Until Winter Breaks

by Elana Johnson

  Instead, he rode his motorcycle to the lighthouse, a fixture in Redwood Bay he’d visited countless times as a child. He watched the winter tourists from a bench, wishing his life in this town were just as transitory. He’d never intended to stay in Redwood Bay for long, but there was something inside him telling him he couldn’t just leave once Sophie came back.

  And he knew it wasn’t a something, but a someone.

  He also knew that it was time for him to find somewhere permanent to live. Somewhere he wouldn’t run from when things turned sour, or he lost his job, or a woman broke his heart. Again, almost against his will, he felt that permanent place in which he wanted to belong was Redwood Bay.

  He left the lighthouse without the comfort or answers he needed. A short jaunt around the boat harbor brought him to the beach parking lot. The taco stand sat to the left of the asphalt, with the stretch of sand where his sister had gotten married adjacent to that.

  Jared stood on the pavement, not trusting his leg to behave well in the sand, and looked at The Sandy Tortilla. Sophie’s dream. A dream she’d made come true.

  It was time for him to define his own dreams, and then endeavor to make them his reality. If only he knew what he wanted and how to make it all come true.

  Jared turned away from the beach full of happy memories. He rode into town and parked behind Millie’s shop, but the back door he chose to enter wasn’t hers. He went next door instead, tapping on the glass as he called Polly’s name.

  She emerged from the front of the shop, happy surprise written in the set of her mouth. “Jared.” Her gaze swept his limp. “What happened to you?” She pulled out a barstool for him and he dropped onto it.

  “It’s cold in here,” he said.

  “This is my storage refrigerator,” Polly explained. “Flowers don’t like heat, even the little we have in February.”

  Jared noticed the shelves full of fresh flowers. “It smells fantastic.”

  “Come on.” Polly waited for him to stand, hooked her elbow through his, bringing him that familial sense of belonging, and led him into her storefront. “Tell me everything.”

  * * *

  Millie’s heart thundered like the gale that had passed through town almost two weeks ago. Jared’s motorcycle had cut off a full five minutes ago, yet he hadn’t darkened her doorway. She didn’t know why she expected him to. Most men wouldn’t come back for repeated rejections and verbal attacks.

  She laid her forehead against the top of her sewing machine, wanting to stitch some sense into herself. The only explanation she’d been able to conjure up rested on her intense fear. Even now, it sliced through her like a hot blade through butter, causing her heart to constrict and her fingers to clench.

  She would not fall in love with someone who came home bloody and barely conscious, no matter the reason.

  She. Would. Not.

  She picked up the skirt she’d been piecing when the sound of Jared’s motorcycle had rendered her fingers too unstable to grip the fabric. She wasn’t too jittery now. He wasn’t even a permanent resident of Redwood Bay. All she had to do was weather his time in town and as soon as winter broke, she could get back to her perfectly ordinary life, thank you very much.

  If only her cells didn’t feel so shriveled every time she told herself such things. Rapid pounding penetrated her pity party. She tossed the shears aside and left the sewing room.

  Diana stood on the sidewalk, laden with boxes of pastries. Millie helped her arrange them on the table in front of the counter, being careful to keep from looking her friend in the eye. She didn’t need to. Jared wasn’t present, and surely that said everything Millie didn’t.

  Thankfully, Sadie bumped into the shop with Lucy, both of them carrying large thermoses of coffee. Their idle chatter and laughter filled the shop, driving out the melancholic atmosphere.

  “Mills, where’s Hunky Handyman?” Sadie plucked a square of banana bread from the table.

  “He’s at home,” Millie said airily, though she’d felt like the oxygen had been sucked from the world. “He, uh, came home last night with an injury.”

  “An injury?” Lucy squinted at Millie, who could practically see the wheels turning inside Lucy’s head. “What kind of injury?”

  “He hurt his leg while he was saving an elephant seal.”

  “You sure know—” Sadie cut off as the chime on the door sounded. Thankfully, Millie didn’t have time to hear what Sadie wanted to say because her friends and neighbors arrived in droves.

  Millie mingled, her smile painted in place. She sold four skirts to a pair of sisters, which doubled her business for the month. She leaned against the counter and watched the townspeople she’d grown to love.

  The shop was full of people, full of noise, full of life, but Millie hovered on the edges, just out of sight. She felt as she had in junior high, like her nose was pressed against a pane of glass. On the other side, a party raged, one she longed to be a part of. No matter how hard she rapped against the glass and palmed the window between her and everyone else, they didn’t turn her way. Didn’t even see her, though the wall separating them was transparent.

  She existed in her shop with her friends, and yet she had never experienced such a profound sense of being utterly, completely, absolutely alone.

  She couldn’t help thinking that if Jared were in attendance, he’d be standing next to her and she wouldn’t feel quite so isolated. Her hand ached from emptiness, and she reached for her cell phone.

  “Hey,” she said when Jared answered. “I didn’t think you’d actually pick up.” Her chuckle sounded on the edge of mania.

  “What do you need, sweetheart?”

  “You,” she blurted. Sadie glanced her way, and Millie turned her back to create a more private conversation. “It’s my grand reopening, and you should be here.”

  “I should?”

  “Yes. You did all the work.”

  “It’s your shop.”

  Millie ducked her head and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Do you want me to beg?”

  “We can save that for later,” Jared said, the innuendo loud in his words. “What I want is the truth. So if I come, you’re going to have to give me that.”

  Millie almost denied him, but she could give him a few crumbs and hope that satisfied him. As she pictured Jared in her mind, she knew she’d once again lied to herself. The man seemed to know things about her that she hadn’t verbalized to anyone, ever.

  “Millie? This long silence isn’t working in your favor.”

  “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. Just please come.”

  “I’m already here, sweetheart.” His voice against her neck, his touch along her elbow, sent warmth into places that had long gone cold. Against her will, she sagged against him. Somehow her arms tangled around his back, her cheek pressed against his heartbeat.

  “You’re right,” she whispered, though the party was loud and no one could possibly overhear them.

  “About what?”

  “Your heart does have things to say.”

  He kept his hands on her waist as he took a small step back. He looked down at her, his eyes relaying the same message as his pounding heart. “Oh yeah? What’s it saying?”

  “That I’m an idiot,” Millie admitted. “Sometimes I say things before I think them through, and then I don’t know how to finish.”

  Sadie inserted herself into Millie’s line of sight. “Hello, Mister Handyman.”

  “Mornin’ Sadie.” Jared removed his hands from Millie’s body, taking a moment longer than necessary. “You like the place?”

  “It’s beautiful,” she said. “My boss sent me over to get your card.”

  Surprise shot across his face. “My card?”

  “She needs someone to repaint the storefront. I work at the salon.”

  “Outdoor painting?” Jared asked, allowing Millie to slip to the refreshment table. The coffee was too hot for her already flushed face. She needed something cool to quench the
fire of desire consuming her.

  Thankfully, Diana appeared with a glass of her iced sweet tea. “Looking for this?”

  “You’re a saint.” Millie took the tea and gulped it.

  “Don’t let him get away,” Diana said. “Whatever you said, whatever he did, doesn’t matter.”

  Millie swallowed more slowly. “He’s already going.”

  “What does that mean?” Diana flicked crumbs off the edge of the table.

  “It means he’s not in Redwood Bay for good. He’s renting his sister’s house, for crying out loud.”

  “Is that why you’re resisting him so hard? Because that’s a problem that can be fixed.”

  “No,” Millie said as she watched Jared scrawl something on a piece of paper for the owner of the salon. “It’s—”

  “Brady,” they said together.

  Millie wanted to dismiss him as easily as her friends did. But they didn’t know him, didn’t have the three years of marriage with him, didn’t experience the highest joys and the lowest lows with him.

  Yes, Brady was a problem Jared didn’t even know existed and Millie didn’t know how to solve.

  Chapter Twelve

  Jared watched Millie put on her mask before she rejoined him. “Thank you for coming.” She slipped her fingers into his, and his fantasies roared to life. He squashed them back into submission. He couldn’t keep up with Millie and how she ran hot one second, and turned icy cold the next.

  Surely by lunchtime, he’d be on his motorcycle, mad as a hornet who’d been sprayed with a hose, headed north just to get out of town for a few hours because of something she said or did. Or something she didn’t say or didn’t do.

  Why did he keep coming back for more?

  Thoughts of kissing her at the wharf filled his mind. Something had sparked between them from the moment they’d met, solidifying the instant he’d tasted her lips. Deeper than that, Jared needed to prove to Millie what kind of person he was—the person he wanted to be, even if he hadn’t achieved it yet.

  He was drawn to her because he sensed something broken behind her barriers. He didn’t think for a second he could fix it––fix her––but he wanted to know what made her the woman she was. The woman behind the mask.

  “I need to sit,” he said.

  “Of course.” Millie helped him into the sewing room, away from the crowds. “Do you need more medication? Did you bring any with you?”

  He shook his head, answering both questions. “I’m fine.”

  Millie’s mask showed confusion, an easy emotion to explain. “But you said—”

  “Maybe I just wanted to get you alone.” Jared tucked her hair behind her ear, letting his fingertips linger on her cheek, along her throat.

  “Jared.” She straightened and strode away. When she turned back, the mask was gone. “There are things you don’t know about me.”

  “Then tell me.”

  She glanced back toward the show room, her feet drifting that way too.

  “It can’t be as bad as kissing a different girl every day for a month.” Jared cringed inwardly at the truth in his own voice.

  She choked as she refocused on him. The choke became a chortle, and then a giggle, and then a full-blown laugh.

  Jared wanted to join her, but the wonder of seeing her as she truly was silenced him. Watching her express her joy brought him joy, and he knew then that he wanted nothing more in his life than to make Millie laugh like that every single day of her life.

  He wanted to be that man for her more than he’d wanted anything else. He stood and crossed the room to her, inhaling her rosy scent, before brushing his lips against her cheek. “Come to dinner with me tonight,” he murmured, his mouth marginally leaving her skin as he spoke.

  “Jared—”

  “Please.” He swept his lips across her jaw, teasing, testing. She tensed against him, and he took it as a sign that he was moving in too soon, going too fast. He yanked on his internal reins, pressing his lips to a spot just below her ear, pausing, heart palpitating.

  She tilted her head, arching her upper back just the tiniest bit.

  “Just dinner,” he whispered in her ear, almost rabid for a taste of her skin—all of it. “No strings attached. You won’t have to tell me anything. I just want to spend time with you.”

  She nodded before tucking her head under his chin.

  * * *

  Jared left Millie alone at her shop after the party had ended. He’d lied when he’d said his leg wasn’t hurting. It ached like nothing else he’d experienced before, not even when he realized what he’d done to Sophie and his mother by abandoning them in Redwood Bay all those years ago.

  He hadn’t fully understood the consequences of his actions until much later, and by then, saying I’m sorry had felt inadequate. He’d kept his distance from his family, thinking it easier for everyone. He’d been wrong, and he didn’t want to repeat his mistakes.

  He swallowed a handful of pills before moving down the hall and falling into bed. He pulled out his phone and texted Millie.

  I took a lot of medication. Maybe come check on me later?

  She didn’t answer right away, and Jared fought his exhaustion and his pain until his phone chirped.

  On my way now.

  He succumbed to unconsciousness with a smile on his face.

  * * *

  Millie rocked in the chair beside Jared’s bed, an open book on her lap, her gaze out the window. Her mind churned like the waves crashing against the shore. She’d missed her weekly phone call with Desi because she’d been sitting on Jared’s porch, worried she was interested in a man exactly like Brady.

  Her phone vibrated against her lap, and she answered it with a quick swipe. “Hey, Des.” She glanced at Jared, but he didn’t so much as twitch.

  “Start talking.”

  Millie laughed as softly as she could. “Yes, ma’am.” She took a deep drag of air, hoping she wouldn’t start crying.

  “Sorry I couldn’t talk yesterday. My friend got hurt and he needed me.”

  “Are we talking about Jared? He’s the friend?”

  Millie grinned at the giddiness in her sister’s tone. “Yes.”

  “Friends who kiss?”

  Millie thought of Jared’s lips on her cheek, her jaw, her neck. “No,” she said firmly. “No more of that.”

  Desi sighed, a happy sound that carried clear across the country. “You’re such a liar.”

  “I’m not,” she insisted. “Our lips did not touch.”

  “Okay, okay. Tell me about the shop. The pictures you sent look amazing.”

  Grateful to be on safer ground, Millie gushed about the reopening, leaving out the part where she begged Jared to come stand next to her so she wouldn’t have to be alone at her own party.

  After she hung up, Millie leaned back against the headrest, content for the moment. One glance at Jared, and he entered the bubble of serenity she’d created. He could fit inside her life.

  If only she’d let him.

  * * *

  “Jared, honey.” She stroked his hair away from his eyes. He didn’t stir, and his skin burned. “Jared, wake up.”

  Unrest spiraled through her as he moaned. His eyes opened in slits, but he couldn’t do more than that. She hurried into the bathroom and wet a washcloth with cool water. Back at his bedside, she feathered it across his cheeks and neck before settling it on his forehead.

  “Wake up,” she repeated, a measure of desperation coloring her tone.

  He muttered something unintelligible.

  “How much medication did you take?” Millie gripped his shoulders, but he slumped back into slumber.

  She sprinted into the kitchen, where she found the bottle of painkillers on the counter. But there was no way to tell how many he’d taken. Back in the bedroom, her trembling body being held up by the doorframe, she noted that the only difference between Jared and a corpse was the slight movement of his chest.

  An image flashed through her mind
. Brady lying in his coffin.

  Choking out a sob, Millie rushed to Jared’s side. “Wake up.” She put both hands on his chest, his shoulders, and shook him. “Please wake up.”

  When he didn’t, she fumbled for her phone, unable to sit idly by and watch him sleep.

  “State your emergency.”

  “Yes, my friend took an unknown number of painkillers and now I can’t get him to wake up.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jared reached toward the annoying alarm beeping on his phone, intending to silence it by smashing it with his bare hands. Instead, his fingers met soft hair, smooth skin. That, more than anything, caused him to open his eyes.

  Bright light assaulted him, but he searched through slitted eyes until he recognized Millie’s dark hair, her porcelain skin.

  “Hey,” she said. “Are you awake?”

  He groaned, which was all his voice seemed to be able to do. Something pulled on his wrist, and the pain in his leg blazed.

  “Time to wake up, Mister Newton.” This wasn’t Millie’s docile tone, but someone with much more authority.

  He swung his head in the direction of the voice, and his brain hit one side of his skull and then the other. At least that was how it seemed. Another sound like a wounded animal emanated from his throat.

  The bed moved, which sent a fresh unit of agony through his body. The blasted beeping increased, and full awareness descended on Jared.

  “I’m in the hospital?” He sat up without the help of the bed, which only increased the spinning in the room. “What’s going on?”

  “You had a high fever, Mister Newton. And a growing infection in your leg. Your friend called the ambulance, and we’re getting you all straightened out.”

  Jared found Millie, who watched him with apology in her eyes. “I couldn’t wake you up. I got scared.”