Take a Chance on Me(63)

Maybe Darek would never call. After all, after four days . . .

Could she live with that? Only one date, no explanation, even after he’d kissed her so sweetly?

Yes. Maybe.

Or not.

Especially when she thought of Tiger, the way he nestled into her lap, throwing rocks, then playing with the glow stick she’d purchased for him.

He had a sweetness about him, a little-boy charm that he must have inherited, at least in part, from Felicity.

Felicity Holloway Christiansen.

Her file lay on the round pine table. Ivy had pulled it after lunch today, in between writing up complaints, summonses, and evidentiary briefs, not to mention following up on cases and answering about a hundred e-mails. Her brain had turned to mush, and the accident report and evidentiary briefs and memorandums in Felicity’s case couldn’t be considered light reading.

But she had to know.

So she’d read every detail, remembering it from when she’d read it the first time. Although, instead of Felicity being labeled as “the victim,” as Thornton Atwood had done in the file she’d been given, and Jensen as “the accused,” in this file, she’d discovered names. And witnesses. Including Darek.

If she’d been less eager three years ago, she might have dug around a little, instead of wanting so much to please her boss, to impress him. Though she hadn’t known the accused was his son until after she handed in her recommendation—Thornton had masked the entire file and made her believe it was just a teaching exercise.

She easily pieced the scene together—a fight with Darek put Felicity in a running mood, and she’d ventured out, probably still angry, just after 9 p.m., in her Jeep, parking at the Cutaway Creek overlook. Maybe to just sit and think. They’d discovered her Jeep there, later that night.

Sometime after 9:35, she took off running, downhill, toward town. With traffic.

Jensen, on his way into town for pizza, came around the curve and an oncoming car’s headlights hit him in the eyes. He’d blinked and taken the curve too tight.

That’s when he felt the car hit Felicity. Investigation indicated that he hadn’t run into the ditch—on the contrary, they supposed she might have been crossing the road and hadn’t seen his lights.

She died almost immediately, her skull shattering.

Ivy had read the obit, too, and every single article she could dig up on the court case. Jensen had been accused of texting, a thin case built around negligent driving, and Ivy used that to tear holes in the prosecution in her memorandum. Still, with his cell phone open, a text recently sent . . .

She could still remember turning in her memo on the community service option to her junior associate, the pride she’d felt as she handed it to him. Then she’d marched into Daniel’s adjunct professor office at the University of Minnesota and shown it to him.

He was impressed, especially when the plea made the evening news.

She took another bite of ice cream, and it shivered through her.

Yes, maybe it would be best if Darek never called again.

Ivy put the bowl down, her appetite souring. Oh, why did the world have to be so terribly small?

She’d always known that fate—or God—was against her. And this was just more proof. No matter what she did to reach for her dreams, something always destroyed it.

I’ve made it this far on my own. I guess I’ll keep it that way.

You’re never on your own, Ivy. Claire’s words, in her head.

Yes, she was. Because God certainly wasn’t on her side, and with Daniel gone . . . No, she had no one.

She got up to stop the bathwater.

“Ivy?” A knock came at her door. “It’s me, Claire.”

Claire? Ivy went to the door, flicking on the outside light. “Hey—”

Her gaze stopped on the man standing behind Claire. Jensen, offering her a sheepish smile. Shoot. How she hoped her face didn’t fall, that he didn’t see the minute hiccup of breath. “Hello.”

“Hello,” he said, reaching past Claire to shake her hand. “I’m Jensen Atwood. I’m sorry to bother you—”

“We need some help,” Claire said. “Can we talk to you?”

The moths bounced around the light, a big one dive-bombing the open door. “Come in,” Ivy said, shooing it away.

Except now Jensen Atwood stood in her tiny kitchen. With his sun-bleached and tousled hair, she saw the arrogant playboy the media had portrayed him as three years ago. No wonder Deep Haven wanted to crucify him.

Claire looked at him and smiled. So maybe not everyone in Deep Haven.

“How can I help you?”

“I was wondering if we could ask for some legal advice.”

Advice? Oh, please let it be about a traffic ticket. Or a recovered wallet. Or maybe they’d saved someone’s life, needed to know about Good Samaritan laws.