It Happened on Maple Street

He’d wanted children. He’d told her so. She wouldn’t consider bringing a child into the world without marriage.

“This guy, what’s-his-name-salesperson slime, he’s going to marry you and give you children?”

“Yes.”

Tim stood up again, blood boiling. “He’s a medical supply salesperson for Christ’s sake, Denise. He makes enough money to support you?”

“No. I’ll have to work. But I don’t care. Money was never important to me. You know that. I loved you with everything I had, but it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough. Now I am.”

It was like there was an echo in the room. Emily’s voice come back to haunt him. You saved me from living my life as second best. Or some such thing.

What was it with women? What did they want? To crawl inside of his skin and take root? Did they want his every thought? He gave Denise his home. His money. His love. And that wasn’t enough?

“I think you should go,” he said quietly. Calmly.

She dropped some keys on the table. Her key to his truck. To the RV. And her house keys. She’d been holding them in her clenched hand all that time.

Without a word Tim pulled his keys out of the pocket of the work jacket he’d yet to shed, disengaged her car key, and handed it to her.

He brushed her palm with his finger as she took it, and took pleasure in the way she pulled back, in the stark look in her eyes. He still had his touch. His ability to get to her. Maybe he was a bastard to let her know that, to let her see that he knew it, but he didn’t really give a rat’s ass one way or another at the moment.

Her steps sounded loudly against the wood floor as she walked to the door. It opened. Quietly swished shut behind her. The click as it latched was like a gunshot in the room.

She hit her mark.

Only thing was, she’d missed his heart.

And that’s when Tim understood what she’d been trying to tell him all along.

Seventeen

AN OLD HIGH-SCHOOL AND CHURCH FRIEND CAUGHT ME at a low moment during December of 2006. Chris and I, both consumed by our careers, hardly spoke anymore. I provided dinner. He ate. And we kissed each other on the cheek when we left the house in the morning.

I owed Chris. He’d been a good provider, just as he’d said he’d be. He’d understood when I could no longer tolerate his touch—any touch—sexually speaking. He didn’t know about James. He just thought I was frigid. But he’d stood by me, hadn’t asked for a divorce.

Still, I was lonely. All I’d ever wanted, besides publishing with Harlequin, was to love and be loved.

I wasn’t sure Chris and I loved each other at all anymore.

When I got the e-mail from Lois Schneider, my old church friend, asking me to attend my thirty-year high-school reunion, I actually thought about doing so. Maybe it wasn’t too late to form friendships. Maybe I could bond with the kids I’d hardly known.

But when I realized I couldn’t remember five names from my graduating class, I came to my senses. Attending my high-school reunion would be a futile effort that would only reinforce my sense of isolation.

Still, Lois persisted. I’d made something of myself. People would be interested. At least, she urged, sign up for Classmates.com so people from the class could see that I was there.

Tara Taylor Quinn (I’d had my name legally changed to my pen name after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001) didn’t put personal information anywhere. It wasn’t safe. I’d had too many letters from lonely guys in prison to feel safe being exposed.

My phone was unlisted. My address was a P.O. Box.

And James was still out there, someplace. I didn’t want him to find me. Ever.

But Tara Taylor Quinn also protected me. No one knew that Tara Gumser wrote books. I could sign up with Classmates.com under my maiden name and be as anonymous as ever.

Lois had been a loyal friend to me all of our adult years. We weren’t close. Weren’t in touch all that often—particularly living a country apart. But she was the only person from my high-school days, my church youth-group days, who even acknowledged that I existed. She wrote to me every time I had a book out—telling me what she thought of it. Not always complimentary, but always honest.

I’d always liked her. She was one of the few kids back in the late seventies who’d had the courage to walk by the convictions of her own beliefs. A kindred soul, I’d always thought. Only back then, Lois had had the courage to walk boldly while I’d hidden behind the covers of my Harlequin romances.

I signed up for Classmates.com.