said.
Chapter 11
“WHAT?” I said, wincing.
“I live a few blocks from here. I have a boat at my house,” Peter said. “I’ll take care of everything.”
My leg started hopping again like a Mexican jumping bean.
“But that’s nuts,” I said. “You know that, right? How nuts that is?”
Peter nodded with an almost comic enthusiasm. “You don’t have to explain it to me,” he said.
“But I mean…,” I said, hesitating.
“Look, Jeanine. It’s our only option. I’ll put him in the Camaro’s trunk. You follow me in the Camaro back to my house. I’ll take it from there. I’m working the graveyard shift. No one will even know I’m gone.”
“This is crazy,” I said, looking around.
“We’re out of time,” Peter said. “If a car comes by, I won’thave a choice. I’m trying to do you a favor, but if you’re not up to it, I completely understand. I’m not real jazzed about the possibility of going to jail myself. It’s entirely up to you.”
I stood there looking at him as he checked his watch. He blinked as he stared back, waiting calmly for my answer. Even with his big hands resting on his bulky gear-laden hips, he suddenly seemed friendly, a nice teddy bear of a guy, a drinking buddy, a big brother sticking his neck out for me, trying to do me a solid.
Had my father ever done something like this for someone? I wondered. Maybe he had, I thought.
I closed my eyes. There it was before me. The rest of my life. Jail or freedom. Right or wrong.
I thought about looking over again at the man I’d struck, but in the end I decided not to.
I opened my eyes.
In the silence, Peter clicked the cuffs together. Like the final tick of a scale coming to rest. Like the click of the bathroom door with Alex and Maureen behind it, I thought.
Then finally, I nodded.
“OK, then. Hurry up now,” Peter said. “Back up the car, pop the trunk, and follow me.”
Chapter 12
IT MUST HAVE BEEN around noon when I woke up, but I didn’t open my eyes right away.
As I pretty much always did over the last two years, I lay still, my breath held and eyelids sealed, momentarily unsure and afraid of where I might find myself.
Then I opened my eyes and let out a sigh of relief.
Because I was OK.
I was still free.
I wasn’t in a prison cell.
Not even close.
Yawning, stretching, blinking in the bright, hazy morning light, I sat up in bed, slowly taking in the white-on-white bedroom. From left to right, I scanned the driftwood sculpture on the side table, the seashell shadow box, the book-filled beadboard bookcases.
And, as usual, my waking inventory ended at my lefthand. Or more precisely, at the diamond engagement ring and wedding band that had somehow become attached to my ring finger.
Standing, I stopped and shook my startled head at the mirror above the bedside table. From all my sea kayaking and windsurfing over the past two years, my light skin had turned a deep shade of brown. My brown hair, on the other hand, had become lighter, now striped with blond streaks.
I’d somehow become a version of myself I’d never even considered. Jeanine, surfer chick. Malibu Jeanine.
Failing to wrap my head around that one, I crossed the room and opened the vertical blinds on the sliders. I squinted as I took in the lazily leaning king palms, the expanse of Crayola teal water, the forest of boat masts.
My backyard, replete with two white seaward-facing chaise longues, could have been the set of a Corona commercial. I smiled at the muscular arm resting on the edge of the right chair.
Since we were out of Corona, I had to settle for putting an ice-cold bottle of Red Stripe into the big hand as I stepped up.
Two years of healing. Two years of love. No one was luckier than I.
“How’s the fishing there, Mr. Fournier?” I said.
“Slow,
Mrs.
Fournier,” Peter said, grinning at me impishly behind his Wayfarers.
Chapter 13
YEP. YOU GUESSED IT. Peter and I had gotten married.
Or maybe you didn’t. I don’t