Second Time's the Charm

He waited to see if she left a message instead. There was an outside chance that she was calling because of some emergency with Abraham, but it wasn’t likely. Bonnie Nielson or one of her full-time employees would be calling if that were the case.

Still, vice grips and pliers in hand, he watched his phone, hit voice mail as soon as it popped up and—after listening to a voice that reminded him of flowers in a garden—pressed nine to save the message.

* * *

CAROLINE STRICKLAND, THE mother of a twenty-four-year-old Harvard graduate, a second-grader and a kindergartner, stopped by Lillie’s office at just past four on Friday afternoon. “Oh, you’re on the phone,” she said, backing out the door.

“No! Come on in.” Lillie smiled at the woman who’d been one of her first clients when she’d come to town. Caroline’s middle child had been two at the time and in for stitches.

Putting her cell phone back in her purse, Lillie swore to herself that she’d leave it there unless it actually rang. If Jon Swartz called, she’d know it. If he texted, she’d know it. She could hear. She didn’t have to keep looking at the damned thing.

“What’s up?” she asked as Caroline, slim and comfortable looking in her jeans and T-shirt, settled into the rocker in the corner of the room.

“John wants to take me to Italy for our anniversary.” Caroline was not smiling.

“You love Italian food,” Lillie reminded her. “And you’ve always wanted to see the Mediterranean.”

Caroline and Lillie met early in the morning three times a week to ride bikes on the quiet streets of Shelter Valley.

To exercise when no one was watching.

“I know.” Caroline’s usually cheerful voice fell on the last word.

/> “So what’s the problem?” There was one; that much was evident. Lillie hated to see her friend so obviously bothered. It wasn’t like Caroline, who’d taken her first husband’s unexpected death, an unplanned pregnancy and a move across the country in stride.

“I don’t know.” Caroline looked at the paperwork on Lillie’s desk.

“Weren’t you just saying last week that you wanted to spend more time alone with him?”

“Yeah.”

“So?” She frowned. Caroline wasn’t afraid of flying. She and John and the kids spent a lot of time on Caroline’s family farm in Kentucky and flew back and forth several times throughout the year as the kids’ schooling allowed.

“When he told me...” She grinned, but there were tears in her eyes as she paused. “He’d told me he had a business thing in Phoenix.” As an architect of some renown, John Strickland did a lot of business in the city, and often took Caroline to dinner meetings with clients. “But instead, he took me to this fancy restaurant and ordered wine, and when they brought the bottle they also delivered the travel documents....”

“Romantic!” Lillie liked John and found him to be genuine. Still, she’d found Kirk to be genuine, too, back before she’d realized that a man could look her straight in the eye and lie and she couldn’t tell the difference.

Kirk had plied her with romance throughout their courtship and after they were married, too. Even when he’d also been plying Leah.

If Caroline was here to tell her something bad about John, to tell her she’d found out that he’d had an affair, Lillie would be surprised. But she’d also believe her.

“It was romantic,” Caroline said, still smiling. Still avoiding Lillie’s gaze with eyes that were glistening. “He’s the best, Lillie. And I love him so much.”

Here it comes. Lillie braced herself. Still hoping that Caroline merely had a schedule conflict with John’s probably prepaid travel arrangements. And that she didn’t want to hurt her husband’s feelings and...

“I don’t want to leave the children.” Caroline looked up, her brow creased. “I don’t know what’s come over me, but the second I saw the reminder to bring current passports, I thought of the kids and got scared to death. What if something happens to them while we’re gone? I’d be too far away to get to them. It’s over an eight-hour flight, Lil.”

Her friend’s gaze begged for understanding.

“Did you tell John how you felt?”

“No! How could I? What he did was so sweet and he was so happy knowing he was giving me what I really wanted.”

Had Kirk ever done anything like that for her? Lillie couldn’t remember.

“I just...” Caroline’s hands twisted in her lap as she started rocking back and forth. And then she glanced up. “What if something happened to John and me? Who’d care for our kids?”

Lillie knew then why Caroline was in her office. Lillie had been a junior in college when her own parents had been killed in a car accident while on a business trip in Chicago.