His Best Friend's Baby. Molly O'Keefe

so focused. He’d told her all about this beautiful, fairytale-childhood with adoring parents and a best friend with whom he’d gotten into nothing but trouble.

      Jesse.

      More importantly, Mitch had claimed to want to recreate that experience with his own family—right down to the best friend and the trouble. She almost laughed at the spectacular failure he had made of that.

      She remembered everything Jesse and Mitch had talked about that night in Germany. Every word was imprinted on her, including the directions for the shortcut between Mitch’s home and Jesse’s.

      In this foreign territory, she longed for a trace of something familiar, even if it were only a tidbit from a story she’d heard months ago.

      It had not been her intention to seek out Jesse’s house when she set out for her walk. But standing on the sidewalk with nowhere to go, her heart became a compass.

      She looked around to get her bearings. Mitch’s street ended in a forested dead end and she walked toward it, then cut left across one dark lawn and another before finally jumping over a ditch to arrive at the next street. She turned right and saw a small house on the corner with a broken front window.

      Jesse’s childhood home. Interior lamps cast a shallow pool of light on the porch through the damaged glass and a ladder leaned against the side of the house.

      Her heart faltered, her breath clogged in her throat. Her skin pricked as blood rushed through her veins and the world seemed to swim.

      Someone was home.

      The house surely belongs to someone else now, she told herself, but her feet suddenly had wings. She crossed the street, hoping that somehow Jesse was there. The sidewalk ended abruptly and she stood on the grass in front of the house.

      On the porch, a man sat in a rocking chair with his head in his hands. She couldn’t see his face, but chills ran down her arms, across her chest.

      He leaned back in his chair, resting his head so he could look up at the sky. The light from the house that fell through the broken window illuminated part of his face—a long straight nose, and a strong chin, hair that gleamed black.

      Jesse.

      He was here.

      She could have dissolved with relief while joy and hope nearly lifted her off her feet.

      A dog lying beside him lifted his nose and barked once.

      “Rachel?” Jesse said, but his voice was a harsh whisper, practically a growl, and Julia realized he stared at where she stood in the shadows.

      He laughed, a weary broken chuckle and again something stirred in her memory. “Just come out, Rach. I’m too tired for this.”

      “I’m not Rachel,” she said as she crossed the dark lawn. She took a step into the pool of light and smiled. “Hello, Jesse.”

      He stood quickly and the chair tipped sideways. He took a lurching step to the left and looked as though he were going to fall, so Julia leaped forward to help him, but he caught himself against the railing.

      “Is this a joke?” he barked.

      JESSE BLINKED and shook his head, horrified that the pain meds had managed to crack the lock on this particular fantasy.

      Julia Adams.

      Close enough to touch. Her short blond hair gleamed in the low light and her skin looked like velvet, cream velvet.

      No wonder people get addicted to these drugs. He wondered what he could do with this vision, if he could spend the rest of his life high enough to keep seeing this woman.

      “Jesse?” She put her hand on his arm and the touch of her cool skin against his overheated flesh slammed him back to reality.

      He pulled away, limping backward, his fantasy now a nightmare. “What are you doing here?”

      Her brow furrowed. “I’m, ah,” she stuttered and wrapped an oversized brown sweater around her lithe body, as though it would provide protection against him. “Ben and I are visiting Mitch’s parents.”

      Ben. Right. The kid. Mitch’s kid. Another life he’d ruined.

      “What are you doing here?” His voice grated through his throat—every effort to talk hurt. The doctor had told him he shouldn’t overwork his damaged larynx. He wondered what the good doctor would think if he started screaming. “On my porch.”

      Rachel. The house. And now this.

      “I was just out for a walk—I—Jesse?” She smiled, clearly trying to get this little reunion back on track. “I can’t believe that you’re here. This is amazing.”

      She took a step toward him, her hand out. But if she touched him, he would shatter. He took another staggering step backward.

      “Are you okay?” she asked, her head tilted in concern.

      “Fine,” he lied quickly, not wanting to see her concern turn to pity. “I’m drunk,” he lied.

      “Jesse,” she whispered, her smile hesitant and somehow beseeching. He knew what she wanted. She wanted him to remember what he was trying so hard to forget.

      He made the mistake of looking into her endless blue eyes and he saw exactly what he had seen when he met her for the first time.

      A million missed opportunities. A thousand unanswered prayers and unspoken wishes.

      He’d been kicked in the gut when Mitch opened that door and introduced the woman of Jesse’s dreams as his own wife.

      And now fate had brought her here to finish Jesse off.

      Just in time, the drugs kicked in with a vengeance, the world wavered and he felt himself sliding along with it, carried on the sudden wave of painlessness.

      “Sit down,” she urged, picking up the rocker he’d knocked over.

      Defeated by the pain meds and the appearance of every damn ghost he was trying to outrun, he dropped into the old wooden chair like a stone.

      “Last I heard you were still in the hospital,” she said, once he was seated.

      “I left two weeks ago,” he whispered.

      “Are you okay—I mean, all right? Your knee and—”

      “I’m fine.”

      She smiled and then laughed nervously. The sound lifted him up, made him weightless.

      I’m doing better than Mitch, he thought just to remind himself who was the bad guy in this scene.

      “Do you mind if I sit? Just for a minute.”

      He couldn’t say no. She was the way she’d been in Germany—so hungry for company that she’d sit down with the devil just for some conversation.

      He simply nodded, worried that if he opened his mouth, words he barely allowed himself to think would fly out.

      When she sat on the step and wrapped the sweater around her legs, resting her chin on her knees, Jesse let himself go. He let go of all the mistakes he had made and the ghosts that were catching up with him. He left the broken and battered shell of his body and allowed himself to be a man on a porch enjoying the evening with the woman of his dreams. He let possibility and hope hover close. The what-ifs he refused to think about settled on his shoulders like snow.

      What if she were here to give him a second chance? What if life weren’t as cruel as he had always thought? What if it were possible for him to be forgiven?

      “I didn’t know you’d left Germany,” he said, engaging in conversation even though he knew it was a bad idea. He remembered everything she’d said in Germany. All the small hints and gifts of herself she’d made during those brief twenty-four hours. He knew she hated mushrooms, couldn’t sing, loved to run.