by Brenda Novak
Hardly a boy, Jenna thought. “Well I wouldn’t want to keep you from your second piece of pie. You three go ahead.” She began pushing Ryan up the stairs in front of her. “I’d better get this boy back to bed.”
Yes, the Durhams had always made her feel like part of the family, but Jenna knew she wasn’t part of this. As soon as Adam appeared, she’d become the intruder—understandable, considering their history and what had just occurred, but awkward all the same.
“Jenna, wouldn’t you like a slice of pie? You’re getting far too thin,” Mrs. Durham said.
“She looks good to me,” Adam muttered.
Jenna felt Adam’s dark eyes on her like the heat of a campfire, and again she tightened the belt of her robe before turning back to face them. “Go ahead and enjoy yourselves. There’s school in the morning, and Ryan agreed to tidy up the woodpile afterward. I’ve got to be up early to interview waitresses if we want to replace Gayle before the holidays.”
Adam smiled, his teeth glinting against his darkly shadowed jaw. “Maybe I’ll help Ryan. When I was a kid, I used to collect the spiders I found out in that old woodpile.”
Ryan brightened. “Great! I found a tarantula once when we visited the Grand Canyon.”
“We’ll see if we can find another one tomorrow, though we’ll probably have better luck coming up with a black widow.”
“Black widows are cool.” Ryan resisted his mother’s hand long enough to add, “Hey, save me a piece of pie, okay?”
“You got it, kid.” Adam winked at Ryan, and Jenna shooed her son on his way.
“I’m sorry about your, um, neck,” she said to Adam, then followed Ryan up the stairs.
“OKAY. WHAT’S JENNA doing here?” Adam took the milk from the stainless-steel restaurant-style refrigerator and set it on the large oak table. Taking a seat, he crossed his legs at the ankle and angled them out in front of him, trying to appear patient as he waited for the explanation. He’d never dreamed he’d see Jenna again. Not here. Not after all these years. And certainly not minus his old friend.
What was more, he’d never expected the sight to land him a blow in the gut with twice the impact of those she’d landed elsewhere on his body tonight.
Grandma Durham busied herself uncovering the pie she’d reclaimed from the fridge. “She’s working here, dear. She’s our new manager. Didn’t you know? I could swear I mentioned it on the phone a time or two.”
She stood on tiptoe to reach the cupboard where the plates were stored, and Adam swiftly stood and retrieved them for her.
“You said nothing of the sort—and you know it.” He leaned down to see her face, which was worn and lined and pleasant to look at, like a treasured old book.
“Why? What’s going on?”
With a smile and a shrug, she sent a glance her husband’s way. Pop Durham sat across from Adam’s seat, rattling the pages of yesterday’s paper as though absorbed in what he read there. But Adam wasn’t fooled. Pop listened to every word they said, all the while pretending his grandson’s visit wasn’t that important to him, just the way he did whenever Adam came home.
“In August, I think it was, she moved back to town to sell her stained glass—”
“Her what?”
“She makes the most beautiful windows and lampshades, dear, in stained glass. You really should see them.”
“That’s how she was planning to earn a living?” Adam couldn’t keep the skepticism from his voice, and Gram reacted with a dose of defensiveness.
“She could, you know. She’s good enough. She’s just getting her business set up. So it was perfect that she could come and work here. We needed the help and she needed the extra income.”
His grandmother gestured him back to his seat, and Adam stretched out again. “What, exactly, does she do for you?”
“Oh, whatever we need, actually. She fills in if the maid doesn’t show up, or the waitress, or she helps Mr. Robertson in the kitchen if the restaurant gets busy. She does some bookkeeping for a few hours the first part of the week, then basically manages the restaurant and inn from Thursday to Sunday.” Gram frowned. “I told you we were going to hire someone, that Pop and I are getting too old to handle this place alone.”
With a twinge of guilt, Adam loosened his collar by unfastening another button. Her meaning was clear. His grandparents wanted him to come home and work, and eventually take over the place when they passed on. They had never understood his desire to make something more of himself, and he couldn’t seem to explain it to them, though he’d certainly tried. As the illegitimate son of a drug addict who’d abandoned him when he was only five and then killed herself, he knew what a psychologist would say. He’d dated one once who’d sent him her analysis of him after he’d broken it off. She’d said he was an overachiever, acting out of a desire to prove himself valuable to society. Because he’d been rejected at such a young age he had no faith in his intrinsic worth. He feared losing control, which was why he never did, and why he worked himself nearly to death to fill his life with things, instead of people.
For all the confidence with which that letter had been written, Adam wasn’t sure he agreed. He was a simple man and not prone to blame his faults on anyone, least of all his parents. His mother, when she was alive, had enough troubles of her own, and no one knew who his father was. Besides, he wasn’t about to lay that psychological mumbo jumbo on his poor grandparents. They’d feel as though they’d failed him in some way, when they’d always been the best part of his life—along with those three years with Jenna.
“You told me you were going to hire someone, but you didn’t say who,” he said.
“Does it matter?” Pop Durham glanced at him over his paper as the scent of cinnamon and cloves wafted through the kitchen. The smell brought back the autumns of Adam’s youth: the crisp sea winds, the crackle of a warm fire, melting butter on homemade bread and, most of all, the safe haven the Victoriana had provided him under the loving care of his grandparents.
He owed them so much, yet he couldn’t give them the one thing they wanted. He couldn’t move back home.
Using his fork to draw designs in the whipped cream his grandmother had ladled over his warm pie, Adam lifted his gaze to meet Pop’s. “I think it matters. You both know Jenna and I were once close.”
“That was fifteen years ago,” Gram asserted, pouring him a tall glass of milk. “I wasn’t sure you’d even remember Jenna.”
Adam took a bite of his pie, savoring the spices and the smooth texture of the filling. How could he ever forget Jenna? She was his first love and, in some respects, his last. “So what happened between her and Dennis?”
“She told you. They got divorced,” Pop said. “It’s over.”
“When?” Adam wasn’t about to let his grandfather put him off. He’d suffered through too many years of imagining Dennis with Jenna, in every way he had once been with her, to settle for just “It’s over.”
“’Bout six months ago.”
“That boy’s got problems.” Gram shook her head. Her hair, now dyed a harsh black, was flat on one side, where she’d been sleeping on it. “But it’s none of our affair. You’d better let Jenna tell you about Dennis.”
Adam downed his pie, wondering how Jenna had managed to claim so much of his grandparents’ esteem and loyalty in the short time she’d lived with them. “Does he come around?”
“Not yet, and he’d better not show up while I’m here,” his grandpa said, finally folding the paper and setting it aside to accept his own pie.
Adam opened his mouth to ask another question, but the ringing of the telephone cut him off.
He glanced at Gram in surprise. Who would be calling the Victoriana at nearly one o’clock in the morning?
His grandmother clucked her tongue, but neither she nor Pop made any move toward the phone, so he reached over and picked up the receiver himself. Before he could say hello, he heard Jenna’s voice. She sounded…wary.
“Hello?”
&nbs
p; “Jen?”
“Dennis? Why do you keep calling me? I’ve asked you not to bother us here.”
“You think I’m going to let you get away that easy, Jen? You’re my wife, and that’s my boy you got there.” Dennis’s words were slurred and difficult to understand, and Adam realized immediately that he’d been drinking. Reluctant to intrude on Jenna’s privacy, Adam started to hang up when her shaky response made him pause.
“Dennis, the divorce has been final for months. I’ve got a restraining order against you. If you don’t leave me alone, I’ll call the police. Besides, I won’t have you bothering the Durhams. They’re old and they need their rest.”
Dennis gave a throaty laugh. “It’s not the Durhams I plan to bother. You go ahead and call the police, Jen. That karate shit won’t help you this time. They’ll need to bring a body bag by the time I’m through with you.”
Then the phone clicked and the line went dead.
CHAPTER TWO
JENNA SAT ON THE EDGE of her bed, trying to stop the tremors that racked her body. Dennis had rattled her, which was exactly what he’d intended. She shouldn’t have let him, but there was a craziness about her ex-husband that frightened her, for Ryan more than herself.
Dennis had been getting worse since she and Ryan had left him. Would he, one day, follow through with his threats?
“Mom? Was that Dad?” Ryan’s voice came from the other room, where his light had just snapped off.
Drawing in a deep breath, Jenna wondered what she should say. She didn’t want to blacken Dennis’s name. Ryan was only eight. He needed a man in his life, a healthy role model. But the boy’s father was far from healthy right now, and Ryan had, no doubt, already heard her responses to the caller.
“Yes,” she told him.
“Was he drunk again?”
Jenna squeezed her eyes shut, hating the truth and the pain it caused her son. “I think so, honey.”
Ryan didn’t answer. The springs of his bed squeaked and, in a moment, he shuffled into her room. “I know he scares you.” He stared at her, his large brown eyes as earnest as his words. “I wish I was big enough to protect you.”
Smiling, Jenna beckoned him to her. “Ryan, it’s not your job to protect me, especially from your own father.” She blinked back tears brought on by her son’s sweet devotion—and aggravated by her own raw nerves. “Dennis is…just confused right now. When he gets a handle on his drinking, he’ll be the fun dad we once knew.”
“Will we go back home, then?”
Jenna searched her son’s face for any sign of hope and found none. “I don’t think so. Why?”
“Because I don’t remember him being any fun.”
Standing, Jenna rested her hands on her son’s thin shoulders. At four foot five he was only a foot shorter than she was.
“That’s a real shame, Ryan, because your father was…is…a wonderful person. He’s just got a big problem.” She didn’t add that their troubles had started long before his drinking. That piece of information wasn’t relevant, anyway, because Jenna would have stayed with Dennis, for Ryan’s sake, had he not become abusive.
Ryan nodded. “I’d better get back to bed.”
“Okay.” Jenna gave him a squeeze. “We’re doing just fine on our own, don’t you think?”
He smiled. “Yeah. I like it here.”
“So do I.”
“Do you think that Adam guy will really help me catch a black widow tomorrow?”
Adam. Another sensitive subject. Refusing to dwell on the man she’d just kicked—hard—Jenna looked at the clock next to her bed. Nearly one-thirty. What a night.
“I think so,” she said. “Now hop into bed.”
Ryan gave her a quick kiss on her cheek and headed to his room, leaving Jenna to climb back into her own bed and stare at the ceiling. She listened to the ocean, hoping it would calm her, soothe her mind into sleep, but she was still awake when the Durhams went to bed. As they passed her door, she heard Mrs. Durham ask her husband if he’d taken the medication for his high blood pressure.
Then Adam’s sure step sounded in the hall. If she wasn’t imagining things, he paused by her room, and she half hoped he’d knock so they could talk the rest of the night away. Over the years she’d wondered countless times about his life. Was his career as fulfilling as he’d thought it would be? Did he still like motorcycles? Was he in love?
She knew he’d never married. Occasionally Mr. Durham grumbled something about how quickly Adam went from one woman to the next, but neither of them had said much more than that. They were disappointed that he hadn’t settled down and started a family. And they hadn’t forgiven him yet for moving away.
Jenna yanked the comforter over her head, well aware that the desire to spend time catching up with Adam was a crazy notion.
She hadn’t forgiven him, either.
ADAM LAY AWAKE long after the rest of the house grew quiet, his head swimming. The evening had been an eventful one. Not only had he discovered his high-school sweetheart living with his grandparents, he’d heard the voice of his old friend, Dennis, for the first time in fifteen years.
Only he hadn’t liked what Dennis had to say. They’ll need a body bag by the time I’m through with you.
Adam’s hand flexed with the urge to connect with Dennis’s face, even though Dennis and Jenna’s problems had nothing to do with him. He was just visiting for the weekend. Monday would see him whizzing back to San Francisco in his new Mercedes coupe, with the top down if the weather was warm enough—his hometown and the friends he’d left there easily forgotten.
No, purposely ignored, maybe, but not forgotten. He remembered the hurt in Jenna’s eyes the day he’d broken up with her and the regret that had weighed on his heart at odd moments since. She might have married Dennis, but she’d haunted Adam’s life like some elusive ever-present ghost. She was the standard by which he measured all other women.
Blocking out the sadness of their final month together, he shifted his thoughts to better times and settled eagerly on the day they’d first made love. They’d already been dating for two years and knew each other better than Adam had ever known another human being. That day, they’d gone swimming in the ocean, as they often did. But this time Jenna hadn’t stopped him from removing her swimsuit when they left the water and stretched out on the beach.
Giving in to the smile that tempted his lips, Adam closed his eyes and relived the moment of seeing Jenna naked for the first time. She’d been beautiful, with the wind whipping her dark hair about her face, her blue eyes gazing up at him with complete trust, nipples drawn tight and hard with desire.
When he touched her, his hand shook as it did now, just remembering the feel of her silken limbs entwined with his own. He felt again the grit of the sand on his palms, the warmth of the sun on his back, the sound of the sea in his ears—and Jenna beneath him, tight and warm and willing.
After the initial pain she’d experienced, she had matched his eagerness and his passion with an honesty and an intensity that would never fade from his mind. Since then, he had searched for that same responsiveness, those same feelings, but he’d never again achieved what he’d had with Jenna. Maybe he never would, as punishment for pledging her all his tomorrows and then breaking that promise.
As much as he’d wanted her, loved her, some inner devil had urged him to leave Mendocino before he became an innkeeper like his grandparents. He wanted to see the world, challenge himself, and eventually become part of the stiffly competitive legal world in San Francisco.
A year after he left Jenna, he’d winced at the news that she’d married Dennis, but he’d forged ahead. A law degree, a prestigious practice, becoming one of four partners in a firm of sixteen. Two hundred thousand a year, then three hundred, and finally half a million turned his beat-up Chevy truck into a Buick, a Lexus and now his first Mercedes. He drove one of the most expensive cars on the market. He had a big home on the bay, powerful friends, important clients. He’d made it to t
he big time, hadn’t he? He should be glad of the path he’d chosen.
And he was. He’d had no real doubts until he’d seen Jenna tonight. The sight of her wide sky-blue eyes had pulled him up short. The curves of her body beneath the robe, the body he’d once known so well, had made him wonder what he’d missed—and if it wasn’t better than what he’d had, after all.
At the sound of someone in the bathroom, Adam checked his alarm clock in surprise. He’d feared it was morning and he hadn’t slept at all, but according to the clock it was only two-thirty. Only. He’d be exhausted in the morning.
He went back to the pleasant memories of his days with Jenna, remembering her carefree laugh that time he’d given her a ride on his buddy’s motorcycle. Afterward, she’d insisted on driving, gave it too much gas and popped a wheelie. They’d gone down the street on one wheel, then two, again and again, until she finally crashed and bloodied his knees, as well as hers, and they’d limped home, laughing and pushing the bike before them.
Chuckling, he wondered if she still remembered ruining her new pair of jeans that way. Fortunately holes at the knee became fashionable after that, so he still got to see her in those great-fitting jeans.
And then there was the day she’d baked him a strawberry dessert, which she spilled in her aunt’s car when she tried to bring it over to him. They’d spent the better part of the night trying to clean it up….
Whoever was using the bathroom was sure taking a long time. He could hear his grandfather’s snores throughout the private part of the inn and knew that Pop, at least, was sleeping soundly. It could be Gram or Ryan in there, but after overhearing Dennis’s call, Adam suspected it was Jenna.
Slipping out of bed, he put on the pajama bottoms he usually left in his leather bag and headed out into the hall. A light glimmered beneath the bathroom door, but the occupant seemed to be sick, not merely upset.
He knocked softly.
“I’ll be out in a moment.” Jenna’s voice sounded oddly breathless.
