The Way Back

by Stephanie Doyle

  He needed to get rid of her before he did something utterly stupid.

  Like fall for her.

  * * *

  “LATE NIGHT?”

  Gabby looked up as Susan entered the dining room to refill her morning coffee. They were the most civil words Susan had spoken to her since she’d been forced to take her back. And she was giving her seconds on coffee. Bonus.

  Maybe Gabby was finally winning the woman over with her charm…and the fact that she didn’t require fresh towels every single day. She was perfectly fine with letting them dry and reusing them, which both helped the environment and spared the woman from daily laundry.

  “Yes,” Gabby answered tentatively. She wasn’t sure how the protective mother bear would take to knowing she’d gone out to dinner with Jamie. No doubt Susan would think Gabby was trying to use her seductive wiles to get his story out of him.

  Fat chance that would work given that she had offered herself up on a silver platter only to find out he wasn’t dying of hunger. Although his kiss had suggested hunger. It teased at hunger…until he pulled away. Or she pulled away. She wasn’t really sure who ended it first.

  Just one of many things that kept her awake the whole night.

  “You were out with Jamie. I know. So does the whole town if it matters to you.”

  Swell.

  “Not that you would have been able to keep a secret. Doug, the ferry boat captain, gave you away. Or maybe it was his first mate, Eli. Regardless, everyone knew you two were headed to the mainland on a date. And if that didn’t do the trick sitting in Jamie’s truck outside the B and B didn’t exactly scream discretion.”

  “It was just one date.”

  Susan sat across from Gabby and Gabby braced herself for what the woman was going to say. Rather than wait, she decided to head her off at the pass.

  “Look, I know you don’t approve. You probably think I’m a slut in a chubby woman’s body bent on seducing him for my own nefarious purposes. But trust me, Jamie is a grown man and can take care of himself. I’m fairly certain he can withstand the charms of little ole me.”

  He did withstand her charms. Then he kissed her and made it all better.

  Blasted man.

  Susan sighed. “You know, this time I don’t think I’m worried about him. I think I’m worried about you.”

  There was an interesting statement. Gabby wondered if finally someone on this island was going to cop to the fact that Jamie wasn’t the greatest man on the planet.

  He was flawed. Seriously flawed.

  “Because he cheats on women?”

  Susan nearly growled. “No. What happened between him and his wife is something you and I are never going to know about in full. But I can tell you this, whatever happened between them broke him in a fundamental way. The man who came to this island looking for sanctuary was devastated and more than a little emotionally closed off. After time he came to trust us. Mostly because we needed him so desperately, each in our own way, and because of his nature he was always there to help. But in all this time he’s never gone so far as to have a real relationship with someone. Yes, women have come and gone. Never for long, and never in a way that changes his habits or thoughts on the possibility of getting married again.”

  “Not even Zhanna?”

  “His relationship with Zhanna is different. If you see them together you’ll see they’re still guarded with one another. On his side and hers, too.”

  Gabby shook her head not even knowing why she was asking questions. She wasn’t going to have a real relationship with Jamie. Any day now, her editor was going to call and ask for a status update and Gabby was going to have to come clean. There was no book. No story. No special connection with Jamie.

  She was going to be fired. Again. And, unlike the last incident, this time she would deserve to be. She wasn’t doing her job and she didn’t have the publisher’s best interests in mind. Losing the job would mean she’d probably have to move in with her mother for a while so she could regroup and think of a new, new profession. A new, new life.

  Really, the smartest thing to do right now would be to go upstairs, pack her stuff and head to Philadelphia before things got awkward or embarrassing. For her, for Jamie, for her boss.

  Instead, Gabby continued to sip her coffee as she sorted what Susan was saying in a logical pattern. “You’re worried about me dating Jamie because you think he might hurt me because he’s never opened up to a woman since his divorce.”

  “That’s about right.”

  “What makes you think I would open up to him?”

  Susan smiled in a way that reminded Gabby of her mother. An expression that said people her age knew more about everything in general.

  “Honey, you are a walking heart, waiting for someone to love. Now, maybe you think you’re protecting it. But I think, deep down inside, you want to hand it over to someone. The right someone.”

  “I am not,” Gabby snapped. “I am closed, guarded and overly self-protective. I don’t want to give my heart to anyone. I also don’t particularly want it stolen.” Which she was in danger of letting happen.

  Susan shook her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t think so. Maybe you’ve closeted yourself away from the world to protect yourself, but you don’t have the kind of walls I’ve seen in other people. There is nothing hard or brittle about you. You’ll fall in love with him. Don’t be too upset, dear, most of us already have. I just worry that he can give you what you need.”

  The piercing fear that Gabby might have already started her descent into a pit of emotions over Jamie made her feel nauseous. “I’m not going to fall in love with Jamison Hunter.”

  “Okay. Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  The woman picked up the carafe and turned to leave but Gabby had to ask one more question. “Susan, what did he do for you? You said you all needed him each in your own way. Why?”

  Gabby could see the hesitation in the woman. Whatever it was she certainly didn’t want to talk about it and Gabby was about to let her off the hook, when she put the pot on the table and once again took the seat across from Gabby.

  Slowly and deliberately, like a person getting ready to do an interview on camera who didn’t want to make any odd movements, Susan crossed her legs and linked her hands together. It all added to the solemnity of what she was about to say.

  Gabby almost didn’t want to hear it. Except she was riveted to her chair. In an instinctive move she reached across the table and put her hand on top of the woman’s hands. Susan pulled one hand away, patted Gabby’s and smiled.

  “See, no walls for you. You don’t keep people out. You let them in.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  “No, it’s okay. I don’t mind telling it now. I told you the story of my ex-husband George. How he left me.”

  Yes, Gabby remembered how easily the woman told the story, too. As though they were two casual friends who had decided to go their separate ways with no hard feelings. How stupid Gabby was to think that could have been even remotely true. Divorce always left scars.

  “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

  ZHANNA 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 we
re 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.