She sent a brief prayer heavenward, that wherever that sweet, shy mutt might be by now, he was safe. And well.
And then she gave Will a real smile, one that was a little bit sad, but also one-hundred-percent sincere. “We haven’t seen a single bear or mountain lion. I don’t think you’ll have to use that rifle of yours, after all.”
He looked vaguely abashed. “You’re right. I probably should have left it at the house. I’m a little on edge, that’s all.”
“Positive that some other bad thing is bound to happen?”
“You got it.”
She opened her mouth to promise him that she was not allowing any more bad things to happen. But then she realized it would only be one more promise destined to remain unkept. Another bad thing was going to happen: the end of their time together. A hundred rifles couldn’t protect them against that.
Jilly set her mind on the business at hand. “I’m completely turned around. I hope you can get us back to your grandmother’s house.”
He nodded. “No problem. This way.” He began trudging through the snow along the rim of the embankment.
As they moved along the edge, the embankment sloped downward. About twenty minutes after they first came out above the road, they were walking on the shoulder, single-file, sticking close to the dirty ridge of snow pushed aside by the plow. Cars and trucks and SUVs, crusted with road salt, snow piled high and white on their roofs, rushed past them, sometimes too close for comfort.
They came around a curve and Will pointed at a narrow driveway that met the road and wound off into the trees maybe thirty yards ahead. “There. That’s it.”
Jilly stopped where she was. “The driveway to your grandmother’s house?”
“That’s right.”
“But it’s been cleared.”
“The plow must have—” He cut the sentence off himself. There was no need to go on. As they watched, the snowplow emerged from the driveway. The driver turned onto the road and saluted them with a mittened hand as he rolled by.
They got their shovels and went inside.
“Well,” she said, “Let’s get that tree taken down.”
He shook his head. “Leave it.”
“I promised you I would—”
“Leave it. Please. I’ll handle it myself.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
An hour later, with Will’s help, Jilly had taken the unneeded chains off her 4Runner and cleared the windshield of snow and ice. She’d packed up her stuff and stowed it in back. Missy was safe in her carrier, already complaining from the passenger seat.
Jilly made one more pass through the old house. But there was nothing she had left behind.
Well, maybe her heart. But, hey. She was a strong, self-reliant and self-directed woman. She knew her own worth and her single life was a good life. She had no doubt she’d get over Will Bravo.
Eventually.
He went out with her to see her off. The sun was directly overhead by then, the sky ice-blue and clear.
They stood by the driver’s door of her car and looked at each other for longer than they should have.
He was the one who broke the silence. “You know I’m going to miss you.” It wasn’t a question. He added, low and rough, “I’m going to miss you really bad.”
She knew exactly what he meant. But she couldn’t have said a word right then if her life and his life and Missy’s life depended on it. So she swallowed and she nodded and she found her throat had loosened up enough that she could speak, after all.
“What I’d like to hear you say right now is that next year you’ll be with your family when Christmas comes around.”
He stuck his hands in his pockets and looked down at his boots. “I’ll work on it, Jilly.”
It wasn’t the answer she’d hoped for. But it was something. And she might as well put a good spin on it. She sucked in a big breath of freezing air and let it out in a rush. “Well, okay. What more could I ask?”
Lots more. And they both knew it. But there was no point in asking for what you weren’t going to get.
“Goodbye, Will.” She turned to reach for her door.
Before she got it open, though, she heard him swear low. And then he was grabbing her by the arm, spinning her back around to him and yanking her close.
He looked down into her startled face, his eyes blue shards, two flags of color staining his beard-roughened cheeks. And then his mouth swooped in and closed on hers.
It was the kiss of her dream.
The one that burned her lips right off.
His hands ran down her back, pressing her close to him so she could feel how much at least one part of him wanted her to stick around. She kissed him back, as hard and hungrily as he was kissing her.
And then he pulled her closer still, so close that the savage kiss was broken. They breathed together. She could hear his heart beating, right in time with her own. Twin tears slid down her cheeks. She moved her head just a fraction, enough to wipe them away on his jacket, so he would never have to know they had fallen.
From some unknown reserve she hadn’t realized she possessed, she found the strength to pull away. Still held in his arms, she looked up at him.
“This isn’t going to be one of those steamy relationships that never really goes anywhere, but doesn’t quite go away, either, is it?”
He gave her that wonderful, wry smile of his. “No. I swear to you. It was only that it hit me all over again. You’re really going. And I couldn’t stand it, not without one final kiss.”
“So when we see each other—and you know we will—at Jane and Cade’s, or the Highgrade, or at Celia and Aaron’s, or maybe just coincidentally, on the street…”
He made a low sound in his throat. “I get the picture. Smile. Say hi. Walk on by.”
“It probably won’t be a whole lot of fun.”
“I hear you. But we’ll manage it.”
“And right now, you’d better let go of me.”
He released her. Damn. She hated that.
“Do me one last favor?” he asked, so softly.
“Anything.” And she meant it.
He took her hand, turned it over and folded a piece of paper into her palm. “That’s my cell phone number. Call me when you get home. I just want to know that you made it safely.”
She snatched both hands behind her back—quickly. Or else she would have reached for him. “Oh, Will. How can I convince you I’m going to be just fine?”
“Just call.”
“All right.”
She forced herself to turn again, to grab the door handle and pull the door wide. She hitched herself up and slid behind the wheel, setting the scrap of paper with his phone number on it in the little niche beneath the ashtray and hooking her seatbelt in place.
Will shut her door for her. He stepped back, mouthed, “Drive carefully,” at her through the window.
She gave him a jaunty wave, started up her car and headed down the driveway, taking extreme care not to allow herself so much as one glance back at him, or the clearing, or the old house where she’d found love so unexpectedly—and then, just as suddenly, lost it again.
Chapter Sixteen
Jilly got home without incident. She dialed the number Will had given her as soon as she pulled beneath her carport and turned off her car.
He answered midway through the first ring. “Jilly?”
She ached for him, picturing him in his easy chair, the phone in his hand, driving himself a little nuts with his usual expectations of disaster as he waited for her call. “I’m here. I’m fine.”
“Thank you.”
“Goodbye, Will.”
She heard a click and the line went dead.
Jane called her on her cell the next day. “Well, are the roads cleared?”
It took Jilly a second or two to realize that Jane assumed she was still at the old house high up in the mountains. “Yes, they are. As a matter of fact, I’m home.”
>
Silence echoed down the line as Jane digested that piece of information. “Home? In Sacramento?”
“That’s right.”
“But I thought you said you would call me before you left, maybe come on in to New Venice and stay with Cade and me until New Year’s.”
Jilly cast about madly for a way to explain herself. Nothing came to mind except the truth, which was a long story with an unhappy ending and would entail spilling the beans about Will—something she really didn’t want to do. She and Will were nobody’s business. They’d had a beautiful time together and now it was over and telling his sister-in-law all about it wouldn’t help the situation one bit.
Jane prompted, “Jilly?”
At a loss for what to say, she found herself launching into a verbal tap dance. “Oh, that’s right. I did say I’d call. I’m sorry, it’s just that something came up. I had to get home.”
Jane cleared her throat, pointedly. “Jillian. Please. I’ve got my bull-detector set on you and it is beeping. Fast and loud. What’s going on?”
“I just wanted to come home, that’s all.”
“You mean that whatever it is, you’re not going to tell me.”
Jilly wondered what could have possessed her to try being evasive with Jane. With Jane, it was always better to come right out with it when you didn’t intend to tell her something. Jane could get ugly if you lied to her.
“You’re right, Janey. I’m not going to tell you.”
“Was it Will? Did he—?”
“Will was a perfect gentleman. I just wanted to come home.”
“Celia said he told you all about poor Nora. Evidently, he gets very weird over the holidays.”
“We worked everything out. We had a fine time.” Oh, yes they had. They really had. “And I’m very sorry I didn’t call you. It was rude. I just had a lot of things on my mind.”
There was another silence—but not such a strained one as before. “There’s no need to apologize. You know that. I only wish you would tell me what’s bothering you.”
“I’m all right, Janey. Truly.”
“You sure you won’t change your mind and come on up to visit, anyway? We would love to see you.”
No, you wouldn’t.
Jilly was standing by the brass-framed mirror in her apartment’s small entrance hall and what she saw reflected there wasn’t anything anybody else needed to see. She’d stopped for gas at a convenience mart yesterday and made the mistake of going inside. The clerk had looked up from the register and gasped.
“My God, lady. Are you okay?”
That was when Jilly decided she’d avoid leaving her apartment for a while—until the bruises went away and the bumps went down or until something came up where she had no choice. And if she did go out, she’d have sense enough to wear a hat pulled low on her forehead.
“Jilly? What do you say? Why don’t you come on up?”
“Thanks bunches, Janey. But I just can’t make it right now.”
They said goodbye a few minutes later. Jilly punched the button to end the call and then had to stop herself from dialing Will’s number. It was a problem she had now. Every time she had a phone in her hand, her fingers just itched to call him.
She’d torn up the paper with his number on it and flushed the pieces down the toilet. But that hadn’t helped. Somehow, that number had managed to burn itself into her brain. She’d forget her own name before she’d forget that number.
Oh, what was she going to do with herself? Maybe she ought to sit down and write a letter to “Ask Jillian.” She could give herself the answer to all her troubles and print it in her column.
Dear Jillian…
What? She didn’t even know where to begin.
She put the phone down and went to make herself a double batch of Kraft macaroni and cheese. As she sat down to eat, she told herself she was not even going to think about what Will might be doing right now….
Will had made himself a double batch of Kraft macaroni and cheese. He took his place at the table and picked up his fork and dug in.
A few minutes later, he realized he’d stopped eating. He was just sitting there, his food growing cold in front of him, staring at the kitchen door, wishing a certain gray-eyed woman with gold-streaked brown hair would come bursting through it, that mouth of hers going a mile a minute….
He picked up his fork again. He had to stop that, getting lost in thoughts of Jilly. She was gone and it was for the best.
He was just tired, that was all. He’d had a rough night last night, missing the warmth of her beside him.
And his dreams had been unsettling.
In one, he saw his grandma Mavis standing at the foot of the bed, shaking her head at him, her blue eyes so sad. And in another, he saw Nora, standing a long way off, in some misty nowhere place, waving, calling to him. But he couldn’t make out what she said.
Both dreams had left him feeling bleak and depressed. And then he got up in the morning and went out to the living area and the first thing he saw was that damn tree of Jillian’s. He couldn’t take looking at that tree until New Year’s.
So, before he even allowed himself a cup of instant cappuccino, he’d taken the thing down and tossed it out in back to chop up for firewood at some later date. He’d packed up all of Mavis’s old decorations and put them where they belonged, in the crawl space upstairs.
And then, damn it, he found himself missing the tree after it was gone. He had this feeling of an empty space, there, by the window, where the tree ought to be.
Will shook his head. He forked up a mound of macaroni and cheese and shoved it into his mouth. He chewed, stolidly. Life was just that way sometimes, bad dreams and memories. Restless nights and lonely days.
Outside, it was near dark. The wind was up, whistling through the trees, making the old window frames rattle, whining at the door….
Will set his fork down again. He listened intently. That wasn’t the wind.
Yes. There it was again. It sounded like…
Will got up and opened the door.
Jilly had had a couple of consultations scheduled for the first week in January. Friday, when she got home, she’d managed to reach those clients and move them both to a later date. Her column was no problem. She did that from home, anyway. She planned to really churn them out while she was stuck at home, estimating that by the time she was ready to show her face in public again, she’d be at least a month ahead. And that, as the divine Martha would say, was a good thing. In the end, the way Jilly saw it, everything had its upside—even hiding out in her apartment in order to spare other people the horror of having to look at her.
Saturday, a few hours after Jilly spoke with Jane, Caitlin called. Correction, Jilly thought, when she heard that low, sexy voice. Almost everything had its upside.
“Sweetie, I called Jane and I asked if she’d heard from you and she said that she’d talked to you and you were at home. I couldn’t believe it. Tell me it isn’t so.”
“It’s so, Caitlin. I’m at home.”
“I don’t get it. What the hell’s the problem now?”
“There is no problem. Everything’s fine.”
“Where’s Will?” Caitlin demanded, in a tone that seemed to hint that Jilly must have done something criminal with her middle son.
“The last I saw him, he was up at Mavis’s place. I think he plans to be there until the second of January—and Caitlin, Will and I talked about you. We decided that what you need is to find yourself another boyfriend.”
“Don’t try to switch subjects on me, darlin’ girl. When I want a new boyfriend, I’ll find one. And when I go after information, I don’t quit until I get it. Did you two have a tiff? Is that what you’re telling me?”
“Caitlin, let me give it to you straight.”
“Go right ahead. Hit me with it. I like it straight.”
“There is nothing going on between Will and me. We’re…friendly acquaintances. And that’s all.”
Caitl
in made a snorting noise. “Well, that is a great big load of stinkin’ you-know-what if I ever heard one.”
“Caitlin. I have to go. Have a happy New Year.” Jilly hung up and turned off the phone.
“Omigoodness, Jillian. What happened?” Jilly’s neighbor, Orlene Findley, gaped at her, horrified.
Jilly had made the mistake of stepping out to get her Monday morning Press-Telegram without checking first to see if anyone was going to have the misfortune of getting a look at her. She’d just bent down to scoop up the paper when Orlene popped out of her own apartment across the breezeway.
Jilly tried for a lighthearted tone. “Just a couple of accidents up in the mountains.”
“A couple of accidents?”
Right then, from inside, Jilly’s house phone started ringing. She waved her paper at Orlene. “Phone. Gotta go. Take care.” She backed up and shut her door on her staring neighbor, leaning against it briefly, promising herself that she would never so much as poke her head out that door again unless she had on a hat or a minimum of a week had passed. She figured by a week, the two goose eggs would have gone down and her bruises should yield, at least somewhat, to a heavy application of foundation.
Then again, maybe she was handling this all wrong. Maybe she should simply go boldly forth, let people gasp and exclaim over her all they wanted. They’d get over it. A lot sooner than she was going to.
Missy sat on the floor a few feet away, glaring up at her. The cat had yet to forgive her mistress for spiriting her away from Will.
And the phone was still ringing.
“Hello?”
“Happy New Year’s Eve, Jilly.”
“Ceil. How are you?”
“In labor.”
At first, Jilly thought it must be a joke. “You’re kidding, right?”
“No. My contractions are coming five minutes apart and Aaron and I are on the way to the hospital.”
“Omigod. You mean you’re in the car?”
“That’s right.”
“How are you? Are you—?”
“I’m fine. Poor Aaron, though. I don’t know if he’ll survive this.”
Scrooge and the Single Girl Page 17