The Way Back (12 page)

“It wasn’t a surprise when he finally asked if he could leave. We had grown apart the way people who have been married too long and take it for granted do. But I never thought— Anyway, he left. Found another woman and divorced me. We never had kids and this business with him was basically my life. I felt lost. Like I didn’t know where to turn, so naturally I did the most clichéd thing imaginable and started to drink. Drink and take pills. I drugged my way into a full-scale problem, which culminated with me getting into a car accident. The other driver wasn’t hurt, and I was only banged up a little when I drove my car off the road. Of course, when the police found me, I was drunk and high on whatever pills I had taken that night. Naturally, I was arrested. It was the single most humiliating moment of my life.”

“Oh, Susan, I’m so sorry.”

“I had one call and I said to myself, ‘Susan, who can you call? George is gone. You have no family. Who is the one person who might come and bail you out and not tell you how disgusting you are?’ I thought of Jamie. Jamie would help.”

Gabby squeezed the woman’s hand as the tears welled up.

“He came to the mainland and found me sitting in a holding cell, hung over and reeking of whiskey. He never said a word. He talked with the police, posted my bail. He got me an attorney and he hooked me up with a support group for divorced women. I had no license for a year, so he drove me once a week to the grocery store on the mainland so I could do my big shopping for the B and B. And all the little things that go wrong in this big old house that I used to rely on my husband to fix, he would come to put right. More importantly, he showed me what he was doing so I could fix it myself the next time.”

“Why?”

“I know, right? Why would someone do all that? He didn’t know me very well. Only casually from meeting in town or at the diner. Sometimes I would host a town brunch and he would come to that. Jamie loves my French toast. All I really knew of Jamie Hunter when he came to the island was the scandal. But when I met him, and saw the person he was, the man he was, I knew there was way more to the story than anyone knew. I wasn’t going to press him, though, and maybe having a few people in his life who didn’t ask him any questions was all he needed.”

“You thought he would save you, didn’t you?”

Susan nodded. “I knew he would. I sat in the cell and thought what I need is a hero. A knight to come rescue me. Since I happened to have the number of one in my cell phone, I used it. He came and he did exactly what I needed him to do. He saved me. When I tried to thank him, he brushed me off and reminded me no one is perfect all the time. Sometimes people do things they don’t mean to do or even want to do. The trick is to forgive themselves for it. Sounded like he knew what he was talking about.”

You’re going to have to forgive me.

When he’d whispered those words, she’d thought the task impossible. At this moment, though, she didn’t know. Maybe the hard part of forgiving him wasn’t accepting what he’d done, maybe it was a fault within herself. Her inability to accept that people weren’t perfect. Like her father, her fiancé.

“You said others on the island needed him, too.” Gabby could only imagine how many ways he’d changed people’s lives—big and small. Something she now knew he’d been doing since he was a teenager.

She thought about what was happening on the space station. He’d been so quick to dismiss it and the possibility of NASA calling, but she realized it was probably something he thought about all the time, wondering if he could help in some capacity. If his experience might be of service. He wouldn’t call them. But would he answer if they called him? She could say without a shadow of doubt, absolutely he would.

“I’m not going to tell you everyone else’s stories,” Susan said. “But know that in the years since he’s been here there might have been a person with a gambling problem who needed saving from some scary collectors, or a person with an abusive spouse who needed someone to step in. Jamie was that person. It’s who he is. At his core.”

Gabby thought about him flying the helicopter because he
knew
he could do it. He was a hero. A real life hero.

“But heroes don’t cheat.”

Susan shrugged. “This one did, apparently. I mean, that’s what all the newspapers and news shows said, wasn’t it?”

Gabby watched Susan leave the room and thought about her last comment. Yes, it was what everyone knew. There was a picture. Two women and one man outside a hotel room. The one woman who was not Jamie’s wife was barely dressed. The facts were indisputable—the picture didn’t lie. More than that, Jamie never once suggested the media’s spin on events was anything but the truth.

He’d accepted the guilty verdict passed down to him by the media and he’d publicly admitted his mistakes. Tried as an adulterer, convicted by the American people and sentenced to Hawk Island for the rest of his days.

It was getting late in the morning. He’d be preparing for his daily run. Gabby finished her coffee and went up to her room to change. She had some questions to ask him and she wasn’t going to let him get away with evasive answers. This was way more important than some stories for a book she might write.

As she reached her room, she realized she wasn’t winded from her quick jog up the stairs and thought about how far she’d come in only a week. Progress.

Now she thought it was time to make progress in other areas. There was a story there about Jamison Hunter and the photograph that changed his life. She knew it and, damn it, she was going to pry it out of him.

Not for her career. But maybe for the sake of her heart.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Z
HANNA
DROVE
TO
Tom’s place and turned off the car. She looked to her partner in crime.

“Make it convincing,” Zhanna told her.

Mary let out a weak meow.

With each step she took Zhanna tried to fortify her courage and with each step she found herself wanting to turn around and go home. There was no reason she had to do this. No reason why she needed a man in her life. No reason to date or kiss anyone if she didn’t want to.

She was here on this island to create a new life for herself. To rebuild a world that had crumbled with the death of her mother. It was enough on anyone’s plate. Love and happiness, they were such ephemeral things.

Still she continued walking, then knocked on the door. She realized she was doing a weird convulsive swallowing thing that needed to stop before actually letting herself inside.

“Zhanna.”

She gulped one last time surprised to see him answering the door when usually he shouted for people to enter. She held up her kitty carrier. “I think she’s sick.”

“Okay. Come in. I’ve got no appointments.”

She followed him to the exam room and thought about what it would mean to come back to his place after a nice date. Her dress would be covered in animal hair. Any kissing would be witnessed by the animals in residence. She wasn’t sure if he kept more cages upstairs in his apartment. Did he keep the wine next to the rabies vaccination in the refrigerator? That didn’t sound very appealing.

And consider the noise. The barking and squawking and meowing. No woman was ever going to have Tom alone. Zhanna would always have to share him with a house full of furry creatures.

Gently, he extracted Mary from her cage.

“Why do you think she’s sick?”

“She sneezed. A couple of times.”

Like the best friend she’d quickly become, Mary took her cue and scrunched up her tiny face and sneezed.

Tom smiled. He held the kitten up and checked her eyes, then ran his fingers carefully over her little body.

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that. She’s got no congestion in her nose I can see and her eyes are clear. Is she eating?”

“Yes, wet food. And dry food. And maybe sometimes ice cream.”

Tom frowned. “Go easy on the ice cream. It’s not so good for them and you don’t want to spoil her on human food.”

Zhanna nodded.

“But if she’s eating okay and drinking, I’m sure it’s nothing more than an itchy nose. Keep an eye on her. If her eyes start to run or you can see some discharge from her nose, then you can bring her back. Otherwise I’ll see you in a week for her shots.”

He put Mary in the carrier and scratched underneath her chin until she purred helplessly. Apparently Mary wasn’t immune to Tom’s charms any more than Zhanna was.

“I was thinking about what you said last time,” Zhanna said in a rush.

Tom said nothing. She didn’t blame him. There was no reason for him to make this easy for her, not when he’d been so open and she had been so shut down. Still, a little help right now when her throat was doing the convulsive thing again would have been nice.

“I was an only child.” It wasn’t what she intended to say but they were the only words that came out. “I did not know my father growing up. So it was my mother and me. We were very close.”

“How did you lose her?”

“Cancer. Ovarian. Many doctors, many years, many fights and many losses. I did everything I could to care for her, to ease her pain, to make her live. But always the doctors came into the room with the bad news. Until the last time when they told me she was gone forever.”

He reached across the exam table and squeezed her hand. He didn’t say he was sorry or offer platitudes about how her mother was better off rather than living in pain. Zhanna hated when people said those things. She didn’t fault them for it when their intentions were sincere, but nonetheless she thought all words in the face of grief were stupid.

Grief wasn’t something that could be cured by any words.

“I had no good friends back home. I spent too many years taking care of my mother. I was the mother and the nurse. She was my world. We didn’t have close family. It was just the two of us and when I lost her I didn’t think—”

“You didn’t think you could still go on.”

“No, I didn’t. I didn’t see how it was possible. The sadness, it consumed me. I tried for a time to live. To do what people said and move on with my life. I took lovers thinking men would make me feel better, but I only felt empty. I was not— I was not…good. Then I saw this silly commercial for McDonald’s. You know we have them in Russia, too, and it made me think of America. In America people can start over and so I came. And it has been very good here. I have people now. There is Jamie and Adel.”

“And me.”

He was smiling, smugly she thought. “And you. But I am scared. I am always scared now when I wasn’t before.”

“I know.” He nodded. “Now I know why. But you came here with a healthy kitten because you wanted to see me. So maybe there is something inside you that’s stronger than the fear.”

Of course it’s what she’d done. She’d known Mary wasn’t sick. Her precious kitten would not do such a thing to make a nervous mama worry. But Zhanna knew she had to come to him. He had made his declaration and would not make another. She sensed this much about him.

“I like talking to you while you eat,” Zhanna admitted.

“I like talking to you while I eat, too. You know what else I would like. I would really like for both of us to go eat some place together and talk. So you wouldn’t have to leave me for a moment whenever a new person walks into the diner.”

“That is a date?”

He nodded and squeezed the hand he’d been holding this whole time a little tighter. “That is a date. If you accept.”

“I accept.”

He gently tugged her hand to his lips and kissed the inside of her wrist. It made her body flutter and she was sure her cheeks were flushing.

“You’re beautiful when you’re nervous.”

“And you are a flatterer. Now we will go out on this date, will you come back to the diner? You haven’t come for many days.”

He lowered his eyes. “It wasn’t a punishment. I didn’t want to push you.”

She knew it, but still she missed him. “Come, Mary, we will leave the busy vet to help the other truly sick animals.” She picked up the case and smiled at him. “And you will come to the diner tonight as Adel is making meatloaf.”

“I love meatloaf.”

“Yes, I know it is your favorite. And I will make the fattening macaroni and cheese you like. Then we will talk about when our date will happen.”

“Soon, Zhanna. I promise.”

There was a sensuality in his tone. A lower timbre that promised more than soft kisses on her wrist. Zhanna could feel her cheeks heating again and turned her back on him quickly. She knew already someday they would go to bed together, and she knew from how he made her feel with that simple kiss on her wrist that sex with him would not leave her feeling empty.

She did not say this, though. After all, a girl did not want to be too obvious.

* * *

“W
HO
ARE
YOU
?”

Jamie looked around on the beach. Since it was only him and Gabby, he thought the question rather odd.

“I mean it. I want the truth,” Gabby persisted as she made her way toward him. She was pulling her hair into a ponytail and for some reason the way she handled all those luscious strands so easily turned him on. He told himself not to think about it because A, he knew from experience running with the hard-on was not especially comfortable and B, he still wasn’t sure where he stood on the whole sex with this woman front.

His body said yes to the sex. His rational-thinking brain agreed. Sex was good. Sex was all he should or could want.

It was the other area of him that was the hold-out. That weird floating soft spot in his gut which sometimes moved to the region of his heart that said she was worth more than sex.

She’s Gabby.

And she could hurt him. It was stunning to realize after having spent so much of his life making sure he never hurt anyone that he was suddenly the vulnerable one.

He didn’t like it.

“Are you a good guy? Just answer me. Yes or no. Would you consider yourself a good person?”

Jamie had no idea where this was coming from, but he saw no reason to not answer truthfully. “I’m neither. I’m both. I’ve done good things and I’ve done bad things. I try to make sure now I’m more good than bad, but I’m never going to stand in front of anyone and say I’m perfect.”

“That answer totally sucks.”

She was so disappointed in him it was comical.

“Come on, we’ll run and have a philosophical conversation on the differences between good and bad.”

“Oh, joy. Running
and
philosophy. Doesn’t get much more fun than that.”

He took her through her stretches—real ones she finally did correctly—then they started off at an easy pace. One she was able to easily keep up with.

“I hear so many stories about you and I’m trying to put those together in my head with what I know.”

“What do you know? What’s fact?”

“Fact, you were my hero. My first crush. You did an amazing thing people will talk about forever. Then you got caught outside a motel room in Florida by your wife with another woman. That’s a fact.”

“There is a picture of me and my wife and another woman outside a motel room in Florida, it’s a fact I can’t change.”

“Fact, you helped Susan out of a jam when she needed it.”

“She told you about that?” It surprised Jamie that Susan would confide in anyone who was a non-islander, but he liked it. It meant Gabby was getting to them. All of them—Zhanna and Susan—were liking her despite themselves.

“Fact, you’ve won the loyalty of women young and old. You’ve become the leader of this community. It’s clear people trust you despite what they know, and it doesn’t compute.”

“Because you can’t forgive what I’ve done. Maybe you can’t forgive anyone anything. That’s not my problem, it’s your problem.”

He was pushing her at a little harder pace. Not as a punishment but maybe because he didn’t want to hear what came next. Maybe if she ran harder, she wouldn’t have the breath to say it.

“You don’t need my forgiveness.” The words puffed out of her.

“No, I guess I don’t. I guess I could have taken you up on your offer and brought you to my place after our date, screwed you silly and watched you leave the next day without a backward glance.”

“But you didn’t. See, that’s my point. You’re acting like a good guy again. Pretending I mean something to you.”

That stopped him in his tracks. He was barely winded while she was trying to suck in oxygen like there was a finite amount. She would have to listen to him then because she couldn’t run anymore.

“Pretending? You think all of this is
pretending?
Lady, I could have had you every which way from Sunday by now and don’t bother telling me otherwise. What I’m doing here, what I’m trying to do here is—” What was he trying to do?

“What?”

“I’m trying to tell you I like you. I like who you are. I want to have more time with you. I want to go out again.”

“Our date sucked.”

“No, I liked it. Liked that you were nervous around me because you like me, too. I liked the way your hair fell around your shoulders and I liked when you talked about your mother. I like that I feel normal with you. I’m not on a stage. I’m not Jamison Hunter, Astronaut, with you. And I’m not Jamison Hunter tabloid star, either. I’m just me. I’m Jamie and I like that, too.”

He could see the wariness in her eyes. He could also see he was right that she did like him, too. She was fighting herself and he needed the right part of her to win the argument. The part of her that was still willing to take a risk.

He moved forward and wrapped his hand around her neck. “We can do this. We can like each other and let it grow into more. If you let yourself.”

“You don’t know,” she whispered, “how badly I want to try.”

Trying wasn’t bad. Try was better than
can’t.

“We’re going to finish this run and then we’re going to my place to shower.”

“Together?”

He loved the raspy quality in her voice and reminded himself he would be a good boy. “No, definitely not. But we will make dinner and talk all night and then I’m going to make out with you. A lot. Because people who are trying to get to know each other don’t start with sex. They finish with it.”

Her lips twitched—maybe on a smile or maybe in anticipation. He wasn’t sure. “Don’t think you can always tell me what to do.”

“Gabby, anytime you want to tell me to do something to you, you let me know.”

“Okay, then kiss me now.”

Jamie had no problem obeying that order. He was leaning toward her to do just that when something caught his eye out of the corner.

Damn it. Bobby was out fishing off that damn dock.

It was as if the fear of what might happen suddenly turned into a bubble in his head. A picture of a dock collapsing into the cold water and taking the boy down with it. Only he wasn’t seeing the bubble in his head. He was watching it happen out over the water as the supports of the short pier started to crumble beneath the not so insignificant weight of the ten-year-old.

Jamie could hear Gabby talking. Something about here he went again, but his legs were already in motion heading closer to the water, his body churning as he realized what was about to happen.

The dock would fall into the water, it would take Bobby with it, possibly trapping him under broken beams of wood. It was April, not January, but still the water would be freezing. The shock of it would paralyze him and prolonged exposure would put him at risk of hypothermia.

Jamie could hear Gabby again but this time it was a muffled sound, like she was swallowing a shout. The sound of a yelp came to him from forty feet away as Bobby slid into the water while the dock came to pieces around him.

Jamie had three minutes.

“Don’t follow me. The water is too cold.” He didn’t bother to turn around as he stripped off first his shirt, kicked off his sneakers and shucked his running pants. “Keep that dry. We’ll need to warm him when I bring him in.”