“All right, I’ll tell you.”

She frowned at him. “Tell me what?”

He briefly closed his eyes. “I’ve got a record, Maryellen. A prison record. You once asked me where I learned to cook. Well, guess what, it was behind bars. I couldn’t tell you for fear you’d take Katie away from me.”

That explained some, but not enough. She lowered herself to the bench again so they sat side by side. “I’d never do that!”

“I trusted someone else, someone I loved. I learned a painful lesson. It’s not one I’m eager to repeat.”

“Another woman?” she asked.

“No, my half brother.” He didn’t add any details, and this seemed all he was willing to divulge.

“Why are you telling me now?” she asked. If he was leaving, anyway, it seemed pointless to admit the truth.

He didn’t respond.

Maryellen refused to let the matter drop. “What made me so trustworthy all of a sudden, especially if you’re about to drop out of my life and Katie’s?”

He had no answer, but that didn’t surprise her. Jon rarely volunteered information about himself. It used to be a game she played when he came into the gallery—getting him to chat about himself, learning what she could about him. Even now she knew damn little.

“This might surprise you, but I suspected you might have done jail time,” she said. It was one of the endless possibilities she’d considered late at night, when she couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t one she’d taken all that seriously, just as she’d dismissed the possibility that he was on the run or an amnesiac or involved in some equally bizarre scenario. Another woman had seemed the most likely….

A scowl darkened his face. “Not the kind of question you want to ask, is it?”

“What was the charge?”

There was a lengthy silence. “I was convicted of dealing cocaine.”

“This is where your half brother comes in?”

Jon nodded. “The two of us were total opposites. He was the perfect son and I was the starving artist. The disreputable kid. My dad and stepmom favored Jim. He was ambitious, a businessman-in-the-making. He was everything they wanted in a son and I wasn’t.”

This was the first time he’d mentioned any family member other than his grandfather and the fact that Katie had been his dead mother’s name. His grandfather had left him the land on which Jon had built his house. “Where’s Jim now?”

His face tightened. “Dead.”

“Oh, Jon, I’m sorry.”

He nodded, but she saw him swallow hard. He set his foot against the back of the bleacher in front of them and slid his hands inside his pockets. “We lived together, and I was scraping by selling my pictures. I’d take my camera and hike into the forest and get as many shots as I could afford to develop. Jim moved in with me one summer and for a while it was great.”

Maryellen tucked her own hands in her pockets, but leaned closer to him, pressing her shoulder to his, needing to touch him.

“Jim was dealing cocaine. I swear on Katie’s life that I didn’t have a clue what he was doing. He was in college and his friends were the same upwardly mobile type he was.”

“He was selling to them?”

Jon nodded. “Fool that I was, I didn’t put two and two together. Jim always seemed to have money, always seemed to have whatever he wanted.”

“What happened?”

“One night the police came and dragged us both out of bed. They found the stuff. While I was screaming that it was planted and that we were innocent, Jim was selling me to the cops, saying it was mine.”

Maryellen placed her hand on his forearm, and he gripped her fingers with his own, squeezing hard.

“My brother testified against me, and my father claimed—well, he lied and said I was the one with the drug problem and that Jim had only recently moved into the house and couldn’t be involved.”

She closed her eyes, imagining that kind of betrayal. First his brother and then his father, too. “How could he do that?”

“Dad believed what Jim told him, I guess. He wanted to protect one of his sons—but not the other.”

“Oh, Jon.”

“I haven’t seen or talked to my father since the day I was sentenced. I want nothing to do with him. I don’t know how I would’ve survived without my grandfather’s support. He did everything he could to help me.”

She understood more and more of what he’d been through, the experiences that had shaped him.

“Jim died while I was in prison. My father wrote to tell me, but I never wrote him back.” He didn’t hide his pain or bitterness.

“How long were you in prison?”

“I was sentenced to fifteen years.”

She gasped. Jon, who loved the out-of-doors, had been locked in a jail cell.

“I served seven of those years, and it was seven years of hell.”

“Jim walked away scot-free?”

Jon looked down at their linked fingers and he squeezed so hard she nearly cried out from the pain. “He got a slap on the wrist with probation and then died of a heroin overdose the year before I was paroled.”

Maryellen desperately wanted to comfort him, to hold him in her arms.

“Now you know.” His eyes were cold as stones as he held her gaze. “You can give this information to any court in the land and take my daughter away from me.”

Now she knew why he was putting the land his grandfather had left him up for sale and selling the house he’d built with his own hands. Why he was quitting his job. Leaving Cedar Cove.

“You don’t trust me,” she whispered. He was relinquishing everything that mattered to him because he believed he was going to lose it, anyway. Because the minute he lowered his guard, he took the risk that she, too, would betray him.

“I can’t.” He didn’t bother to deny it. “The only person I can trust in this world is myself.”

“What about Katie?”

“She’s a baby….”

“She’s your daughter.”

“I love her.”

“But doesn’t she deserve to know her father?”

His jaw tightened again.

“Eventually you’ll have to trust someone. You can’t close yourself off from everyone. Sooner or later, you’ve got to stop running.”

He didn’t look at her, didn’t respond.

“I can deal with it if you don’t want me in your life, but Katie needs you. Jon, please don’t walk away from her.” She wanted to ask the same thing for herself, but wouldn’t.

“You know everything now.”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“You won’t try to get sole custody of Katie?”

“No,” she said. “I promise.”

“You probably could, you know.”

“Jon,” she cried in frustration. “Haven’t you been listening to a word I’ve said? Katie needs you…. I need you. I’m not going to do anything to keep you out of Katie’s life. Or mine.”

His eyes narrowed. “Would you marry a felon?”

“Are you asking?”

He hesitated and then gave a jerky nod. She watched as he thrust his hands back inside his pockets, hunching his shoulders forward.

She blinked hard to keep the tears from spilling onto her face. “It would be the greatest honor of my life to marry you, to be the mother to your children and—”

“Children?”

“I’m thinking Katie could use a little brother or sister.”

A tentative smile came first and then Jon broke into the most wonderful deep-chested laugh. The sound of it drifted toward the cove, competing with the sharp cry of the seagulls.

Before Maryellen knew it, they were both standing and she was securely wrapped in his embrace. They hugged each other tightly and then he kissed her again and again.

Maryellen raised her face and wept openly as Jon’s kisses traveled over her forehead, her cheeks, her chin, moving toward her lips. When their mouths finally met, it was a kiss that spoke of faith and trust and love, and she returned those feelings in full measure.

She was breathless by the time he eased his mouth from hers. “I want us to get married soon.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “Promise me you’ll never threaten to leave us again.”

“I promise,” he said, and kissed her.

“Promise you’ll always love me.”

“Promise.” Another deep kiss.

“Anything else?” he asked, his eyes so full of love it was almost painful to see.

“Lots more,” she whispered. In fact, Maryellen was just getting started.

Twenty-Eight

Home from a Saturday afternoon spent volunteering at the Humane Society Animal Shelter, Grace pulled into her driveway. She enjoyed her work, found real purpose in helping animals. There was such satisfaction in seeing lost pets reunited with their owners and in connecting abandoned or mistreated cats and dogs with people who’d love them.

The vet had a notice about the Humane Society on her bulletin board, which Grace had seen the afternoon she’d taken Buttercup in. She’d decided to respond to the call for volunteers. Buttercup had come into her life at exactly the right moment and Grace wanted others to find the same pleasure.

Her first thought once she’d parked the car was to retrieve her mail. Although she tried not to be hopeful, she couldn’t help looking for a response from Cliff. Two weeks earlier she’d written him, reiterating how sorry she was. Although it meant having to swallow her considerable pride, Grace had asked him to give her a second chance. So far, she hadn’t heard from him, and now, after two weeks, she suspected she wouldn’t.

She walked to the house with Buttercup trotting behind her. The golden retriever sniffed at her legs suspiciously, recognizing the scent of other animals. Buttercup actually seemed a bit jealous and required lots of attention on those Saturdays.

“Did you miss me, girl?” she asked, stroking Buttercup’s head. “Don’t worry, there wasn’t a single dog there as wonderful as you.”

The phone rang and Grace absently reached for the receiver. “Hello,” she said, still fondling the dog’s ears.

“Grace? It’s Stan Lockhart.”

This was completely unexpected. She couldn’t imagine what her best friend’s ex-husband had to say to her.

“What can I do for you?” she asked coolly.

“I’m in town and I was wondering if I could stop by for a few minutes.”

Grace wanted to refuse him, but didn’t have a good excuse. “Can I ask why?”

“I’m surprised you don’t already know.”

“Olivia and Jack.”

“Yes. I won’t stay long.”

She reluctantly agreed. As soon as she hung up, Grace hurriedly punched in Olivia’s phone number. “Why do you think he wants to talk to me? I could really do without this,” she complained.

“He probably needs a shoulder to cry on.”

“Let him look elsewhere,” Grace muttered. She had enough problems of her own without dealing with his. As far as she was concerned, Stan Lockhart was a sore loser.