Linda Goodnight - The Last Bridge Home

She hammered on his front door. “Hey, open up. I brought Mom’s muffins and two of your buddies.”

The dogs alone usually brought Zak roaring to the door to engage in a mock battle with the terriers.

“Come on in. I could use a friend.”

Uh-oh.

Jilly gave the door a push and stepped in. Sprawled on the couch, a dejected-looking Zak took a gut full of rat terrier as both dogs leaped aboard. He shoved them off. The dogs plopped on their bottoms, heads tipped to the side in a comical questioning expression. Clearly, their friend did not want to play, an unusual turn of events.

“You don’t look too happy.” Jilly shoved his sneakered feet aside and scootched in at the end of the couch. She set the muffins on a lamp table out of the dogs’ reach. “Who was that? What happened?”

Zak dropped his feet to the floor and sat up. “I need to talk to you about something. Promise you’ll hear me out before you tell me how stupid I am.”

She’d never seen him look this worried. The hope that she’d misunderstood dwindled away. “So, is it true? You’re married?”

Shoulders bumping hers, Zak swiveled his long, lanky body in her direction. Green eyes stood out against a summer tan, bewildered. “You heard what she said?”

“If you mean Crystal, yes, most of it. At least, I think I did.” Sickness rose in Jilly’s throat. She fought it down, although every hope she’d ever had, every dream that Zak would wake up and see her as a woman instead of a pal died a quiet death. “Why didn’t you tell me before? Why didn’t I know?”

“Because I didn’t know.” He rubbed the back of his neck, kneading tight muscles. She’d done that for him before, after a hard ball game when his muscles ached and his arm stiffened up.

Before she knew he had a wife.

“Please,” Jilly scoffed, even though nothing amused her. “Give me some credit here. She didn’t give you one of those drugs that make you forget, did she? You married her. A man doesn’t forget something that momentous.”

“I knew I had married her. I just didn’t know we are married.” He slammed his fist onto his thigh. “This can’t be happening.”

“You’re not making sense.”

“Tell me about it. Nothing makes sense right now except I have a problem I don’t know how to solve.” He gripped the neck of his T-shirt and pulled, exposing the tanned skin below his throat. Jilly wanted to make him feel better, but how did a woman comfort another woman’s husband?

Mugsy, the empathetic one, lifted both paws lightly to Zak’s knee and cocked his head. Zak absently rubbed the pointed ears. Satchmo, not to be left out, leaped easily into Jilly’s lap, dog tags jingling.

“From the top,” Jilly said. “Explain this before I call your mother and tell her you’re having a nervous breakdown.”

“Whatever you do, don’t call my parents.”

“They don’t know?” This was worse than she’d thought.

“Not everything. I was in college, away from home, on baseball scholarship. Crystal was one of those girls who hung around college guys even though she wasn’t in school. Kind of a groupie type. She’d come to the ball games and jump up and down, all excited. After a good game, she’d rush up, gushing about how I was sure to get a call from the scouts.”

“She stroked your ego.”

“I guess. What did I know? I was barely eighteen and green as a frog.” He made a huffing noise.

“So what happened?”

“You know that old song about the candle in the wind? That was Crystal, blowing through life at the mercy of anyone and everything. She had problems and I felt sorry for her.” He shrugged, chagrined. “She was cute, too. Put the two together and I didn’t stand a chance when she asked me to marry her for the sake of her baby.”

“Her baby?” Even though the hated red blush crept up her neck, Jilly had to know. “Or yours, too?”

Zak’s eyes darkened to the color of rich moss, eyes that usually made her heart flutter. She couldn’t let that happen anymore. Even though it did.

“You have to believe me, Jilly. Those kids aren’t mine. None of them. Crystal and I were married about fifteen minutes. Shoot, most of the time I was at ball practice. I barely saw her.”

The unbidden vision of Zak and Crystal together stirred in the pit of her stomach as powerful as a canine virus. She hoped she didn’t throw up on Zak’s tennis shoes. “How could your parents not know?”

“I was working my way up to sharing the news.”

“They weren’t going to be happy about it?”

“Not even close. I was on scholarship, shooting for the big leagues. My dream was theirs, too. They would have been crushed.”

Jilly understood the feeling. She was crushed. Decimated. Shove a stick of dynamite in her heart and light the fuse.

“Her old boyfriend, the baby’s father, came by one day while I was in class and away she went. Her note said she’d filed for divorce to be with her soul mate.” He made a grim face. “Some soul mate.”

Jilly straightened, a fragile glimmer of hope flaring. “Then you aren’t married.”

“I don’t want to be. Never intended to be. At the time, I was too busy and dumb to consider she might not follow through.”

Jilly’s hope crashed and burned. “She didn’t.”

“No.” Zak let out an agitated sound. Mugsy licked his hand in consolation. “Looking back, I should have known. Crystal wasn’t the kind of girl who followed through with anything. Ever.”

“Oh, Zak,” she moaned. “You have a wife. You’re married.”

“No!” He slapped both hands to the sides of his head, fingers digging into his short brown hair. Surprised by the vehemence, the two dogs leaped to the floor. Zak dropped his arms, shoulders sagging, and on a long sigh said, “Yes. Technically, I guess I am.”

Jilly wondered if God believed in technicalities, but figured now was not the time to ask. Zak was more than freaked out. She gripped his forearm with her fingers. He was trembling. Or was that her?

“Okay, let’s think about this rationally,” she said. Yeah, right, and while we’re at it, let’s fly to Mars. “Why is Crystal here now? What does she want? A divorce? Like in that movie, Sweet Home Alabama?” Please Lord, let that be it. If Crystal divorced him, Zak would be free. Then another, much worse thought hit her. “Or did she change her mind after all this time and want you back?”

Jilly hated the thoughts running through her head. Ways to get Zak out of a marriage when marriage was ordained by God. What was wrong with her?

She knew the answer to that one. She loved a married man. She wanted him for herself. What kind of horrible person was she?

“Crystal has cancer,” he said flatly. “She doesn’t have much time left.”

“Oh, my goodness.” Guilt rushed in. The woman was dying and all Jilly could think about was how to steal her husband. “She’s so young.”

She wanted to ask what Crystal’s illness had to do with Zak, but guilt wouldn’t let her. “Why did she come to you? For money? Or what?”

“I don’t even know where she lives,” he said numbly. “Or what she’s been doing for the last ten years. It’s obvious she doesn’t have much. She’s broke and sick and alone.”

Compassion, usually welcome, rose in Jilly. As much as she disliked the words, she forced them out. “If she needs your help, you have to give it.”

“I know, but I can’t do what she asked. I just can’t.” He took her hand, a casual gesture.

“Tell me. Maybe I can help.”

“I don’t think so.” He lifted her fingers one by one, traced a spray of freckles across the back and then gripped her hand with such force that she knew he was about to say something momentous. As if having a wife wasn’t momentous enough. “She asked me to take her kids—” he hesitated “—after…”