CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
T
HEY
ATE
DINNER
in preoccupied silence, knowing the rescue mission was underway. How long it would take was anyone’s guess. Dwight had said they probably wouldn’t hear anything until morning but that didn’t stop everyone jumping at the ring of the phone, or the honk of a horn in the street below.
“I’m exhausted. I think I’ll go to bed.” Stephanie stood and stretched, pushing the bulge of her stomach against her loose top.
“Good night,” Garrett said. Rachel echoed it.
Dwight made an indistinct sound. He looked at his wife with such naked hunger and longing, Rachel was embarrassed. Even Garrett looked away.
Stephanie held out a hand. “Dwight, will you come with me?”
It was all Rachel could do not to laugh as Dwight just about fell over his own feet in his haste to accompany his wife.
“That looks promising,” Rachel said when they’d gone. She carried a stack of plates to the kitchen and began loading the dishwasher.
“Until Dad messes up again,” Garrett agreed. “Can I do something to help here?”
“Wipe the counters.” She put a yellow cleaning cloth in his hand. “Your dad’s not good at showing his love,” she admitted. “But it’s there. So long as Stephanie knows it, it doesn’t matter what other people think.”
“I guess.” Garrett was frowning. He gave the counter one last wipe, then put the cleaning materials away. “Come sit with me,” he said.
Rachel settled next to him on the sofa. He slung an arm along her shoulders, drawing her into him, then hit the remote control, so the room filled with mellow, louder than necessary jazz.
“Worried about overhearing your dad and Stephanie?” Rachel teased.
He shuddered, but didn’t deny it.
They sat like that for a while. As the music washed over her, Rachel’s eyes grew heavy. She stifled the first yawn, then didn’t have the energy to hold back the second. It was only nine o’clock, but she’d barely slept last night. Her eyelids drifted downward.
Dimly, she heard Garrett say her name. She wanted to reply, but her whole body felt so pleasantly lethargic, she couldn’t move.
Garrett’s voice again, amused this time. “So much for my plan to make out.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead.
Mmm, making out would have been nice. Though they should probably talk first. Rachel snuggled against him.
She awoke what felt like hours later to find the room in darkness. She was still on the sofa, lying on top of Garrett. Good grief, she could have suffocated him. As she pulled away, his arm clamped tighter around her, holding her in place.
Ah, well, if he didn’t mind, why disturb him? She settled her head against his chest, listened to the steady beat of his heart.
Mmm…
“You’re synchronizing your breathing to mine,” he murmured in her ear.
She started, and her head crashed into his nose. He cursed.
“Sorry,” she whispered, laughing.
“Sure you are.” One hand caressed her shoulder, tucked her bra strap back into her blouse. “Good night, sweetheart,” he murmured.
Her eyes flew open.
He called me sweetheart.
The even rhythm of his breathing told her he was sound asleep. Had he been awake when he said that?
Because I want to be his sweetheart.
Wondering whether they could get past their differences sufficiently to have a life together kept her awake even as Garrett seemed to slip deeper and deeper into slumber.
When the darkness turned to half-light, Rachel eased herself out of Garrett’s arms. He muttered something in his sleep, but otherwise didn’t stir.
She used the bathroom off his bedroom, then on her way back out noticed he’d dumped his briefcase on his bed.
His Brightwater pitch would be in there. The mystery pitch that he’d changed at the last minute.
Rachel hadn’t checked her phone since earlier in the evening, and now she wondered if Tony had been calling one of them to say they’d won.
She was suddenly desperate to know what his pitch looked like. One of them was going to win, and the other would be out of a job. If Garrett won, she would feel better if she agreed that his pitch was superior to hers.
It wouldn’t hurt to look, now that the pitches were over. Rachel felt only the tiniest twinge of guilt as she pulled out his laptop. She’d learned that, unlike her, Garrett employed digital storyboard artists. Not for him the bulky portfolio of pencil sketches.
She opened the laptop on the bed and knelt on the floor beside it. If Garrett had a password on his laptop, she would have foundered right there. But he didn’t, and within a minute she located his pitch files. Ah, there was the one she wanted, saved early this morning.
Rachel began scrolling through. Thirty seconds later, she stopped the presentation, went back to the beginning and watched again, reading it more carefully.
The campaign was a mini soap opera, to be told mainly on the internet, on sites like YouTube, but backed up with print and some outdoor. Similar to the movie
Sliding Doors,
the main character was shown living two alternate lives. In one life, she took out a student loan and went to college. In the other, she was scared of having a large debt, so she didn’t go to college and instead took a low-level clerical job. There was nothing heavy-handed about it—both versions of the girl had interesting lives, highs and lows with their friends and families, but of course there was a subtle weighting in favor of college.
The noncollege girl tended to be whiny.
The college girl got the better guy.
It was brilliant. It was about Rachel.
Rachel closed the laptop.
“Snooping?” Garrett asked behind her.
Her stomach lurched. She sank down onto her heels, not ready to face him. “Yeah.”
She sensed caution in his approach.
“Rach, I need to explain.”
“You used me.” She turned around, scrambled to her feet. “Used my family and my life. I confided in you because I thought I mattered to you. That was private. It wasn’t up for grabs as pitch material.”
“Everything in life is pitch material,” he said. “I made sure it’s not readily identifiable as your story.”
“You
used
me.”
His gaze dropped. “I presented the very best pitch I could, Rach. That’s what it was about. You could have used your own story, but you were too scared.”
Beyond the window, the sun peeped over the horizon, giving the room a faint orange glow.
“Did you know I wouldn’t want you to use that material, or not?” she demanded.
A pause.
“Yes,” he said.
“How do you think my parents will feel when they see that?” she asked.
“Actually,” he said carefully, “they’re pretty excited about it.”
Rachel gaped. “They
know?
”
“Your dad was working night shift last night. I spoke to him on his cell. If Brightwater goes for this idea, there’ll be a decent fee in it for your parents. They’ve agreed to share some family stories that the campaign can draw on over time—their official title will be storyline consultants.”
Rachel reshuffled her thoughts in the light of that news. “I guess…that might not be so bad. You could pay them the fee conditional on them staying in New Jersey…”
“Rachel,” he said, “your dad’s going to use the money to buy his share of the hot-dog stand in Dayton.”
“What?” she shrieked. “You’re giving my parents money so they can move away? When you know what it means to me to have them stay?”
“It’s their choice, sweetheart,” he said gently.
“You jerk!” Rachel thumped him hard on the chest. It didn’t seem to affect him at all, but it gave her some relief. “I came here yesterday to tell you I wasn’t giving up on you. On us. That we could work through our obstacles.”
“Thank you.” He grabbed her hand, held it to his chest where she’d just hit him, relief breaking over his face like daylight. “Rach, you don’t know how happy I am to hear—”
“I was wrong!” she snapped. “I forgot that loyalty depends on trust. You betrayed me, Garrett. I was willing to fight to the death, you and me against anything the world could throw at us. But I can’t fight to the death against you. Not without dying.”
Something flashed across his face. Shock…comprehension. He finally understood what she was saying. What she’d offered him. What he’d done.
“Rachel, I’m sorry.” His voice was hoarse. “I didn’t think. Or rather, I did, but my thoughts were all out of whack.”
“No,
mine
were,” she said. “I thought you had it in you to be…someone else. I was wrong.”
“You were right,” he insisted. “Rachel, if I could do it over… Rach, I want to be that man. The one you can trust. Give me another chance.”
She shook her head.
“Sweetheart.” He tried to pull her into his arms, but she was as rigid as granite, silent and dry-eyed. “You’re the one who doesn’t give up. Don’t give up on us, Rachel.”
“Check your cell phone,” she said.
“What? Why?” Then he figured it out. “Let’s not do this now,” he said.
“I want you to check.” She finger-combed her hair, using the shaving mirror on his dresser. “I haven’t had any calls. At least, not from Tony.”
“Later,” he said.
But she wasn’t about to let it drop. In the end, Garrett pulled his phone from the side pocket of his laptop bag with a sense of dread. “Four messages.” He thumbed to the list of missed calls. “One from Tony.”
“Listen to it.” Her face was set.
He did.
“Garrett, it’s Tony.” His boss’s voice grated on his taut nerves. “Where the hell are you? I’ve just heard from Brightwater…”
Garrett listened to the end of the message. Then he deleted it.
“Well?” Rachel’s voice was thin.
“I won the pitch.” Crap. “I’m sorry.”
“No need to be,” she said briskly, even though the blood had drained from her face. “Well, I’d better go. Tony will be wanting to see me.”
“Don’t be dumb,” he said. “It’s five in the morning.”
She made a dashing movement with her hand. He noticed moisture in the corner of her eyes.
“Are you going to cry?” he asked, horrified.
“Not in front of you.” She smoothed down her rumpled skirt and tucked in her blouse. “Goodbye, Garrett.” She headed for the door.
Garrett had to stop her. He had no idea how; he’d never wanted to keep a woman in his life before. With one exception.
“My mother…” he said. The word rang in the dawn silence.
Slowly, Rachel turned around.
He was going to have to do this. He swallowed, drew a deep breath and said the words he never had before.
“It was my fifteenth birthday. She was in the store in New London, buying milk. Just buying milk. I was in the car outside.”
Rachel waited. At least she wasn’t leaving.
“It was a stroke—sudden, massive. Another customer came to get me from the car. I ran inside. She was still alive, but only for a minute.”
Rachel made a sound of distress.
“It was the most ordinary death. The storekeeper told me one minute she was standing at the cash register talking about the weather, and the next she was gone. Just that morning I heard I made the football team. I was waiting to announce it at dinner. She knew I was trying out, knew I was desperate to be on the team, but I never got to tell her I made it.”
His voice cracked. Because that line—
I never got to tell her I made it
—summed up everything he felt about his mother’s death.
“I got down with her on the floor,” he said. “I tried CPR. We’d just learned it in school, and then the paramedics kept going, but they couldn’t…” He ran a hand down his face. “I begged her, Rach, I begged her not to die.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX
B
EGGING NEVER
WORKS.
Garrett heard quiet sobs. Rachel
was crying. For him. Hell, he had tears in his own eyes.
“I shouldn’t…” He swallowed,
closed his eyes. “I shouldn’t have waited. I should have told her. About the
team. She would have been proud.”
Rachel took his hands. “She
was
proud
of you, Garrett.”
He was somehow both nodding and
shaking his head. His mom had been proud, but he’d wanted to give her
more.
Rachel moved closer, until her
arms were around him. It felt like the safest place in the world. “I know
she was proud of you,” Rachel said, “because of what you told me about her.
That whatever you chose, she supported you and wanted you to be the best you
could be. She knew you wanted to play football, and she knew how hard you
were working for it.”
Damn, now tears were streaming
down his cheeks. He couldn’t talk, didn’t need to talk. But it seemed he
needed to wash the grief out of his head.
Eventually, he took the crumpled
tissue Rachel pulled from her pocket and wiped his face.
“Thank you,” he said.
She nodded. And took a step
backward. Away from him. But…wasn’t she staying?
“I have to go,” she
said.
“Rachel, no!” If she walked out
now, she would never come back. He could see it in her eyes.
“Garrett.” His father spoke from
the doorway. He was wearing—ugh, he was wearing Stephanie’s peach
terry-cloth robe.
“Uh, yeah?” Garrett was aware of
Rachel taking another step away from him. He wanted to grab hold of
her.
“The Pentagon just called. They
got Lucas out.”
Joy welled inside Garrett.
“Amazing. That’s fantastic. When can we talk to him?”
His father grinned, and he
looked ten years younger. “He’s injured. They need to get him stabilized
before they fly him home. They hope to ship him out in the next seventy-two
hours.”
For once, Garrett didn’t object
to his dad insisting on a more complicated way of saying “three
days.”
“Will he be okay?”
Dwight’s face sobered. “His
injuries are. Severe. But they’re confident he’ll recover.”
“That’s wonderful news,” Rachel
said to Dwight. “I’m so happy for you.”
“Thank you, Rachel.” It finally
seemed to dawn on Dwight that he’d interrupted something. “Uh, I’ll leave
you kids to it.”
“No need,” Rachel said briskly.
“I’m about to leave, myself. I have a million things to do
today.”
“Rachel,” Garrett
warned.
“Can you give Stephanie my
best,” she asked Dwight.
“Rachel!” Garrett
snapped.
She turned in the doorway. “Let
it go, Garrett.”
And because Garrett didn’t know
what else he could say, didn’t know what he could give her, he didn’t stop
her. He couldn’t argue with his own advice.
A minute later, the front door
closed.
And despite his father’s
palpable joy and Garrett’s own relief, it felt as if someone had
died.
* * *
“…
AND
SO
KBC
HAS
NO
choice but to let you go,” Tony said.
Rachel had just been fired. Tony
had used the correct HR-speak—excess resources, redundancy, et cetera—but
the outcome was the same. She’d lost her job.
She didn’t give a damn. She’d
lost way too much already today for this to matter in the least.
“As is usual in these
circumstances, you will need to leave the premises immediately,” Tony
said.
Rachel took two minutes to tell
Tony what she thought of KBC’s loyalty to its staff. Five minutes to sign
various forms in the HR department. Twenty minutes to pack up her personal
belongings. Thirty minutes to say the most essential goodbyes.
Less than an hour after she’d
walked into the KBC offices, she was standing on the sidewalk, a carton
under her arm, waving down a cab.
She started to give the driver
her home address, then changed her mind. “How much to take me to Freehold,
New Jersey?” she asked.
A consultation with a GPS later,
she’d agreed to pay a hundred bucks plus tolls and gas. She spent the
journey counting the number of white cars on the road, so she wouldn’t think
about Garrett and what he’d told her this morning.
The taxi pulled up outside her
sister’s apartment building an hour later.
“What are you doing here?”
LeeAnne hugged her. “Drop that, Kylie, it’s disgusting,” she called to the
younger twin, carrying a lump of something that might have been cat
poop.
“You’re really going.” Rachel
stated the obvious as she gazed at the sea of cartons.
LeeAnne sagged onto the sofa.
“Yep. Looks like Dad’s getting some money from this advertising
gig.”
Rachel clenched her jaw. “I’ll
miss you.” She perched on a carton of books.
LeeAnne sighed. “Ditto. I’m
sorry, Rachel, part of me wants to stay but…”
“You don’t want to be away from
Mom and Dad,” Rachel said.
“I want to go for myself, too,”
LeeAnne said. “Staying has its pluses, but I’m looking forward to a new
place.”
“Are you nuts?” Rachel’s
frustration flared up.
“Of course you think that,”
LeeAnne said. “You’d rather die than move out of your safe life.”
“Ouch!” Rachel stared at her
sister. Then she slumped and huffed out a breath. “I guess I deserved
that.”
LeeAnne nodded. Then grinned.
“Sit with me on the balcony while I let the girls tire themselves out. If
we’re lucky, they’ll nap.”
They sat in the sun, faces
turned up to the warm rays, until the twins started to flag. LeeAnne got
them into bed with impressive efficiency. When she came out again, she
brought sandwiches and sodas.
“I hate that we’ll be farther
away from you,” she said, handing Rachel a plate.
“It’s just a short flight,”
Rachel said. “Besides, I might have more time on my hands.” She sipped her
soda. “I lost my job.”
LeeAnne gasped. Rachel told her
about losing the pitch.
“So because our family’s going
to be in an ad that was better than your ad, you lost your job?” LeeAnne
said, horrified.
“Nothing to do with you guys,”
Rachel assured her. She took a ferocious bite of her sandwich and felt a
little better. “I have a couple of other options. I spoke to a big firm,
JWT, this morning. Garrett set it up for me.”
“That was nice,” LeeAnne
said.
Yeah, it was. Rachel had tried
to find some way to take offence when Hardy Campese had mentioned Garrett’s
involvement, but Garrett had been thinking of her and he’d done a decent
thing. There was no denying the JWT safety net made her feel slightly less
panicky.
Her cell phone rang. She checked
the display. Garrett. She canceled the call.
“I’m sorry I pressured you,” she
said to LeeAnne. “Whether you go or stay is your choice. Not
mine.”
“Can I get that in writing?”
LeeAnne said.
They started laughing and
laughed until tears came to Rachel’s eyes.
“Oh, Rach.” LeeAnne’s use of the
shortened name was the last straw.
She hugged her sister hard,
tears flowing freely.
“Did I ever tell you you’re a
great mom?” Rachel said when she’d pulled herself together. “I know wherever
you end up with the twins, you’ll do your very best for them. I’m going to
do the college fund thing, no strings attached.”
“That’s wonderful. And the good
news is, with this money from Brightwater, Mom and Dad might be able to make
a decent go of it in Dayton. They won’t be borrowing money, and they’ll have
a cushion for emergencies.”
“That’s something.” Rachel
picked up her purse. “Can I take your car around to Mom and Dad’s? I’ll see
if they need any help packing boxes.”
“One more thing,” LeeAnne said
as Rachel lowered the window of the Toyota.
Rachel braced herself. “What’s
that?”
“You should probably stop hiding
those twenty-dollar bills around,” LeeAnne said awkwardly. “And, um, I’m
speaking for Mom and Dad here, too.”
Rachel blushed. “No
problem.”
On the way, she thought about
all the mistakes she’d made in her misguided belief that clinging to what
she knew would make her happy. And about Garrett’s mom’s philosophy.
Discover what you love, then do your very best.
Great advice. In fact, it gave
her an idea.
Genius. If she said so
herself.
She’d need a day or two to
research it. She could check herself into the New York Public Library for a
couple of days—she had nothing else to do.
She pulled over to the side of
the road and started making some calls. It took her a few attempts to get
where she wanted, but then she had a meeting set up for Tuesday morning.
Today was Friday. She had three days.