DISCLAIMER: Guiding Light and its characters are the property of Procter & Gamble; no copyright infringement is intended.
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Jeffrey O'Neill slammed on the brake. Brought his rental car to a screeching halt.
He leapt out of it and raced toward the lighthouse, even as Reva spotted him and began to scream.
Josh Lewis backed away from her, a look of horror on his face.
Jeffrey grabbed her as she was about to collapse. "Damn you!" he yelled at Josh.
He looked around frantically for toddler Colin. Finally saw him - almost underfoot - and snagged him with his free hand. Colin's wails had been drowned out by Reva's.
At least Reva hadn't fainted. She pulled herself upright - though she still had to lean on Jeffrey's arm - and peered up into his face. "Jeffrey? It's really you? A-alive?"
"It's really me." Fighting a losing battle to keep the rage out of his voice. "I'm sorry I had to shock you like this. But I couldn't let you go away with this...this scum!"
"Jeffrey!" She was appalled. "Everyone thought you were dead! We've believed that for more than a year!"
"Not everyone." Inclining his head toward Josh, Jeffrey said bitterly, "He knew I was alive."
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Josh wasn't trying to defend himself. He was sitting on the ground with his face buried in his hands, muttering over and over what sounded like "Oh my God."
The stunned Reva sat on the lighthouse steps, clutching Colin. Shaking her head, she said, "I refuse to believe -"
"I'll explain!" Jeffrey insisted. He was standing, too agitated to sit. "But I have to tell you a few other things first. I'll try to keep it brief.
"For starters, I need you to know I didn't fake my death! I was injured - searchers never found me because I'd wandered into the woods in a daze.
"Before I could let you know I'd survived, I had another run-in with Edmund. It wound up with him vowing to keep trying to kill me. He expected me to keep hunting him, as well. But he said he had agents spying on you and everyone close to you. If I surfaced publicly, or if any of his agents suspected you'd learned I was alive, he'd have them kill Colin, Sarah, and even his own grandson, Henry."
"Good Lord!" Reva's expression showed she did believe that. "He must have gone completely round the bend." She tightened her grip on Colin. "I can understand why you couldn't contact me - thankful you didn't try. It must have been hell for you. But...are we still in danger now?"
"No. I finally killed him, about three months ago. In a jungle - no one else knows when and where he died.
"But then, I had to be extra-cautious a while longer. His agents were still in place, and they'd been paid recently. Very well paid. I had to lie low till they figured out their source of pay was permanently gone, moved on, and found other employment."
She nodded. "I can see that. But...what you said about Josh?"
Josh let out a moan.
"I had one...contact...in Springfield," Jeffrey said tightly. "Someone I could trust completely...okay, I think I'll have to say who it was. Jonathan."
"Jonathan? Why did you get my son involved in -"
"It's a long story. But believe me, Reva, he'd already become involved! Neither of us could have avoided it.
"Jonathan told me about Josh's plan for you. We were really concerned that you might go with Josh, maybe marry him...and be devastated, later, if I came through this alive and you learned the truth. We thought you might be furious with us, for having let it happen.
"Besides, if this meeting with Josh had played out while Edmund was still alive and free, and you'd told Josh you'd decided not to go with him, Edmund's spies might have taken that as an indication you'd learned I was alive.
"We couldn't tell you the truth. You would have had to monitor every word you said, every expression that passed over your face, virtually 24-7! And if Edmund decided to...harm other people...anyway, for spite, you would have blamed yourself. Imagined you'd given something away, even if you hadn't.
"But I decided we could risk telling Josh." He directed a glare that way, but Josh still wasn't making eye contact. "Neither of us could phone him - his cell phone was probably secure, but he might have blurted something out, and we had no way of knowing who might be within earshot at the other end.
"So Jonathan went to Tulsa to see him, six months ago. Jonathan's working for Lewis Construction gave him a good excuse - any spies watching him would have thought it could be work-related. He told Josh the essentials - definitely, the fact that I was alive - and practically begged him to call off this...rendezvous with you.
"We knew it would be awkward for him. To avoid hurting you, he probably would have had to make up some story about being in ill health. Or discover the company needed him to go to Venezuela again, and tell you - over the phone - that it wouldn't be safe to take Colin there.
"But, hell, he'd given me his word, when I was leaving Springfield, that he wouldn't make a play for you while I was gone! My being dead would have freed him from that promise, of course. But Jonathan told him I wasn't dead."
He strode over to Josh, and looked down at him in disgust. "You thought you could get away with this? Stealing my wife, and my son?
"Were you that sure Edmund would eventually succeed in killing me?"
Josh looked up at last. Ashen-faced, with tears streaming down his cheeks. "Jeffrey, I didn't know you were alive."
Reva said, "Are you denying -"
He shook his head. "I'm not denying anything. I know now that everything Jeffrey said is true.
"There was just one little problem. I didn't believe Jonathan!"
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Jeffrey was stunned. "H-how could you not believe him? Who'd make up stuff like that? It involved a murder threat against Jonathan's own daughter!"
Reva burst out indignantly, "You thought my son was lying to you? Jonathan isn't a liar!"
Josh winced. "I'm sorry. Sorry and horrified, now that I understand what was at stake. But let me try to explain, okay?
"Jonathan's story did sound crazy. The cloak-and-dagger routine, the need for secrecy - with Edmund at large, some of that might have been believable. But...Jeffrey's being alive? Even now that I'm looking at him, I have a hard time accepting it!
"I could think of two possible - very possible - explanations for what I was hearing. And I didn't know which of them was worse.
"First...Jeffrey, I thought you might have become, somehow, Jonathan's idol. I'd never noticed that, but it was certainly possible. Also, he might have come to think of you almost as a father. Because you were married to his mother, and because of...well, the way you look. Even though he's always understood you weren't related.
"My point is, I thought he might have become so attached to you that he was in denial about your death. Had become delusional.
"The other possibility I thought of - forgive me, Reva - was that he really was lying. Because he didn't want me to take you away from him. I know how close he is to you. And I'm sure he loves Sarah's having a close relationship with you. He might have convinced himself it was okay to lie for her sake. A hard-to-swallow lie, but still, one that couldn't easily be disproved. He knew I wasn't going to pursue Edmund Winslow and ask him whether he and Jeffrey were still hunting each other!
"Believe me, I agonized over this. Prayed for guidance, Reva, as to whether I should tell you! Tell you there might be something mentally wrong with Jonathan, or that he'd become dishonest. In the end, I couldn't bring myself to do it.
"I realize now that if I had told you - told you the part about his claiming Jeffrey was alive - and you'd started publicly asking questions, I might have gotten God knows how many people killed!"
Reva said weakly, "Well, I guess we should just be thankful you didn't tell me."
Jeffrey was frowning. "Damn it - I was too hard on you, Josh. I apologize. I can see you really didn't believe Jonathan.
"But I'm puzzled. Why did you find it so hard to believe I'd survived? It might not have seemed likely, till someone told you he'd actually seen me. But it was at least as plausible as the idea of Jonathan being delusional or lying. More plausible, I'd think, when you'd known Jonathan for years.
"You knew I'd either gotten out of the plane, or been hurled out when it broke up. Close enough to shore that I would have had a better than fifty-fifty chance of reaching it. And you already knew Edmund was alive -"
"Whoa! Back up!" It was Josh who'd yelled, but Reva looked equally amazed at something she'd just heard.
"We didn't know you'd gotten out of the plane," Josh explained. "Just the reverse - we were sure you hadn't!"
"Wh-what?" Now Jeffrey was shaking his head in disbelief. "Wasn't the plane brought up? So the Coast Guard could see what corpses were or weren't in it?"
"No!" That was Reva chiming in. "We were told it couldn't be brought up without risking divers' lives. But the divers had seen a body pinned in the wreckage. Seen enough of one leg to be sure it was an adult white male."
"Okay," Jeffrey said slowly. "They saw one body. That was the guy who was with me. Even not knowing which of us it was, they had to know one person was unaccounted for."
"No!" Josh and Reva, in unison. Josh went on to say, "No one knew there'd been another man with you!"
"Oh, Christ!" Jeffrey's face had gone white. "It was a Florida p.i., name of Evan Girard, who'd worked with me before. He joined me in Key West. Came aboard at the last minute, but I did inform the control tower. The asshole I spoke to must have gotten distracted and not recorded it, then forgot altogether."
Stunned, he had to sit down on the grass. "With a dead body in the plane, and everyone believing I'd been alone, of course you thought it was impossible that I'd survived! I took too much for granted...damn it, I'm sorry, Josh."
Josh said gently, "You can't be faulted for expecting the guy in the control tower to have done his job."
But Jeffrey wasn't listening. "Now," he said, "I can see clearly what I should have done.
"Josh - remember the last thing you said to me when I was leaving Springfield? 'Bring him back in handcuffs.' Meaning Edmund."
"Uh, yes..."
"I should have told Jonathan that line. Had him repeat it to you, as proof that he'd actually been with me!"
Josh was silent for a long minute. At last he said, "Damn it, you're right. That would have convinced me. Such a small thing..."
It was Reva who said, "Well, in the end, no harm was done. Unless...to your friendship?"
The men exchanged rueful smiles. They both murmured "Never"...and then shook hands.
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"Hey," Jeffrey said - in a bad attempt at sounding casual - "I still don't know whether you two are going away together."
"You got here before Reva could tell me," Josh replied. "But she doesn't have to.
"I'm guessing, Reva, that you originally did mean to go with me. If you didn't, you would have let me know - spared me the drive.
"But I'm sure that now, with Jeffrey back, you'll be going with him. Or staying with him - whatever, wherever!"
He was accepting that outcome with extreme good grace. So Reva gave his hand a grateful squeeze, and said, "Right, on both counts. I'm glad you understand.
"I'm assuming, of course, that Jeffrey wants me?"
The "squeeze" Jeffrey gave her removed any doubts she might have had on that score.
When she'd caught her breath, she asked, "So where will you be going, Josh? Back to Tulsa?"
He pondered that for a few seconds. Then he said, "No. I'm ripe for a change...and I'm remembering what Jeffrey said about Venezuela. The company may not 'need' me, but I think I really am in the mood for another stint down there.
"There's someone else I need to see before I leave Springfield, though. I owe Jonathan one hell of an apology!"
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The End