“Uh...whatever.” He looked uncomfortable. “I didn’t say I retained any of it beyond test day.”
“Right.” She laughed at him and he grinned back.
But she knew they were ignoring the elephant in the room. Brad. Brad who had been with them both all through college. Brad who had decided she was his from the start. And what Brad wanted, Brad usually got. She’d been flattered by his attention, then thrilled with it. And soon, she’d fallen hard. She was so in love with him, she knew he was her destiny. She let him take over her life. She didn’t realize he would toss it aside when he got tired of it.
“So what are you doing here?” she asked again. “Surely you didn’t come to see me.”
“Jill, I always want to see you.”
“No kidding. That’s why you’ve been gone for a year and a half. You’ve never even met the twins.”
He looked at her with a half smile. Funny. She’d been pregnant the last time he’d seen her, but that wasn’t the way he’d thought of her all these months. And to tell the truth, Brad had never mentioned those babies. “That’s right. I forgot. You’ve got a couple of cookie crunchers now, don’t you?”
“I do. The little lights of my life, so to speak.”
“Boys.”
“Boys.” She nodded.
He wanted to ask how they got along with Brad, but he wasn’t brave enough to do it. Besides, it was getting late. She had a pair of baby boys at home. She looked at her watch, then looked at him.
“I’ve got to get home. If you can just drop me at the dock, the last ferry goes at midnight and...”
He waved away her suggestion. “You will not walk home from the ferry landing. It’s too late and too far.”
She made a face. “I’ll be fine. I’ve done it a thousand times.”
“I’ll drive you.”
She gave him a mock glare. “Well, then we’d better get going or you won’t make the last ferry back.”
“You let me worry about that.”
Let him worry—let him manage—leave it to him. Something inside her yearned to be able to do that. It had been so long since she’d had anyone else to rely on. But life had taught her a hard lesson. If you relied on others, they could really hurt you. Best to rely on nobody but yourself.
* * *
The ferry ride across the bay to the island was always fun. He pulled the car into the proper space on the ferry and they both got out to enjoy the trip. Standing side by side as the ferry started off, they watched the inky-black water part to let them through.
Jill pulled her arms in close, fending off the ocean coolness, and he reached out and put an arm around her, keeping her warm. She rested her head on his shoulder. He had to resist the urge to draw her closer.
“Hey, I’m looking forward to meeting those two little boys of yours,” he said.
“Hopefully you won’t meet them tonight,” she said, laughing. “I’ve got a nice older lady looking after them. They should be sound asleep right now.”
“It’s amazing to think of you with children,” he said.
She nodded. “I know. You’re not the only one stunned by the transformation.” She smiled, thinking of how they really had changed her life. If only Brad... No, she wasn’t going to start going back over those old saws again. That way lay madness.
“It’s also amazing to think of how long we’ve known each other,” she added brightly instead.
“We all three got close in our freshman year,” he agreed, “and that lasted all through college.”
She nodded. “It seemed, those first couple of years, we did everything together.”
“I remember it well.” He sighed and glanced down at her. All he could see was that mop of crazy, curly blond hair. It always made him smile. “You were sighing over Brad,” he added to the memory trail. “And I was wishing you would look my way instead.”
She looked up and made a face at him. “Be serious. You had no time for stodgy, conventional girls like I was. You were always after the high flyers.”
He stared at her, offended despite the fact that there was some truth in what she said. “I was not,” he protested anyway.
“Sure you were.” She was teasing him now. “You liked bad girls. Edgy girls. The ones who ran off with the band.”
His faint smile admitted the truth. “Only when I was in the band.”
“And that was most of the time.” She pulled back and looked at him. “Did you ever actually get a degree?”
“Of course I got a degree.”
She giggled. “In what? Multicultural dating?”
He bit back the sharp retort that surfaced in his throat. She really didn’t know. But why should she? He had to admit he’d spent years working hard at seeming to be a slacker.
“Something like that,” he muttered, thinking with a touch of annoyance about his engineering degree with a magna cum laude attached. No one had been closer friends to him than Brad and Jill. And they didn’t even realize he was smarter than he seemed.
It was his own fault of course. He’d worked on that easygoing image. Still, it stung a bit.
And it made him do a bit of “what if?” thinking. What if he’d been more aggressive making his own case? What if he’d challenged Brad’s place in Jill’s heart at the time? What if he’d competed instead of accepting their romance as an established fact? Would things have been different?
The spray from the water splashed across his face, jerking him awake from his dream. Turning toward the island, he could see her house up the drive a block from the landing. He’d been there a hundred times before, but not for quite a while. Not since the twins were born and Brad decided he wasn’t fatherhood material. Connor had listened to what Brad had to say and it had caused a major conflict for him. He thought Brad’s reasons were hateful and he deplored them, but at the same time, he’d seen them together for too long to have any illusions. They didn’t belong together. Getting a divorce was probably the best thing Brad could do for Jill. So he’d gone with his message, he’d done his part and hated it and then he’d headed for Singapore.
He turned to look at her, to watch the way the wind blew her hair over her eyes, and that old familiar pull began somewhere in the middle of his chest. It started slow and then began to build, as though it was slowly finding its way through his bloodstream. He wanted her, wanted to hold her and kiss her and tell her.... He gritted his teeth and turned away. He had to fight that feeling. Funny. He never got it with any other girl. It only happened with her. Damn.
A flash of panic shivered through him. What the hell was he doing here, anyway? He’d thought he was prepared for this. Hardened. Toughened and ready to avoid the tender trap that was always Jill. But his defenses were fading fast. He had to get out of here.
He needed a plan. Obviously playing this by ear wasn’t going to work. The first thing he had to do was to get her home, safe and sound. That should be easy. Then he had to avoid getting out of the car. Under no circumstances should he go into the house, especially not to take a peek at the babies. That would tie him up in a web of sentiment and leave him raw and vulnerable to his feelings. He couldn’t afford to do that. At all costs, he had to stay strong and leave right away.
He could come back and talk to her in the morning. If he hung around, disaster was inevitable. He couldn’t let that happen.
“You know what?” he said, trying to sound light