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“Where’s Brett?” Darby asked, craning her neck to look past Jacie at the door.
Lil looked as if she had the exact same question.
“He had to go.”
“I hope it’s not something to do with Robert.”
Jacie shook her head. “No.” She reached for the pizza and put a slice on the paper plate in front of her. The last thing she felt like doing was eating, but she had to put a good face on things. Especially when her daughter was looking at her curiously. She smiled at Lil and Darby. “So how was your day?”
“Uh...good,” said Lil, also taking a slice of pizza off the tray.
Darby sent a suspicious glance bouncing between the two of them. “I had a good day, too.”
“She was a big help sorting books for the used book sale,” Lil said, meeting Jacie’s eyes with a faint frown.
“And I got that Black Stallion book I was missing,” Darby said. Thankfully she was allowing herself to be sidetracked. In fact, she seemed to be deep in thought for the remainder of the meal, as if coming up with Plan B, which made Jacie’s blood run cold.
Later that evening Lil called and asked if she could stop by on her way back from delivering a bag of books to two shut-in sisters who lived close to Jackson Orchards. When she arrived, Darby popped out to say hello, then disappeared back into her bedroom, where she was supposedly researching horse breeds. Jacie half wondered if her daughter wasn’t instead working up a new way to throw her and Brett together.
“Half glass?” she asked as she poured merlot.
“I’d love a whole, but I’m driving,” Lil said before diving straight in to the matter at hand. “What really happened with Brett at the Shack?”
Jacie and Lil had few secrets, but she hadn’t told her friend that she and Brett were sleeping together. There was no way, though, that Lil had missed that Brett was once again figuring in Jacie’s life. “We don’t see eye to eye on a few issues.”
“None of my business, but—”
“We’ve been seeing each other.”
Lil’s eyes widened. “As in...?”
“As in,” Jacie agreed. “I thought I was being pretty slick about it, then Darby told me she thought that Brett would make a good dad. She’s trying to throw us together, for Pete’s sake. Like this afternoon at the Pizza Shack.”
“The Parent Trap,” Lil said faintly.
Jacie leaned back against the counter, holding a glass that had too much wine in it. She wasn’t driving and she had a feeling she might not be sleeping either without a little help. “I need to get to a place where I can sort this all out.” Where Brett wasn’t next door. Where Darby could get these ideas out of her head. Of course Darby liked Brett and thought he’d make a good dad. He came with a herd of horses.
“I’m so screwed.” She closed her eyes, willed the perfect answer to come into her head. There was no perfect answer. She’d hoped things would continue as they were between her and Brett until she had to go home. Low key. Low pressure. Then Darby had invited Brett to dinner and the movies and Jacie had panicked. All of her fears had rushed in en masse and she’d felt a frantic need to address them then and there, before Darby became too deeply invested in her scheme.
It was not the way she wanted to part from Brett.
Not even close, but she was afraid that if she tried to apologize, it’d draw things out and make the situation more painful for both of them. It might even give Darby the initiative to take another crack at bringing them together. Plus, it was going to hurt like hell to see him and know that it was over.
Jacie let out a shaky sigh and pushed her fingers through her hair. “I brought Darby with me so that we could have a nice mother-daughter summer. Two months later she wants to move here permanently and she wants Brett to be her dad.”
“Would that be so bad?”
Jacie’s gaze lifted. “In a perfect world, no.” But the world wasn’t perfect. It was full of unseen pitfalls and she’d lain awake at night going over them. “Brett and I have been together for a matter of weeks. There are no guarantees that we’ll last longer than a couple months. And then what? Darby’s heart is broken, we’re living in a place where I can’t work in my profession easily...we’d have to move again. Darby would have to change schools. Too many possible consequences.”
Lil was silent as she leaned against the counter opposite Jacie. It felt almost as it had when they’d conducted their war council on how best to handle Jacie’s pregnancy in Lil’s kitchen all those years ago. And once again Brett was at the heart of the matter.
Jacie smiled wearily at Lil, glad to have a steady friend. “Another fine mess I’ve gotten myself into.” Why was Brett involved in her best messes?
“Looks like it,” Lil agreed. “I’m sorry this happened.”
“I hurt him.”
Lil’s dark gaze was serious as she said, “What are you going to do about it?”
Jacie swallowed back the lump growing in her throat. She’d hated hurting him. “I don’t think I can do anything. It’s kind of killing me.”
Lil opened her mouth to speak, then closed her mouth again without saying a word. It didn’t matter. Jacie knew what she’d been about to say. If hurting Brett was hurting her, then that meant she cared for him. That wasn’t exactly a news flash. She did care for him—in a deep way that scared her, because it felt like she could lose herself in him the way her mother had lost herself in Clinton.
“My mom asked if Darby wanted to come to Chicago with her and Bradley...it might be the best thing. It’ll get Darby into her own world. Once she’s in Seattle after the trip, she’ll fall back in with her old friends. I’ll sign her up for riding lessons and life will go on.”
“How much longer will you be here?”
“A couple of weeks and my part of the renovation will be done except for occasional site visits, unless Clinton sets a bomb off or something. And I have a backup guy now. Phil can handle things if I can’t make the visits.”
“You know...after Darby leaves with your mom...you could move in with me if you want. Save paying another month’s rent.”
Jacie felt like hugging her. Not having to look at Brett’s lights and think about what she was missing would be a godsend. “I think I might do that. Like I said, it would only be a few weeks.”
“Miss Kitty and I would love to have you, even if it were longer.” Lil saluted Jacie with her glass before putting it down. “I need to go, but keep me posted, okay?”
“Will do. And thanks for being there for me and Darby.”
“I’ll expect payback some day.”
“Oh, yeah. As if your life is ever going to go off the rails.”
Lil shrugged and picked up her purse. “You never know,” she said in a cryptic voice. “Call me as soon as you know something.”
Lil’s car was backing out of the driveway when Darby came into the kitchen wearing that look. The look that meant she was troubled, yet determined to make her world right through any means possible.
“What’s going on, Mom?”
“Were you listening?”
Darby shifted her weight, looking down briefly as she said, “Only a little.” She met Jacie’s gaze, her blue eyes pleading for reassurance. “We’re staying here, aren’t we? Until the end of summer.”
“I’ll stay to finish my project. Your grandmother wants you to go to Chicago with her and Bradley on the train.”
Darby jerked back. “I don’t want to. And I don’t want to go back to Seattle. I want to stay here.”
Jacie stroked her daughter’s hair. “I know, but we have to.”
“I’m not done with horse camp.”
“You’ll get to finish before your trip with Grandma and then we’ll start lessons at a stable as soon as we get home.”
Darby stumbled back a couple steps. “I don’t want lessons in Seattle. I want to be here.”
“Well, sometimes you don’t get what you want,” Jacie said more harshly than she’d intended, “because you don’t yet know what’s good for you and what isn’t.”
Darby shook her head, making her braids fly. “This place is good for me.”
“You didn’t want to come here in the first place, remember? I was right about bringing you and I’m right about it being time to go back home.”
Darby jerked her chin up into the air and marched past Jacie toward her bedroom. “You don’t always know what’s right!” She closed the door, taking care not to slam it, but still leaving Jacie feeling very much shut out. Turning toward the kitchen she fought the urge to walk down the hall, knock on the door and take her daughter into her arms and promise her whatever it was that would make her happy.
She was making the right choice. Darby needed to get back into her own world and she needed to finish this project and get the hell out of Cherry Lake. A door was closing, but a window was opening and she was going out that window. For her daughter’s sake.
For her own sake.
Maybe a little bit for Brett’s sake, too. She was not good for the guy.
After Robert’s heart attack, Brett shouldn’t have been stunned at how fast things could change in life, but he was. He’d sensed something was off with Kristen and when she dumped him, he’d been half-prepared. He hadn’t been prepared for this—although he should have been. Stupidly, he’d thought that as they spent time together, Jacie would come to trust him, would start thinking about the possibility of moving forward slowly, trying to work things out.
Obviously he’d been indulging in an unrealistic fantasy there.
She was painting him with the same fucking brush as her stepfather and that more than anything pissed him off.
During the last week of horse camp, he’d made damn sure that he was in the fields when Jacie stopped by to pick up Darby. He wasn’t a coward, but he wasn’t a masochist either. Jacie had it in her head that she had to choose between him and her daughter and there was no winning that battle.
Finally Friday came and horse camp officially ended. The last kid had left the premises and there was no more danger of chance meetings with Jacie on his own property. Instead of working in his shop that evening, he settled in front of the television with a beer and the remote, cruising through channels with a vengeance. There was nothing on. He snapped off the TV, tossed the remote aside and sat staring across the room. He was hurt, angry and fucking tired of emotions.
Thunder sounded in the distance and he realized he hadn’t rolled up the truck windows. He walked out into heavy air and crossed the gravel yard to where he kept his truck parked near the shop, slowing his steps as he heard sounds that didn’t seem right. Like a radio faintly playing...or someone talking...in the barn.
He quietly made his way to a window and peeked inside. Darby Rose was standing in a stall, her arms wrapped around Blue Bonnet’s neck and she was talking or crying or something.
Now what?
Should he call Jacie?
He thought not. He and Darby could work this out. He opened the barn door and snapped on the interior light so that Darby would see that it was him, that she had nothing to fear. That was the plan, anyway, but it didn’t work out that way. Darby leapt away from the mare, her mouth making an O, and for a minute he thought she was going to make a run for it.
“Hey,” he said with a gentle smile. “I heard noises in the barn.”
“Uh...” She swallowed and then put her shoulders back. “I’m sorry. I wanted to talk to Blue Bonnet.”
“Something that you couldn’t have told her tomorrow?”
“I’m going on a trip with my grandma tomorrow,” she blurted out. Her eyes suddenly seemed to be huge. “I don’t want to go. I want to stay here in Cherry Lake and...” Her voice trailed off miserably and now that he looked closer, he could see that her eyes were puffy and her nose a little red.
“I’m sorry, kiddo.”
“Yeah.” She sniffed. “I should go back. I guess.”
“I’ll walk you home.”
“I’m okay.”
“I’m not.” She sent him a curious look and he said, “The pasture is dark. I’ll feel better if I walk you home.”
“Are you going to talk to my mom?”
“I think your mom and I have said about all there is to say.”
She climbed out of the stall and preceded him to the door. “I know the feeling.”
As it happened he did get to talk to Jacie, who’d just burst out the back door calling Darby’s name as they reached the fence.
“I’m here, Mom,” Darby said, sounding none too happy about the fact.
“Where’ve you been?” Then she caught sight of Brett and her face went a little pale.
“She and I were talking.”
“I went to see Blue Bonnet,” Darby said. “I’ll be in my room if you want to punish me.”
Jacie’s head slowly turned as she watched her daughter march past them into the house. Brett knew better than to offer any child rearing advice, like go easy on her, she’s upset. Jacie was upset, too.
Well, so was he.
“You probably heard that Darcy is leaving tomorrow with her grandmother.” He nodded. It was easier than trying to find his voice. “I’m moving in with Lil after Darby leaves.” Their gazes connected, held. Her lips parted as if words she was trying to hold back were about to burst forth, and then she swallowed, her eyes still holding his as she said, “I have to go back to Seattle.” A rumble of thunder punctuated her words.
“Yeah. I think you do. It’s better for all of us.”
At least he could start moving forward again, without hoping that maybe she’d take a chance on him. On them. On the possibility of making a family.
