just back the hell off,” Jake warned, the memories he’d had of the past making him as angry with himself as he was with his old friend.
“Sorry if I was out of line, but I was just trying to point out what seems obvious to everyone except you. You dealt with Will’s death the only way you knew how and Megan dealt with it her way.”
“Because I gave her no other choice,” Jake retorted. “I wasn’t there for her when she really needed me. When Will first got sick I was too anxious to start working on yet another high-profile case to stick around and give her the support she needed. And after he died, it was easier for me to hide from her pain as well as my own by using any excuse I could to stay as far away from home as possible.
“I let her down, Bobby—no two ways about it. I was all she had and I let her down, and then I lost her. I lost the best thing in my life—the two best things—my wife and my son. I know I’ll never be able to get Will back. But I’m not ready to admit that Megan won’t ever be a part of my life again, either. As soon as I am, I’ll let you know.”
Without waiting for a last comment from his friend, Jake hung up the phone, then pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes in an effort to ease the subtle pressure that warned of a full-blown headache on the way.
As he had so many times already, he thought back over the months that had passed since he’d first returned to Serenity, and tried to figure out what he’d been doing wrong. He wanted his wife back. But he wasn’t any closer to his goal than he’d been a year ago.
Jake didn’t want to have to resort to force to get Megan to listen to what he had to say. But lately he had begun to think that hauling her off to some secluded place and holding her captive might not be such a bad idea, after all.
He had tried to consider her feelings—heaven help him, how he’d tried. For months now he’d been so busy tying himself up in knots worrying about making the wrong moves that he hadn’t made any moves at all. In fact, she had shut the door in his face the one and only time he’d attempted to confront her face-to-face.
Wincing as he remembered that particularly disheartening exchange, Jake sat back in his chair again.
He had gone to her house one Saturday morning nine months ago. She had opened the door without hesitation, and she’d met his gaze quite calmly. She’d offered him no greeting, though. Standing just inside the doorway, dressed in faded jeans and a plain white T-shirt, her dark curls a tantalizing tangle begging to be touched, she’d simply looked at him, her chin tipped up defensively, her wide, pale gray eyes filled with reproach.
Not a single one of the casual, clever opening lines Jake had rehearsed had come to his mind. He hadn’t been so close to her in such a long, lonely time—close enough to feel the heat radiating from her body, close enough to breathe in her special scent. Lavender, he’d thought, every nerve ending in his body tingling with awareness.
He had wanted only to put his arms around her, to hold her close and feather kisses along her cheek as he begged for her forgiveness.
He had known that she wouldn’t let him touch her, though. Known it with a certainty that had made his heart ache. But surely she would listen to what he had to say….
“I need to talk to you, Megan,” he’d begun, his voice rasping in his throat.
“Oh, really?” she had replied, the look in her eyes changing to one of utter disdain.
“Yes, really. Please, just let me come in. Give me a chance—”
“The time for talking has passed, Jake,” she’d said, her tone ever so polite as she cut him off.
Her gaze never wavering, she had closed the door in his face with a finality that had sliced straight through to his soul.
Since that long-ago day, Megan had ignored him every time he’d arranged for their paths to cross at one public place or another. In fact, the studious way in which she avoided any contact with him had not only become cause for comment in the close-knit community, it had also reached laughable proportions.
Jake had wanted to give Megan the time and space she seemed to need. But for all the glimpses of him he had made sure she’d catch around town, she hadn’t warmed up to him in the least. The time had come to take more vigorous action.
Now all he had to do was think of some way, short of kidnapping her, to gain her complete and undivided attention. And then, of course, he would have to find the words to tell her how very sorry he was for letting her down—words that he had no way of making her believe.
Closing his eyes again, Jake tried rubbing his temples, pressing hard in a futile attempt to ease the throb in his head.
Megan seemed happy enough with the life she had made for herself in Serenity. Maybe she didn’t really want him around anymore, and he was simply failing to take the hint. And maybe, just maybe, the rumors he’d heard about a new man in her life were actually true.
Though Jake had yet to see Megan and Steven Barns—the high school principal who had lost his wife almost two years ago—together himself, he had it on good authority that they had danced quite a few times at the senior prom they’d chaperoned. They had also shared a table at the school picnic.
Jake ground his teeth at the thought of good old Steve, one of the town’s designated nice guys, putting his hands on Megan. She might not be his wife anymore, but that didn’t mean he—
A subtle but noticeable shift in the atmosphere outside his office caught Jake’s attention. The activity level in the station had been fairly low, but until a moment ago, the steady drone of voices—two of his younger officers kidding around with Darcy Osgood, the clerk who maintained the files and answered the phones—had been audible. The sudden, unexpected silence was deafening by comparison.
Turning in his chair, Jake glanced out the window in his office wall to see what was going on, then all but doubled over at the painful lurch that sucked the air from his lungs as it grabbed at his gut.
As if conjured by the force of his thoughts and memories, Megan walked slowly toward his office, weaving her way among the scattered desks as his officers and Darcy looked on in surprised silence. And she was holding a baby in her arms—an infant hardly more than a couple of months old.
Flung back to another time in another place, Jake recalled all too vividly watching Megan walk toward him just so, her gaze turned inward, her mouth softening with a tender smile as her cheek brushed their son’s dark curls. Slashing through him as they did, the knife thrust of those memories, shut away for so long, made it momentarily impossible for him to draw a breath, to push away from his desk, to stand and close the distance still between them.
Get up and go to her and find out what the hell is going on, he ordered himself, aware that he had to gather himself quickly and take control of the situation, not only for his sake but for Megan’s, as well. She wouldn’t have come to him unless she needed his help—needed it desperately.
Jake couldn’t seem to make his legs work, though. Couldn’t seem to find the strength to stand and meet her halfway. In an effort to steady his roiling thoughts and emotions, he shifted his gaze from Megan.
He saw that she had left a stroller parked near the station doorway. He also saw that Darcy and his officers were gawking at her curiously. When he shot a pointed glance at them, they moved hurriedly to their respective desks and pretended to busy themselves with paperwork, and he allowed himself
