by Marie Force
“Thanks, Coop,” Jack said, standing to shake his hand.
“Yes, thank you,” Clare added. “For everything.” He’d handled their divorce with discretion and dispatch.
“No problem,” Coop said as he saw them to the door. “Take care of yourselves.”
Clare walked with Jack to the parking lot. The feelings generated by what they’d just done left Clare feeling bruised. She was the proud owner of a one-of-a-kind million-dollar home, but all she felt was a gnawing, aching emptiness.
“Thank you, Jack,” she said, her voice thick with emotion. “I know that wasn’t easy for you.”
He shrugged. “It’s your house. Always was. It was only in my name so I could surprise you with it.”
When her eyes burned with tears, Clare wanted to swear out loud. Her body had once again betrayed her fierce desire to show him none of what she felt.
He reached for her hand. “There’s something I need to say to you.”
Looking up at him, she was stunned to see his eyes had filled, too. “What?” she asked in a whisper.
He appeared to struggle for the right words and for control of his emotions. “This life of ours, it was taken from me, too, Clare,” he said in a slow, soft tone. “What we had together—it was mine, too, and just because I have Andi now doesn’t mean I don’t mourn what I lost with you. What was stolen from us. I’ve just had a lot more time to get used to being without it than you have. I don’t want you to think I walked away without a single look back, because I didn’t. I couldn’t have.”
Tears rolled down her cheeks unchecked, brought on by the raw pain she saw on his face.
“I will always love you.” He wiped away her tears with his thumbs and then wrapped his arms around her. “I needed you to know that.”
“Jack.” Crying softly, she rested her face on his chest and wallowed in the familiar scent of him. “I don’t know what to do without you and our life together. I sound so pathetic even saying it, but I just don’t know.”
“You’ll figure it out. I know you will. Go to Vermont. Do what you need to do, and I’ll take care of things here. It’s going to be okay, though. Somehow, someway, we’ll get through this.”
She reached up to caress his face. “I’ll always love you, too. Maybe if I can make peace with that, I might just be able to find a life for myself without you.”
He hugged her again. “Then go find some peace.”
Chapter 8
The next week was a flurry of activity as Clare helped Kate pack and make final preparations for her move to Nashville. Jack’s college friend, Reid Matthews, had come through with an apartment for Kate in the city’s trendy Green Hills neighborhood, which was close to Belmont University where she’d registered for classes.
Friday morning dawned cold and gray, and the weather forecast called for snow flurries. Clare awoke with a sense of dread. The party was that night, and Kate would be leaving with Jack early the next morning.
Clare got up to shower and get dressed. In the kitchen, her mother was already sipping a cup of coffee and reading the morning paper.
“Morning,” Anna said.
“Anything in the news?”
“Same old doom and gloom.” Anna pushed the paper aside. Her short gray hair was still damp from the shower. “What time’s the party tonight?”
“I don’t know.” Clare poured a cup of coffee and looked out at the stormy-looking ocean.
“We’ll have to ask Kate.”
“I’m not going.”
“Excuse me?”
“I talked to Kate about it. She understands.”
“Really?” Anna crossed her arms, and her bright blue eyes narrowed with displeasure. “What exactly does she understand?”
“That I don’t feel up to being in the company of her father and his new wife just yet.”
Anna snorted. “Grow up, Clare. This isn’t about you. This is about your daughter—the daughter who had to celebrate three birthdays without her mother.”
Stunned by her mother’s outburst, Clare stared at her. “If you’re trying to make me feel guilty, you’re succeeding.”
“Good. Then you’ll come?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I’ve tried to mind my own business during all of this, but I can’t sit by and let you do this to Kate. She needs you to be there tonight to show your support and to give her a proper send-off.”
“I can’t,” Clare whispered, remembering the emotional exchange with Jack earlier in the week. “I just can’t.”
Anna stood up. “Fine. You do what you have to do, but you’ll regret this, Clare. You’ll regret disappointing her.”
After her mother left the room, Clare sat back and fumed. How dare she? What does she know about it? What does anyone know about it? Clare nurtured her anger for several minutes until, all at once, the fury subsided and she was swamped with remorse. Her mother was right. She was being childish and thinking only of herself when her daughter needed her. She went into the family room to find her mother.
“The party’s at seven. We’ll leave a little before.”
“That’s fine,” Anna said.
Clare and her mother drove through the gates at Jack’s house just after seven. The girls had gone over earlier to help with party preparations. The house was alive with lights and electric candles in every window. Clare parked her car across the driveway from where a small U-Haul sat with Kate’s yellow Volkswagen Beetle attached to the back. Clare’s grip on the steering wheel tightened when she was hit by a new burst of anxiety.
“Are you all right?” Anna asked.
Clare was finding it hard to breathe. “Sure.”
“You’re doing this for Kate,” Anna reminded her. “Keep that in mind.”
“Yes, for Kate.” Clare exhaled a long deep breath. “Let’s go.”
They carried birthday gifts as they crossed the driveway to the stone stairs. Clare rang the bell and heard the chimes echo inside the big house—Jack and Andi’s house. You’re doing this for your daughter.
Kate answered the door. “Mom! You came!” She drew them into the foyer. “Hi, Gram.”
“Happy birthday, sweetheart,” Anna said with a hug for her granddaughter.
Kate sparkled with excitement. “Thanks. Let me take your coats.”
Clare stole a quick glance around the 1930s-era house. She’d been inside it once before, the last time it was on the market when the listing agent held an open house for other Realtors. At that time, it had been empty and devoid of life, but now the home pulsed with the warmth and energy brought by a family.
She looked up at the elaborate crystal chandelier that hung from the second floor over the black-and-white tiled foyer. A staircase ascended from right to left, framed by a mahogany banister. To the right, Clare remembered a great room that stretched the width of the house. A formal dining room was to the left, and the kitchen was at the end of a hallway under the stairs.
Jack came through the hallway as Kate took their coats. He wore a black cashmere sweater with jeans, and as usual he managed to look casual and elegant at the same time.
He hugged and kissed them both. “Come on in,” he said, ushering them into the great room where a fire burned in the fireplace. The room’s fifteen-foot ceilings were edged with elaborate mahogany crown molding. Smaller moldings framed the butter-colored walls. The far end of the room was an expanse of glass, and Clare recalled an exquisite ocean view during the day.
Furniture was artfully arranged into two sitting areas by the fire. Tables were laden with food, and a bar had been set up in the far corner. Clare knew Andi had been a decorator at the Infinity Group’s corporate headquarters in Chicago before she moved to Rhode Island to live with Jack and manage Infinity’s Newport hotel. Clearly, she hadn’t lost her flare for her previous profession. The room was warm and inviting.
“Your home is lovely, Jack,” Anna said. “You’ve been busy.”
“We had the party as an incentive
to get settled quickly. Upstairs is still a disaster area. Boxes everywhere.”
Kate handed her mother a beer and her grandmother a glass of wine and went to answer the door again. She returned a few minutes later with Jack’s sister Frannie, her husband Jamie, and their twins Owen and Olivia.
Clare was weak with relief to see Frannie and walked over with Jack to greet them. Jack scooped up the twins, who greeted “Unca Jack” with wet, sloppy kisses.
“You remember Aunt Clare, right?” Frannie said to the fifteen-month-old toddlers. They had visited Clare’s house two weeks earlier.
Owen reached out to pat Clare’s face. “Clare,” he said.
Clare kissed the baby’s pudgy hand. Owen and Olivia had their father’s bright blue eyes and strawberry-blond hair that was an adorable mix of Frannie’s auburn and Jamie’s blond.
Jamie hugged Clare and kissed her cheek. “So good to see you,” he whispered as he held her close.
Hugging him was like coming home. He had been Jack’s best friend since their first day of college, as well as their best man and godfather to all three girls. His marriage to Jack’s sister Frannie had been one of the biggest and best surprises to confront Clare after her recovery.
“Jamie Booth, you handsome devil,” she whispered. “Don’t let go, okay?”
He chuckled. “Never.”
When Clare reluctantly released him, she noticed Andi had come into the room.
She extended a hand to them. “Clare, Anna, we’re so glad you could come.”
Startled by her beauty, Clare shook her hand. The only other time Clare had seen Andi, she’d been seven-months pregnant with the twins. She had obviously bounced back quickly from their birth.
“Thank you for including us,” Clare said when she had recovered from the initial shock of seeing Jack and Andi together for the first time—both of them tall, dark and beautiful. What a striking couple they make.
As Andi moved on to greet Frannie and Jamie, and with the others occupied with new arrivals, Clare took a moment to study Andi more closely. She was tall—not as tall as Jack—but at least four inches taller than the five-foot five-inch Clare. Her long, dark curls were contained tonight in a simple ponytail, and she managed to look classy and understated in an ivory ribbed turtleneck, well-worn jeans, and black boots. Clare was glad she too had chosen to wear jeans. Andi’s soft brown eyes were warm and welcoming as she greeted a group of Kate’s friends. Clare knew Andi was thirty-nine, but she didn’t look it and didn’t show any of the weariness the mother of three-month-old twins must surely feel.
Jill and Maggie came around with hot hors d’oeuvres. They introduced Clare to Andi’s mother, Betty, who held one of the twin boys.
“Hello there,” Clare said, running a finger along the baby’s downy soft cheek.
“That’s Johnny,” Betty said.
“How can you tell?” Clare asked.
“I just changed him for bed,” Betty said with a chuckle. “Otherwise your guess would be as good as mine.”
A blond boy dashed through the room, and Betty stopped him with a stern look. She used her free hand to sign a command to the hearing-impaired boy, and he slowed to a walk.
“That’s my other grandson, Eric,” Betty said to Clare. “He’s almost eight and a handful.”
“He’s adorable.” Clare watched Maggie wrap an arm around Eric without missing a beat in her conversation with a friend of Kate’s.
Clare moved out of the fray to sit on one of the leather sofas. She watched Jack and Andi circulate through the room, noticing how they moved with the easy grace of a long-married couple. She was forced to look away when Jack put a hand on the small of Andi’s back to draw her closer to him. He did it so naturally and unconsciously that Clare ached when she remembered him touching her that way.
The room vibrated with music, voices, and the sound of ice striking crystal.
Frannie sat down next to Clare. “Hanging in?” she asked under her breath.
“By a thread,” Clare replied in the same tone.
“You look wonderful. You’re all recovered.”
“Except for this nagging limp I can’t seem to shake.”
“You will,” Frannie said with a glance across the room at Jamie, who held Olivia as he chatted with Jack and Andi.
“I finished the journal,” Clare said. “It was quite a story when Jack met Andi and you and Jamie got together.”
Frannie smiled. “That was one hell of a week.”
“Tell me about it, Frannie. I read about it, but I want you to tell me.”
Frannie raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Really?”
Clare nodded. “This is the first time I’ve seen them together. It’s made me curious more than anything.”
Frannie took a deep breath. “Well, it was late August, and Andi came from Chicago to do a site visit in preparation for decorating the Newport hotel. At the time, she was the director of interior design for Infinity. Jack took her around to the mansions, Hammersmith Farm, and some of the other highlights. We went out on the boat and had a cookout at the house for all the designers. It was the first party we’d had at the house since everything happened, and it was fun.”
“Your journal said that’s when things between you and Jamie heated up, too.” Clare noticed Jack and Frannie’s parents, Madeline and John, had arrived, and Clare looked forward to visiting with her former in-laws.
Frannie waved to her parents. “That’s right. There’d been this thing between us forever, and neither of us ever admitted it to each other or anyone else.” Her gaze softened when it landed on her handsome husband.
Clare smiled. “I always wondered.”
“Did you? We were so surprised to discover we’d both had all these feelings for each other for years.” Frannie still seemed astounded by it, even more than two years later. “I guess when we saw Jack rejoining the land of the living, it felt like the time was right for us, too.”
“You guys seem so happy together.”
Frannie smiled. “We are.”
“So what happened with Jack and Andi?”
“You’re sure you want to hear this?”
“It’s okay,” Clare said with a wave to her mother who was across the room with Jill and Frannie’s son, Owen.
“Well, Jack said later it was love at first sight. It was quite overwhelming for him, because he’d only recently given up trying to find help for you and had just been back to work for a month or so at that point. I remember something he said to me that week. I never forgot it. He said, ‘I wasn’t expecting to meet someone who’d make me want more.’ There was this helplessness to him. He worried about what people would say, and he was concerned about the girls.” Frannie shrugged. “It was tough for him, Clare. He agonized over it. Don’t think he didn’t. But he’d suffered so much that I remember being relieved to see a spark of life back in his eyes.”
“She went back to Chicago, right?”
Frannie nodded. “But he talked her into coming back to visit for a weekend. They had a wonderful time, but she decided that because of the distance and all the complications it just wasn’t going to work out between them. We tried to be supportive and to give him some space, but it was awful. He was so sad again. Strangely enough, it was right around then that Jamie proposed.”
“I’m so sorry I missed that part.”
“I was, too. I needed you to be my matron of honor.”
Clare’s eyes filled as she hugged her. “Oh, Frannie.”
“The girls did a wonderful job as my bridesmaids, but I never missed you more than I did during the months before my wedding.” Frannie dabbed at her eyes and shook off the melancholy. “Anyway, Jack moped around for a week or so after Andi left. Then my mother apparently gave him a talking to about life being too short to miss out on a chance to be happy. The next thing we knew, he was on his way to Chicago. I never heard much about what happened out there, but whatever he did must’ve worked. They started spending weekends and holidays toge
ther. She came with Eric when Quinn got married,” Frannie said, referring to Jack’s longtime assistant at work. “Then we had a hurricane that kept them here for a week.”
“A bad one?” Clare asked.
“Not as bad as it could’ve been but enough to disrupt travel for days. Long story short, Jack asked her to move here, and Andi’s boss sweetened the pot by offering her the job managing the Newport hotel. She and Eric moved here the following February.”
“That was after your wedding, right?”
“Right. We got married on New Year’s Eve.”
“I’ve wondered about how the girls reacted when he told them she was moving in.”
“Well, they’d spent quite a bit of time with her by then, and Maggie, in particular, was just wild about Eric. Kate was very supportive. She said she wanted him to be happy. Jill was upset about it at first, but she came around in time.”
Clare glanced at Andi across the room. She had a baby in her arms as she visited with her guests. “She seems hard not to like.”
Frannie chuckled. “You’re right. She was good with the girls and respected the boundaries. I think that’s why it worked out so well.”
Jack walked over to them, holding the other baby. “Frannie, can I give Robby to you for a minute?”
She held out her arms. “Of course. Come see Auntie Frannie, big guy.”
“Clare, we probably should offer up a toast to our daughter. Are you game?” Jack held out a hand to help her up.
She took his hand. “Only if you do the talking. You’re better at that stuff than I am.”
Clare stood next to Jack by the fireplace as he clinked a spoon against his glass to quiet the room.
“I want to thank you all for coming tonight. We’re here to wish Kate a happy eighteenth birthday and to wish her well as she begins the next phase of her life.” He cleared his throat. “In Nashville,” he said, appearing to choke on the word as his guests chuckled. “Kate, I find it very hard to believe you’re already eighteen, and just to be sure, I got out your birth certificate today.” He reached into his pocket to retrieve a piece of paper.