Page 63 of My Ex-Best Friend's Wedding

I don’t turn around, but I’m ridiculously aware of him. “Are you still considering buying the Dogwood?” I throw the question half over my shoulder, too nervous to ask what I really want to know, which is whether he’s been in touch with Lauren. “It’s hard to imagine this place without her,” I babble even as my mind pulls up images of Jake here full-time managing the B and B despite the fact that Warner Holdings belongs to him and the chances of him running an individual property are probably zero.

“I’d actually love to add it to our portfolio,” he says. “But Dee’s still on the fence and...”

I can hear his voice, but my thoughts are now focused on him managing the Dogwood. Which would put him just a bridge away. A stunning thought after decades spent tryingnotto think of him at all. So stunning that I can’t let go of it and come back to reality only as he finishes with, “That’s why I’m exploring other possibilities.”

He falls silent, but I can’t seem to find my voice or bring myself to turn and face him. I startle when he places his hands on my shoulders and turns me gently around. For a long moment we stare into each other’s eyes. Everything is there. The enormity of our past, Lauren’s existence, her rejection of me, his wife and the fact that she’s gone. Every bit of it is there between us, yet wrapped around us, too.

He drops his hands and takes a step back, but our gazes remain tangled. I try to pull my focus back where it belongs. On finding out whether he’s in touch with Lauren and whether he’d be willing to speak to her for me. Something I’m pretty sure I have no right to ask.

I’m still trying to find the courage to begin when he says, “Have you heard from Lauren?”

He once knew me so well that for an instant I think he’s read my mind. Then I remind myself that he’s a parent—one who, according to my aunt Velda, raised two children pretty much on his own—and has to know how much I need to speak to my child.Our child.

“No. She won’t pick up or return my calls.” I fall back a step, because it’s hard to think when he’s standing so close. “Have you?”

“Yes.” He shifts uncomfortably, but he doesn’t look away. “She asked me to come up to visit.”

“Oh.” If he were lording it over me, I could be angry. But his expression is almost apologetic. I feel a dull ache in the pit of my stomach.

“I want to know Lauren. I want my sons to know her.” He swallows. “I was incredibly angry when I first got here, but even then my goal wasn’t to ruin your relationship. At least I don’t think it was. I just... I really needed to see her. And I wanted her to understand that I hadn’t ignored her.”

“I think that came across loud and clear.” There is anger and chagrin and regret in that sentence. I feel all of those things and more. Whether he meant to or not, he’s won our daughterand I’ve lost her. But if I’m going to rebuild my relationship with Lauren I’m going to have to be able to deal rationally with the father she’s just discovered.

This is the man I loved and longed for even after I knew he was engaged to someone else. The man I unthinkingly compare every other man I meet to.

“I understand there were problems, and I hope you don’t mind my asking, but what was your wife like?” I don’t ask the other things I want to know. What attracted you to her? Did you love her more than you loved me?

He studies my face for a long moment then says, “Angela was beautiful in a fragile, fairy-tale princess kind of way.” He sighs. “She seemed so lost at times that I guess I felt she really needed me.”

“Sir Galahad to the rescue. You always did have a protective streak a mile wide.” I don’t even come close to the teasing tone I’m looking for.

“Only, as I recall, you never wanted to be protected.”

It’s my turn to sigh. I spent my life striving to prove I could take care of myself. That I was strong. “You knew my father,” I say. “He always acted as if my mother’s ‘issues’ were just a matter of weakness. That she could have ‘cheered herself up’ or ‘pulled herself together’ if she’d only tried. It’s ridiculous, of course. But he was a man of absolutes. Black or white. Good or evil. Weak or strong. He had no middle ground. I always needed to appear capable in his eyes.”

Jake shakes his head in memory. And I recall how much easier it was to breathe around Jake’s parents than around my own, where I was always tiptoeing carefully so as not to set anyone off.

Jake’s features are stronger, more handsome in person than in my memory. So is his impact on me. I don’t know if I intentionally turned him into less than he was to ease the loss or if my memory just faded over time. “When Lauren was little andI was struggling to take care of her alone and earn enough to keep a roof over our heads, I would probably have jumped right on the back of that white charger of yours without a minute’s hesitation.”

“Yeah. I know a bit about single parenting,” he says. “Definitely not for sissies.”

We share a smile. We were babies ourselves on our wedding day; so young and inexperienced. I up and ran without conscious thought—all reaction and emotion. Jake stayed with a woman who was in and out of institutions. He raised his sons and kept his family going despite the emotional upheaval. And somehow he managed not to become hard like my father. Or maybe my father was just born that way.

“Did you love her?” The question is out before I realize I’m going to ask it.

Once again he pauses to think before he speaks. His answer is not the automaticyesornoI’m expecting. “I thought so. And when I became unsure, I told myself I did. But Angela was never convinced. Until the day she died, she believed that I was still in love with you.”

My heart pounds, but the rest of me goes very still.

His eyes turn bleak. “I stayed. I loved and took care of my children. I did all I could for her. But...” His voice trails off and he hesitates once again. “As much as I hate not having known about Lauren and that my parents died never knowing they had a granddaughter, you were right. If you and Lauren had become a part of the equation it could have set things off on a scale I’m not sure any of us would have survived.”

I feel a weight lift at his words. I may have blundered in my handling of things, but my instincts were right. There’s movement upstairs, but no one comes into the kitchen. We stand in a bubble of our own as the past washes over me and I wonder but cannot bring myself to ask whether Angela was right about Jake’s love for me.

“Why did you run?” At first I think I have imagined the question. But when I make myself look, I see the wound I dealt him deep in his eyes.

I drop my gaze to the window. April sunlight dapples the outdoor fireplace. Cocoa the cat sleeps in a rocker. The rich, sweet scent of jasmine slips through the open window. Life goes on even as you examine the life that fell apart. “My parents’ marriage wasn’t exactly a shining example of wedded bliss, but I honestly don’t know what made me panic like that.” I force myself to meet his eyes again. “When I finally calmed down enough to think about it, it made no sense. I mean, your parents seemed perfectly happy and you were certainly nothing like my father and I couldn’t have been more than a few weeks pregnant so I’m not sure I can blame it on hormones. In all these years since, I’ve never come up with a good answer or reason. You were the first and...” I stop just short of addinglast“... the first man I ever truly loved.”

We contemplate each other. Time spools out between us, past and present.

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