by Dawn Calvert
"One of my many skills." He gave her a wink that devastated what little rational thought she had left. "I have known," he said slowly, "that this stone somehow claimed a part of you. I selfishly hoped I could claim that part for my own." Taking her hand, he put it in her palm, wrapping her fingers around it. "Farewell, Jane. I must leave before the funeral concludes."
Her throat hurt. So did every other part of her. "Farewell."
"Perhaps…" He looked away and then back at her. "We shall meet in another tale."
She nodded miserably. "Perhaps."
Then he put a hand under her chin, lifted it, and blew ever so softly on her nose. Just as he had with his horse. Respect, he'd said that conveyed, and so much more.
She hadn't before known what it meant to swoon. Now she did, finding that, after all, she'd rather not know.
Curran strode to a tree where two horses waited. In one powerful motion, he lifted himself up and onto his horse without his eyes ever leaving hers. Then he raised a hand, touched it to his lips and urged the animal to gallop away.
Out of her life. The part of her heart that he now occupied folded up tight and shut the door.
Gradually, she became aware of a stir beginning from somewhere behind her. She glanced back at the entrance of the church, where she could see one person and then two, emerging from its door. Dully, she realized that she had to get out of here before Mary spotted her at the wrong spot in the scene. As such a minor character, she could be zapped into oblivion.
Her hand shook as she opened her palm. With her other hand, she began to rub the stone in a circular motion, repeating the words that jumped back into her mind. "A posse ad esse." Focusing all of her energy on the small stone, she whispered, "Please. Take me back home. Let me start again."
The commotion behind her became louder. "A posse ad esse,"she repeated. "Ple-ee-ase."
A loud boom on her right scared her as much as it sent relief shooting straight through her. She remembered that sound. It had delivered her here. Then came the rushing, deafening sound of air, whirling and spinning all around her. And the sense of being knocked off her feet and flung into darkness, where she tumbled head over heels until at last she landed.
She opened her eyes, slowly at first and then wider. She was sitting on the floor, in her apartment, which appeared to be just as she had left it. There was her jacket, on her favorite overstuffed chair. Her purse, open. The newspaper she hadn't picked up.
Nothing looked any different from when she had gone. Yet half a lifetime had passed. Hadn't it?
Reaching for her purse, she thrust her hand inside to pull out her cell and flip it open to look at the date. Wait. That couldn't be right.
The same day. Only five minutes past the time when she'd made the first wish. How was it even possible? She sank back to the floor. How was it feasible to launch yourself into the plot of a book? Maybe she'd actually only passed out for some reason and had been lying on the floor until she just now came out of it.
She put a hand to her head, checking for injuries. None that she could find. Her head felt fine. Carefully, she pushed up from the floor until she stood. Then she walked to the bathroom, almost afraid to look in the mirror, but badly needing to.
There she was, the same person who had come in the door, what… less than half an hour ago? Watching her reflection, she put her palm up in front of her face and gently blew, causing the breath to wash over her nose even as her eyes filled with tears. She would not forget Curran. Ever.
He occupied that piece of her heart that she had always given over to worrying.
Chapter 22
Jane finished putting on her makeup in the morning light, giving extra attention to the dark circles that had suddenly appeared under her eyes. Not that she should be surprised. She hadn't slept all night. The images of Curran that went through her head, the memory of his lips on hers, were nothing but torture. He was so close and yet so far away. Had he ever even existed or did she simply have an unbelievable imagination hiding out in head-injury land?
Maybe she'd never know. But whatever happened, she would keep him safely tucked inside her heart, while she faced up to all of her done-wrongs in present-day Seattle.
She decided not to get her customary frappuccino on the way to work. Too much chance for something to go wrong. She could come in through the door and dump the entire contents on the senator. Really not the start she was looking for in this era of a new Jane.
Once at her desk, she stowed her purse inside, brushed a microscopic piece of lint from her very best suit and, her heart pounding, walked to her boss's door. It was open.
She moved to just inside the doorway. "Excuse me. Chase?"
"Yes?" He spun his chair around until he faced her. "Jane. You're here."
"Is there—" She didn't quite know how to phrase this. "Anything I can do to help fix what happened yesterday?"
He gave a heavy sigh and pushed his bottom lip over his top. "So far we've dodged a bullet. The big fire down on the waterfront yesterday was a lucky break. The media's all caught up in reporting on that."
"Oh. Right" Probably the only place where you'd hear a big fire thought of as a lucky break. Unless you were in a business less than legal. But then, working in politics did seem to skirt close to the edge sometimes.
"And one other lucky break. It seems the fax machine jammed right before it sent the release to the Times and the PI."
Jane caught her breath. "Really?" The Seattle Tunes and Post-Intelligencer: the two biggest newspapers in the state. Now that was a. lucky break.
"Really. So how'd you manage that?"
She shrugged, unable to keep the smile from her face. "Good karma?"
He gave her a look that said he doubted that. "As for the others, well, so far no one's been that fascinated by the bill for apple growers."
Relief washed through her. "That's great."
"Don't be too happy, yet," Chase warned, picking up a pencil to tap it against his desk. "Not going to last Somebody's going to pick that thing up and read it."
"Yes." Jane nodded furiously. "I know. What can I do?"
"Nothing. I have it under control." He made a magnanimous gesture.
That's not why Jane had come in. It was a huge relief to find out the situation might not be as bad as she had thought—yet, anyway—but that wasn't good enough. She had to help make it right. "Chase, I need to learn from this. Please give me a chance to be involved in however we fix it" Then she held her breath, waiting for the "You're fired," the lecture about the audacity of a twentysomething coming into the office of an experienced political "operative," as he liked to call himself, and having the nerve to suggest she could do something to fix the problem she'd created.
She waited with her breath held for what felt like a lifetime, forcing herself to keep her eyes open instead of squeezing them shut and slinking backward out of the room. Chase remained sitting at his desk, looking either stunned or deep in thought. She couldn't tell which it was.
"All right," he said finally. "There's a meeting this morning at ten to go over the plan I've come up with. I think it may be time to address this thing head-on." Jane began to breathe again. "You do?"
"The senator has held on to it too long. It was bound to come out sometime. If we work it right, I think she could come out of this okay. As long as we're ahead of the story. Grab on to it. Make it our own."
He needed to be chomping on a cigar while he said that, Jane decided. That would complete the look. In fact, she might get him one, just to celebrate. Her not being fired. The senator not hiding her past. Anything else that seemed right about the day. She couldn't stop the grin that took over her face. "Ten o'clock," she said. "I'll be there."
"Good." He thrust a stack of paper at her. "Take a look at this before the meeting. I worked on it all night."
"Thank you. Really. Thank you, Chase."
"Yeah, yeah." He dismissed her with his hand. "Don't make a habit out of doing that kind of thing."
> "Of course not. I won't. Not again." She backed out of the office, papers in hand. "I'll go over this before the meeting."
"Yup. See you then." He had already spun back around and started typing on his laptop.
Her job. She still had it. Which meant she still had a place to live, a way to eat, the means for supporting her frappuccino addiction.
Life was… well, if not good, at least somewhat sort of okay.
Jane picked up the phone to call her friend Holly, a rock the size of a baseball sitting squarely in the middle of her stomach. She started the conversation by begging Holly to let her get a replacement dress FedExed in from wherever. Then she'd offered to drive to wherever to pick up the replacement, if that would help.
Holly had been frazzled. The bride-to-be, the day before her wedding. Totally understandable. "It's okay, Jane," she'd said, while yelling in the background at her sister. "Molly, bring me that. You're not making the favors right! I told you to use the red ribbon. Weren't you listening?"
"Holly," Jane pleaded. "The dress."
"Oh. That." Again, Holly turned away from the phone. "Lolly! Get over there and help Molly, please."
Jane had never understood why her friend's parents had decided it would be a great idea to name their three daughters Holly, Molly and Lolly. Good thing they hadn't also had a boy. They wouldn't have had any choice but to call him Wally. Wasn't as though you could throw a Jason into that group.
Holly came back to the phone. "The stain is out. I told you not to worry about it."
Red wine? "How?"
"A miracle worker who masquerades as a dry cleaner. No one will ever know it was there."
Jane gave a shout of pure joy.
"Hey," said her friend cheerfully. "What are you trying to do, make me lose my hearing right before the wedding? How am I supposed to know when to say 'I do'?"
"I'm paying for the dry cleaner."
"Sure. If you want. I know I gave you a pretty bad time when it happened, but it was my wedding dress and I even thought you might have, you know," Holly paused. "Done it on purpose."
"On purpose?" Jane was horrified, but at the same time, the same suspicion niggled at her, taking the level of horror down a notch.
"Right before that, we'd been talking about that scum-sucking Byron. And then we started talking about Greg and how great he is and I guess I was doing some bragging about how he would never have done anything like that, and then we started going on about the wedding." Her friend's voice dwindled away.
"Oh, Holly." Jane could hardly breathe. It was all coming back to her. Those feelings she'd had, the jealousy and shame that had jabbed at her until she could barely see straight. Her hand that held the glass of wine had been shaking… "I'm so sorry. I may, you know… Omigod, have done it on purpose. Without even realizing it. I really—I don't even know what to say, I feel so bad."
"Don't worry about it. If it had been me instead of you, I might have done the same thing."
No, she wouldn't have, but it was nice of her to say. "What else can I do? Please. I have to try and make this up to you."
"You can come over here and keep me from killing my sisters. If I see one more favor made with pink ribbon, in-stead of red, I'm going to—Lolly! Use the parchment paper! Got it?"
"I'm on my way. Out the door now," Jane said, grabbing her purse and keys. "Leave it to me. I'll get the favors done right and keep you from killing your sisters, the cat, the neighbor's dog, your mother, anything else that crosses your path."
"Perfect," Holly said, trying to sound relaxed and not managing it at all. "I need you."
"I'll be there practically before we're off the phone."
"Oh, and Jane, one more thing?"
"What is it? Did you forget something or run out of ribbon? Do you need me to stop and pick more up for you?"
"No." She could hear Holly muffle a giggle. "There's red wine here. I want you to stay six feet away from it at all times."
Jane stopped. And grinned into the phone. "Where's the wedding dress?"
"Upstairs. In a bag. Safe from you."
"like I said, I'm on my way."
Holly was a friend to keep for life.
Holly's big day had arrived. Jane did her best impression of a bridesmaid's walk down the aisle, taking care not to fall in the heels Holly had insisted she wear. If she crashed and burned here, she'd take out an entire row of wedding guests. The aisle seemed a lot longer today than it had at the rehearsal. In fact, it seemed endless.
The last time she'd been in a church… never mind.
She kept her hand on the arm of her assigned groomsman, who was the nervous younger brother of Holly's fiancé, Greg. They weren't halfway down the aisle yet and already his face was covered with a sheen of sweat. In a stiletto fall, he'd probably take out the row on the opposite side.
One step at a time. Keep your mind off potential disaster. Glance around at the guests. Demurely.
To her left, she saw three women she and Holly knew from high school, sitting together as they always had in class, ready to verbally pounce on anyone who didn't fit their mold of the perfect high school student. Or who had a simple, perfectly understandable accident in chemistry lab. Why had Holly invited them? She was too nice. Although you only had to look as far as the red-wine incident to know that.
A couple of rows down, Jane saw a few more people she remembered from school. And some from the company where Greg worked. She'd met them at a party he'd had at his place. The party, in fact, where she'd met Byron, who worked two cubicles down from Greg.
No one else she knew. The rest all seemed to be well-wishing strangers. To her, anyway. Probably not to Holly and Greg.
More careful steps. They were halfway down the aisle. Holly's parents were up ahead, turning in their pew. Jane switched her gaze to the other side, where she could look beyond the sweating groomsman to see more people she didn't know. A little girl in pink, a woman in a shade of fuschia that shouldn't see the light of day. In the next aisle, a man in black. A very good-looking man who… Byron.
Why hadn't she thought about the fact he would be here? Of course he would. He and Greg were cube-buddies at work.
She and Greg's younger brother moved a few more steps down the aisle. He was blocking her view. Maybe she'd been wrong. It hadn't really been Byron. Or, if it was, maybe he wouldn't notice her. Okay. Not much chance of that, since she was on bridesmaid parade and there was nowhere else to look until Holly came down the aisle.
She modified her wedding walk just a little to slow her step so the groomsman would move ahead and she could duck her head around the back of him to make sure that was Byron. Could have been some other guy. No. It was Byron. And Greg's brother, in confusion, had come to a halt. They were only three-quarters of the way down the endless aisle and Holly's mother had a frown on her face.
Jane smiled brightly at Greg's brother and gave his arm a little tap with her hand. Then she took a step forward as if wondering why in the world they would have stopped. Poor kid. He moved with all the agility of a robot, and a drop of sweat actually clung to his chin. She pulled her hand out a little early, so as not to catch that droplet on her bare arm, and breezily went to take her place standing with the other bridesmaids. No matter what she did, she wasn't going to look at Byron.
Scum-sucking, Holly had called him. She could be right. Or not. It was Jane, after all, who had made the sudden proposal. Which, come to think of it, might have had something to do with Holly's wedding and Jane's own longing for a happy ending of her own.
Happy ending. Whoops. Delete. Can't think about that now. She smiled brightly. What had happened to all the people she had come to know and care about? She'd tried to find Mary's book online, with no luck. She'd have to do a search of bookstores that carried rare and out-of-print books.
The flower girl made her uncertain entrance at the back of the church, followed by a truly beautiful Holly. Jane beamed at her friend. And then stared at Byron. Her eyes went from Byron to Ho
lly, back again and back, until she felt like a tennis ball. Holly arrived at the altar, kissing her father and taking the arm of her groom. The bridesmaids turned to face the priest, causing Jane to breathe a sigh of relief. All that back and forth was making her dizzy.
But, that was pretty much it. She wasn't having quite the reaction she would have thought. She'd been surprised and taken aback to see Byron but, oddly enough, that rush of humiliation about, their last meeting wasn't there. Neither was a surge of excitement at the sight of him. Instead, there was a mild interest, without much to back it up.
So she'd said something she wished she hadn't. She wasn't the first one to do that and wouldn't be the last. And so Byron was a nice guy. He wasn't the first one and wouldn't be the last.
She sighed, earning a curious look from the bridesmaid standing next to her. Jane straightened and smiled brightly. Eyes forward. This was Holly's day.
The reception was held at a hotel on the water. Once the photos were over, Jane walked in behind Lolly and Molly, who were arguing over who had made better favors. She put her hands on the two pairs of shoulders. "I thought you both did a great job," she said. "Holly loved them."
"Thanks!" they gushed at once. Only ten months apart, they were often mistaken for twins.
Jane left them, wandering over to the ice sculptures and the tables piled high with food. She wasn't hungry but did accept a crystal glass of champagne from the waiter who offered. Then she watched as Holly and Greg made their grand entrance, her friend grinning from ear to ear in a wedding dress that blissfully showed no evidence of a wine crime.
As she lifted her glass to take a sip, she heard a low voice at her side. "Hi, Jane."
She answered without turning. "Hi, Byron."
Neither said anything for a minute. Then he said, "I didn't call."
She thought about flinging off a casual, "I didn't notice" but decided against it. He'd know she was lying. Instead, she answered, "I didn't call you, either."