Just like that, his anguish overwhelmed the blankness. “Love you,” he hissed. “I love you so fucking much, I can’t bear the thought of what happened to you. Or that I put you in that position. You took a beating for me, Jane. And not just physically. I’ve hurt you so much. I’ve almost destroyed you.” He shook his head in disbelief. “Why would you even want to be with me?”
“Jamie.” I tried to reach for him, but he flinched back. “Jamie.” I hardened. “You are not to blame for yesterday, and you give yourself too much credit. Kramer and Steadman were on to me when I first grew close to Asher. We’re just lucky they hadn’t seen me with you, or it could’ve turned out a lot worse for us. Especially knowing Foster has ties to a crime family.
“As for everything else, Lorna caused the bitterness between us, and I thought we’d moved past that. So if you’re running away because you feel guilty, then don’t. It’s completely misplaced.”
“It’s not just that.” Jamie ran a hand through his hair, resting his elbow on the steering wheel as he gazed up at the house. “I’m fucking lost, Jane. I’m so lost … and I didn’t even know how far gone I was until Asher told us that Steadman had been taken care of. I got back to the apartment and realized that what had been driving me since I got out of prison was this determination to make them all pay. And that’s gone. Out of my control.” He glared at me. “Who am I now?”
“You’re Jamie,” I replied, not afraid for him. I knew he’d find his way back to himself. His writing already gave him purpose. “Pen name Griffin Stone. The man I love, and a talented writer.” I turned toward him, wincing with the movement. “I’m not saying it will be easy or that we don’t have a rough road ahead of us. But I think we can do anything as long as we’re together.”
He was silent for a moment, processing my words.
Stupid hope rose within me.
Hope Jamie crushed when he turned to me and said, “I won’t screw up your life any more than I already have.”
For a moment, I didn’t know whether to be angry or heartbroken or understanding or defeated.
Then it hit me. I could be all those things.
But I’d survive them.
“I love you,” I told him. “I’ve loved you for half of my life. And I know I’ll never stop loving you.” Our eyes met and held, his dark with pain, mine with acceptance. “But I can’t keep doing this. I know what it’s like to live without you, and it was like walking around every day with this hole inside me.” Tears slipped down my cheeks despite my determination to be strong. “But I survived you, Jamie. I survived you then, and I will survive you now. You know why? Because I have to believe that one day, someone will come along who loves me so much, he could never imagine a world in which he’d abandon me.”
Jamie’s jaw locked and he looked quickly away.
“I just need to make peace with the fact that you’re not that guy.”
Swiping away my tears, I reached for the door handle and pulled. “I hope you find yourself. I really do.” I choked back a sob. “Goodbye.”
As I crossed the street, I met Asher’s concerned gaze and my face crumpled.
It felt like I couldn’t breathe.
I stumbled to a stop as I gasped for air, my arms wrapped around myself as I sobbed silently through the pain. I’d only just gotten Jamie back, and now I’d lost him again. As brave as I’d sounded in the car, I didn’t want someone else to come along and love me. I only wanted him. Why couldn’t he let it be him?
Strong arms wrapped around me and I melted into Asher.
Then his scent registered.
It wasn’t Asher.
“Doe, don’t cry,” Jamie pleaded in my ear. “I’m sorry, baby, don’t cry. Forgive me for always making this so damn hard on you.”
Anger, relief, and fear flooded me, and I grabbed onto him, my fingers curling into his shirt as I breathed him in.
“I’m so fucked up.” He squeezed me closer, hurting my bruised and battered ribs, but I didn’t want him to let go. “Loving me will be nowhere near as easy as it will be for me to love you. You get that, right?”
I lifted my head and he gently wiped at my cheeks, trying not to press where I was stitched and swollen and bruised. “It might not be easy now, but we’ll find our way there.”
“I’m a selfish bastard who can’t walk away from you. The minute you said goodbye, I knew I couldn’t do it. I don’t want to survive without you, Jane.” He bent his head toward mine, eyes blazing with emotion. “Aren’t you sick of just surviving?”
I nodded, wrapping my hands around his wrists. “I vote for living instead.”
His answer was a careful, loving kiss. When he lifted his head, he slid his arm around my shoulders, drawing me into his side.
Asher waved at us, giving me a relieved smile, just before he pulled from the curb and drove away. Jamie guided me back to the Porsche, and we both stopped to look up at the house.
“Let’s live instead,” he repeated before turning to me. “But not in Los Angeles.”
I smiled a little, remembering our plans when we were kids to live somewhere quiet where he could write and I could paint. Despite the hell of the last twenty-four hours, I felt happiness soak through me like sunshine prickling my skin. I’d missed that feeling. I hadn’t felt it in a very long time.
“I’ll go anywhere with you, Jamie McKenna.”
Epilogue
FIVE YEARS LATER
JANE
* * *
Colorado
* * *
The sound of eighties music filtered into the lake house from the deck. Jamie liked to write chapter notes by hand while he listened to the radio out there.
While the distinctive vocals of Phil Collins sounded in the background, I took a sip of iced tea and turned the page in the sci-fi novel Asher had recommended. These days I was tired a lot more quickly and the second bedroom that had become my art studio was in the middle of being packed up.
Jamie had hired a contractor to build a separate studio for me, but it was Sunday, so our peaceful retreat was thankfully free of construction noise. Still, we were enjoying the lake house while we could because we’d be returning to Portland in a month. We split our time between a city that had a relaxed, creative vibe that fit us, and our little slice of heaven near the Rio Grande River in Colorado.
Usually we spent the entire summer in Colorado, but we wanted to be closer to the city since I was six months pregnant with our first child.
Caressing my belly, I grew distracted, as I often did lately, and stared out of the sliding glass doors that led onto the deck and provided a beautiful view of the lake. Trees surrounded the edges of our land, and the lake glistened like a sheet of glass beneath the afternoon sun. I could see the back of Jamie’s head where he sat in his chair, daydreaming about the characters currently renting space in his imagination.
Sometimes I couldn’t get over how far we’d come. How the seven years that had shaped us so greatly often felt like they were a part of another life. I knew Jamie didn’t quite feel that as much as I did. His years in prison were filled with memories that would stay with him forever. I had my own memories, too, that I’d never be able to let go of.
Yet, if someone had told me five years ago that Jamie and I would have the life we’d always longed for, I’d never have believed them. There were bad days when I waited for the other shoe to drop, but Jamie liked to kiss those days away. He reminded me that we had what people everywhere hoped to find and never did. That for all the bad that had happened to us, our love was the balance point.
Therapy had helped us both a lot, and although we were each reluctant to take that step, it was one of the best decisions we ever made. We’d only ever been good at letting each other in—no one else. It wasn’t easy to open up to a stranger, but for the sake of our relationship, we knew we had to deal with our own issues separately to make us stronger as a couple.
It wasn’t easy. There were a few bad days back then. Especially
with everything else going on.
We decided to see our own therapists not long after Kramer attacked me and while we were unable to leave Los Angeles. We couldn’t—we were caught in the middle of several cases brought against Foster Steadman and Frank Kramer.
It wasn’t until around eight months later that we felt we could move on from LA. I’d suggested Portland after working on set production there. I’d loved the vibe. People were friendly, the food was amazing, and there was a genuine appreciation for quirkiness and creativity. There were a lot of hipsters and vegans and backyard chicken farmers, but there was just something about the place that felt right. Moreover, despite being a California girl, I liked the rain.
Only a month after moving into a house in the Northwest District, Jamie proposed. We married in a small ceremony with only Asher and Irwin Alderidge as witnesses. Alderidge was an interesting fellow. I wasn’t sure I cared for a ruthless CEO being such close friends with my husband, but I knew the man had saved Jamie’s life, so I couldn’t begrudge him the friendship. Plus, it was obvious he genuinely cared for my husband.
My husband.
I caressed the platinum wedding band and citrine-and-diamond engagement ring on my finger.
It took awhile to get used to that. When I changed my name after the wedding, I went whole hog and returned to using Jane.
I was Jane McKenna now.
Life in Portland was exactly what we needed. While Jamie’s writing career grew from strength to strength with his second runaway bestseller, Doe (which was a love story and not the personal attack Jamie had once hinted at), and Brent 29 went into production, I built on my art career. It wasn’t easy. But it was the life we’d always envisioned.
The only moments of real gloom were when we got pulled back to LA for the cases against Kramer and Steadman.
It took two long years, but Foster lost everything. His production company went bankrupt, and he was sentenced to a combined thirty-three years in prison for involvement in racketeering and drug and human trafficking.
I could never have imagined the depths of his wickedness.
In the case against him for serial sexual assault, there was a long list of accusations from women against whom Foster Steadman perpetrated acts of sexual violation and coercion, in which he threatened to ruin or make their acting careers. He was sentenced to another twenty-five years for those.
He’d spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Kramer got two years for the attack on me, along with similar charges to those brought against Foster. He wasn’t getting out anytime soon either.
The pièce de résistance for us was that Elena Marshall came forward and admitted to taking a bribe to lie in Jamie’s case. Elena was charged for giving false evidence.
Jamie was exonerated, and since he hadn’t pled guilty, he could claim compensation for wrongful conviction from the state. The State of California provided a little over $50,000 per year spent in prison as compensation in a wrongful conviction. He’d put the money toward the lake house. Since it was a private lake, the compensation was a mere deposit. Jamie had invested a fair bit of his royalties into the house.
It was worth it to see the contentment he found here.
The road had been long, but the destination was everything we’d hoped it would be.
My phone buzzed on the table beside the sectional; I picked it up to see a text from Asher. It was a photo of him in a tux, all dressed up for a New York gala he was attending in a few hours. A benefit for literacy. Rita Steadman had brought her own money to her marriage, and while it wasn’t the billions she’d married into, it was enough to set up a new life in New York. Asher followed her there after the trials.
Seeing him testify against his father was heartrending. He was one of the strongest people I’d ever met. A literacy charity now employed him, and he spent his days planning fundraising events. Despite our physical distance, our friendship didn’t break down to crumbs of communication as it had with Cassie. We were too intrinsically connected for that to happen. Asher and I spoke nearly every day, and Jamie and I had already agreed to name the little boy growing in my belly after his soon-to-be godfather.
So handsome. Have a great time! xx
Asher texted back a blowy kiss emoji, and I smiled.
A wavelike sensation in my belly made my breath hitch. I wondered if I’d ever get used to the little guy moving around in there. It was a wonder every time. The first time baby Asher kicked, it felt like gas bubbles. As the weeks wore on, I could definitely feel the thud of it more, but it wasn’t painful, just wonderfully weird.
And when he moved or shifted, it was like the ocean rolling inside me.
I wondered if he’d have Jamie’s ocean eyes. I hoped so.
Jamie had already told me he had his fingers crossed for my hazel-green ones.
Moving my feet off the couch, I planned to go to Jamie to let him feel the movement. I still didn’t like interrupting him while he was working, but he told me he wanted to feel baby Asher’s every kick and turn.
Crossing the room toward the sliding doors, however, the music coming from the radio distracted me.
I listened to the familiar notes of The Waterboys’ “The Whole of the Moon” and felt a painful ache in my chest that would probably never go away.
Jamie and Lorna’s relationship never mended.
Sometimes I thought maybe I should encourage him to reach out to her, but I wasn’t a perfect person, and the damage she’d done scared me. Jamie and I had talked about Lorna a lot over the years. We accepted our blame in the dissolution of our relationship with her, that our actions had driven her to hurt us. Jamie believed he could’ve been a more patient and understanding big brother when we were kids.
And I knew that I never should’ve forsaken her so easily for Jamie. So caught up in falling in love with him, I hadn’t considered Lorna’s feelings enough. When she gave me that ultimatum, I should’ve tried harder to convince her that choosing Jamie didn’t mean I didn’t love her.
But I didn’t try hard enough. Neither of us did.
Even so, it didn’t excuse what Lorna had done to us. I wasn’t sure I could handle her in our lives again when we’d finally found everything we were looking for. And Jamie felt the same way.
In that moment, however, as I caught sight of my husband staring out at the lake, his body tense as the song played, my thoughts turned to Skye. The painful ache her memories caused softened as I remembered where we were, that we were together and our family was growing.
Stepping outside, I moved behind Jamie and leaned down, wrapping my arms around his chest. Resting my chin on his shoulder, my cheek pressed to his, I felt him relax.
He reached for one of my arms and gently caressed my skin with his fingertips as we gazed out at the lake, listening to the song that reminded us of Skye.
Instead of grief, I felt contentment.
It was like she was there with us, telling us she was at peace now too.
“I love you, Doe,” Jamie whispered.
I nuzzled my face against his throat. “I love you too.”
* * *
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Acknowledgments
I was writing Jane and Jamie’s story just as the coronavirus was beginning to spread around the world. It’s a true testament to how enraptured I was by these characters that it wasn’t until the book was finished that I really began to feel the emotional impact of the pandemic. I’ll be forever grateful to this story for providing me with that escape. There were a lot of important subjects to tackle in this novel, and because of my sincere desire to handle them with sensitivity, this book has probably been one of the most difficult of mine to write. I gave it everything I had. And I hope readers felt my total immersion in Black Tangled Heart through the bond between Jane and Jamie.
First, I must thank the Goldbrickers for keeping me sane when I “went with my gut” a number of times writing this book. And by going “with my gut” I mean cutting chapters, rearranging narrative, and rewriting until I told the story I needed to tell. Goldbrickers, your support meant so much to me. Thank you!
For the most part writing is a solitary endeavor but publishing most certainly is not. I have to thank my wonderful editor Jennifer Sommersby Young. Thank you for believing in this story too!
And thank you to my bestie and PA extraordinaire, Ashleen Walker, for handling all the little things and supporting me through everything. I appreciate you so much. Love you lots!
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