Paradise Cove

by Jenny Holiday

“But has Jake heard from you?” Maya asked.

  Also no.

  It wasn’t like they hadn’t seen each other. He’d brought Mick by the clinic twice in the past two weeks. But both times he’d been on the way to a job and hadn’t been able to stay very long. He hadn’t suggested anything else, and she hadn’t, either.

  There had been times in recent months when Nora had felt like she and Jake had ESP. Like he could sense her thoughts, her wishes, without her having to verbalize them. Was that what was going on here? She’d thought after New Year’s that they needed to cool it. Had he read her mind?

  Or was this distance between them his idea? Had that weird moment outside on New Year’s Eve been a bigger deal than she’d realized? She had to wonder. Jake wasn’t an idiot. He would have sensed how warm things were between them before New Year’s. And while it was okay for things—historically—to be hot between them, warm was uncharted territory. Warm was dangerous. She’d gone to his house with her needs and her emotions all over the place and her speeches about how he was her best friend, and maybe she’d scared him off.

  So if he was pulling away because he wanted to pull away, and not just because he thought that was what she wanted, she could hardly blame him. He’d been up-front from day one about what he wanted—and what he didn’t want.

  “Anyway,” Maya said, “it’s a full moon tomorrow, so let’s ditch the boys, do tequila here, then go to the lake.”

  Sounded fine to Nora. It wasn’t like she had anything else to do now that she wasn’t spending all her free time being sexed up.

  Nora finished her business and sighed as she washed her hands, set the timer on her phone for three minutes, and thought about what Maya had said about boys causing problems. What Jake did, generally speaking, was solve problems. Decks, new housing, receptionists, paralyzing grief due to dead grandmothers—you name it, he solved it.

  So no, Jake had not created this problem. That honor was 100 percent hers.

  But she was getting ahead of herself. There wasn’t a problem. A problem was statistically unlikely.

  Probably.

  She just didn’t know the stats on how five-minute orgasms affected the likelihood of pregnancy. While female orgasm as a factor in successful conception had been debunked in many studies, most scientists thought oxytocin—the happy hormone—did play a role. And those had been five very happy minutes.

  She rejoined her friends, setting the stick down on a Kleenex on the coffee table. But she thought better of it and moved to pick it up. “Sorry, this is gross.”

  Maya stopped her. “No, no, this is great.” Eve elbowed her. “Well, not great. But dramatic.”

  They all leaned over and looked at the little window. There was a horizontal blue line. That was supposed to be there—it appeared immediately after peeing. What they were looking for—or not looking for—was another line, a perpendicular one that would make the image into a plus sign.

  “I can’t be pregnant,” Nora said.

  Maya patted her hand. “You’re not pregnant.”

  “I can’t be pregnant. I’m moving back to Toronto.” If she had a baby whose dad was here, things would be messy. “I’m only here for another year and a half.”

  Maya snorted. “That’s what they all say.”

  Huh? “That’s what who says?”

  “She’s talking about me,” Eve said. “I was only planning on being in town for a year.”

  “You might be following in her footsteps,” Maya teased. “This town will do that to you.”

  “Oh, leave her alone,” Eve said.

  “I mean, I like it here, but I have plans that do not involve being here indefinitely. Which is why I can’t be—” She squinted.

  Was that…?

  No. She tilted her head to get a better angle. No.

  Maya whipped out her phone, turned on the flashlight, and aimed it, just as the timer on Nora’s phone went off.

  Just coming into focus, very faint but definitely there, was a vertical blue line.

  Well.

  Shit.

  Where the hell was Nora? Jake was going to get whiplash from swiveling his head to look at the door every time someone came into the bar. She was just as likely to come in from the back as the front—it depended on if she’d left the Mermaid from the back or the front. Or maybe she would come from the clinic. She said she’d been working late nights to catch up on charting and billing.

  He shouldn’t have come.

  But it sort of felt like if he didn’t come, it would be odd. He had skipped last Friday to avoid seeing her. One Friday absence was not a big deal, but two would look weird. And in the meantime, he’d been more successful than he’d anticipated on the whole cooling-it mission. He’d barely seen her. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting. Maybe for her to ask him to watch a movie. Maybe for her to suggest they jump each other. He had been worried about how he would respond to those kinds of suggestions. His thought had just been that they needed to reverse course a little bit. Become less…entangled in each other. He hadn’t really thought through what that meant in practice. Did they have to stop sleeping together entirely? Were they done with zombies? Should he give her dog back?

  But she hadn’t asked him for anything.

  Which made him feel…weird. He liked doing things for Nora.

  Aww, damn, he missed her.

  He missed his friend. His best friend. Even though his latest, most epic battle with the waves was behind him, he still flushed with pleasure when he thought of her thinking of him that way. You’re my best friend, Jake.

  “She’s not coming.”

  “Who’s not coming?”

  Law snorted as he wiped down the bar. “It’s a full moon. The girls are at the lake.”

  “But they usually…” Come here first. But he couldn’t say that.

  “Hey.” Sawyer appeared and sat down. “What’s happening?”

  “Jake is mooning over Nora, who’s not here because she’s at the beach.”

  “Ah. Right.” Sawyer looked for a moment like he was trying to hold back a laugh but then stopped trying, which resulted in a snort-snicker hybrid. He hopped off his stool. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  “To the beach.”

  “Nah.”

  “Come on. You know even though I don’t work Fridays I usually loiter on the pier in case anyone’s wishing takes a bad turn.”

  “In the summer when tourists are here. Not in January.”

  “Dude,” Law said. “He’s trying to throw you a bone. Just go see your girlfriend. You know you want to.”

  “She’s not my girlfriend.”

  “But you’re sleeping together.”

  Jake sighed and looked at the ceiling.

  “I knew it.” Law chuckled.

  There really was no point in hiding it anymore, not from these two, anyway. He looked around to make sure there were no old folks lurking and lowered his voice. “I was sleeping with her. Last time I checked that wasn’t a crime. But for the record, I’m not anymore. And it never made her my girlfriend.”

  “Have you ever hung out with her and not slept with her?” Law asked.

  “Of course. It’s not like…” He’d been going to say that he liked her. It wasn’t like he’d been using her for sex. But they wouldn’t understand the nuance. They’d talked him into a trap.

  “You’re dating,” Law proclaimed. “You’re just not calling it that. Or doing it publicly.”

  “The thing is, in my line of work, I see a lot of heartbreak associated with pregnancy. People who’ve lost babies. People who wanted babies but waited too long.”

  Nora was standing on the pier with Maya and Eve, preparing to tell them what she had decided to do about the bomb that had exploded in her life.

  “And you want a baby?” Eve asked gently.

  “I think so. Someday.”

  “It’s okay if someday isn’t now, though,” Maya said, just as gently.

  He
r friends were being so good to her. Maybe it was the pregnancy hormones, but she was overcome with affection for them—and gratitude. She sniffed. “I know. I just always thought there would be some future point at which I had my life together. But actually…I hired that receptionist today.”

  “You did? That’s great!” Eve said.

  “I hired a receptionist today for my medical practice—my successful medical practice in a town that I am growing surprisingly fond of. That kind of sounds like someone who has her life together, doesn’t it?”

  “Aww.” Maya slung an arm around her shoulder.

  “Mind you, I also live in a tiny pink room and appear to have lost custody of my dog to my baby daddy who I’m maybe kind of estranged from for reasons unknown.”

  “Well, one,” Maya said, “you can’t have everything. I don’t think living in a tiny pink room and having your life together are mutually exclusive. And two, um, hello? Did you just refer to Jake as your baby daddy?”

  “Yeah, I guess I did.”

  “Does that mean what I think it means?” Maya’s voice was rising.

  Nora took a deep breath. “It does. I decided this morning.”

  She’d known it all along, though, hadn’t she? Even as she’d allowed her conscious, scientific mind to go through a rational decision-making process, somewhere inside she had known from the moment she’d seen that plus sign. It wasn’t that she’d gone all gaga-gooey maternal. Not at all. She could only trust that that—or enough of that to get the job done—would come later. Maybe it was just that she was so fresh off a death that she couldn’t, ultimately, let herself get too fussed over timing.

  The timing was bad. There was no question.

  But would it be better in a year? In three years?

  She had thought of Wynd and her alpacas. When the universe gives you what you want, are you going to complain that it’s too early? Those had been her exact words.

  And Nora knew right now, better and more viscerally than she’d ever known before, that nothing was guaranteed. People got sick and stopped recognizing you. People died.

  Time went fast.

  “Oh my God!” Maya was squealing and jumping up and down. “Oh my God! You’re really going to do it?”

  “I’m going to do it.” Nora’s voice was shaky, but her intentions were not. “I have no idea how, but I’m going to do it. I also decided that…”

  Oh, man. Why was this part so hard? Probably because she felt terrible about leaving Erin in the lurch. She wasn’t looking forward to that conversation.

  “What?” Eve said gently.

  “I’m going to do it here. I’m going to stay.”

  The girls started shrieking—and Nora started panicking.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t feel sure in her decisions. She would miss Toronto and her family something terrible. But she had a sweet life here. As her own boss, she had flexibility. And she was betting the network of elders could be guilted into babysitting.

  But more than that, she wanted her kid to grow up with access to its dad—assuming its dad wanted to be accessed. She wanted her kid to grow up by the lake.

  Still, despite her elemental certainty that she’d chosen the right path, the how of it made her feel like hyperventilating when she thought about it too hard. How was she possibly going to do this?

  “We’ll help you.” As if she had heard Nora’s unarticulated fears, Eve laid a hand on her arm, and Nora was overcome anew with gratitude for her friends. This phase of her life was supposed to be about her career, her finances—about getting over Rufus. She was beginning to see, though, that the unplanned dividend of her big move was these women.

  “Totally!” Maya agreed. “We both have flexible jobs. And you know that whole it-takes-a-village saying? This town may have its drawbacks, but it’s your village, lady.”

  “It’s my village,” Nora echoed. That felt right. That helped tamp down the fear.

  “Yeah, this town really stepped in when Sawyer was younger, to help him with Clara,” Eve said.

  “You know who helped him a lot?” Maya said, looking at something over Nora’s shoulder. “The Ramsey family. Jake.” She lowered her voice. “Who is on his way over here right now.”

  Nora’s stomach dropped as she twisted around to confirm that Jake was indeed approaching, along with Sawyer. “Don’t say anything!”

  “Of course not,” Eve whispered.

  “Even I’m not that much of a drama queen,” Maya said.

  “Hey,” Sawyer said as they approached. Jake, of course, did not say anything. “Making wishes?”

  “Not yet.” Maya held up a small basket that contained their flowers.

  Everyone was silent, the women no doubt because they were all—Nora included—processing Nora’s big news and the men probably because the women were being so weird.

  “Plotting something, then?”

  Sawyer was teasing, but when Maya said, quickly, “No! Why would you say that?” more awkward silence descended.

  Okay, she had to do something about this. She looked Jake square in the eyes. “How’s Mick?”

  “He’s, uh, fine.”

  “Good.”

  “I can bring him by the clinic Monday if you like. I thought you might be busy catching up these first couple weeks back, so I didn’t come very often.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I was. But, uh, yeah, if you want to bring him by Monday, I’ll try to take a break. Things are…still really busy, though.” She was trying to let him off the hook.

  No, that was a lie. She was trying to let herself off the hook. She had to tell him. She knew that. She just didn’t want to face it yet. She needed to get…her village lined up before she did.

  Jake nodded. He was staring at her really intently, but he didn’t say anything else.

  After a few beats of more of that awful silence, Eve said, “Well, girls, shall we get on with it?”

  “Yep!” Maya held her basket up to Nora and Eve but spoke to Jake and Sawyer. “Skedaddle, boys. It’s ladies’ night at the wish factory.”

  Sawyer and Eve made moony faces at each other, which caused Maya to roll her eyes. Jake just stared at Nora until Sawyer, who’d already turned and started walking away, came back and shoved him to get his attention. Even then, he looked for a beat longer before he turned and trudged off.

  Did he have ESP? Could he tell she was pregnant? No. That was just irrational panic. She needed to pull herself together.

  “All right, what is happening?” Maya whispered urgently once the men were off the pier.

  “You have to tell him!” Eve said. “I mean, you can’t even hide a sneeze in this town, forget a pregnancy.”

  “That’s not even what I mean,” Maya said. “You two used to have a kind of ease in each other’s presence. I used to think that was just because you were, like, vaccine-crusading pals, but we now know it was because you were getting it on. I get that you’re ‘estranged for reasons unknown’ or whatever, but that was a hella weird vibe.”

  “I’m going to tell him,” Nora said. “Of course I’m going to tell him. I want to give him a chance to be involved if he wants. I just want to wait until after the first-trimester ultrasound. What if something’s wrong with the baby? Or I miscarry? Can he…”

  “Can he go through that again?” Eve finished softly.

  “Right.” And really, how Jake was going to react to all of this was her biggest fear. Bigger than how she was going to manage the clinic or where she was going to live. “Maybe he can’t go through this again, anyway, even if everything is fine medically. He didn’t sign up for this.”

  “I don’t really see Jake letting a kid of his go unacknowledged,” Maya said.

  Right. That was completely right. “But I guess if I’m going to ambush him with this news, I want to make sure it’s actually news. However he’s going to react, I don’t want to…scare him more than I have to, you know?”

  “I get it,” Eve said.

  “Yeah,” Maya said.r />
  “So you’ll keep my secret?”

  “Of course we will!” Maya sounded put out that Nora would think otherwise. “We would help you hide a dead body. This is nothing.”

  “Well, speak for yourself on the dead body,” Eve said. “But yes on the pregnancy. One hundred percent. I won’t even tell Sawyer.”

  “It’s freezing out here,” Maya said. “Let’s get on with this so we can go back to my place and have more tequila.” She made a sad face at Nora. “And you can have some…milk? Kale smoothie? What do pregnant ladies drink?”

  Nora took the flower Maya handed her and leaned over the railing. Maya and Eve came to either side of her. They all held their flowers out.

  “You know, Eve,” Maya said, “it’s scientifically proven that if you donate your wish to someone else, it has a higher chance of coming true.”

  Eve laughed and handed Nora her flower. Maya did the same.

  Nora was once again getting a little teary. Hopefully this was a temporary thing and not a pregnancy-hormone-induced preview of how the better part of the next year was going to go down.

  “Three wishes!” Maya exclaimed. “Spend them wisely.”

  She should wish for a healthy baby, a place to live that ticked all her boxes, and…that Dr. Baker would still sell her the clinic for a good price. But all she could think of was:

  Jake.

  Jake.

  Jake.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The answer to Maya’s question about what pregnant women drank was electrolytes.

  Nora dropped a tablet in water and took a deep breath. She was craving Gatorade like no one’s business, but the doctor in her knew that she didn’t need all the sugar that came with those kinds of drinks.

  There was a knock on her office door. “Your first patient is ready in Exam Room One.”

  “Thanks,” she called to Amber. “I’ll be right out.”

  It was ten thirty in the morning, and her first patient was waiting for her.

  Because mornings were no longer for working; they were for barfing. Had been for the past month.

  “Take your time,” Amber said.

  She was pretty sure Amber was onto her. She had suddenly asked Jacques—the new receptionist—not to schedule any patients for the first ninety minutes of the day. That wasn’t normal.