Hi! :-) Thanks for your kind reviews to the first chapter. I hope you will like this one, too. Becky, I read your review and yes. You can add this story to your Web page. Thanks for asking!! :-)

Lynn

============================

Chapter 2

Jack took it as a good sign when Janet didn't slam the door in his face. After a lengthy silence that stretched like a tight rubber band between them, curiosity got the best of Janet. She had to know why Jack had shown up so unexpectedly at her house. With a small shake of her head as if to indicate she didn't know why she was doing it, she stepped aside to let him enter.

"Thank you," he said sincerely, giving her a half-smile as he tentatively entered her home.

"We have to be quiet," Janet cautioned, while leading him into the kitchen. "My daughter Taylor is asleep."

"That's right," Jack said. "You have a daughter. How's she doing?"

"As well as can be expected under the circumstances. She's very resilient."

"Just like her mom," Jack said.

Janet recognized the soft tone he'd used, and for a fleeting moment, she was transported back to the days when she had shared an apartment with him. Those had been good times for the most part, she acknowledged, but they were over. The three roommates had moved on with their lives, and there would be no looking back.

"Sit down," she said, bringing herself out of her reverie. "Can I make you a cup of coffee or tea?"

"No, thanks. I really just wanted to see you again, Janet."

"Well," she said, flinging her arms out from her sides and giving him a half-grin, "here I am."

"Yes, you are." He took a moment to drink in her loveliness. "You look fantastic."

Growing uneasy with the look in her former roommate and friend's eyes and unwilling to allow herself to feel anything, Janet took a seat across from him and asked the question uppermost on her mind.

"You say you wanted to see me, but what I want to know is why?"

Jack leaned back in his chair and breathed a sigh of relief. "I thought you were going to ask me a really tough question," he quipped.

Janet rolled her dark eyes. "I'm serious, Jack. Why are you here?"

"It's simple, really. I've missed you, Janet. I wanted to see you again. And," he added, his words slowing, "whether you want to acknowledge it or not, we do have some unfinished business."

"Not from my standpoint," she argued. "We said everything that needed to be said on our last day in our old apartment. I'm not going down that path with you again."

"Not even if we were to become neighbors?" he asked, a wistful note creeping into his voice.

Janet gave him a quizzical look. "Neighbors? What are you talking about?"

"I'm thinking of opening up another restaurant. I heard this is a very lucrative area for dining."

"What happened to you living in Europe?" Janet couldn't help but ask.

The thought of Jack taking up residence in her town was too much for her to grasp at the moment.

"I loved Europe," Jack said, with a fondness and respect in his voice. "I'll always be grateful to Angelino for giving me that wonderful opportunity. But my home is in the States, Janet. I still have the Bistro. I'd like to think the time is right to expand."

"To Washington State? Why not open another restaurant in California? L.A. is prime for eating and so is San Francisco. Why here, Jack?"

And why now, she asked herself yet again.

"I told you, I have prospects here. I'm meeting with someone tomorrow who's going to show me his restaurant. We're going to talk business."

"He's thinking of selling?"

Jack shrugged. "Maybe. I'm not sure. If he's not selling his restaurant, he may be able to point me in the right direction."

"I still say Paris was the right direction for you."

"You know why I took Angelino up on his suggestion, Janet," Jack said, his voice low.

She nodded. She knew, but that knowledge didn't make things any easier.

"I wouldn't have gone," he continued, "if I'd thought there was the slightest chance we could have worked things out."

"Stop, Jack, please," she said, abruptly rising from the table. "I said I didn't want to talk about this."

He rose, too, and moved to stand behind her, allowing for a safe distance between them.

"I know, but we need to. Do you know how badly I felt when I heard from Terri that Todd had died? My heart ached for you, Janet. And for Taylor. Did you receive my letters, my condolences? I didn't know what to do, but I had to do something."

Without turning around to face him, she nodded.

"Yes, I received your letters. Thank you. They meant a lot to me."

"When I didn't hear from you, I didn't know what to think. I wanted to call, but Terri said I needed to leave you alone. Against my better judgment, I took her advice. But it's been too long, Janet. Whether or not I open a restaurant in this area, isn't it past time we formed some kind of a truce?"

Janet turned to face him. Tears gathered in her eyes as she spoke.

"We had such a great friendship, Jack, and then we hurt each other something fierce. I'm afraid to let you back into my life. The stakes are a lot higher. I have a daughter to think about now. What if we allow ourselves to form another friendship and end up hurting each other again? Could you live with that? I know I couldn't."

"The last thing I would ever want to do is hurt you again, Janet. If I thought that's what would happen, I would have never come here. I think we can be friends again or at least be on speaking terms. Is that a possibility? At all?"

She gave him a rueful smile. "Now, you're asking me to go against my better judgment."

Jack looked at her softening face and knew there was hope for them. "Does that mean you may be willing to give friendship with me another chance?"

"I don't know," Janet said.

Jack heard the uncertainty in her voice and knew her doubts were real. He believed she was not trying to intentionally hurt him.

"I've missed you, Janet. More than I can say."

The sincerity in his heartfelt words was Janet's undoing.

"Oh, Jack," she said, finding herself stepping into his welcoming, outstretched arms. "I've missed you, too. I'd be lying if I said I never think about you because I do. I felt so guilty when Todd died. I thought I was going to lose my mind."

"Why did you feel guilty? Terri told me he died from injuries sustained in an auto accident."

Janet looked up at Jack and gulped back her tears.

"He did, but it was all my fault."

"How can that be? I understood you weren't in the car."

"That's true, I wasn't. But Todd left here in a very angry mood because we had been fighting. His mind clearly wasn't on his driving. Our arguments had been increasing. I'm ashamed to say that our marriage was not a very happy one."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Janet. I really am."

"Thank you. I rushed to the hospital with Taylor when I got the call. All I could do was pray I would get to see him, to talk with him."

"Did you?" Jack asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

Janet nodded. "Yes. We got to talk. We got to say good-bye. It's the letter I found afterwards that sent me into a tailspin."

"A letter Todd wrote?" Jack asked.

"Yes."

She stepped away from Jack's strong, comforting arms and wiped the dampness from her eyes.

"It's as if Todd knew something bad was going to happen. I wish I'd known the letter existed before he died so we could've discussed it. All I could do was read it and live with the consequences of what he'd written."

Jack waited to see if she would continue with her train of thought. When she did, he listened intently.

"He told me the past year had taught him a lot about me. He understood things about me that had been a mystery to him. He said he thought he could make me love him, but now he understood that he never could. He knew I married him on the rebound. He loved Taylor so much. He thanked me for giving him a daughter. He was never happier than when he was with her. But he wrote that he knew my heart still belonged to someone else and that he'd finally accepted that inevitable truth and that if I ever wanted to leave, he wouldn't try to stop me."

Jack stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans and restlessly shuffled his feet. Janet nodded.

"Yes, Jack. Todd knew there was something missing from our marriage. I'd done the best I could, and I thought I loved him. I really thought I'd loved him and that I could make our marriage work and give our child a wonderful life. But he knew it as well as I did. There was a shadow hovering around in our union. A ghost that I could never quite get rid of. Maybe because I didn't really want to. I tried, Jack. I really tried. But you were as real in my marriage as you are standing in front of me now. How, Jack? How can I ever go back to being just friends with you when all I could think about after Todd's senseless death was how differently things would have turned out for all of us if only I had accepted your marriage proposal?"