Free You're Still the One by Janet Dailey, Elizabeth Bass, Cathy Lamb, Mary Carter Page A

that’s it?” He put his hands out, his anger up another notch. He was huge and so unhappy. “We have everything we did before, Allie—friendship, we talk all the time, we laugh—”
    It would be so easy to give in, to walk back into his arms. I burst into tears, those racking, embarrassing type of tears.
    “Oh, honey,” Jace said, his anger spiking all the way back down as he tried to hug me.
    I pushed him away, my hands against his warm and lovely chest. “Don’t hug me, Jace.”
    “You’re making me sad watching you cry.”
    “And I’m sad crying. It’s not like I want to be a sniffling mess. Where’s my room?”
    “Let’s talk this out—”
    “I’m not talking this out.”
    “Then let’s sit in front of the fireplace—”
    “No. You’ll talk me into this, I know you and I can’t resist you, and you are too much for me, and this is not right for us.” It’s not right for you, Jace, trust me on that.
    He argued, I argued, I cried more, I saw tears in Jace’s dark eyes, too, then I stalked off, found a bedroom with a bed in it, and slammed the door after telling him, “Stay the hell out.”
    My body was strung out, wanting Jace, my mind frazzled. I crawled under the covers and cried myself to sleep, by myself, my body rocking back and forth.
    At five o’clock in the morning, I tried to sneak out the door. Through the French doors I saw Jace sitting on his deck, the sun rising like a golden ball pulled by an invisible chain from the clouds. I didn’t join him. I knew he would see me hurrying down his road to my house, but I didn’t bother to turn and wave, and he didn’t bother to call me back.
     
     
    The next day I stopped by a local artist’s home studio. She lived about a mile down the road in a blue house with white trim, and had a sign out in gold lettering that said PEARL’S MOSAICS AND PAINTINGS.
    When I walked in, bells chiming on the door, a woman in the other room called out, “I’ll be right with ya!”
    There were paintings and mosaics, all bright, bold, flowing, and magical. One painting, about four feet tall and three feet wide, caught my eye. It was an apple tree, but tucked among the branches was a village with miniature houses and thatched roofs. Swinging wooden bridges attached one house to another. Tiny people, in traditional dress from countries all over the world, gathered under the leaves for picnics, sing-alongs, or holding hands. One boy chased a blue balloon.
    The details were pure fantasy. The fall leaves on a Japanese woman’s purple kimono glowed. An Indian woman’s pink sari with gold trim floated in the wind. The plaid of three men’s Scottish kilts dropped exactly to their knees. The apple tree was a living, breathing, utopian place with stairs at the bottom of the trunk winding to a gazebo at the top, which was hung with bright white lights. A chief with a feathered headdress and moccasins played the piano.
    A woman entered the studio. She had lush, thick white hair in a loose bun and a welcoming smile. Her white shirt and jeans were both covered in paint. She was beautiful. “Now, heck, you’re Ben’s daughter, Allie, aren’t you?”
    “Yes, yes, I am.” I shook her hand, surprised. I shouldn’t be surprised—this home was five minutes from my dad’s, so they were neighbors—but I was. My dad did not socialize. He did not like people. He called them stupid beings posing as humans, with cardboard brains .
    “I’m sorry about your dad.”
    “Thank you.” I tensed up.
    “Your father pushed it, by hell he did.”
    I felt my mouth drop. “I’m sorry?”
    “Your father, and I told him many times.” She swung a finger through the air. “He didn’t act like a father. He was a drunk pig in mud when I first met him. He was a bull with his horns down. He should have been born a slug because that’s how he was as a father, and I told him so, especially after he told me about himself in his parenting years. Inexcusable and sluggish. He was a