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From inside the cottage, her cell rang. Quickly capping the bottle, she jumped up to answer it. As the screen door banged behind her, he shoved his hands in his pockets. Today he’d found a set of blueprints, for the screen porch. His dad had been a carpenter, and Jack had grown up with blueprints and tools lying around, but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d held a hammer in his hands.
He gazed through the screen into the empty living room and heard the muted sound of April’s voice. The hell with it. He went inside. She stood with her back to him and her forehead resting on the arm she’d propped against one of the kitchen cabinets. “You know how much I care,” she said so softly that he could barely make out the words. “Call me in the morning, all right?”
Too many decades had passed for him to feel these old stabs of jealousy, so he focused on the brochure lying on the counter. As he picked it up, she closed her phone and gestured with it toward the brochure. “That’s a group I volunteer with.”
“Heart Gallery? I’ve never heard of it.”
“It’s made up of professional photographers who volunteer their time to take these amazing portraits of adoptable kids in the foster care system. We display them in local galleries. They’re more personal than the mug shots social services takes, and a lot of kids have found families through the exhibits.”
“How long have you been doing this?”
“About five years.” She padded back toward the porch. “I started out styling the sittings for a photographer I know—putting the kids in clothes that reflected their personalities, coming up with props, helping them feel comfortable. Now I’m doing some of the portraits myself. Or at least I was until I came out here. You’d be shocked how much I love it.”
He pocketed the brochure and followed her out to the porch. He wanted to ask about the guy on the phone but didn’t. “I’m surprised you never got married.”
She picked up the nail polish bottle and resumed her perch on the Adirondack chair. “By the time I was sane enough for marriage, I’d lost interest.”
“I can’t imagine you without a man.”
“Stop fishing.”
“Not exactly fishing. Just trying to figure out who you are now.”
“You want to define me with a head count,” she said bluntly.
“I guess.”
“
You want to know if I’m still the bad girl solely responsible for the fall of countless good men too weak to keep their pants zipped.”
“Put like that…”
She blew on her big toe. “Who’s that brunette I spotted last week traveling with your entourage? Your valet?”
“A very efficient assistant I’ve never seen naked. So are you serious about anybody right now?”
“Very serious. About myself.”
“That’s good.”
She wiped off a polish smudge. “Tell me about you and Marli. You were married for what? Five minutes?”
“A year and a half. Ancient history. I was forty-two and thought it was time to settle down. She was young, beautiful, and sweet—at least I thought so at the time. I loved her voice. I still do. The demons didn’t come out until after we were married and discovered we hated everything about each other. I’m here to tell you that woman did not like sarcasm. But it wasn’t all bad. I got Riley.”
Following Marli, he’d had two long-term relationships that had been well covered by the press. Although he’d cared a lot about both women, something fundamental had been missing, and with one failed marriage behind him, he hadn’t been eager to enter another.
April finished her toes, capped the polish bottle, and unfolded those endlessly long legs. “Don’t send Riley away, Jack. Not to summer camp, not to Marli’s sister, and especially not to boarding school in the fall. Keep her with you.”
“I can’t do that. I have a tour coming up. What am I supposed to do? Lock her in a hotel room?”
“You’ll figure it out.”
“You have too much faith in me.” He stared out at the sad excuse for a fence. “Did Riley tell you about last night? With Dean.”
Her head shot up like a mother lion sniffing the air for danger to her cub. “What?”
He sat on the top step and told her exactly what had happened. “I’m not trying to make excuses,” he said as he finished, “but Riley was screaming, and he was chasing her.”
