Reconsidering Riley (2 page)

"Most of these women have spent the time
since their break ups in full phone-hovering mode," Jayne
explained, "hoping to hear from Mr. Wrong again. Or dropping by
their old hangouts, expecting to 'accidentally' run into him. It's
self-destructive, and it's not part of my plan. So while being out
of town certainly
is
part of my plan, for this to
really
work—"

"You need someplace like the Hideaway
Lodge," Francesca interrupted. "It's secluded, it's quiet, and it
only has one public phone—a half-hour hike from the lodge. It's
perfect."

"It's deserted."

There was a verbal shrug in Francesca's
voice. "The owners are a sweet older couple. They bought the place
after the husband retired. Probably they're just out for their
afternoon constitutional or something."

"'Afternoon constitutional?'"

"Or something. They're expecting you, after
all." Briskly, Francesca went on. "Look, we're putting a big push
behind this breakup guide and workbook idea of yours. It's already
on the schedule for next spring. You've got to deliver. If you have
a problem with the way we're supporting you..."

The unvoiced alternative was clear. Jayne
could practically hear her current book contract—and all the
contracts she hoped would follow it—shrivel into dust and blow
away. If she didn't make a success of this, she'd be back working
full time in the art department at the San Francisco advertising
agency she'd taken a sabbatical from.

Even worse, her book's followers would be
out in the cold. Including the five women waiting for her across
the dirt ruts.

"I'll manage," she promised, crossing her
fingers for luck. "Don't worry."

"I'm not worried." Francesca went over a few
additional details about a possible local talk show appearance,
then signed off with some encouragement about "roughing it." At the
last instant, she added, "Oh, and don't worry about the hiking
part, either. You'll do fine. Byeee!"

Click
. Tilting her head as the
publicist hung up, Jayne blinked.
Hiking part? What hiking
part?

She glanced down at her shoes. Made of pink
leather with three-inch heels and a tiny bow at the T-strap's
juncture, they managed to say
cute
and
sassy
with
nothing more than a flash of ankle. They did not, however, say
hike
. In fact, Jayne was pretty sure none of her shoes spoke
Hike
. Ever.

Well, she'd just have to deal with that when
the time came. Until then, she had a group of breakup-ees to help:
Mitzi, a waitress from Michigan; Carla, a student from New Mexico;
Doris and Donna, sixty-something sisters from California; and
Kelly, a data analyst from Washington state.

She gathered her things and went back to
them. They looked up at her expectantly.

Sudden nervousness pushed through her,
tightening Jayne's grip on her handbag and books. Who was she to
offer advice to these women? She wasn't a psychologist, a
psychiatrist, a therapist or a relationships counselor. She wasn't
even a bona fide expert. She was just a girl who'd had her heart
broken one too many times...and lived to tell about it. What if she
couldn't do this?

For the sake of her group, she mustered a
confident smile. "The lodge owners should be back any minute."
She hoped
. "Until then, does anyone have any questions?"

Carla, a petite brunette with a pierced
nose, raised her hand. "Umm, yeah. I have a question."

"Great!" Encouraged, Jayne tilted her head,
ready to discuss break up recovery strategies, healing methods, and
anything else outlined in her book. "What is it?"

"Can I borrow your cell phone?"

"Me, too!"

"Me, too, please."

"Me, next."

"No, me, Donna!" Doris complained, elbowing
her gray-haired sister. "You always get to go first."

Amid the hubbub, Jayne sat on the shoe trunk
beside Carla. She put her hand on her shoulder. "Who do you want to
call?" she asked gently.

Everyone quieted.

"My Paolo. If I could just, like, hear his
voice on the answering machine,
one
more time. I mean—"
Carla glanced upward, meeting Jayne's concerned gaze. "—what if
this trip really works, and I'm over him by the time I get
back?"

Biting her lip, she hugged herself. Mitzi
and Kelly did, too. Even Doris and Donna abandoned their
luggage-bound shoving match to listen.

They were afraid, Jayne realized. Afraid of
the unknown, afraid of letting go, afraid of moving forward. She
understood.

She'd been there, too.

"I know a part of you doesn't want this to
work," she said. "A part of you wants to hang on. But if your
relationship's ended, it's ended, and you have to accept that.
Getting over him—whether his name's Paolo or Hank or Marty—"

Doris and Donna gave a joint telltale
cry.

Jayne nodded encouragingly. "—or anything
else—will be for the best. It really will."

Kelly adjusted her rectangular-framed
eyeglasses. "How can you be sure?"

Jayne closed her eyes. She didn't want to
get personal with this. She really didn't. But if it would
help....

"I'm sure because I've lived it. My heart
was broken—"
Just like her voice, when she spoke of it.
She
cleared her throat and went on. "—not so long ago, and I got past
it. I came up with some strategies that helped. Eventually, I
passed them on to my girlfriends, and they helped them, too. One
thing led to another, somebody suggested I write them down,
and...voilà! A book."

She thumped the topmost copy of
Heartbreak 101
in her hand. The women all brightened.

"You have a gift," Mitzi said seriously,
popping a bubble in her gum. "A genuine knack for helping
people."

Nods all around. It was Jayne's turn to
brighten.

"You do," Doris said, still nodding.
"Everyone in our canasta group agrees. Right, Donna?"

Her sister folded her arms. "No. Our golf
club loves Jayne's book more. And you know it."

"Everyone in my dorm was like, completely
green with envy when they found out I was going on this trip,"
Carla volunteered. "You're our hero, Jayne."

Kelly nodded. "The women in my office feel
the same way. I'm lucky to be here."

Overwhelmed, Jayne looked from one woman to
the next. She could have hugged every last one.

It was one thing to know
Heartbreak
101
had shot to the top of bestseller lists on the strength of
readers' demand. It was something else again to talk with those
readers, and to know she'd really, truly helped them.

You have a gift
, she remembered Carla
saying, and wanted to grin like an idiot, all over again. Jayne had
never had an honest-to-gosh
gift
before. Now that she did,
it meant so much to her.

"But I'm dying to know," Kelly went on,
giving her a speculative look, "exactly what happened with the guy?
The guy who broke your heart? Who was he? What was he like? How did
you meet him?"

To Jayne's dismay, everyone else chimed in,
clamoring for details. How had it ended? Where was he now? How did
she feel?
Tell, tell, tell
.

Finally, Jayne held up both palms, leaving
her handbag and books balanced on her lap. She laughed. "Okay,
okay. At the risk of giving away terrific book-three
material...here goes."

They all settled in. Around them, the
afternoon breeze swooshed past the rocks and mesquite, and an
occasional bird chirped. The setting was serene, peaceful...and way
too "raw wilderness" for Jayne's tastes. Seriously. How was she
supposed to get a decent decaf soy latte out here?

Anyway....

"Well, let's see. It was almost—" She
paused, as though the time that had passed
weren't
emblazoned in her memory. "—almost two years ago now, I guess. We
met at the pier in San Francisco, while I was on location for an
advertising shoot. He was a photographer on assignment taking
pictures of migrating whales off the coast—"

"What was his name?" Mitzi interrupted.

Jayne hesitated. Then she decided there
really wasn't any reason
not
to tell them. "Riley. His name
was Riley."

She barely stifled a sigh. Hearing Riley's
name again—especially from her own lips—was strange. Thinking of
him was even stranger. Yet at the same time, it was tempting, too.
A half-forgotten yearning nudged itself awake inside her, and Jayne
knew she'd be wiser not to travel down this road again.

"To make a long story short, we hit it off,"
she said casually. "You know those romantic montages in the movies
where the couple walks along the beach, laughs over dinner, and
chases each other in the park? That was us. Instantly smitten. Love
at first sight. Blah, blah, blah."

They smiled. Doris leaned forward. "So what
happened?"

Jayne fingered the gold pendant she'd worn
to fill the neckline of her shirt dress. She shrugged. "Six months
later he left. That's what happened. One minute, everything was
wonderful. And the next, he was gone. Just...gone."

"
Awww
." The group huddled closer,
patting Jayne on the shoulders. Their comfort surrounded her,
freely offered even though they were still mostly
strangers—strangers who'd bonded over shared loss.

Jayne felt herself weaken, felt a sting of
tears at the long-lost memory of Riley's desertion, and told
herself she had to get a grip. Falling back under the spell of
coulda, woulda, shoulda
wouldn't help anyone now. Least of
all herself.

Besides, she was over Riley now.

She sniffed and swiped a hand over her eyes.
Straightened. "It's all right," she croaked, knowing she had to set
an example for them. "I'm fine now. But thanks everyone."

Amid the comforting murmurs her breakup-ees
offered, Jayne sucked in a deep breath. She stood. "I'd better...go
try knocking on the lodge door again. Maybe they've just been
asleep in there."

At twelve forty-five in the morning
?
a part of her jibed. But none of the women called her bluff, so
Jayne managed to get away. At the big plank door, she pulled out
her compact and checked her makeup.

Bawling over lost loves was, after all, hell
on a girl's Benefit "babe cakes" classic eyeliner.

A shout from Carla carried from the parking
lot. Jayne turned to see her pointing through the towering pines
and scrubby oaks toward the dirt road beyond. "I see, like, a dust
plume! Somebody's coming!"

The lodge owners
. If they were back,
then she could get started—and move on to something positive,
too.

Jayne ran (okay,
walked
quickly
—sacrifices had to be made for beauty, and for stylish
shoes) back toward her things. Sudden excitement shimmied through
her as she gathered up her handbag and the autographed books she'd
brought for their hosts.

Now that the time was here, she could hardly
wait to get started. Anything was better, Jayne figured, than
thinking about Riley Davis...and the bewildering vanishing act he'd
pulled, just when things had started to get
good
between
them.

Chapter Two

Over the thirty-two years of his life, Riley
Davis had, on occasion, hacked his way through jungles. He'd
climbed his way to mountain peaks in sub-zero temperatures. He'd
even risked his neck on white-water rapids, and held his breath
while skydiving. But he'd never, during all those adventures,
encountered anyone more frustratingly, aggravatingly,
crazy-makingly stubborn than Bud Davis.

His grandfather.

Who, at this moment, happened to be sitting
in the passenger seat of Riley's battered Suburban as they
meandered down the service road toward the lodge...driving him ape
shit with every word he said.

"You are not leading this group, Gramps."
Riley forcibly relaxed his grip on the steering wheel and shot Bud
an earnest, don't-mess-with-me look. It was tough to pull off on a
man who'd once watched eight-year-old Riley cry over losing his
favorite grass snake, but he gave it a try, all the same. "The
doctor said you need to take it easy. I'm here to make sure you do
that."

"You're here 'cause you're in cahoots with
your grandma," Bud grumbled. "She wants to turn me useless,
too."

Riley's heart softened. Putting himself in
Gramps's shoes, he could imagine how helpless, how embarrassed,
how—yes, thoroughly pissed off—he would feel. But that didn't mean
he was going to let his seventy-year-old grandfather work himself
to death. Especially if he meant to do so by leading a bunch of
namby-pamby city types on a five-day adventure hike.

He glanced sideways. "You're not useless.
You never will be. Those water lines near the lodge need work,
and—"

"'Water lines need work,'" Bud mimicked,
making a face. "A damned plumber could do that, and you know
it."

"That's not the point."

"I'm trained to take that group out. I'm
doing it."

"No, you're not." Calmly, Riley steered
around a pothole left by a recent rain. He squinted into the
distance, where two people could be seen walking along the
roadside. "
I am
."

"Hell. You don't wanna do that."

"Yes, I do."

"Bullshit. You don't care about this place."
Bud's outflung arm indicated the scenic red buttes, the creosote
and cypress along the roadside—and the lodge in the distance. "Or
any place, for that matter. You haven't spent more than three
months straight in any one spot since you were old enough to put on
your own boots."

It was coming
, Riley knew. The usual
reminder. The usual dig. Wait for it...

"Just like your father."

Stifling a sigh, Riley glanced sideways
again. He deliberated making a rebuttal. Sunlight shone through the
Suburban's window, casting Gramps's lined skin and stubborn
features into bold relief...and changing Riley's mind about
stirring up trouble, too.