Tofino Storm

by Edie Claire

  “Yeah, I get that,” Jason interrupted impatiently. He was two for two, damn it. “But isn’t all that just infatuation?” he argued. “I mean, I’ve only known the woman for six days!”

  Thane scoffed. “Hell, bro, you think I wasn’t infatuated with Mei Lin after six days? We didn’t use the L word then. That came later. But the crazy, mind-altering stuff was definitely the first step.”

  Jason considered. “Infatuation doesn’t always lead to love.”

  “Course not,” Thane said matter of factly. “But you can’t know where it’s going until you give it a try. So who’s the unlucky lady?”

  Jason’s face felt hot. “I have no desire to get married. You know—”

  “Who said anything about marriage?” Thane shot back, his tone full of mirth. “Did I say anything about marriage? There is a middle ground between hooking up once and having three kids and a minivan, you know. There’s this other thing — it’s called a relationship. See, that’s where you say ‘no’ to all the other women—”

  “I know what a relationship is!” Jason snapped.

  “So what have you got to lose?” Thane pressed. “Except the other women?”

  “I don’t want any other women!”

  Crap. Jason hadn’t intended to say that. Had he meant it? The other end of the line went silent. “Thane?”

  His brother chuckled merrily. “Oh, yeah. You got it bad.”

  Jason swore under his breath. Then he sighed, loud and long. “I know. But this isn’t just about what I have to lose. What if she gets hurt?”

  “You really do care, don’t you?” Thane returned, his voice softening. “It’s true, she could get hurt. So could you. That’s the way it works. Aren’t you supposed to be the risk taker in the family?”

  Jason had no good response to that. He was a risk taker. He was still scared. “Dad never fell in love,” he blurted. “With anybody. His whole life. He told me so.”

  Thane was quiet for a beat. “You’re not him, Jason. Do you want his life?”

  No, Jason thought emphatically. No, I don’t. What kind of life he did want, he still wasn’t sure. But how was he supposed to figure it out if he didn’t at least explore his options?

  Maybe giving a real relationship a try was the best thing to do.

  A heavy weight seemed to slip from his shoulders. He heaved out a sigh of relief. “Thanks, Bro,” he said sincerely. “Listen, I’ll, uh… talk to you later, okay?”

  “Did I mention that I’m going to be a father?”

  Jason laughed out loud. It felt good to laugh. He felt good, period. “Yeah,” he said fondly, grinning. “I think you did.”

  ***

  Laney leaned back in her beach chair and let out yet another unintentional sigh. She loved watching Jason surf. He was gorgeous enough in a form-fitting wetsuit, but watching him catch a warm blue wave bare-chested in board shorts was really too much. Still, she was glad she’d insisted he surf this morning. It was going to be a very long day waiting for her next meeting with the Tremblays, and she would be hopelessly uptight every minute of it. Why shouldn’t one of them enjoy themselves, at least? She owed him that much.

  Her behavior last evening had been wretched. Unforgivable. She’d practically thrown herself at the man, again. Never mind how many agreements they made, she’d gone and done whatever she felt like. Being rejected had stung, but she knew he’d been right. She had been an emotional mess, and no matter how much she would have enjoyed a reckless night of mad passion — and make no mistake, she would have enjoyed it very much — the end result would be dreadful.

  She couldn’t be with Jason unless she was the only one. Not the only one forever, maybe, but the only one for now. It wasn’t a point on which she could compromise.

  In short, their situation was hopeless.

  But she still loved watching him surf.

  She looked out over the azure water toward where the reef break termed Rainbows had been firing off surfable waves all morning, straight out from the perfectly groomed beaches of West Maui’s resort district. The lineup was crowded, and Jason had had to wait a very long time to catch his first wave, but once he’d had a chance to show his stuff his opportunities had come more regularly. Rainbows was a fickle break that needed a precise set of conditions to be at its finest, and Jason’s being here this morning was no accident. Laney had gotten up before dawn to research the best spots for intermediate and advanced surfers, then analyzed the forecast on her surfing app before making the suggestion.

  Jason had seemed delighted. She figured it was the least she could do. He had returned to the condo at a reasonable time last night, alone, just as he’d said he would. But she’d been too embarrassed to face him. After he’d left she had indulged herself in another good, long, cathartic cry, then crawled into bed with her laptop and watched mindless sitcoms until she fell asleep. It hadn’t taken long. She’d been wiped out both physically and emotionally.

  This morning, she was still a wreck. But curiously, Jason seemed happier. They’d eaten breakfast together on the lanai, chatting about nothing important. They’d even laughed a little. She wondered if Haley and Ben spent every morning like that. How nice it must be to share something so mundane, yet so deeply enjoyable, with someone that you loved.

  An overwhelming wave of sadness swamped her. She sucked in a breath and tilted her closed eyes into the sun. Stop it. You’ll be fine. You’ve made a good guy friend — two, counting Ben — and after today, your responsibility to the Tremblays will be absolved. Namaste.

  She breathed out again, slowly. She couldn’t tell herself that her life would soon get back to normal. It would never be the same without her mother and the Gran she used to know. But it could still be good. Jason or no Jason. Money or no money. Legally alive or legally nonexistent. She would make it so.

  “Excuse us,” a soft female voice said tentatively. “Laney?”

  Her eyes flew open.

  Standing beside her beach chair were Gordon and Joan Tremblay.

  Chapter 30

  Laney nearly knocked her chair over backward. “Oh!” she exclaimed, rising clumsily to face them. “Hello. I… Are we late?” She glanced worriedly at the time. It wasn’t even noon yet. “I thought you said four o’clock. At the coffee shop?”

  “We did, honey,” Joan said, smiling. “I’m sorry. I just, well… we couldn’t wait. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Of course not, but—” Laney’s confusion was near complete. “But how did you even know I was here?”

  The man behind Joan gave a chuckle. Laney stared at both of them, disbelieving. Their resemblance to the couple she’d met yesterday was superficial at best. This Joan’s cheeks were flushed, her dark eyes shone with pleasure and her mouth crinkled into a constant smile. Gordon’s previously cold eyes were dancing with some inner light, his smile was genuine, and his whole bearing was subdued and relaxed. “Well,” the new man explained, “We did check the address you gave us first, but when you weren’t there we got creative. Pauley said your friend was a surfer, and I figured if I were his age and Rainbows was pumping, this is where I’d be. And here you are.”

  Laney blinked. Was she imagining these people?

  “We should have called and warned you first, I know,” Joan said apologetically. “But I’ll confess, I wanted to see you in person and we couldn’t wait till four. We have all the information we need already. Not that I didn’t have everything I needed the moment I saw your sweet little face in those pictures!” She tossed her head toward her husband with a good-natured eye roll. “But the great skeptic here had to do his due diligence.”

  Gordon added nothing to that. He just stood there and smiled.

  “You… called a private detective or something?” Laney inquired, not sure what she should be asking first. They seemed to think their purpose in being here was obvious, but her mind reeled with questions.

  “Oh, he called several,” Joan said offhandedly. “Had the poor people working all night
.” She removed a wicker mat from beneath her arm, unrolled it with a snap, and laid it out on the sand. “How about if we all sit down?”

  “Oh, please, take my chair,” Laney offered, gesturing to it.

  But Joan, who had already plopped herself down on the mat, waved the offer away. “Oh, we’re fine, dear. You take it.” She looked up at Gordon, who was fidgeting beside her. “Sit down, you old fusspot. I’ll haul you back up later.”

  Gordon gave a lame snort of protest, then eased his long legs down onto the mat beside his wife. Feeling awkward, Laney pushed her chair to the side and dropped down to sit level with them on the sand.

  “Now,” Joan said excitedly, her brown eyes twinkling. “I think it’s time we properly introduced ourselves. I’m your grandmother, Laney. And this is your grandfather. And while I know all this must be hard for you, I want you to know that this is one of the happiest days of our lives.”

  Laney’s eyes burned. They seemed too dry for tears. Everything that was happening felt too unreal. “You believe that I’m Jessica Macdonald,” she said roughly.

  Joan smiled gently. “We do, honey. We know you are. Even though I’m sure you have a hard time believing it, yourself. I have something to show you.” She reached down into her bag. “Here. Look at this. This is you on your first birthday, just four months before the tornado. With your biological mother, Elizabeth.”

  Laney looked. When her eyes connected with the faces in the picture, tears did come. Plenty of them. The little girl wearing the purple and yellow Barney hat was her. The young mother holding her close, kissing her on the cheek, was the same woman in the family portrait on the endowment flyer.

  “We can arrange a DNA test if you’d like,” Gordon said softly. “But you don’t have to. We know you’re Elizabeth’s daughter.”

  “And we know that you’re also Laney Miller,” Joan said firmly. She caught Laney’s eyes. “We would never ask you to give up any part of who you are, honey. You have a family who loves you, and they raised you beautifully. Your grandfather and I promise not to interfere with that. I won’t say we haven’t had our moments of anger over losing you, and I’m sure we’ll keep on having them. But none of that is your concern.”

  A flash of worry intruded into Laney’s otherwise easing mind. “My mother didn’t— I mean, I know what she did was wrong, but my father had just died, and—”

  “You don’t need to explain anything to us,” Gordon insisted. “You couldn’t anyway; you were only a child. Nothing that’s happened has been your fault.”

  Joan reached out a tentative hand and laid it on Laney’s arm. “We know you loved your mother, honey. I promise you, we’d never do anything to hurt her memory, not when it would hurt you, too.” She looked up at her husband. “We’ve been talking about it all night, and we’ve agreed that the best thing for all of us is to let the past stay in the past. What’s done is done, and there’s been good that’s come out of it as well as the bad. We just need to figure out how to move forward.”

  Laney looked from one of her grandparents to the other, their images blurring through her tears. They were good people. Very good people. Both of them!

  “Thank you,” she said, her voice choked. “You have no idea what that means to me.”

  “We have some,” Gordon said jovially. “You were wise to be so concerned about your legal status. I’m afraid it’s quite a quagmire.”

  “I know,” Laney said with a gulp, fear taking hold of her again. “But until I can afford a lawyer to—”

  “Why on earth should you pay an attorney?” Gordon interrupted, sounding a bit more like a CEO. “You didn’t create the problem. But your grandmother and I do bear some responsibility, for being so consumed with our own grief that we didn’t properly investigate the situation. We could have searched harder and longer for Jessica’s remains. We could have done our own due diligence, instead of blindly relying on what the police told us. If we’d realized that another little girl was involved, we could have demanded that the authorities do their job and confirm that child’s identity.” He calmed himself with a sigh. “But we didn’t do any of that. We failed our daughter, and we failed you. It’s our job now to fix it. Not yours.”

  “However you want us to handle it,” Joan added quickly. “If you want to remain as Laney Miller, we’ll respect that. From what I understand, establishing American citizenship might be difficult, but I promise you, we’ll do everything we can to try and make your identity legal. If you’d like to keep your name, but accept your Canadian birthright, we’ll go that route. It all sounds very complicated, but that’s the sort of thing lawyers live for, isn’t it? So please, don’t you give that another thought.”

  Laney was overwhelmed. They weren’t asking her to take the name Jessica, they weren’t even calling her that. And if they were willing to help her straighten out her documentation, without defaming her mother or interfering with her relationship with Gran…

  “There’s only one thing we ask of you, sweetheart,” Joan continued softly, her voice pleading. “And that’s to give us the chance to get to know you again. Please… stay awhile. If your time at the condo runs out, we can find another place for you to stay on Maui. Or, if your young man needs to get back to Tofino and you want to go with him, we’ll go back to Ucluelet. That’s fine, too.”

  “We know that your house in Peck is up for sale,” Gordon chimed in. “And that your great-grandmother is in Sikeston, and we’ll be happy to fly you down to visit her as often as you like. I’m sure you plan to go back to graduate school at some point, but until then, please consider staying near us. We’ll do everything we can to make it work, to make your life easier, if you’ll just give us… some more time with our granddaughter.”

  Joan’s eyes had moistened. Her chin quivered even as she smiled. Gordon looked as eager and vulnerable as a small boy. Laney’s heart felt ready to burst. “Of course,” she exclaimed, wiping away the senseless tears. “Of course, I will. I… I want to get to know you, too!”

  Hugs seemed absolutely necessary. But they were too awkward sitting down, so Joan stood up and pulled Gordon after her. When she opened her arms, Laney fell into them. Or rather, Joan fell into Laney’s arms. Either way, the women’s hug was warm and heartfelt. And when Laney turned to Gordon, she realized the real man was the one she saw now. The loving father, husband, and grandfather — who just happened to be a kickass business mogul. He hugged her tenderly, then Joan hugged Laney again, then Gordon hugged Joan, and when at last they all pulled apart, none of their eyes were dry.

  “Will you join us for dinner tonight?” Joan asked happily. “You and your young man?”

  “We’ve got amberjack and snapper both, fresh-caught just yesterday, and your grandmother makes a mean fish taco,” Gordon added.

  “We’d love to,” Laney laughed, even as a stray thread of sadness flitted through her. “But he’s not my young man. Jason and I are just good friends.”

  The Tremblays exchanged a brief, but obviously amused glance. “Oh?” Joan said wryly. “You don’t say. Well, you’re both welcome to come in any event.”

  They worked through the details as Laney walked with the couple back around the resort to where their car was parked. Not until after she’d waved their departing vehicle goodbye and returned to the beach did she notice Jason walking toward her, his surfboard tucked under his arm. He was dripping wet, with his slick, bare shoulders gleaming in the sun and his curly brown ringlets weighted down with drops of seawater.

  Laney felt like singing. Or dancing. Or flying. But she wound up running and jumping instead. She ran across the beach and flung herself at Jason, giving him precious little time to drop his surfboard before catching her in midair.

  “Did you see them?” she asked in the middle of her launch. “They were here!”

  “I saw,” he said with a grunt as her weight fell upon his chest. “I didn’t want to interfere. I’m guessing they brought you good news?”

  He lowered her
feet back to the ground, and she stared happily up at him, her arms still locked around his neck. “The best news possible,” she exclaimed. “They were wonderful. It’s all wonderful!”

  Jason smiled at her. “I’m so glad, Laney,” he said softly. “I love seeing you this happy.”

  She kissed him. Or maybe he kissed her. It happened so quickly, so spontaneously, so naturally, she felt no need to think about it. All she knew was that she was happy. Wonderfully, gloriously, happy. At peace with the past, optimistic about the future, and absolutely, fantastically excited about the sensations Jason was making her feel right now. Touching him, holding him, kissing him like this was amazing… it was better than before, even… it was…

  Bound to end. Her bubble of happiness deflated slightly as she began to anticipate his drawing back, pushing her away. Just knowing it was coming was like a physical pain. Why the hell did she keep doing this to herself?

  He stopped the kiss and pulled back. She groaned aloud, a new spate of bittersweet tears threatening. “I hate it when you do that!” she said childishly.

  But he was laughing. “I have something to ask you,” he chuckled, his eyes shining at her. “I didn’t want to mess with your head earlier, when so much was going on, but now I think…”

  Laney held her breath. If it was bad news, she was going to scream. No negativity was allowed on this otherwise perfect day.

  “The friends thing isn’t working,” he announced. “It’s not enough for me. I feel… differently about you, Laney. And I want to try the real thing.” His confidence seemed to waver suddenly. “You know, a relationship. Where we’re exclusive. Doing the couple thing. Officially.”

  Laney stared. She didn’t realize how long she’d gone without breathing until her lungs expelled with an audible huff.

  “I mean, only if you want to,” he added, for once misreading her completely. “Maybe it’s not the best—”

  Laney shut him up with a kiss even smokier than the last one. When they parted some time later, it was only due to lack of oxygen.