by Jo Noelle
Chapter 12
Cole Zamora
Walter pushes against the desk to stand. He looks exhausted and a little off balance.
“You all right?” I ask. Jenna has a worried look on her face too. It strikes me that I haven’t noticed Walter aging. For the past fourteen years, he’s always seemed strong and without change. Today, I see it. He’s more than tired.
Walter shuffles to the couch and lies down, but doesn’t answer my question, waving me off and saying, “Since we don’t have guests right now, I thought we’d get a jump on some deep cleaning the next few days. And by we, I mean you and you.” He waggles his finger between me and Jenna. “I’m not feeling real great today. Guess it’s my turn to be sick, so I’ll just sit and watch you work—practice for my retirement.” His finger trembles a bit as he points toward the kitchen. “I have some lists over there on the table.”
I don’t look toward the paper. It’s barely the start of the day, and he seems exhausted.
“What can I do for you?” I pull the throw blanket off the nearby chair and toss it over the back of the couch in case he needs it.
Jenna goes into the kitchen and returns with a water bottle that she sets on the coffee table. We stand together looking at him, not knowing how else to help.
“Don’t you both have work to do? I think that’s what I pay you for.” He slides down and arranges a pillow under his head. “Now git. I don’t need you watching me watching you.”
I snatch the list from the table before Jenna can. She raises her eyebrows, and I answer her unasked question. “The laundry and storage room.” Walter has copies of the deep-cleaning pages that he keeps in a file just for days like this. We do them every year—we just don’t know when. Jenna and I work quickly through the list, splitting up the jobs the same way we do each year.
Jenna pulls out a coin and flips it, saying, “Heads. I get first choice.”
Walter’s head lifts momentarily off the end of the couch. “Nope. You have to work together on the lists—every page—together.”
An hour later, as we return to Walter’s house, Seal trots by with a blue-striped bikini top in his mouth. “Not it,” I say, then look at Jenna, who shakes her head, laughing. My heart flips in my chest.
We go inside Walter’s to find him still lying on the couch. He looks flushed. His arm is draped across his eyes, and he doesn’t move it when we walk in. “Are you okay, Walter?”
“I have a headache. Your next list is on the coffee table.”
This time, Jenna picks it up. “Clean the kayaks. Check oars and life jackets.”
This task is a lot of lifting and scrubbing. “How’s your hand?” I ask.
“Good as new. Ready. Set. Go!” She sprints across the room while I’m still picking up the dropped list. Before she heads out the door, she pulls a chair in front of it. I have to clear the obstacle before I can join the race.
“I won.” She flops onto the bench and strikes a relaxed pose as I get to the boathouse. “What took you so long?”
“Oh, I thought I’d straighten up in the kitchen a little.” Her cheeks are rosy from the sprint, and her smile is full of joy below her sparkling eyes. She takes my breath away. “I’ll get the oars and life jackets separated into piles while you get the hoses, soap, and buckets.”
When everything is ready, I say, “Let’s make this more interesting. In addition to bragging rights for the winner, let’s have a little bet. If I win, you have dinner with me tomorrow night.”
Jenna shakes her head, smiling. “We almost always have dinner together anyway.”
“Not just eat together—go out.”
“Dinner out would be nice, but I won’t throw the contest for it. And if I win, we go bowling in Olympia when the contest is over next week.”
I extend my hand, and we shake on it. Easy to do since we both picked something we know the other person would want.
We set up the sawhorses and stretch the first two kayaks across them. We look at each other. It feels like an Old West showdown with our sponges in arm’s reach. She snatches hers, and I do the same, dunking it into the soapy water, then cleaning the cockpit. When Jenna starts on the decks, instead of just using one cloth, she takes off the blouse she’s wearing over her tank top and uses both hands to scrub the top of the kayak. My jaw drops, but I remember this is a contest. Two can play that game—I pull off my T-shirt, dunking it in the soapy water, then wipe it back and forth to clean the hull. She stares, but only briefly.
I’m obviously paying more attention to Jenna than to my kayak. She flips hers over and begins cleaning the hull. Before I realize how far ahead of me she is, she’s spraying it down with the hose. She stretches her arm through the cockpit and pulls the boat onto her shoulder, carrying it back into the boathouse, and returns with another one.
I need to concentrate. Finally finished with the suds, I spray my boat with the hose, completely innocent when a majority of the water blasts Jenna’s ponytail. When she turns around, I’m whistling as I spray the decks.
“You did not just …” She picks up her hose, and I’m hit with a cold-water assault. I suck in a breath and nearly drown. I rush her position and throw her over my shoulder, running for Hood Canal. I hold both of her legs tight with her knees against my chest. When I run into the water, we fall together with a splash, scattering the geese swimming near the edge. We sputter as we stand up and splash each other with waves. She’s perfected wind-milling to move the maximum amount of water. The only way to escape the deluge is to hug her close—every soft curve of her.
Rivulets of water run down her cheeks, and her eyes are bright with fire. We’re both out of breath and smiling broadly when her hands slide up my chest and around my neck. If the water was cold before, it feels warm now. Her lips softly brush across mine, and I tighten my arms around her.
She feels right. If I could just have Jenna, I’d gladly let her win every contest or prize for the rest of our lives. And if I win the cottages, I’d hand them over to her too just to have her stay.
I close my eyes and kiss her with the fervency that has waited two years to be with her. Our kiss at the airport was just our lips, and it was great. Now we’re together, and this kiss has emotion and longing and commitment in it. A small moan sighs from her lips, and my heart nearly jumps from my chest.
One hand presses against the small of her back and my other cups her head. I pull the band from her hair and kiss her neck, letting the wet strands fall across my face. Then after kissing along her jaw, I recapture her lips. For these minutes, Jenna lets herself love me. I could do this all day. For a lifetime.
Jenna breaks the kiss, drawing a deep breath and letting it out slowly, then lays her cheek on my chest, and I wrap her tightly against me. Stay with me. Let me love you. I don’t dare say it aloud, afraid to scare her away again, so I kiss her cheek and say, “Readysetgo!” Then I run to the kayaks to finish the boathouse contest.
Two hours after we started, the boathouse and everything inside are clean. As we walk back, I nudge her. “I won.” She shoulders me back, her eyes shining up at me. My breath catches. When she looks at me like that, I’ll do anything she asks.
“No, you were disqualified. There was still a smudge of dirt on that one oar.” She cuts ahead of me on the path back to Walter’s place.
“I think you put that smudge there,” I call to her.
She turns to face me while walking backward, then raises her hand to her chest in mock surprise.
I point to her face. “That, right there, is the look of guilt.” And it’s beautiful.
Again facing the house, she skips up the path. “You’ll never be able to prove it.”
We step through the kitchen door, and Jenna gasps. Walter is lying on the floor, struggling to breathe. His face is red and his lips are grayish-blue. He’s barely conscious. While Jenna calls for an ambulance, I sit beside him. Suddenly, his hand clutches at his shirt and his face contorts with pain. Oh, Walter, I can’t lose yo
u.
Cold prickles crawl up my spine. “You’ll be okay, Walter. We’ll get you to the hospital. Hang in there.” You have to be okay.
I’m frozen in the moment. Though it seems like hours, it’s barely noon when the paramedics take him away. We follow behind in the truck.
It’s a good thing Jenna drives us to the hospital because when the electric doors slide open to the emergency entrance, I can’t remember most of the trip there. We sit in plastic chairs and wait for someone to tell us what’s going on.
It smells like bleach and vomit. Nervous energy pools in my limbs. I wish I could get up and walk or run, but I don’t dare leave in case there’s news. Instead, I just stare at the repeating pattern on the vinyl floor tiles.
Finally, we’re allowed to see Walter when he returns from getting an ECG, and I stand near him, holding the bed rail. Jenna sits beside his bed. He looks pale. The monitor beside him bounces with his pulse and beeps softly, but feels like a pinprick to my ears. The whoosh of air behind me echoes in the air pushed from the cannula taped below his nose. The slack in his face is completely out of character for this gruff man. He was always strong and capable. Now he looks old and tired and helpless.
The doctor enters and looks at his clipboard, then looks at me. “He lists you as his next of kin.”
I can barely nod my head to confirm, and Jenna stands and slides her arm around my back and leans against my shoulder.
“It wasn’t a heart attack. That’s the good news. The bad news is that it’s hypertension, which is another name for high blood pressure. In his case, extremely high. He’s lucky you found him or he wouldn’t have had a chance to recover. He’s still hurting and not stable yet. I’m going to keep him overnight to make sure he progresses, and we’ll start medication to drop his blood pressure. I’ll check on him and determine if he needs another day or if he can go home tomorrow. Will he have support at home?”
My throat is almost choked with sorrow and fear. I can do little more than nod again, and Jenna whispers, “Yes.”
