CHAPTER TWO

"Hey mom! What's for dinner?" Jake yelled as he came in the back door. He spotted his favorite cake sitting on the kitchen counter and his eyes lit up. He quickly grabbed a clean fork from the drying rack by the sink.

"Drop it!" Reba's voice caused the fork to clatter from his hand and land on the counter.

"Hi mom." Jake said sheepishly. "Is the cake not for me? It's my favorite."

"Yes, it's for you. After dinner."

Jake smiled. "Great! Where's dinner?"

"About that…listen, I just got an unexpected invitation to dinner tonight. So, would you mind hanging out solo and maybe just ordering in a pizza?"

"Gee mom, let me think, pizza, cake and the whole night with the TV to myself to play video games? I don't know if I can handle being all alone."

"Very funny wise guy." Reba laughed and ruffled her son's hair. "All right, you order your pizza, and I am going back up stairs to finish getting ready."

Jake gave his mom a puzzled look. She looked ready to him. "Ok. I can do that. Hey mom, who are you meeting for dinner?"

"Oh, just an old friend." Reba replied as a smile tugged at the edge of her lips before she turned to head back upstairs.

"Mmmmm, what smells so…yummy?" Brock trailed off loudly as he and Henry entered the front door of Reba's house. Then he looked around confused, realizing there weren't any smells of food permeating the air.

"If you showed up hoping for dinner, you are out of luck." Jake said from in front of the TV, not looking up from the video game he was playing.

"Your mom's getting kind of a late start on dinner, isn't she?" Brock joked, glancing at his watch.

Jake finally looked up from his game. "Oh no, I mean Mom isn't making dinner. She's going out tonight. But I ordered some pizza and there's cake if you and Henry want to stay and hang out."

"Oh, your mom is going out? With who?"

Jake shrugged. "I dunno. She said an old friend."

Brock was just about to make a comment when he noticed Reba heading down the stairs and suddenly he couldn't form words. She was wearing dark wash skinny jeans with black knee-high boots with 3" heels and she had paired it with a emerald green silk top that sat off one shoulder, bearing her pale skin and the freckles that ran along her collar bone. She had straightened her hair to a sleek style and had amped up her make-up a to a more evening look. She rounded out the look with her signature three layers of necklaces that added sparkle thanks to black rhinestone accents and large black rhinestone hoops at her ears.

Reba stopped on the bottom step abruptly when she spotted Brock and Henry. "Oh, hey guys, what are you two doing here?"

"Hi Miss Reba!" Henry called from beside Jake on the couch.

"BJ is working so we thought we would join you guys for dinner tonight."

Reba tried to keep her smile from faltering. "Oh gosh, I'm sorry guys. I'm going out tonight. But Jake ordered pizza and there's cake, I'm sure there would be plenty for you guys to hang out and have a guy's night."

"Oh yeah, Jake already invited us. He said you were going out with…" Brock trailed off hoping she would fill in the blanks.

Reba blinked back at him. "Oh, just and old friend," she evaded. "And would you look at the time? I've got to get out of here. You guys have a great night!"

"Have fun mom!"

"Bye Miss Reba!"

Brock watched her gather her small black pocket book and keys and head out the front door. He walked to the door and watched her walk to her car, unable to help himself from admiring how her backside was filling out her jeans and how long her legs looked thanks to the knee high boots. He watched her slide into the driver's seat and check her reflection in the rear-view mirror one last time before backing out of the driveway and pulling down the street and out of sight.

Brock sighed and finally closed the front door. "An old friend indeed."

Jack tapped the table impatiently. She was late, Reba was never late. Maybe she had decided to blow him off after all. But then again it was only 10 minutes, maybe she had been held up in traffic. Jack was nervous, he knew the conversation he hoped to have with her tonight was going to be heavy and he had no idea how she would take it. He was just about to give up on her when a flash of red hair coming through the front door caused his breath to catch.

She looked amazing. He watched as she spoke to the maitre'd and was then pointed in his direction. Their eyes met and she smiled causing his pulse to quicken. He stood as she walked towards their table, and he noticed she seemed different than when he had last seen her a little over a year ago. She seemed more confident and surer of herself somehow. More in control of who she was and if possible, she was even more sexy than she had been before.

Reba tried to play it cool as she walked towards where Jack was standing by their table waiting for her but everything inside of her was a bundle of nerves. Jack looked even better than she remembered him looking when he last walked out her door. He looked like he had trimmed up, not that he had ever not been fit, but now he seemed even more sleek. He wore slim fitting dark washed jeans, a plain white button-down shirt with a buckskin-colored cashmere sweater that accented his dark hair and tanned skin perfectly. 'Careful Reba, you're just here to listen to his story. You aren't here to get sucked back into his charms.'

"Jack, sorry I'm late. I got caught up at the house and then traffic was awful. Please forgive me."

"Oh don't worry about it. I'm just glad you came. You look amazing."

Reba felt heat rush to her cheeks. They were still awkwardly standing by the table. How are you supposed to greet your former two-time boyfriend that suddenly showed back up in your life looking amazing and still smelling good enough to make her want to throw all of her resolve to the wind and pull him into a kiss. She quickly cleared her throat. "Thanks. You look pretty great yourself. Shall we sit?"

"Of course," Jack replied, stepping around her to pull out her chair for her. Once Reba was comfortably seated Jack took his seat across from her. "I hope this place is ok."

"I've been wanting to try it for awhile. It's still fairly new but it has great reviews. And Italian is still my favorite."

Their server approached their table. "Good evening, ma'am. May I offer you something to drink?"

"I will take a glass of Chardonnay, please." Jack raised his hand motioning he would take the same when the server turned his way.

As the server walked away, Jack took a minute to to study the woman across from him again. Everything about her was fascinating to him and even though this night was supposed to be about him, he couldn't help but be curious about her. His mouth lifted in a crooked smile as he took a sip of the wine that had appeared at their table and leaned back in his seat crossing one leg over the other. "So Reba, tell me, what's been going on with you since I last saw you?"

"Wow, so much has changed for you this past several months. No wonder you seem so different."

"What do you mean, different?" Reba questioned as she sipped her espresso and paused before taking another bite of her crème brûlée. They had enjoyed a wonderful dinner and conversation that had centered solely around Reba and what had been going on in her life since they had last seen each other. She had kept a few things to herself, like her lack of a dating life and her health issues but for the most part she had been an open book.

"You just seem so much more confident and surer of yourself than the last time I saw you. To tell you the truth, it makes you damn sexy and I didn't think it was possible for you to be any sexier than you already were." Jack reached across the table and ran a finger across her wrist.

Reba's pulse quickened and heat begin to rise up her face. As much as her body was screaming at her not to, she pulled her wrist away from his touch. "You know Jack, as lovely as this evening has been, don't think you have distracted me the real reason we had this little dinner to begin with. You were supposed to be telling me this story about how you aren't divorced but somehow single and yet somehow, all we've talked about is me. Don't think you are getting out of this so easily."

Jack laughed and sat back again, pulling his hand away. "Ok, you got me. I am avoiding the conversation, but not because I'm trying to trick or deceive you, it's just really heavy and I've really been enjoying our evening."

"Jack, it's ok. You can talk to me. I want you to talk to me."

"I know…" he paused. "Listen, there is a great little park across the street. Do you mind if we go for a walk?"

Reba nodded and waited for him to pay the check before they headed across the street to a quite neighborhood park. They had been walking silently for a few minutes before Reba finally stopped.

"Listen Jack, I don't know what exactly is going on here but the only reason I could think of that you would show up on my door is because you are interested in potentially pursuing this thing we had between us before. But I already told you, I won't come between you and Cheryl and if you aren't divorced…I know you say you are single, but I don't know what that means."

Jack took Reba's hand and directed her to a nearby bench and sat them both down, facing her. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and paused just a moment before speaking. "Reba, Cheryl is dead."

'Where the hell is she? It's getting late.' Brock stifled a yawn and looked at his watch. It was already 11 pm, she had been gone over 3 hours.

Jake looked up from his game. "Dad, you don't have to stay with me. I'm just finishing up this game and then I'm going up to bed. I'm sure Mom will be home soon. You don't need to worry about me, if you need to get Henry home."

Brock looked over at his younger son who was asleep on the far end of the couch. "No Jake, I think I will stick around awhile longer. Henry is fine and I just want to make sure your mom makes it home ok."

One of Reba's hands involuntarily rose to cover her mouth while the other went to cover Jack's arm that rested on the back of the park bench. She thought she had prepared herself for whatever he was going to tell her this evening but not this. She looked up into his face and saw the glisten of unshed tears in his eyes. "Oh God Jack, no. What happened?"

"A year and a half ago, when you told me to leave and not come back until I was absolutely sure things were over between Cheryl and myself and we were divorced, I left determined to do just that. I drove straight to her house and told her I wanted her to sign the papers. But she got upset with me and hysterical and begged me to give us one more chance. I didn't want to, I just wanted her to sign the papers so I could get back to you as quickly as I could but then all I could see was you telling me to be sure. I knew you never would have just accepted me showing back up the next day with signed divorce papers."

Reba smiled sadly and rubbed his arm slowly. "You would have been right."

"So, I agreed to try." Jack felt his heart break a little when Reba's hand slipped from his arm and fell into her lap. "I agreed to go away with her for two weeks, no work, no distractions, no you. We went to Cancun, and I tried, I really did. I thought maybe we could make it work. Maybe it was just the setting, maybe it was not having work to distract us, maybe it was you not being within driving distance, but for those two weeks things did seem better. I don't know why but once we got back to Houston it wasn't as easy. Once we got back, things started going downhill fairly quickly again. Cheryl was convinced it was because I was still hung up on you, and she wasn't necessarily wrong."

Reba stared down at her lap, picking at her fingernails. "Jack, I'm so sorry. I never wanted to be the thing that came between you and Cheryl."

"Hey," Jack replied softly, using his thumb and forefinger to force her chin up so her eyes made contact with his, "you weren't the cause of anything between me and Cheryl. Ultimately, it all came down to me not being able to love her the way I should and that had nothing to do with how I felt about you, but she was convinced it did and she ultimately convinced me also."

"What do you mean?"

"She thought if we went somewhere that your face wasn't always smiling at me from a bus bench or the weekly real estate flyers on the newsstand, I could get you out of my system and focus back on her. She wanted to go back home to Boston, that's where we are both from, where our families live and where we met. We had only moved to Houston because of my practice, so it seemed to make sense and I agreed to give it six months. I would give our marriage my undivided attention for six months to see if we could make it work."

"So, what happened?" Reba asked quietly, almost afraid to know the answer.

"We moved back to Boston and I tried, Reba, I swear I did. I'm a marriage counselor and for six months, I used every trick in my bag to try to make my marriage work, but I just couldn't. When it came right down to it, I didn't love Cheryl and if I am being brutally honest, I'm not sure I ever truly loved her. We were really young when we got together and I think it was more of an infatuation than love but by the time I realized it, we were already married. But I had committed to giving it a shot for six months, so I did. The first three months were hard, we fought a lot, about everything. By the fourth month, we had both hit the apathy stage. I think that's when I realized I didn't really love Cheryl, but I kept trying. By the end of the six months, even she was ready for it to be over."

"Cheryl agreed to the divorce?"

Jack nodded. "Yes. In the end, I think even she realized she was more in love with the idea of being married to me than she was actually in love with me. When we both took the time to look at our relationship and really analyze, we both knew it was time to move on. So, I got an apartment and moved out and we started working towards a divorce. Thank goodness we didn't have kids, but we had been married for quite some time and had a lot of assets we needed to divide and even in the most amicable of situations, that can take months. So, for the next two months, I spent my time working and dealing with divorce proceedings and waiting until I could move on with my life. But then, just three days before we were supposed to sign the final divorce papers everything went to hell."

Reba could see the tears starting to well up in his eyes again. She reached out and grabbed his hand and held it between hers. "It's ok Jack, take your time. Tell me what happened."

"Cheryl showed up one night at my place out of nowhere. We hadn't had much contact outside of attorneys in months and all of a sudden, she was there, and she was hysterical. I let her in and got her to calm down long enough for her to tell me she had just found out she had cancer. And she was terminal. The doctor had given her less than 3 months to live."

Reba squeezed his hand. "Jack…I don't know what to say."

"God Reba, I was such an ass to her when she told me," Jack said as he stood and walked over to a nearby gazebo. Reba waited a minute and then followed him walking behind him and placing her hand on his back. "I didn't believe her. I thought she was lying as some last-ditch effort to get me to stay. I was awful to her…and then she showed me her test results. She was dying and suddenly the divorce didn't matter anymore."

Reba leaned up against the railing of the gazebo and looked up into Jack's face. "What happened?"

"I took care of her. I might not have been in love with her, but I was her husband and I cared about her, and she deserved to be taken care of, so I took care of her. She didn't make it to the three-month mark, it happened so fast. 2 months and 9 days I was by her side and then she was gone." Jack felt Reba snake her arm around his and lean her head onto his shoulder.

"Wow Jack. I am so sorry about Cheryl. I know that had to be hard. But you are a good man, taking care of her like that."

"I just did what any decent person would do, but in the end, it affected me more than I thought. I spent the next two months just trying to move on with my life. I poured myself into my work, I started running regularly again but there was still just something was missing. And then six weeks ago I decided what I really needed was a change of scenery.

He turned so that he too was now leaning against the railing of the gazebo. "I decided that I had enjoyed Houston and wanted to move back and about a month ago, I did just that. But once I was here and I was settled, I still wasn't really feeling better. Then last week, I was walking down the street and looked up and there you were, on a billboard smiling down at me, trying to sell me a house and suddenly I realized, maybe it wasn't Houston I was missing. Maybe it was you."

Reba laughed nervously and stepped away from Jack, suddenly feeling the need to put some distance between them. "Gosh Jack…after everything that happened the last two years? After all the time that has passed between us?"

Jack walked over to her and grabbed her hands in his own. "Reba, I know it's complicated and I can't explain it but there is just something about you that I can't shake. I know I've screwed things up with you twice before and I know I am still working through everything that happened the past year, but I was just hoping that you might be willing to give me one more chance." Jack suddenly dropped her hands having a realization. "Unless of course you are with someone."

Reba smiled and looked up at him shyly. "No, I'm not with anyone. But this is a lot to think about. You're right, you did screw up with me twice before and I don't know if I am ready or even willing to give you another chance and even if I were, I don't know if you are really ready after everything you have gone through."

Jack took a deep breath and nodded. "I get it. I guess our timing has just always sucked, hasn't it? I guess you will always be my one that got away."

"No Jack," Reba reached out and grabbed his hand. "I'm not saying no, I'm saying I need you to give me some time to think about all of this and digest it. Can you do that? Can you give me a few days and then let me get back to you on whether we can give this another try?"

For the first time in months, Jack felt a glimmer of hope spark inside himself. "Reba, as long as you say there is a chance, I will give you all the time you need to think. But please don't take too long."

Reba laughed. "I promise to not take any longer than necessary. It's late, as lovely as this evening has been, I should head home. Walk me to my car?"

Jack smiled at her and reached his hand out to her, lacing his fingers with her own and the two made their way back to her car where they would say goodnight and go their separate with ways with promises to talk soon.

It was rapidly approaching 1 am when Reba finally pulled into her driveway. She was exhausted but also strangely exhilarated by her evening. Jack had given her a lot to think about but part of her wondered if she already knew what she wanted to do.

She quietly opened the front door so as to not disturb Jake upstairs, not that she would as he tended to sleep like a log, but she quickly stopped inside the door when she found Henry sleeping on the couch and Brock snoozing in the side chair. What the heck were they still doing there? She quietly tip-toed over to Brock and gently touched his shoulder. "Brock."

Brock woke with a start. "Reba? What time is it?"

"Almost 1 am. What are you still doing here? Is Jake ok?"

Brock rubbed his eyes. "Jake is fine. I wanted to make sure you got in ok. You're out awfully late. Did you have a good time with…who was it you said you went out with again?"

Reba gave him a steely gaze. "I didn't. Thanks for making sure I got home safely. As you can see, I am all in one piece, but I am exhausted. So, why don't you take Henry home and please, lock the door as you go."

Brock watched Reba turn and head up the stairs, letting his gaze linger on her well-defined backside longer than he should have. "Why are you being so damn secretive Reba? Where were you tonight?"

To be continued…