The Sea Glass Cottage

by RaeAnne Thayne

  He shrugged. “Like I said, it’s temporary. Totally removable. I just figured you won’t be able to get around at all if it’s impossible for you to easily get in and out of your own house. This should help.”

  Drat the man. Why did he have to be so... Wonderful?

  It was a question she had been asking herself for months.

  Juliet couldn’t escape the grim realization that her birthday marked yet one more milestone, another year between them. He was forty-five, which meant she was officially eight years older than he was now. A lifetime, it seemed, though she knew his birthday in September would shorten that age gap.

  She managed a smile. “Thank you. I don’t know what to say.”

  “You don’t have to say anything. It was nothing, I promise. I had extra wood from a job I did up the coast. Caitlin and Jake were happy to help. Olivia pitched in, too, but she was busy at the garden center until we were almost done.”

  Dr. Adeno smiled. “What wonderful neighbors you have, Juliet. People told me I could expect this kind of thing in Cape Sanctuary. It’s nice to see the town lives up to the hype.”

  “It’s wonderful but I hope you never find yourself in a position to need help.”

  “I have to say, having your home more accessible does set my mind at ease about releasing you from here, especially since you’re determined not to go to a rehab facility.”

  “I want to go home,” Juliet said. She would much rather recover at Sea Glass Cottage than in a rehab facility with strangers taking care of her.

  She wanted to be home, so desperately. She missed her cats; she missed the view of endless sea; she missed Caitlin running in after school, slamming her backpack onto the kitchen table.

  “I don’t blame you. I think most of my patients who can manage it do better in their own spaces, in their own beds.”

  “So you think she can go home today?” Henry asked.

  “We’ll have to work on arranging physical therapy and possibly home care to come in and help you at first, but if all goes well, then yes. I don’t see any reason Juliet can’t sleep in her own room tonight.”

  She closed her eyes, appalled at the tears that burned there.

  Henry rested a comforting hand on her shoulder and she had to fight the urge to lean into him.

  When she opened her eyes, she saw the doctor taking in the gesture with one slightly raised eyebrow. Juliet could see her leaping to entirely the wrong conclusion.

  She and Henry were not a thing. He was her dear friend. That was all. Even if her pulse did race whenever he was nearby and she always felt a little breathless and off balance these days.

  She had to cut this out. For heaven’s sake, she had been lying in a hospital bed for four days. She was only wearing mascara and lipstick that Caitlin had brought her and her hair was a rumpled mess, though she’d tried to style it as best she could.

  She probably looked every single one of her fifty-three years, but she supposed he needed to see her at her worst.

  Something seemed to have changed between them in the past few months. From a few things he had said and hints he had scattered in conversation, she had begun to wonder if it was possible Henry might want more from her than friendship.

  She thought she might have been imagining things until three weeks earlier, when he had come in after hours at the garden center so she could help fill an order for a job he was doing and he had asked her to dinner that weekend.

  At the time, in the moment, she hadn’t been exactly sure what was going on. Surely he was not asking her on a date. Was he?

  They had been friends for years. She had been best friends with his wife and had grieved with Henry when Lilianne lost her long and difficult battle against cancer three years earlier.

  When he asked her to dinner, she had been caught so off guard that for a horrifying moment, she hadn’t said anything. And then she had managed to turn the whole thing into an outing with Caitlin and Jake, which she knew wasn’t what he meant.

  He hadn’t mentioned going out again. She had to hope time and a little reflection had shown him how ridiculous the idea of them dating was.

  Age was only part of it. She couldn’t tell him the much greater reason why he should look elsewhere, if he was lonely and in need of some female companionship.

  “What else can I do to help you get ready to go home?” he asked now.

  “You’ve done more than enough, Henry. Really. I’m grateful, believe me, but I don’t want you to feel obligated to babysit me.”

  “You need to call Olivia and tell her, don’t you?”

  “Yes. I suppose. I’ll need a ride home from the hospital.”

  “I would offer my pickup but I’m afraid that might be a little tough for you to climb into just a few days after hip replacement surgery.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  “I’m available all day, though. If you want, I can stick around long enough to help you into whatever vehicle you take home.”

  “There are orderlies and staff who could do that.”

  “And friends,” he pointed out with that smile she adored.

  She sighed, not knowing how to refuse. She was so weak where Henry was concerned.

  “Tell you what. It likely will take some time for them to work through your discharge orders. I’ll keep you company until then. If you don’t need my help leaving this place, I’ll at least head to Sea Glass Cottage so I can be there to help you into the house and to your room.”

  She was fully of the opinion it was better to give than receive, but in this case she had to learn to accept help more gracefully. Especially now that she couldn’t avoid taking help from others over the next few months. If he wanted to help her, it seemed churlish and small to refuse.

  “Thank you. I would appreciate that,” she said.

  “While you wait for all your discharge orders to go through, want to watch another episode of Doctor Who?”

  “Sure. I would love that.”

  They had been slowly working their way through the seasons over the past few months, usually watching at her house while Caitlin and Jake did homework or watched a movie in the other room.

  She wondered if he had any idea how much she treasured those quiet moments with him.

  The hospital was set up for streaming services and Henry quickly found the next episode.

  He sat beside her bed and she thought this was the perfect way to spend her birthday, though she had to admit to herself that she spent more time watching Henry out of the corner of her gaze than the show.

  She had missed this quiet time with him. She smiled a little, settling back into her pillows, at peace for what felt like the first time in days. Henry was here and she could finally relax her guard, content with the sweet, comforting feeling that he was watching over her.

  11

  OLIVIA

  She stood in her mother’s hospital room, struck by the sight in front of her. Juliet was asleep, her features free for the moment of the pain that had furrowed her brow and added extra lines around her mouth the evening before when Olivia had last visited her room.

  Right now, her mother looked...comfortable.

  In the visitor chair beside her, Henry Cragun was asleep as well, his head back against the headrest and his hand on the bed, almost—but not quite—touching Juliet’s fingers.

  The tender scene somehow rocked her to the core.

  Her mother and Henry? Was something going on between them?

  Henry had been a neighbor and friend for years, since before Olivia had left for college. She used to babysit Jake when he was little.

  Henry was younger than Juliet, probably in his mid to late forties. He was good-looking, in a rugged, outdoorsy kind of way, with dark wavy hair threaded with a bit of distinguishing gray, and a tan that came from working outside all day.

 
He stirred a little in his sleep and his hand curled, his fingers coming closer to Juliet’s, and Olivia felt as if she were watching something intimately personal.

  Were the two of them involved? She had always assumed theirs was simply a friendship based mostly on Juliet’s granddaughter and Henry’s son being inseparable friends.

  For some strange reason, she had never contemplated the idea of her mom being with anyone else. How stupid of her. She could see that now. Her father had been gone for years. While it sometimes seemed like he had died only yesterday, it had been more than sixteen years.

  Juliet was still a vibrant, healthy woman. Why wouldn’t she want to have a man in her life?

  But Juliet and Henry? Olivia couldn’t quite make the pieces fit together and felt as if her entire worldview had been shaken.

  She hated to wake them. Should she slip out again? As she was trying to decide, Henry opened his eyes. He looked briefly confused, his warm eyes blurry with sleep. Then he looked down at his hand, only a few inches away from Juliet’s, and she watched as a rather adorable blush climbed his cheeks.

  He slid his hand from the bed. “Olivia. Hi.”

  Her mother stirred but didn’t awaken.

  “Hi, Mr. Cragun.”

  He looked pained. “Please. You should call me Henry, don’t you think?”

  I don’t know. Are you angling to become my new stepfather?

  She couldn’t ask that question, of course.

  “How are things going here?”

  With a careful look at a still-sleeping Juliet, he stood, gesturing to the door.

  She walked out of the hospital room into the hallway. After one more careful glance toward the bed, Henry closed the door behind them.

  “I think things are good,” he said in a more normal voice. “The doc was here when I showed up about, oh, an hour ago. She’s talking about sending your mom home and is in the process of writing up the discharge orders.”

  Home. Juliet could return to Sea Glass Cottage.

  Panic flared. She wasn’t at all ready! At least while her mother had been in the hospital these past few days, Olivia could focus on the garden center. Now she would have to split her time between caregiving and trying to figure out what she was doing at Harper Hill, as well as juggling her own clients and the long-distance work she was doing for her day job.

  “Terrific news,” she managed, forcing a smile.

  “Isn’t it?” He looked relieved. “She’ll heal faster once she’s in her own space.”

  Was it difficult for Henry to spend so much time visiting someone in the hospital? His wife’s cancer fight had been long and painful. This must bring up all kinds of memories.

  “Thank you so much for all you’ve done,” she said. Okay, maybe she wasn’t yet comfortable with the possibility that he and Juliet might be a thing. She could still be grateful for his help. “I don’t know how we would have managed her coming home without that ramp you and the kids built last night.”

  “I can’t do much to help her heal. That’s a battle she’ll have to fight on her own. But at least I can make it easier for her to be in her own home, where she feels best.”

  “It’s brilliant. I never even thought about the logistics of helping her up and down the steps.”

  In truth, she hadn’t really given much thought to Juliet’s return, other than clearing a few pieces of furniture out of her bedroom so the wheelchair could move more easily.

  “She should be set now. But if you think of anything else I can do, you know where to find me.”

  “Thank you.”

  Henry and Juliet.

  The idea still boggled the mind. She knew his late wife had been one of Juliet’s dearest friends and that her mother had grieved deeply when cancer had taken Lilianne three or four years earlier.

  Should she say something? No. She had to wait for Juliet or Henry to broach the subject.

  She couldn’t stop thinking about his hand just inches from Juliet’s in sleep and how he had colored so tellingly when she had caught him.

  Did Caitlin know?

  “What other help will you need to care for her at home?”

  All the help. She had no idea where to start.

  She forced a smile. “I think Cait and I can handle most things. It will mostly be getting Mom up and down, making sure she does her physical therapy exercises, taking her to doctor appointments. We will probably have to figure out most things as we go along.”

  A hint of a dimple appeared in Henry’s cheek. “That seems to be a common trait in the Harper family.”

  “More like our family motto. Jump and the net will appear, grasshopper.”

  He smiled but Olivia didn’t feel much like smiling back.

  She was terrified at the idea of caring for Juliet. Her mother had a broken hip and broken ribs and would be able to do very little for herself.

  What if Olivia made everything worse? If she messed up her mother’s medication or stumbled when she was trying to help Juliet transfer positions or mismanaged the garden center into the ground?

  She could feel a panic attack starting and tried to breathe through it until it faded. One stress at a time. Right now, she had to focus on helping her mother go home from the hospital. She could panic about the rest later.

  “It’s so good that you were able to come home, Olivia. I know it couldn’t have been an easy decision to pick up and leave, even for the few weeks that you’ll be here, but I hope you know how lost your mom would have been without you. I know she’s hurting, but she still seems happier now that you’re home.”

  She seriously doubted that. And now she was doubting her own suspicions about what she had seen. Maybe she had misunderstood that moment of tenderness she had witnessed. Henry and her mother couldn’t be together if he was that clueless about the tangled, difficult relationship she so carefully navigated with Juliet.

  While she was busy trying to do everything else to keep the family business running and take care of Juliet, why couldn’t she try to heal the subtle rift in the relationship with her mother?

  The seductive question made something ache in her chest. How could she do that when she still wasn’t sure why it felt so broken? Every time she tried to analyze it, she felt as if she were chasing ghosts.

  She loved her mother and admired her. On the one hand, she wanted to be close to Juliet, to feel as if she could confide her troubles and weaknesses. On the other, Olivia couldn’t seem to shake the habits developed after her father died and Natalie began getting into trouble.

  During those difficult years, her mother had too much to handle with the struggling business, the house, Natalie’s wild behavior. Olivia hadn’t wanted to give her mother one more thing to worry about. She had developed strange, magical thinking, afraid that if she wasn’t the perfect daughter, her mother would crack apart and the entire fragile family structure they were both clinging to would collapse.

  Could she be vulnerable enough to admit to Juliet that everything wasn’t ideal in her life? She had fears and weaknesses, worries and stresses.

  She would try, she told herself. She had to. She was trying to find more courage, to become not perfect but someone she could admire.

  Sometimes being brave wasn’t about confronting an armed man in a coffee shop as much as finding the strength to be vulnerable and open about her weaknesses with someone she loved and admired.

  Like her own mother.

  “Since you’re here to be with your mom,” Henry said, “I should go somewhere quiet and return some calls.”

  “You don’t have to leave.”

  “I could use some air. Not a big fan of hospitals, you know? I mean, they’re great to have around when you need them, but they’re still not my favorite place.”

  “I totally get it,” she answered, touched again that he was willing to step up and
visit her mother even when he didn’t want to be there. “Thank you.”

  Courage came in many forms, some quiet and all but unnoticed.

  “I won’t be long, in case you need help transferring Juli into your vehicle. Then I’ll follow you to the cottage to help get her into the house.”

  “You’ve been so kind, Mr. Cragun. Henry,” she corrected. “Thank you. I know my mother appreciates it.”

  “I’m more than happy to help. Your mom is always helping everyone else in Cape Sanctuary. I’m grateful for a small chance to help her in return.”

  He left soon to make his phone calls and Olivia pushed open the door. Juliet’s eyes opened as she walked inside and she looked around the room, her features confused.

  “Was... Wasn’t Henry here?”

  “He left to make some phone calls. He’ll be back soon, I’m sure.”

  Her mother looked to the door then back at Olivia with a lost sort of look. “Oh. All right.”

  She stepped closer to the bed and leaned down to kiss Juliet on the cheek. “Happy birthday, Mom.”

  “Oh. Thank you. It’s a strange sort of day, really.”

  “I know it probably doesn’t seem like much of a birthday.”

  “I might be going home. That’s all the present I need.”

  She thought of her mother’s searching look and the tone of her voice when she had asked about Henry. She had bought some slippers and a new bathrobe for her mother, but perhaps Olivia ought to try her hand at matchmaking for her mother’s birthday gift. Henry really was a sweet man and he seemed to have genuine feelings for her mother.

  How best to push the two together? She mulled the question, then caught herself. Managing her mother’s love life wasn’t in her job description. Didn’t she have enough to do right now?

  Anyway, what did she know about romance? She could hear her mother. If she told Juliet she wanted to help with her love life, her mother would tell her to mind her own business and focus on her own.

  Probably good advice.

  “Do you have anything to wear home? I should have thought to bring you something from your closet.”