by Kara Isaac
Twenty-Eight
ALLIE LOOKED AT THE PAPERS spread across the table. They’d been waiting for her when she walked back into the hotel. It was true: Derek was telling the truth. She was married. To him.
She’d spent the whole afternoon staring at the thin pile. Reading and rereading the ruling. Praying the words would somehow miraculously change to We find in favor of the plaintiff. But no—they remained what they’d been the first time she’d read them. In favor of the defendant.
She’d even put in a call to the lawyers just to make certain it wasn’t a terrible mistake, only to find out the partner whose name was at the bottom of the page had keeled over from a heart attack that very same day and the office was closed for his funeral!
She looked at the date for the thousandth time. The court’s decision had come out the day she’d last rung the lawyers, the morning after Pizza-gate. If she’d called a few hours later, it would’ve been waiting for her.
The irony of her life knew no bounds.
“I don’t understand.” Kat sat next to her, reading through the papers. “How can they find in his favor?”
“A technicality. Something about the papers not being filed correctly in Vegas.”
“And that took two years for them to work out?”
“And thousands of dollars.”
“What are you going to do?”
Allie pressed her hands against her temples. “What can I do?”
Kat studied her face. “You aren’t seriously thinking about going back to him.”
“I said vows, Kat. In front of two hundred people. In front of God. I meant them. If the court has decided I’m married to him, I have to at least give it a try. Maybe he’s changed.” Even to her own ears, the last sentence sounded like she was trying to convince herself. So it was no surprise when Kat snorted.
“You never liked him.”
Her friend ran her fingers through her hair. “I never thought he was good enough for you, Allie, that’s true. He was too smooth, too polished. What about Jackson?”
Just the sound of his name made her want to curl in on herself. “Jackson wants nothing to do with me. Not that I blame him.”
“Yeah, well, bit of a shock to find out the girl you’ve fallen in love with is already married, I’d imagine.”
“He’s not in love with me.” She couldn’t let herself go there. It was bad enough trying to deal with knowing he’d had feelings for her. Had being the key word.
“If it makes it easier for you to believe that, go for it, but the guy looks at you like you hung the stars in the sky.”
She couldn’t even think about that. Thank goodness nothing had happened between them. Well, nothing physical. The way her heart felt like it was being pummeled and repeatedly rolled through a pasta machine made it clear the same couldn’t be said in other ways.
She rolled her fingertips over her temples, trying to work away the building headache. “For better or worse, for richer or poorer—that’s what I vowed. I have to at least try to believe we’ve gone through the worst.”
Her phone vibrated on the table. What now? An international number flashed on her screen. Her stomach contorted. In all the madness of the last couple of days, she’d totally forgotten she put in a call to Dr. Everett with a couple of questions about the job opportunity—not that his answers mattered anymore. She couldn’t leave New Zealand before sorting out this marriage mess, one way or the other. And that was going to take a whole lot longer than Dr. Everett had.
She couldn’t believe it. After spending the last year applying for every vacancy in academia for which she was vaguely qualified and getting nowhere, she was giving up a chance at her dream job.
Picking up the phone, she took a breath and answered the call. “Allie speaking.”
“Dr. Shire, Dr. Everett here. I have the answers to your questions about the position.” The British accent was as clear as if it had been coming from across the room, rather than the other side of the world.
Might as well confront this head-on. Get it over and done with before she could overthink it. “Dr. Everett. Thank you for returning my call. I’m so sorry but I’ve just had a family situation unexpectedly come up. I’m not sure how long I’m going to be tied up with it and I would hate to waste your time. So unfortunately, I don’t think it’s going to work to apply for the position. Thank you for thinking of me, though. I really appreciate it.”
Kat had stopped reading the papers and was staring at her.
“I’m disappointed to hear that, Dr. Shire. Would you like me to keep your CV on file if anything arises in the future?”
Her throat closed for a second. First Jackson and now this? She was sacrificing so much for a marriage she didn’t even want to a man she didn’t even love. “Yes. Please. Thank you, sir.”
“You’re welcome.” He cleared his throat. “I hope your family situation resolves itself.”
Not half as much as she did. “Thank you.”
Ending the call, she leaned back and closed her eyes.
“What was that about?”
The only person she’d told about the job was Jackson, foolishly hoping he would be the one giving her a reason not to take it. “A possible lecturing job at Oxford.”
“And you turned it down.”
“You can’t turn down what you haven’t been offered. I was just asked if I was interested in applying. I probably wouldn’t have gotten it anyway.” Better to assume that and not even allow herself to think about what might have been.
Kat muttered something under her breath.
Allie opened her eyes and looked at her friend. “What was that?”
“If Derek hasn’t changed, I’m going to kill him.”
Allie tossed her phone back onto the table. “You won’t have the chance, because if Derek hasn’t changed, I’m going to kill him.”
Kat tapped the papers with her nails. “I still can’t believe it.”
“Can you manage the last couple of days?” She’d already told Derek to book her a ticket on the last flight to Auckland. At least that way if she couldn’t make it, it would cost him something for once.
“You mean you’re going to go tonight?”
“I can’t stay here. I’ll tell the head office there’s been a family emergency.” She couldn’t face Jackson and see the hurt and betrayal flashing across his face. Didn’t trust herself with what she might say—or do—if she saw him again. It was better that she just leave.
She’d have to go without saying good-bye to everyone on the tour—that would be tough. She’d never had to abandon a tour before. She felt like a mother hen abandoning her chicks.
“Are you sure this is what you want to do?”
“It’s what I have to do.” What she wanted to do was find Jackson and tell him she’d fallen for him. Ask him to forgive her. Beg him to give what they had a chance. Serve Derek with divorce papers, offer him whatever he wanted to not fight it.
“Why? Why is this what you have to do? You don’t owe him anything. Not another chance. Not a single solitary thing.”
“Shires don’t get divorced, okay?” The words burst out of her and hit the room. “My parents have the most miserable marriage known to man built on that one principle. So I have to try. I know my family isn’t exactly the Brady Bunch, but they’re all I have. I can’t face them if I don’t give my marriage a chance.”
Kat curled both hands around her shoulders. “Is that what this is about? Not besmirching the family name?”
“She doesn’t try, Kat. My mother has never tried. My whole life I have never seen her make any effort to make it work with my dad. I have to be better than that. The court says I’m married to Derek, so I’m going to be different and at least give it my best, even if it makes no sense to anyone. Even if it’s the last thing I want to do. I need to try—for me, even if it
all ends badly, so I can look myself in the mirror and know I gave it a shot. So I can at least try and clean my slate with God and make this right somehow.”
Kat bit her lip. “Allie, God doesn’t want your clean slate. He just wants you.”
No one had ever wanted just her. Allie bit her bottom lip. She had nothing left to say. No other words to explain the compulsion to open the door of her life, her heart, back to Derek.
Allie could see the fight go out of Kat’s eyes. “Okay. I’ll be praying for you.”
There was a knock on the door. “That’ll be him.” Her husband. She couldn’t even think the words without feeling like she was going to suffocate. God, help me.
Kat stood. “I’m going to go to my room—otherwise I might slug him.”
“I’ll come say good-bye. I’m almost packed.” She’d call Susannah from the airport. She hoped they didn’t already have a houseguest residing in the spare room.
Another thing to add to her to-do list: contact the property manager and find out who was living in her house and when their lease was up. Allie and her sister hadn’t shared a roof for more than a few nights in over a decade; it was probably best if they kept it that way.
If there wasn’t any room at her sister’s, she’d book herself into something nice and fancy until she knew what the situation was with her house. Maybe the Hilton. Now that the court ruling was out, the freeze on her assets would be lifted, so she might as well spend some of it before Derek did.
Stop it. If this thing was going to have a chance, she couldn’t think like that.
“You don’t have to do this.” Kat broke her chain of thought by putting a hand on her friend’s shoulder, as if knowing a hug would break her.
Allie pinched the bridge of her nose. No tears—especially not in front of Derek. “Except I do.”
Twenty-Nine
JACKSON LIMPED INTO HIS HOTEL room. He was testing out his ankle without crutches, since he had to return them to the hospital the following morning.
At least the shards of pain spiraling up his foot kept him distracted from the epic disaster his life had become. He hadn’t even thought that was possible when he’d agreed to come to this blasted country—turned out he was wrong! Like he’d been about everything recently.
The whole day was a blur. He’d gone down to breakfast, steeled himself to see Allie and feel nothing, only for Kat to tell the group that Allie had a family emergency and wouldn’t be back. He hadn’t missed the sympathetic glance Kat sent his way.
He’d then spent half the day trying to dodge writing in the card one of the twins had rustled up for the group to send to Allie. He’d failed, but had managed to get away with just scrawling his indecipherable signature.
The rest of the day was spent avoiding his uncle, who gave him knowing eyes every time he looked his way.
Thankfully, his ankle provided the perfect cover to miss a few activities and sit around and stew in his own septic funk instead.
He couldn’t believe she was gone. Just like that.
He didn’t even bother trying to convince himself he was fine about it—not when his entire being felt like it had been swallowed by a black hole.
Married. How could she be married? It was like the punch line to a really bad joke.
Hopping into the bathroom, he popped a couple of the codeine pills he’d been prescribed and washed them down with a glass of water.
He checked his watch. Right on time to talk to Beth. Hopping back into the main room, he flopped onto the queen-size bed and opened his laptop.
Sucking in a breath, he tried to find some sort of equilibrium. Time to get some perspective, Jackson. What his parents were dealing with was way worse than anything he was going through.
He opened up his Skype screen and checked to see if his sister was already online. Her icon flashed green on his screen, so he hit the VIDEO CALL button. It only got out a split second of the calling tone before the little schwoop sounded. However, instead of his sister’s face, his parents appeared.
They looked . . . relaxed? He rubbed his eyes and maximized the screen. No, he hadn’t been mistaken; some of the stress shadowing their faces the last time they’d talked was gone.
Something lifted inside him—maybe they’d had some good news from the doctor and things weren’t as bad as they’d first thought.
“Hi, Mom. Dad.”
“We’ve sold the farm!”
He blinked. Tried to process what they’d said. No hello, nothing. “What do you mean you’ve sold the farm?”
His dad wrapped an arm around his mom’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Well, we don’t have the cash yet. We settle next week, but it’s all locked in.”
“I don’t understand.”
His mom smiled. A real genuine grin. “We got a good offer. A more than generous offer. Enough that we can buy a smaller place a bit closer to town with enough money left over to fund most of my treatments.”
Had the entire world gone mad? “But the farm’s been in our family for five generations. You’ve put everything into that land.”
His dad leaned forward, his nose and lips taking up the screen. “You’re right, son, but not everything is meant to last forever, Jackson. We’ve loved our life here, but things change. Nick and Beth have their own place to look after and you don’t want to be a farmer. I’m sixty years old. It’s time to let it go.”
He wished he could rebut his father, but his dad was right. There was not a single atom of Jackson that wanted to be a farmer. Not even to keep the farm his great-great-great-grandfather had won in a poker game in the family.
“Your mom’s illness has been a blessing.”
Jackson blinked, unwilling to accept what he’d heard. Stage-three cancer a blessing?
Another shoulder squeeze. “Not knowing how much time she may have left has made us prioritize the important things in life. Spending time together, enjoying Lacey, Dylan, and Baby Bean. We want to travel and spread our wings a little. We may even come and visit you.”
“But I was going to get you the money . . . I was going to find a way . . .” His words trailed off. He couldn’t promise that. The odds were at least fifty-fifty Louis wouldn’t invest in him. And if that happened, he had nowhere left to turn.
His father leaned forward. “Son, I need you to listen to me. We appreciate everything you’ve done for us. We truly do. But we never asked you to rescue us, Jackson. That’s not your job. Never has been. Never will be. I’m not sure how you got the idea this was your burden to bear.”
Because he’d left. Because he was a disappointment. Because he figured if he didn’t want to be a farmer, he at least had to redeem himself in other ways.
“At the end of the day, Jackson, it’s only dirt. Lots of dirt. Has it been in our family a long time? Sure. Will I miss it? Of course I will, but it’s not everything. I’m a husband first, then a father, then a grandfather. Those God-given roles are way more important and mean far more in eternity than the ground I till.”
“Are you sure this is what you want?” He didn’t even know why he asked the question. It wasn’t like he could conjure up a better solution out of thin air.
“It’s an answer to prayer.” His mother’s gray bob bounced as she nodded. “More than. We prayed that if God wanted us to sell, He would send a buyer to offer at least enough for us to pay off our debts and buy a new place. What He’s provided is one who is paying far, far more.”
Jackson studied his parents’ faces. They were both terrible liars and there was no sign they were trying to put on a brave face for his sake. No, they looked genuinely happy. Relaxed, even.
“Well, then, that’s great. I’m glad it’s all worked out.” It was the best he could manage in his still shell-shocked state. “When will you be moving?”
“Even though we settle next week, the new owner isn’t in a hurr
y to take over. His lawyer said he’s happy for us to stay until we’ve found a new place if we still run the day-to-day operations. He’ll take over paying the staff, utilities, everything.”
It all sounded too good to be true. Well, as good as it got in the circumstances. But if there was anyone who deserved to be the beneficiaries of such good luck, it was his parents.
“That’s great.” What was he killing himself for? The farm was gone, his parents didn’t need money for his mom’s treatment. The idea of getting his investors their money back no longer drove him mad like it had before. What was the whole point of this? Allie was gone. It was all for nothing.
He realized he couldn’t even remember when he’d last thought about Richard and Nicole. Or the anticipated thrill of building up a new business out of the ashes. He didn’t miss his old life in L.A. a single bit.
He didn’t even care about getting back into business; it was just a means to an end. An end that no longer existed.
What was he going to do now?
Thirty
JACKSON DROPPED THEIR TWO CARRY-ON bags beside some spare armchairs in the airport lounge. The lone perk of traveling with someone who had a seat at the front of the plane while he had seat 56J to look forward to. Maybe thirteen hours with his knees up to his nose would distract him from the feeling of his heart being ripped out of his chest and fed through a shredder.
Slumping in his seat, he tried to untangle his thoughts. Three weeks ago he’d been in this very airport, willing to go to almost any lengths to convince Louis to fund his next venture. Now, he wasn’t sure he wanted it.
The only thing monopolizing his thoughts—his every breath—was that he’d somehow managed to fall for a married woman. And he had no idea how he was going to get over her.
He looked up to see his uncle beside him, a cup of coffee and a cookie balanced in his hand. “Let me get that for you.” He took the cup and saucer and placed them down on the table between their seats.