Already Home

by Susan Mallery

  “Payment will come to him. I believe in karma.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  Serenity laughed again, then drew in a breath. “I miss you, Jenna. I wish you were still here.”

  Jenna knew what she was expected to say. As for the truth, she couldn’t be sure. She liked her life here but had to admit, Serenity added something unexpected, in a good way. Maybe a lot of something.

  “I miss you, too,” she said softly.

  “Thank you for saying that. Tom and I will be back soon. It will be a few days. We’re driving. See you then.”

  “I can’t wait. Bye.”

  Jenna closed her phone, then turned and saw Beth standing in the doorway leading to the back of the store.

  “I let myself in,” her mother said, her voice low and a little stiff. “I take it you were talking to Serenity?”

  Jenna swore silently, then nodded, confident Beth had heard her say she missed the other woman.

  A thousand excuses flew into her head, but she hadn’t done anything wrong, so what exactly was she supposed to apologize for?

  More complications, she thought wearily.

  “I stopped by to invite you to dinner,” Beth continued. “Violet is coming downstairs for the first time.”

  “Thanks,” Jenna told her. “Let me finish locking up and I’ll be there.”

  “My life sucks,” Jenna said later that night, sitting on the chair next to Violet’s bed.

  Dinner had gone better than she’d thought, with Beth acting relatively normally. She’d avoided looking at Jenna too much, or maybe Jenna had just been expecting trouble. Or wallowing in guilt.

  Violet shifted against the pillows that allowed her to sit upright. “I have a body full of bruises and a broken heart. Want to trade?”

  “Well, no.”

  “Okay, then. What’s going on?”

  Jenna sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m talking about my problems when that’s the last thing you want to hear.”

  “Not true. I want to hear about your problems. We’re friends.”

  Something Jenna appreciated. “Thank you for that.”

  “You’re welcome.” Violet studied her. “Now start at the beginning. What happened?”

  “I had a horrible fight with Ellington a couple of days ago. Part of me says he’s just like Aaron and part of me says it’s really my fault but I’m trying to blame him. Then I hurt my mother.” Jenna drew in a breath. “Did she, ah, say anything about that to you?”

  “No. And I couldn’t tell anything was wrong. Are you sure you aren’t imagining all this?”

  “I don’t think so.” Jenna explained about Ellington dropping in to welcome her home and how he’d called Serenity “your mother.”

  “I went off on him,” Jenna admitted. “Everything kind of exploded in my head. I’m dealing with a lot—getting to know another family, figuring out how I feel about them. He knows Serenity, so he’s totally on her side.”

  “Do there have to be sides?” Violet asked.

  Jenna got up and closed the bedroom door, then returned to her chair. “When I was in California, Serenity said she thought giving me to my parents had been a mistake. She implied I would have done much better with them or someone else.”

  Violet’s gaze was steady. “That bothered you.”

  “In multiple ways. I love my parents. Why can’t she respect that? She’s the one who gave me up. Because of that I had a great life. I’m not saying it wouldn’t have been as good with her and Tom, but that’s not what happened. Now she’s back and I feel like she’s trying to force a level of intimacy that we simply don’t have. That kind of a relationship can only grow with time.”

  “Is that what you fought with Ellington about?”

  “Sort of.” Their argument had been confusing, and she couldn’t remember exactly what each of them had said. “Earlier today Serenity called. She and Tom are coming back. They’re driving. Anyway, she said she missed me, and I said I missed her, as well. When I turned around, Mom was standing there.”

  “Beth understands.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Jenna said. “I believe she’s fine with all this, in spirit, but not so much in reality. This has been hard on her.”

  “It’s been hard on you, too.”

  “Maybe. I don’t want her to think she’s losing me.”

  “Beth knows better than that,” Violet reminded her. “She has faith in your relationship. No matter what, she’ll always be your mother.” She paused. “Are you afraid that you can’t have them both? That you’ll have to choose?”

  Jenna shifted in her chair. “I hadn’t thought of that. I’m not choosing.”

  “So you can love them both?”

  Love Serenity? She supposed it was a possibility. That if their relationship progressed, her feelings would grow stronger. She wasn’t sure if that was okay or not.

  “I want everyone to back off,” Jenna said, rather than answer the question. “To give me more time. It doesn’t all have to happen today.”

  “You could tell them that.”

  “When they show up, yet again?” She shook her head. “I guess I have to.”

  Talk about complications. She’d come home to lick her wounds. Instead she’d found a whole new life. Parts of it were great, but parts of it weren’t anything she expected.

  “How pissed do you think Ellington is?” she asked.

  “You could ask him,” Violet suggested.

  “What if he won’t talk to me?”

  “He’s not that kind of guy.”

  Violet couldn’t know that for sure. Jenna’s instinct was to hide from the problem, but she knew that wouldn’t ac complish anything. But the idea of facing Ellington, of apologizing, made her want to whimper. Which was probably why she had to do it.

  It took Jenna two days to get up the courage to call Ellington. She carefully left a message at his work, when she was pretty sure he would be with a patient. Perhaps not the most mature act, but these days she was already on the edge. She told herself if he called her back, then she would invite him over so they could talk. If he didn’t, then he was an idiot and better to find that out sooner rather than later.

  He phoned back in less than twenty minutes.

  “It’s Ellington,” he said, when she picked up her cell.

  That was it—an announcement of his name and nothing more. No hint as to his mood or what she could expect from him.

  “Um, hi. I was wondering if you could come over some night. I’d like to talk to you.” She drew in a breath and clutched her cell tighter. “Explain.”

  “What about tonight?”

  “Your mom can watch Isaiah?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. Um, great. Seven?”

  “I’ll be there. Oh, and Jenna? Don’t cook anything.”

  “All right. Why not?”

  “You hide behind your cooking and I don’t want you doing that tonight.”

  He hung up before she could react.

  Probably for the best, she thought as she snapped her phone closed and inwardly ranted.

  “I don’t hide behind my cooking,” she told the stacks of boxes in the back room of her store. “I don’t hide behind anything. Who does he think he is, saying something like that and then hanging up? Jerk.”

  Tiffany appeared in the doorway. “Are you all right?”

  “Sure. I was just finishing a call.” Jenna smiled and dropped her cell phone into her apron pocket. Hopefully Tiffany hadn’t heard what she’d been saying.

  Note to self, she thought as she returned to the front of the store. No ranting to boxes unless she was sure she was alone.

  Violet dressed carefully after her shower and walked back to the room she was using at Beth and Marshall’s house. She felt stronger today. The bruises were still scary-looking, but the pain was less. She was healing. Although she’d known it would happen, she was pleased to see proof.

  She’d barely finished making her bed when her cell rang. Sh
e picked it up without looking at the screen, sure it would be Jenna with a question about the store.

  “Hello?”

  “Violet.”

  The sound of Cliff’s voice sucked the life out of her. She felt dizzy and afraid and had to sit on the bed to keep from sinking to the floor.

  “I’m sorry,” he told her, his voice thick with emotion. “If you knew how sorry. I never m-meant—” His voice cracked. “Baby, I’m sorry. Can you ever forgive me? It won’t happen again, I swear. When I found out about that guy and then your past—I just snapped. It’s not even my fault, completely. You were wrong, too, but that doesn’t matter. I want to see you.”

  He was still talking when she hung up.

  The phone slipped from her hands. It took her a second to realize it was because she was shaking. Coldness seeped into every cell and she was afraid she was going to throw up.

  “I was thinking we’d rent Funny Girl for this afternoon,” Beth said as she walked into Violet’s room. “I love that movie, but I can’t get Marshall to watch it with me. Are you—” Beth froze. “Violet, what happened?”

  She looked up, sure that the fear was written on her face. “Cliff called. He wants to see me again.”

  Ellington arrived right on time, which was good because his instruction not to cook made her antsy.

  She had gotten home at six-twenty, had changed her clothes by six-thirty and then had little to do but pace. Normally she would have been in the kitchen, whipping up a snack. Even as she tried to sort through her thoughts and figure out what she wanted to say, she found herself yearning to be slicing something or mixing or blending.

  She pulled the door open as soon as the doorbell rang.

  “I don’t hide behind my cooking,” she said by way of greeting. “It relaxes me and, like you said, giving someone food is a way of nurturing.”

  He stepped into her townhouse, looking tall and handsome, but she refused to be swayed by a gorgeous pair of blue eyes.

  “Usually,” he agreed. “But sometimes, you use cooking to put distance between yourself and others. There are the physical barriers—a counter, a bowl, even a knife—and the emotional ones. Your attention is always divided between what you’re cooking and the person you’re with. If you’re cooking, you always have an escape.”

  She blinked at him. Talk about insightful, not to mention annoying.

  “I assume drinks are acceptable,” she grumbled, deciding she would simply ignore his point. “I opened a bottle of wine. Would you like some?”

  He surprised her by reaching out and putting his hands on her waist. When he drew her close, she found herself stepping into his embrace, then closing her eyes in anticipation of his kiss.

  His warm mouth gently teased hers. She wrapped her arms around his neck and parted her lips. His tongue brushed against hers, sending sparks dancing down her spine.

  As quickly as the kiss had begun, it was over. He stepped back.

  “I would like a glass of wine. Thank you.”

  She eyed him. “Are you playing with me?”

  “I was showing you I wasn’t mad.”

  “You couldn’t just say that?”

  “Would that have been better than the kiss?”

  She considered the question. “Probably not.”

  “Good.”

  She poured them each a glass of Syrah. They settled on opposite ends of the sofa, angled toward each other.

  “I don’t suppose you would go first,” she said.

  “You’re the one who called the meeting.”

  “That’s true.” She sighed. “I guess the problem is my husband was always telling me what was wrong with me. He told me how I should feel and at the end of the marriage, he tried to undermine my creativity. And I let him.”

  Ellington watched her without speaking.

  “Aaron was so different from me,” she continued. “Outgoing, charming. Everyone wanted to be around him. He could make any event into a party. I liked that about him and he seemed to like me. We dated and then moved in together. I wanted more. I wanted what my parents have.”

  She looked at him. “Both sets of parents. A long, happy marriage. I wanted to find ‘the one’ early on, fall in love and live happily ever after. Once I fell in love with Aaron, I needed him to make my dreams come true.”

  “But he’s not that guy,” Ellington said quietly.

  “Not even close. I pressed for marriage, he resisted. Finally he agreed, but I don’t think he really wanted to.” She ducked her head, afraid to admit what she’d always been ashamed of. “He wouldn’t buy me an engagement ring. He said he was marrying me and that should be enough. When my mom asked about it, I lied, telling her a diamond ring would get in the way of my cooking. That a simple gold band was easier in my line of work.”

  She risked glancing at Ellington, half expecting to see him scrambling for the door. Instead he only looked concerned.

  “That hurt you,” he said.

  “Looking back, I know it was a big red flag. He was telling me flat out that I didn’t matter as much to him as he mattered to me. Now I can see we were doomed from the start.”

  “Every marriage has challenges.”

  “Most of the time both parties are at least pretending to be interested. I was looking for the storybook ending and I completely chose the wrong man.”

  “It may sound like a cliché, but marriage isn’t always about how it started, it’s about what happens on the journey.”

  “I’ve sort of figured that out,” she admitted. “Besides, I’ve already blown through following in my parents’ footsteps.”

  He studied her. “Perfection is an impossible standard. If that’s your goal, you’re setting yourself up to fail.”

  “I don’t want perfect,” she said automatically, then stopped. “Well, maybe a little perfection wouldn’t hurt.”

  He put down his wine and leaned toward her. “Jenna, please take this in the spirit in which I mean it. You have a lot of rules about how things should be. Whether it’s the fact that Serenity and Tom waited until now to get in touch with you to how you run your business. Sometimes rules are good things, but sometimes they blind us to possibilities.”

  His words made sense.

  “I was the opposite of you,” he admitted. “I didn’t want any rules. I felt my marriage was there to serve me. That despite pledging myself to another person and later having a child, that I could still do anything I wanted. Even if that meant disappearing to another country for three months at a time. I didn’t care enough about the other people in my life to change for them. And so I lost them both.”

  He picked up his wine again. “I’m not sorry about the divorce, except for how it affected Isaiah. He deserved better from me. I’m still learning, and occasionally I resist the rules, but I know that a few are there for the better good.”

  “Just not all of them?” she asked.

  “Exactly.”

  He was right. She did have a lot of rules. Maybe that was why Serenity’s claim to hear messages from the universe annoyed her so much. In her world, no mystic messages need apply.

  “Serenity wants to embrace everything at once,” he said. “She wants to pretend the last thirty-two years never happened and the two of you are close and loving, with a lifetime of memories between you. You want to take things slowly, to be cautious and careful. You’re protective, of yourself and those around you. You’re worried about Beth and Marshall as much as yourself. I think that’s reasonable.”

  “You’re saying we have a style difference.”

  He nodded. “I can’t claim to know what it means to give up a child, but I do know what it’s like to almost lose one because of the choices I made. I know the guilt I feel. I was able to become a part of my son’s life and because of that, I’ve changed. Serenity can’t undo what’s been done. She can only move forward, perhaps with a little too much enthusiasm. There are things about her…”

  “Like what?”

  He was quiet
for a long time, then he smiled. “I think you should give her a chance.”

  “I can do that,” Jenna said. “I already have. She has a way of sneaking up on a person.”

  He looked at her. “I see a lot of her in you.”

  A month ago, that statement would have bothered her. Now Jenna could see the value of being like Serenity. “Let me be clear. The universe and I aren’t on speaking terms.”

  “Fair enough.”

  She looked at him. “I’m sorry I snapped at you before.”

  “You’re under a lot of pressure.”

  “You reminded me of Aaron.”

  She expected him to get mad or accuse her of something. Instead, he nodded slowly. “I can see that. I’m sorry I push the same buttons with you. I don’t want to. I don’t need to belittle you to feel better about myself. I only want you to be happy.”

  She believed him, which felt good.

  “I don’t want to take any side but yours,” he told her. “Thank you.”

  When he put down his wineglass and slid toward her, she found herself uncertain, almost shy.

  He took her glass from her and set it next to his, then cupped her face in his hands.

  “Jenna,” he breathed, before claiming her in a passionate kiss that sent heat surging all through her body.

  As she kissed him back, she was aware of him dropping his hands to her shoulders, then rubbing them up and down her back. Anticipation quickened inside of her. Hunger burned. When his tongue touched her bottom lip, she parted for him.

  He kissed her deeply. She met him stroke for stroke. He moved his hands to her waist, then up to her breasts. When he cupped her curves in his palms, she nearly groaned out loud.

  His thumbs teased her already tight nipples. When he thrust his tongue back into her mouth, she closed her lips around it and sucked. The hands on her breasts trembled slightly.

  He drew back so they could look at each other. His eyes were dark, his gaze intense.

  “Am I moving too fast?” he asked, his voice just the slightest bit hoarse.

  “That depends. What time do you have to be home tonight?”

  His mouth curved into a very male, very predatory smile. “I don’t.”