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“More than a few kids. We’re talking millions of dollars, Candy.”
“Oh, so is that the going rate for a woman’s heart?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She spun around to face him. “What do you think it means? Sure, we fought a lot about how you wanted kids, but beyond that, Galaxy Sports also contributed to our marriage falling apart. Because you started caring more about proving to your dad how good you were at selling everything from footballs to fishing poles than you ever cared about being my husband.”
“Wrong. If memory serves me correctly, you spent an awful lot of time at Candy Kisses, too. What was I supposed to do, turn caveman and drag you home? The more I thought about it, the more I realized maybe you’d never wanted to be my wife.”
“That’s not true,” she said, her voice a raspy whisper. She swallowed hard, fighting still more tears clinging to the corners of her eyes. “You know why I asked for a divorce. It was about kids, Jake. Your obsessive need for them. I told you I couldn’t have them, but you wouldn’t listen. You knew I could never be a mom. You knew it, yet you kept bringing up the subject—despite the fact that you also knew how much it hurt me to let you go.”
“Let me go?” He laughed. “More like booted me out the door.”
“Argh, this is just like you, you stubborn—Never mind. Evidently my reasons don’t matter any more now than they did ten years ago.”
“What reasons? That’s just it. You never gave me any. I could live without having kids, what I couldn’t live without was love, Candy. And let’s face it, when that last year went by with us living like strangers, what was I supposed to think? And when you filed for divorce…Well, I know I can be thick-headed, but it wouldn’t have taken a jackhammer to pound the fact into me that at that point you pretty much didn’t give a damn about me or our marriage.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” She aimed her index finger in the direction of his chest, ignoring the release of ten years’ worth of hot tears. “I—I would have done anything for you. That’s how much I used to love you, Jake. I loved you so much that I set you free. I couldn’t give you kids, so I set you free to have them with another woman. That’s how much I loved you—not Candy Kisses—you.”
“Jeez.” He slashed his fingers through his hair and haltingly approached her before going for broke and crushing her in a hug. “Oh, man, Candy. What a mess we made of things, huh?”
She nodded against his warm, oh-so-solid chest. Being back in his arms felt so good, so right, as if she’d finally come home. Too bad that home was just a dream. The fairy tale the two of them once shared could never be recreated.
Those once-idyllic days had been back when they were lovesick teens. Married at eighteen, only a month after their high school graduation, their marriage lasted a whole five years. At first, it’d been idyllic. With both of them working long hours in their respective family businesses, they hadn’t given a thought to the future aside from what time they’d next make love. For nearly twelve months, that had been enough, but then Jake had wanted more.
The total package—meaning kids.
He knew what kind of mother she’d had. The whole town knew the sad clichе of poor little Candy Jacobs’s mother running off—never to be seen again—with a traveling carpet company rep she’d met at the interior design shop where she worked.
Even before that, though, Valerie Jacobs could hardly have been nominated for mother of the year. She didn’t bake cookies, read bedtime stories or attend school plays. She never cooed over scribbled drawings or A-plus spelling tests, and she certainly never braided her daughter’s hair or shopped hand in hand for the perfect Easter dress. Not that any of that would have even mattered to Candy had she provided the one thing every child craved above all else—love.
No, the worst thing about Valerie Jacobs was that she’d been devoid of feelings for anyone but herself—oh, and of course, for her lovers.
Candy’s dad had tried making up for her mother’s shortcomings with occasional pats on the head and hugs, but he was always busy at work, trying to keep her mother in the finery that only occasionally made her smile.
Years after the fact, Candy had learned that the man her mom had finally run off with hadn’t even been her first affair.
When her father died of a heart attack three days after Valerie’s abandonment, no one had been surprised. They’d just amended the gossip to include the fact that “that Jacobs woman” had quite literally broken her husband’s heart.
When Candy’s grandfather had taken her in, life had been a little sweeter. But the little girl who eventually grew up never forgot the kind of emptiness that lurked inside. After all, half of her blood was Valerie’s, which meant she was destined by DNA to be just as wretched a wife and mom. The only question was when the time bomb ticking inside her would finally go off.
Jake had known all about Candy’s mother. What he hadn’t known—because she’d never told him—was that Candy had no intention of repeating her mother’s mistakes. When Jake began pressuring her to have kids, Candy realized she had already made one disastrous error in ever daring to dream she’d make a good wife. Hurting herself and Jake had been one thing. But her most sacred vow, no matter what, she wouldn’t break. And that was to never, ever become a mother herself. No child deserved the lonely life she’d once led.
Jake softly stroked her hair, so softly that had Candy been a cat, she would have flopped onto her back and purred. Problem was, she wasn’t a cat. She was a flesh-and-blood woman who needed to get on with life.
Life without Jake.
Jake stiffened when Candy pulled away.
After sniffling, she said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to go all emotional on you. What I meant to say is that if you’d like a pizza, since I’m tonight’s hostess, I’ll buy.”
“Sure,” he said, tucking his hands into his jean’s pockets, warming them because after releasing her, bone-chilling loneliness licked the tips of his fingers. “That sounds good—only I’m paying.”
“Okay,” she said with a wooden nod. “I’ll go call.”
Alone in the comfortable kitchen with its yellow-gingham curtains, hanging copper pots and glowing oak cabinets, Jake felt lost. Out of his comfort zone. His world was modern and sleek. Filled with man stuff. Chrome and leather and women who didn’t even know a kitchen came with their mansions. He’d come here to ask Candy a simple question. What had gone wrong?
In spite of Candy’s confession that, at least in her mind, her reasons for divorcing him had been entirely altruistic, that didn’t mean their main dispute had changed.
He still wanted kids, she didn’t. Period. Not just end of story, end of their story.
If he were smart, he’d walk away.
But he wasn’t smart, he was in love—not with Candy—but Bonnie. And if that made him a fool for love, then so be it.
Gazing around the kitchen, taking in the handmade rag rug hugging the brick floor, the candid photos gracing buttercream-yellow walls, the beams of warm twilight shafting through the paned bay window to kiss the ladder-backed chairs at a round oak table, he realized with a lonely ache that this was the kind of home he’d grown up in.
This was the kind of home he wanted for Bonnie.
Oh, sure, he could have Palm Breeze’s hottest designer turn his house into a carbon copy of Candy’s, but what he couldn’t pay someone to reproduce was the everyday simplicity. The deep-down sweetness.
The scent of painstakingly rubbed lemon oil that did battle with burnt corn dogs and won. The happy gurgle of a fish tank bubbling in the far corner. And from outside the screened windows, faint stirrings of leaves in the trees. Waves lapping at the lakeshore. Kids playing Freeze Tag somewhere down the street.
After all that Jake had achieved, the fortune he’d amassed, this kitchen was the one thing that, in as long as he could remember, felt familiar. Like home. It irked him that just being back in this room, no matter how much in appearances it’d changed, inside, he felt the same way he had walking out for the last time. Like an empty, aimless shell of a man.
Dammit, but he resented Candy for going on with her life and this house without him.
This had been his house as much as hers. His dream as much as hers. And now, seeing how capably she’d managed without him, he felt like an intruder. A failure. And that scared him, for the only thing he’d ever in his whole life failed at was his relationship with her.
How ironic was it that his future with Bonnie depended on his past with his ex-wife?
Just like his dad, he’d always planned on returning home after a long day’s work not to an empty house, but to a home bursting with laughter and life. Kids, dogs, cats, hamsters—Once upon a time Jake had wanted it all, with Candy beside him, hugging him, kissing him, making love to him late into the night until they had to stop because one of their kids was banging on the bedroom door.
“Mommy? Daddy? Can I come in? I had a bad dream.”
Candy would giggle, pulling her simple cotton nightie over her head, past full breasts, slim abdomen and hips. Jake would hop out of bed and yank on his boxers before opening the door to scoop his sleepy rug rat into his arms. For the sake of his daydream he’d call the kid Mark, and he would smell a little sweaty and of cedar shavings—not unlike his pet hamster.
In his mind’s eye, Jake watched himself lug Mark to their bed where he’d wriggle—footie pajamas and all—smack-dab into the middle before promptly falling asleep, snoring loud enough to wake the dead. And then, in milky moonlight, Candy would reach out to him, her husband and best friend, grasp his hand and give it a light squeeze. Without either of them saying a word, Jake would know his every wish had quietly come true.
Back to reality, Jake swallowed hard.
What happened, Candy? What happened between us to make love not be enough?
“Pizza should be here in about forty minutes.”
He looked up.
Even doing something as simple as crossing the room, Candy had such grace. A long time ago she was everything he’d ever wanted and more. That long, silky hair, those even longer legs. When they made love, she’d had this way of wrapping those legs around him, urging him deeper, urging their souls closer, that had nearly made him weep with the sheer joy of being her man.
Now…
Whoa. Now, he just wanted out. Time to regroup.
The woman and her cozy kitchen were dangerous. “Forty minutes, huh? Whew, that’s a long time.”
“Yeah.” At the waist of her simple floral dress, she fumbled with her hands. “Uh, want to watch a movie or something while we wait?”
“No, Candy, I think what we should do is talk.”
Chapter Three
Minutes later, in the living room, Candy took the sofa while her ex choose an overstuffed tapestried wing chair.
Personally, she’d had enough talking, but seeing as how Jake probably wouldn’t leave without spilling whatever was on his mind, she figured she might as well let him get it out of his system. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s hear it. What in the world made you re-propose this afternoon at the shop?”
“Jeez, where do I start?” He cleared his throat, worked the opening of his forest-green golf shirt—the one she was trying not to notice did such heavenly things with his annoyingly direct gaze. “I’ve gotten into a bit of a jam, and need your help—no, I’m desperate for your help.” A strangled laugh passed his lips. “I would offer to pay you, but—”
“I get the picture. Go on.”
“So anyway, I had these great friends, Cal and Jenny. And they had a great baby. Her name is Bonnie and you should see her blue eyes sparkle. I was at the hospital the day she was born—saw her just an hour out of the womb. Jenny told Cal all babies have blue eyes, but he told her, ‘Nonsense, this beautiful kid of ours is destined to have the most striking pair of bonny blue peepers in the whole wide world.’ And so they named her Bonnie Blue, just like Rhett and Scarlett’s daughter—only I’ll be damned if I ever let her near a horse.”
Candy leaned forward, spellbound by the change in Jake’s expression. His eyes glowed with love for this child who wasn’t even his. If there’d ever been a doubt in her mind that she hadn’t done the right thing in giving him a divorce, it was gone now. Jake was destined to be a dad. Just like she was destined to never be a mom.
“In fact, I’m thinking of banning her from all moving things. Trikes, bikes, and especially cars—not to mention the wild teens who drive them.”
“Jake,” she said, a sickening suspicion forming in her stomach. “Why are you talking about this baby as if she’s yours?”
He swallowed hard, and it was then she saw tears shimmer in his deep brown eyes. “Because she is mine, Candy. Cal and Jenny—they died.”
“Oh, no.” She flung her hand to her mouth. “I’m sorry. So sorry.” Not thinking, just doing, she went to him, wrapping him in a hug. “How? They must have been so young.”
“Drunk driver,” he said when she sat on the coffee table in front of him. “It was bad. A couple of kids out cruising on a Friday night hit them head-on. Cops said the driver must’ve downed at least ten beers for his blood alcohol to be so—”
He paused to swallow, catch his breath, and she reached for his hand. “Go on. It’s okay.”
Nodding, he said, “Sorry. It’s been a month, but it’s still hard.”
“I can imagine. These people were your friends.”
“Yeah. They were the best. When my dad died, and then my mom, they were the ones who helped me through.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for your mom’s funeral.” She squeezed his hand. “But with Grandpa in the hospital last spring and everything.”
“It’s okay. I understood. I wish the guys down at the store would’ve told me he was sick. I’m sure he needed you.”
I wanted you to need me, too.
Had she? Lord, what was happening? All of her carefully constructed emotional dams felt dotted with holes.
“Anyway,” he said after expelling a deep breath. “In the emergency room, right after Jenny died, Cal asked me to take Bonnie. All they had for family was each other and their friends, so Cal asked me to raise their daughter like she was my own. And, of course, I agreed, never thinking it would actually come to that. But then Cal died, too. So…I did as he asked. And I’ve been caring for Bonnie ever since.”
“Of course.”
“And everything was going great. I was really getting the hang of the whole diaper thing and feeding. Bonnie’s a good baby. At first, she cried a lot, but she seems to be getting better. She’s known me her whole life, so I guess I’m making an all right substitute dad.”
“I know you, Jake. I’m sure you’re making an awesome dad.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Problem is,” he said, scratching his head, “Bonnie’s great-aunt—a bitter old woman named Elizabeth Mannford—doesn’t think so.”
“Why?”
He gave her the short version of Mrs. Starling’s speech. “So there you have it. My only hope of keeping Bonnie with the only family she knows is by getting hitched. And not just to anyone, Candy…but to you.”
“Wow.” Head spinning, Candy abruptly stood and put her hand to her forehead. “So that proposal of yours was the real deal? You truly do want to get married?”
He nodded. “But only until the adoption is legal. I’m figuring it’ll take a year tops. In fact, after you make a brief appearance at Mrs. Starling’s office, where we can dazzle her with our marriage license, rings and smiles—not to mention the old photo albums of how much fun we had back when we first got married—you’ll probably be off the hook.”
Candy, nibbling her pinkie fingernail, began to pace. Fireplace to breakfront. Breakfront to fireplace. “You know my family history, Jake. I vowed a long time ago to never be a mom. Do you know what you’re asking?”
She paused just long enough to see him nod.
Fireplace to breakfront. “I mean, if I say no, that pretty much makes me the most heartless soul alive. Yet if I say yes, all my promises to myself…my plans…You don’t know what it’s been like for me since losing Grandpa. This is a small town. I’m surrounded by people who love me, yet I feel lost, like there’s something missing inside of me I haven’t been able to find. This trip, it means everything to me, Jake. It’s about reclaiming my soul.”
“So why can’t you reschedule?”
“It’s not that easy. The tour’s being led by a top writer from National Geographic. I applied for the honor of being in her party almost a year ago. All the documentation on the sale of Candy Kisses has been finalized. I mean, my life is like the space shuttle, ready to blast off.”
His expression dark, Jake stood. “So your answer is no. That’s all you had to say. I understand.”
“No. I mean, no, wait. That isn’t my answer. I just need time to think. You showing up, throwing me this curve ball, it’s all too much.”
“I’m sorry, Candy. If I could, I’d give you all the time in the world. Jeez, if it were up to me, I wouldn’t even be here. I’d just as soon tie the knot again as I would leap off a cliff.”
“Thanks. Glad to know how much you enjoy my company.”
“You know what I mean. It’s not like getting married was my idea. Anyway, bottom line, I can give you a week, but that’s it. If I’m not back in Florida by then, who knows what this Elizabeth Mannford may do. I wouldn’t put it past her to charge me with kidnapping.”
“Okay, then,” Candy said, fingering long strands of her hair. “A week it is. I’ll give you my answer Saturday night at the reunion.”
FROM WHERE SHE SAT cross-legged on Candy’s sofa, Kelly snagged a piece of sausage-and-mushroom pizza, brought it to her lips and groaned. “Five delicious pounds in the smell alone.”
Candy summoned a weak smile. “Thanks for coming over. Jake left so suddenly, I was at a loss as to what to do next.”
“Candy,” Kelly said, slapping her friend lightly on the back. “You called the right person, because faced with an entire pizza, believe me, I know just what to do.”
