At four o’clock sharp, Bruce was in his car, driving back into Cedar Cove after finishing an on-site call in Gig Harbor.
He parked in the lot outside the shopping mall, and ran his fingers through his hair. He needed a haircut. Rachel had been cutting his hair for the past few years. Jolene’s, too. Sooner or later his daughter would realize how much Rachel added to their lives—and it was a lot more than free haircuts! He just hoped Jolene smartened up soon.
He chose the entrance closest to the Get Nailed salon. The salon storefront looked out on the mall and for several minutes Bruce stood there and simply watched Rachel work. His heart felt like it might pound straight out of his chest. He loved his wife.
A moment later, Rachel must have felt his stare because she turned and their eyes met. The brush she held dropped to the floor. She’d lost weight, Bruce noticed, which wasn’t good. It told him she wasn’t eating enough and that the pregnancy was taking a toll on her health. His first instinct was to chastise her for not looking after herself. She also seemed exceptionally pale. Stephanie, when she was pregnant with Jolene, had suffered from an iron deficiency and Bruce wondered if that was the case with Rachel, too.
While Bruce waited, Rachel finished with her client, then met him just inside the salon doors.
“What are you doing here?” she whispered before he’d had a chance to greet her.
“Shouldn’t it be obvious?” he returned, unable to take his eyes off her. “I came to see you.”
“You said you wouldn’t.”
“I did?” Bruce didn’t remember that. If so, he’d agreed under duress and had since changed his mind, although he said none of that. “I miss you,” he whispered, and reached for her hand.
Rachel looked down, but not before he saw tears in her eyes. “I miss you, too.”
“Come home, Rachel,” he pleaded as his thumb stroked the top of her hand. “I’ll do whatever you ask. Just come home.”
“I wish it was that easy.”
“But it is.”
“Jolene—”
Rachel had barely begun to speak when his daughter rounded the corner with two of her schoolfriends.
“I thought so!” Jolene yelled, hands on her hips. Bruce recognized the girls, although he couldn’t recall their names. “I knew you were coming to see Rachel.”
Next she glared at Rachel. “I don’t care what my dad says, I don’t want you in our house ever again.”
“Jolene!” Bruce snapped. “You’re being rude and your behavior is unacceptable. This is between Rachel and me. Now please leave. We’ll talk later,” he said in as ominous a tone as he could manage.
“I have as much of a right to be here as anyone.” Her eyes sparked with indignation. She was obviously drawing strength from the presence of her friends, who stood with her, forming a silent barrier. Turning to confront Rachel, Jolene continued, “Having you out of the house has been great and I don’t want you back.”
“Jolene, stop right this minute!” Bruce shouted. He lunged and grabbed his daughter by the shoulders. “I told you, this is between Rachel and me!”
“No, it isn’t,” his daughter insisted. “I live in the house, too, and it’s either me or Rachel because if she comes back, then I’m leaving.”
That was an empty threat if there ever was one. “And where exactly would you go?”
“I’ll run away.”
“Stop it, both of you,” Rachel cried, covering her mouth as she struggled to hold back a sob.
Jane, the salon manager, approached them. “I’d appreciate it if the three of you would take this elsewhere. We have customers here, and you’re causing a scene.”
Until then Bruce hadn’t realized that there were two or three ladies in the waiting area a few feet away. His focus had been on Rachel to the exclusion of everyone else—until Jolene arrived.
Taking his wife’s hand, Bruce led her out of the salon, although they remained in full view of the customers. In fact, they were attracting a lot of attention—and not just from Get Nailed. Everyone in the mall seemed to be staring at them.
Rachel noticed this, as well. “I think it would be best if you all just left,” she said, avoiding eye contact. Then she raised her head to meet Jolene’s gaze.
“I can’t leave you like this,” Bruce muttered. “If anyone needs to go, it’s Jolene and her entourage.” He looked pointedly at his daughter, demanding that she give him some privacy.
Jolene folded her arms rebelliously and refused to budge. “No way.”
“Just go,” Rachel pleaded, easing away from Bruce. “Like Jane said, you’re causing a scene.”
“I don’t care.” He ignored his daughter and focused on Rachel. He understood now that he hadn’t really grasped the extent of Jolene’s selfishness. He didn’t know how his daughter’s dislike of Rachel had reached this point. Nor did he know what had torn the two of them apart in the first place. At one time they’d been so close… .
“Don’t worry, Jolene,” Rachel said. “You can have your father all to yourself.”
His daughter’s smile could have lit up the entire mall. “Good.” To his shock, she and her posse of friends exchanged high fives.
With that, Rachel started to walk away, then apparently had a change of heart because she turned back. “Bruce, it would be better if you didn’t come here again.”
“I can’t promise that.”
“If you do show up, I’ll get a job somewhere else. This is embarrassing to me and the salon.”
Bruce shook his head, unwilling to stay away.
“If anything like this happens again, Jane’s going to find an excuse to fire me.”
Bruce had trouble believing that. But before he could respond, his daughter grabbed his hand. “Let’s go,” she said. “We don’t need Rachel.”
“I need Rachel,” he countered, pulling his hand free. “And our baby needs his or her father.”
“What about me?” Jolene demanded. “What about my needs?”
Rachel’s eyes locked with his. “Don’t come back here.”
“Okay, fine, but we need to talk.”
“No, you don’t,” Jolene inserted.
“Jolene, leave me and Rachel alone,” Bruce said furiously. He refused to have her interfering in his life like this. It was time she recognized her role in the breakup of his marriage. And, he told himself, it was time he admitted that he’d allowed her to do the damage she had.
“We need to talk,” he said again, wanting Rachel to know how important she was to him. Somehow, some way, they’d find a solution.
“No.” Rachel’s voice was adamant. “If this…incident today did anything, it solidified my reasons for leaving. I won’t go back to a house filled with tension and strife. It isn’t good for me or the pregnancy.”
“What about—”
Bruce didn’t get a chance to finish as Rachel left him standing in the center of the mall with a dozen faces staring at him.
“Come on, Dad,” Jolene said, all sweetness now. “Let’s go home.”
Bruce couldn’t bear to even look at his daughter. If he opened his mouth, he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to curb his anger. So he simply turned and walked away.
Five
“Mom, you’re wearing that goofy look again,” Tanni Bliss said as she strolled into the kitchen and selected an apple from the fruit bowl on the table.
“What look?” Shirley asked, although she knew exactly what her daughter meant. She’d just spent nearly two hours on the phone with Larry Knight, a nationally renowned artist—and the man she was now seeing. Although “seeing” wasn’t quite the right term, considering how much he traveled. They’d met at the Seattle Art Museum a few months earlier and been in frequent touch ever since.
Larry was a widower of five years’ standing, while Shirley had lost her husband to a motorcycle accident the January before last. She’d thought she’d never recover after Jim’s death. She’d been convinced that falling in love again was out of the question.
Then she’d met Larry… . The problem was that he lived in California and traveled a great deal—with his art exhibits, doing the lecture circuit, taking part in panels and interviews. They spoke every day now and emailed between conversations. They saw each other whenever possible, which wasn’t nearly often enough to suit either of them.
“So, where’s Larry now?” Tanni asked.
“He’s in New Mexico.” He might as well be on the moon. Without email and phone calls, she felt she’d slowly go insane. Or maybe not so slowly! She’d forgotten what it was like to fall in love. She’d been a college student when she met and married Jim. He’d been in the air force at the time and was about to be discharged. Eager to get on with an airline, Jim had set his sights on living in the Pacific Northwest. Once she’d visited the Seattle area, Shirley had agreed. This would be a lovely place to live and raise their children.
After Jim had been hired by Alaska Airlines, they’d settled in Cedar Cove and turned the basement of their large sprawling home into a studio for Shirley. She would’ve been content to remain exactly where she was for the rest of her days. Until the accident…
And, even then, she couldn’t imagine moving. But she’d met Larry, and that changed everything.
“When are you two getting married?” Tanni asked, breaking into her musings.
“Married!” Shirley gasped. “We hardly know each other.”
“Oh, come on, Mom. You haven’t been yourself ever since the day you first laid eyes on him.”
No use denying the obvious. “I know.”
“It’s not like I haven’t noticed. You’re crazy about Larry.”
“True.”
“So what’s holding you back?”
“Well, for one thing, Larry hasn’t asked.”
“Oh?” Tanni made it sound like she had insider information.
Shirley was tempted to ask if her daughter knew something she didn’t. Larry and Tanni chatted frequently, although she assumed her daughter had been looking for information about Shaw, the boy she’d once dated. The boy Larry had assisted in securing a place at the art institute in San Francisco.
“Has…has he mentioned that he’s going to ask me to marry him?” Shirley didn’t make eye contact. She felt guilty for even asking.
“No.”
So much for that.
“But if he did propose, what would you say?” Tanni asked.
Her daughter was teasing her. Playing along, she shrugged as if the question was of no real concern. “I’d probably tell him it was too soon and we should date a year or two first.”
Tanni burst out laughing. “You’re joking.”
She was, but that was irrelevant. Larry hadn’t proposed and, even if he did, it would be far too soon to make such a major decision. Besides, it wasn’t as if she could just move to California. Tanni had a year of high school left, and Shirley’s home and life were here in Cedar Cove.
