baseball coach, his boss at the grocery store where he works part-time, and supervisor of the homework club where he volunteers twice a week.”
Gord sighed. “You really think you can get probation?”
“With a joint-sentencing recommendation, I do,” Jack said.
“I’ll go joint if anger management is one of the terms of probation, but the final decision is still up to the judge.”
“Of course,” he agreed.
Gord took another sip of his drink. “You still dating Angela from the registry office?”
Jack shook his head. “That was over a long time ago.”
“No thoughts about settling down and starting a family at this stage in your life?”
“Hell, no.” His failed marriage might be in the past, but it wasn’t so distant that he’d forgotten. And how could he when he spent almost every day in meetings and motions with husbands and wives who had once promised to love, honor, and cherish their spouses and were now hating, dishonoring, and spurning them?
His friend chuckled. “Are you sure you don’t want a minute to consider your response?”
Jack shook his head. “I was married once,” he confided. “When I was young and stupid.”
“Was it that girl you were with in Chicago?”
Jack paused with his bottle halfway to his lips. He’d forgotten that Gord had been at the same law conference he’d attended more than a dozen years earlier in Chicago. “No,” he said now. “That wasn’t her.”
“So who was she?” Gord asked curiously. “Because I seem to recall that you had some pretty intense chemistry with her.”
He frowned, as if trying to recall the details of those three glorious days that were still indelibly imprinted on his mind, then shook his head. “I don’t remember.”
His friend snorted. “Yeah, and I took a job in the district attorney’s office for the extravagant salary.”
“Why did you leave private practice?” Jack asked, because it seemed like an opportune moment to shift the topic of conversation.
“Because when Sheila and I got married, she understood that I wanted to get my practice off the ground before I took any time off for a vacation. On our third anniversary, she reminded me that we still hadn’t had a honeymoon.”
“And yet, you’re still married,” he mused.
“Because I was smart enough to realize that I needed to balance my personal life and my professional life. Five years and two kids later, it was the smartest move I ever made—even if it means that my kids will have to go to public school.”
“Thankfully not something I have to worry about.”
“Never say never,” Gord warned.
But Jack wasn’t worried. He was thirty-seven years old and happy to be on his own. And while he dated—albeit a lot less frequently than he had in the past—he always said goodbye without any regrets. The sole exception was the one unforgettable weekend he’d spent in Chicago with Kelly Cooper.
Yeah, he had a boatload of regrets where she was concerned. He regretted walking into The Four Brothers pub for a drink—and not walking right back out again when he realized the gorgeous bartender who’d snared his attention was none other than the girl who’d lived next door when they were kids.
He regretted giving in to the irresistible urge to taste the sassy mouth that had tormented him for more years than he wanted to admit; he regretted succumbing to the need to explore every inch of her soft, silky skin with his hands and his lips; he regretted losing himself—over and over again—in her warm, willing body. Mostly he regretted ever letting her go.
“Speaking of family,” Gord said, drawing Jack’s attention back to the present, “I should get home to Sheila and the boys.”
He started to call for the waitress, but Jack shook his head. “You go ahead. I’ve got the bill.”
“Thanks.” Gord slid out of the booth, offered his hand. “I’ll bring your client’s case forward for a plea on Wednesday, when Judge Parrish is sitting.”
“I appreciate it,” he said, confident in the knowledge that Judge Parrish had never overruled a joint recommendation.
After his colleague was gone, Jack sat alone, nursing a second beer. He was grateful for Gord’s cooperation with Travis’s case—and annoyed that just the mention of Chicago had brought memories of Kelly Cooper to the forefront of his mind.
Not that those memories were ever very far away, especially not since his brother had informed him that she was coming home.
He didn’t understand why she was the one woman he couldn’t forget. They’d spent one unforgettable weekend together, but neither of them had mentioned the possibility of anything more. So when Kelly called a few months later—shortly after Sara had decided she’d been too hasty in ending their engagement—he’d been completely caught off guard. Just the sound of her voice had the memories flooding back and desire stirring. Then Sara had walked into the room and pointed to her watch, and he’d admitted to Kelly that he had an appointment with a wedding planner. After a brief moment of awkward silence, Kelly had offered a quick congratulations and an even quicker goodbye.
Six months later, he’d married Sara. About two years after that, Kelly married some guy out in Seattle. Now they were both divorced, and despite all the years that had passed, he hadn’t forgotten about her. For some inexplicable reason, memories of one long ago weekend still stirred his blood more effectively than most of the flesh-and-blood women he’d dated in recent years.
Maybe it was because he still felt guilty about the fact that he’d slept with the girl who had been his brother’s best friend since childhood. Yeah, it was the guilt, he assured himself.
Because Jack refused to consider that he might have had feelings for Kelly that ever went any deeper than that.
The knots in Kelly’s stomach tightened as the plane touched down on the runway.
This was it—there was definitely no going back now.
Not that she wanted to go back. Although she’d made the decision to move back to Pinehurst quickly, it hadn’t been impulsively. Which made her realize she’d been thinking about it for a lot longer than she’d been ready to acknowledge. Because no matter where else she might have lived, Pinehurst was still home.
She’d had such grand plans when she’d moved to Seattle. A new city, a new job, a new husband. Even when she and Malcolm had gone their separate ways, she hadn’t wanted to leave Seattle. Of course, Malcolm’s mom—the only grandmother Ava had ever known—had still been a big part of their lives. Kelly knew she wouldn’t have made it through those first few years without her former mother-in-law, and when Beverley Scott had passed away, she’d been at a loss. Not only because Bev had willingly stepped in whenever Kelly needed someone to watch her little girl, but because the older woman had been Kelly’s best friend in Washington.
Now it was time for a fresh start again. After
