Free This Love Will Go On by Shirley Larson Page B

sounds…reasonable.  I don't know if Jade will think so, though.”
    “I’ll talk to him about it,” Julia said firmly, getting to her feet.  “I'll call him right now while I'm thinking about it.”
    “I'm going up to get ready,” Raine said, giving in to her urge to escape.
    Later that evening, sitting in the movie theater beside Doug, she regretted the impulse that had led her to accept his invitation to go out on New Year's Eve.  He was a paper salesman, born in Canton, a true South Dakotan. He was dark-haired and tanned and had a keen sense of humor, and he had made frequent visits to Julia's shop, perhaps more frequent than necessary.  He’d come into the shop the day after her disastrous evening with Jade, and he’d made Raine laugh with his crazy anecdotes. When he unexpectedly asked her to go out with him on New Year's Eve, she’d said yes.
    But now, sitting beside Doug, letting him hold her hand, her thoughts were filled Jade and that night she’d sat next to him in a dark theater and had been so aware of him she could hardly breathe.  Throughout the movie, and even later in the pizza parlor when Doug joked with the waitress, Raine seemed caught in limbo, suspended between two worlds, the real one where Doug's grin shone at her, and the fantasy world inside her head where Jade commanded her every thought.  Was Jade out with someone tonight?  Would he kiss his date at the end of the evening, perhaps invite her to come home with him?  The thought made Raine’s stomach churn.
    She got through the evening without, she hoped, betraying herself too much. But when Doug pulled up in front of Julia's house and put the car in neutral, he turned to her and said, “Happy New Year, Raine,” and pulled her into his arms and kissed her. She could no longer pretend. She stiffened immediately and pushed herself away.
    He dropped his hands from her shoulders at once. "Has this thing with your sister turned you off men?”   Doug was friendly, and people talked to him.  He knew most of the gossip in each of the towns he visited on his route.
    “No,” she said. “It’s just that…”
    “There's someone else,” he finished the thought.  That was not what she was going to say. But it was the truth, she thought ruefully.
    “I…just don't want to get too serious right now.”
    “Hey,” he said, lifting his hands in a palms up gesture, “neither do I.”  He grasped the steering wheel and looked out into the street. Snow began to fall, a fine light snow that filled the air like white mist, making Julia's house and the rest of the town look like a setting out of a Currier and Ives.  “I'll see you next week, okay?”
    “Fine,” she said, fumbling for the door.
    “And Raine.”
    Tensing, she turned back. “Yes?”
    He perused her strained face slowly, the expression in his eyes unreadable.  “If you can manage it, use more paper next week, will you?  Sales have been falling off.”
    Her laugh was instantaneous and relieved.  “Now I see.  This date was just a way to drum up more business.  Well, I’ll do the best I can, Doug.”
    When he came in a week later, she asked him to be her escort at Marc and Sandy's wedding. He grinned and said he'd enjoy eating wedding cake with her, even if it was someone else’s.

 
    Chapter 5
    “Daddy, can we go home now?”  Jade looked down at his small son and smiled. Tate was dressed in a gray tuxedo with a pearl silk cummerbund that was the exact duplicate of the one he wore.  “Not quite yet, son. We have to eat some wedding cake.”
    “Is it chocolate?” Tate asked hopefully.
    Jade shook his head.  “We're on short rations this afternoon, buddy.  It's white cake.”
    Tate shifted his feet and looked out over the crowd. He's already learned to hide disappointment, Jade thought wearily, and silently cursed himself for marrying a woman who had taught his son the meaning of abandonment and loneliness at such an early age. Tate fought it valiantly,