bitch.
“She’s my sister. Of course I love her. Why am I doing this?”
“Because you’re afraid of getting hurt again.”
Nicole stared at him. “What?”
“She hurt you before by leaving. What if she leaves again? So you hold back. You’ve always had a giving heart, Nicole. That’s why you love so much. But you’re afraid.”
Was that it? As simple as that? Fear of being rejected by Jesse again?
Tears filled her eyes. “When did you get so smart?”
“About eighteen months ago. It was a Thursday.”
She laughed, which helped her control the tears. “I miss having you around. Now you’re moving to Dallas. What’s up with that?”
“You know how much they paid me.”
“So you’re saying you can be bought?”
He grinned. “Absolutely.”
“I’m so proud of you, Raoul.”
He squeezed her hand.
She wiped her face. “Okay, enough about my problems. Are you seeing anyone? Because that last girl you brought home was way too snotty for my taste. Can’t you find a nice girl?”
“You don’t think any of them are good enough for me.”
“You’re right about that. But we can always hope for a miracle.”
JESSE WALKED THROUGH THE kitchen, pointing as she went. “We’re mostly doing the cakes here. They take a lot of work and these ovens are better.”
Claire glanced across the street at the small sandwich shop. “You’re really baking the brownies over there?”
Jesse grinned. “The bread ovens are perfect. The heat’s even, the racks are close together, which isn’t a problem because brownies are flat. We bake them there, cool them, then run them across traffic at six in the morning.”
Claire winced. “Tell me everyone is crossing at the corner.”
Jesse laughed and patted her arm. “You’re such a worrier.”
“I can’t help it.”
They moved into the front of the rented restaurant where controlled chaos ruled. “All the shipping and order- taking happens here. Most of our orders come in online which is much easier than answering the phone. We have our specialized boxes, our packing material. We stack the ready-to-go packages over there.”
Claire turned in a slow circle. “Very impressive. I can’t believe how fast you’ve pulled this all together.”
“I know. It’s been great. Normally after a fire like we had, we’d need to shut down or at least lay people off. We’ve hired more. Business is great. Specializing in just a couple of items has cut down on our inventory needs. We can get bigger discounts because we’re buying a few items in larger bulk.”
She drew in a breath. Claire nodded, but there was a slight glaze to her expression. “I’ve lost you,” Jesse teased. “You’re so not into this.”
“No, it’s great.” Claire shrugged. “Okay. Maybe not. I guess I don’t have the bakery in my veins as much as I thought.”
“You’re forgiven. I’ve never been able to play the piano.”
Jesse frequently wondered what quirk of DNA had allowed her sister to be such a brilliant pianist. How did that happen? Was it deliberate or just one of those things?
Claire picked up an order form. “I can’t believe you pulled all this together so fast.”
“You’re not alone in that.” Jesse held up both hands. “Sorry. Pretend I didn’t say that. I’m trying to work on my attitude.”
“Still frustrated by Nicole?”
“Yes. And myself for letting her get to me.” Jesse crossed her arms over her chest. “I keep playing the same conversation over and over in my head. She didn’t trust me. She still doesn’t trust me. She wants me to fail. Then I tell myself that she needs more time, that we’re slowly working things out. Blah, blah, blah. I want to move on.”
“You want things back the way they were,” Claire said softly. “You want the bad stuff to have never happened.”
“That, too,” Jesse admitted. “But there’s a fantasy that will never be fulfilled. The situation exists. It can’t be changed.”
“She never stopped loving you,” Claire told her. “She missed you all the time.”
Jesse tried to find comfort in that. “Then why didn’t she get in touch with me? You did. I wasn’t that hard to find.”
“Nicole is different.”
“Stubborn. The Queen of Stubborn.”
“You share that title.”
Jesse didn’t say anything because she thought Claire might be right.
“She could have sent a postcard,” she grumbled.
“So could you.” Claire sighed. “She wanted to reconnect, but I don’t think she knew how.”
“Because she wasn’t ready to forgive me for something I didn’t do.”
“She didn’t know that.”
“I tried to tell her and she wouldn’t listen. She thought she knew everything. She thought I was the kind of person who would sleep with my sister’s husband.”
That’s what hurt the most. That Nicole had believed the worst about her.
“So Nicole isn’t the only one who has to think about offering forgiveness.”
Jesse opened her mouth and closed it. Was that the next step? Forgiving Nicole for thinking badly of her? Was Jesse ready for that?
“I’m very comfortable being right,” she admitted.
“We all are. But sometimes it’s a lonely place.”
JESSE’S DAY OF self-exploration and humility continued when Matt showed up that evening to spend some time with his son. She kept to the background as he and Gabe discovered the thrill of the remote car he’d brought over.
It had big wheels and a sturdy control that was easy to learn. Gabe made the car go forward and back, then giggled as he tipped it on a turn and it automatically righted itself.
“Excellent choice,” she murmured as Gabe went chasing after the car down the hallway. “He loves it.”
“I did a lot of research online,” Matt told her. “This had the highest rating.”
She wasn’t surprised he’d taken the time to find the toy, then buy it. The Matt she knew had always been thorough and thoughtful. When they’d been together, he’d taken care of her.
While he played with his son, she allowed herself to think about what Paula had said a few days before. How everything would have been different if Matt hadn’t found out about Nicole’s accusations the way he did. If she, Jesse, had been able to tell him herself.
Would they have made it? Would he have offered her that diamond ring? She knew she would have accepted his proposal. She would have been terrified of screwing up everything, but she’d loved him too much not to try.
She tried to imagine what their life would have been like, if only things had gone differently. Gabe would have grown up knowing his father. There might even be other children. She and Matt would have been together over five years now. An old married couple.
Happy, she thought wistfully. They could have been happy.
Later, Matt helped put Gabe to bed. He supervised the ritual of him brushing his teeth, then tucked him in bed and read him a story. Jesse sat curled up in a corner chair, watching the two of them together, feeling heartsick over all Gabe and Matt had missed.
Because she hadn’t just cheated the man she’d loved, she’d also cheated her child.
When Gabe had fallen asleep, she and Matt crept out of his room. She shut the door, then led the way back into the family room.
