by Mara Jacobs
“God, Liz, I missed you so much.” He looked into her eyes, letting her see the warmth and love that came from his own.
She cradled his face in her hands as she whispered, “I love you, Finn. I want a future with you.”
“Me too, babe, me too. But, I’m a package deal, Liz. Love me, love my kids.” He knew he was safe saying the words.
“Done and done,” she said. She was nuzzling into his neck, trying to get past the layers of warmth to breathe in his scent.
“Come on, let’s go in and tell Gran and the kids.” He started zipping her up, putting her mittens over her hands, pleased to see they were trembling as much as his were.
“I can’t wait to see them, I’ve missed them so much,” she said. She waited for him to put her hat on her, allowing herself to be garbed for the Copper Country winter as she’d been by her mother when she was a child.
He pulled the hat down tight, covering her ears, kissing the tip of her nose as he did so. “It’s not going to be easy, Liz. We’ve got a long road ahead with Annie’s recovery. Your business, the farm, the horse boarding business. I’m not sure how it’s all going to shake out, but I do know that we’re going to spend the rest of our lives together, figuring it out.”
She held his hand as they walked toward the farmhouse, lights burned from its windows making it seem alive with warmth.
“Don’t worry,” she said, “I’ll come up with a plan.”
The End
Read on for a Sneak Peek at Katie’s story in
Worth The Drive
Prologue
“I’m not sure I ever loved you.”
Wow. She hadn’t seen that one coming.
Still, Katie Lipton supposed, if you’re stupid enough to ask the question, “Don’t you love me anymore?” you ought to be prepared for the answer. Whatever it turned out to be. But she couldn’t believe the words coming out of Ron’s mouth.
She watched as he stood in the bedroom and continued to pack his suitcase. Like picking at a scab, she couldn’t stop herself from pursuing his comment. “What do you mean you never loved me? What were the last seventeen years, then – a crush?”
“Don’t, Katie. Don’t do this to yourself. It’s over.” His look for her was patronizing, filled with false empathy. She wanted to put her fist through his Greek god face. Make his incredible good looks bloodied and bruised, to match her heart.
Her best friend Alison would have done it. Wound up and cold-cocked him right there, right now. Not caring if he bled all over their cream carpeting or their cream comforter in their cream-colored bedroom. Or she would hurt him with the words that wouldn’t come to Katie. Alison’s quick wit and razor-sharp mouth would bring Ron down to size. But Katie wasn’t Alison.
Her other best friend, Lizzie, would probably have seen this coming months ago and had some kind of plan for when the moment arrived. Or, she’d diffuse the situation with her calming, soothing nature. But Katie wasn’t Lizzie either.
While Alison’s smarts and Lizzie’s shining personality would have been so useful now, Katie’s incredible beauty - what she was known for - did her no good in this situation. All she could do was sit on the bed, stunned, and watch as her boyfriend of four years, husband of thirteen, packed his tee shirts and boxers into the his of their his-and-hers matching luggage.
“Ron, if this is about the baby…” her voice trailed off. What? What could she say? Promise not to mention the baby again? Promise to abandon her dream of becoming a mother? Could she do that? If it meant keeping Ron, would she do that?
“See, Katie, you even say ‘the’ baby, not ‘a’ baby, as if one ever existed.” His voice was harsh. “There is no baby, Katie. There never was a baby. There will never be a baby.” He paused. “Not for us, anyway.”
There was something in his voice as he made the last comment. Something cutting and mean. Katie had come to recognize that tone. It had been so foreign just a few years ago, when his voice had always conveyed his love for her. “What do you mean, ‘not for us, anyway’?”
“It means no baby for us, Katie. Just like I said.”
Don’t do it. Don’t ask. Don’t jump at his baiting voice. But she couldn’t help herself. “Is there a ‘but’ at the end of that?” she asked.
Obviously he’d been dying to get to this, knowing she would lead him there eventually.
“Yes, there is a but. There will be no baby for us, Katie, but,” he dragged the word out, emphasizing every letter, “there will be a baby for me. In five months to be exact.”
She wanted to double over, the pain was so great. Her breath totally left her body. But some small shred of dignity made her sit still, not even flinching. In the back of her mind she wondered what hurt more, the knowledge that Ron had betrayed her or the thought that yet another woman would have a child and she would not.
Ron seemed disappointed that she hadn’t crumbled, and that gave her a little bit of strength. Enough to say, “And just who is the mother of your child?”
He turned his back to her, going to a drawer in the dresser and taking out all of his socks. Socks she had bought for him. Socks she had washed. Socks she had picked up off this bedroom floor more times than she could remember.
“Amber Saari,” he said.
Katie couldn’t hide her shock this time as a small gasp escaped her. “Amber Saari? She’s a child herself. She’s one of your students.”
“Was. Was one of my students. She’s twenty,” he said, hurt and indignant. Like how dare she believe he’d ever have anything to do with one of his students at the high school. Oh no, he’d wait until they were out for two years before sleeping with them. A man of honor, her Ron.
“If I recall correctly, she was something of a tramp when she was in the high school. Are you even sure the baby’s yours?” She couldn’t believe she was being so calm when every muscle in her body ached to throw something at him. She was just afraid that she’d throw herself at him. Whether to claw his eyes out or beg for mercy, she wasn’t sure. That thought kept her perched on the bed.
He looked at her as if she were crazy. “Of course the baby’s mine.”
“Oh, I see. You were the only one who was unfaithful.”
“Katie, let’s not do this,” he said. But it seemed that’s exactly what he wanted to do. He wanted her to lose it, to become the shrieking fishwife he apparently had made her out to be. It would justify his walking out on her. It would then be he who left because of her obsession with having a baby, her instability, her shrewish behavior. When in fact, he just didn’t want to be with her anymore. He wanted to be with a twenty-year-old former student named Amber.
She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
“You’re right, Ron, let’s not do this.” She sat up straight on the bed as he zipped up the suitcase. She summoned every prideful gene she possessed and waited for him to leave. To leave her and their home.
To leave her alone for the first time in her life.
He stopped and looked at her, surprised by her tone and composure. His gaze raked across her face. “Jesus, you’re beautiful, Katie.” His voice was soft and tender, and for a moment it reminded her of the Ron she had fallen in love with. The Ron who had pursued her relentlessly their freshman year at Michigan State. The Ron who was the most handsome man at the enormous university, who had wooed her and caught her with that same soft, tender voice he was using now.
“So fucking beautiful,” he whispered and reached out to touch her face.
She winced, not sure if it was from the prospect of his touch or his language, which he knew she hated. Either way, her flinch broke whatever spell her splendor had just woven over him and he stepped back, dropping his hand.
“You keep the house. I’ll keep the Hummer. The rest we can figure out later.”
He set his sealed suitcase on the floor, stacked the smaller bag he’d packed earlier on top of it, and pulled up the handle, wheeling them both out of the room behind him.
Funny, the tho
ughts that go through your head, she mused. Here her husband had just walked out on her and all she was thinking was that it would have been so much more manly, so much more dramatic, if he’d picked both bags up by the handles and walked out instead of wheeling the bags behind him like a flight attendant traveling through an airport.
After she heard the front door close and the roar of that monstrosity leaving the driveway, Katie rolled over onto the bed, her knees to her chest, pulling one corner of the comforter over her. She finally let the pain of the knife he’d plunged into her heart wash over her.
Her husband had left her for some young tramp he’d knocked up.
Katie Maki Lipton. Known as the prettiest girl to ever come out of Hancock High. The most stunning woman in the Copper Country. They said she was a true original. A unique beauty.
And she was now nothing more than a bad cliché.
Purchase Worth The Drive at www.marajacobs.com
Read a sneak peek from a new romantic mystery series from Mara Jacobs
Chapter One
I stare into the eyes of the man who killed my father.
Maybe.
I mean, maybe he’s the man who killed my father, not the staring part. Although, to be honest, I’m not really staring into his eyes, because I’m looking at a photo of him on a computer screen.
Okay. Let me start over.
I stare at the eyes of a man who maybe killed my father.
I only knew him for a few weeks before witnessing him murder my father, twenty-two years ago. And, I was only a five-year-old girl, not the most reliable witness.
But yeah, it’s him.
I try to calm down. This isn’t the first time I thought I saw someone from my past. I’ve quickly left grocery stores, abandoning my cart mid-aisle, when seeing the flash of a handsome man with dark hair. Only to be embarrassed as I hid in the parking lot and saw a complete stranger walk out later.
But I never thought I’d seen Uncle Chazz before. Until now.
The picture is the desktop picture of my newest acquisition, a used Mac IMAC. The man – I knew him as Uncle Chazz though, even at five, I knew he wasn’t really an uncle – stands behind the bar in a bar/restaurant. To the right of him, in front of the bar is a young couple standing with their arms around each other. They’re more dressed up than the people in the background of the bar, like maybe they’ve come from somewhere else. They look to be about my age.
The woman is blonde and pretty. The man is handsome with black hair and blue eyes – a combination I used to love on a man. I quickly dismiss them.
I do a couple of quick clicks and realize that the previous owner didn’t wipe the hard drive clean. That’s not as unusual as you might think. In fact, it’s somewhat common. Even after doing this for four years, I’m still amazed at how people can sell their computers without totally obliterating every bit of personal data.
Some don’t know how, I suppose. Some don’t care. And of course, some computers are stolen, but those are mostly laptops.
The shock value of seeing people’s personal things wore off long ago. And there were some shocking things. On one of the first machines I dismantled, I found a folder of the most disgusting pornographic photos I’d ever seen.
I’ve been around the internet a while, and I’ve …stumbled upon...a lot of porn. Some made me laugh, some aroused me, some got no reaction, some made me sick. So when I say this was DISGUSTING…well, you know it was bad. A couple of folders down from the porn folder on this machine were all the letters the owner had sent out…to his parishioners.
Yeah, that’s right, the guy with all the hard core porn was also a minister.
After awhile I became immune to all the personal docs on the computers I refurbished. Now, I simply don’t care enough to look.
I pick up the ebay receipt that was in the box. The seller is an N. Carpenter. There’s a hand-written note that I’d tossed aside when I unpacked the computer.
I hope you like it. It served us well, but time to move on – Nick
Nick Carpenter from Tennessee sold his Mac on ebay and I bought it. He probably joined the PC nation. Or maybe got a laptop with a new job. Or upgraded to a new Mac. I get a lot of Mac sales that way. Mac users love to have the newest version of everything.
I wonder if the bartender – Uncle Chazz, now, to me – is a part of this Nick’s everyday life, or is he just a bartender that happened to be in one of his pictures? The likelihood of him being my Uncle Chazz slims in my mind. The bartender has the same basic features that Uncle Chazz had, but that was twenty-two years ago. He would have been in his early thirties then. The bartender looks to be younger than mid-fifties. And hopefully, Uncle Chazz is rotting in prison somewhere. And if he isn’t, then he got away with killing my father, is running free, and I really can’t imagine him – or any of his ilk – in Tennessee.
Those guys don’t leave their home turf unless they have to.
Like I did.
But the more I stare, the more my hand doesn’t move on the mouse. I can only see the desktop picture.
And Uncle Chazz.
My mind races as to how I can confirm this. Or, better yet, to eliminate the possibility that it’s him. My fingers itch to start Googling, but I know better. No search like that can be traced to this IP address. Or anywhere in the vicinity.
I know there are ways around that, proxies and other stuff, but I don’t trust them. I’ve learned not to.
A thought hits me. The bank. My safe deposit box. I look at the clock, I still have a few hours before my branch closes. Thank goodness they have Saturday hours.
How to do this? I think it through. I don’t want the contents of that box in this house. I know it’s overkill, but it’s how I feel. That life, even the remnants of that life, have no place in this house.
I’ve been through too much to make sure I had this one, small, safe haven.
I take a screen shot of the desktop and then open it up. I enlarge the pic as much as I can without totally blowing out the pixels. I crop out the blonde and her good-looking boyfriend – presumably Nick Carpenter. I hook up a printer to the IMac and print out a copy.
As if someone is watching me, I quickly fold the picture several times, image inward, and place it on my work table. I run upstairs and change out of my sweats, baggy turtleneck, Hello Kitty slippers – my basic work uniform – and into slacks, a light-weight sweater set and loafers. I have about three such outfits for the rare times I go to the bank or to some other professional establishment.
At home I just wear sweats or yoga pants. To run out for take out or to the store, I usually wear jeans. Or sometimes I just stay in the yoga pants.
Pretty inexpensive wardrobe needs. It makes for an uncluttered closet. And not a lot to have to pack on a moment’s notice.
I make the thirty-minute drive to the bank in silence, the print out of the picture sitting on the passenger seat, as if Uncle Chazz is coming for a little ride with me.
I feel a moment of panic at the bank when I pull out my two forms of ID. No reason I should, this is my safe identity. No one outside of this town knows me by this name.
At least no one who wants me dead.
The woman looks at both forms of ID for a while. I don’t blame her; they’ve never seen me in the four years since I got the box. I do my financial stuff at a different bank and most of all my transactions are done online anyway.
The woman finally takes me in the little room and we put our keys into the drawer together and then she leaves to give me privacy. I take the box out and bring it over to the high table in the center of the room. There are four tall stools around the table. I scooch onto one, wishing I was bellying up to the bar to order a brew, not opening the lid on my deadly past.
I turn the key and lift the heavy lid. I open it slowly, as if something inside could strike out at me.
There are only seven items in the box. My birth certificate. My California driver’s license. My Social Security card. A stack of hundre
d dollar bills totaling four thousand dollars. A picture of my father. A gun. And a sealed envelope.
The identification things I quickly move to the bottom of the box. They are no good to me now, and could get me killed. The cash is my safety net, it goes back into the box. The gun…the gun may be needed, but not today.
I finally come to the sealed envelope, not able to put it off any longer. I don’t know why the procrastination now, after I’d hurried like hell to get here before the bank closed.
Yeah, on some level I do know why. Because what I find it this envelope may blow my safe world apart.
I take a deep breath and place my finger under the flap of the envelope and quickly slash it across, causing a momentary flash of pain from a tiny paper cut. The envelope flap turns a diluted pink where I bleed, ever so slightly, onto it.
Holding the offending fingertip out of the way, I pull out the contents of the envelope, careful not to let them touch the bloodstain. Two photos. Both single shots of a man alone. Different men. The first is a face I know well.
Knew well.
Or maybe, never really knew at all.
I see now that the resemblance to the handsome man in the desktop picture is surface, at best. Black hair, blue eyes, extremely good-looking, yes. But this man…my man…has a gleam in his eye, a charming predator look that draws one in.
Drew me in.
But I flew away.
I swallow down emotion, careful not to examine closely what the exact emotion is, and place that photo back into the envelope. Left remaining is a photo of Uncle Chazz. I take the folded printout of the desktop picture out of my pants pocket. I slowly unfold it, pressing out the creases with my now shaking hands.
I lay the picture from the envelope, a smaller snapshot, onto the table next to the unfolded printout.
He has aged, but it’s Uncle Chazz. There are differences, yes. But even if I hadn’t been sure, and I now was, the man in both these photos has a small scar running through his right eyebrow. Very tiny, not very noticeable, unless you were looking for it.