The People We Meet Along The Way Read online

  Table of Contents

  The People We Meet Along The Way

  Copyright

  Also By Beth Rinyu

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Epilogue

  Authors Note

  The People We Meet Along The Way

  Copyright © 2020 by Beth Rinyu

  All rights reserved

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of Beth Rinyu, except for the use of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Cover design by: Amy Queau Qdesign

  Editing by: Lawrence Editing

  Proofread by: Judy’s Proofreading

  Formatting by: C.P. Smith

  ALSO BY BETH RINYU

  The Exception To The Rule

  Drowning In Love

  Blind Side Of Love

  An Unplanned Lesson

  An Unplanned Life

  A Cry For Hope

  A Will To Change

  Easy Silence

  When The Chips Are Down

  Two Of Hearts

  Straight To The Heart

  A Right To Remain

  Keepin’ The Faith

  Thursday Afternoon

  When Autumn Ends

  Miss Demeanor

  I’ll Be Seeing You

  The Night We Met

  Find Beth on Facebook

  Join Beth’s Reader Group

  You don’t meet people by accident.

  There’s always a reason.

  A lesson or a blessing.

  ~Unknown

  PROLOGUE

  THE SCREAMING BABY flailed his little legs before being placed in my arms. Perfect in every way: rosy cheeks, light blue eyes, and a blond tuft of hair. His cries subsided when I pulled him closer and rested my lips on the top of his head as his little mouth formed an O shape, like a little bird looking for his first meal. He was really mine, and I would love him endlessly until the day I died. When I looked at Evan, his face was etched in that beautiful smile I loved so much as he gazed at the small bundle I was holding, who resembled him so closely.

  The knock at my door jolted me from my sleep. The bright red numbers 6:12 burned into my eyes like a laser when I turned on my side to face the clock. As I sat up, taking in the empty side of the bed, I realized it had all been a dream. Evan wasn’t there, and there wasn’t any baby. My stomach contracted, remembering the horrific fight that had ensued the night prior and the awful things that were said. As I flung my legs over the bed, I braced my feet onto the cold hardwood floor at another much more intense knock, wondering who could be wanting to reach me at such an ungodly hour in the morning with such urgency. Maybe it was Evan, coming back so we could talk civilly, minus the alcohol that consumed him the night prior. He had thrown his house key at me in his fit of rage, so it was totally plausible that he’d be knocking.

  Once I got closer, I could make out two figures through the stained-glass window and a silver badge gleaming through the panel of the door like a spotlight. My knees buckled, and I grabbed the wall in support as I tried desperately to find the courage to turn the knob and face what awaited me on the other side. The dream I had just awoken from had been just that—a dream. One that would never become reality, and one that would be the last time I would ever see my husband.

  CHAPTER 1

  A TWO-HOUR delay. Another omen as to why I should’ve cancelled this trip that had been planned over a year ago, before everything officially fell apart. Even though Evan and I both knew it had fallen apart long before then. “Go,” my friend Aimee told me, “it will give you time to clear your head. Time to think. Time to relax. Time to mourn properly.” But as I sat at the airport bar sipping on my third glass of pinot grigio, while being held hostage to the pitfalls of modern-day travel, the only thing I could feel was a massive headache coming on. What was I doing here by myself? This trip wasn’t supposed to be a solo one. It was supposed to be a double. Evan and I, getting in the Christmas spirit while visiting the Christmas markets in Germany, Austria, and France. Time to unwind, forget about deadlines, early morning meetings and late nights at the office. We had talked about doing this trip for years. Oddly, planning it at the worst possible point in our marriage.

  “That couple there must have just gotten in an argument. You see how he’s trying to talk to her, and she won’t even look at him?” Evan’s voice was so clear, as if he were sitting on the barstool next to me, people watching while we both surmised different stories for the hurried travelers who’d pass us by.

  I stretched my arm, reaching for the empty seat beside me, resting the palm of my hand there for a moment, fighting back the surge of tears begging to surface. What I wouldn’t give to have him sitting next to me instead of just the memories he left behind. I lifted my glass to my lips, inhaling the honeyed notes of the wine before taking a long, slow sip. Closing my eyes, my mind drifted back to one of the worst days of my life.

  A faint ray of light beamed down through the gray skies looming overhead on that crisp late September day. Was it Evan saying goodbye? Letting me know I was going to be okay? Letting me know he was sorry for all the ups and downs in our marriage, and at the same time forgiving me for not being that same woman he fell in love with all those years ago? I wanted to hold on to that small thread of hope...I needed to.

  I dug my heels into the softened earth, hoping to anchor my wobbly legs, all while in a Xanax-induced haze, as I watched them lower the man I had promised forever to into the ground. I was far from perfect. I could admit that now—now that Evan wasn’t around to place the blame on me for all my mistakes and letdowns in life. I had loved him with everything I had. Yet, I knew that over the years, there was a point in time when maybe I’d stopped being in love with him. We met in college, both young, vivacious, and naïve—so very naïve. Evan was an architect, and I was a marketing executive at a prominent Manhattan advertising agency. Evan was the first guy who had ever told me he loved me. The first guy I had ever loved. The first guy who had made me feel special, and the first guy I had ever trusted. We were happy for a long time—until we weren’t. Maybe we should’ve ended it sooner. Perhaps if we had, then he’d still be there right now, alive and full of life, shielding his light blue eyes from that small glimmer of sunlight poking through the gray sky overhead.

  I jumped when Evan’s brother grabbed my elbow in support. I foolishly wondered if he blamed me for this, the way I was blaming myself. Did Evan’s parents hate me? My guilt was eating me up inside, causing my thoughts to run rampant along with it. Evan’s mother had always been kind to me, treat
ing me like a daughter, so my feelings weren’t justified in any way. It was my own conscience playing tricks on me.

  I shifted my attention from the box containing the man I was supposed to grow old with to Carol and Tony O’Rourke, my in-laws. Both of them resembling their son, each in different ways. His charming smile that could light up the room was the same as his father’s, while his beautiful blue eyes mirrored his mother’s. He seemed to inherit a combination of the best traits of the two of them. His father’s calm demeanor, always handling the pressure when his mother would crumble, and his mother’s caring ways. His father placed his hand on his wife’s shoulder, holding her up in support, so much like Evan would’ve done for me if he were here in similar circumstances. Strange how just a few weeks ago, I had been planning a future without him, and now, here I was wondering how I’d ever survive even a day in a world where he no longer existed. A cold wind whipped across my tearstained face, stinging my skin as those painful memories slammed into my mind like an out-of-control locomotive, coursing through my veins and creating a deep gaping hole within my heart.

  “Jillian, I don’t know what you want anymore. I love you, but I can’t keep going round and round with you like this. I don’t need a child to be happy, I just need you. But I’m starting to sense that maybe that’s not the only reason you’re unhappy.”

  “Evan, do you know how inadequate I feel for not being able to give you what I know you really want, what you truly deserve? We talked about having kids for years, planning it down to the minute, and now here we are...two years after our deadline, more than a dozen negative pregnancy tests later and a less than favorable diagnosis from a fertility specialty that there will ever be a positive one.”

  “It doesn’t matter. We can adopt, if that’s what you want.”

  “But it won’t be ours...it won’t be yours, and I’m afraid years from now you’ll resent me because of it.”

  “Damn it, Jillian, I don’t have time for this right now. I’m due in a meeting in ten minutes.”

  That was the start of it all—why couldn’t I see it then? Never enough time. Never enough communication. Never enough faith in each other. It had become exhausting putting on a front for other people and trying to get back to the place we once were. Both of us knew we couldn’t go back in time, so the best we could do was settle on a new normal between each other.

  Our decision to separate was mutual. I had told myself it would give us time to figure out where we were headed, where we wanted to go. But in the back of my mind, I knew whatever the final destination was, we more than likely weren’t headed there together. Only now was I able to realize how unfair it was of me to have that preset notion in my head while giving Evan a false sense that maybe we were fixable. But in nine years of marriage, I had realized something else—we had both grown up, and with that, we had grown apart.

  Evan found an apartment. While I remained in our home, in a quiet suburb, about a forty-five-minute bus ride into the chaos of Manhattan. It was a house we had turned into a home, but years of painting, knocking down walls, replacing floors and kitchen cabinets couldn’t withstand the storm within our marriage. In a way I felt it should’ve been me who had left and found a new place to live, since I believed I had been the rift in the marriage, but Evan insisted it be him. With that insistence, I wondered if he was as unhappy as I was, and just unable to say it to spare my feelings. My feelings. He was always so afraid of hurting me by saying the wrong thing, so eventually he just shut down, and didn’t say much of anything at all.

  Why didn’t I ever take his feelings into consideration? Especially on that last night. But how was I to know that would be the last time I ever spoke to him, the last time I ever hugged him, only to have him push me away? It was the last time I’d ever see that hurt in his eyes that led him out the door into the pouring rain after drinking more than he should have. Why didn’t I demand that he stay? Why did I break the news to him when he was in that condition, knowing how he’d react? One little change could have made that night and this day so different. One little change and Evan would still be alive. No one knew the words that passed between us before he went storming out the door in a fit of rage. No one but him and I. Our last secret together. A secret that would haunt me for the rest of my life.

  “Can I get you another, ma’am?” The bartender’s raspy voice broke me from my daydream, causing me to jump.

  “Oh, no, thank you.” I shook my head and held my hand up in a halting motion.

  “Gotta love delays,” came from the man who had taken a seat beside me. I was so wrapped up in my thoughts, I hadn’t even seen him sit down. “I’ll take a scotch on the rocks when you get a chance,” he requested from the bartender, then turned his attention back to me.

  “Yeah, tell me about it,” I replied. “As if I wasn’t anxious enough about the eight-plus-hour flight ahead of me.”

  “Where ya headed?” the man asked.

  “Munich.”

  “Ah, kindred spirts. So am I.” He lifted his glass of scotch the bartender had just placed in front of him in a toast. Following suit, I picked up my wineglass and clinked it together with his.

  “I’m Jillian, by the way.”

  “DeAndre,” he replied with a smile. The kind of smile that made you feel instantly basked in comfort. He seemed to be around my age and handsome in a very familiar way, reminding me of someone in both looks and mannerisms, but who, I just couldn’t pinpoint it at that exact moment.

  “Are you traveling on business?” I asked.

  “Nope, headed to the Christmas markets.”

  My eyes widened, and I hurriedly swallowed the sip of wine I had just taken. “Oh wow, me too!” A rush of excitement overcame me. Suddenly I wasn’t feeling so alone. I quickly chased away my momentary bout of enthusiasm. What were the chances that he’d be on the same tour as me? That was even if he was doing a tour at all. Even if he was, he probably was just waiting on his travel mate to get here and join him. It had never bothered me to be around other couples until a few months ago when I was officially no longer a couple that I became keenly aware and felt like the odd man out. DeAndre reached into his backpack and pulled out his travel documents. They looked strangely familiar, and as I got a closer look, I realized it was because it was the same tour company as mine. “This is so cool! We’re doing the same tour,” I remarked as I scanned the dates and hotels.

  DeAndre smiled, revealing a deep dimple in his left cheek. “So, what are you trying to escape from?”

  I creased my eyebrows, wondering how he had picked up on that. “I’m not—” I started.

  “No worries.” He laughed. “You don’t have to tell me. I just thought...you’re sitting in an airport bar on Thanksgiving, getting ready to go on vacation by yourself…” He shrugged, took one last sip from his glass, then held it up, summoning the bartender for another. Did I really look that pathetic that he could see right through me?

  “I’m not escaping anything. I guess you could say maybe…I’m reflecting.”

  “Got ya.” He winked.

  “Well, what about you? You’re here, on Thanksgiving...by yourself…I presume.”

  “You presumed right.”

  “So, I guess I should be asking you the same question.” I raised an eyebrow.

  “Let’s just say, I’m reflecting too.” He smirked, avoiding my question the same way I had avoided his. “Hey, bartender, can you get my friend here another glass of wine?”

  I started to protest, and he waved his hand in a dismissing motion. I couldn’t help but smile. I remembered when I was a child, my grandmother would say certain people came into our life for a reason. I wasn’t sure if that was true or not, but at that moment, I was so happy DeAndre decided to take that empty seat on the barstool next to me—the same one Evan would’ve been sitting on if he were here. I wasn’t sure the reason for DeAndre coming into my life or if there even was one, but for the moment he was temporarily filling a void Evan had left behind.

/>   CHAPTER 2

  EXHAUSTION DIDN’T EVEN begin to describe how I felt when the plane landed. I seemed to remember dozing off somewhere over England. I knew this because I was constantly tracking our location on the monitor on the back of the seat in front of me in between binge watching the latest season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel on my phone. It was then that it finally occurred to me who DeAndre reminded me of—Shy Baldwin, Midge Maisel’s ticket to making it big or at least I hoped he was. I hadn’t finished up the season yet, so I wasn’t quite sure how her quest would end. DeAndre and I parted ways when we got on the plane. My seat was near the back and his was closer to the front.

  I stood up and stretched my legs, waiting for my chance to grab my bag from the overhead compartment. My seat partner who had been sitting next to me, an older man who had no problem sleeping the entire way, stood up as well with a bright smile on his face. I envied him; he was ready to go as I stood there ready to pass out. I forced a smile and he said something to me in German. I nodded, having no idea what he had said, and strained my mouth once again, forming something that I was hoping resembled a smile. Even the muscles in my face were tired. I looked down at my watch. It was still set for New York time, which was 2:37 a.m., while my phone in my hand displayed a different time, the time I’d be going by for the next ten days, 8:37 a.m. I cringed with that thought, a whole day ahead of me and zero sleep. I could only hope my hotel room would be ready when I got there so I could get a few hours in.

  When I had finally found an out, I took it, reaching overhead, grabbing my backpack, and never looking back. My eyes were heavy, my body moving at a snail’s pace, and my brain not sure if it needed caffeine or a good long nap. I trekked through the airport like a zombie, following behind some of the other passengers I recognized from my flight, hoping they’d lead me to the baggage claim area I needed to be at. I stopped at the carousel they had led me to and stood there in a daze, glad I had a pink polka-dot suitcase that was easily recognizable.

  “Ah, that anxiety every traveler feels as they watch the suitcases go round and round and begin to think that their suitcase won’t be coming out and instead is headed for another destination.” A familiar voice came up from behind me.