address and shutting the door, but she was standing next to Spanish tiles painted with the numbers 1-6-8-0-5 hanging on the wall.
“Yes, that’s the address, but . . .”
The man moved the vase from in front of him. “Hello, Jilly.”
Jill gasped. There were only two people who had ever called her Jilly. One was her dad, who had been dead for five years.
The other had no reason to send her flowers, or know her current address. Except he did, because he was standing right in front of her, close enough to punch.
“What are you doing here?” Jill demanded.
“I brought these for you. Here.” Andrew Denton, her ex-husband, held the vase out to her.
Jill crossed her arms over her chest. She had called the cops the last time she had been alone with Andrew.
And an ambulance.
“No thanks. What are you doing here?”
“Oh, come on Jilly, lighten up. Can’t an old friend pay a person a visit?”
“We’re not friends.”
Andrew smiled tightly. “I was hoping you would give me a chance at least. I’ve changed, you know.” He scanned her body with one glance, not showing any enthusiasm for what he saw. “And you’ve certainly changed. I came over to ask if we could bury the hatchet, on what seems like just the right day for that. May I come inside?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Jill stared at her ex. Andrew was much the same, auburn hair and icy blue eyes, but somehow completely changed from the man she last saw over a decade ago. He wore an expensive, dark suit, like an attorney, and any appearance of youth was now gone. He was lean and intense, the man behind the eyes more complicated than she remembered.
When they were together, he had worn his hair short around his neck and ears. It was longer now, combed straight back and gelled. There was a scar at his right temple, small and flat, and perfectly round.
“Because I can’t think of a single thing we have to talk about,” she finally replied.
“Grudge holding doesn’t become you.” He set the vase on the ground at his feet. “We should talk some things out.”
“No, we shouldn’t. I’m leaving the past where it belongs. Dead and buried.”
“Okay, so we won’t talk about the past. We’ll focus on going forward and celebrating all we have in common.”
“Which is nothing.” Jill swallowed, her mouth dry.
“Not true. We’re alumni from the same college. The same class. And our reunion is in two weeks.”
The reunion.
Twice in one day she was being forced to travel back and time and think about a man and a broken relationship. Although her short marriage to Andrew, four years after they graduated, was not the same thing as her college romance with Max Kallstrom, two reminders in one day that she wasn’t a very good judge of men’s characters was distressing.
“I don’t have tickets for the reunion,” Jill said. “So don’t worry about running into me, okay?”
Andrew stuck his hands in his pockets. “What? Why? I’m sure everyone will want to see you.”
She pursed her lips. “I need to get going, Andrew. So if there’s nothing else . . .”
Andrew took a step closer. “Don’t close the door. At least catch me up. I’d like to know about your family. How’s Dorothy doing?”
“My mother’s great. I’ll let her know you asked about her. Goodbye.” She moved to shut the door but, quick as a pickpocket, Andrew’s hand slapped against the wood.
Though unhappy to see him, Jill wasn’t particularly afraid of Andrew, primarily because he no longer seemed to be under the influence of the various illegal drugs he was pumped full of the last time they were alone together. “Please move your hand,” she said. “I mean it.”
“Not until you agree to sit down and talk to me. How about dinner later this week?”
“No.”
His eyes narrowed. “We can go to brunch at Shacks on the Beach. I checked, and it’s still in business. See how hard I’m trying? I remember it’s your favorite place in Santa Barbara. Doesn’t that count for something?”
“Not really.” This aggressive bantering, which Andrew obviously thought was flirting, was something she did not remember about him. “I need to go inside. Let me close the door.”
He dropped his hand to his side. “Okay, but listen for just one minute. You know, you’re not making this easy.”
“Neither are you.” Jill squinted up at him. “What are you really doing here? You know I’d never willingly spend time with you after what happened between us.”
He blinked. “I meant it when I said I want to make amends. What happened between us was stupid, and I have a lot to apologize for, particularly my drug taking. But I’m clean now. Have been for years. And if you don’t mind me saying this, you weren’t completely innocent, either, were you?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
The two of them stared at each other for a long moment. Jill knew Andrew was trying to re-open old wounds, but she was not going to do it. There were memories from the past she cherished, but those of her short marriage to him were not ones she wished to revisit, freaking reunion or no reunion.
He sighed. “Okay. Have it your way.” Andrew pulled a business card out of his jacket pocket and stuck it in the flowers. “Max Kallstrom is coming to town. Did you know that?” His voice was strained.
Jill flushed. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“I thought it might be reason enough for you to reconsider coming to the reunion. You’ll have the chance to see the man you were still in love with when you married me.”
Their glances met. “Andrew, I’m sorry you came all the way over here hoping to get into the blame game, but I am not going to do it. Okay? We’re done. Nothing either of us can say can change anything.”
“I get you hate me. And that you’re still angry about my behavior.” Andrew shook his head. “But there’s something else I need to discuss with you. It’s important. There are some strange things going on I want to tell you about before the reunion. Can’t you just give me an hour?”
“No.”
“But,” he said.
Jill shook her head. “No. Goodbye. Please don’t come back,” she said and shut the door. Hard.
And locked it. And threw the deadbolt.
And stared out the peephole for five minutes after her ex-husband drove off.
Jill said a few swear words she did not like to hear, much less use, and went into the kitchen where she watched the street for another ten minutes. She wanted to call someone, but the only person who came to mind who would make her feel less freaked-out did not know who she was anymore.
Once she was convinced Andrew was gone, she opened the front door and frowned at the roses, long-stemmed and perfect, swathed in silver tissue with green glass marbles at the bottom of the vase.
Even if the last person she wanted back in her life had given them to her, there was no way she was going to do what crazy people did in the movies and chuck the flowers in the garbage. She carted them inside, relocked the locks, and set the vase on the kitchen counter.
As if it might bite, she carefully plucked out Andrews’s business card, tore it in half, and threw it into the trash.
She added water to the buds, which were tightly closed but sweetly fragrant, and carried them into the living room. Her heart raced as she sat down and stared at them on the coffee table.
Cherry vanilla, white roses edged with pink. Her favorite.
Did Andrew remember that?
And how did he know Max Kallstrom was coming to the reunion?
For a moment her mind froze, overloaded by the sensory shock of the past crashing into the present. Particularly two men from the past.
Max had disappeared from her life completely fifteen years ago, the night before college graduation, and never so much as called or wrote one word to her since then. His family had him shipped home after a terrible car accident had nearly killed him, but they had never responded to any of her calls or letters.
So why is Max coming back to town now? After all this time?
And what the hell did Andrew mean that there were strange things going on with the reunion?
“Shit,” she swore softly.
Good Friday had delivered another basket of rotten eggs to her door. Taking her mother to the nursing home was horrible enough, but the visit of her biggest error in judgement, one Andrew Denton, and the imminent reappearance in town of her biggest romantic heartbreak, would forever mark this current holiday as one of the worst.
Chapter 3
Jill stared out the kitchen window, which she had done four different times since she had gotten out of bed that morning. A mug of tea cooled in her hand. Yesterday’s events felt unreal, and if it was not for the riot of roses in the living room, she would have believed she had dreamed the part about her ex-husband showing up.
Outside the unmistakable sound of a Harley motorcycle reached her. The bike appeared seconds later, the driver’s helmet shiny black like his leather jacket. As she watched he made a slow circle around the cul de sac and then disappeared. She had never seen that bike in her secluded neighborhood before, and she wondered who it was.
Jill blew out a nervous breath and stared at her unvarnished nails, unable to remember her last manicure. She poured out the coffee and opened the refrigerator. Her stomach was growling, but she was not sure she could eat. She had slept until ten, thanks to yesterday’s dramas and the sleeping pills, and now felt queasy and hungry, all at once.
She closed the fridge, grabbed a box of wheat crackers, and went and sat on the sofa. The whole house smelled like roses. They had started to unfurl, looking as spectacular as their fragrance.
As she crunched, she experienced an odd sensation of watching herself from above, as if she had stepped into someone else’s life. She wished Carly was already here. Her friend’s pragmatic approach to life always helped ground her, and made Jill feel like she could handle whatever came her way, even when she couldn’t.
Jill swallowed.
I better make those appointments.
It would at least distract from the emptiness she felt in the house now that her mom was not living here.
Reminders of Dorothy were everywhere: her favorite afghan on the sofa, her slippers in the closet, her jewelry box in the drawer.
The Delft teapot, a gift from her grandmother, sat on the kitchen table, waiting for her mom to pour.
An image of Max Kallstrom bloomed unbidden in her mind.
He likes tea instead of coffee. With sugar and lemon, sweet and sour.
Her mother had teased him about it when Jill brought him home for dinner, all those years ago.
Jill shook her head. Was it possible Max was coming to the reunion to see her? Would it make a difference, after all these years?
They had become lovers within weeks of him arriving at college her senior year. She had loved him completely, and trusted his declarations that he loved her and that they had a future together.
The car accident had changed his life, and hers too.
Jill stuffed another cracker into her mouth. If she saw him again, Max could certainly provide some long-needed answers to a fifteen-year-old mystery.
But do I want to hear them?
Could anything he said erase the hurt and pain? Could any explanation not end with the simple fact that she had not mattered enough to the only man she had ever truly loved?
Jill got up and brushed the cracker crumbs away. It was time to get some things done. Put something else in her mind except for questions she could not answer.
She started with phone calls. Despite telling Andrew she wasn’t going, Jill spoke to a reservation committee member and found out she could still get tickets for the reunion dinner, though it was unclear if there was still room at the other events. She bought the dinner ticket for Carly’s sake, still not convinced she would actually attend.
The woman she spoke to said she would have Marissa Pierce, the event chairman, call her back about the other reunion events.
“I see Marissa left a note by your name that if you called, she wanted to talk to you. She must have been expecting you to change your mind.”
“Really?” Jill chewed her lip. This was the part she hated, talking to people she had not seen for years. The memory of Marissa Pierce flitted in and out of focus, chubby and blonde braids, with a nervous laugh. Her older brother, Ben, had been a sweetheart, if a bit of a stoner.
Why would she want to talk to her
?
“Okay, thanks.” Jill called and made a couple of appointments for her and Carly, including one to get her legs waxed, which she had not done for years.
After that, she cleaned house and did some errands, ending the day by driving to Friends House to have dinner with her mother.
Dorothy was not settling into the swing of things easily. She kept getting up in the dining room and trying to get out of the building, and despite Jill sitting with her for two hours, her mother was so anxious and stressed the nurse on duty gave her a mild sedative.
Jill drove into her garage at twenty minutes past eight. She grabbed the mail from the front box and then hurried into the kitchen. Two bills. A letter from the community college where she taught. A thick packet from Friends House addressed to ‘Gill Farrel.’
There was also a heavy cream paper envelope, addressed correctly. The return address said Pandora Security, with a Beverly Hills address.
Jill’s stomach tightened and she went back and checked the locks on the front door, then flipped on the kitchen light and turned on the teakettle. She sat and opened the envelope. Inside the single sheet was handwritten.
Jill-
I need to discuss an important matter with you. Please call me at either of my numbers as soon as you can.
Andrew
“Damn.” Jill stuck the letter back in the envelope and stared at it. There was no stamp. Which meant someone other than the postman had stuck it in her mailbox today while she was out.
Who?
The teakettle hissed and a chill skittered down her back. A second later, the doorbell rang. Jill nearly jumped out of the chair. She put her hand to her throat.
Get a grip.
If it was Andrew again, she was going to threaten to have him arrested for postal felonies, or whatever the crime was for people messing with other people’s mailbox.
Jill blinked and hit the front porchlight and peered through the peephole.
Please don’t be Andrew.
But it wasn’t her ex.
It was another man. He wore a sports coat and jeans. Relaxed and in profile, he was looking out at the street instead of at the door. His thick, dark hair curled around his collar.
It was a man she had not laid eyes on for fifteen years, but Jill realized with a jolt that she would recognize the curve of his face as long as she lived.
It was Max Kallstrom.
Jill pulled the door open, half-expecting she had imagined the man’s identity.
But it was him.
Max turned, his face wreathing into a huge smile.
Several observations flamed simultaneously through Jill’s thoughts.
He’s older, and even more handsome, than I remember.
And taller.
And he looks like he can walk just fine.
“Jill? Jill Farrell?” he said.
“Max. I don’t believe it.” She leaned against the doorframe, thankful for solid support for her quaking body.
“Yes. It’s me, Max Kallstrom.” His gaze roamed her face and body, his smile sincere, though his green eyes were cautious. “You remember me? From St. John Vianney? I was your foreign exchange student during your senior year, and we had classes together.” He named the year. “Fifteen years ago! It is a long time,
ja?
”
She blinked.
Is he really asking me if I remember him?
Jill gripped the door tighter. “Yes, yes. Of course I remember you.” Suddenly she had the desire to throw herself in his arms, touch his face with her hands, and feel his broad chest against her breasts.
Just as suddenly she wanted to slap his face and scream, “What the hell happened to you? How could you disappear like you did? How could you break my heart?”
The warring impulses overwhelmed her. Jill crossed her arms and stood up straighter. “I’m just surprised to see you, especially after all this time.” She heard the sarcasm in her voice.
Max did not appear to.
“Me too! In fact, I think I am more surprised than you that I’m here on your doorstep.” He held out his hand to shake hers.
Jill shook quickly and then pulled away and waved toward her house. “Please. Come in. I’ll make us some tea, or get you a drink, or whatever you want.”
“Thank you. Thank you. I should have called, I know, but I wasn’t sure how to reach you by phone, or if you still had the same name.” He stepped into the foyer.
“It’s the same. My name. Jill Farrell.”
Their glances met and held.
“I know. I know that now,” Max said. “This was the only online address for J.R. Farrell. I took a chance that it was you. The woman on the reunion committee said she couldn’t give me your private information, but to check listings in Orchard Beach.”
“So you finally found me.”
Max blinked. “Yes.” He moved past her, his sleeve brushing her arm. He stopped at the kitchen entrance, resting his hands against his waist.
Jill closed the door and they stood in silence.
Both waiting.
She stared at him. Perfect nose, straight and prominent. Beautiful skin. Silky eyebrows and those wonderful green eyes, clear of worry. The biggest difference was that Max the grown-up carried himself with a certain gravitas, not with the devil-may-care energy of his twenty-one-year-old self.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” she said.
“I very much wanted to see you before the reunion,” he said on top of her words.
They both laughed nervously. She gestured toward the living room. “Do you want to come sit down? But can I get you something first? Tea? Whiskey? I have red wine. California cabernet.”
“I’d love a coffee,” he said. “Black, please.”
She started to say, you drink coffee now, but bit her tongue. “Of course, it’ll take just a minute.” Jill pulled her fingers through her hair and cringed over her unkempt appearance.
“Why don’t I come in the kitchen with you?”
“Oh. Sure. Come on in.” She directed Max with another nervous wave, feeling as if she was giving erratic signals to an airplane about to land. She relaxed her arms against her sides and walked into the room, which felt very much smaller with Max Kallstrom in it.
“This is a very nice house. Have you been here long?”
“A few years.” Jill turned her back and opened the cupboard. Her mind was a jumble and she was glad for something to do while she fought to clear it. She took out mugs, and sugar, and coffee.
What is he thinking about me right now?
She took the pot out of the coffee-maker and ran water into it. “So, did you just get into town today?” When she turned he was watching her, his elbows on the table, his hands folded together.
“Yes. I’ve been in the States for a week. I was in Washington DC for a few days, and I flew into LAX this afternoon.”
“Oh. Are you still living in Sweden?”
“No. I live in Paris. For four years now.”
“Oh.” She flipped on the pot and sat across from him as the water burbled through the filter, the kitchen filling up with the smell of coffee. “What is it you do for a living?”
She remembered he wanted to farm. His family raised sheep, but only for wool, not meat.
“I run my own business. Investments.” He cocked his head. “I am not a high roller, like your Wall Street types. Nothing that glamorous. I administer a fund for a group of investors who aren’t interested in making money. They give money away, via grants, to non-profits. Primarily in African countries.”
“That must be interesting. And rewarding.” Jill squeezed her hands together in her lap.
“What do you do, Jill?”
Her mouth was dry and her tongue dragged against her teeth when she spoke. “I teach English at a community college. I have several foreign students from Africa. The Sudan. A couple from Kenya. They’re great.”
“I lived in Kenya for a year. Nairobi.” He nodded. “Did you always want to teach?”
The confusion of emotions swelled inside her. It was not because she was talking trivia with a man who she had not seen for fifteen years.
It was not because he was a man she had once loved, or that her immediate reaction to him was one part happiness and another part fury.
It was because Max was acting as if she was a complete stranger.
What the hell? Does he think he can just show up and not apologize? Doesn’t he realize he needs to explain why he dropped out of my life?
The pain she felt surprised her with its intensity, and she realized she had lied to herself, telling herself she was completely over his abandonment of her. The humiliation and shock felt current, and raw.
“Yes, I’ve always wanted to teach,” she managed. “Since I was a kid, all I wanted to do was teach. I remember telling you that was what I wanted to do when we were in college. Many times.” She had tried to say this lightly, as if she was making a joke, but her voice cracked.
“I see.” His expression was guarded.
“I did my student teaching when you were here in the States, in fact. At Orchard Beach High School. Right down the road.”