76
THE EXCITEMENT WAS mostly over, but the blue police lights kept flashing on and off, signaling an emergency that had long since concluded. Ellie stood in the dark and cold and tried to convince herself that she did not look like the biggest idiot on the face of the earth.
A phalanx of officers, local police and federal, roamed tirelessly over the scene. They were like ants on an anthill, except instead of food it was evidence that they hurried to locate, bag, document, and put away for the moment when it might be needed. Even if Ellie has been a stranger to these proceedings and had stumbled on the scene accidentally, it would still have been clear to her that Paul was the man in charge. Now that he was in his element, he fairly radiated power in the manner that he issued commands in a voice barely above a murmur or with a gesture of his head.
It was infuriating. It also didn’t help that he had been silently staring at her for the last ten minutes.
“You lied to me,” she muttered.
He gave a deep sigh. “Well, at least you’re talking to me now.”
Her eyes flashed. “You’re lucky that I haven’t punched you. Yet.”
“Why? Because I was doing my job?”
She crossed her arms and turned away from him. “The job that you didn’t tell me about. The job that you lied about.”
He gave a sigh of exasperation. “I was under cover, Ellie. I’m with the FBI and I was leading up an investigation into Baptiste. We have information that he’s been running a Ponzi scheme for decades. He lied, cheated, and stole from grandma and grandpa. He’s bankrupted charities. He’s stolen from everyone he came into contact with, and it’s been my mission and my obsession to bring him down. I couldn’t jeopardize all of that because of what I feel for you. There was too much at stake.”
She spun on him. “And what do you feel, Paul?”
He gave her a guilty look. “Actually, now that you mention it, my name isn’t Paul.”
She closed her eyes. “Of course it isn’t.”
“It’s Rob. My real name, that is.”
“Rob.”
“Yes. And I’m really looking forward to making a fresh start with you. This time with no secrets between us.”
She gave him an incredulous look. “A fresh start? You’ve been cheating on me!”
He looked genuinely wounded. “What? With who?”
“That blonde woman I saw you with in the restaurant. You told me you were busy that night, and then I saw you having dinner with her. So don’t give me that ‘fresh start’ bullshit. Not all of your lies were about the investigation.”
He smiled, then laughed. “Oh, you mean Sally.”
“I don’t care what her name is.”
“Sally is Baptiste’s personal secretary. I’d been working on her for weeks, trying to get her to turn state’s evidence against her boss.”
“Working on her?” she asked, conscious that the wind was beginning to empty from her sails. “Is that a euphemism for something that would disgust me if I knew what it referred to?”
He laughed. “No. I was trying to convince her to give me access to his financial records. And finally this week she gave us everything we need to send Baptiste away. He’ll spend the rest of his life in jail, thanks to her. And maybe, if we’re lucky, we might be able to return some of the money to his investors.”
She wanted to believe him, but she still felt suspicious. “So tell me…Rob. At this point, why should I believe a word you say?”
He stepped toward her, his face serious. “You should believe me because there’s not a moment in the past two months when I didn’t worry about your safety. Because I hate myself for leaving you in harm’s way. And because I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life making it up to you.”
Ellie stared at him wordlessly. She was torn between two impulses, to run into his arms and to punch him in the face. She suspected that both actions would come with their own particular satisfactions.
The next decision she made would shape the course of her life, for a time and possibly forever. And though she took her time struggling with the decision, in her heart she knew what was right. After everything she had gone through, after everything she had seen and done and had done to her, only one possibility lay before her.
She opened her mouth and drew the breath that would seal her fate.
77
“THIS IS LOOKING better.”
Karen looked over the top of her reading glasses at the doctoral student sitting nervously on the other side of her desk. She made a point of smiling at the girl. Smiles never came easily to Karen’s face, but she was trying to do something about that. “I think it’s ready to show to the other members of your committee.”
The student smiled tentatively back at her. “Thank you, Professor Jefferson,” she said in a small voice.
Karen smiled blandly at her until the girl realized that she was free to go, a task which she accomplished as rapidly as possible.
Karen watched her go and then flicked on the screen of her desktop computer. Her plans were waiting for her, just where she had left them.
The flight was going to cost more than she wanted, but she knew going in that it wasn’t going to be cheap, not when she was flying into such a small town. She was lucky that there was an airport at all in that part of the country. And to look at the map, you had to wonder what people did for fun there. How long could an adult look at a tree before she got bored and started to look for the fastest way out of town?
Still, she was beginning to feel excited. It had been a long time, far too long, since she went on vacation. Just as it had already been too long since she’d seen the man she was going to visit.
She picked up her phone and dialed a number she had already memorized. It rang twice before he answered.
“I was just thinking about you.”
She blushed despite herself. “They were good thoughts, I hope. You weren’t thinking about how much you hate my perfume, were you?”
“I like your perfume!”
“Really? Tell me what you like about it.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. “I…uh…it’s flowery.”
She snorted. “It is in no way ‘flowery.’ And if it were flowery, I seriously doubt that you would like it. You don’t remember it, do you?”
She heard him chuckle. “You caught me. I don’t remember your perfume. But if I didn’t like it, I’d remember that, and so I must have liked it.”
She rolled her eyes and changed the subject. “I think I have a flight.”
“Wonderful, sweetheart. When are you going to be here?”
Her heart gave a flutter. “I’m flying out Saturday morning. I have a connection in Chicago and another in Portland, but I’ll be there by ten o’clock.”
“I can’t wait to see you.”
Her smile was so broad that it nearly hurt her face. “Me too.” She swiveled her chair so that she could look out the window. There were birds in the sky.
She felt happy.
78
WHERE ONCE THERE had been an apartment, now there was a jungle of cardboard boxes. Some were already packed and sealed, but most stood open with a bundle of assorted possessions inside. Ellie surveyed the physical objects that, together, comprised so much of her life. In the end it didn’t seem like much.
“I’m not done yet but at least I’m getting close,” she said into the phone.
“Ugh! I hate moving,” her sister said. “You should hire movers.”
Ellie shrugged. “Maybe I should have, but I didn’t want to spend the money and now it’s too late. It’s OK, really. It gives me a chance to throw out the stuff that I don’t really want anymore. Some of it, I didn’t even know I had in the first place. Like yesterday, I found a packet of photographs, and most of them were of Jackson from when he was a kid. I forgot that we got those from his mother a few years ago when we spent Christmas at her place.”
“Oh. That’s awkward. What are you going to
do with them?”
“I suppose I’ll mail them to him. Or actually I should mail them to his mother. He never really wanted them. I was the one who wanted to know what he looked like when he was a little boy. Now, not so much.”
Sarah chuckled. “Are you doing OK with that?”
“Yeah. I still get sad sometimes, and I’m still angry that I wasted so much of my life on a guy who turned out to be one big bundle of lies in tight-fitting jeans. But I’m over him.”
“What about the other things? How do you feel about moving again so soon?”
Ellie looked around at the apartment that had, at some times, almost felt like home. “That’s a good thing, too. I tried, I really did, but I could never bring myself to really like this place. It feels good to be headed to some place new.”
“I wish I was there to help. I don’t like that you have to do that all alone.”
“I’m not alone,” Ellie said, and smiled at the dog that was keeping a close watch on her from his bed in the corner.
“I’ve gotta go. You’ll be OK?”
“I’ll be OK,” she answered and hung the phone up with a sigh. At the sound the dog perked up its ears and gave a worried whine.
“Don’t worry,” she reassured him. “We’re going someplace better. I promise.”
She looked over the room again, remembering the day she had moved in. So much had changed since then. There was hardly a trace left of the dreams she had brought with her from San Francisco. Back then she had wanted to turn this apartment into a home for both Jackson and herself; now her fondest hope was never to see the guy again. Was that a sad story, or a happy one? Even now she couldn’t say for sure.
With a shrug she reached for the roll of packing tape. It was time to start getting ready for the truck.
A knock came on the door, and she grimaced. “How do you keep getting past the front door lock?”
The door swung open to find Rob, otherwise known as Paul, standing in the hallway with a half-smile on his face. He was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, which was the most dressed-down that she had ever seen him. She liked this look. She liked it a lot.
“You live among friendly people. I smile at them, and they let me in,” he answered with a mischievous grin. He took a step into the apartment, which brought a gruff half-bark from Usher who trotted forward to sniff suspiciously at Rob’s pant leg.
Ellie chuckled. “Don’t mind him. He’s gotten really protective of me lately.”
Rob gathered her into his arms, his eyes softening. “So have I.”
The kiss that followed swept away all thoughts in Ellie’s mind, from the load of work remaining before she would finally be moved into Rob’s apartment, to all the lingering fears and doubts that lurked around the dusty corners of her mind. She melted into the warmth of his embrace and surrendered to his passionate mouth.
They were two terrible liars, she knew, but somehow together they had found a deep and simple truth. Something told her that this truth would be enough to sustain them, today and tomorrow and forever after.
AFTERWORD
THANK YOU FOR reading. After my first book, I knew I wanted to spend some more time with Ellie, and I hope you enjoyed your time with her as well. If you’d like to hear when my next book comes out, click this link and enter your email address. I’ll send you a note when I’ve published it.
— JS
Further Reading
Cabin Fever
By Janet Sanders
Sarah had her life all planned out. She would build her business, conquer the San Francisco startup scene, and then ... well, she’d figure it out when she got there. But then she was cheated out of her business and she retreated to the middle of nowhere, Oregon, to figure out what to do next. Waiting for her there was good coffee, kind locals, and the sexiest man she’d ever seen.
Actual comments by readers:
So romantic l laughed heck I even cried … Such an easy and joyful read! The characters are awesome and my mind just wanders as to what can come next for them! … Great story about a couple making it work when they both think it will never work. Love can conquer all.
Get it on Amazon!
Untrue Love Page 22