Paper Hearts (31 page)

Still, she deserved to know the truth. All of it. And if that meant losing her, then so be it.

He was tired of living in the shadows.

A
BIGAIL STOOD BEHIND THE COUNTER
at The Book Nook but kept one eye on Rob, who sat at a table in the back. If he did intend that heart for her, he certainly wasn’t showing it. With the exception of a polite thank-you when she brought him his drink, he hadn’t so much as glanced in her direction. Part of her was thankful. She hadn’t wanted to believe Rob and Dana were behind the paper hearts anyway.

But who could it be?

The bells on the door jangled, drawing Abigail’s attention away from her only suspect. Betsy walked in, brushing snow from her hair. She met Abigail’s eyes, then looked like she might bolt back into the cold.

After a few long seconds, Betsy approached the counter and sat down, setting her purse on the stool next to her. A quiet apology passed between Abigail and her sister. They’d both been in the wrong, and if Abigail could take it all back, she would. Besides, she
knew now that Betsy was right. Abigail had always only wanted one thing
 
—to be loved. She just couldn’t admit it before.

“Hey, Abs.” The nickname, one she usually despised, felt cozy and familiar coming from Betsy.

“Hey, Bets.”

Her sister looked away. “I’m sorry for the things I said.”

Abigail wiped the counter, then started Betsy a white chocolate mocha, her favorite. “No, I’m the one who’s sorry. I didn’t mean to ruin your happy news. I should’ve been ecstatic for you.” She looked at her sister. “I guess you were right. I measure love on a weighted scale. I’d stopped believing it was real a long time ago, but I’m sorry I let that get in the way of us.” She clapped a hand over Betsy’s. “I
am
very happy for you. And I’d love to be in your wedding if you’ll still have me.”

Betsy’s eyes filled with tears. “No, Abigail. You were right.”

Abigail set the coffee down. “What do you mean? About what?”

“About all of it. About love. It’s not real. We had it right all those years ago. I just lost my way for a minute. I guess I was caught up in Romano’s eyes or something ridiculous like that.” Betsy quietly wiped a stray tear that had escaped. Abigail handed her a napkin. “I can’t believe I thought he really loved me. From now on, I’m done with men. I’m going to be smart like you and throw myself into work.”

Abigail said nothing, just stared at her.

“What is it?” Betsy crumpled the napkin in her fist and sniffed.

“
I
was wrong, Bets.” She looked at her sister through her own clouded vision.

Betsy’s eyes widened
 
—clearly she was processing what Abigail wasn’t saying. Her shoulders dropped as the realization washed over her. “Who is he?”

Conflicting emotions tumbled around in Abigail’s mind. “Let’s not talk about it, Betsy. Let’s talk about you. What happened with Romano?”

“You’re in love.”

She shook her head. “That’s not the reason I
 
—maybe I was a little too cynical. Too quick to write it off because of everything I thought I knew.”

“No, you weren’t. You were right. You’ve always been right. That stupid fairy tale about our great-great-grandparents is the only thing that’s wrong. No one can live up to that, so why even try? That’s what you said.”

Abigail sighed. “I know what I said, Betsy.”

“You can’t tell me now that you think you were wrong.”

Abigail stood unmoving. “I . . . hope I was wrong.”

Betsy closed her eyes and turned her head away. “I thought you’d understand. If anyone in the world was going to understand, I thought it would be you.”

Abigail did understand. She knew all about broken hearts, but she wanted to believe something different. Jacob made her want to believe something different.

“You told me I was going to end up old and alone if I kept on the way I was.”

Betsy looked at her. “I said I was sorry.”

“No. You were right. I’ve been so closed off I didn’t even let myself believe I wanted a different life.” She drew in a breath. “I’ve been hiding, Betsy. Behind this store. Behind business. Behind my own cynicism. But I’ve been fooling myself. I think maybe I really do want someone to love me. You made me realize that.”

Betsy shook her head, visibly attempting to hold back tears.

Abigail took her hands. “Betsy, what if God is just closing this door because Romano isn’t the right person for you? What if Jeremy leaving me was God doing me a favor because he’s got something better for me?” What if that something better was Jacob? Had God been saving her for him all along? Or was it possible God never intended her to be married at all? Could she learn to trust him in spite of her disappointment?

Betsy gave a halfhearted shrug.

“I know you don’t want to hear it right now, but maybe this is a good thing.”

She sniffed. “Well, it sure doesn’t feel like it.”

“I know.” Losing the store certainly didn’t feel like a good thing either, but somewhere in the back of her mind, Abigail almost felt excited to see how God would take this and turn it into something good. She had to believe he hadn’t forgotten her.

Because if he had, everything she believed would be wrong.

The door opened and an unfamiliar older woman walked in. She moved toward the empty counter.

“I’ll be right back, Betsy.” Abigail reached the other end of the counter and smiled as the woman approached. “Good morning. What can I get you?”

The woman hugged her purse to her chest and put on what seemed like a forced smile. “I’m not sure you can help me,” she said, looking around, eyes landing on the paper hearts. “Are you Abigail Pressman?”

“I am.” Probably a vendor. Maybe she could pass this woman off to Mallory.

“I heard about the paper hearts.”

Abigail smiled. “Yes, aren’t they wonderful?” She handed the woman one of the flyers outlining what she knew of the story.

“Yes, they are.” The woman glanced at the flyer. “When I discovered Jacob owned the building, it gave me hope.”

Abigail frowned. “What do you mean?”

“That maybe he’d found the closure he needed.” The woman opened her bag and fished out a large envelope. “Is that why he let you hang them?”

“Um . . . I’m not sure I understand.”

“Do you know if he’ll be in today? Jacob? I don’t want to disturb him. I know he wants me to keep my distance.”

Abigail’s mouth went dry as she tried to swallow, not sure who
this woman was, but quite certain she was about to flip Abigail’s world on its ear. “I-I’m not sure.”

“Would you mind getting these to him? They’re the rest of Gwen’s hearts.” She held a large envelope in Abigail’s direction.

Abigail took the envelope. It was open, so she peeked inside. She pulled out a small paper heart.
I wish you all the happiness in the world. No matter what.
The writing was familiar. Too familiar. Abigail forced herself to take a breath. “I’m sorry; who did you say you were?”

“Oh.” The woman’s laugh was nervous. “I apologize. I’m Cecily Gregson. Jacob’s mother-in-law.”

“And what are these?” Abigail held up the envelope.

Cecily’s eyes lingered on the package in Abigail’s hands. “Gwen’s hearts. I found them after the funeral. Jacob was in no condition to pack up Gwen’s things, so I took care of it for him.”

“I’m sorry. Gwen
 
—Jacob’s ex-wife
 
—she passed away?” The air seemed thinner as Abigail attempted to inhale, panic constricting her heart.

Cecily met her eyes. “He didn’t tell you.”

“No.”

“I assumed if he told you about the hearts, he’d tell you about Gwen.” Cecily moved her purse to her shoulder. “I’m so angry with him for refusing to talk about her anymore. How on earth will we preserve her memory? I was so happy when I heard about the hearts. Do you believe there was a story about it in the newspaper in Denver?”

Abigail assumed the question was rhetorical.

“I thought maybe he’d changed his mind, told someone
 
—you
 
—about this beautiful tradition he and Gwen shared.”

What was she saying, that Jacob and his wife were the ones who started the tradition? That Jacob and Gwen were
her
couple? That couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible. Abigail’s mind whirled, trying to make sense of what Cecily had said.

Her thoughts spun back. Jacob had been against hanging up the hearts in the first place. Junie’s teddy bear
 
—those hearts weren’t the result of a visit to her store. They were there before Abigail ever hung a single strand.

Was he angry that she’d put something so private on display? If she’d known, she never would’ve allowed anyone to see those hearts. But he hadn’t explained. He hadn’t said a word. What else was he hiding from her?

“He didn’t tell me,” Abigail said, her voice barely audible.

Cecily’s face fell. “I guess I should’ve known. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have bothered you.” She put her hand out as if to take the paper hearts back.

“No, it’s fine.” Abigail looked at the envelope. Inside, the rest of the story. The answers to all the questions she’d been pondering. How could she just give them back? “Do you want me to hang them up?”

Cecily’s eyes filled with fresh tears. How many tears had she cried over her daughter’s death? She nodded. “Yes. I suppose it does seem like the right thing to do.”

Abigail hugged the package to her chest. “Yes. I suppose it does.”

“Gwen always said it was pointless to keep all the good things in life for ourselves.” Cecily smiled, dabbing her eyes with a napkin. “She was always thinking about other people that way. I think she’d want you to share the rest of the story. Her story.” She glanced across the room at the other hearts, combined with the hundreds they’d added in recent days. “Thank you for keeping her memory alive. It seems you’re the only one who is.”

Abigail nodded. “I’m so sorry for your loss, Mrs. Gregson.”

She squeezed Abigail’s hand. “Me too, dear.” She turned and walked away, and it occurred to Abigail how quickly her own life had changed.

Abigail stood motionless, holding the paper hearts
 
—the last
sentiments Jacob’s wife had shared with him before she died
 
—and suddenly she felt a wave of nausea come over her.

“Abigail?” Betsy walked around the counter to her sister. “What’s wrong?”

Pain welled up inside her. A familiar pain, and with it the memory of why she’d buried her head in this business for so many years. She’d been protecting herself from a very real threat.

It was the memory of Jeremy, of her father, of the lies and the pretending all rolled into one big emotional assault. She should’ve seen this coming.

“What I said before, Betsy,” Abigail said, choking on her own sorrow. “I was wrong. Love really is nothing more than a fairy tale, and I don’t know anyone with any sense who actually believes in fairy tales.”

A
BIGAIL SAT IN HER OFFICE,
staring at the envelope filled with Gwen’s paper hearts. How could she open it now, knowing who’d written them? Suddenly it all seemed like a terrible invasion of privacy.

The knock at the door startled her, and when Jacob’s face appeared in the doorway, she nearly lost her breath.

“Hey, do you have a minute?”

She looked away.

“What’s wrong?” He sat in the chair across from her desk but leaned forward and covered her hands with his own. “You look upset.”

She slid the envelope toward him. “This is for you.”

He frowned. “Someone delivered my mail to you?” He picked it up. “It’s already open.”

“It came like that.” She pressed her lips together in an effort
to keep from crying. She thought she’d been heartbroken over the loss of her store, but that pain didn’t even compare to what she was trying to process now. In a matter of weeks, she had fallen
 
—hard
 
—for the man who had single-handedly turned her world upside down.

It embarrassed her how much it hurt to know he’d let her prattle on and on about the hearts, pretending they were a silly idea, when all along he’d been the one who started the tradition in the first place.

He reached inside and pulled out a small handful of paper hearts. He stared at the hearts in his hand, carefully reading one, then two, then three of them. “Where did you get these?” He glanced up, horror and pain on his face.

“From your mother-in-law.”

“Abigail.” Jacob closed his eyes and leaned back in the chair. “This is what I was coming to talk to you about. It’s why I came by this morning.”

“But you didn’t tell me. Not a word about this or about the fact that your wife didn’t leave you, Jacob. She died. Why would you keep that from me?”

He stood and took a few steps toward the back of the office, staring out the window. Was he trying to formulate an acceptable response?

She stood. “You had plenty of chances to tell me the truth.”

He shook his head. “You don’t want to know the truth, Abigail.” He looked at her. Now she was beginning to understand the sorrow behind his eyes.

“Don’t you want me to know?” She nearly choked on her own question. It embarrassed her that she wanted him to know everything about her. Why didn’t he feel the same?

He let out a stream of air. “I don’t want to lose you.”

Abigail’s mind kept spinning. In front of her stood a broken man, someone with more pain than she could probably imagine,
yet he’d found a way to keep it all from her. The same way Jeremy had led her on for months when he’d actually stopped loving her long before he said so.

“What happened, Jacob?” She braced herself for whatever his answer was. Whether he trusted her or not, what he had to say would certainly change things.

He stood still for a long moment, and then his eyes went blank as if he was replaying some awful memory. He dropped into the chair and let his head fall into his hands. She sat down across from him. As mad as she was that he’d lied to her, she found his pain overwhelming. She didn’t wish that on anyone.

“Gwen died on a Thursday.” He stared at the floor as he spoke, his tone low and even. “We buried her on a Saturday. That was the end of a long road of pain.” He looked up. “And I’m the reason she’s dead.”

Abigail tried to steady her shaky breath. “What do you mean? You . . . killed her?”

“Gwen was depressed. Horribly depressed. She always struggled with it, and when she was good, she was great. But when she was bad . . .” He covered his mouth with his hand. “Sometimes she’d lie in bed for weeks. After Junie was born, I didn’t know if I’d ever get my wife back again. Then she just snapped out of it.”

Abigail searched for an appropriate response, thankful when Jacob continued.

“She did really well for the better part of three years and then, at one point, the lights just went off again.” He stopped, his memories choking him. “I tried to be there for her and for Junie. I hired a nanny. I did what I could, but I was working long hours and she didn’t like when I was away.”

He blinked hard several times in a row, visibly upset at having to recount these memories.

“Jacob, stop. You don’t have to tell me anything.” She felt like a bully for bringing it up at all.

But he ignored her and continued. “One day I came home and she had gotten bad
 
—really bad. I took her to the hospital and they talked to her, examined her. She’d stopped eating, and they were concerned, so they admitted her. She was angry with me for letting them do that. She didn’t understand why her husband, who was a doctor, couldn’t take care of her.”

“I’m so sorry.”

He drew in a deep breath. “After a week, they released her to my care. Gave me instructions on what to do for her. They said she’d be okay
 
—that she would start getting better now.”

“But she didn’t?”

“The next morning, I woke up and found her in the bathtub.” His chin quivered at the memory. “She killed herself. While she was in my care.” He met her eyes. “It was my fault.”

“No, Jacob, she was sick. There was nothing you could’ve done.”

“Abigail.” Anger flashed across his expression. “A part of me was relieved. I couldn’t take away her pain. I couldn’t fix it. All my education was useless
 
—I wasn’t enough to save my own wife.”

“You can’t beat yourself up for that. No one could possibly blame you for not wanting her to suffer.”

“No.” He shook his head. “I was relieved because of how she made
me
feel.”

Abigail stilled at his admission.

“Helpless. Worthless. Like a total failure.” He pushed at the bridge of his nose. “I was never going to be enough for her, and it tortured me.”

She watched as he forced himself through the pain of sharing this with her, and a part of her wished they could go back a couple of hours. Had it been only that morning she’d welcomed his kiss?

“I wasn’t right for a long time, and I needed someone to blame. I even sued the hospital I worked at for negligence. If they hadn’t
released her, my lawyer argued, she’d still be alive.” He stared at the floor. “They settled to avoid going to trial. Feels like blood money now.”

She swallowed, wishing she had words to ease his pain. But none came.

“So now you understand why I will never be enough for you either,” he said, voice thick with regret. He stood. “Now that the word is out, everything will change. People will start looking at me the way you’re looking at me now.”

She quickly changed the expression on her face. “No, I’m not looking
 
—”

He held up a hand to interrupt her. He was quiet for several seconds, then quietly reached over and touched her face. “You really did make me want to live again.”

The breath caught in her throat as she remembered the words on the heart she’d found only yesterday. He’d written that. For her.

He placed a soft kiss on her forehead. “I’m so sorry, Abigail.”

She watched as he headed for the door. “Jacob, wait.”

He turned toward her, looking like a boxer who’d just been dragged out of the ring after a fight. She picked up the envelope and handed it to him. “This belongs to you.”

Disappointment filled his eyes. “Right.” He took it and left.

When the door closed behind him, she collapsed in her chair, rested her head on the desk, and cried. For Jacob. For Gwen. For Junie.

For herself.

How would she ever recover?

Another knock on the door prompted Abigail to quickly wipe her cheeks dry, check her mascara in the mirror on her wall, and blow her cherry-red nose. She opened the door to find Ursula, Gigi, and Doris standing outside the office.

“It’s not really a good time.”

Gigi smiled. “It’s always a good time to save your business.”

Abigail opened the door a little wider and sat back down behind her desk. “I’ve made my peace with the fact that it’s time for me to start over. It might even be a good thing.”

Ursula and Gigi sat across from her. Doris stood off to the side, admiring the knickknacks on Abigail’s shelf. She picked up a picture frame, then replaced it. No way around it
 
—they were here to stay.

“What’s wrong with you?” Ursula snapped. “You’ve given up.”

“We’re just worried about you,” Gigi said.

Abigail leaned back in the chair. “Why? Because I actually fell for the one person who set out to ruin my life?”

Doris let out a quiet gasp.

Gigi’s brows drew together in a tight line. “What are you talking about?”

“I told you she fell for that doctor.” Ursula squinted at her. “Fell hard too, from the looks of it. You really should invest in some waterproof mascara.”

“It was a mistake,” Abigail said, dabbing at her tears with a tissue. “I was so wrong about him.” She swallowed. “He and his wife were the ones who wrote the paper hearts.”

Another gasp from Doris, this one not so quiet.

“You’re kidding.” Gigi shook her head.

“The dead wife?” Ursula’s words came out cold.

They all looked at her.

“You knew she died?” Abigail felt like a fool. How had she not seen it?

Ursula shrugged. “’Course. I do my research.”

“What else do you know?”

The old woman opened her mouth to say something, then snapped it shut as if she’d thought better of it.

“What aren’t you telling me?” Abigail balled up the tissue in her hand.

“Let’s get your business back.” Ursula slapped her hand on the desk. “Fight or die.”

Abigail rolled her eyes. “I’m not in the mood, Ursula.”

“What else have you got? You roll over on your business and you’re left with nothing.”

“Thanks for the reminder.”

Ursula harrumphed. “Someone needs to be straight with you. That man isn’t worth your time. If he was, he would’ve told you his wife died and he wrote the hearts. Time to move on and save yourself. If you ruin him in the process, so be it.”

“You knew about the paper hearts too.” Abigail felt numb.

“That was just a hunch.”

“Ursula, why didn’t you say anything?” Gigi asked.

“You never believe me anyway,” she said.

Abigail sighed. Her thoughts turned to her dinner with Jacob at her house, the night he first kissed her. He’d told her this was their fresh start, and now she understood why. But losing someone you love wasn’t something you just got over. She knew that better than anybody.

“What’s the plan?” Abigail sat forward in her chair as Gigi pulled out a stack of papers. Now that everything had changed, maybe it wasn’t time to make her peace quite yet.

“This is your lease.”

Abigail nodded. “I know. I’ve read it.”

“Yes, but you didn’t read this.” She flipped through a few pages, then pointed to a highlighted portion. “I finally got in touch with Harriet. She’s in Indonesia or somewhere, but she wrote me back.”

“And?”

“She told me in addition to your lease, there’s also a signed agreement between her and your father.”

“I didn’t see any agreement,” Abigail said. “I thought they shook hands and called it good.”

Ursula scoffed. “Give your dad a little credit, Pressman.”

“The agreement is all about what happens to you if someone else buys the building,” Doris said.

Abigail took the stack of papers from Gigi. On the top, a letter that had been signed by both Harriet and Abigail’s father. “They had it notarized,” she said, noticing the stamp. “Where was this?”

“I had to dig through Harriet’s desk,” Gigi said. “But she pointed me to the right spot and here we are.”

Abigail stared at the paper, unable to believe what she held in her hands.

“I guess Harriet was looking out for you after all,” Gigi said.

“I wish she’d told me that in the beginning,” Abigail said, scanning the document. “This says that I’m entitled to stay throughout the duration of my lease. That’s another five years.” Abigail read it again.

Doris leaned in. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

Abigail’s stomach flipped over. “I don’t have to close the business.”

Ursula sat back, a satisfied look on her face. “That’s one way to stick it to the doctor.” She gave a satisfied nod as if that was the only proper way to punctuate her sentence.