Hearts on Fire

by Julia Gabriel

  It was her daughter.

  It was Jack’s daughter.

  There came a light, tentative tapping at the door.

  “Can I come in, Becs?”

  “Sure, mom.”

  The door swung open and her mother slipped through. “You know, you were the only one who never locked her bedroom door.”

  Becca flashed her a smile, hoping it covered up the shock she was feeling from the phone call with Shari. “I remember you always told us that if the house caught on fire, the firefighters wouldn’t be able to get us out if the door was locked.”

  “So you left the door unlocked so the firefighters could get in?” An amused smile played around the corners of her mother’s mouth.

  “No, so the firefighters wouldn’t ruin the door by kicking it in. I was the only one who showed any concern for you and daddy’s personal property.”

  “Speaking of firefighters, how was your date?” Her mom waggled her eyebrows, then pretended to look under the bed. “You didn’t sneak him up here, did you?”

  Becca rolled her eyes. “He was the perfect gentleman. And dinner was nice.”

  “What did you have?”

  “The salmon salad.”

  “Oh, that’s good. I order that a lot there. Did you eat outside, where it’s très romantic?”

  Becca rolled her eyes a second time. “Yes, we did.”

  “Was that Jack you were talking to on the phone? I didn’t interrupt, did I?”

  Boy, her mother was full of questions.

  “No, it wasn’t Jack. A friend from Ohio.” She wasn’t ready to talk to her mother about this yet. She needed to settle her own thoughts first.

  “Did you have dessert?”

  Dessert.

  “Yes, we split one. But a weird thing happened while we were eating it.”

  “Oh yeah? What’s that?”

  “This woman came up to the table and said she went to school with …” She stopped. She was about to say “my mother,” but Michelle was her mother.

  “With me and dad?” her mother filled in the sentence.

  Becca shook her head. “No, with … Penny.”

  “Oh. Oh Becs, I’m sorry. You’re upset by that.”

  Becca shrugged. “It’s never happened before, that’s all. And I wondered why not. I mean, it’s not like there aren’t people in town who knew her. And they know who I am. I always felt like everyone was looking at me, when I was younger, and thinking about that.”

  “I think people don’t mention it because they know you don’t remember her. You were so young, sweetheart. Who was the woman? Did you recognize her?”

  “I didn’t. She said she no longer lives in town. She didn’t offer her name and I was too flustered to ask.” She looked at her mom. “She said I looked like her.”

  “You do. Sometimes I’ll look at you from across the room and for a split second, I’ll think it’s her.” Michelle touched her hair. “She and I barely looked like sisters.”

  “Do you have any pictures of her?”

  She felt her mother’s gaze on her, appraising, wary. “I do. Sit tight.”

  Minutes later, Michelle returned with a large cardboard box. Becca moved Jack’s wedding quilt aside so her mother could set the box on the bed. Michelle folded back the flaps.

  “I’ve been waiting for the right time to give this to you.” She began lifting things from the box—a photo album, high school yearbooks, a small flat jewelry box. “I think now is that time.”

  Becca picked up the photo album. Inside, the pages were filled with photographs of Penny as a young child, as a teenager, as a young woman — and as a new mother holding an infant. Becca realized that she had never seen a picture of herself as an infant. Hot tears stung her eyes, as she turned back to the pictures of her mother. Yes, there was an unmistakable resemblance.

  “My sister loved you,” Michelle said. “But she wasn’t able to be a mother to you. She was battling too many demons.”

  “Is it true that they were both drug addicts? That’s the impression I’ve gotten over the years.”

  “I don’t know about him, exactly. Honestly, we never had much contact with him. But they dabbled in it, certainly. Then after you were born and he left, that was when it became a bigger problem for her. I begged her to come stay with us, but she wouldn’t leave Ohio. She was always waiting for your father to get his life together and come back to her. To the two of you.”

  “That was probably never going to happen, even if she had lived.”

  Michelle shook her head, sadly. “No, I’m certain it wouldn’t have happened. Choose the father of your children wisely.”

  Too late for that advice.

  “And write a will,” her mother added. “It was a mess, trying to adopt you. We had to get you out of foster care, track down your father, and ask him to relinquish his parental rights … ” She shook her head and took a deep breath. “But she was young. When you’re young, you never think this is going to happen to you.”

  Chapter 23

  Jack found the door to his parents’ house unlocked, his father already on his way to the station. You could do that in St. Caroline, leave your house or your car unlocked. Well, maybe the wealthy summer residents couldn’t. Or shouldn’t, at any rate. He took one last huge breath of fresh air before pushing the door open and stepping inside. The smell of sickness punched him in the gut.

  Can’t you fix this? Almighty, all powerful—and you can’t make the air in here smell normal?

  “Jack?”

  His mother’s voice was weak and he sprinted through the hallway to get to the sunroom quickly.

  “Mom, are you okay?”

  She sat, knees up, on the sofa. The ever present cotton blanket was wrapped around her. A shiver convulsed her body and the blanket slipped. Her fingers struggled to pull it back up. He hurried to the sofa and sat down next to her, tucking the blanket in around her shoulders.

  “Do you need me to call dad?”

  “No. He just left. I feel fine, Jack. No worse than yesterday.”

  No better either. He filled in her unspoken words.

  “I’m a little sad today, that’s all,” she went on. “It’s to be expected.”

  How could his mother be so calm about this when all Jack wanted to do was hurl things and beat his fists against a wall until they were a bloody pulp?

  “Can I get you anything?” he asked.

  “A cup of hot tea would be nice. If your cooking skills encompass that.” She managed a mischievous smile and Jack forced himself to smile back. Putting out a raging fire was easier than hiding how upset he was when he was around his mother. The sheer force of will required left his stomach muscles in knots for hours afterward.

  “I think I can handle that,” he answered. “But you’re lucky it’s me and not Matt here right now.”

  “How are you two getting along?”

  He adjusted her blanket again and then headed for the kitchen, ten feet away. “We haven’t killed each other yet.”

  Her laugh was barely audible over the sound of the water splashing into the tea kettle. “If I hadn’t been there when both of you were born, I’d swear one of you wasn’t mine.”

  “Maybe someone switched me at birth.” He flashed his own mischievous grin back at her. “Took the better looking baby instead.” He opened the wooden box that held his mother’s tea bags, all neatly slotted by color and type. “Which kind of tea do you want? Jasmine, orange pekoe, darjeeling, Earl Grey?”

  “The darjeeling, I think. I can’t taste the difference between them anymore anyway.” He opened the tea bag and draped it over the rim of a mug. “You might not look like a Wolfe, but I can see that you’re mine,” she added.

  He felt her eyes on him and he knew what she was seeing. Or rather, whom she was seeing. Not only had he inherited his uncle’s name, but he had gotten his height from his mother’s family too. When he got in his car to drive over here, he’d had the vague notion that today might be the day
he confessed to her about working in the fire department. He didn’t want that lie between them. It would haunt him for the rest of his life, he knew that. But her spirits weren’t good enough for that today.

  The tea kettle whistled and he snapped off the gas burner. He poured the water into the mug. “Strong or weak, mom?”

  “Weak is fine, Jackie. Mostly I just want the heat.”

  Do you have to take away even the simplest pleasures from her? The taste of tea? Really?

  He pulled out the soggy tea bag and dropped it into the sink.

  “Here you go.” He handed her the mug, not letting go of it until he was certain she had it.

  “How was your date last night? Where did you end up going?”

  “Blue Crab.”

  “Oh, that’s nice. Your dad and I were there a few months ago.” She blew on the hot tea.

  He tried not to think about the fact that it was the last time she would ever eat there. Barring a medical miracle. Which you could pull off, if you cared to. Evidently you don’t.

  “Do you remember her biological mother?” he asked.

  His mother looked up with a start. “Of course. When we were children. I don’t think I ever saw her again after high school. Why?”

  “Someone came up to our table last night and said Becca looked like her mother.”

  “Well, she does. Penny was always a bit of a spitfire, too.”

  “Becca has calmed down since high school.” He was beginning to wonder whether that really meant beaten down, by whatever her life had been in Ohio. She was good at changing the subject when that came up.

  “She’s a nice girl. Are you planning to ask her out again?” His mother sipped at the tea she couldn’t taste.

  “I was going to call her later today and see if she wanted to come over to the cabin for dinner. Since my cooking skills do encompass more than tea.”

  “Kicking your brother out of his own house?” That mischievous Wolfe smile played around her lips.

  “He’s headed to Ocean City with some buddies after he gets off today.”

  “Ah … so no chaperone.”

  “I can’t win here, can I? Kick my brother out or invite a girl over unchaperoned? Which is worse?” He knew his mother was joking, of course.

  “Just busting your chops, Jackie.”

  His mother looked happier than she had when he arrived. For that, he’d happily be the butt of as many jokes as possible. His phone buzzed with a text. He pulled it out of the pocket of his shorts. It was one of the guys from the station. Can you be on call tonight?

  Yes, Jack texted back.

  “Who was that? Becca?”

  He looked up at his mom. “No. Someone from California?”

  “Someone from work?”

  He shook his head, his own spirits deflating at the lies that were piling up one after another. “No, just a friend.”

  “When do they need you back at your job?”

  He shoved the damned phone back in his pocket. “Not yet.” He knew this was the perfect time to come clean, but he had just gotten her cheered up. He couldn’t dash her good spirits now. Not yet.

  Becca had intentionally dressed down for dinner with Jack—white denim shorts, a loose peasant blouse, flip flops—just to avoid the very situation in which she found herself right now. Lying beneath Jack on the couch in his brother’s cabin, their bare legs tangled up together, Jack’s lips exploring the curve of her neck.

  On the other side of the one large room that served as the living-dining-kitchen area lay the remains of the dinner Jack fixed for her. The room was still redolent with the aroma of lemon from the chicken piccata. She couldn’t even blame alcohol this time around. A bottle of white wine was in the refrigerator, unopened. Jack was on call for the fire department so he couldn’t have any—and Becca wanted all her wits about her in the face of Jack’s overwhelming … maleness. Attractiveness. Sexiness. She tried to hush that voice in her mind.

  And the bitch of it? He wasn’t even trying to be God’s gift to sexiness. He just was. The way he had moved around the small, poorly-equipped kitchen, wiping his hands on his tee shirt instead of an apron … and then stripping the dirty tee shirt right off over his head with a Can you excuse me for a minute? I need to powder my nose. Thirty seconds later, he was back in a fresh tee shirt and plating their meals. Chicken, wild rice, glazed carrots. Delicious and healthy.

  A woman could used to it.

  But she couldn’t get used to it, even as his lips nuzzled her jaw and evidence of his arousal lay heavy against her hip. Because he wasn’t staying in town forever. Because she had something to tell him, something he wasn’t going to take well. Something she wasn’t going to tell him tonight—not before she told her own family and got their advice. She spent the morning poring over her mother’s—Penny’s—photos and her yearbooks. Tried on her jewelry. Spent her entire shift at Skipjack’s watching kids puff up their chests and order their Monster Claw and Crabby Lady non-alcoholic drinks—and steeling herself each time for the way her heart collapsed with longing at the sight.

  On her break, she went for a walk outside in the sweltering heat so she could look at Facebook privately. And something had broken free in her chest. She had spent years trying not to think of Jacqueline Michelle. There had been no point in torturing herself or entertaining “what ifs.” But now she was desperate to see her in person.

  She wanted to meet her daughter even though she knew no good could come of this. Her choices were awful all the way around. If she said “no” to Shari’s proposal, could she live with that on her conscience for the rest of her life? If she said “yes,” Jack would hate her. It might break up the lifelong friendship between their parents. Helping Shari and Jacqueline Michelle would upend so many other lives in the process.

  Of course. She was Becca Trevor, and that was the way her life had always worked.

  Jack’s lips found hers again. His fingers were in her hair, and it just felt so damn good. Might as well enjoy it … this is the last time. But then Jack’s pager sounded and he broke the kiss with a start.

  “Seriously?” he muttered.

  “Rethinking your choice of profession?” She smoothed her hair as he pushed himself off the couch and into a standing position. “You could go back to being a lawyer.”

  “Then I wouldn’t have been here at all.” He checked the page. “I’d still be in the office, burning the midnight oil. I’ve got to go. Sorry.” He leaned over and dropped a quick kiss on her lips.

  “No worries. I’ll clean up the kitchen before I leave.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” Jack said, already across the room and pushing open the screen door. It closed with a loud “thwap” before she could answer. She heard his car start up outside, and then he was gone.

  It was for the best. Things were getting out of hand on the couch. Things that she was enjoying far too much. Jack had been turned on. She was turned on, more than she’d ever been with Brandon. Or anyone, for that matter. In the kitchen, she rinsed their dishes and loaded the dishwasher. She even located a broom and dustpan to sweep the floor. Then she turned the lock on the back of the doorknob and let herself out.

  Chapter 24

  Three days later, Becca was still a distracted mess of confusion and indecision. On top of that, she couldn’t stop thinking about Jack—and he wasn’t helping matters any by texting her sweet nothings all day long and turning up at Skipjack’s to sit at the bar and nurse a beer for an hour. Yesterday, she screwed up three separate drink orders because she couldn’t keep her focus on any task at hand. Today, he had swung by Quilt Therapy to ask her out to lunch. Her distraction was evident even to him.

  “Are you okay?” he had asked, over deli sandwiches and iced tea.

  No. Nothing is okay.

  “Just tired.”

  She spent the rest of the day working at the quilt shop. Behind her, Cassidy was closing out the register and Natalie was wiping fabric dust from her scissors. Becca sat do
wn at the big quilting frame and ran her palms over the quilt that was stretched on it. It was a traditional Amish-style quilt, a Diamond in the Square pattern, and pieced by a customer who then donated it to the shop. Becca loved Amish quilts—their simple geometry and rich, dark colors. They also provided a beautiful backdrop for Becca’s meticulous hand quilting skills.

  A spool of quilting thread and a packet of tiny quilting needles lay on top of the quilt. Becca deftly threaded a needle and set to work, willing the in and out rhythm of her hand to calm the storm of thoughts in her brain. She heard the lights click off upstairs, then one by one the shop’s staff—including her sisters—left. Only her mother remained behind. Becca felt her gaze. A moment later, her mother sat down next to her at the quilting frame.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Becca shook her head. “Nothing.” Everything.

  “I know you better than that. Is it Jack?”

  “No. Things are fine.”

  “Where’d you go to lunch?”

  “Just the deli.”

  “So what is it?”

  Becca was silent, even as she knew her mother would wait her out. And why not spill the beans right now? Shari was planning to come to St. Caroline. Becca had agreed to it. Sooner or later, she was going to have to tell people. In fact, it really had to be sooner rather than later.

  “Will you tell me if I promise not to be upset?”

  “You’re going to be upset. No way you won’t be.”

  “Try me?”

  Becca took a deep breath as she rocked the needle through the fabric. When she pulled the thread through, her mother covered her hand to still it.

  “When I moved to Ohio after graduation ...” She took another deep breath. “I was pregnant.”

  She glanced sideways, to find her mother’s brown eyes filled with shock. “I … that’s not what I was expecting to hear.”

  She watched as her mother struggled to regain her composure.

  “Why didn’t you tell me? Was it Alan’s?”

  Alan had been her on-again, off-again boyfriend in high school. More off than on. “No, it wasn’t his.”