by Shirley Jump
“A pretty big one.” Daniel grinned. “But what if you go for it...and you don’t screw up? What if the best thing ever just walked out your door today and you lost her twice? Now that would make you an idiot of Guiness World Record proportions.”
Nick ran a hand through his hair. “Is there a reason I keep you on my Christmas list?”
“Yeah, I’m always right.”
Nick paced the kitchen, the sandwich untouched on the counter, his coffee growing cold. “All my life I thought I didn’t want to have a family. I grew up with all that, and figured once I was an adult, I’d finally have me time, you know? I’d wait until I was, oh, I don’t know, Methuselah’s age to have kids. But then, these last few days, I realized...”
“That the whole family thing is a little more fun than the bachelor life?”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
“Then go for it. Take a chance. Dive headfirst into the marital pool again.”
Nick put up his hands. “I never said I wanted to run off to the nearest church.”
“Bawk, bawk, chicken-boy.” Daniel rolled his eyes. “Go after Carolyn and quit being so damned scared that you’ll make the same mistake a second time. Talk to her. You’d be amazed what can happen if you do that.”
“It’s not that simple, Daniel.” Even Nick could hear the weakness of his protest.
Daniel shot to his feet. “Hell, yes, it’s that simple. You’re looking for something that does exist if only you’ll take a chance. You’ve been playing it safe, my brother. Playing games instead of taking things seriously.”
“I am not.”
His brother shrugged. “It’s your life. You want to waste it, fine. But you’re letting the best thing that ever happened to you get away. Because you’re being too damned stubborn.” He put his mug in the sink. “Thanks for the coffee. One of these days you’ll thank me for the advice.”
His brother walked out the door. Bandit trotted beside him, a ball in his mouth. Ever hopeful. Just like Daniel.
Nick glanced around his kitchen, all neat and tidy again, the traces of Bobby and Carolyn erased. It was as if they had never been there. He put his mug in the sink, then, as he did, a piece of paper caught his eye.
He picked it up, flipped it over. The treasure map.
X marked the spot for the biggest prize. The one that had lit Bobby’s face—an old book on dragons that Carolyn had found in Nick’s study, along with a ship in a bottle Nick used to keep on the mantel. When Bobby opened the shoebox and found those two prizes, he squealed with the joy of someone unearthing a pot of gold.
What if Nick could see that look of joy every day—on his own son’s face? And share that joy, as he had today, with Carolyn by his side? See her smile, so content, so relaxed, so full of joy. For that one moment, Nick had felt as if the entire world was perfect.
His finger traced along the dashes, weaving along the 2-D version of his backyard. Maybe Daniel was right. Maybe it was as simple as following the path of his heart...
And seeing what lay at the end of that road.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
LATER THAT AFTERNOON, Nick stood in his office but didn’t get a lick of work done. He was working the phones but didn’t pursue a single client. The pink message slips piled up on his desk, his persnickety assistant’s face looking more and more concerned every time she slipped into his office and added another one to the stack. But he waved them off.
There wasn’t a thing in that pile that couldn’t wait until tomorrow. He had something far more important to handle.
In front of him he had the treasure map, filled with its dashed lines, all leading to one big X. Beneath that he had his own treasure map of sorts, though whether he’d end up finding a prize at the end or getting seriously burned still remained in doubt.
“Come on, Jerry, give me something better than that. You know you have a gold nugget sitting right in front of you that will work.” Nick paused, listening to the other man. “That sounds perfect. Okay, what do you need from me on my end?” Another pause. “Consider it done.”
Nick hung up the phone, then headed down the hall to the senior partner’s office. Within a half hour he had called a meeting of the top partners of the law firm. He pleaded his case, laid out all the facts and, to his surprise, swayed every last one of them into supporting his project.
“I have to tell you, Nick,” said Graham Norbett, one of the oldest senior partners, as he exited the room and clapped Nick on the shoulder, “that was one of the best arguments I’ve ever heard you make. You had such passion. Such...belief in what you were saying.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“It’s nice to see you becoming so excited about something. So committed. Not that you aren’t committed to your job, of course, but—” the gray-haired man tipped his head “—a man your age needs a passion in life, and I think you’ve found yours.” One more clap on the shoulder, then Graham walked away.
“Mr. Gilbert,” his gray-haired assistant, Harriet, said, leaning inside the room. “I hate to bother you, but you’ve got someone waiting in your office.”
“On my way.”
“All right.” Harriet, who hated to get behind at work, had stress written all over her face. Nick chuckled to himself. His assistant always had her hands full keeping him on track. Whenever he went off the beaten path of how things should work, Harriet’s blood pressure rose twenty points. He made a note to give her another vacation day. The woman was going to need it after this week.
As Nick started working the phones again, this time using his cell, he wondered about Graham’s remarks. Finding his passion. Maybe he had. Or maybe it was just a one-day enthusiasm for something new. No way to know...at least until he proved he could pull this off. Nick kept on talking, making use of every second on the walk back down the hall to his office. “Yeah, Marty, that sounds good. I can—”
He stopped, midconversation, when he saw who sat in the dark-brown leather chair opposite his desk. “Marty? I’m going to have to call you back... Sure, two o’clock works great for me. Thanks.”
He slid the phone into his pocket, entered his office and shut the door. “Carolyn. What are you doing here? Is Bobby all right?”
“Bobby is fine. I wanted to talk to you about us.” She smoothed her hands over her skirt, then glanced up at him. “I realize I ran out of your house this morning without much of an explanation.”
Already, he could tell by her stiff language and demeanor that this wasn’t going to go well. “You did.”
“I know I said I had to get to work, but really...” she smoothed her skirt again, then laced her fingers together and met his gaze head-on “—I was avoiding being alone with you. These last few days have...resurrected old feelings, and I came by to make sure that you knew there is nothing between us.”
He took a seat on the edge of his desk. “Nothing. At all? Between us?”
“There’s some attraction, sure, but—”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what? I’m being honest.”
“You’re breaking up with me again. For no good reason. Again.”
“I had good reasons the first time. And now.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Okay. What are they?”
“I already told you. We can’t have a relationship based solely on attraction.”
“I agree. And you, Carolyn, are just talking, but nothing is coming out. What do you really want to say?”
Carolyn popped out of the seat and crossed to the window, as if she couldn’t look at him anymore. She stared out at the same city that ran below her view a few blocks away. “I can’t be with you, Nick. It doesn’t matter if I want you or not, if we had a few days that were fun. Us being together is just not a good idea.”
“And you had to come all the w
ay over here, in person, to tell me that?”
She nodded.
He came up behind her, pausing a moment to inhale the floral notes of her perfume, then he reached out and took her into his arms, holding her to his chest. She resisted at first, then leaned into him. “Perjury,” he whispered.
“No, Nick.” She turned and twisted out of his arms. “It’s self-preservation. It’s what I do best.”
“Self-preservation? Or fear?”
“Maybe both. Either way I don’t get hurt. And I keep on putting the bad guys in jail. Win-win, right?”
“I only see you losing.” He wanted to shake her, to force her to see what she was giving up. Frustration rose in his chest, tightening his heart. “In these last few days, I saw a side of you, Carolyn, a fun side, a laughing, happy side. You deserve that happiness. And you can balance that with your career. You know you can.”
But she was already shaking her head. “I’m already happy.”
“Working a million hours a week? Living alone? Come on, don’t give me that. I’m living that lie and I’m not happy.”
As the words left him, he realized how true they were. He wasn’t happy. He hadn’t been happy in a long time.
Three years, to be exact.
He had everything a bachelor could want. The problem? The bachelor didn’t want that life. He wanted the woman he’d married.
She let out a gust. “You’re asking me to do the impossible, Nick. I can’t.”
“What’s so impossible? We try again?” He closed the gap between them, cupped her jaw. “Was it that bad, Carolyn?”
Tears shimmered in her gaze, then she shook her head and they were gone. “No. But that’s what made the end so much worse. I’m not going to open my heart to you and be vulnerable and have you let me down. I needed you, Nick, and I never need anyone. Do you have any idea how much it cost me to ask you for help that day?”
He opened his mouth, then shook his head. “I never lived your life, Carolyn. I’m not going to pretend to say I know. But if you’ll let me in—”
“No. I did that and you let me down.”
“I—” He cut off his sentence, then breathed out a sigh. “I did. I was young and stupid and didn’t realize what being a good husband was all about. I’m sorry, Carolyn. I’m really, really sorry.”
She stared at him, her lips parted in surprise. “It’s all right. It’s in the past.”
“No, it’s not all right. You needed me to understand why you had to go to Boston. I should have done that, and moreover, I should have gone with you. Stood by you. But I was too damned selfish, too damned focused on myself to see what you needed.” He took her hands in his. “When Ronald Jakes got out of jail, and you saw his face on the screen, I don’t think I realized what that did to you. I grew up with everything, Carolyn, and that made me blind. Cavalier. Insensitive. I don’t think I realized fully what you went through until this week. I should have. I’m sorry.”
“I...” A smile flitted across her face. “Thank you.”
He cupped her jaw, his fingers trailing along her face. “You’ve had a hell of a life, and I admire you for what you’ve done with it. How you’ve turned a tragedy into a passion. I just don’t want to see you do that at the expense of everything else.”
She broke away from him, crossed her arms over her body and headed for another window. Everything about her again spelled distance. Nick couldn’t understand why. “There’s something else that’s been bothering me ever since I saw you again. Something that’s bothered me ever since I walked out of that diner, and you...you let me go. Never fought for the marriage. For me.”
“What?”
“I’ve prosecuted a lot of cases, Nick.” She turned, put her back to the window. “I know when a defendant is holding something back. When there’s that little tidbit he’s left out. What aren’t you telling me? Why did you give up on us so easily?”
He swallowed, and knew he had to be honest, to tell her everything. If there was ever going to be any hope of getting Carolyn back, they would have to start their relationship with good, strong honest bricks this time. “I followed you.”
He watched the pieces fall into place, the numbers adding in her emerald gaze. “To Boston. When I went after Ronald Jakes again.”
A faint smile crossed his face. “You asked me once if I was trying to play Lancelot when you wanted to go to Boston. I guess that’s what I was doing. When I told you not to go, it was because I wanted to protect you. But you went anyway. I thought if I followed you, I could still protect you. I wanted to stop you from doing anything rash.” He’d known that she’d gone out there, charged with the fire of vengeance and worry for the people Jakes had gone after, and Nick had hoped to head off Carolyn’s rush to justice. “But—”
“But when you got there, I was already in the middle of the situation.”
“Why did you do that, Carolyn? Risk your life with that maniac?”
She backed up, turned away and went back to the window, her breath escaping her in a long whoosh. “I thought I could help. I thought I could tell the police something about how the man thought. I thought I could stop him, bring about some miracle Hollywood ending.”
“And you didn’t.”
“I never thought he’d do that. I never thought—” Carolyn cut off the sentence, then drew in some strength, and finished it “—he’d kill himself.”
“And leave you without the closure you went there looking to get.”
“I didn’t go there for closure. I went there to help.”
He shook his head, wishing he could get her to stop lying to herself, too. “You went there to fill those empty spots inside you. I saw it in your eyes. Saw it when you ran past the police barrier and insisted they let you help. I thought I was doing you a favor by letting you go, letting you pursue your passion, because I knew what it meant to you. I kept thinking you would find the missing pieces left by what you went through with your father. I thought if I let you go, you’d come back eventually, but all that did was allow you to bury yourself further in a hole you’ve never climbed out of.”
“I’m not in a hole, Nick.” But she looked away as she said the words.
“Oh, yes, you are. I know because I’m in the same one. For a different reason. My life is empty, Carolyn. Literally and figuratively. I live in a big empty house, a house that I now see means nothing without you in it. After you left today, I realized I didn’t want to go back to what I had before. I want more.”
He stayed close to her, not touching her, but close enough to inhale those floral notes, to see the tendrils of blond hair that danced around her jawline, the tears that pooled in her green eyes. “All these years, I’ve been searching for what I lost that day in the diner, just like you. But after this weekend, something changed for me, and now I’m prepared to make the leap and go after it. While you’re still too afraid to make any changes.”
She shook her head so hard, little wisps of hair escaped her bun. “I’m not afraid.”
“You’re more afraid than anyone I know, honey.”
Her chin came up, determination setting her jaw. “Don’t you understand? Every time I let someone get close, they get hurt. Like my father. I can’t risk that.” She shook her head, backing up, away from him. “No, Nick, it’s safer this way. Safer if I just keep living my life the way I always have.”
“Safer for who? For you? Because I sure as hell don’t mind taking the risk.” He saw her throwing up the walls again, building them so fast she was blocking any chance of them ever being together again. “Don’t do this a second time, Carolyn.”
“Nick, I have my career to think about. I’ll be buried under cases, motions to file, briefs to prepare—”
“There will always be cases, Carolyn.”
“Maybe someday down the road, we can...” She
shrugged, her face crumpling a little.
And then he knew, all the pieces of this weekend, of the past three years piling on top of one another rushing at him—this wasn’t just about them, it wasn’t about her leaving for Boston that day. It was some bottomless debt she had never let herself finish paying.
“Oh, God, Carolyn, don’t you think you’ve atoned enough for that day?” he said, his voice gentle, low.
She tried to hold his gaze, tried to keep her chin up, but then her lips began to quiver, her eyes filled and she had to look away. She shook her head, her fists balling at her side, Carolyn the Bulldog working so damned hard to maintain her composure, her walls. And every one of them began to fall a little at a time. “That’s not what I’m doing.”
Nick went to her, taking her arms, his hands sliding down to those determined fists, peeling back those fingers, slipping his hands into hers. “Oh, sweetheart, you can’t stop them all.”
“I’m not...” And then she was crying, really crying, and she stumbled into his arms, her tears soaking his shirt, drowning the silk of his tie. “I have to try, Nick, I have to try.”
Nick just held her tight, letting the grief pour out. The realizations that the Ronald Jakeses of the world would just keep coming, day after day after day, in convenience stores and playgrounds and houses, and all Carolyn could do was try to put a finger in the dike and hope to stem the rising tide. “Carolyn, you can’t stop them all,” he murmured into her hair.
She shook her head, trembling in his arms. “What if I miss one? What if another child gets hurt? What if—”
Nick drew back, meeting her watery green eyes with his own. “What if you stop for one minute and live your own life? Will that be such a crime?”
“Look what happened to Bobby’s father. That guy should have been in jail, not out on the streets with a gun. If he had been, Bobby’s father would be alive today.”
He stepped back, frustrated. “That’s not even rational and you know it. Things like that happen everywhere. Every day. You can’t stop the whole world.”