“I don’t think Selena would have gone with you once you knew the truth. She wanted you to help her pay the rest of her way through school, and once you knew about her and Alan, she would have known it was over. You did what any person would do. The two people you cared about the most betrayed you,” Mrs. Olsen sobbed out. “I loved my daughter, and I wish I could have her back, but she was using you, and I’m sorry for that. I really did think she loved you. For what it’s worth, Alan did try to stop the affair, and he wanted to tell you the truth. It was all in her journal. He did love Selena, apparently.” She swiped tears from her face as she looked up at Jared. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Jared. I’m so sorry. I don’t expect you to forgive me, but I suspected something like this had happened when I read Selena’s journal. I had to seek you out. I needed to know the truth so I could lay everything to rest. I loved Selena more than anything, but I don’t like the things she did.”
“I do forgive you,” Jared said huskily. “Selena was a beautiful woman, and she wasn’t evil, Mrs. Olsen. She just fell in love with somebody else and wanted to finish school. She knew you didn’t have the money. I did. I don’t hate her, and I wish she wasn’t gone. She had some wonderful parts of her that the whole world will miss.”
Mara’s heart squeezed with love for this incredible man beside her. Even after all he’d been through, after all he was finding out about a woman he had loved, he still mourned her death.
Mrs. Olsen sniffled. “That’s very kind of you to say after how I treated you at her funeral, after I blamed you.”
Jared shrugged. “I understood. You were mourning a daughter. I can’t imagine anything more painful than that. I just wanted you to remember the good things about Selena.”
“I try to remember the good things,” she told Jared quietly.
Jared nodded. “You should. I know I will. Selena, Alan, and I had a lot of good memories. We were all young and made our mistakes.”
“But what she did to you—”
“Doesn’t matter anymore,” Jared finished for her. “We were still college age, Mrs. Olsen. Selena was a smart, headstrong girl, and Alan fell for her like a ton of bricks. Selena was still in college, not quite grown up yet. Focus on the good things she did. We all make stupid errors when we’re young.” He put a hand on her shoulder sympathetically.
“You were a good boy, Jared. And it looks like you’ve grown into a fine man, too.” The older woman looked up at him. “Are you happy?” She looked at Mara. “Is this your wife?”
“I am happy now. And this is Mara, the woman who changed my life,” Jared said in a graveled voice.
“I’m sorry about your daughter, Mrs. Olsen,” Mara said gravely, holding her hand out to the woman who had caused Jared so much pain. Although she hated the anguish this woman had put Jared through, she hadn’t known the truth. Now that she did, Mara admired the elder lady’s gumption for seeking Jared out to find out what had really occurred the night her daughter died, and trying to right some of the wrongs. Many parents wouldn’t want to know. Obviously, this woman did, and Mara was grateful to her for finally giving Jared the closure he so desperately needed, at the expense of her own pain. It was almost like the relationship between them had come full circle. Jared had suffered in silence for all these years, blaming himself. Mrs. Olsen had suffered thinking she’d blamed Jared unfairly, and then started blaming herself. Finally, they could both find peace, or so Mara fervently hoped.
Mrs. Olsen took Mara’s outstretched hand, shaking it and then patting it gently. “Make him happy then, Mara.”
“I plan on it,” she answered reassuringly.
Jared stepped forward once Mara had let her hand drop to her side and scooped the older woman into a hug. Mara watched as Mrs. Olsen closed her eyes and hugged him back. Tears sprang to her eyes as she watched Jared actually embrace his tormenter, forgiving so easily because the woman had lost her daughter. Jared’s ability for compassion and empathy humbled her.
Wrapping an arm around the woman’s shoulders, Jared walked her out to her car. Trusting that the woman wouldn’t harm Jared emotionally now, Mara stayed behind to give them a few minutes of privacy. The minute they’d exited through the doorway, the room exploded with questions.
“What the hell was that all about?”
“What happened to Jared?”
“Who the hell was she?”
Evan motioned for all of them to sit, and he calmly answered their questions. Mara smiled at him, knowing he was answering the difficult inquiries so that Jared wouldn’t have to do it. Just like Evan had spilled the stories about Hope, so she didn’t have to go through the pain of doing it herself.
Evan explained the entire incident, not going into any of the details about Jared’s subsequent bender. All he told the other Sinclairs was that he’d visited Jared and he was taking the deaths of his friends hard and blaming himself.
“I wish I had known,” Dante grumbled. “How did we ever get so separated? Hope and Jared both went through hell, and none of the rest of us knew except Evan. Why? I knew Jared was different, that he’d changed. But he wouldn’t talk about it. Maybe if we’d stayed closer, he would have.”
“I knew because I know everything,” Evan answered arrogantly. “Jared wasn’t ready to talk back then. No amount of discussion would have convinced him that what happened wasn’t his fault. He needed time.”