by JoAnn Ross
And yet they’d somehow managed to have a conversation. Of sorts. Of course, she hadn’t exactly had a choice given that he’d been wearing a badge of authority. He wondered if she seemed so nervous because of that badge. Or maybe her mom’s cancer scare. Or maybe having to talk to him had brought back that night where everything got so fucked up. As if she’d been the one hit by the sneaker wave.
It had been all his fault. If he hadn’t broken up with her, she would never have been on that beach on that night, with that douche of a guy. She would have been with him. Safe, except for her heart, which he was bound to have broken eventually.
“She’s the one, isn’t she? The one you talked about that night we got drunk after the meth bust. The one who got away.”
“We’re not talking about her.” Given her mom’s possible health problems, Jolene already had enough on her plate. The last thing she needed was to be reminded of what had to have been the worst night of her life.
Did she blame him? Was that why she’d made a point of staying on the far side of the garden at the reception? Or maybe, although there was no reason for it, could she have been embarrassed by what she’d done? Given the screwed-up state of her mind that night, did she even remember what had happened? He’d certainly fallen through the trapdoor of an alcohol blackout after he’d first gotten home and had been trying to drink Washington State dry.
He wished he could talk with someone, like his sister, who, being a woman, might know better what might be going through Jolene Wells’s mind. She and Brianna hadn’t been close friends, but he vaguely remembered Brianna inviting Jolene to her birthday party. But if he talked to his sister about it, he’d be breaking a promise to Jolene that he’d made fourteen years ago. So, essentially he was damned if he did. And damned if he didn’t.
“And now we’re back to you being unable to accept that you’re not responsible for everyone on this planet,” Bodhi said.
Then why the hell did it feel like he was? And even if that were true, if you wanted to get technical, as police chief, he was responsible for everyone in Honeymoon Harbor.
“Don’t you have somewhere else to be? Maybe someone else to haunt?”
“Not at the moment.” Bodhi leaned back and put his flip-flops up on the dash. He wasn’t wearing his seat belt, but Aiden figured it probably didn’t matter. “Why don’t you stop by the Italian joint for some takeout?” he suggested. “Nothing like a big plate of lasagna and some crusty bread on a cold, rainy night.”
“You don’t eat.”
“No.” Bodhi flashed a grin. “But I can vicariously through you.” He patted his six-pack stomach that he hadn’t lost to death. “Without having to worry about carbs.”
As he pulled into the crowded parking lot of Luca’s Kitchen, it occurred to Aiden that with Jolene back in town, he’d just added one more name to his list of people and events haunting him.
* * *
WITH HER NERVES still jangling as if she’d downed three triple-shot salted caramel lattes, Jolene passed the Harper Construction offices on the way to her mother’s. Seth Harper, who’d taken over the family business that dated back to the nineteenth century, had remodeled the pretty Folk Victorian where the wedding had taken place.
Seth had also remodeled the lighthouse keeper’s home into her mother’s new salon and spa. The original house, which had only been large enough for a bachelor lighthouse keeper, or the keeper and his wife if they didn’t mind being crowded, was now a rental vacation home. Her mother, it appeared, had become an entrepreneur, growing wings in the years since her husband’s death. Despite the grief he’d caused them, both Jolene and Gloria had been heartbroken when the accident had taken his life, but, in truth, the odds of him getting his act together had been slim to none.
He’d tried to be a good husband (as far as Jolene knew, he’d never cheated on her mother), but he’d always had a streak of larceny and a seeming inability to connect his actions to any consequence.
Maybe it was because she’d just had that brief, forced conversation with Aiden, but it occurred to Jolene that both she and her mother had fallen for bad boys. The difference was that Aiden was now—and wow, wasn’t she still trying to wrap her mind around that idea?—Honeymoon Harbor’s chief of police. While her mother’s bad boy had ended his life as an imprisoned felon.
The remodel had been completed while Jolene was in Ireland, and her mother had moved into the second-floor apartment Seth had built above the salon. This second home had been built by the earlier lighthouse keeper as his family had started growing, eventually resulting in eight children. It was, as so much of those in Honeymoon Harbor, on the National Register of Historic Places, making remodeling difficult. Still, Seth had kept to the original Victorian style, while adding red shutters to match the retiled red roof and a wide front porch with a decorative white railing.
Her mother, who’d emailed her photos daily during the construction, had explained that before the 1850s, only Southern homes had boasted verandas to help people escape the steamy heat. But the Victorian-era trend toward more picturesque architecture—combined with a passion for more naturalistic landscaping—had made the “rocking-chair porch” an American icon by the end of the late nineteenth century. Which was how Seth was able to get the additional design element past the review committee.
Although the sign in the window read Closed, all the lights were on and the Scandinavian-blue door opened before Jolene could even get out of the car.
Not appearing the least bit ill, Gloria Wells ran out of the house, down the porch steps and embraced Jolene in a mama bear hug as if she were a prodigal daughter returning home after decades, rather than a few months.
“I’m so glad you’re here. That’s too bad about the bridge closing. But how wonderful is it that the navy welcomed you home?”
Her mother had always been the most positive person she’d ever known. How else could she have put up with her husband all those years? He may not have cheated or, as far as Jolene knew, lifted a hand to his wife, or spoken a cruel word to her. But as much as he’d proclaimed to love Gloria, and as often as he promised that someday she’d be living in a big house up on the bluff, overlooking all the people who’d ever snubbed her, he’d been a terrible husband.
“Do you remember that time the carrier came past the harbor? And Giovanno Salvadori, came out and played ‘Anchors Aweigh’ on his bugle?”
“I was thinking about that when I was watching the sub.” When she’d returned home for the wedding, she’d learned that Giovanno’s son Luca, whom his parents had taken back to Italy his senior year of high school, had returned and opened his own restaurant, Luca’s Kitchen, and had catered Kylee and Mai’s wedding luncheon.
“Your father should have joined the navy,” Gloria surprised Jolene by saying. “This town was never big enough for him. He always dreamed of seeing the world, but never had the money. The military would have paid for it.”
“That’s a thought,” Jolene said mildly, not mentioning that she doubted her father would’ve gotten through boot camp without being court-martialed. While he could be charming and funny, he’d also never been one to follow the rules.
“Sometimes I really miss him,” Gloria said.
No way was Jolene going to touch that statement. “I love your hair,” she said as she got her overnight and cosmetic bags out of the car. The duffel could wait. It wasn’t like in the city, where she might have worried about leaving it in the car overnight. Besides, who’d dare break the law with Aiden Mannion as chief of police?
“Thank you.” Her mother preened and fluffed her shoulder-length layered bob that she’d changed from streaky light summer blond to a deep brunette base with bright magenta highlights. “It’s my new color. I’m calling it chocolate and cherry.”
“Your new color for now.”
As the daughter of a hairstylist, Jolene had gotten used to her mother
’s continual change of colors. She’d always thought it made her mom literally more colorful. Except for that time when Gloria had double bleached for an entire day to strip out a raven black that hadn’t worked at all with her coloring, causing much of her hair break off just inches from the roots. It had been at least two months before she could pass a mirror without crying. Jolene assuring her that Rod Stewart rocked much the same look hadn’t helped.
“True. It won’t be that long until I’ll want to go lighter for spring.” The color changes were as much a part of her mother as her huge heart and optimism. And, Jolene thought with a new concern that hadn’t occurred to her, along with her fear of hospitals, she had to be worrying about potential baldness.
No. Don’t think about that now. You can face it tomorrow, she told herself as she walked into the building and breathed in the rich, mouthwatering aroma of a braising beef and vegetables.
“I’ve fixed up the guesthouse for you,” her mother said as they walked through the salon. “I thought we could move you in after you have dinner.”
Although Gloria had asked Jolene to help her with the decor, which is what had originally brought her back for the wedding, she hadn’t really been needed. Sarah Mannion, Aiden’s mother, who was studying for her interior design certificate after years of helping friends decorate their homes for free, had chosen a palette of whipped buttery yellow walls with indigo-and-white furniture and accents. Although designed to bring sunshine to the Pacific Northwest’s gray winter days, the decor was casual enough for local clientele, while sophisticated enough for the occasional wealthier bride who’d come from Seattle. It also would have fit right into Jolene’s previous Rodeo Drive neighborhood.
Sarah had used cohesive beach-glass blues and greens that she’d described as “secret garden meets seaside” to encourage relaxation. Michael Mannion, whom Jolene had met at a showing of his paintings at the Gallery Rodeo she’d attended with Shelby last year, had chipped in a mural of a tropical beach on the reception room wall of the spa. Other of his prints decorated the private massage and skin care rooms.
“That would be great since I’d planned to try out some new skin care formulas and wouldn’t have to take over your kitchen. But you didn’t kick out any guests for me, did you?”
“No, not that I wouldn’t have in a heartbeat for my daughter.” She opened the door leading up to the second-floor apartment. “Bookings are always down this time of year. The Lighthouse View Hotel and Herons Landing are getting the majority of the business. So, I simply took the guesthouse off the rental calendar until after the new year.”
A second door at the top of the stairs led into the apartment that had only been unfinished Sheetrock the last time Jolene had been here. She and her mother had stayed in the small apartment Gloria was living in between houses. Seth had created it as an open concept, with kitchen, dining and living room all in a large space. It reminded her much of Shelby and Ètienne’s, but more casual and cozy. Jolene put down her bags, turned and hugged her mother, hard, blinking back the threatening tears.
“I love you, Mom.”
Gloria hugged her back. “I love you, too, daughter.” She leaned back and gave her a long, searching motherly look. “Are you sure you don’t have a broken heart over the breakup?”
“No. It’s just that I think the reality of the fire is finally hitting home.” That much was true. But it was the thought of losing her mother—people could die young, look at her father and her mother’s parents—that had caused the unexpected tears.
It was going to be all right, she told herself. Hopefully the lump would turn out to be merely a false alarm. That happened all the time, right? And even if the worst did happen, they’d get through it together. As they had all storms.
They fell easily into old routines, Jolene setting the table, her mother dishing up the meat and vegetables into deep plates.
“So,” Jolene said, with a casualness she was a very long way from feeling, “Aiden Mannion has come home to stay?”
Gloria looked up from where she was slicing a round loaf of crusty rosemary bread on the kitchen counter. “Didn’t I tell you that?”
“I don’t think so.” Definitely not something Jolene would have forgotten.
“His dad talked him into taking the job of police chief after Axel Swenson had a stroke.”
“Oh, no! Chief Swenson had a stroke?”
“It wasn’t all that bad, as far as strokes go. Everyone pitched in to help, with meals and pet-sitting and such while he was in the hospital and rehab. I gifted Ethel with some massages and a mani-pedi, so she could relax because she’d definitely been spending too much time at the hospital and hovering over him like a mother hen. Tory Duncan, a lovely young masseuse who left a spa in Sequim to work for me, said that when Ethel came in, her muscles were like boulders.”
“I can imagine.” Jolene’s own shoulders had felt like rocks since Sarah Mannion’s call. There was currently a knot the size of a baseball at the back of her neck that hadn’t been helped by her encounter with Aiden.
“But Tory has magic hands, so Ethel was doing much better when they left town on that Alaskan cruise they’d always promised each other to take.” She held up a bottle of pinot noir. “Wine?”
“Thanks.”
Her mother looked around, brow furrowed.
“Something wrong?”
“I know I got out the wine opener. But I don’t see it.” She rubbed the line between her brows. “I’ve been so forgetful lately. I walk in a room and have no idea what I’m there for. Last week I ran to the market for cereal and filled up a cart with groceries and got home without any cereal. I hate the idea of getting old.”
“You’re not old. You’re just busy.” And, Jolene suspected, stressed out from worry.
She went around the island and checked the counter. The only two things on it were a coffee maker and the vintage sunshine yellow Pyrex canisters that Gloria had inherited from her mother. A set designer, who’d bought a similar set for a TV pilot Jolene had worked on, had told her they were back in vogue, and it had cost a bunch to buy a set on eBay.
“It happens to me all the time. What were you doing right before you came out to see me?”
“I was getting the bread out of the pantry...” Gloria opened the pantry door, and there, next to a wire bin of loaves of sourdough and English muffins, was the wine opener.
“I tell you, my thoughts are like soap bubbles lately. They just come into my head, then either pop or float away. Which is frustrating, because I’ve always been so organized. I nearly forgot to check on Mildred Marshall’s perm. Fortunately, I’d remembered to set the timer, so she didn’t leave the salon looking like a Brillo pad.”
“It happens to everyone. I’d be a mess without my planner and iCal.”
“Thank you for the reassurance.” After opening the wine, Gloria poured it into glasses etched with a picture of Herons Landing. The weekend of the wedding, Brianna had mentioned that she’d had them specially made for the small gift shop she’d created in her B and B so guests could buy souvenirs of their visit to the town. She’d told Jolene she’d gotten the idea for the store from the guys at Cops and Coffee, and the pair of elderly twins who owned the boutique where Kylee and Mai had gotten their wedding dresses.
“So, anyway,” Gloria continued, “the chief retired and after a few weeks of physical therapy, which apparently he can continue to keep up on his own, they took the Alaskan cruise they’d always been promising themselves, and are down in Costa Rica right now house hunting.”
She set the wineglasses on the table and they sat down as if it were any other night. At least any more special night that called for pot roast. “I heard from Donna—you know, who essentially runs the police office?—that Don James is angry about Aiden because he felt, as deputy chief, he should have been automatically promoted.”
“I never understood
why he was given the deputy job in the first place.”
“Because he’s Ethel Swenson’s brother. But Donna says that he’s been stupidly butting heads with Aiden, so he may be looking for new employment down the line now that his sister’s no longer here to protect him.”
“I remember him being a bully.”
“He is. He’s also lazy. The department’s delivering Thanksgiving dinner boxes from the food pantry, and apparently he feels that’s beneath him.”
Personally Jolene didn’t think even a slug was beneath Don James. She remembered him once sucker punching Aiden in the ribs after he’d pulled him out of the car when they’d been parked out by Mirror Lake, then shoved him in the back of the patrol car. He hadn’t put a hand on Jolene, but he’d kept his flashlight aimed at her breasts, which were covered in a pretty flowered demi bra she’d bought with Aiden in mind, for far longer than necessary allowing her to button her blouse.
She was honestly afraid of what he’d do until a call came over his radio sending him to the harbor, so he’d literally yanked Aiden out of the patrol car, wrenching his elbows and throwing him to the ground, kicking him one last time for good measure before driving away. Looking back now, she realized that they should have reported him to the chief, but they’d been too worried about retaliation. Perhaps even on their family members. So they kept silent.
The following night, while out on his boat in Serenity Cove where the deputy chief couldn’t spot them, Jolene had kissed each and every bruise until Aiden had begged her to stop, warning her that he was on the brink of losing control.
She still remembered the power she’d felt, knowing that she could make him feel that way. Knowing that she’d created that bulge beneath those five metal buttons of his Levi’s. She’d felt exactly the same way, but had been grateful that he’d kept his promise not to start fooling around below the waist. Because he understood her fear of ending up a teen mom like her mother. And he’d assured her, becoming a dad at eighteen wasn’t something he aspired to, either.
