I hadn’t responded, wondering why I hadn’t reached out to him. Pippa had told him I wasn’t answering her calls. Even insinuated I was dating again. Juan didn’t dare come and see me directly. His VIP client’s people had ears and eyes. Juan didn’t want to put me in danger.
Then he ended up in jail in Guatemala. He had “borrowed” someone’s identity card and this person happened to have a criminal record for shoplifting. Juan got arrested when they stopped him for speeding one time. (“The fucking irony of it,” he joked later.) He couldn’t reveal his true identity in case word got out, so he ended up doing four months’ jail time. Hence his absence of contact.
Meanwhile, as well as the smiley faces and hearts to my mother, Lee had sent messages to Mr. Donner and pretty much all my American contacts telling them I was in England, to make sure nobody dropped by for a visit.
I never did ask Juan the details about the first six months he was on the run, because it didn’t even matter anymore. He had to keep his distance from me, in case his pursuers got wind that he was, in fact, alive—that was the gist of it. He’d made a dog’s dinner out of the whole thing, his life and mine. Something I won’t forget. And for a while, I didn’t forgive him either. I too did a disappearance act on him—volunteered at an orphanage in Costa Rica for a stint—while I decided what I wanted out of life. I needed time to think things through. And I knew a dose of his own medicine would do him good.
But forgive… you do forgive in the end, don’t you? When you truly love someone?
I needed to forgive myself, too. The deaths that followed, especially Jen’s. I always had a soft spot for that girl.
I was wrong about Pippa being in cahoots with Lee and the triplets. She genuinely wanted to help me, hence her rescue. I guess guilt had finally caught up with her. That sneaky call I eavesdropped on when I thought she was talking to Dan? It was Juan who was on the line, not Dan. Juan had already rented a helicopter by that point, had got wind that his enemies were sniffing around, and he feared for my life. He was planning to get me out of there and had been waiting for me at the other side of Pfeiffer Canyon Bridge. Lucky I didn’t go, or I might have ended up under Pippa’s car right alongside her, helping her change her tire.
When I didn’t show up with Pippa, Juan was on his way to find me. With all the mayhem that ensued nobody spotted him circling Big Sur in his helicopter searching for me. He refused to lose hope and finally discovered me on the beach with Beanie.
Serendipity.
I’ve had time to reflect on Pippa’s motivation for not telling me that Juan was alive. She must have been hoping that I’d let Juan go, move on, find a new man, and that she’d be his shoulder to cry on (however chipped), and they’d have some sort of friends-to-lovers happily ever after, with me out of the picture. She had suggested to me several times, as I remember, that I forget Juan, urging me to date someone new, sell Cliffside and move on.
Do I forgive Pippa? She saved my life, so I’ll always be eternally grateful for that. Forgive and forget. You have to, don’t you? If you want to move forward in life?
Juan has regrets. Of course he does, not least the secret he kept from me during our entire relationship, hiding his past, keeping his family under wraps. His excuse was that he was frightened of losing me if I found out the truth, losing his “funny little valentine,” he told me, “the love of my life.” I had never imagined Juan could be insecure when it came to me. But I never shared with him the story of my sixth finger, so I do identify with that: pulling a veil over your own history.
As for Juan’s supposed vasectomy, I was mistaken. It had never taken place. We’re expecting a baby in May, three years to the day he sacrificed his beloved Mustang and Rolex to Ragged Point. I’m clean, of course. Haven’t touched a drop of alcohol or any medication since Pippa saw me through that cold turkey.
My father passed away, and my mother met another man. On