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  “Guess so.”

  “Bruce!” Rachel wanted to jab him in the ribs and would have if he’d been sitting beside her instead of Jolene. “I can stay with friends.” She could bunk down in Teri’s huge house for a couple of months. It would be an imposition, but Teri was the kind of friend who wouldn’t have any objections—who’d insist on it, for that matter.

  “Then…you and Rachel should get married this week,” Jolene said after a moment.

  “I say we wait,” Rachel returned decisively. She needed to let her soon-to-be stepdaughter know that she heard her concerns and took them seriously.

  Bruce glared at her. “I want to marry you now. You want Rachel with us, too, right, Jolene?”

  Jolene met Rachel’s eyes. After a long pause she slowly nodded. “Right, Dad.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Olivia was gradually regaining her strength. She sat in the sunny kitchen and soaked in the warmth as she sipped a cup of green tea.

  Justine was coming by later and Grace had just left. As little as two days ago she would’ve taken a nap but Olivia didn’t feel she needed one now. That was encouraging. She really was recovering from the surgery and the infection. Her chemotherapy would start soon after the holidays, as originally scheduled. She’d joked that it was a late Christmas gift—the gift that kept on giving—and to her surprise Jack had looked at her with somber eyes. “Yes, Olivia, it is. It’s giving me you. Your life, your health—to me that’s the greatest gift.” He usually joked and bantered his way through everything, so his emotional statement had moved her deeply.

  She heard the sound of a car pulling into the driveway and immediately recognized it as Ben’s. Ever the gentlemen, he parked, climbed out and came around to open her mother’s door.

  Charlotte seemed to sense that they were being watched and glanced up at the kitchen window. Seeing Olivia, she smiled and waved.

  Olivia waved back. She stood up and went to the back door.

  “We have company,” she called out to Jack who was walking on the treadmill. He’d made a habit of exercising ever since his heart attack. Olivia enjoyed finding small ways to reward him for his diligence.

  “Who…is…it?” Jack called back from the master bedroom, panting between each word.

  “Mom and Ben.”

  “Give me…five…minutes.”

  Her mother and stepfather approached, and Olivia swung open the door. Charlotte carried a white wicker basket with a sprig of holly and a bright red bow attached.

  Olivia bent to kiss her mother’s cheek and then Ben’s.

  “My goodness, Olivia, you look wonderful! There’s color in your cheeks and you’re looking much more like yourself.”

  “I’m feeling better, Mom. Come and sit with me. Want some green tea?”

  “Lovely.” Charlotte set the basket on the table. “I’ll get the tea. You and Ben take a load off your feet.”

  “Mom,” Olivia protested, “I can do it.” Her mother refused to listen, and Olivia realized that ever since her diagnosis, Charlotte needed to wait on her. It was one of the few ways she could feel any sense of control—by taking care of her daughter. That typically involved food.

  “What’s in the basket?” Olivia asked.

  “Dinner for you and Jack.”

  Everyone had been so kind and thoughtful. Grace had brought over a taco casserole the night before. She’d made it from scratch, using her homemade salsa and lots of cheese in hopes of tempting Olivia to eat. The fact was, Olivia had lost ten pounds in the last two months. Those were pounds she could ill afford to lose. Her clothes hung on her.

  Jack, on the other hand, still struggled with his weight and all these delicious things around the house tormented him. He’d had two helpings of Grace’s casserole while Olivia had barely managed a few bites. They’d frozen the leftovers.

  “What’s for dinner?” Olivia asked as she removed the layer of foil covering the basket.

  “Soup,” Charlotte answered. “Chicken noodle.”

  “Oh, Mom, that’s perfect!”

  “And fresh-baked bread.”

  “Any Christmas cookies or candy?” Jack wanted to know, stepping into the kitchen. He’d draped a towel around his neck and his face was red.

  “Jack!”

  “Hey, it’s Christmas.” He poked around inside the basket and triumphantly brought out a plate of decorated sugar cookies.

  “My favorite!” he cried delightedly. “Sugar cookies.”

  “Every kind of cookie’s his favorite,” Olivia told Ben under her breath.

  Ben chuckled and whispered back, “That’s how I feel. Anything Charlotte bakes is instantly my favorite.” He smiled at Olivia’s mother as she puttered around the kitchen, making a fresh pot of green tea.

  “Thanks, Charlotte,” Jack said. He peeled back the plastic wrap and grabbed a cookie. On his way out of the kitchen, he kissed his mother-in-law’s cheek.

  Once the three of them were sitting around the table, Olivia asked, “So what’s new with you?”

  Ben glanced at Charlotte. “We leave for our cruise in the morning.”

  Olivia gasped. “Already?” With so much else happening, she’d completely forgotten about the cruise.

  Charlotte placed her hands on the table. “I’m still not sure we should leave you.”

  “Mom, you’re going.”

  “But—”

  “Not only are you going on that cruise, I absolutely demand that you have the time of your lives.”

  “But…” Charlotte frowned. “You might need me. You’ll be starting your treatment soon and—”

  “I have Jack,” she broke in.

  Her mother sighed expressively. “Jack is a man. Don’t get me wrong, I love him dearly, but no matter how much he loves you, he’s not your mother. And when you’re sick, that’s who you need,” she said.

  That Charlotte and Ben would even consider not going at this late date nearly brought Olivia to tears. “I’m going to be fine, Mom. Before you know it, this will all be behind me.”

  Olivia clung to that belief. This was the longest stretch of time she’d spent away from the courthouse since she’d become a judge. She’d had no choice in the matter but she missed her work and her colleagues.

  Her mother still seemed worried. “I just don’t feel right about it.”

  “You’re going, Mom, and you have to promise me you’ll enjoy every minute.”

  Before Charlotte could argue anymore, Jack walked back into the kitchen and reached for another cookie. A bell-shaped one this time, with white frosting. He hesitated almost as if he expected Olivia to slap his hand.

  “You aren’t going to stop me?” he asked.

  “Consider that cookie your reward for working out.”

  “My only reward?”

  She raised her eyebrows and nodded.

  Jack shook his head morosely and set the sugar cookie back on the plate. “In that case one cookie will do.” He took the chair next to Olivia.

  Olivia did her best to suppress a smile, but didn’t succeed. With some effort she returned her attention to her mother. “Just think about lazing away your days in the Caribbean sunshine.”

  Charlotte reached across the table and entwined her fingers with Ben’s. “Being in the sunshine over Christmas does sound wonderful,” she said in a wistful voice.

  “The warmth will do our aging bones good,” Ben told her.

  “Yes, I know…but the thought of leaving Olivia bothers me.”

  “Hey,” Jack protested, “what am I? Chopped liver?”

  “You’re just a man.” Olivia repeated what her mother had said, her mouth twitching.

  “You’ve never complained about that before,” Jack muttered.

  Looking benignly at her mother, Olivia kicked him under the table.

  Jack, being Jack, doubled over and grabbed his ankle, grimacing as if she’d injured him.

  “Will you cut it out?” she said when he popped back up.

  Ben l
aughed. “I think we can rest assured that Olivia is well on the road to recovery. Jack, now, might need intensive therapy for that ankle.”

  Charlotte rolled her eyes.

  “A car’s coming for us first thing in the morning,” Ben told them. “Our flight for Fort Lauderdale takes off at eight and the cruise starts on December eighteenth. We’ll be back home a week later on Christmas Day.”

  “Seven days never seemed so long,” Charlotte murmured.

  “Mom, a week in paradise and you’re complaining?”

  The lines between her mother’s eyes relaxed and Charlotte smiled. “I sound like a silly old woman, don’t I?”

  Jack leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “Go. Your daughter’s in my capable hands.”

  “That does it!” Charlotte burst out. “I’m not leaving.”

  “Mom!”

  Ben laughed, and Charlotte’s laughter joined his.

  “I was just teasing,” she told them.

  “Will has a key to the house,” Ben went on to say. “He said he’d check in every couple of days. And Justine will be coming by, as well, to look after Harry.”

  “What are you doing Christmas Day?” Charlotte asked.

  “I’m taking care of dinner,” Jack announced proudly.

  This seemed to impress her mother and stepfather, and Olivia felt obliged to explain. “He’s ordering in a meal.”

  “This isn’t just any meal,” Jack insisted. “Our dinner’s being catered by D.D.’s on the Cove.”

  “Jack,” Charlotte said, clasping her hands. “How romantic.”

  “Which is exactly what I want for you and Ben,” Olivia told her mother. “I want you to fall in love all over again.”

  Ben’s fingers tightened around Charlotte’s. “We don’t need a cruise for that.”

  “We don’t, either,” Olivia whispered, smiling at Jack.

  Her mother and Ben stayed only a few minutes longer. By the time they left, both seemed reassured and eager for their trip, promising to come back refreshed.

  The sound of the car had yet to fade when Jack turned to her. “I believe you owe me.”

  “Owe you?”

  “My reward, remember?”

  “Oh, honestly, Jack.”

  “Yes, honestly.”

  Olivia laughed and held open her arms.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “Where are you taking me?” Tanni asked, standing at the edge of the highway some distance outside town. Cars streaked past her, kicking up rain water, splashing the backs of her pant legs.

  “I want to show you something.” Shaw had parked his car and already started walking into the woods. “Come on,” he urged.

  “Where?” she demanded a second time. Shaw had been acting so strange and secretive and that wasn’t like him.

  “Back here.”

  “In the woods?” She looked down at her new boots and sighed. The dense forest floor would be muddy and wet. If these got ruined, her mother wasn’t likely to buy her another pair.

  Instead of arguing with her, Shaw rushed back and grabbed her hand.

  “Why all the secrecy?”

  “You’ll know why once you get there.”

  “This better be good,” she muttered. Her feet made squishing sounds in the damp earth.

  “I’ve only ever told one other person about this.”

  In other words, whatever this was, the fact that he was showing it to her was a sign of his trust. Her boots sank deeper into the mud but she refused to look at them. If Shaw was willing to share something he considered important, she didn’t care how far she had to walk into the woods or how many pairs of boots she had to ruin.

  “It’s all the way back here?” she asked when they’d gone about a hundred feet. Tree limbs hung low, admitting very little light. Despite the darkness and the lack of a clear path, he seemed to know exactly where he was going.

  “Not much farther,” he assured her, his hand still clutching hers.

  “Shaw!” she cried, grabbing his arm with her other hand when she nearly slipped on a fallen branch covered with moss.

  He held her about the waist and kept her from falling. “Be careful,” he said.

  They continued at a slower pace. Tanni glanced over her shoulder and discovered that the road was completely out of sight. She couldn’t even guess where he was leading her. Perhaps there was an abandoned cabin nearby or a—

  “We’re here,” he said.

  Tanni looked around and didn’t see anything unusual or different. Thinking she might have missed something, she turned in a complete circle. “We’re where?” she asked.

  “I found this years ago when I was a kid,” Shaw explained. He started to drag a heavy branch away. He removed three such branches, which he’d apparently arranged to hide the opening of a cave.

  He stood back and grinned, making a sweeping motion with his arms. “Ta da!”

  She’d lived in this area nearly her entire life and she’d never heard anything about caves. Her brother, Nick, would’ve loved exploring here. He’d never mentioned it, either. “Does anyone else know about it?”

  “I doubt it,” he said. “because it’s state land. As far as I can tell, no one had been inside for years.”

  “How’d you find it?”

  Shaw stared down at his feet. “When I was eight, I joined Cub Scouts. We were on a hike down here near Lighthouse Point and I got separated from the rest of the pack. Pretty soon I was lost.”

  “In other words, you don’t have a good sense of direction.”

  He shook his head. “In other words, I wasn’t paying attention. Nothing wrong with my sense of direction.”

  “That’s when you found it?”

  “Yup. It’d started to rain and I went inside and waited until I heard someone call my name. Then I ran out and met up with the others. I never told any of them, though.”

  “Why not?” She didn’t understand his reason for keeping it a secret. This was an exciting discovery, and if she’d been the one to come across it she would’ve shared it with the world.

  “The other kids were teasing me about getting lost and it made me mad so I didn’t tell them what I’d found.”

  “But you said you told one other person…”

  He nodded. “The night Anson ran away, I brought him here,” he began. “It took me a while to locate it again, but eventually I did. Anson stayed in the cave for two days until I could find a way to get him out of Cedar Cove.”

  “You did that for him,” she breathed. Shaw would’ve been in real trouble if anyone had caught him with Anson. She knew Shaw had bought him a bus ticket in Seattle, then driven him there.

  “He’s a good friend, the best I ever had. Until you.”

  His words nearly brought her to tears. Tanni had never had a friend like that, a friend who’d take risks for her. In her universe, friendship had meant exchanging insignificant secrets and chattering about boys.

  “It was the only hiding place I could think of. He promised he’d never tell anyone about it and he hasn’t.”

  “Not even Allison Cox?”

  “I don’t know what he told Allison, but I can guarantee you he didn’t mention the cave.”

  “But…you’re showing me.”

  “Yes…I came back here myself a little while ago.” He reached for her hand and led her inside, warning her to duck at the entrance.

  Within seconds, they were plunged into darkness. Shaw took out a small flashlight attached to his keychain and turned it on. The cave’s ceiling was maybe ten feet high and they could stand up easily. Tanni saw that he’d cut arched slots into the hard clay. A large candle was positioned in each. He lit the first candle and the cave was dimly illuminated. Then he moved along the walls, lighting other candles. Each one added more light. The candles burned steadily, and she noticed the melted wax that had dripped down the sides, which told her someone had spent hours inside this cave.

  “Anson made these candle holders,” Shaw explai
ned. “Two days is a long time when you don’t have anything to do.”

  “The darkness must’ve freaked him out.”

  “Yeah. He asked for candles and I got them for him. It was his idea to set them in the walls of the cave.” He shrugged. “Kind of primitive, but I got him a couple of flashlights, too.”

  She also saw a plastic-covered sleeping bag and a portable camp chair, obviously “furniture” he’d brought in for Anson.

  “You said you came here recently. Why?”

  Shaw took her hand again. “My dad and I got into it last weekend. He wants me to go to law school. He says he’s worked his whole life to build up his firm so he could pass it on to me. If I want to piddle around drawing faces, that’s a nice hobby, but it’s no career.”

  “Oh, Shaw.”

  “We’ve argued before but this was the worst. He…he kicked me out of the house. He said either I go to college or I’m not welcome to live in his house.”

  This was the first time he’d mentioned the fight. Earlier in the week she’d realized something was bothering him, but when she’d asked, he’d brushed her questions aside and assured her nothing was wrong.

  “So you came here?”

  Shaw nodded. “I spent one night here and about froze to death.”

  Tanni covered her mouth with her hand.

  “In the morning I called my mom and she said she’d talked to my father and I should come home. I did and I…I told my dad I’m taking my GED. That seemed to appease him for now. He gave me until the first of the year to make a decision about college.”

  “You can spend Christmas with me if you want,” Tanni said. Her mother had already agreed.

  “I…might. Let me see how things go at home, okay?”

  “Sure.” Tanni hated knowing he’d been alone in this cave for even one night.

  As if reading her thoughts, Shaw said, “I didn’t sleep much when I was here.”

  Tanni shivered. “I can imagine.”

  “I didn’t mind it during the day—maybe because I knew it was still light outside.”

  “What’d you do that night?”

  “I used my sleeping bag—” he pointed to it “—and I tried to start a fire near the entrance. I couldn’t, though, because the wood was too damp. After a while, I got cold and bored, so I decided to explore.”