Seventeen
Susan packed her clothes in a small suitcase. Not her elaborate, designer trousseau, befitting an Abbott But her jeans and shorts and khakis, her T-shirts and sweaters and hiking shoes. She had no idea where she was going, but it didn’t matter. She’d spent her life in Connecticut in the small, circumscribed world of the Abbotts, afraid to listen to her heart and soul. It was time for her to strike out on her own.
She didn’t bother to take off the wedding dress as she moved around her room. It was oddly comfortable—the rich satin flowing over her body, and she hummed beneath her breath, trying not to think of anything but the limitless future.
She was making coffee when the car pulled in the driveway, and she looked up, and froze. It was Jake, alone, in a fast little sports car she’d never seen before.
She had no intention of answering the front door, but it was unlocked, and he slammed it open, looking furious. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he greeted her.
Considering that the last time she’d looked into his eyes they’d been wrapped around each other, and he’d been deep inside her, the greeting left something to be desired.
“Making coffee,” she said.
“Why are you wearing that dress? Why did you leave the garage without a word? Didn’t you see my note?”
She shrugged. So he’d left a note, one she hadn’t bothered to look for, so certain she’d been abandoned. It didn’t matter. It was now or later, and the sooner she got past the pain, the sooner she could get on with her life.
“I’m getting married this afternoon, remember?” It was a lie, but he didn’t know that.
He didn’t move, but he turned pale beneath his golden tan. “After last night?”
“Today usually comes after the night before, doesn’t it?” She concentrated on watching the dark coffee drip through the filter.
“I thought you were going to many me.”
“I didn’t think you were serious. You’re hardly the marrying kind. Did you mean it?”
There was no reading the expression on his face. He looked at her as if he didn’t know her. “What do you think?”
Susan lifted her head and smiled coolly. “I think you’re not looking for a wife, or any kind of commitment. So that settles it.”
“What about Edward? How will he feel when he finds out...?”
“I already told him. Edward forgives me.”
“Big of him,” Jake snarled.
“So you’re off the hook. You can go back to Timbuktu or wherever you came from and never have to think of me again. I imagine you got any transitory lust out of your system last night I know I did.” It was a lie, of course. Just looking at him made her stomach clench in longing, her knees weak. But she couldn’t have him. She knew it She couldn’t change the past and she couldn’t change the future either. At least not into what she wanted.
He just stared at her. “Pier 18, 37th and 12th,” he said. “Eight-thirty.”
She jerked her head up in shock, but he was already gone, slamming the door behind him.
She wasted precious moments, frozen, and by the time she moved, racing out the door after him, he was already gone.
She took a cup of coffee, carried it out onto the back terrace and set it down, promptly forgetting about it How had he known? Fifty years ago Lou Abbott had run to the man she loved, at that very place. Though he had the time wrong—Lou had found Jack at three-thirty.
She closed her eyes, weary beyond belief. Time and truth had faded, and all she wanted to do was run away. Run away with the man she loved.
“What are you doing out here?” Her mother stood in the terrace door, her voice soft and strained. Susan turned to look at her, and a fierce pain went through her heart.
For the first time in her life her mother looked old. Broken, beaten, lost Susan rose swiftly, pulling her mother’s slight figure into her arms. “He’s left you again, hasn’t he?” she said, furious anger in her voice. “He’s abandoned you once more.”
“I sent him away.”
Susan put her at arm’s length, staring down at her. “Why?”
Mary pulled away, running a delicate hand through her soft hair. “I was afraid,” she said simply. “I didn’t think I could stand losing him again.”
