One thing tried to work its way out during her tale, and she’d struggled to hold it back—the nagging voice that insisted it was all Jonathan’s fault. He hadn’t tried hard enough to stop her from getting married. He walked away and abandoned her to that life.
What else was he supposed to do? She screamed at him, back them. Forced him away, her command that he go and never speak to her again not leaving room for argument. She splashed more water on her face, trying to shock herself into a more neutral place and chase away the confusion raging inside.
A heavenly smell drifted into the room. Garlic. Onions. Beef? She couldn’t identify all of the scents, but their combination made her stomach growl. She stepped into the hallway, and a glance at the clock in her bedroom told her she’d been hiding out for almost half an hour. It didn’t feel like nearly that long, but at the same time she might as well have suffered an eternity.
She followed her nose to the amazing concoction calling her, and paused in the kitchen doorway. Jonathan had set the table for two. In the middle of it all sat a bag of chips and a pot of something with the lid still on.
He looked up with a tentative smile. “Dinner’s on.”
“It’s after ten. Isn’t it a little late for food?”
“Nope.” He held out a chair and gestured to it. “We have to eat sometime, and you skipped lunch.”
She didn’t have the strength to argue the sweet gesture. “What are we having?” she asked.
He scooted the chair in when she sat. “You were right about your pantry; our options are a little limited. We’re having nachos. Sort of.” He tilted the chip bag and dumped a generous stack onto her plate, then ladled something over them from the pot. Stroganoff sauce.
He took the spot across from her, and nodded at her plate. “Well?”
She took a tentative bite, and her mouth watered when the first flavors hit her tongue. She paused to say, “It’s really good,” before shoveling up another scoop.
He glanced at her every few seconds, as they ate. She should be working on distracting him from the storm, but she was caught in the loop of her mistake that was her marriage. The guilt and self-loathing and blame that gnawed at her brain matter.
It was worse that Jonathan no longer wore that freaking poker face she hated so much. Every time he looked up, pity filled his eyes. Or that was concern, but the mess inside refused to believe she deserved that. Several times he opened his mouth, like he wanted to speak, then turned his attention back to his food.
They finished, and he insisted on helping her clean up. When the dishes were rinsed and the leftovers stowed, she stood next to him at the edge of the living room. She couldn’t bring herself to make eye contact.
“You can’t go out in this weather. I’ll show you where the guest room is.” She turned in that direction before he could say something. She stopped next to the door, as out of his way as possible, and gestured inside. “The bedding is clean. I’m going to get some sleep. Have a good night.”
“Bailey...”
She didn’t turn. Pretended she didn’t hear his soft request over the wind howling outside. When she reached her room, she flopped on the bed and tried to make out the ceiling in the dark. She wouldn’t be sleeping tonight. Not with the onslaught of thoughts tormenting her.
Chapter Nine
Between the storm tearing at the world, and Bailey’s story echoing in his head, Jonathan spent most of the night tossing and turning. He strained his ears, listening for any sound above the rain hammering against the house. Nothing. Did he have cell coverage yet? If so, he could check into work or at least his mail, since it was still ungodly-o-clock on the west coast. He easily sought out the laundry room at the back of the house, extracted his clothes from the dryer, and then dressed.
He found his phone on the kitchen table. Damn it—still no signal. He wandered into the living room and flipped on the TV. Ambivalence filled him, as he watched the scrolling news and radar map. The hurricane probably wouldn’t hit them directly, but they’d catch the edge of it, and that could do significant damage on its own. The highways back to the peninsula were closed. Looked like the Key would be home for the next few days. Once upon a time, that would have been the best news ever. Now, he wasn’t sure how he felt about it.
“At least you waited until morning.” A tired thread ran through Bailey’s cheer.
He spun to face her. Her smile looked as if it took effort, and dark circles sat under her eyes. He wasn’t the only one who didn’t sleep. “I did promise. Storm’s supposed to reach full strength by tonight. Do you need help shuttering up?” Should he mention last night? Any of it? Which Bailey would emerge if he did?
“Help would be nice. I’m hoping it doesn’t hit hard enough to flood. If you thought cold bathroom tile in the winter was harsh, try stepping out of bed and into several inches of water.”
He didn’t get a lot of icy tile back home. “You’re not staying here,” he said.
“Excuse me?” She didn’t look upset.
“Nana’s house—sorry, my house—has metal shutters, and at least one story that probably won’t flood. It’s safer there.”
She twisted her mouth, and then shook her head. “All right, Mr. Bossy. On one condition.”
“It’s not a negotiation.”
“Whatever. If we’re going to be stuck there anyway, you’re helping me sort through boxes.”
And decide which memories were worth keeping and which could be discarded or sold to the highest bidder. “All right.”
He found oatmeal in the pantry she’d forgotten about, and made that, while she brewed coffee. Breakfast consumed, they got to tightening up her place as best they could. Sheets of rain slammed into them as soon as they stepped outside.
They made their way from window to window, fighting the wind to close the wooden covers over glass. He held them in place, and she latched down the bars that would keep them there. Furious at their efforts, the weather tore at their clothes and hair, whipping both against their skin.
Jonathan muttered a thank you as they reached the second to last stop. He yanked the shutter, and the wind pushed back, jerking it from his hand and slicing the wood across his palm. “Fuck.” He pulled back, wiggling his fingers and willing the sting to go away.
“Let me see.” Bailey grasped his wrist.
“I’m fine. We need to get this done.”
“We have time. Don’t pull this macho bull with me... Ouch.”
He looked at the wound and was shocked at what he saw. The sharp sting wasn’t just a scratch. A deep gash gouged his palm, under the thumb, crimson welling up and being diluting by the rain.
“Come on.” She tugged him toward the front door.
“Two windows left. Let’s finish.”
She pursed her lips. “You need to bandage that.”
“And then we’ll come out here, the weather will soak through the gauze, and it’ll have to be re-wrapped once we’re done. The longer you argue, the more it bleeds.” Which he didn’t want. The pain was becoming a throb.
“Fine. But don’t bleed on my shutters.” The concern in her voice drowned out the sarcasm.
It was harder than Jonathan expected to do most of the heavy work with his left hand, but keeping the pressure off his right made it easier to hide the wince each time a stab of pain traveled down his arm. Maybe insisting they finish before he took care of the wound was macho bullshit.
He waited in the entryway when they finished, so he wouldn’t drip on her carpet, while Bailey grabbed gauze, tape, and disinfectant. She joined him again. A numb heat seared him at her tender touch when she examined the cut. She wiped away the excess mess and hissed. “This is deeper than I thought.”
“I’m fine.” He didn’t mind her worry, though. It was reassuring.
“All right. But if your hand turns green and falls off, I’m saying I told you so.”
He laughed. “As is your right.” He ground his teeth while she slathered the cut with antibiotic
salve, relaxing again when she wound the gauze around his hand.
And then she kept wrapping.
“I think you’ve got it covered,” he said.
“I guess. Let me grab a couple things, and we’ll head back to your place.”
His place. The notion felt foreign, but reality was sinking in. Nana didn’t live there anymore. Thunder rolled and boomed overhead, punctuating his thoughts. One more thing to decide. Sell the property? It wasn’t as if he was going to live there. He couldn’t wrap his brain around letting it go. When he was growing up, Nana’s was more like home than home was.
“All set.” Bailey joined him again, pulling him back to the now—a far more pleasant place to be, despite the weather.
FORTUNATELY, THE SHUTTERS on Nana’s house pulled down easily and latched in place with minimal effort, so they avoided further injury. They found Lucifer cowering from the storm in the upstairs bathroom, made sure she had food, water, and attention, then let her hide again so they could get back to their sorting.
Once they settled in and started working, things went quickly. Several hours later, they’d gone through almost everything in the attic. The pain in Jonathan’s hand dulled, making it easier to ignore whenever he hit it at the wrong angle.
“Have you looked through these yet?” He nodded at a handful of boxes shoved in the corner. The dust on the floor around them was disturbed, but they weren’t sitting in any of the piles Bailey’d laid out.
She glanced up, then quickly turned back to the trinkets she was looking through. “No.”
The sharp word caught him off guard. “Do I dare?”
“Up to you.” And like that, the standoffish switch had been flipped on. She rubbed her face then met his gaze. “I glanced. Open at your own risk—that’s all I’m saying.”
“Okay...” He flopped next to the shoved-aside grouping and opened the first one. The strong scent of aging, damp paper filled his nostrils, and he wrinkled his nose. When he looked inside, a strange pit welled in his chest. Treasure maps sat on top of a black piece of fabric with white paint. If he unfolded it, he’d see a skull and crossbones. “Oh.”
“Yeah. I’m not sure it has any value beyond the sentimental kind.” She leaned back, palms on the floor and attention on the box.
The instinct to toss it all spilled through him. It was from a past that didn’t matter now. Instead, he found himself pulling out the top piece of paper and unfolding it with care so it didn’t tear. “Did we ever find any of these treasures?”
“No. Wait... Maybe one. Remember? That wooden box under the porch, with all the chocolate coins in it?”
He smiled. “I wondered when I got older why she put so much effort into the stories.” Something metal clattered to the ground. He set the map aside and grabbed the key. It was corroded and rusted. Welded steel, looking like something that might belong to an ancient lock. Or on a chain around someone’s neck. He had no idea if old keys actually looked like this. He held it up. “Perfect example. Why go to all the effort of hiding this up here?”
Bailey furrowed her brow and studied him. “You really think that?”
“Think what?”
“That she made it all up.”
He returned her puzzled look. “Pirates didn’t hide chocolate coins under Nana’s back porch. You realize that? And the Easter Bunny isn’t real, and neither is Santa?”
“Dork.” She tossed a wadded up piece of packing paper at him, and it fell to the ground long before it reached him. “Okay. So she did some of it for you, because you loved the stories. If you resent that or have a problem with it, I’m going to think you don’t have a heart.”
“I never said that. I’m just wondering. By the time I was ten, I knew the stories weren’t real, but she kept telling them.” He expected the gnawing inside to turn to pain, but it felt light. Relieved. He realized he was smiling.
Bailey looked amused too. “Who says they’re not real? So she enhanced one or two tales. It doesn’t mean there’s no truth to them.”
He gestured to the map he’d unfolded. “Say I follow this, which looks a lot like something straight out of an Indiana Jones movie, and use the magic key. Does that mean I’ll find the pirates’ buried treasure? As nifty as that idea is, if you’re spending your time pillaging the high seas for a living, what kind of long-term investment plan is burying the gold in a box on an island?”
“The reality isn’t actually about buried treasure.” She laughed. “That part was embellishment; I’m sure. But there’s a lot of history here around this being a layover for pirate ships. Back in the late sixteen hundreds—and even later, before colonists figured out how to make their way down here—it was a good stopping point.”
“So I can’t bank my retirement on this opening a secret treasure chest, worth billions in doubloons?” He gave an exaggerated sigh.
“No. I suppose you’ll have to do it through smart investments and a wicked-scary grasp of the financial market instead. Poor you.”
“Sobbing all the way to the bank.” He tucked the key into his pocket and dove back into sifting through the contents of the box. He unfurled the pirate flag. The paint was chipped and faded, and there was no doubt an inexperienced artist—him—drew and painted the skull. Bailey did the crossbones underneath. “I’m keeping this, though,” he said.
“What are you going to do with it?”
“Hang it behind my desk during tough negotiations. What else would I do with it?”
“I don’t have a better answer.”
Every time she laughed, it filtered through him, chasing away the cobwebs and lingering darkness around why he was here in the first place. He’d do a lot to keep her smiling. The abrupt thought caught him by surprise, and he shoved it aside. Random side effect of the afternoon; that was all that was. As he dug through the box, he found hand drawn maps, homemade eye patches, and a cardboard sword. Most of it was too yellowed and fragile to be worth saving. It ached, for reasons he couldn’t explain, to toss it into the trash pile, but he didn’t have room for mildewed clutter back home.
Nestled underneath it all, was a small wooden chest. “No way.”
“What?”
He pulled it out. It had an ornate carving on the top and sides. An intricate pattern that almost looked Celtic. And it closed with a tarnished brass latch—fragile and held in place with tiny screws. “This.” He flipped the clasp and opened the lid. Foil wrappers sat inside. Gold and silver, half-torn and crumpled, and still holding the shape from when they’d been wrapped around candy.
“I can’t believe she kept that.” Bailey crawled forward, settled next to him, and sifted through the glittery trash. “I can’t believe you put those back in there.”
“Wasn’t me.” Neither of them bought that. They’d made themselves sick that day, eating an entire box of chocolate. When it came time to clean up, he thought the foil was too pretty to throw out. God. He was a sentimental little kid. It was probably a good thing he outgrew that. He emptied the contents into a trash bag.
“What are you doing?”
“It’s junk, Ale.”
“But...” She sighed. “I know. The box is an antique, though. Hold onto that.”
“I don’t know what I’d do with it.” He set it in the sell stack.
She reached across him, pressing her body into his, and grabbed the map. Reluctance filled him when she pulled away again. She folded the paper as carefully as it had been opened, and handed it to him. “The key’s useless without this.”
“They’re stories.” Despite his argument, he slipped the paper into the small stack of things he was keeping. “But it’ll look good, mounted next to the flag.” It wouldn’t hurt to hold onto a couple of memories.
Chapter Ten
Bailey settled onto the couch, while Jonathan flipped through a shelf of DVDs and VHS tapes. “Does the VCR even still work?” he asked.
“Yup. Guy in town keeps—kept—it running for her. I don’t guarantee the tapes are still any
good though.”
He held up a copy of Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey. “That’s assuming they ever were.”
“She bought that for you.” Bailey had enjoyed pretty much the entire day—talking, delving into the past, touching on the present. It made her wonder why she couldn’t meet a guy like Jonathan.
He shelved the tape and continued through the stack. “I’m not claiming my taste was perfect, as a kid, but it was better than most people’s.” Teasing filled his words.
“Is that Speed 2 I see up there, next to Spice Girls?”
They finished going through the attic a few hours ago and agreed they’d tackle his old room tomorrow. After seeing how much he chose to discard, she hated the thought he might throw out most of the toys and models lining the shelves, but it was his stuff. His choice.
He brushed his fingers over the spines of the tapes. “Okay—so I had my questionable moments. I’d still watch either one of them again... but not without a lot more whiskey on hand.” He reached the DVDs, and grabbed one of the first in the row. “Now this is a classic.”
Heat flooded her cheeks when she saw the cover to American Pie, not because it was racy, but because it was one of the movies they snuck into, the summer he ran away, and at the meek age of fourteen, she’d never seen anything so raunchy. Unlike the VHS tapes, DVDs were only out for a few years before Jonathan’s last trip here.
“I can’t believe Nana owned something like that.” She managed to keep her voice even.
“This one’s all mine. I left it here because my parents were furious when they found out I’d seen it, and watching it again was the perfect rebellion.”
Thunder roared, accompanied by a sharp bolt of light, and the house went dark. “I think a higher power’s punishing you for your bold disobedience.”
“Let Him. Or Her.” Jonathan’s voice was closer than she expected, and his heat brushed her back. He draped his arms over her shoulders. “Won’t stop me from watching it.”
The Second Chance and The Auctioneer (The Love Equation, #3) Page 7
