“You’re a brave man, James.”

Jim smiled brilliantly up at the pint-sized government agent standing in front of him.  “How’s that, Beatrix?”

“Coming stag to a baby shower slash bridal shower.”  She teasingly shoved his feet off the ottoman where they were propped up, taking a moment to pinch him for calling her by her hated given name before taking a seat.

Jim laughed under his breath.  “Renee had to work this weekend.”

“Still…”

“Hey, I walked into this party carrying the gifts she sent for you and Honey.  Dainty little gift bags with bows and ribbons and wispy tissue paper in all manner of girly pastel colors.”  He shuddered.  “Now that’s what I call brave.”

Trixie giggled and gave him a mock salute.  Leaning forward, she put her hands on his knees and looked directly into his eyes.  “You heard I was going to China?”

“Yeah, Dan told me.  Moving up fast in the world of protective service, aren’t you?”

Her face pinked up in a mix of modest embarrassment and contained excitement.  “It’s just advance work.  I’m not protecting anybody.”  Holding his gaze steadily, she added, “There’s no danger involved.”

Jim hoped his eyes weren’t betraying him.  He allowed a small quaver to drift into his voice as he replied, “Your plane could crash in the middle of the ocean.”  He could tell she was struggling to keep her scornful annoyance in check for his benefit.  He must have actually convinced her he was serious.  He was struggling himself—to contain laughter, not annoyance—so he added, “Or you might get kidnapped by ninjas, or attacked by a pack of rabid Shih-Tzus.”

Trixie, realizing she had been had, sniffed indignantly.  “I think you’re the little shit-zu.  Will you ever stop teasing me?”

“Never,” he affirmed, reaching out to tug affectionately on one of her curls.  “Now, tell me about this advance work.”  The way her eyes lit up made his heart swell with pride.  She had come a long way from the detective wannabe who sniffed out dangerous mysteries every time he had his back turned.  His Schoolgirl Shamus was a bona fide government agent now—trained, qualified, and from all accounts quite gifted.

Except that she wasn’t his Schoolgirl Shamus anymore.

“Technically, it’s a pre-advance assignment,” she said, but the flush in her cheeks told him she was just as excited as if she had been appointed President Bartlet’s personal bodyguard.

“Pre-advance?” he remarked with a chuckle.  “That sounds redundant.  What’s the difference between advance and pre-advance?”

“Well, the pre-advance team checks out the hotel where the protectee will be staying and interviews the staff there, as well as at any other locations he or she plans to be for events or personal travel.  We’ll make sure all travel routes are laid out and studied, and any places where there will be crowds can be properly secured.

“The advance team goes in just a few days before the visit.  They block off the floor of the hotel, secure exits and entrances, bring out the bomb-sniffing dogs, block off any dangerous sight lines, rehearse the protectee’s movements, things like that.”

“Sounds like a lot of grunt work.”

“Well, it is,” Trixie replied with a careless shrug, “but I’ve gotta start somewhere.”

Grinning, Jim countered, “That’s not what you said when you were filing Molinson’s paperwork that one summer.”

Trixie grinned back.  “That’s just because I knew I didn’t really want to be a cop.  I don’t mind grunt work if it’s working me toward something.  And I’ll be in Beijing.  Beijing!  That’s just too cool for words.”

“Yeah, Dan mentioned he was pretty green about the whole thing.”

“Well, I’ll bring him back something special from China,” Trixie said with a sly grin.

“Great.  So, Dan’s going to get a shirt that says, ‘My fiancée went to Beijing and all I got was this lousy t-shirt’, right?  How will you have time for any shopping, except maybe in the hotel gift shop?”

“I’ll find time.  I already have something in mind, anyway.”

Jim made a face.  “Something I don’t want to know about?”

Trixie smacked him lightly on the leg.  “Nothing dirty.  But I could bring you back something, if you want.”

“For me?” Jim asked incredulously.

Her blue eyes twinkled mischievously.  “Yeah, for you to give to Renee.”

“I don’t think Renee’s the kind of girl who would appreciate a gift like that.”

Trixie leaned forward and patted him on the cheek.  “You two are perfect for each other.”

“Are you saying I’m a prude?” Jim asked in mild offense.

“Respectable,” Trixie corrected.  “Conservative.”

“Prudish.”

Trixie shrugged.  “Your word, not mine.”

Jim leaned toward her as if he had a big secret and, predictably, Trixie leaned forward eagerly, eyes bright.  Lowering his voice in a conspiratorial manner, he asked, “Can you imagine how badly you would’ve corrupted me if we had stayed together?”

Trixie jerked back and stuck her tongue out at him, but then she grinned.  Shifting gears, she asked, “Are you staying all weekend?”

“I’ll probably head out tomorrow evening.  I’ve got a lunch meeting tomorrow with my dad and some of the school’s board members, including your dad, as a matter of fact.”

Trixie caught her lower lip between her teeth briefly before asking, “Do you think you could meet me at the clubhouse after your meeting?”

Jim nodded, but before he could question her further, Brian was there.

“So, what’re our esteemed co-presidents up to?  Planning another Bob-White fundraiser?”

Jim looked up, a tiny flicker of anxiety quickly replaced by a relaxed grin to assure Brian that all was well.  “Trix was just telling me about her trip to Beijing.”

I’ll have plenty of time later to obsess over what she wants to talk about, he thought with an inward sigh, and directed his attention to the Belden banter in front of him, eager to join in on the teasing.

***

August 7, 1999

“Do you think you could meet me at the clubhouse after your meeting?”

Jim tried not to hurry as he made his way down the Manor House driveway toward the footpath that would take him to the Bob-White clubhouse.  His mind had been feverishly at work since Trixie’s request at the party the day before, trying to figure out why she wanted to see him alone.

It was tough for his honorable side to admit that there was a tiny part of him that still held on to the ridiculous fantasy that Trixie would realize she loved him, not Dan.  That she was waiting for him now, ready to confess her love for him.  They could run away together, find happiness, and forget what their friends and family would think.

He slowed his steps and sighed.  Stupid, Jim!  Just plain stupid!  Not only would he never dream of hurting his friends like that, but it was obvious how much Trixie and Dan loved each other.  He didn’t begrudge them their love.  He only regretted that he had ever let her go in the first place.  Would they be happy now if he hadn’t?  Would they be planning their own wedding?  Or would differences in their career choices and personalities eventually have caused them to break it off anyway?  He knew he’d always wonder.

He ducked into the woods, cool and dark, sheltered from the hot afternoon sun by a thick canopy of leaves overhead.  As he made his way up the path to the clubhouse, he tried to picture his own wedding.  For years, it had been Trixie who had been standing by his side in that daydream.  When she and Dan had announced their engagement, the picture in his head had become shadowy and blurred.  He didn’t know who that was standing by his side now.  It wasn’t Renee, and that thought made him wonder again what the future held for the two of them.

Trixie was already there when he opened the door to the snug little gatehouse.  She was sitting on the loveseat that Tom and Celia had donated several years ago, when they finally moved from their cozy, but relatively small, trailer to the house they had built on the land Jim’s dad had sold them for an extremely reasonable price.  While the Robin was indeed luxurious, it wasn’t nearly large enough to hold a growing family.  In fact, it hadn’t even been large enough for a full-sized sofa, though the young newlyweds had never minded cuddling on the loveseat.

Neither did any of the Bob-Whites, Jim remembered with a grin.

Trixie was sitting there now, her legs curled up underneath her.  She was chewing her bottom lip fretfully and Jim’s overprotective alarm went off before he could stop it.  “What’s wrong, Trix?”

She looked up and gave him a small smile.  “Nothing, silly.  Thanks for meeting me.”  But she went back to gnawing on her lip and Jim knew that even if nothing was truly “wrong”, she was anxious about something.

“Keep doing that, you’ll end up with a fat lip,” he warned her teasingly.

She smiled brightly up at him and, as always, his heart did a back flip.  “Like that time I had to have three fillings on the same day,” she recalled with an exaggerated shudder.

“Yeah,” he remembered with a chuckle.  “You couldn’t stop chewing on your lip after the dentist gave you the shot of Novocain.  The next day, you looked like somebody had beaten you up.”

“It just felt so weird,” she replied, fingering her lower lip in remembrance.

“As I recall, you couldn’t stop kissing me either.  I take it that felt weird too?”

“Very,” Trixie answered with a giggle.  “But in a good way.”

Their easy conversation ended with that memory and for a full minute, he could only stare silently at her, shifting restlessly from foot to foot.  When he couldn’t stand the oppressive quiet anymore, he said, “This is crazy.  What could possibly be as bad as all that?”  He winked and crossed the small room to flop down onto the sofa next to her.  “I know you don’t have cold feet, so spill it, Trix.  What’s up?”

“Cold feet?” Trixie exclaimed, then giggled nervously.  “Oh, the wedding.  No, of course I don’t have cold feet.  I think that happens like the night before the wedding, anyway.”

“You and Dan can’t wait to be married,” Jim said assuredly.  “Neither of you will get cold feet.”

She didn’t say anything, simply shaking her head so adamantly that her sandy blond curls bounced cheerfully.  But he noticed with curiosity that her cheeks pinked up as if she had a secret.

Trixie leaned her head on the back of the loveseat, then sat up straight again.  She dropped her bare feet down to the floor, restlessly shuffling her discarded sandals with her toes.  “This is silly,” she finally agreed.  “We’ve been friends forever.  I don’t know what I’m so nervous about.”

“You can tell me anything, Trix,” Jim encouraged her.  “You know that.”

He watched her bite her lip once again, nodding with determination before she dug into the pocket of her cutoff shorts.  She pulled out a small, leather-bound box and thrust it toward him.  He knew what was in it without opening it.

“I thought you should have this back,” she whispered.  “It’s not right for me to have it anymore.”

Jim put his hand over hers and gently pushed back.  “Trixie, that ring was a gift from a friend to a friend.  I certainly wasn’t asking you to marry me when you were thirteen years old.”

Stubborn as he was, Trixie pushed back against him.  “It belongs to your family and it should stay in your family,” she insisted.  “Someday, you’ll want to give it to the woman you’re going to marry.”

Reluctantly, Jim allowed Trixie to release the box into his hand.  With a flick of his thumbnail, he popped the lid open and they looked at the glittering antique engagement ring that had once belonged to his Great-Aunt Nell.  A wistful look glazed his eyes.  “Do you remember when you found it?”

“I’ll never forget it,” Trixie affirmed.

“Neither will I.”

Her laugh made his heart flip once again.  “You weren’t even there!”

“No, but I remember you and Honey running into the family room at Crabapple Farm.  You were both yelling at the top of your lungs.  I thought maybe you’d found some pirate’s treasure or something.”

“I was just a kid,” Trixie said with a sniff.  “It was the biggest diamond I’d ever seen in my life.  I’m pretty sure I estimated its value around fifty gazillion dollars.”

Jim pulled the ring out of the box and turned it so he could see the inside of the band where his great-aunt’s initials were engraved.  “It’s worth way more than that,” he murmured.

With a soft sigh, Trixie leaned her head on Jim’s shoulder.  “That’s why you should have it back.  You have so little in the way of family heirlooms or keepsakes as it is.  It’s been in Dad’s safe deposit box all these years.  I haven’t seen it in ages.  It was just a souvenir to me, but it’s your history, your heritage.

“Besides, I got two of the best friends a girl could ever ask for that summer.  You and Honey are all the souvenirs I need.”

Jim turned and placed a kiss on the top of her curly head.  “And friends like you are worth way more than fifty gazillion dollars.”

And in his heart, he knew it was true.  Even if he never truly got over losing her as his special girl, he hadn’t really lost her heart, or her love.

He knew he never would.

***

August 13, 1999

The Friday night gathering of 20-something males was rather … rowdy.  It was just what you might expect when most of the men are single, alcohol is involved, and someone (not to point any fingers, but … Tad Webster) hires a stripper.

In other words, it was a bachelor party.

To be fair, the young men weren’t unruly frat boys, but were a relatively mature group with few exceptions (not to point any fingers, but … Tad Webster), and several were responsible enough to know that circumstances prohibited their imbibing too much.  Dr. Simon Drake was scheduled for surgery the next morning.  A couple of Dan’s friends from work were going to be on duty the next day.  They left the party early, as did Bill Regan, who drank nothing, apologized to his nephew for being so anti-social, and returned alone to Sleepyside.  Dan himself, who knew all too well the effects of excessive drinking, had only a couple of beers.

On the other hand, several guests at his bachelor party (yes, Tad Webster, but also Mart, Ben, Aidan, and surprisingly enough, Brian and Jim) took it upon themselves to drink enough to cover the abstainers.

Now, not long after midnight, Tad, Ben, and Aidan were serenading the stripper, “a lovely dish with a mighty impressive rack”, as Tad so succinctly put it.  She seemed to be mildly amused by the off-key trio, but surely she was hoping for a better tip than that, possibly from the handsome blond doctor who was smiling at her from across the room.  Mart had long ago fallen asleep on the living room floor, where Penny lavished sloppy wet kisses on him.  Brian was reeling off every bone in the body in a semi-coherent attempt to prove that he wasn’t drunk.  Dan was listening politely, but since he didn’t know every bone in the human body, he had no idea how accurate Dr. Belden’s recitation was.

And Jim was leaning against the kitchen counter, lining up the empty beer bottles with meticulous care and wishing he had hitched a ride back to the Manor House with Regan.  Even in his intoxicated state, he was clear-headed enough to realize why he didn’t drink to excess, and, unlike Dan, it had nothing to do with his stepfather.  Jonesy was mean enough without any alcohol in the picture.  No, Jim didn’t drink because when he consumed too much he became a reticent, uncommunicative, mopey drunk.  Not the life of any party.  Certainly not this one.

 A brotherly pat on his shoulder caused him to jostle the end bottle out of place.  With a half-scowl, half-pout, he carefully repositioned it—adjusting it perhaps a millimeter—then turned his attention to the two new empties Dan had put on the counter next to him.

“I’m cutting the good doctor off,” Dan said, “before Honey dispenses with her bed rest and comes over here and kicks my ass.”  After scrutinizing his friend carefully, he asked, “What about you?  Do I need to cut you off before she gives me a double ass-kicking for allowing her responsible husband and her honorable brother to get hammered?”

Jim shook his head, intent on his current task.  “Haven’t had a drink in about an hour,” he murmured.

“All right,” Dan answered.  “But you’re still crashing here tonight, okay?”

“Good ‘nuff,” Jim answered.

“So, what’s on your mind that you’re so uncharacteristically downing the beers, my friend?”

Jim shrugged.  He crossed his arms on the counter in front of him and laid his chin on them, staring blankly at his platoon of beer bottle soldiers.  “Stuff.”

Dan grinned.  “Did you know that when you’re drunk you sound like a sullen teenager?”

“And I ‘spec you wanna be my dad?”

“If you need me to be.  I’d rather just be your friend.”  Dan pulled up the spare stool from the other side of the counter and sat down next to him.  “What’s going on?”

Jim pondered the question a moment.  Taking a breath, he confessed, “I’ve been seeing a therapist.”

If Dan was surprised, he didn’t show it.  “How long?”

“’Bout a year.”

“A year?  You never told me.”  He didn’t seem hurt, just curious.

“Don’t take it personally.  I never told anybody, except my dad.”  Talking about his past had never been easy for him, not with his parents, not with his sister, not with his friends.  But if anybody could understand, maybe it would be Dan, whose troubled family history wasn’t terribly dissimilar from his own.  “We’ve been talking about my past and how it’s still impacting my present.  Deep stuff.”  He tried to grin, but failed miserably.

“Is it helping?”

Jim shrugged again.  “Guess so.  Sort of.”

“Well, that sounds like a definite maybe,” Dan teased.  Sobering, he asked, “Did he prescribe any medication?”

“No.  He wants to, but I’ve been resisting.”  With a little more success, he gave his friend a half-hearted grin and added, “Can you imagine me on anti-depressants and alcohol?  Not a pretty picture.”

Dan didn’t joke back.  “I can understand if you’re reluctant to take meds, but they can help, you know.”

“I know, but I don’t want to be chemically induced into happiness.  I just want … I just want to be happy.”

“Why do you think you aren’t?”

Jim pulled a bottle from the ranks and began peeling off the label.  “Stupid, huh?  I mean, my parents died a long time ago.  I should be over it by now.”

Dan’s response was sympathetic.  “You don’t get over things like that.  You just learn to live with it.”

“Yeah, well I haven’t done that very well, either, and it’s wrecking my life.”

“You’ve got a good life, Jim,” Dan insisted gently.

“Yeah, I know.  I’ve got great parents, even if they aren’t my birth parents.  I’ve got a wonderful sister who’s going to make me an uncle in a few months.  The school’s going great.  I’ve got terrific friends who are all happy and successful.”

“You’ve got a wonderful girlfriend,” Dan put in.

Jim nodded, but didn’t say anything.

“So, what’s eating you?”

After a long pause, during which Tad, Ben and Aidan began their unasked for encore for the stripper, Jim mumbled, “I don’t like to talk about my past.”

“I don’t blame you.  I don’t like to talk about mine either.”

In the stillness that followed, Jim sensed his friend had more to say.  He put down the beer bottle and the remains of the label he had managed to peel off and reluctantly turned to face Dan.

“But when I need to talk about it, I do,” Dan went on when he had Jim’s attention.  “When I need Trixie, or Mart or Tad, or Uncle Bill to understand why I’m behaving the way I am, or why I’m feeling down, it helps to talk it out.”

“You don’t think they pity you?  Or look at you differently because they know your ugly secrets?”

“No,” Dan stated resolutely.  “I’m not saying there might not be people who would do that, but you gotta know your family and your closest friends would never treat you that way, Jim.  I never would.”

“Yeah, but you know what I’m going through.”

“Exactly.  I should probably pity you more than anyone else would, because I know exactly what you’re going through, and I know it’s not fun.

“Listen, I know that first step is the hardest, and maybe the Bob-Whites are too tight for you to talk to just one of us.  We don’t like to keep secrets from each other ... at least not bad ones.”

Jim noted that Dan appeared to be struggling to hold back a grin.  “What does that mean?”

“Nothing,” Dan said, hastily waving it off and continuing, “But if you can’t talk to one of us, maybe you should talk to your parents, or Renee.”

Jim winced.  Reluctantly, he said, “I don’t think Renee and I are ... in that kind of place.”

Dan nodded understandingly.  Jim knew he really did understand what he meant, because it had only been a few years ago that he was in the same position—struggling to find someone who filled the empty places in his heart.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

“For what?” Dan asked in bewilderment.

Jim thought for a moment, then shrugged sheepishly.  “I have no idea.”

Dan chuckled.  “Drunk people are so much fun.”  He stood and began moving toward the living room.  “Crash on the couch tonight.  If you change your mind and want to talk to me, you know where to find me.”

That was one certainty in Jim’s life.  He always knew where he could find a friend.

***

August 27, 1999

The mid-afternoon summer squall had broken the heat and the evening was blessedly cool, extending a promise of glorious weather for Trixie and Dan’s wedding day.

Following the rehearsal dinner at the country club, the Bob-Whites and their significant others had returned to Crabapple Farm for dessert—Moms’ famous apple pie with cinnamon ice cream on top.  The inevitable game of Progressive Rum resulted in another win for Brian and as they were cleaning up the table, Jim noted that Renee had disappeared from the family room, where she and Sally had been chatting.  He said his goodnights and went outside to look for her, finding her on the porch swing enjoying the quiet night.

“Hey,” he murmured, flashing her a gentle smile as she turned in response to his voice.  “You ready to call it a night?”

She nodded, but made no move to get up, turning her gaze back to the ancient crabapple orchard, where fireflies continued to light up the night with their blinking conversations.

The screen door squeaked open behind them and Brian and Honey came out onto the porch.  “You two want to ride back with us?” Brian asked, his arm supportively around his wife.  Honey had been given the okay by her doctor to attend the wedding, as long as she stayed off her feet as much as possible, and didn’t try to do too much.  Brian was making sure she wasn’t, driving her back and forth the short distance between the Manor House and the farm and going so far as to stash a wheelchair, borrowed from the hospital, in the trunk of his car for the trips down the hill to the lake.  Honey protested mildly, but let Brian fuss over her as much as he needed to.

Jim shook his head.  “I think we’ll walk back, thanks.”

Honey and Brian said their goodnights and in short order, Brian had her settled in the car and was heading down the driveway to Glen Road.

“Want to take the long way back to the house?” Jim asked Renee.

She turned back to him and stared for a long moment without answering.  He thought her mocha eyes looked pained and worried, but it was hard to tell because her expression was normally rather sober.  Part of the reason he was always so comfortable around her was that she used words sparingly, deliberately, without idle chitchat.  And yet he had always loved Trixie’s chatter.  He wondered what the difference was.

Finally, still without speaking, she stood and joined him near the top of the steps.  He held out his hand to her and she took it, not unwillingly, and they descended to the grassy backyard, where Jim led the way up toward Ten Acres.

While they normally walked in companionable silence, tonight an air of tension hung between them.  Part of Jim wanted to draw it out of her, but another part of him had an ominous feeling what she would say and he wasn’t sure if he was prepared to hear it.  So they continued on in silence, the chirping of crickets and the occasional hoot of an owl the only noises they heard.

When they got out of range of the well-lit farmhouse, Jim slipped a flashlight out of his pocket and clicked it on, walking slightly ahead of Renee to guide her.  When they reached the remains of the old mansion he had lived in when he first came to Sleepyside, he swept the light over the area and pointed out a few items of interest to Renee.

“That’s where the house used to be.  It burned down not long after I first came here.  Dad had most of the area cleaned out, but we left the fireplace and the foundation.  I guess I thought I might rebuild someday.  That was before I started the school, of course.  The barn still stands over there,” he gestured with the flashlight and chuckled.  “Barely.  I mean, I guess there’s no real danger of a brisk nor’easter blowing it down, but it sure looks rickety, doesn’t it?  We had a few Halloween parties there over the years because it looked so spooky.”

For the first time since they left the Belden home, Renee spoke.  “Why are we doing this?”

Jim was an intelligent man.  His head knew what she was getting at.  But his heart was another matter entirely.  Unwillingly to go down that path, he simply replied, “I thought you might like to see my family’s old place.  I’m sure I’ve talked about it enough.”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

Jim released her hand and walked off a few steps, running his hand through his hair anxiously.  “I’m sorry I’ve been so—it’s just been rough lately.  I’ve been busy with preparations for the new school year.  Two of my best friends are getting married.  Honey’s sick and I’ve been worrying about her.  I’m distracted.  I’m sorry I’ve been so distant this past month.”

They both knew he was skirting the real issue.

“It’s been longer than that, Jim.”

She didn’t have any harshness in her voice.  She was resigned.  She was accepting.  She knew he’d carry enough remorse and pain for the both of them.  That knowledge alone was enough to get his guilt trip underway.

“I told you when we started dating that I had a lot of demons,” he began.

“And I told you we could fight them together, but you haven’t let me in,” she said simply.  When he didn’t reply, she continued, “I know I’m not the only one you’re shutting out, but it’s not just that.”

She waited until he looked her way before saying, “Do you know that in the year we’ve been dating, you’ve never once told me you loved me?”

Jim swallowed hard.  He knew it was true, and yet he still felt the need to mentally replay their time together in his head, to find evidence to disprove her statement—though he knew he wouldn’t find it.  “Renee, I care about you very much.”

She smiled faintly at him.  “I know you do.  You’re a wonderful man, Jim.  And I wish that you loved me.  I wish … I wish that you would let me love you.  But it isn’t fair to either of us to keep on with this charade simply because we care about each other, or are comfortable with each other.”

Comfortable, he thought.  He had told Dr. Keyworth that Renee made him feel “comfortable”.  And suddenly he flashed back almost ten years to a school gymnasium in Iowa, when he had told Trixie that he liked her because she was “comfortable to be around”.  He had been trying to convince her that the glamorous Dot Murray wasn’t his type, but in his heart he knew he was seeking a “comfort zone”—a place were there wasn’t the turmoil of teenage drama.  He’d had enough turmoil to last a lifetime.  He wanted peace, he wanted stability ... he wanted comfort.

“If we were a couple of college kids just in it for fun, I guess that would be enough,” Renee continued.  “But you’re not that kind of man.  If you were, you probably would’ve declared your love a dozen times over by now, knowing in the end it wouldn’t really matter.”

“Is that where we are?” he muttered.  “The end?”

He watched as she took a small step toward him then hesitated, fighting her instincts.  But in the end, she did come to him.  And in the end, he did take her into his arms as she laid her head on his shoulder and sighed.  In the end, they were together, under the moonlight at Ten Acres, wishing for something that would never be.  Jim’s heart was breaking for something that never was, but he knew it would be the right decision.

In the end.