When the phone rang in his room at the country club, Roger had been expecting it to be Michael. He had been hoping it was Holly. He was somewhat surprised to learn upon answering that the person on the other end of the line was Frankie Frame. He had just had a difficult couple of days with Dinah and Hart, but he had played his part well; at least they hadn't seemed to suspect that he was only playing a part. In the time he was alone, he tried to focus on the good things in his life: Chrissy and her boys, Michael Hudson returning to his life, and Holly divorcing Fletcher and wanting him back.
Frankie had made some progress on the case, she said. "Probably not the kind of progress you were hoping for," she added. "But I'm working on proving the gaslighting angle. When and where would you like to meet to discuss what I do have in the way of proof?"
"Your office in two hours?" Roger suggested.
"That's fine," Frankie replied. "I'll see you then."
As soon as he hung up from Frankie, Roger called Holly. She answered on the first ring. "Hello?"
"I just had a call from Frankie Frame. I'm meeting with her in two hours at her office. Do you want to come along?" Roger asked.
"Yes," Holly replied instantly. "She has something already?" Holly had been impressed with Frankie over the phone and at their initial meeting, and she was even more impressed now.
"On the affair, apparently, not on...the other matter," Roger replied, belatedly wondering if Dinah and Hart could have tapped his phone here, since they knew he was staying here when he wasn't at the penthouse. What was the old saying about being paranoid, and just because you are paranoid that doesn't mean they're not out to get you? He already knew full well they were out to get him.
"Frankie did say that would probably take longer," Holly reminded him.
"Yeah," Roger agreed. "Anyway, I'll pick you up in an hour."
"I'll be waiting," Holly said.
Roger got the distinct feeling that she didn't only mean she'd be waiting for him to pick her up in an hour. She wanted him, wanted them, back. She loved him. He loved her too. Love wasn't the problem; he'd told her that already.
And forgiveness was not an insurmountable problem for Roger. Michael had been right: forgiving himself was harder than forgiving Holly. His dishonesty drove her to Fletcher that horrible, fateful night. He'd been thinking the past few days, ever since his talk with Michael, about forgiveness, about forgiving Holly, about forgiving himself. Holly referred to her marriage to Fletcher as a mistake. She was remedying the situation now. Roger was almost as conversant in the state divorce laws as Holly was, having been through...he stopped and counted in his head...four divorces-Peggy, Holly, Alexandra, and Jenna-with number five-Dinah-looming large. How many times had Holly been divorced? Roger thought and counted her divorces in his head now: Ed Bauer, himself, what's-his-name Lindsey in Switzerland, and now Fletcher.
Not that keeping score mattered. They had both made several mistakes in the marriage department. And it wasn't like Holly was talking about marriage. Did she even want to marry him now? Did Roger want to marry Holly?
His heart said yes, of course he wanted to marry Holly.
But his head couldn't abide a possible sixth divorce being from her.
He popped a couple of ibuprofen tablets as he reflected that if this kind of confusion and uncertainty were what Holly had gone through for years, since they had both turned up back in Springfield, no wonder she had almost constantly put him off and insisted that they couldn't be together. It was emotionally draining to be so conflicted and in such turmoil, and it was far easier to listen to your head.
But the heart wants what it wants, and Roger wanted to be with Holly, and yes, he wanted to marry Holly. But after four divorces herself, maybe she wasn't thinking in that direction. She hadn't actually said she was. And being together but not married had been working for them when they had gotten back together the last time. It was working out just great for Michael and Donna, who had three divorces from each other under their belts and were not eager to risk divorce number four either.
The main issue at the moment was still, as always, trust. He had to be able to trust that she would not emotionally obliterate him again if they did get back together. And she was in the process of divorcing Fletcher, and he still had to divorce Dinah. He would not make Holly the other woman, not again. She deserved better than that. And the last thing he wanted to do was push for marriage and make Holly change her mind completely about wanting to be with him. Five minutes out of another marriage, even one that was a mistake of the magnitude as his marriage to Dinah and her marriage to Fletcher, was not the time to be asking for a lifetime commitment from another person, even if that person was the only person you ever saw yourself growing old with, and even if you shared an amazing daughter and two bouncing baby grandsons.
While Roger was thinking about this, Holly got ready to go with him back to Bay City, and she was having her own thoughts. She knew that the fact that she was the one coming to Roger and asking for another chance had thrown him for a loop, because always in their past, it had been him coming to her and wanting another chance. Not for the first time, she reflected that she had a whole new understanding of what Roger had gone through all those times in their past when he wanted her to be with him and she shut him down and shut him out. And she understood his reticence perfectly; she had been in his place so many times before, her heart and head at war with each other about what she wanted regarding Roger and what she should do regarding Roger, and she had been the one holding back, the one afraid to trust him, afraid to believe that they had what it took to go the distance this time, to make their relationship last forever this time. She had guarded herself against the kind of pain and heartbreak Roger was guarding himself against now, because just as only Roger could inflict that particular pain and heartbreak on her, only she could inflict that particular pain and heartbreak on Roger, because they only loved each other that way, the kind of love that could give you the most vast, absolute joy and the most utter, pervasive heartbreak it was humanly possible to feel. The love and the bond they shared had survived the unsurvivable; it was impossible for anything or anyone to sever that bond, to end that love. And Holly was finally ready to open herself up to all of the possibilities of that love and that bond, to put herself completely on the line this time and to do whatever it would take to make things work this time and last the rest of their lives this time.
The great irony was that now, when Holly was finally ready to be with Roger completely, holding nothing back, letting nothing and no one get in between them or drive them apart ever again...Roger wasn't ready for that. And he wasn't ready for that because Holly had hurt him deeply, badly. She was still figuring out exactly how to fix this, how to make Roger see how serious she was, how to make him see that at last, all she wanted was to be with him, to have a life together that lasted until death did they part, because she wanted a life and a future with Roger like she had never wanted anything in her entire life. She wanted to marry him, but she wasn't going to risk scaring him off completely by bringing marriage up just yet. Nevertheless, her resolve was clearer than it had ever been in her life, too, and no matter how much time it took, she would wait for him to be ready, and whatever she had to do to prove to Roger that he could trust her and believe her and that she would never leave him again, she would do. Then when the time was right, she would ask him to marry her, and this time she would mean it and she would follow through. And this time, their marriage would last forever.
A short time later, Roger picked Holly up at her house, and on the drive to Bay City, he asked her how her dinner with Blake a few nights ago had gone, and how she, Kevin and Jason were doing. "Kevin was really fussy when I was there, and he only wanted Blake," Holly replied. "I got Jason settled down and sleeping, but Blake and I were basically eating on the fly. She couldn't put Kevin down, because whenever she tried he'd scream his head off, so we didn't get much of a chance to talk. Then Ross got home and Jason woke up, and Blake went to tend to Jason while Ross took charge of Kevin." She paused, wondering if she should mention her chat with Ross to Roger.
"Did Ross say anything?" Roger asked.
"About?" Holly inquired, tucking her hair behind one ear.
"Then he did say something," Roger concluded.
"He wanted to make sure I wasn't angry with him for representing Fletcher in the divorce instead of me," Holly began. "I told him I'm not. Then he remarked that the last time he saw me as light as I've been since deciding to get divorced was the last time I was with you."
"He doesn't-" Roger began anxiously. The last thing he needed was Ross alerting Dinah about the current situation between him and Holly, and where it had the potential to go, where deep down he and Holly both wanted it to end up.
"I told him that you and I aren't back together. But he knows how we feel about each other. At least, he knows that we have feelings for each other. He isn't looking at the issues that we're going to have to work through," Holly continued.
"He's probably hoping to catch me cheating on Dinah with you, because that would be convenient for her," Roger said acerbically. "I want a divorce, but I'm not putting you in the middle of it as the other woman. You deserve so much better than that. You would think Ross would know that."
"He's just concerned about his daughter," Holly replied, but at the same time she was encouraged by Roger's refusal to make her the other woman because she deserved better than that.
"Yes, well, he doesn't know the whole story yet," Roger said grimly, "though I doubt his feelings will change when he learns the whole story. I'll be the bad guy in his eyes. Not that I care. I just want to protect Chrissy from as much fallout as possible. This isn't going to be easy for her."
"It's not easy for you," Holly said. When Roger glanced at her, surprised, she continued. "Dinah and Hart are gaslighting you. You have to pretend it's working, and it has to bother you that Hart is doing this to you, because no matter how strained things are between you, he's still your son."
Roger smiled ruefully. "I always did say you're the only one who knows what it's really like between me and my kids," he remarked.
"Well, what I'm saying now is that you don't have to keep the way you're feeling about all of this to yourself," Holly told him earnestly. "I'm here. You can talk to me about it, if you want to." She bit her lip. "I don't want to push, but I also don't want you to feel like you don't have anyone to talk to about all of this if you want or need to talk. I want to be there for you, Roger. If you let me, I will be there for you."
They had arrived at the law office now, where Frankie was waiting. Roger turned off the car and turned to face Holly. "I appreciate that," he told her. "I have so much on my mind lately. Some of it I have to figure out for myself, but some of it...If I'm going to talk about it with anyone, it has to be you, Holly, and not just because you know everything that's going on." They just looked at each other intently for a long moment as Holly tried to come up with the exact right thing to say, but before she could formulate the perfect reply, Roger unbuckled his seat belt and said, "We should get in there. We don't want to keep Frankie waiting."
"Right," Holly said with a nod, fighting back a feeling of disappointment.
Frankie did indeed have photographic proof of Dinah's infidelity with Hart. Roger's expression remained impassive as he looked at the black-and-white photographs of Dinah and Hart passionately kissing in the living room of the Jessup farm. The kisses, the body language, the way Dinah and Hart were wrapped around each other, left no doubt that they were lovers.
"Getting proof of the gaslighting is going to take more time," Frankie said as Roger pushed the photographs back across the desk toward her. "But I'll get it, don't worry."
Cass came in then. "Holly, I left a message on your answering machine earlier," he said by way of greeting. "I heard from Ross Marler. Fletcher has responded to the divorce papers, so the next step is the four of us setting up a meeting to go over everything before taking it to the judge."
"Good," Holly replied. Let's get this over with and settled so I can focus on the most important thing...or rather, the most important person, she thought as she met Roger's gaze, wondering what he was thinking and feeling about this. The divorce was a necessity, the necessary first step before she could really make another go of it with him, but he hadn't said much about her divorcing Fletcher, or her admission that marrying him in the first place was a mistake. They needed to talk about that, as difficult, even painful, as it might turn out to be. They needed to clear the air in order to keep moving forward, and Holly wanted to keep moving forward with Roger.
"If you have a few minutes, we can discuss that now," Cass said.
Now Holly looked at Roger questioningly. "Go ahead," he said.
After Holly and Cass were in Cass's private office, Frankie turned from the filing cabinet where she had just put the locked file containing the incriminating pictures of Dinah and Hart. "You remind me a lot of myself a few years ago," she said.
Roger was surprised to hear Frankie say that. "In what way?" he asked.
"In the way you look at Holly," Frankie replied, resuming her seat at her desk, "and in your body language when she's near you. You're fighting an instinct because you're trying not to get hurt any more or any worse than you already have been. Your instinct is telling you that she's right there, she's close enough to you that you can put your hand at the small of her back or at her elbow while you're walking, or to take her hand to help her out of the car, or to brush her hair off her face. That's the same part of you that wants to let her thread her fingers through yours and brush her hand across your cheek or play with the hair at the nape of your neck, squeeze your shoulder in affection. All those little touches and gestures that used to come as naturally to both of you as breathing. But your trust in her has been broken. She hurt you in a way you never knew or even thought she could. It hasn't stopped you from loving her, but you don't trust her right now. As much as you might want to, you have to be sure like you've never been sure of anything in your life that if you trust her again, she won't leave you again, because you're still not entirely sure how you survived it the first time."
Roger looked at Frankie in shock. "What are you, psychic?" he asked.
"Little bit," Frankie said with a nod. "But that's not how I know that everything I just said about you and Holly is completely true."
"Then how do you know?" Roger asked. "You're right, but how do you know?"
"Because I was once in exactly the same place you are now," Frankie replied. Seeing Roger cast a dubious look at the photograph on her desk of her, Cass, and their daughter Charlie all wearing matching Santa Claus hats from last Christmas, she said, "That's our life now. Five years ago, on the other hand..." She trailed off.
Roger had to ask. "What happened five years ago?"
"Cass was married once before," Frankie began. "Her name was Kathleen. She was an investigative journalist. She didn't tell him that she was tracking a big story, a known criminal, on their extended honeymoon. The criminal caught up to them and threatened her. So she sent Cass on ahead to the next place they were supposed to go, and then her plane crashed in Alaska. Supposedly she died."
"She didn't die," Roger said with great certainty. He knew how that went.
"No, she didn't," Frankie agreed. Roger saw a flash of remembered pain in her eyes for a few brief seconds before her expressive blue eyes returned to normal.
"How long was she gone, letting Cass and everyone think she was dead?" Roger asked.
"Four years," Frankie replied. "I met Cass two years after she supposedly died. I'd never met anybody like him before. He saw me for who I really was and liked me for being that person. My quirks and eccentricities didn't strike him as weird. He didn't think I was out there, which is more than I can say for my own mother. I'm a lot closer to my aunt Sharlene than I am to my mother. But Sharlene is more accepting than my mama. I love my mama, but we just don't really connect on any level. She once told me that she would go to her grave wishing I was more like her.
"And then here was Cass, who had been battered by things and people in his own past, telling me to look into his eyes and believe, and that I was fine just the way I am, and challenging me and annoying me and always being there for me even when I told him I didn't want him to be, which of course was a lie, and making me fall absolutely, completely, irretrievably in love with him because he was so loving and sweet and kind and good. No one ever loved me as unconditionally and as completely as Cass, and I was never in love with any man until Cass. He was the other half of me that I thought I'd never find, but somehow I did. We built a life together. We got married. We made a home together.
"And then Kathleen came back. She wanted Cass back. He was drawn to her, because this criminal that sabotaged her plane and made it crash, sending her into the Witness Protection Program, came back too, and he still wanted her dead. The second he knew she was alive, everything changed. And these were not changes I asked for or wanted. They just happened, and I was left to deal with them."
"He left you to go back to his first wife," Roger realized.
"Not right away," Frankie said. "But yes, eventually." She swallowed hard. "I didn't know I was capable of feeling pain of that magnitude. It just swallowed me whole. I was so empty inside, so numb, so broken."
"Like your beating heart was ripped from your chest, stomped into the dirt, and shattered into a million pieces," Roger murmured.
"Exactly," Frankie agreed. "At first, Kathleen made noises about not wanting him back, and Cass said he didn't want her, he wanted me. She granted him a divorce with no trouble, but then she fainted at the wedding when we tried to make it legal, which stopped the wedding cold while everyone including Cass tended to her."
Roger felt awful for Frankie, because he knew firsthand the kind of pain of which she spoke.
"It wasn't too long after that that Cass and I...parted ways," Frankie said quietly. "I loved him enough that I wanted him to be happy, and if Kathleen was what made him happy..."
"I'm not that selfless," Roger confessed. "I didn't do a very good job of making Holly happy when we were together, but thinking that someone else could do what I failed to do..."
"Nobody is a big enough person to want the love of their life to be happy with someone else," Frankie said. "But about two months after Cass left me for Kathleen, he came to me and told me that leaving me for her was a mistake, that he wanted me and us back. And he expected me to be all happy about this and fall into his arms, which I didn't."
"You couldn't," Roger said. "He hurt you. He broke your trust. How could you be sure that he wasn't going to up and change his mind in a few days or weeks or months and go back to her again?"
Frankie nodded. "But he wasn't going to leave me for Kathleen or anything or anyone else. Not ever again. He knew that, but I didn't. Like you said, he broke my trust, and I had to learn to trust him again."
"How did you do it?" Roger asked, trying to keep even the slightest note of desperate pleading out of his voice.
"It took time," Frankie replied. "I never stopped loving him, and because I loved him, I forgave him. That's what you do when you love someone: you find a way to forgive them." Now she grinned. "And of course Cass..." He recognized the look of fond affection in Frankie's eyes now as she trailed off, obviously remembering something. "I thought he pulled out all the stops the first time we were finding our way together, but it turns out I hadn't seen anything yet." Frankie came out of her reverie of memories, though she had already resumed talking, and looked Roger right in the eyes. "Of course, being Cass, he was a little bit pushy sometimes, but he got very good at backing off when I asked or told him to."
"Holly and I aren't that far yet," Roger said.
"Give it time," Frankie counseled. "Be patient. Be patient with yourself, and be patient with Holly. Really talk to her. It won't always be pleasant or pretty, but you have to get everything out there, all of the hurts and grievances, both of you. You can't keep it inside. It's rolling up your sleeves and digging in and giving each other everything you are, and everything you'll be. It's dealing with the past and letting it go so that you're not a slave to it anymore, so you can go on from here and have a future and a life together." Frankie smiled again. "And if you need to get away from everyone and everything and really meditate on your dilemma, I know a great retreat on a mountaintop in Peru that serves that purpose excellently."
Unbeknownst to Frankie and Roger, while they were having their talk in the outer office area at Frankie's desk, in Cass's office Cass and Holly, after setting up their meeting with Ross and Fletcher about Holly and Fletcher's divorce for later in the week, were having a talk of their own. Seeing the look of anticipation mingled with relief in Holly's eyes, Cass couldn't help commenting. "I remember that look," Cass said, removing his reading glasses and closing Holly's file on his desk.
"What look?" Holly asked.
"That 'Finally I'm getting out of this huge mistake I made so I can devote all of my time and energy to getting back with the person I never should have left in the first place' look," Cass replied.
"Oh," Holly said. "I guess being a lawyer, you've probably seen this look several times when you're representing people in divorce cases."
"A few times," Cass agreed with a quick nod. "But the look in your eyes is a very specific, very familiar one. It would be impossible for me to ever forget where I saw that look before."
Holly had to ask. "Where did you see it before?"
"In the mirror, five years ago," Cass replied.
Holly was shocked. "You mean you..." She wasn't sure how to phrase it.
"Was once misguided enough to leave Frankie for someone else, yes," Cass said. He grimaced at the memory. "I was married once before Frankie. Kathleen. I thought she had died in a plane crash in Alaska. At least, that's what I was told." The corner of his mouth twisted now. "I wasn't looking to fall in love when I met Frankie. In fact, at first, all we did was annoy each other, because we were on opposite sides of a murder trial. Then Frankie found the real killer, saving my best friend, who had been sent to prison for the murder, in the process. That was when I realized she was really good at her job. And after the start we got off to, it took real courage on Frankie's part to ask me for a job after that, but she did, and I gave her a chance. We worked well together...we still do...but after that rocky start, we got to be friends. And then I found myself asking her for an actual date. It had been a long time since I'd been on one of those, but Frankie..." He smiled now, the kind of smile that started in his eyes and took hold of his entire being. "She was a breath of fresh spring air after a long, cold winter. She was like no other woman I'd ever known, and I wanted to get to know her better. She said yes, but I let myself get sidetracked by a...let's call her a friend."
"A friend?" Holly asked, one eyebrow raised.
"Okay, a little more than a friend, but certainly not someone I was in a relationship with or in love with," Cass said. "I was late picking Frankie up, so she thought I stood her up, and she tracked me down. She was ready to tear Caroline's head off, and Caroline didn't like Frankie either, probably because Caroline wanted to be dating me but she knew I wasn't interested in a relationship with her, so I had to get in between them to stop them from getting into a fight, and Frankie threw a glass of champagne right in my face. Then she told me that if I wanted to stand in front of her car, it would be her pleasure to run me over."
"You had that coming," Holly told Cass.
"I did. I definitely did," Cass agreed. His smile grew softer. "Then I kissed her. That was our first real kiss." He fell silent, lost in the memory for a moment, before snapping back to the present and meeting Holly's intent gaze. "Frankie and I were falling in love, but we each had our own past baggage and past fears. Frankie was especially skittish. It took some time for me to find out why, but all along, I knew she was worth it. Worth any amount of time, worth cultivating a patience I didn't know I had until she came into my life, worth not pushing too hard because I didn't want to scare her any more than she already was. I made some mistakes, and Frankie tried to run from her feelings a few times, but we got through it all together. I knew that she was my future, she was my life, and the night we got married was the greatest night of my life up to that point."
"Only Kathleen wasn't dead," Holly said.
"No, she wasn't," Cass said. "She came back four years after I was told she had died. I was in shock. I was confused. For a while there, I didn't know which end was up. And she was being targeted by a very dangerous criminal, the reason she had faked her death and gone into Witness Protection in the first place."
"You were married to her at the time, though, right?" Holly asked. At Cass's affirmative answer, Holly said, "Then why didn't she take you with her? You would have gone if she'd asked you to, if you'd known what was really going on, but she kept all of that from you?"
"I would have gone with her, yes," Cass agreed. "And yes, she kept it all from me. I didn't ask myself any of those questions until later on...after I had left Frankie and tried to make another go of it with Kathleen." Now he looked pained. "I've done some stupid things in my life, but hands down, that was the stupidest. Giving up my life and future with Frankie to try and recapture the past with Kathleen was the biggest mistake I ever made...and it didn't take me long to realize that, either."
"What did you do when you realized it?" Holly asked.
"I went straight to Frankie and told her that I was leaving Kathleen, that what Kathleen and I had was in the past and was going to stay there, and I wanted her and our life together back," Cass replied. "But I had devastated her when I left her for Kathleen. It wasn't easy for me to do it, but Frankie...I emotionally destroyed her. She had loved me and trusted me, and so many other people in her life before me had hurt her, and I was the one person who was never supposed to hurt her, and I hurt her worse than all the rest of them combined. I completely wiped out the trust she fought so hard to build and I fought so hard to earn in the first place."
Holly knew where Cass was coming from on that score. That was exactly what she had done to Roger. "Until you did it, you didn't believe you were capable of hurting her that much, that deeply and that badly," she murmured, shifting in her chair and looking at the floor for a moment.
"Right," Cass agreed quietly. Not that he had doubted Frankie's intuition about them before, but now he knew for sure that Holly and Roger were in a place very similar to where he and Frankie had been when Kathleen came back, and for several months even after Cass had remedied the biggest mistake of his life and cut ties with Kathleen once and for all and realized with a clarity he'd never felt about anything else that his life and future were with Frankie. "Kathleen wasn't exactly gracious about accepting that I didn't want to be with her anymore," he continued.
"Thank God I don't have that problem," Holly murmured. Fletcher agreed with her that getting married had been a mistake and was not giving her any problems at all with the divorce.
"Then Frankie figured out that the man who had been trying to kill Kathleen before and still wanted her dead had planted a bomb," Cass said. "She saved Kathleen's life...and nearly died herself in the process."
Holly's face revealed her awe at this revelation. "I couldn't do that for any of Roger's exes," she reflected. "But if it was Roger, I'd give my life to save him without even having to think about it."
"Frankie was clinically dead at the hospital, but I refused to believe that was where it ended for us. I wouldn't leave her side. I kept talking to her, pleading with her to wake up, telling her over and over again how much I loved her and needed her and that I wasn't leaving that room without her, and she came back. Loving me wasn't the problem, though. She still loved me, she just didn't-"
"Trust you," Holly said at the same time Cass said, "trust me."
"You had to earn back Frankie's trust," Holly said, looking at Cass again now, feeling a kinship with this man that went beyond the fact that he was her divorce lawyer.
"Yes, I did," Cass replied.
"How did you do it?" Holly asked, hoping she didn't sound too desperate.
"It wasn't easy," Cass said. "I did everything I could think of. I begged for her forgiveness. I told her every day and in every way I could think of that I loved her and I wanted her back. I kept asking her to marry me again. That last one didn't go over so well," he added ruefully. "She kept telling me no, and then she kept telling me that she wasn't ready yet.
"But it wasn't just telling her. It was showing her. Actions speak louder than words." Holly nodded. "I stayed as close to her as she would let me get. I let her know that I was there for her and that nothing and no one would ever get me to leave her side again. Whatever she had going on, whatever she was doing, whatever she was going through, and it was a lot and not just because of me and our relationship, I was right there through all of it. And gradually, we rebuilt the closeness we had once shared, and Frankie came to know that she could trust me to never leave her and to never hurt her like that again. She loved me, she forgave me, and she learned to trust me again. And we finally found our way back to each other...after one last misunderstanding." At Holly's quizzical look, Cass said, "I thought that she was going to tell me she couldn't do it, that what we had was over. I couldn't bear the thought of being here without her, so I was ready to leave town. I was on the plane, and I couldn't shake the feeling that I was forgetting something, so I got off the plane...and when I walked back through the gate at the airport, Frankie was there. I walked straight into her arms, and I've stayed there ever since."
"I'm the one earning back Roger's trust," Holly said. "I'm still figuring out exactly how to do it, to be honest."
"There isn't one set way to earn back the trust of the person you love above all others," Cass replied. He leaned forward in his chair "If you want my advice-"
"Please," Holly said earnestly.
"Be patient," Cass said. "Give him time. Give him space when he needs it. Tell him and show him every way you can think of how serious and how sincere you are about wanting a life and a future with him."
"I can definitely do that," Holly said, feeling hopeful.
"And it's probably a good idea not to repeatedly ask him to marry you, if you're thinking that far ahead already," Cass added.
"I am," Holly admitted, "but no, I'm not going to propose to Roger until I know the time is right, until I'm sure that we're both ready for that and that he'll say yes."
"And until your divorce is final and his divorce is final," Cass concluded.
"That's a must," Holly agreed. She stood up, so Cass stood up too. "Thank you, Cass, for everything."
Cass took the hand Holly extended and shook it. "You're welcome, Holly," he said, "and good luck."
Cass and Holly emerged from Cass's office to find Roger showing Frankie the pictures of Blake, Kevin, and Jason he carried in his wallet. "That's Kevin, and that's Jason," he said, pointing to first one baby and then the other in the snapshot of Blake holding both boys.
"They're beautiful," Frankie said. "My best friend Ryan is married to a twin, but she's an identical twin."
"One of Michael Hudson's daughters?" Roger asked.
"Yeah, Vicky," Frankie replied. "And her sister is married to my cousin Jamie."
"Small world," Roger murmured.
"You know Michael?" Frankie asked.
"They go way back," Holly said.
Frankie and Roger looked up to see Cass and Holly standing there. "I was just showing Frankie pictures of Chrissy and the boys," Roger said as he accepted the snapshot back from Frankie and replaced it in his wallet.
"You have a beautiful family," Frankie said to Holly.
"So do you," Holly replied, gesturing to the Christmas picture on Frankie's desk. "How old is your little girl?"
"Charlie was two in February," Frankie said. "When were Kevin and Jason born?"
"Almost three months ago," Holly said.
The phone in Cass's office rang then. "I'd better get that," he said. "Holly, I'll see you next Tuesday afternoon, 2:30, the courthouse in Springfield."
"I'll be there," Holly assured him.
Holly looked at Roger then. "Ready to go?" she asked.
"Yes," Roger said. "Thank you, Frankie."
"Yes, thank you, Frankie," Holly echoed.
"It's what I do," Frankie replied. "I'll get you proof of the gaslighting as soon as I can. It's going to take something a little more intensive to get that, but I will get it."
"I know you will," Roger said.
"I'll call you with another update next week," Frankie pledged.
When they were in the car, Roger asked Holly, "Are you in any particular hurry to get back to Springfield?"
"No," Holly replied. "But I think we need to talk."
"We do," Roger agreed. "But not at The Harbor Club. We'd just run into Donna and/or Michael, and this is one conversation that needs to be just between us."
"Yes," Holly said. "So where do we go to talk?"
They were driving by a park, so Roger suggested, "Here?"
"All right," Holly agreed.
Roger parked the car and shut off the ignition. He and Holly were both quiet for a long moment. Then they both started speaking at the same time.
"Holly, I-"
"Roger, I-"
They both stopped short and laughed a bit self-consciously. "It would work better if we would take turns," Roger said.
"Yeah, it would," Holly agreed. "You go first."
"Are you sure?" Roger asked.
"Yes," Holly said.
"Okay," Roger said. He took a deep breath, then shifted in the driver's seat, turning so that he was facing Holly. "I'm sorry."
"For what?" Holly asked, confused.
"For not being honest with you about where I was going That Night," Roger said. She heard the capital letters and knew which night he meant. "I have no excuse for what I did. I should have been honest with you. By not being honest, I drove you to Fletcher."
"Yes, you were wrong," Holly agreed, "but so was I. And that's not the first time that I thought you were cheating on me and I turned to another man. It's not even the first time I married my rebound man. It's a pattern of mine, but it's a pattern I'm breaking."
"Because you want to be with me and only me," Roger said. He was stating it in an even tone of voice, as a fact, no sarcasm or rancor.
"I know you don't believe that yet, and I know that you don't trust me yet, but yes," Holly said. "We both made plenty of mistakes That Night and after. There's enough blame to go around, but we'll never get anywhere if we let ourselves get bogged down in the mistakes and who's at fault. I was responsible for my own actions. I made the same mistake with Fletcher that I made with Ed years ago, except that Ed and I found that we could be friends after the marriage was over. And I know now that marrying somebody else to try and forget about you or get over you never works, because I could never forget about you, and I will never get over you. What's more, I don't want to forget you or get over you."
"I could never forget you or get over you either," Roger said, "nor do I want to. Forgiveness, though... You can really forgive me for what I did That Night?"
"I've forgiven you for much worse things," Holly replied seriously, earnestly, her eyes locked with Roger's, her posture unconsciously now perfectly mirroring his own, since she had turned in her seat to fully face him. "Yes, I forgive you for That Night. But can you forgive me?"
He saw the anxiety in her eyes. "I can," Roger said. "I do. I forgive you, Holly. That's what you do when you love someone. And I do love you."
She reached for his hand and squeezed it before linking her fingers with his. "I love you too, Roger," she said. "And we're gonna get it right this time. We're going to build a life together on a firm foundation of love and trust and fidelity and honesty."
"I want to believe that," Roger said, looking at their joined hands before meeting Holly's gaze again.
"You will," she vowed. "And until you do, I will believe for both of us."
"We really have traded places," Roger reflected.
"Yes, we have," Holly agreed. "I have a whole new understanding of how you felt all those times you wanted another chance with me and I just..." She trailed off; he knew what she meant.
"And I know now how you felt, why you were so cautious and careful, how your head and your heart were so at odds with each other," he replied. "That part gets exhausting emotionally."
"I remember," Holly said. "But I'm going to do everything I can to make you believe in us again, and to show you that this time, nothing and no one will ever take me away from you again. From this moment on, I'm wooing you."
"You're wooing me?" Roger asked with a smile.
Holly smiled back. "Yes," she replied. "I'm going to court you like you've never been courted before."
They just looked at each other, smiling, for a moment before Holly grew serious. "I'm going to prove to you that you can trust me again. I can't promise that we'll never fight or hurt each other's feelings, because we both know that we will." The look in Roger's eyes told her that he knew that too and agreed with it. "But I can promise...I do promise that if you trust me with your heart one more time, I will cherish it and keep it safe and never break it again for the rest of my life."
Roger wanted more than anything to trust Holly like that, and to believe that that was exactly what she would do.
"Just...if I get too pushy, tell me and I'll back off," she added. "I won't back off too far. But when you need space, tell me and I'll give it to you."
"I will," Roger said. Then he thought of something else. "Is there some kind of timetable for how long it'll take for you to convince me?"
"It will take as long as it takes," Holly replied. "There is no timetable. I'm not going to get bored or tired or fed up, no matter what. I am never giving up on you or us." She brushed a kiss across the back of his hand, then looked deeply into his eyes. "I'm all in, Roger."
Roger didn't realize he'd been holding his breath until he exhaled, looking deeply into her eyes. "I don't know how long it will take either, but for us to be together again, I need for you to convince me that everything you're saying is true," he entreated.
"I will," Holly promised firmly, honestly.