Chapter Fourteen
Naomi finished checking the coats and headed to the fireplace, but Jake wasn’t there to meet her. She threaded her way through the crowd and circled around the refreshment table, only to find no trace of Jake or Maddie’s to-die-for caramel medallions, just an unhappy-looking Faith escaping into the garden.
After sending Mick to check on Faith—figuring he could use some help doing his good deed for the day—Naomi snagged a maple walnut cookie and wandered back to the fireplace. She assumed Jake must be stuck in line for the restroom or have been kidnapped by someone needing him to carry something (which happened a lot when a person had muscles as big as his), but after another fifteen minutes, she started to worry.
After twenty, she did a thorough search of the ballroom and adjoining rooms in the historical home before taking her search outside. But she made her way all the way around the house to the parking lot without seeing a soul.
Assuming she and Jake must be chasing each other in circles, Naomi turned back toward the ballroom, determined to stay by the fireplace until Jake found her, when an engine rumbled to life in the parking lot behind her. She turned, surprised to see Jake’s truck backing jerkily out of its spot and peeling toward the exit with a speed that wasn’t like him.
Jake didn’t drive like that, especially in places where there might be people around who could get hurt. He must have loaned his truck to someone…someone who needed to calm down before they headed toward Summerville.
Naomi frowned and started across the parking lot to see who was at the wheel, but before she could reach the truck, the driver pulled onto the road headed away from town and roared into the darkness with a squeal of tires.
“Crap,” Naomi muttered, crossing her arms at her chest. She was getting used to the cold, but not enough to wander around with bare arms for more than a few minutes. She should have held on to her coat and her purse. That way she could have called Jake to let him know where she was, and that whoever had his truck might have had a bit too much mulled cider.
She was on her way back inside to get in line for the coat check and reclaim her purse when she spotted Jamison headed across the parking lot. He emerged between two minivans, his swift footsteps crunching the gravel and his breath coming fast enough to look like a steam engine sending up puffs of smoke.
“Jamison, wait,” Naomi called out, lifting a hand. “Who has Jake’s truck? I just saw…”
Jamison turned to face her and Naomi lost her words. She couldn’t remember what she’d been planning to say. She could only stare at the blood dripping from Jamison’s split lip for a long moment before lifting her eyes to meet his guilty gaze.
As soon as their eyes met, the truth hit, making her throat tighten even as her chest contracted, threatening to collapse into itself and shatter her heart into a million pieces.
“You told him,” Naomi said softly.
It was a statement, not a question. Even before Jamison nodded—his eyes dropping to the ground as he raked a hand through his hair—she knew she was right.
“Why did you tell him?” Naomi asked, panic making her voice rise as she crossed the gravel toward him, her body now shaking for reasons that had nothing to do with the cold. “What were you thinking?”
“I thought he deserved the truth,” Jamison said, lifting his eyes. “But I didn’t think… I had no idea he’d take it like that.”
“Like what?” Naomi asked, fear for Jake and terror that she’d lost him all over again combining to make her heart slam against her ribs. “What happened? Where did he go?”
“I don’t know. We were talking and then…” Jamison sighed and brought his hand to his forehead, fingers digging into his temples. “It wasn’t going the way I thought it would. Jake looked so hurt—like I’d killed his fucking puppy or something. Just…destroyed.”
“And how did you think he’d feel?” Naomi sucked in a desperate breath, frustration making her want to grab Jamison by the arms and shake him. “Grateful? Happy?”
“I don’t know what I thought!” Jamison shouted before pressing his lips together. “It just seemed wrong not to tell him,” he continued in a more controlled tone, “to let him fall in love with you again while you lied to him about everything.”
“I wasn’t lying about anything,” Naomi said, voice sharp. “I love Jake. Completely. With my entire heart. And because I love him, I realized I couldn’t hurt him just to ease my own conscience.”
Naomi paused, fighting to keep her voice steady as tears filled her eyes. “Keeping that stupid night from him wasn’t a lie. It was a mercy. That night meant nothing then, and less than nothing now. There was no reason for him to know. All knowing is going to do is break his heart and take away his happiness. And mine.”
Jamison swallowed with obvious effort. “Yeah. I get that now,” he mumbled. “I felt like shit after I told him. I said he could hit me if he wanted. I didn’t think he’d actually do it, but then he fucking did.” Jamison dabbed at his lip with his thumb, wincing as he touched the split skin before casting a worried glance toward the road. “He was in the truck pulling out before I could get up off the ground.”
Naomi sniffed and willed herself not to cry. She had to pull it together. Tears weren’t going to accomplish anything. She had to find Jake and make him see that this didn’t change anything, not really, not in any way that counted.
“Give me your keys.” She held out her hand, palm up.
Jamison frowned. “I don’t think you should—”
“Give me your keys,” she repeated in a firmer tone. “I have to go find him.”
“Naomi, he hates you right now,” Jamison said, shattering her heart into smaller, more jagged pieces. “He’s not going to want to see you. Let me go and—”
“Why? So he can hit you again?” Naomi shook her head. “No way. You don’t deserve it, and Jake will regret every punch he throws. It’s better if I go.”
Jamison frowned, hesitating for a moment before he asked, “You really don’t think I deserve it?”
Naomi sighed. “No, Jamison. We were dumb kids. And it was so long ago. Can’t you see it doesn’t matter?”
“Then why didn’t you tell him yourself?” Jamison asked. “If it’s no big deal?”
“Because I knew it would be a big deal to Jake,” she said. “I knew it would make him feel like a fool for letting his guard down, and I might never get through whatever new wall he threw up.” She took a deep breath, refusing to give into the panic her words inspired. She would get through to Jake. She had to because she couldn’t imagine living another fifteen years—or even another day—without him.
“But I’ll find some way to make him understand and forgive us. Both of us,” she continued. “I will make this okay, but I need your keys.”
After a beat, Jamison reached into his pocket and pulled out his key ring. “I’m the red Mustang. It’s parked under the trees on the other side of the house.”
Naomi grabbed the keys and started toward the garden only to spin back a moment later when Jamison called out—
“Hey, Naomi, I’m sorry. Really sorry.”
—reminding her why she’d always liked him when they were younger. Jamison did dumb things without thinking them through, but he had a good heart and had always been man enough to admit when he was wrong.
Naomi nodded, wishing she could tell him it was okay.
But it wasn’t okay, and it wasn’t going to be okay until she was back in Jake’s arms, beloved and forgiven.
***
Jake drove deeper into the dark countryside, not sure where he was going, just knowing that he needed to get away from Summerville, away from his house and Naomi’s dresses spread out across his bed from where she’d tried on half a dozen things before they left for the ball tonight, and most importantly, away from Naomi.
Away from the lies she’d told, away from every smile and bone-melting kiss that had made all his walls crumble, sending his defenses tumbling down so that when the arrow came it pierced his heart dead-center, burrowing so deep he didn’t know if it could ever be pulled out.
She’d been with his brother. She’d slept with Jamison the night before she broke up with Jake via a Dear John letter. And then both of them had kept it from him for fifteen years.
At first he’d been more angry at Jamison—Naomi had been gone for years, it was Jamison who had lied to his face day after day—but now all he could think about was Naomi.
What on Earth had made her think she could keep this from him? That she could waltz back into his life and his heart and let him love her without telling him the truth? If she’d only told him the night they’d first decided to give their relationship another chance maybe he could have forgiven her—maybe.
But now…
Jake slammed his fist into the dashboard hard enough to send a wave of agony shooting through his hand. The truck veered across the centerline before he pulled it back into his lane. There was no one on the road, nothing but silent, black fields for miles in every direction, but he still shouldn’t be driving while he was this upset. The only thing that could make this night any worse would be hurting an innocent person, or God forbid, taking a life the way Jenny’s had been taken. He wasn’t too concerned with his own future right now, but no one else deserved to suffer.
When he saw the turnoff for the old Pottstown bridge—the one he, Naomi, and their friends used to go to in high school to drink beer and play music and dangle their legs over the edge while the midnight train roared by underneath—he took it as a sign and swung a hard right, rumbling onto the gravel road.
The bridge had always reminded him of Naomi, of the evening they’d gone out there alone and spent the night snuggled under sleeping bags in the bed of his truck, staring at the stars that were always so much brighter away from the lights of town. He hadn’t been back since she left Summerville. Even when his friends had begged him to come out to the bridge for a graduation party, Jake had begged off. He hadn’t wanted to spend any significant amount of time in places that reminded him of his ex, or how much a part of him she’d been.
But tonight, the bridge would be perfect, the perfect place to hurl the ring box in his pocket down onto the tracks for the next train to run over. He certainly wouldn’t be needing it.
He and Naomi were over. For good this time.
A part of Jake already wanted to forgive her—to find some way to justify her behavior—but he knew he couldn’t. Fool him once; shame on her. Fool him twice; shame on him. If he gave her the chance to fool him a third time, he’d be a goddamned idiot who deserved whatever misery he got.
He pulled to the edge of the road a half mile from the bridge, parking in a fallow field that hadn’t been planted in decades. Pottsville had always had a history of flooding and had gradually been abandoned in the 1960s. The only people who came out here anymore were kids wanting to party on the bridge and hunters during duck season. Tonight there were neither.
As Jake slammed out of the truck and started walking toward the shadow of the bridge, he was completely alone, with nothing but the sound of his footsteps to keep him company. All around him, the world was cold and silent and still, lit by a pale winter moon that made everything seem a little surreal.
If he let himself, he could start to believe the past hour had been a dream, that his brother had never told him that he’d slept with Naomi, that Jake had never punched Jamison in the face or abandoned Naomi at the ball.
He wondered how she’d figure out he’d left…
Maybe she’d go to look for him and see that his truck was gone. Or maybe Jamison would tell her. Maybe his brother would go back inside and tell Naomi their secret was out, and Naomi would decide to let Jamison comfort her the way he had when they were teenagers.
Jake knew it wasn’t likely, but the thought still made him mad enough to kick the stone railing of the bridge with his dress shoe, sending a wave of agony shooting up through his leg. At this rate he’d be black and blue by morning, but that would be good. At least it would give him something else to focus on besides the pain making his insides feel like they’d been run over and left by the side of the road to rot.
He walked up onto the main portion of the bridge, not surprised to find empty beer cans and cigarette butts littering the ground near the railing. Almost no one drove on this bridge anymore. It was a place to hang out, to get a good view of the railroad tracks curving away into the distance across the abandoned fields, and to feel the rush as the train surged by beneath you, only inches from your dangling legs.
Jake kicked the worst of the mess away and sat down, slipping his legs through the spaces in the railing. It was a much tighter fit than it had been before. He’d bulked up since high school, but not so much that he couldn’t let his legs hang above the tracks, not so much that he couldn’t fit his arm through one of the spaces and watch as the ring box in his hand tumbled down, landing right in the middle of the iron rails.
There, it was done. He was glad.
And he was glad that he’d thrown the ring away instead of taking it back to the store to reclaim his ten thousand dollars. His finances deserved to take the hit. Maybe that would teach him better than to drop half his life savings—or his defenses—for a woman he couldn’t trust.
He was still sitting on the bridge, considering waiting to watch the next train run the ring over, when a pair of headlights cut through the darkness, moving swiftly down the gravel road Jake had come down twenty minutes ago. The car was coming fast, but it slowed as the driver passed his truck and remained at a low speed as it crawled toward the bridge.
Wary, Jake stood, shielding his eyes with one hand as he stared down the driver, wondering if the guy would stop, or cross over the bridge with Jake still standing on one side.
Turns out the answer was neither. Ten feet from the bridge, the car shut off its headlights. A moment later the engine followed and the driver’s door swung open.
Even before his eyes adjusted to the sudden loss of light, Jake knew who had emerged from the car. His Naomi-dar was as strong as ever. She was like a phantom limb he’d never stop missing, but that didn’t mean he’d ever get it back.
As she closed the distance between them—holding up her long black dress in both hands so that she could walk faster—Jake prepared to tell her good-bye in a way that would leave no doubt that he meant business.
He wasn’t going to be drawn in a third time. Giving her a second chance had been stupid; giving her a third would be like asking for a bomb to be thrown through the shattered windows of his broken heart.
Jake clenched his hands at his side and sealed off every soft part of him, bracing himself for his last conversation with the woman he still couldn’t help but love.