Sleeping in Eden (33 page)

“Jess Langbroek. Of course you can still do that. You've been doing it since you were five years old. You're family,” Linda said warmly. “You belong here.”

Meg listened to her mother and her boyfriend with the reassurance of the kitchen between them and knew that Dylan was right. Jess—or a boy just like him—did belong in her home. Great family, stable background, promising future. Things had been simple between her and Jess because they followed a fixed pattern, provided a framework that she hadn't even known she was working within.

And yet, she didn't love him.

What could she possibly say to him? In the end, it wouldn't have mattered if she had rehearsed a script for weeks in anticipation of his arrival. Her mind was blank, her heart so frozen, she was sure she could feel the ice in her chest crack and splinter with each muffled beat. She set the salad bowl on the table and took a deep breath, tugging on the edges of her sweater to straighten it.

“She's setting the table,” Meg heard her mother say. Then there were footfalls and laughter about bits of hurried
conversation that she couldn't make out. And before she could expend a moment's worry about how he would respond when he saw her, Jess was standing in the archway between the kitchen and dining room.

He materialized out of a three-month absence taller, broader, older. If her eyes weren't failing her, his hair was darker, and his eyes, too. It seemed to Meg that wisdom had imparted a deepening of more than just his mind. There was a hopeful half smile on his face, as if he was returning to a place full of memories and rich with a life that he looked back on with fondness and expectation. It seemed to her that he longed to find everything as simple and unchanged as he remembered, even though he was not the same man. Meg stood rooted to the ground as she watched him emerge from what felt like the ancient past, and wondered if she was everything that he had waited for.

Jess's gaze took her in slowly, from the crown of her ponytailed head to the unpainted toenails of her bare feet. She felt self-conscious, exposed beneath the daring search of his inscrutable blue eyes. She found herself looking at the floor, at the faded white cotton of his mismatched socks as he approached. He had taken off his shoes at the door and something about the closeness of that act, the permanence—I'm here to stay—made her heart catch in her throat.

When their toes touched, Jess slid into her in a deliberate reproduction of the night of their first kiss, wrapping his arms around her with such gentleness that Meg felt herself melting into his embrace against her will. The ice that had been her petrified heart fell one drop at a time and seemed to pool around their sweetly mismatched feet and rise until Meg wondered if she could drown in her own invisible tears. But Jess didn't appear to notice her hesitation as he pulled her tight against his chest, and instead of pressing her head against him, he let his own forehead sink to rest on her shoulder. It was an act of unaccountable surrender.

“Oh,” he exhaled against her collarbone. “I've missed that. I've missed you.”

Meg felt herself tighten around him, her arms cinching around his neck as if she could never be convinced again to let him go. Her fingers spread into his hair, pulling his head down against her and holding it there with a ferocity she hadn't realized she felt. Her chest was empty and hollow, cavernous in its need for air that could never hope to fill the gaping space. She opened her mouth, closed it. Opened it again and whispered against his ear: “I'm so sorry.”

T
he afternoon passed quickly for Lucas—too quickly, because although he couldn't help but worry unendingly about what awaited him at home, he was dying to know more about Michael Kane Designs.

It seemed to him that the entire three-pronged predicament of the Woman, the ring, and Angela was nothing more than a misunderstanding, a kindness gone wrong. He had extended his hand in empathy, a touch of commiseration that, while admittedly tinged with an almost desperate need to know what had happened and why, had spiraled out of control. And now that his touch had become a lifeline, it could not be retracted. For better or worse, he was, body and soul, a part of this thing.

But while he was electrified by Angela's discovery about the unique design of the ring, he was uneasy about Jenna's inevitable reaction. He tried to speculate how she would feel. Betrayed that he hadn't told her what he had done? Angry that he had dared to do something so foolhardy and illegal? Hurt that he had shared his trespass with Angela, a virtual stranger to him and someone he didn't like all that much, instead of her? Probably all of the above and more. Jenna had always surprised him with her unpredictable reactions.

When Lucas blew into the kitchen, he found Angela alone at the table, draped over the hardback chair as if she owned the place, long hair pulled up in a slipping ballerina's knot and jeans
rolled up to her knees. One leg was tucked snug against her chest, foot flat on the smooth seat beneath her; the other leg arched over empty space like a bridge, heel resting on the edge of the varnished pine table and toes splayed with a tissue woven over, under, over, under, like the first row of a flimsy, handwoven blanket.

She was painting her toenails iridescent red, a color that shone like the hood of a new car and sparkled, even from across the room, with flecks of glitter. Lucas looked down at his own wool socks, the heavy pants that hung in a clean, straight line from his hip to his heel, and wondered, Why? Who would see the decorated feet, glistening with ten perfect points of ruby like drops of fresh-spilled blood? But he didn't whisper a word.

Instead, he called, “Jenna home?” though it was obvious to him that she wasn't. The house lacked a certain gravity, as if even the walls knew that nothing was quite anchored without her.

Lucas hesitated in the doorway, uncertain in spite of his earlier impatience, because it felt faintly inappropriate to walk in on Angela in the act of painting her toenails. Her feet were bare before him, the pale skin almost intimate as she cupped her arch, a whisper of pink tongue visible between her lips as she concentrated. And though she had certainly heard him come in, she didn't look up or acknowledge his presence in any way. Lucas felt as if he should leave, or at the very least, avert his eyes.

But then Angela finished her pinky toe, capped the tiny bottle, and turned. “No,” she said, her gaze as layered and shiny-hard as her nail polish. She seemed focused to Lucas, at once determined and triumphant as if she knew what she wanted and it was well within her grasp. He fumbled to say something, to ask another question, but she smiled suddenly and the strange spell was broken.

Lucas let go of a stale breath. “Where is she?” he asked.

Angela shrugged. “Working late. I stopped by her office this afternoon and she told me not to expect her back until seven.”

Lucas wished for a moment that he had stayed at work, but as quickly as the thought arose, it evaporated, a wisp of steam that left an unexpected relief in its wake. He could talk to Angela honestly, uninterrupted. Without the phantom of his wife's growing disappointment hovering over him.

As if Angela could read his mind, she commanded, “Ask me.”

“What?”

She rolled her eyes. “That is quite possibly the most annoying expression in the world, Lucas. Don't act so stupid. Don't act like I've caught you off guard. You know exactly what I'm referring to.”

“I don't know what you want me to ask,” he said flatly.

“Use your imagination.” Angela smirked.

Lucas crossed the room slowly and passed around the table so he could stand opposite her. But he didn't move to sit down, and Angela seemed annoyed again. She kicked out the chair in front of him with one of her newly manicured feet, bumping him just below the knees with the lathed edge of the sturdy seat.

“I hope you didn't just make me smudge my polish,” she complained. Then she indicated the chair with a flick of her chin. “Sit. We have lots to talk about.”

Lucas sat reluctantly. “Tell me about the ring,” he said.

“That's not a question, but it'll do.” Angela grinned, a sudden fierce expression that had nothing to do with joy. She demanded: “Tell me you're dying to know. Tell me it's all you thought about all afternoon.”

“If that were true, it would have been very unfortunate for my patients.”

Angela blinked. “Are you sure you took the ring from the barn?” she asked after a moment. “I can't believe you did it.”

“Neither can I,” Lucas admitted. “And I think I made a huge mistake. I shouldn't have taken it and I shouldn't have given it to you.”

“Too late for that, isn't it? You want to know, Lucas. I know you do. You're the one who set me on this path.”

He did. It was no use denying it, even if good sense continued to wage war in his heart and mind. “Convince me,” he muttered. “You've got five minutes to make me believe that I did the right thing in committing a felony.”

“Is it a felony?”

“No.” Lucas sighed. “I very discreetly asked one of my patients about it, a retired sheriff.”

“And? What's going to happen to you?”

“He figured my allegedly fabricated scenario would result in a fine. Maybe a theft charge. But it could be dropped if I returned the ring. It would depend on whether or not the investigators decided to press charges.”

“And me?”

“I guess you're an accessory.”

Angela shrugged. “I'm okay with that.”

“We don't even know if it's her ring.”

“Of course it's hers,” Angela said, dismissing his reservations with an irritated wiggle of her fingers. “It's not my mother's—he gave all of her stuff to Goodwill after she died. And it's not mine. There were no other women in Jim's life.”

“That you know of.”

Angela glared at him. “It's hers. I know it.” Apparently sick of wasting time on the legal particularities, she blurted, “It's an original. Michael Kane is an independent jeweler who specializes in one-of-a-kind creations. Michael does his own designs, but he also allows clients to describe, draw, or invent their own wearable art using a CAD program. No piece of jewelry is ever duplicated.”

Lucas laid his hand palm up on the table and Angela placed the ring in it without further comment. It was a unique piece, and though he could see why the original design struck him as distinctly Black Hills gold, there was a difference. The leaves were bigger, less detailed. And they arched off the band, creating hollow spaces and undercuts that seemed too detailed for the pretty but distinctly cookie-cutter charms he had seen before in neat jewelry store displays.

“How long has he been in business?” Lucas asked.

“Over twenty-five years.”

“What makes you think he'd remember this ring?”

Angela flashed him a sly smile. “He keeps records. I asked.”

Lucas felt a thrill, a sudden burst of adrenaline that forced him to acknowledge that Angela's discovery was huge. Michael Kane Designs could hold the key to the Woman's identity.

“Did you ask him about it? About this ring?”

She shook her head, a little wrinkle appearing between her eyes. Picking up the glass bottle of her gleaming polish, she tapped it on the surface of the table in a soft staccato of muted frustration. “He told me that most of the private designs are strictly confidential. Apparently people don't want their creations copied.”

Lucas blew a hard breath between his teeth. “Then what in the world makes you think that we'll learn anything about this ring?”

Angela continued the careful tap-tap-tap of the bottle, studying the fruitless movement, brow furrowed in concentration. It seemed like she wasn't going to respond to Lucas's question, but finally she palmed the small vial and fixed him with an unwavering look. Her eyes were clear and dark, the gray-green color of a river stone, and equally immovable. Then, as he watched in growing discomfort, the corner of her mouth curled the tiniest bit, presaging a change that overtook her beautiful face like a slow sunrise. The smile that she gave him was both innocent and hungry, ingenuous and cunning.

“He'll tell me whatever I ask.”

Lucas didn't doubt her.