Falling into Forever

“I know you’re right.” Sandra sighed. “But my dad would never let me hear the end of it. He’ll be ribbing me until New Year’s.”

Vicki speared a piece of fish with her fork. “Better than your entire family spending Thanksgiving in the bathroom, at the dentist or even worse, the emergency room at Wintersage Hospital.”

Sandra opened her mouth to protest, but knew she didn’t have a case. Instead, she helped herself to a mouthful of ravioli.

“Okay, I’ll call off the bet,” she said, having decided to see her parents first thing tomorrow morning and cancel plans to have Thanksgiving at her place. “So what’s going on with you, besides being inundated with orders for fall harvest floral arrangements?”

Vicki looked up from her plate. “Planning my parade float for the annual Wintersage Christmas Celebration. I know it’s a while away, but I still have so much to do. I got sidetracked helping with Janelle’s wedding.”

“Same here,” Sandra agreed. “But it was a beautiful wedding. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so happy.”

This time they both cast a glance at the empty chair at their table. Sandra wasn’t sure how long she stared at the seat that usually would have been occupied by their friend.

“Janelle didn’t leave town for good, you know,” Vicki said. “She’s just on her honeymoon. She’ll be back next week, in time for the election.”

“Yeah, I know.” Sandra shrugged.

No way would Janelle miss the election, not with her father running against Oliver Windom in the most talked about race in the state.

“Then why that face?”

Sandra didn’t need a mirror to know she looked as if she’d lost her best friend, because no matter how Vicki put it, the reality was she had. While Vicki hadn’t come on the scene until she transferred from the local public high school to Wintersage Academy in the tenth grade, Sandra and Janelle had been friends since kindergarten.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled for Janelle,” Sandra explained. “Yet the selfish part of me is a little sad, because things won’t be the same once she and Ballard return from Tahiti.”

The waiter cleared their empty plates and rattled off the dessert offerings. They ordered a second round of drinks, and a slice of cheesecake to share.

Vicki stared at her nearly empty wineglass. “I was thinking about it earlier at the shop. You’re right. It won’t be the same. Janelle is a happily married woman now, and we’re single. It’s a different mind-set.”

Sandra nodded. “Her life will revolve around her husband, and before you know it, the babies will start coming...” If their friend didn’t return home from her honeymoon already pregnant, she thought, downing the last of her first martini.

“Well, hopefully, love, weddings and lots of babies are in our futures, too.” Vicki’s tone softened along with her gaze. “Sooner rather than later.”

Sandra coughed, nearly choking on her drink.

“S-speak for yourself,” she sputtered. “I’m not in the market for a husband, and my nephew is enough baby for me.”

“Oh, come on. Aren’t you tired of having no one to come home to at the end of a long, hard day?”

“Nope, it’s why I moved out of my parents’ house and into one of my own as soon as Swoon became profitable.”

The waiter returned bearing their drinks and dessert. Sandra immediately reached for the fresh cocktail, its sugary rush reminiscent of a milk shake. However, if she thought the decadent slab of New York cheesecake at the center of the table was going to dissuade her friend from pursuing the current topic of conversation, she was mistaken.

“Well, aren’t you sick of wasting your time on meaningless dates with guys you know would never make the cut for Mr. Right?”

“Nope. At twenty-eight years old, it’s called being young and having fun. In fact, I have a date Friday night with a cute Mr. Let’s-Just-Have-a-Good-Time lawyer. We’re going to a Halloween party in Boston.”

Vicki sighed. “I’m all for fun and good times, but I want to start having them with a special someone. Janelle already has her Prince Charming. I’m ready for mine and my happily-ever-after.”

“Not me. I have goals to achieve.” Sandra picked up one of the two forks that had accompanied the cheesecake. “They don’t include being sidetracked by a needy Prince Charming and a drudgery-filled, so-called happily-ever-after spent catering to him.”

She shoved a forkful of cheesecake into her mouth.

Already a die-hard romantic, Vicki was simply swept up in the romance of Janelle’s wedding, Sandra thought. No wedding, or for that matter, no man was going to sway her from her dream of taking Swoon Couture beyond Wintersage.

If next week’s election went the way she hoped, and her design was selected by the governor-elect’s wife, it would garner her design business statewide, perhaps even national, attention.

Vicki dug into the cheesecake with her fork. “A man who’s truly your Prince Charming won’t divert you from your goals. He’ll want to be there to cheer you on as you achieve them.”

Sandra rolled her eyes. “Maybe in fairy-tale land, where Mr. Right and Prince Charming reside, along with the fictitious Knight in Shining Armor.”

Her friend helped herself to another bite of cheesecake, staring at her as she chewed. “If you say so,” she said.

“I do.”

Vicki shrugged. “Back in the day, I’d have bet money you would have been the first one of us to say ‘I do’ and start living a happily-ever-after, with your high school sweetheart.”

Isaiah.

After years of not giving him much thought, Sandra found his name popping into her head for the second time that day. Again, images of the tall athletic boy with the dreamy eyes washed over her. They’d been so in love and had made so many plans for the future.

Plans that years later seemed as absurd as the notion of her cooking Thanksgiving dinner.

“That was a long time ago, and we were just kids,” Sandra said.

“Yeah, but you two seemed so perfect for each other. Do you ever wonder how things would have turned out if Isaiah hadn’t left?”

For the entire summer after he’d gone to the naval academy, Sandra had stayed awake nights asking the same question. What if... But back then she’d been a naive seventeen-year-old girl who hadn’t known squat about real life.

“Isaiah was just a high school sweetheart, who I haven’t seen since he left Wintersage,” she said. “I think about him as much as I do Mrs. Sterling’s chemistry class or after-school cheerleader practice, which is never.”

Sandra took a sip of the sweet martini. Isaiah’s mother, Cecily, was one of her private clients, but she hadn’t seen much of her lately. When she did come into the boutique, neither of them brought up the subject of her son.

Isaiah had come home to see his parents from time to time over the years, however Sandra hadn’t run into him during those brief visits.

Vicki exhaled, one of those drawn-out, dreamy, love-conquers-all sighs. “After all these years, I still remember the way he used to look at you,” she said, “like you were the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen.”

Sandra rolled her eyes again. It was time to shut down the subject, otherwise her friend would continue on the path of blowing a long-ago adolescent infatuation totally out of proportion.

“I’m sure Isaiah Jacobs is somewhere on the other side of the world, with his choice of beautiful women,” she said, picking up her fork again to dig into the dwindling slice of cheesecake.

“You’re probably right,” Vicki agreed.

“So my brainpower would be better utilized thinking about the here and the now, like how I’m going to catch up on a backlog of work and get out of turning Thanksgiving into a fiasco.”

Her friend scrunched up her nose. “Especially the part about Thanksgiving.”

Sandra laughed and reached for her drink. Then a man standing at the dining room entrance caught her eye, and she froze, martini poised in midair.

The shoulders beneath the leather bomber jacket were broader, the once lanky body packed with lean muscle, but it was his face, those familiar eyes.

Isaiah.

It couldn’t be. Sandra blinked, and whoever she’d thought she had seen vanished.

“What’s the matter with you?” Vicki asked. “You look like you saw a Halloween ghost.”

“It was nothing.” She put her martini down and picked up her water glass instead.

She’d obviously already had more than enough to drink. Too much alcohol, the spooky Halloween ambience and out-of-the-blue thoughts of Isaiah today had wreaked havoc on her imagination.

They’d simply stirred up the devil, that’s all. The sexy devil who’d broken her teenage heart.

* * *

One glimpse confirmed it.

After all these years, Sandra Woolcott was still the most beautiful woman Isaiah had ever seen.

He’d left before she’d noticed him standing at the entrance of the restaurant’s dining room, watching her.

Spellbound.

Drinking in her familiar, yet now mature, features like a man who’d stumbled across an oasis after walking the desert for days.

Isaiah slowed his truck at the entrance of Martine’s Fine Furnishings’ headquarters and punched a pass code into the keypad to open the gate. His plan had been to sidestep another one of the macrobiotic meals his mother had delivered to the house daily. Tonight’s entrée, a corn-and-bean casserole, held little appeal.

He’d craved steak and figured The Quarterdeck still served the best in town. But instead of the satisfying meal he’d anticipated, Isaiah had left the restaurant with an altogether different craving. An overwhelming longing for the girl he thought he’d gotten over a decade ago.

And he had gotten over her, he reminded himself, as images of Sandra throwing back her head and laughing at something her longtime friend Vicki had said played through his mind. A laugh that reached her eyes and illuminated her entire face.

He used to make her laugh like that, he thought. Back then the pitch of her laughter was higher, giggle-infused and incredibly sweet.

Tonight, it had been softer, and held a husky note he found incredibly sexy.

Isaiah drove the truck past the three-story office building that housed Martine’s business and design centers. He stayed on the path that wound through the complex, driving past the huge warehouse from which they shipped furniture ordered at any of their fifteen showrooms, located throughout Massachusetts, Maine and New Hampshire.

He shifted the truck’s gear stick into Park next to a storage shed that had been the company’s original warehouse when it opened for business seventy-five years ago. No matter how many times they’d painted the old shed red, it didn’t stay that way long. Within a year the combination of salty ocean air, summer sun and harsh winter nor’easters turned the wood back to a weather-beaten gray.

Using the same key code he’d punched in at the gate, Isaiah waited for the electronic lock to click before pulling open the shed’s wide double doors and turning on the fluorescent overhead lights.

It was odd being out here without his father by his side giving orders.

Ben had always set up the children’s games for the recreation center Halloween party personally, saying it gave him an opportunity to get out from behind his desk. They’d done it together when Isaiah was growing up.

Surprisingly, his old man hadn’t protested when Isaiah had volunteered to do it alone this year. They both knew the radiation treatments had sapped the stamina needed to lift the heavy wooden props used for most of the games.

Since the unexpected Sandra sighting had vanquished his hunger, Isaiah decided to dig the games out of storage and check their condition tonight before hauling them over to the recreation center Friday. The physical labor would reignite his appetite and give him something to do besides dwell on a woman he no longer knew.

Still, he couldn’t help but wonder.

Had Sandra gone through with the plans they’d made together, after he’d left for Annapolis? Had she spent that summer in Chicago attending the prestigious School of the Art Institute’s early college program? Did she study fashion design there after graduating Wintersage Academy?

Isaiah shook his head, as if the gesture could shake off the onslaught of memories and questions that seeing her again dredged up.

“Whatever Sandra Woolcott did then or is up to now is none of your business,” he muttered.

Easily locating the games in the same corner of the dusty shed they’d always occupied, awaiting their annual Halloween appearance, Isaiah pulled work gloves from his back pocket. He lifted the two six-foot wooden panels used for the giant beanbag tosses from the floor, and leaned them against the wall. One was in the shape of a giant pumpkin and the other a giant tricolor corn candy.

Both looked shabby. Their once bright orange paint had either faded, peeled or chipped away.

Isaiah sighed. It was a good thing he’d made a trip over here before Friday. These definitely needed work, and he suspected the rest would, too.

He walked back to his truck to grab his phone, planning to make a list of things he’d need to get them looking festive again. He opened the driver’s side door, leaned inside the cab and opened the armrest compartment. He paused at the sound of his name.

“Is that you?” a voice called out in the darkness.

Isaiah straightened and watched a tall, heavy-set man approach. As he got closer the lights illuminating the complex revealed a round, vaguely familiar face.

“Hey, it is you.” The man’s eyes brightened. He slapped him on the back as Isaiah struggled to place him. “When did you get back into town?”

“I got home on Friday.” Isaiah’s eyes narrowed. “Tony?” he asked, the voice jogging his memory.

“Yeah, it’s me.” The round face split into a wide grin as he patted a belly threatening to pop the buttons on his jacket. “Me and fifty pounds of my wife’s good cooking.”

Isaiah laughed and gave his old teammate’s hand a vigorous shake. “Great to see you. How’ve you been, man?” He looked down at his friend’s stomach. “Besides well fed.”

During Isaiah’s stint as quarterback of Wintersage Academy’s football team, Anthony Green had been his go-to receiver.

The two of them had been a powerful combination guaranteed to make big plays and put points on the board. Unfortunately, their efforts were rarely enough to keep pace with the points their team’s notoriously weak defense gave up every game.

“I’m good. The wife and I are expecting again, twins this time. Fortunately, I survived the latest round of layoffs here, and your mom recently promoted me to warehouse supervisor.”

Layoffs? His parents hadn’t mentioned letting employees go. Isaiah made a mental note to ask them about it.

“Congratulations all around,” Isaiah said.

“What about you, Lieutenant Jacobs? You on leave?”

“Yup, permanently. I put in my time, and I’m officially an honorably discharged civilian.”

“Cool.” Tony leaned against Isaiah’s truck. “Figured you’d be back sooner or later to take over the company.”

Isaiah shook his head. “I’m just visiting with my folks for a couple of weeks.”

Retrieving his smartphone from the truck and tucking it in his pocket, Isaiah inclined his head toward the shed. “I came out to check over the games for the children’s party at the rec center on Friday. I just got started, but from what I’ve seen so far they’re going to need some work.”

“I’ll give you a hand.” Tony fell in step beside him as he walked back to the shed.

“Are you sure? After all, you have a family at home waiting.”

“My mother-in-law’s in town. I got off an hour ago, but I’m trying to drag the workday out until she either leaves or goes to bed.”

Isaiah laughed at the pained comical expression that crossed his old high school classmate’s face.

Inside the shed, Tony wasn’t much help. However, he kept Isaiah company with a steady stream of chatter, updating him on happenings in Wintersage.

“Wintersage Academy’s football team actually has a shot at making the finals this year,” Tony said.

A spider skittered across the gravel floor as Isaiah brushed a coating of cobwebs off another old board with what looked like a black cat painted on it.

“Didn’t they manage to win a championship a few years after we graduated?” Isaiah thought he’d read a brief about it in the online edition of the Boston Herald.

“They made it to the finals, but lost the championship to Bourne High School.”

Isaiah let out a low whistle and shook his head. “Those Bourne High Canelmen were some big boys, weren’t they? I remember them sacking me like I was a rag doll.”

Tony pinched a chunk of fat above his waist between two fingers. “I feel a twinge in the ribs they bruised every time it rains.”

Isaiah chuckled, his smile fading as he looked at the pitiful assortment of Halloween-themed games.

More than worn and faded, they all seemed terribly dated. It made him wonder if they were worth the trouble of salvaging. However, with only three days left until Halloween, he’d have to think of something. Fast.

“Hey, Tony, your kids attend the Halloween party at the rec center, right?”

“Every year.” His friend nodded. “Along with every other kid under ten in Wintersage.”

“What do they think of it? Do they have a good time?”

Tony averted his eyes and kicked at a pebble with his shoe. “I usually volunteer to help, along with a dozen or so Martine employees.”

“Do your kids have a good time?” Isaiah asked again.

“Depends,” he said finally. “Am I talking to an old teammate or the boss’s son?”

“My folks are Martine’s Fine Furnishings. Not me. Speak your mind.”

“Well, my toddler liked it okay, but my other two, who were five and seven last year, were only interested in the candy.” Tony cast a glance at the boards stacked against the wall. “They said the games were boring, and wanted to leave to go trick-or-treating.”

Isaiah couldn’t blame his friend’s kids for wanting to ditch the party. Now that Tony had mentioned it, he could remember feeling the same way when he was around seven. He’d always attended the party, not just because of his family connection, but because it was what kids in Wintersage did on Halloween.

An idea began to form in his mind as he continued to stare at the antiquated games. He didn’t run the family business, but he was the host of this party. It was time to shake things up. Give it a twenty-first century update and make it fun.

Fun.

He turned the word around in his head. Then it hit him. What could be more fun than a fun house?

Excited about a concept he could sink his artistic teeth into, Isaiah pulled his phone from his jacket pocket. First he checked Friday’s weather forecast, and then he began making a list of items and people he’d need to turn the recreation center into a Halloween-themed carnival fun house by Friday.

He could make a hardware store run after his father’s treatment tomorrow. He’d also stop by the art supply store, where he already had a running list of items he wanted to pick up, including the Conté crayons he liked to use for sketching.

Isaiah hoped to do some drawings of the seacoast at dawn and dusk before he left for London, and perhaps capture the late-autumn beauty of Wintersage’s beach in a watercolor if time permitted.

“So have you seen Sandra yet?” Tony asked.

Isaiah froze at the sound of her name. He’d been so caught up in thoughts of sketching on the beach, he’d forgotten Tony was there.

His old teammate took his silence as a memory lapse. “Sandra Woolcott. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten her. Not as tight as you two were back in school.”

No. He’d never forgotten Sandra, Isaiah silently admitted.

“Yeah, I saw her tonight.” His outer cool belied the inner mayhem that seeing her again had stirred up.

He kept his eyes glued to the list he’d been making on his phone as his friend continued. “She was cute in high school, but now...” Tony shook his head. “Man, is she hot. And those hourglass curves of hers.” He shook his head again. “Mmm, mmm. Thick in all the right places.”

Looking up from his phone, Isaiah frowned, ticked off for no good reason. “Don’t you have a wife?”

Tony pointed a finger in his direction. “Yeah, and if she gets wind of what I just said you’ll be responsible for the bruising of my other ribs.”

Isaiah threw his head back and laughed. Just like in high school, his old teammate’s good-natured sense of humor made it impossible for anyone to stay annoyed with him long.

Besides, what did he care if Tony checked out Sandra on the sly? She’d been seated when he’d seen her at the restaurant earlier, so he couldn’t cosign on his friend’s assessment of her figure.

Yet the little he’d seen of her had left an indelible impression. Luminous dark skin, pillow-soft lips and a sultry laugh that shot straight to his groin.

Tony snorted. “If anyone had told me back then that I’d be the married one and you’d still be a bachelor, I wouldn’t have believed them. I’d thought for sure you and Sandra would have gotten hitched as soon as she graduated.”

His friend had handed him the perfect opening to ask the question buzzing through his mind ever since he’d seen her earlier at The Quarterdeck.

Was she seeing someone? Engaged, or maybe married, with a couple of kids?

She’d looked happy in the restaurant. Radiant.

Reminding himself it was none of his business, Isaiah stuffed his phone back into his jacket pocket. Deep down, he knew he didn’t want to hear his friend’s answers to the questions. Isaiah didn’t want to think of his first love with another man.

An ancient wooden pin from the bowling game fell away from the rest. Isaiah picked it up and tossed it back on the pile.

“We were just kids with a bad case of, what do they call it...” He paused, trying to think of the term, and then snapped his fingers when it came to him. “Yeah, puppy love.”

Tony shrugged. “All I know is she had your nose wide open.”

“Hardly.” The lie rolled off Isaiah’s lips as if it were truth.

“Come on, man. I was there,” his teammate said. “Remember the time when we were doing our pregame warm-ups, and you spotted Sandra on the sidelines in her cheerleader uniform?”

Isaiah shook his head as he automatically reached to touch an old scar, hidden by his short-cropped hair.

“Uh-huh.” Tony looked at Isaiah’s hand. “Isn’t that the spot where you damn near split your head open after you ran into the goalpost because of gawking at her?”

Busted, Isaiah shoved his traitorous hands into his jacket pockets.

Good thing high school was over, and he never had to worry about seeing Sandra Woolcott in a cheerleader uniform again.

Chapter 4

Three days later, Sandra steered her yellow MINI Cooper with one hand and answered her cell phone with the other.

“Where are you?” Vicki demanded.

“Stopped at a red light, but I’m almost there.”

“Good, because the longer you wait, the worse it’ll be for you.”

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