Assault and Batter(39)

“I promise,” I said. “Jake, I’m so sorry,” I added.

“Don’t be,” he answered. “We’ll be fine. Well, I’d better get going.”

“You just got here. Stay. Please.”

“I would if I could, but there’s just no time. I’m going to be pushed for time as it is. I love you, Suzanne.”

“I love you, too,” I said. “Can’t you at least kiss me good-bye?”

He nodded, and then Jake took me in his arms. I did my best to breathe him in, to capture the essence of him to hold me over for the next few months, but it was impossible.

Finally, he broke free, and as he got into his car, ready to leave me for a year, I yelled out, “Call me when you get through security.”

“Don’t worry. That’s not going to be a problem for me,” he said, managing a feeble grin. “The job has some perks, after all.”

“At least promise to call me when you get there, then,” I said.

“I will. Good-bye, Suzanne.”

“Bye,” I said, and I stood there waving as he drove away.

He was really gone.

Why hadn’t I said yes when he’d asked me to join him? Was I really that set in my ways that I couldn’t do something that might ensure my future happiness? Was I afraid of what a commitment like that would mean to me? Or had I just been caught off guard by the suddenness of it all? I hadn’t lost my boyfriend, at least not metaphorically.

I was still standing there looking out into the growing night when I heard footsteps approaching. Had Jake delayed his trip long enough to give me a proper farewell?

No.

It was Grace. She’d walked up from her house, and the second I saw her, I fell apart.

“Grace, I might have just made the biggest mistake in my life, and there’s no way to fix it now.”

She hugged me tightly, stroking my back lightly as she said, “It’s okay, Suzanne. We’ll figure out a way to make it all better.”

I just wished that I believed her.

Jake was gone, and I was alone, by choice.

And I didn’t see any way to make things right again.





Chapter 14


Two hours later, after a steady supply of sweet tea, homemade cookies, and apple pie, I was finally starting to feel a little better about my situation with Jake. Momma had come home an hour before, and she’d quickly joined in the support group. Both women kept reassuring me that they understood why I’d turned Jake’s offer to join him down, but it still didn’t help make me feel much better.

In the middle of a sentence, I yawned loudly, exhausted more from the emotion of the evening than any real weariness.

“Suzanne, look at the time. You’d better get off to bed right now if you’re going to get any sleep tonight,” Momma said.

“I could try, but I doubt that I’d sleep a wink,” I said as I yawned again.

“You should at least make an attempt to get some rest,” Grace added as she stood and stretched. “I’ve got a big day tomorrow myself.”

“What’s going on?” I asked, wondering if my friend might not be able to help me in my investigation the next day. I relied on Grace’s company as well as her astute observations, and I hated the thought of digging deeper into Jude Williams’s murder without her.

“I have a meeting in Hickory at eight, and another in Lenoir at nine, but I’ll be back here by eleven,” she said. “I promise.”

“You don’t have to rush back on my account,” I said, though I didn’t really mean it. “I know that your job is important to you.”

“It is, but don’t forget that I love these investigations just as much as you do.” Grace hugged me again before she left, and then she said goodnight to my mother before she headed home.

Once Momma and I were alone, I asked her softly, “Tell me the truth. What would you have done in my shoes?”

“Suzanne, that’s an impossible question to answer. What does your heart tell you?”

“Just that it’s breaking,” I answered.

She hugged me, and then Momma stroked my hair just as she’d done when I’d been a child. “There, there. It will all seem better in the morning.”

“How can you be so sure?” I asked her.

“Time does more than wound all heels. It heals all wounds as well.”

“Should I have gone?” I asked her again.

“Could you leave everything you have here behind to follow him?” she asked me softly.

“I don’t know, but shouldn’t I at least try?”

“My dear child, why don’t you think about it for a week and see how you feel once the shock of Jake’s departure eases a bit? You’re in no position to make a rational decision tonight. Don’t you think that Jake must have realized that himself? After all, from the sound of it, he didn’t push you very hard to go with him, did he?”