Rum and Raindrops: A Blueberry Springs Chick Lit Contemporary Romance (23 page)

A few kisses had ruined his career and put her back under the gun. Why hadn’t she waited? Where was her self-control?

The idea that she’d brought harm to Rob chilled her like she’d taken a dive into a glacier-fed lake. She needed to find a way to make it up to him, but how could she do that when they weren’t supposed to have contact? This couldn’t be the end, could it?

“How is Rob taking things?”

“I think this space is probably a good thing, Jen.”

* * *

Jen gazed out the window, catching sight of Liz pointing up toward her apartment with someone she couldn’t identify. Sighing, she took her coffee to the back patio, eager to let the evening air work magic on her blues. The last thing she needed was to talk to the press about becoming the suspect in another fire or how she’d messed up Rob’s life.

Her Tinkerbell phone rang—her excursions line—as she passed. She grabbed Tinkerbell, hoping it was Rob, and wound the cord around her finger. It had been hard not leaving messages on his phone, respecting the edict of not contacting each other his boss had insisted upon.

Would he call when his boss lifted the edict? Was this him right now? Could she finally apologize? Ask to see him again? Find out how he was doing? Find out whether he was angry or if he felt it was worth it to kiss her, hold her hand, be with her?

“Hello?” she asked, hope lifting her voice.

“Jenny?” The familiar, husky breath caught her off-guard, sucking the wind from her lungs. It couldn’t be.

That voice. It had comforted her. Angered her. Caressed her. And she never wanted to hear it again because despite the years of finding herself, her own beauty and strength, as well as gathering her own space, she was instantly reduced to the woman she had once been—a scared and alone girl desperate for a scrap of what she thought might be love.

“Who is this?” she asked, playing dumb, her heart skittering in her ribcage, her cheeks burning. Her chin wobbled and she resolved that she would not let on how important he had once been.

“It’s Ken.” He said it gently, as though the power of his name might rock a great ship or create a sudden storm.

Rational-I’m-Over-It-Jen instantly won the battle with Bitter-Resentful-Jen. Closure. This weak man needed closure—with
her
—so he would be secure in his future relationship with her ex-best friend.

And she was over him. Had been forever. What she’d been holding on to was a fear that no one else could ever love her.

“How are you?” Pity dripped from his voice as if he felt she was some unhappy, fragile woman.

“I’m fine. Great, really.” She walked to her front window, pushing her curtains aside, laughing silently as Liz chased the man she’d been talking to up the street. What the hell was going on down there? She cranked her window open in hopes of overhearing some of the commotion. “And I need to thank you,” she said into the phone.

“For what?”

“For showing me that I wasn’t surrounding myself with true friends. That I needed to move on and live a real life. Now, when I meet real friends, I recognize them.” She gently touched the horde of brownies Mandy had brought over to cheer her up, laughing again at the
Playgirl
and box of chocolates from Amber.

Yes, she could see how real Blueberry Springs was now. They wanted to help without asking anything in return—nothing she couldn’t or wouldn’t give them willingly—and simply because they liked her and saw her as one of their own.

Friends. And all she’d had to do was let them in.

“So? What? You need my signature?” she asked.

“Yeah.” Ken’s voice was hard with hurt.

She was barely holding back her exasperation, frustrated by the way he was making this more difficult and by the way Liz had herded the sidewalk’s action out of earshot. Maybe it was a shoplifter from Wally’s. They’d had quite a few of them this year.

“I want to sell the house.”

“Maybe I want to move back.”

Silence.

“I’m with Kim now.”

Jen tossed her head back and laughed for the first time in days. Oh, that was rich. He thought she wanted
him
? Good luck!

“What?” His voice was hard, full of hurt again. “You took off. You didn’t even say goodbye. We were worried. But then again, that wasn’t the first time you ever ran away from your life.”

Rage boiled through her veins at the implications, at the way he was trying to load her with guilt, exclude himself from blame. “I’m sure Kimmy helped you through it.”

“It’s Kim now.”

La-di-da. “Then you’d better call me Jen. Not Jenny. That girl grew up and is gone.”

Silence.

“What exactly do you need, Ken?” She hated the way he’d always made her be the one to bring up any unpleasant business. If she’d ever wondered if she’d done wrong in the way she ran away, she knew right now without a doubt that it was one of the wisest decisions she’d ever made. That was one thing her good, old, reliable fight or flight responses had gotten right.

“Sign the house over to me.”

“Not bloody likely! I own half of that thing. Real estate values have gone up.”

“Yeah, and you haven’t contributed to payments in three years!”

“So you want to run off with our money?”

“You took the car.”

“And left you the truck.”

“Why are you making this so difficult?”

“Why are you such a cheating son of a bitch who lacks to gonads to stand up and deal with things that are difficult?”

“You’re one to talk. You ran away.”

“You were banging my best friend on the side!” She slammed down the phone, angry for how her voice had turned choked and weak. She was supposed to be over this. Better than this.

That son of a bitch.

The phone rang again and she took several deep breaths before wiping her eyes and picking up Tinkerbell. “What?”

“I need you out of the picture obligation-wise.”

“And I need you to stay under that rock you keep crawling out from under. Talk to my lawyer.” She slammed down the fairy again, satisfied that she had an old-fashioned phone that could be slammed. She bet he couldn’t do that with his new fancy-pants life.

Damn. He didn’t know who her lawyer was. Mostly because she didn’t have one.

Tinkerbell rang again, the lights in her wings flashing. She smiled. Ken was on the run. Man, that felt gratifying.

“We don’t need lawyers,” he said. “You can just sign the papers and send them back.”

“I never sign anything without a lawyer. I’ll have him call you at this number to make arrangements,” she said coolly. “He’s very busy. It may take awhile.” Surely John’s offer to be her lawyer would extend to this situation as well. She only hoped she could afford him.

“Only because he deals with criminals like you,” Ken muttered.

“You can suck a bear’s hairy gonads, you jerk!” She slammed the phone down again. She picked it up, checked the caller ID on her cell and dialed him back.

“Make sure he knows you abandoned me,” Ken said, as though she’d never hung up, “and that I have no obligations to you legally or financially and haven’t since you left. There has been no contact and you can’t sue me. We’re dissolving this thing once and for all.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I’ll be sure he hears about your infidelity.”

“My lawyer said—”

“Well, you might want to get a better one, sweetheart. John is going to crush your ass.”

“The wedding is in two months.”

“Are you inviting me?” She listened to him sputter out excuses before hanging up the phone, grinning for the first time in days. She leaned out her window, calling Liz upstairs. It was time to talk to the press. She might not be able to apologize directly to Rob, but she knew someone who could grant her the next best thing.

* * *

Jen tightened her ponytail and smoothed her hands down her sides. The last time she’d seen her parents—in the same room—was the courthouse in what felt like a whole different lifetime ago. But if she was making changes in her life she may as well go for the gold and do it all—Ken, a public apology to Rob, and hey, why not her parents, too.

All she had to do was step into the coffee shop and she would be talking to her parents after years of silence. Assuming they were actually there and hadn’t had a massive fight in the middle of the cafe and stormed home already. What if they forced her to choose a side in a fight?

Her hand paused over the door handle before she heaved it open, entering the shop. She was different now. She’d be okay.

She found her parents at the back, her dad already backed into a corner. Or did he choose that position at the table to be sure his ex-wife didn’t flank him?

She paused, watching them. They hadn’t seen her yet. She could still leave.

But maybe things had changed. Maybe her family was similar to Rob’s again and she could have parents back in her life. After all, she wasn’t running from Ken anymore. Or at least she wouldn’t be after she signed some papers with John tomorrow afternoon.

She watched her parents, looking for a magical Disney ending in the way they were interacting. She sighed and began walking toward their table. Her mother had her arms crossed, chin tipped up. Her father had drifted into his own world as a defense. It wouldn’t be long until her mother had had enough and stormed out.

Jen moved down the aisles of tables, almost tiptoeing, until she was beside their table. She watched for the moment when they spotted her, when their expressions would betray their true thoughts and feelings.

Her father’s head swiveled toward her, a smile breaking open as if someone had just handed him a million dollars. He stood and Jen’s mother immediately did the same, her eyes on her ex-husband. She turned in Jen’s direction, her face wary. Concerned. No open joy. She actually looked kind of scared.

Her father embraced Jen. “Jen! You look great.” He held her in his strong arms for a long time, whispering into her hair, “Thank you for calling us.”

“Jen.” Her mother gave her a stiff hug. “Good to see you.” She sat again, resembling a cardboard cutout in her stiffness.

Jen saw it laid out like a smorgasbord. Her father had worried. Maybe even missed her. And her mother had felt rejected, betrayed, run out on. So many emotions, all of them directed at her for consumption.

“Coffee?” Her father raised his eyebrows to a passing waitress. He was fighting emotion and it surprised Jen. “Coffee here, please,” he said to the waitress, clearing his throat.

He addressed Jen, who slipped into the vacant spot beside her mother. “It’s so good to see you.”

“What is this about?” her mother asked. “I heard you’re in trouble.”

“Yeah, kind of.” Jen’s cheeks flushed as though she was a child about to be scolded.

“A nature guide?” her father asked, pride tipping his voice into a deeper timbre.

Jen nodded.

“I’m sorry we haven’t been there for you during your troubles,” he said.

“Which ones?” she snapped before realizing it made her sound like a bitter, unloved teenager, and not the mature woman she was supposed to be now that she’d made it through the storm. Besides, her problems had to be getting better if Scott had let her leave town in order to see her parents. No questions asked. Which was really odd if she was the primary suspect in two forest fires. She frowned in thought.

Her mother gave a small sniff in reply to Jen’s attitude.

Her father swallowed, paused as he cupped his hands together on the table, looked up to meet her eye. “All of them. We weren’t there for you in the way parents should. We shouldn’t have let someone else raise you. We should have come after you.”

“Why didn’t you?” Jen was afraid to hear the answer.

“I didn’t know where you were,” her mother said quickly. “One day you were living with Ken all happily, and the next day nobody knew where you were or if you were okay. It’s one thing to not choose one of your parents, but it is another thing to just disappear from your boyfriend’s as if nobody cared.”

As if nobody cared.
Jen let the words wash over her like water in a carwash.

“I’m sorry. I called and told Cody to spread the word. I’m sorry he led you to believe that I didn’t want you to know where I was and that I didn’t want or need help.”

“Oh, I knew where you were,” her father said. “I had you followed.”

“What?” Jen leaned back in surprise.

“Yes, for the past three years I’ve had people checking in on you.”

“People?”

He nodded. “A private investigator at first, then two lovely sisters in the town you live in. They’d let me know what was happening in your life. I almost came to see you with this forest fire business, but…” He paused, swallowing hard as he swiped at his eyes.

Jen gaped, unsure where to start thinking and sorting on this revelation.

“You didn’t call
me
.” Her mother crossed her arms and sat back, closing her inner walls, blocking Jen out.

She turned to her mother. There was no way she’d come all this way to let her mom pull back and shut her out.

No way.

Jen leaned forward, getting into her mother’s space, which wasn’t that hard seeing as she was sitting beside her. “Did it ever occur to you that I was a child? That I needed parents? Parents who weren’t fighting over me and forcing me to choose who was going to be the loser in your big war?”

“Jen,” her mom said, her voice etched with a weakness Jen wasn’t familiar with. “If there was ever anyone who was going to come out ahead in the divorce, it was you. You were always independent, resourceful, competent. You made it out okay. We,” she said, pausing to point to her ex, then herself, “did not.”

“But I didn’t,” Jen said, her voice tight with emotion.

“We didn’t treat you right,” her father said. “I can see that now. We both do.” He gave her mother a look. “It wasn’t fair or right of us.” He clasped his hands, shoulders rounded. “We thought it would be best for you if we didn’t pretend to be in love, to lay it out straight.” He cleared his throat. “We may have become caught up in trying to make the other person pay. I know I wanted to make your mother the guilty party so I could lay the blame at her feet as a way to ease my own pain and guilt. Especially for the way our divorce was tearing you up. If I could make her the bad guy, I could be the good guy.” He sighed, the lines in his forehead deep with grief and Jen’s throat closed up. “Your mother and I are the same, Jen. But you aren’t like us and you stood up for yourself and found what you needed. I’m proud of you.”