“Merry Christmas,” she said softly, then lowered her lips to his.
His heart hammering, he let her kiss him, his lips curving up beneath hers as cheers from their friends rang out around the room. She was telling him that she was trying to trust him, and she wasn’t going to demand answers until he was ready to give them.
Maybe this would work, after all.
Chapter Twenty
“SO HOW’S IT GOING?” Ginger unscrewed the top from a bottle of Pinot Gris and proceeded to top up her sister’s glass. Fred, currently twelve weeks’ pregnant and just starting to show, was on lemonade, and she opened a can and filled up her tall glass.
Sandi waited until hers was full and then took a sip, filling her mouth with the taste of apple, pear, and spice.
It was two weeks after Christmas, and one of the rare afternoons where she wasn’t seeing Jace. Ginger and Sam had just gotten back from their honeymoon in Rarotonga, and they’d decided to take an hour out from being with their partners to have a drink and catch up, so they were sitting in the B&B dining room, having a glass of wine. Ginger had spent a while telling them how beautiful the five-star resort in Fiji had been, but Sandi had known it wouldn’t be long before the talk would come around to herself.
She investigated the box of chocolates Ginger had brought while she decided how to reply to her question. It had been an amazing time. He’d stayed the night with her on Christmas Eve, and had then joined them all for Christmas Day at the vineyard. They’d spent until the early hours drinking wine, talking, and laughing, and then he’d stayed the night again, which they’d passed making love, talking, and making love again.
His law firm was closed for two weeks, and the B&B until after New Year’s, so they had a glorious week together during which they’d explored the Northland, which was incredibly beautiful at the height of summer. They’d spent most of the day on New Year’s Eve on the beach, which Sandi had found most bizarre, and had seen the New Year in at a party down in Russell.
The first week of January had been busy, with Sandi re-opening the B&B and working there in the mornings, then meeting Jace most afternoons. As she had to be back at the B&B early the next morning, she only stayed with him once or twice, but it was becoming clear to both of them, she thought, that parting was proving difficult. It was too early to talk about moving in together, and anyway she wasn’t sure how it would work considering she needed to be at the B&B early, and he worked in Kerikeri. But that was the least of her problems.
“It’s going great,” she said to Ginger, and helped herself to a chocolate from the box on the table. As usual, it was from the Treats to Tempt You shop up in Doubtless Bay. Ginger regularly made a journey up there to buy stock for the restaurant, and she always kept a spare box for when they got together. This set had chocolates made in molds in various shapes and flavors.
Ginger reached over and took one in the shape of a Kiwi with tiny chopped pieces of Kiwi fruit for eyes. “Sam said he’s never seen Jace look as happy as he was over Christmas.”
“That’s good to hear.” Sandi eventually picked a chocolate in the shape of a takeaway coffee cup and bit into it—sure enough, it was coffee flavor, and she sucked it with pleasure.
Fred and Ginger exchanged a glance. “Something bothering you?” Fred asked.
“No,” Sandi said. “Why do you say that?”
“We’ve known you long enough,” Ginger replied gently. “We can always tell when there’s something wrong. Has Jace done something?”
“No, not at all.” And he hadn’t. He’d been perfect. Warm, funny, attentive, generous, and great in bed.
“So... what hasn’t he done?” Fred raised an eyebrow.
Sandi licked a dob of chocolate off her thumb and then turned her wine glass in her fingers. Over the last few days, she’d started to have a few niggling doubts. She’d been determined to keep them to herself, because she knew she was being foolish, but it was so hard to keep a secret from her sisters, who knew her too well.
“It’s nothing significant,” she said. She’d told them over Christmas what had transpired between her and Jace, about how she’d asked him to be honest with her, and how he’d said he wasn’t ready to tell her everything. They’d fallen quiet when she’d told them, and when she’d insisted she was fine with it, they hadn’t argued, but she’d known they disapproved.
“What’s happened?” Fred asked softly.
“It’s just a few little things,” Sandi admitted. “And I’m doing my best not to think about them or make them into big things, but it keeps happening, and... it’s starting to make me uneasy.” There, she’d said it. She swallowed hard, trying not to let the panic rise inside her.
“What kind of little things?” Ginger wanted to know.
Sandi brushed her finger through a drop of condensation on the table. “It’s not like we don’t talk, we talk all the time, but it’s about music and movies and books. We don’t talk about ourselves very much, or at least he doesn’t anyway. He doesn’t like to talk about his family or his past. I know he likes The Lord of the Rings and Jimi Hendrix and John Grisham, but I don’t know if he has brothers and sisters. Or where he grew up. If I do ask him, and I’ve only done it once or twice because it makes us both uncomfortable, he just changes the subject.”
She stopped, her heart rate speeding up a little.
Her sisters exchanged another glance, and Sandi suddenly understood—they were worried about her. They’d been more concerned than she realized about what she’d told them about him, and they’d obviously talked about this when she wasn’t around.
“What else?” Fred asked. “You said things plural.”
Sandi sipped her wine. “It started the day before New Year’s Eve. We were coming back from the beach and stopped at a cafe for something to eat. While we were there, a man called out from across the road, ‘Jason!’ and Jace’s head snapped around to look at him—it was really obvious. I asked him if his full name was Jason, and he just smiled and said no, that he was ‘just Jace’, but I don’t know that I believe him. He was too shocked by that guy calling out Jason.”
“Anything else?” Ginger said.
Now she’d started, Sandi didn’t see any point in holding anything back. “Two days ago, we went out for dinner. Jace said he’d pay, and he took out his wallet and put it on the counter for a moment. And for the first time I noticed the initials in the corner—JD. I made a joke about it and said he must have stolen someone else’s wallet, and he just laughed and said his middle name was Daniel. But who puts their first and middle initials on something like a wallet and not the initial for their surname?”
Fred leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Anything more?”
Sandi swallowed hard. “Last night, he’d left his phone on the table with his wallet. It vibrated with a text, and I glanced at it as the screen lit up. I really didn’t mean to look; I wasn’t prying on purpose. I literally just glanced that way at the noise.”
“What did it say?” Ginger whispered.
“It said ‘Can I call you tonight? Lizzie.’ And it ended with an X, for a kiss.”
The three of them fell silent. The light-hearted, humorous mood that had been there when they first sat down had evaporated, and her sisters’ faces were serious. Only they knew what she’d been through when she’d found out about Brodie’s double life. And only they would really know what she was going through now.
“You have to talk to him about it,” Fred said.
“Of course you have to.” Ginger frowned and joined her sister in leaning forward. “It was bad enough that he admitted he wasn’t telling you everything and that he had some kind of secret. I thought you were being too good to him by letting him get away with that. But now... honey, after what happened to you, you have to sort this out.”
“I know,” Sandi said. “It’s just... he asked me to trust him. And I want to. I don’t want to be the sort of person who believes the worst of people. Brodie made me so cynical for a
while, and I didn’t like what I became.”
“But that’s not what’s happening here,” Fred pointed out. “It’s not as if you’re jealous when he pops out for a Coke at the local shop. The way he’s acting is worrying you, and that’s not right, especially when you’ve been through so much.”
“But what if I confront him and he says oh, Lizzie is his friend or his sister or something, how will I know if he’s lying?” Emotion was rising inside Sandi, stirring up her panic again. “I don’t trust my ability to see clearly anymore.”
“What does your gut say?” Fred asked.
She hesitated. “I know he’s hiding something. He openly admitted he needed to get to know me better before he told me everything. And he said he had a checkered past. But, I can’t help it, I trust him. I do. I don’t doubt him, I doubt my own instincts. Does that make sense?”
“No,” Ginger said.
“Sort of,” Fred admitted. “I know you said at the time, with Brodie, you had no idea, so of course that will affect your ability to judge a situation.”
Sandi stood and walked over to the window. “Did I know?” She whispered the words, almost to herself. “I’ve asked myself so many times. How could I have been so gullible? All the excuses he must have made. So many lies... I wonder... Maybe deep down, I knew he was lying. But I ignored it, because I didn’t want to lose him. Once or twice, I did wonder if he was having an affair, but I told myself he wouldn’t do that to me.” She gave a humorless laugh. “I believed if I was a nice enough person, bad things wouldn’t happen to me. Dumb, eh?”
“Naive, maybe,” Fred said with a twisted smile and a look of sympathy.
“I don’t want to talk about Brodie,” Ginger snapped. When Sandi had first told them what had happened with him, Ginger had been the one who’d wanted to bring him back alive just so she could murder him again. “That’s done, and dragging it all up again won’t solve anything. We need to work out what to do about Jace.”
“I have an idea,” Fred said, “but you won’t like it.” She gave Sandi an apologetic glance.
“What is it?”
“I’d like to bring Mac and Sam in on it.”
“I couldn’t,” Sandi said, heat flooding her face. “I’d be so embarrassed.”
“Why?” Ginger asked. “You haven’t done anything wrong. You haven’t been hiding anything. Maybe they know something and he’s sworn them to secrecy, or maybe he’s told them something about his past and they haven’t thought to mention it.”
“The last thing Mac would want is for you to be hurt,” Fred pointed out.
“Sam’s the same,” Ginger said. “He was thrilled you were going out with Jace, but he’s very protective of you—of all of us. It doesn’t matter that Jace is his best mate. They only met when Sam came back to Blue Penguin Bay, so they’re hardly old school friends.”
Sandi hesitated. It would be embarrassing to admit to them that she was having doubts about him, especially if she was wrong. But what if she wasn’t? She knew she had to talk to him about it. But first, it would be nice to have some more information under her belt. “All right,” she said reluctantly.
“Great.” Ginger stood. “I’ll nip over to the house and get them.” Sam and Mac were currently watching an historical war movie in Fred and Mac’s house. She left the room.
Sandi sat there with a thumping heart, trying not to let emotion overwhelm her. She shouldn’t have mentioned it to them—she should have kept it to herself. But then that was just burying her head in the sand, and look where that had gotten her last time. No, she had to get this out in the open. Once she’d found out if the guys knew anything, she could go back to Jace and have a proper conversation with him, hopefully with some ammunition in her belt.
And if he still didn’t feel ready to share his secret with her? Well then, maybe it was time she finally moved on.
Tears pricked her eyes. She didn’t want to move on. And her gut feeling, such as it was, told her to trust him. But she couldn’t trust her gut feeling anymore. She’d opened her heart to him, setting off a nuclear explosion of feelings and emotion. And now she had to deal with the fallout, and hope that if nothing else, she could come through it in one piece.
Chapter Twenty-One
IN LESS THAN FIVE MINUTES, Ginger was back with Mac and Sam. They came in with serious faces, so clearly Ginger had briefed them on the way over.
“I feel awkward about this,” Sandi said before they’d even sat. “Jace is a mate of yours, and I feel terrible accusing him of something he’s almost certainly not done.”
“That’s not the point,” Mac said. “We’re well aware of that.”
“He was your best man,” Sandi said to Sam. “I feel awful.”
“He’s been a good mate.” Sam poured himself a glass of the Pinot Gris. “And if you were to ask me if he was trustworthy, I’d say yes without hesitation. I’ve seen the way he reacts to clients, and to heated encounters on the rugby pitch, and he’s sincere and open.”
He had a mouthful of the wine and then pursed his lips. “But I have to admit that he’s secretive. Like you,” and he nodded toward Sandi, “I know very little about his background. He never talks about his family. Once or twice he’s mentioned anecdotes about previous jobs he’s had or people he’s known, but they’re always very general, and I admit he’s guarded. I can see why you’re suspicious, especially after what you’ve been through.”
Heat filled Sandi’s face. She’d assumed that her sisters had told their husbands about Brodie, but to have it discussed like this was nothing short of humiliating. Still, she would have to push through that.
“The thing is,” Ginger said in her usual matter-of-fact way, “surely he hasn’t also got a wife and family somewhere else? I mean, how likely is it that it would happen twice?”
“He might not have a wife,” Mac pointed out, “but that doesn’t mean he’s not having an affair.”
“I suppose.” Sandi looked troubled. “But he first asked me out back in June. When I said no, he would’ve had plenty of time to go out with someone else. Surely someone in the community would have seen him with another woman? With Brodie it was different—his family lived across the other side of the country, and he used his job as an excuse to travel between us. Jace doesn’t go anywhere! He’s here all the time, and he’s not constantly ducking out.”
“But he does have suspicious texts,” Ginger said. She turned to her husband. “Do you know who Lizzie is?”
“Nope.”
Mac also shook his head.
“Have you told them about someone calling out his name, and the wallet?” Fred asked. Ginger said no, so Fred summarized what Sandi had told them earlier.
“J.D.?” Sam frowned.
“The first and middle initial doesn’t work,” Fred said, and everyone agreed.
“So what are we saying—that Jace Hart isn’t his real name?” Ginger asked.
They all fell quiet for a moment.
“How can we find out?” Fred wondered.
“Could you ring up and ask for a copy of his birth certificate?” Ginger said to Sam. “Pretend to be him?”
“We’d need his place of birth and his parents’ names,” Sam said. “And anyway, I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing that.” He glanced at Sandi. “Sorry.”
“Of course not,” Sandi said, a little angry at Ginger for suggesting it.
“Where did he study law?” Fred asked. “Do we know that?”
“Auckland,” Sandi and Sam said at the same time.
“What about if we call the Auckland Law school,” Ginger said, “and said we were an ex-student trying to get in contact with him?”
“They wouldn’t give us his address,” Mac said.
“No,” Ginger replied, “but they might at least be able to tell us if he did go there.”
Sam ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t like this. It feels underhanded. We should just confront him.”
“And what do we do if he denies i
t all?” Ginger said. “If he comes up with an excuse for everything?”
“We trust him?” Sam suggested.
But Ginger wasn’t going to back down. “I know he’s your best mate,” she said, her eyes blazing, “but Sandi is my sister. Were you listening when I told you what Brodie did to her? When she told Jace that she needed him to be honest with her, he should have said absolutely, my darling Sandi, I’ll never keep anything from you—it’s what any decent person would have done, if they didn’t have something to hide. But he didn’t. He’s hiding something, Sam, and we’ve got to do something, because it’s not fair to ask Sandi just to trust him.”
“I wish I hadn’t said anything,” Sandi said miserably, but Ginger waved the comment away with her hand.
“It was stupid in the beginning, and it’s even more stupid now,” she said. Her eyes blazed, and then to Sandi’s surprise, tears glistened there. “It’s not fair,” Ginger whispered. “I had to watch you go through hell after what Brodie did to you. Have you forgotten those months afterward, the disbelief, the feelings of betrayal?”
“Of course I haven’t,” Sandi snapped. “But don’t you see, this relationship is doomed no matter whether he’s lying or not? Because if I confront him, he’s going to know I don’t trust him. And if he has a genuine reason for not being open, he’ll think I’ll never be able to trust him. How many guys want to be with a girl who wonders where they’re going every time they leave the house? He could be the most loving man in existence, and I still won’t be able to stop myself questioning when he says he has to go away for a meeting. I was fooling myself when I thought I could trust someone again.” She stopped, close to tears. This was all so stupid. She should never have said anything.
“All right,” Mac said softly. “I’m not having this. I’m going to ring the uni, and we’ll start there.”
As Timeless as the Sea Page 15