Second Chance at Love

Prologue

PROLOGUE

ELLA'S POV

Ella couldn't believe she was sitting in the first pew in a funeral home staring at the casket that held her father's still body. She had seen him in it, but she still couldn't believe it. Couldn't believe her eyes weren't deceiving her. Ella's father had always been active and had barely been able to sit still for an hour in all of Ella's life. Always in motion. Except for now. Now her dad was still, and cold.

Yet she still hadn't managed to shed a tear since her mother had called to tell her that Dad's lung cancer had finally gotten the best of him a week ago. It had happened fast. As sudden as only cancer can as far as terminal illnesses go.

Maybe there was something wrong with her.

Ella hadn't ever had trouble crying before. She had been able to make herself cry ever since she was little and learned that if she shed a tear or two, then she could get what she wanted. She had had her dad wrapped around her little pinky finger. Her mom, on the other hand, had been the stern parent, hard to break. Tough as nails. That must have been where she got her hard personality from.

It hadn't helped that the whispers of her return had immediately started the instant she had entered the funeral home with her mother. Only been back a day and already Ella couldn't wait to get back to her job as a Botanist on the other side of the world. She had done her study abroad in university there and had liked it so much that once she had finished by earning her PhD in Botanical Sciences she had packed up her things and moved there to work in the very labs she had interned in when she had been a student.

Her family hadn't quite understood her desire to study on the other side of the world, though. Sure, they supported her and were proud of her, but they still didn't get it. Jack hadn't quite understood her desire to study in a different country, either. Then again he had also been hoping to pick up where they had left off like they usually did when they were home for breaks from separate universities. But Ella hadn't been ready to settle down like Jack had wanted. Heck, she still wasn't ready to settle down and start a family at the age of twenty-six. There was so much life in front of her that she wanted to experience.

It also happened that Ella had never had fantasies of marrying and having children like her older sister, Renee, had when they were kids. Instead of playing house with her sister, she had poked around at insects. To this day her sister still turned up her nose at how at ease studying plants and bugs was for Ella.

Ella knew her sister was proud of her for all of her accomplishments, but she also knew that Renee wasn't interested in Ella's job.

Ella felt a tug on her hand. Looking at it, she noticed her sister standing in front of her, pulling at her hand in an attempt to get her attention. Apparently the service was over and it was time to follow the hearse over toward the cemetery for the burial. Standing, she followed behind her mom, sister and brother-in-law, and her niece and nephews. Her surroundings started to blur as she stepped out of the chapel and through the front lobby out into the front parking lot. It took her several minutes to realize that everything was blurring because she was crying. Finally crying. Feeling numb, she got into the back of the service car behind the hearse with her family and waited as the bearers carried the casket down the front steps and slid it into the back before slamming the door shut.

If it weren't for the fact that she knew that she had been in a vehicle, then she would have second guessed how she had made it to the cemetery. Now she was standing in front of her father's casket with a hole dug at six feet deep and six feet across in the ground, a tomb stone behind it. The longer she stood there after the casket had been lowered into the hole and she had stepped forward to throw dirt on top of it when it was her turn, the thinner the crowd around her got as everyone dispersed. Their lives resuming as hers was at a stand still.

Someone came up beside her, shoulder brushing with hers. She could tell who it was just by the way her throat closed up when she was around him, the air thickening.

"Ella," he said. "I'm so sorry about your dad."

"I've got to go. Bye, Jack."

She stepped back and went to turn. Until she felt Jack's hand on her arm. She froze.

"Ella, wait," Jack said.

Ella held her breath, closing her eyes as more tears slipped from her tear ducts. It hurt being around him. It hurt being around anyone who had known Ella before her father's death. But it hurt to be around Jack more because she had felt the closest thing to love every time she had been in his presence, and right now that was the last thing she wanted to feel. It hurt to remember how things had been before she had left the country to pursue her career. It hurt as Ella remembered the pain she had felt when she had last seen Jack, when Ella had said good bye for the last time.

Yet she stayed standing there. Chancing it, she lifted her head to meet his eyes, which were filled with as much sorrow as she imagined were in her own. Each of their emotions mirroring the other's as they stood there, silent. They didn't need to say a single word to know what the other was thinking. All that it took was Jack taking hold of her hand and leading her through the maze of tombstones, escaping the cemetery, as he led her to a silver Honda Accord.

Without even thinking, Ella climbed into the passenger seat and let Jack take her away. Let him take her back to his place. He was living in a small beach house. The sounds of waves along with the salty scent of the ocean being carried on the wind from around the house.

"Want to walk down to the water?"

He could still read her mind as clear as it were his own.

They left their shoes on the front porch and walked along the side of the house toward the back, then through the small gate that separated his backyard from the sandy shore.

The feel of sand between her toes somehow was just the medicine she needed for her numbed senses. She plopped down in the sand, absentmindedly running sand through her fingers as he joined her.

"I've missed you, Ella," Jack said. "Despite the circumstances, I'm glad to see you, to see that you're doing well. Or rather, as well as you can."

Ella smiled. He still had a nervous habit of talking, filling gaps of silences. It was nice that some things would remain the same no matter the circumstance. No matter how much Ella wished she had been here to say good bye to her father before he passed. Despite everything feeling different without her dad, there was still one thing that remained constant. One thing that wouldn't change for Ella and that was Jack, and their close relationship.

Even though Ella knew she had broken Jack's heart when she had decided to move, she knew he didn't hold it against her. His work took him to other places in the world, too. He understood her desire to leave in order to feel more fulfilled with her studies. Though, the last she heard he had recently taken a job as a college professor. That had to be different than on-the-job trips he used to take for college credits, and later for job assignments.

Ella didn't regret moving, yet she missed Jack more as she sat there beside him. The more Ella thought of how her life might have played out had she stayed. Imagined what it would have been like had she gotten a place to live with Jack when they had both graduated with PhDs only made her miss what had once been between them. She could feel what they had in the air around them as the wind lashed, whipping her hair around to obscure her vision when she looked at him beside her.

"I missed you, too."

That was all it took. That was the only words that needed saying to open the door. Jack leaned in and started kissing her and, like a fool, Ella reciprocated.

#

Around a month later, when Ella was back in her New Zealand home, she discovered she was pregnant. It ruined her plans, but she was surprisingly not angry. Maybe it was the change that she needed. A do over. A chance to start over with her life. And even though she knew she should have picked up the phone to call Jack to tell him about the pregnancy, she couldn't. She didn't want him to feel trapped. To feel obligated to marry her. So instead she kept it to herself, her own secret.