Chapter Six
Jackson stood watching Jenna drive away, wishing he could chase her down and remove the note he’d put in the gift bag. It was enough that he had picked out special things for her. Why had he written her a note?
She had practically run him over to get out of there after he offered her friendship. The note took it a step past that. It didn’t outwardly state his feelings, but it was pretty obvious. In general, Jackson was being pretty obvious about his feelings. And Jenna—well, she was being clear about hers too. It didn’t just hurt that she wasn’t interested. When she looked at him, it was like she saw who he used to be, and it brought memories and regrets rushing to the front of Jackson’s mind. He had spent more time than ever this week under the deck with the punching bag.
After talking to Beau and Jimmy at breakfast, he decided to risk it, to put himself out there. He probably should have listened to Cash instead. He seemed to have a good handle on the fact that love ended in disappointment.
Why the note? He was really kicking himself over that. So far, Jenna could have just written him off as a guy trying to make amends. The note took it firmly beyond that. It was also cowardly, hinting that he wanted more. That was the kind of thing he should have asked for in person.
But just maybe he was starting to wear her down. She hadn’t said anything rude when he walked her out to the car. In fact, she had seemed grateful and for the first time, her tone had been kind. Then again, maybe he just caught her in an emotional moment. When he walked up to her in the candy aisle, she was obviously trying to hide her tears. Though he hadn’t lost either of his parents, he knew that grief was like that—it could just sneak up on you. After his grandpa died, he once saw his mother crying in the kitchen, holding a box of matches to her cheek. Jackson had only been eleven, so he simply backed out of the room before she noticed him. He never found out if the matches were his grandpa’s or if it was some memory that the box triggered.
Something had triggered Jenna and the sight of the raw emotion on her face had made Jackson want to sweep her into his arms. He couldn’t protect her from the pain or take it away, but he could let her know that she wasn’t alone. If she would only let him.
He did his usual evening walk-through of the store, hoping the routine would help distract him from thoughts of Jenna. Jackson paused in the canned goods aisle, looking at the shelves. Mercer had been here. Every can lined up perfectly on the shelf, labels turned outward just the right way. He wished there was something left for him to fix. He desperately needed something he could control right now. A problem to solve. Somewhere that he was needed.
But moving from aisle to aisle, everything looked perfect. Cereal boxes lined up perfectly flush at the end of the shelf. Even the designated clearance area had been straightened. There wasn’t so much as an empty cart or a spilled box on the floor. Things looked perfect, but this was also a sign that not enough people were shopping at Bohn’s.
It had been a slow and steady decline over the past ten years since he started running the store. Bohn’s had been a family store for years, but the original Bohn, Charlie, had died. His sons didn’t want to run the place. They had moved Off Island, places with actual cities and had corporate jobs, probably, or just lived off their inheritance and the money from the sale to Wells Development.
Jackson’s father purchased it for him as a gift and an investment. Or, a gift with the understanding that it was an investment. Alex Wells was investing in Jackson’s future as much as he was in the financials, and he wanted a positive return. Not that he needed it.
When his father gave him Bohn’s, he set protections in place, keeping everything in Alex’s name, stipulation that certain managing staff stayed on, requiring weekly meetings. He probably expected Jackson to run the business into the ground. And he might have, had Jackson not run himself into the ground first.
His rock bottom wasn’t any one particular event. Neither was his conversion a dramatic, born-again kind of moment, though the impact on his life was a complete change. Jackson had simply woken up one morning, still smelling like the night before, and walked through the doors of Hope Church. He thought the music was weird and made mental notes of everything he disagreed with in the sermons.
But something drew him back. He went over his objections and questions with Beau and Jimmy, sometimes over breakfast, sometimes over drinks or dinner. That was the beginning of Bible and Breakfast. After a few months, Jackson realized with some amazement that he wasn’t disagreeing anymore, just discussing.
As these changes took place, so did Jackson’s interest in the store, and his ability to run it as a business. At first, he had been half-hearted. He simply kept things going, doing the bare minimum not to mess it up. Now he ramped up his care and concern. Bohn’s was his and he wanted to make it amazing. For his father and for himself.
His dad had slowly removed the safeguards, little by little trusting his son more, before finally turning it over fully to him, along with the rest of Wells Development when he retired. Bohn’s was sinking, but it wasn’t because of Jackson, more because the growing tourist economy preferred chain stores like Harris Teeter. They were familiar. If people were going to spend extra money, they wanted to spend it on a dinner out or gifts. Not at the grocery store. They simply couldn’t compete with chain prices, no matter how much Jackson poured into Bohn’s.
Jackson came around the last aisle to the produce department and stopped, sucking in his breath with surprise.
A new wooden cart sat front and center before the main sections of fruit and vegetables. Shop Bohn’s Local! had been painted on the side of the cart in professional hand-lettering that was a nod to the look of the produce stands that used to populate the roads on the way to Sandover. Mercer had worked quickly.
A sign stood next to the cart and Jackson walked closer to read it. The top showed a photograph of one of the fruit stands Jackson remembered, mostly because of the owners, an older black couple with wide smiles. His mother had made him drive Off Island to that particular stand for watermelon once. He could still remember how sweet it was, the feel of juice dripping down his chin.
Below the photo was a little blurb. Jackson began to read.
* * *
Farm-Stand Produce Now Right at Your Doorstep!
When you shop Bohn’s Local, you are supporting the rich history and culture of coastal North Carolina. You don’t have to leave the Island anymore to buy farm-fresh produce. The produce stand is coming right to you! All fruits and vegetables served in season and sourced from local farms. Keep our rich culture and family-owned produce stands alive when you shop Bohn’s Local!
* * *
He didn’t realize that he’d been holding his breath until he finished reading. It was genius. The display held bright green asparagus standing on end, mounds of broccoli, and shiny red and gold apples, all in baskets made from thin strips of curved wood. He remembered them from the fruit stand. It really was like the stands had been brought right into the store.
“Not a lot of fruit in season right now.” Mercer’s voice startled him. He hadn’t heard her come to stand beside him. “But the asparagus looks amazing, don’t you think? And we have apples. Next month we should be getting some strawberries. That will add some color. Is it … too much?”
He smiled and turned back to the cart, running a hand along the wood edge. “It’s perfect. Everything about this: the display, the signs, the new ‘Bohn’s Local’ idea.”
“I’ve got the first Farmer’s Market set up for two Saturdays from now.”
“You work fast. I wonder if we could work this into the store. Picture it: Bohn’s Local throughout the store with locally sourced specialty items. Honey, home goods, fresh pies, paintings—anything we could put under the umbrella of being On Island or nearby.”
“Like a whole new line?”
“Exactly. On Islanders are our biggest customer base, not tourists. Let’s give them more On Island things to consume. Whatever you want,
however you want to do it. I trust your judgment and your eye for setting things up.”
“We’ll need a logo designed.”
Jackson smiled. “Beau could do it. Do you have his number?”
He enjoyed watching Mercer’s face, which flashed with a few different emotions before she moved a neutral expression. “I don’t.”
“I’ll pass yours on and have him call you.”
“You don’t think you should handle it? I mean, I don’t know about design …”
“I trust you. I trust Beau. Great work, Mercer.”
“Thanks. I better get started on the details. I’ll need to rearrange shelf space.” Mercer disappeared, heading toward the back of the store.
If Jackson wasn’t going to get the girl, at least he could help Beau get his. Though maybe he should mind his own business. Whether it was Bohn’s slow demise or his inability to win over Jenna, everything he touched lately seemed to be doomed to fail.
Chapter Seven
Before heading home from Bohn’s, Jenna made a pit stop for a latte at McDonald’s. The only local island coffee shop closed at four o’clock, as though that’s when they thought people should stop drinking coffee. Since college, coffee at night had been her calming ritual. She had worked at a coffee shop on campus the last three years. Drinking coffee for a seven-hour shift four days a week essentially broke caffeine’s ability to affect her. At least, it didn’t send her heart beating like crazy or keep her awake. Often the very last thing she did every day was drink two cups of coffee.
McDonald’s coffee was surprisingly good, less bitter and cheaper than most coffee shops. But if you didn’t remind them and tell them 100 times not to add anything they always put in liquid sweetener or, inexplicably, hazelnut syrup. She had forgotten that reminder today and got syrup, sickly sweet. Even though her latte tasted like a cupcake, it did the trick, easing the tension building in her shoulders since she saw Jackson. She felt like she was losing a battle with herself, a battle being waged over her heart. One she couldn’t afford to lose.
It threw her the way Jackson just continued to be kind even when she was rude. Going out of his way to talk to her when she clearly didn’t want him to. Giving her gift bags of who knows what. Was he trying to redeem himself from the past? Or, maybe, was he trying to win her over? That thought sent her heart racing.
As Jenna turned onto Dunesway Road, she realized she was speeding, and heard the echo of her mother’s voice: Now, normally you don’t want to be driving forty miles an hour in a twenty-five-mile-an-hour zone.
Jenna had been almost sixteen, learning to drive in her mother’s silver minivan. Most of her friends’ mothers were terrible to learn to drive with—always screaming or jamming on invisible brakes. Her mom had been completely calm, a perfect teacher.
And then Jenna was crying. Again. Tears that she had held in while standing in the candy aisle of Bohn’s and tears for this current memory of learning to drive. She could hardly see through the tears as she pulled into the dark driveway and she sat there, engine running, blasting heat at her toes. She didn’t want to lose the memories or have them fade the way they had with her dad. But it was so hard to have her grief knock her over like a rogue wave whenever a thought like this hit her.
It didn’t seem fair. Many people her age still had grandparents. Most had their parents. Mark’s parents had divorced and remarried, so he had almost an excess of family. Jenna had only Rachel and her girls. Her parents had been older when they had kids, but they were still so young to be gone. Her life was so thin. She felt unmoored, floating loose without people or a place to anchor her.
Jenna pressed her head into the steering wheel and sobbed, thinking of her three nieces, probably the closest she would ever come to having kids. She thought of the divorce papers that she had signed with her lawyer not so long ago. A divorce her mother never even knew about.
After a few minutes Jenna was sweating under her jacket. March was unpredictable and the temperature had dipped into the forties over the past day. Jenna realized that the radio station was blaring, playing song after song that all sounded remarkably like Taylor Swift wannabes. She shut off the car. The moment the car’s headlights shut off, there was a tap on the window next to her.
Jenna screamed and dropped her keys.
A familiar face grinned at her. She knew those white teeth even in the dark. Steve. Her heart fluttered with a confusing cocktail of emotions. Almost as confusing as the feelings she had around Jackson. But where her walls had started to crumble around Jackson, just the sight of Steve made her want to reinforce the walls with steel and maybe a moat.
“It’s just me,” Steve said, voice muffled through the window. He held up a bottle of wine. “I come bearing gifts. You coming out or what?”
Jenna threw back her head and laughed, knowing that it was not a good sign of emotional health to move so quickly from sobbing to laughter. She opened the door and he hopped out of the way.
“Hey, now. Watch where you swing that thing.”
“Steve.” Jenna felt awkward as she stood. She had instinctively been going in for a hug, but now questioned that move. She put her hands into the pockets of her jacket instead.
Studying him, she couldn’t help but think of the boy she had spent hours playing with in the woods and riding bikes to the beach. They had been friends first, after all. Even after what he did, so many of her good childhood memories involved the guy who had been the boy next door. Rachel always said that she had a soft spot for him, and that she didn’t see him the way everyone else did. She should have been angry with him or at least as upset as she had felt with Jackson when she ran into him for the first time this week. But she didn’t feel angry, just resigned and emotionally spent.
“Well, don’t just stand there,” he said. “It’s as cold as you were to me senior year of high school.” He had that way of trying to disarm her with humor and a crooked grin. She could get on board with light humor. Much easier than going deep.
“Wow, really? That’s where you want to start? Also, you totally deserved an arctic winter. But do we really want to rehash the whole you-dumping-me-for-Anna thing?”
Steve rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. When he did, Jenna realized that he wasn’t wearing his wedding ring. What did that mean? He gave her a lopsided grin. “Truce? At least for the night. I did bring a peace offering, after all.”
“I thought you said the wine was a gift. Now it’s a peace offering?”
“Can it be a little bit of both?”
“Only if you make yourself useful and help me bring in the groceries.”
Their pattern of witty banter returned so easily. Carrying groceries in was a nice distraction and allowed Jenna to center herself. This was Steve. Her first best friend, first boyfriend, first heartbreak. They were different people now. When all the groceries were inside, they stood across the kitchen from each other like it was the most normal thing in the world.
Except Jenna felt an odd sense of warning, like she needed to keep that whole kitchen between them. Steve may have been her best friend at one time, but he no longer felt safe. The bag Jackson sent with her shoes sat behind Steve on the counter. She wished he would go. She was dying to see what kinds of things Jackson had thought to put in the bag. But not in front of Steve.
“It’s good to see you, Jenns.”
It bothered her that he used her nickname. Only Rachel still called her Jenns. “What brings you here? It’s not every night I have a creeper waiting outside my car for me.”
“Creeper, huh? That’s what I’ve been reduced to? It just happened to be your lucky night. I was visiting my mom. I procured this bottle from her kitchen when I saw your car. Would you like a glass?”
“I don’t have glasses. Just red plastic cups.” Jenna handed Steve the corkscrew she had bought at Bohn’s, pushing the thought of Jackson from her mind. Did she want a glass? She hadn’t had any wine since she arrived and couldn’t buy it at Bohn’s. Now that she th
ought about it, she didn’t miss it. Which felt like progress. Drinking with Steve seemed like a definite backward step.
Steve grinned. “Red cups. Just like the old days.”
“Maybe for you. I didn’t drink in high school, remember?”
That had been one of the points of contention between them back then. Steve had gone to church the same way that Jenna did, but any faith he had was confined to Sunday mornings. Not that he was a bad guy, just maybe a stereotypical one. For Jenna it had always been more. Faith colored her decisions. Which meant, among other things, no drinking until she was twenty-one, something Steve constantly pushed her on. Just like her stance on waiting for marriage to have sex.
Anna had no problem going to parties and drinking whatever was on tap from a plastic cup. She also had no problem stealing boyfriends. Probably not having sex either.
“One for you?”
Jenna held up her McDonald’s cup. “I’m good. I’ve got coffee.”
Steve made a face. “Doesn’t that keep you up all night?”
“Nope.”
She watched Steve tip back his wine, eyes crinkling up at the sides as he caught her staring. It wasn’t fair that guys like Jackson and Steve somehow managed to look just as good now as they did in high school. Better, even. The two of them could almost have been brothers with their thick, dark hair and brown eyes. They also shared a mutual animosity. She wondered if that had settled down over the years, especially with them both staying On Island.
Something was different about Steve’s eyes, but she couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was yet. He now sported a tiny white scar the length of his eyebrow and just above it. She could have asked him a million questions and probably should have started with what happened to him and Anna that led to him not wearing his ring, but she zeroed in on the scar.
“How’d you get that?”
Sandover Beach Memories Page 6
