by Barbara Gee
Can he stay by himself or will he go to his parents’ place for a while?
It was a few minutes before Hannah answered. He’s actually going to Jude’s place. Jude moved home yesterday, by the way. He’s going to put JP in the main floor bedroom until he’s ready to live on his own again.
Hearing that Jude was back in his own home caused a weird mix of emotions. I was happy the house was finished and he could finally enjoy living there again, but I’d pictured myself helping him get settled in there. I’d looked forward to it. I’d wanted to help him pick out furniture and decorate and put all his stuff in cupboards and drawers. I wanted to weed the flower beds again while he mowed the lawn with his shirt off. I wanted to cook together in that great new kitchen. I wanted to relax with him on the front porch after a long day.
I felt paralyzed with regret. How was I going to get past this?
I sent a text back saying I was glad Jude was back home, and I attempted to keep things light by saying I knew Lulu was going to miss him. Hannah’s reply came quickly.
She’s already moping around. She somehow knows he’s not coming back. I’m going to go out and walk her on the trail for a while, if you want to join me. She’s not great with the leash, but it’ll give her some new things to sniff and maybe help take her mind off Jude.
I jumped at the chance. I’d already put in way more work hours than I should have for the week, and a walk with a friend sounded like heaven. Plus, she might tell me more about Jude. I was so hungry for news of him I could hardly stand it.
As I changed into a pair of workout capris and sneakers, I wondered if Jude thought of me much anymore. Did he wonder if I’d broached the subject of the cameras with Abigail yet? I hadn’t, but I was getting closer. Ian had assigned the two of us to the same project this week, and although it wasn’t a difficult job and we didn’t have to interact a lot, when we did she was short and snippy with me. Also, judging from some of the questions Ian was asking about my work, she was trying to make it look like I wasn’t pulling my weight. Which was ridiculous, because I’d worked almost double her own hours.
I didn’t have Ian’s ear the way she did, though, and contacting him one-on-one to plead my case could easily backfire by making Abigail even more suspicious of me where Ian was concerned. So I was gearing myself up to confront Abigail directly about the cameras, and hopefully that would lead to us hashing things out once and for all. If I could get her to believe I had zero interest in Ian personally, maybe she’d be willing to work at moving past her baseless jealousy and stop trying to sabotage me. If that appeared to be the case, if I thought she really did want to better our work relationship, I would agree not to tell Ian about the cameras. For now, at least.
I pulled my hair up into a ponytail and went downstairs to fill my water bottle, thinking how nice it would be to run my Abigail plan past Jude. I had no doubt he’d be able to improve upon it. Too bad that was no longer an option.
I hurried out my back door to the gate in the fence. Hannah was just coming out of her house with Lulu in tow, and she was right—the little dog wasn’t at all fond of the leash. I couldn’t help laughing as she dug in her front feet and tried to resist Hannah’s pulling.
Hannah started laughing too. “Come on, you stubborn wiener dog. I’m just trying to give you a change of scenery.”
Lulu looked at me hopefully as I approached, like she thought maybe I’d rescue her from the horror attached to her collar.
I squatted and gave her a good rub. “It’s okay, girl. Let’s go sniff out some squirrels, how about that?”
We finally got Lulu to the back fence, and once we were through the gate, she was a lot more open to the idea of a walk. She put her nose to the ground and pushed through the vegetation on the way to the trail, snuffling and sneezing as she went.
“Thanks for asking me to join you,” I said, filling my lungs with the fresh, forest-scented air. “I definitely needed to get out of my office.”
“Is that how you’ve been coping?” Hannah asked, giving me a knowing look. “Working insane hours?”
“It’s the only thing I know to do,” I admitted, appreciating the fact that she wasn’t going to pretend nothing was wrong. “I’ll go nuts if I just sit around doing nothing, hoping Jude calls. Or texts. Or shows up.” I shook my head and gave her a half-hearted smile. “I’ll take anything at this point.”
“Yeah, I get it. I hoped you guys would be talking again by now.”
We got to the trail and headed the same direction I’d gone with Jude all those weeks ago, deepening my melancholy.
“I’ve almost called him a hundred times, but with the whole JP thing, I figured it would be better to wait for him to find the time to contact me. Or maybe that’s just me being a coward. Again.” I shrugged sadly. “I think he’s moved on, Hannah, and I don’t blame him. I just wish I could go back and do things differently.”
She tugged Lulu away from a pile of deer droppings. “I know you said you want to talk to Jude about things before anyone else, but if you’ve changed your mind and need to just get it out, I promise I can keep my mouth shut.”
“I know you can,” I said. I wondered if Jude would mind, and I pretty quickly decided to risk it. I really did need to vent.
“If I tell you, you’re going to think I’m a complete idiot,” I predicted. “Everything—this whole misunderstanding—could have been so easily avoided if I hadn’t been so stubborn. I convinced myself I was doing the right thing, but in hindsight, it’s plain to see I wasn’t.”
“Okay, well, now that you’ve totally piqued my curiosity, let’s test your theory. Tell me what happened and I’ll tell you if you were as much of an idiot as you think.” Hannah smiled as she said it, and I poked her with my elbow.
“Promise to be honest and not try to spare my feelings?” I asked.
“I promise, but I’ll be nice about it.”
I chuckled. “Thanks for that.”
“Spill it,” she urged. “I need to know what happened so I can plot to get you two back together again. I’d rather you figure it out on your own, but it appears you might need some help.”
“If only we could get back together,” I said on a groan, turning my head to check on Lulu. A flash of color caught my attention just as I heard my name called in a high, trilling voice.
“Avaaaaaaa! Ava, wait up, dear!”
I stopped and turned all the way around, groaning quietly again when I recognized Donna and Rosie hurrying toward us, arms pumping furiously. Donna was resplendent in a fuchsia velour tracksuit, while Rosie wore a more subdued violet. Both wore bright white sneakers, and Rosie had even added white sweatbands on both wrists.
“Ava Ann, you stood us up on Monday,” Donna accused. “We waited and waited, but we finally had to get on with our walk or it would’ve gotten too dark.”
Up to this second, my promise to go walking with them hadn’t once crossed my mind. After hearing the men in the restaurant parking lot talking about the accident, everything else had gone out of my head.
“Oh, Donna, I’m so sorry. Something came up and I completely forgot. I didn’t no-show on purpose.”
“We’ll forgive you this once, dear,” Rosie said agreeably, “as long as you make it up to us.”
“I will. I promise.” I gave Hannah an apologetic smile and then introduced her to my friends. They greeted her warmly and assured her she was welcome to join the three of us when we walked. Hannah good-naturedly said that would be fun to do sometime.
“Okay, well we’d best get going. I have supper in the oven and Ray won’t be happy if I’m not home before it gets dried out,” Donna said. “Have a good evening, girls.”
They marched off, their feet actually moving in sync, and Hannah tugged a snorting Lulu out of the bushes so we could get on with our own walk.
“Your friends are sweet, but back to the subject at hand,” she prompted.
Without further ado, I told her how I’d become convinced Jude was JP,
the man who’d broken the heart of my best friend. I told her how I’d believed I needed to talk to Myla before I could decide what to do but she was completely unavailable and the days just kept passing and it wasn’t until I found out Jed was actually JP that I realized how misguided my decisions had been.
“But why would you break up with Jude just because things didn’t work out years ago with your friend?” Hannah wondered, absently tugging Lulu back onto the trail yet again. “I mean, if Jude really was JP.”
“It wasn’t a simple breakup between them,” I explained, “at least, not for Myla. It practically destroyed her. Would you believe she actually enlisted in the army to get away from Hidden Creek so she wouldn’t run into JP anymore? It was bad, Hannah. I honestly don’t know what happened to break them up, because to this day she won’t talk about it. I do know she’s only just now starting to move past it, and it happened more than three years ago.”
Hannah looked deep in thought. “You know, I can almost relate to her need to get away. When Chase and I broke up, seeing him around campus was awful. It was a mutual decision to break up, but it was still the hardest thing I’d ever been through. If the breakup had been one-sided and I still felt like he was the only man in the world for me, I’d have wanted to leave, too.”
I nodded. “And the thing is, Myla and I have been friends since we were eight. Best friends. As soon as I found out Jude was JP, or thought he was, I basically knew I was going to have to choose between them. But as long as I didn’t actually talk to her about it, I was able to convince myself it might still work out somehow and I could keep them both in my life. So I just kept waiting for her to call me. And putting off talking to Jude.”
“You think that makes you an idiot?” Hannah asked dryly.
I huffed out a laugh. “Now that I know Jude isn’t even JP? Yeah. Just think, Hannah, if I’d simply asked him about Myla the night I realized his middle name is Paul, we’d have been together all this time, getting stronger and stronger. Instead I ruined it. I lost the best man I’ve ever known. I’d most definitely call that being an idiot.”
“I call it being in love and terrified.” Hannah put her arm around me and squeezed. “You have to make this right. You love him as much now as you did three weeks ago.”
There was no reason to deny it. “Of course I do. Jude’s one in a million.”
“Yeah, well, I’m afraid it’s going to be up to you to initiate the conversation that needs to be had,” Hannah said decisively. “I know it’ll be hard, but you need to get everything off your chest. You won’t be able to live with yourself if you don’t. Then the rest is up to him.”
We stopped and waited for Lulu to finish sniffing a mushroom before we turned and started back.
“I know I have to talk to him. I just wish I had some idea of how he’ll react.”
Hannah scrunched her nose. “If it’s worst-case scenario, are you going to join the army?”
I shrugged. “It seems to have worked for Myla.”
“I won’t let you do that. Try to think positively. I know Jude is hurt and disappointed in how things went down—”
“He’s mad,” I interrupted. “I know he’s mad. His face when he saw me at the hospital….yeah. That was mad. He didn’t want me anywhere near him.”
“Some guys cover hurt with anger. And besides, he didn’t know the whole story then.”
“I don’t know if the whole story is going to make any difference at this point,” I replied. “And that’s not me trying for sympathy, it’s me being realistic.”
“He might have to think about it for a while,” Hannah acknowledged, giving me a rueful glance. “Jude can be almost as stubborn as you. But I’m going to pray he comes around. I really do see the two of you together. You fit, you know? I hope he gets over himself and realizes that. Just promise me you’ll try to talk to him soon.”
“I will. The least I can do is make sure he knows it was all me, not him.” I was feeling close to tears, so I changed the subject. “So tell me about JP. I’ve always been curious about the guy who broke Myla’s heart. I’ve also wanted to punch him, but that’s beside the point.”
Hannah scrunched up her face again. “To tell you the truth, I don’t know JP all that well. He and Chase were never real close, even though they’re the same age. I do know his full name is Jedidiah Patterson—Patterson is their mom’s maiden name. He was called Jed until he started school, but there was another just plain ‘Jed’ in his class, which meant JP was called Jedidiah. He hated that, so it got shortened to JP. His immediate family members are the only ones who still call him Jed, as far as I know.”
“Do he and Jude look alike?”
“Enough to make it obvious they’re brothers. JP has blondish hair, though.”
“Would you say their personalities are similar?”
“Well, JP left the country soon after Chase and I got married, so I haven’t been around him a lot. But from what I’ve seen, he’s not easy-going like Chase and Jude. JP is—” she shrugged. “I guess I’d say he’s darker. Not in a bad way, exactly. He’s just quiet and pretty intense. He went to work for Owens Construction right out of high school, then left to go to college a few years later. Chase says he’s a brilliant engineer, so I guess he’s found his calling. And he has a huge heart. I mean, he spent a year and a half working for that bridge program. I’ve seen pictures of what he did, and it’s incredible.”
“Did you all know he was coming home, or was it a surprise?”
“We knew about a week beforehand. His timing was perfect, because the construction company is slammed. Chase is thrilled to have him back.” Hannah realized what she’d said and grimaced. “Not that JP’s going to be able to work for a while, now that he’s so banged up.”
“It’s nice of Jude to let him move in,” I said.
Hannah nodded. “Hopefully it won’t be too much of an adjustment after being separated for so long.”
We cut through the woods back to Hannah’s yard. Of course, now that Lulu knew about the world beyond the yard, she was reluctant to go back in.
“Come on, you crazy dog,” Hannah groaned. “You can’t have it both ways.”
Lulu whined and pulled against the leash until Hannah picked her up and carried her. “Now she’s going to want to go in the woods every time she comes out. I’m thinking that walk wasn’t such a good idea.”
“We’ll blame Jude,” I said wryly. “If he wouldn’t have left, you wouldn’t have been looking for something to cheer her up.”
I stopped at the gate between our yards, and Hannah leaned over and hugged me with her free arm. “I’m glad we had a chance to talk. I won’t say anything to Jude, but it’s a relief to me to know what happened. And to know it’s fixable.”
Was it fixable? I wasn’t so sure.
I cleared my throat. “I guess I need to start figuring out how I’m going to see him.”
“You can always show up unannounced at his house.”
“I will if I have to, but I’m going to see if he’ll agree to get together before I resort to that.”
“I’ll be praying for you guys,” Hannah promised. “Keep me posted, okay?”
I told her I would….and wondered how long it would be before I had anything to report.
Chapter 22
Iwoke up on Saturday and shuffled to my office, planning to put in a few hours of work before I got on with the rest of my weekend. I punched the code into the keypad, but suddenly had a change of heart.
I didn’t feel like hacking into servers and analyzing code today. I didn’t want to get lost in a cyber black hole and let the day pass me by. I needed to go to the grocery store to restock my pitifully empty kitchen cupboards and fridge, and to the hardware store for some paint for my bathroom.
First, however, I was going to go outside and finally get the flower beds completely cleaned up. I’d pulled the biggest weeds last week, but we’d had some good rain showers since then, and the little ones I’d left were
now nearly as big as the ones I’d gotten rid of.
I got dressed, ate a bowl of cereal, and pulled on my gardening gloves. Then I pulled them back off and fished my phone out of my back pocket. It was time to stop thinking about it and just do it.
I brought up Jude’s and my text thread. My thumbs froze for a moment, but I forced myself to type out the message. When my right thumb hesitated again before pressing send, I willed it to move, sending the text to Jude’s phone before I could think too hard and chicken out.
I’d like to talk to you. Let me know when you have time.
Gloves back on, I walked determinedly out the door to the flower beds by the front porch. I refused to sit and stare at my phone. Jude would reply when he felt like it—maybe—but I could at least take out my frustration on the weeds while I waited.
***
I’ll let you know.
That’s how Jude responded a few hours after I’d sent my text. I mean, could a brush-off be any more obvious?
I knew I wasn’t in a position to be peeved, not after I’d put him on ice for two weeks. But I was peeved, and I got pretty aggressive with the weeds in the last flower bed. Didn’t he even want an explanation? Was he already so over me that he no longer even cared why I’d backed off?
If that was the case, his feelings had been nowhere near as strong as my own.
I kept myself busy for the next few days, once again needing the distraction, but I did make an effort to maintain some balance. I deliberately kept my office time to no more than ten hours, then I worked around the house. I got the hall bathroom painted, and I finally started clearing out Grandma’s bedroom, methodically filling up the boxes I’d emptied five weeks before. One box was things I wanted to keep; the others were either junk or donate. Mostly donate, because Grandma took really good care of her things.
When I had the closet cleared, I moved on to the dressers. I cried and laughed in equal measure as I went through everything. I missed her so much, but the memories were priceless. I’d been incredibly blessed to have her in my life.