by Brenda Novak
She caught him watching her and drew the shade, leaving him with no distraction but his thoughts.
“How’s the herb garden, Pop? Do you need me to weed that, too?” Adam asked, bending back to his work.
His grandfather leaned on his rake. From beneath a straw hat, great drops of sweat ran down his weathered face, and he wiped them away with his forearm. “Cook takes care of that. He won’t let me near the place. Says I don’t know a weed from a dirt clod—” he chuckled “—and I’m happy to let him think so.”
Ryan approached, squinting up at them from beneath an Oakland A’s hat, the gold in his eyelashes sparkling in the sunshine. He’d given up on the weeds shortly after they’d started in favor of playing with his new eight-legged pet, but he never strayed far from Adam’s side. The kid seemed starved for male attention. “Hey, what do you think this spider eats?” he asked.
“I bet it eats flies, just like most spiders,” Adam told him.
Ryan frowned. “Where can I find a fly?”
“Well, we’d have better luck if it was barbecue season, but—”
“Ryan?” Jenna stood on the porch, shading her eyes with one hand. She’d changed from the professional-looking wool slacks she’d worn all morning into a baggy pair of jeans, an oversize sweater and leather sandals.
“I have to pick up something at the store. I’ll be back in a few minutes, okay?” she called.
Ryan nodded, still studying his spider, but Adam stopped Jenna before she could leave. “Maybe we’ll go with you,” he said. “Ryan needs something to feed his new pet.”
A frown flickered across her face. “From the size of that spider, a large rodent would do.”
“Fresh out of those, I’m afraid.”
Jenna’s smile turned devilish. “Then how about a defense attorney from San Francisco?”
As Pop cackled from his corner of the garden, Adam gave Jenna his darkest scowl. “Enough lawyer jokes already. You’re revealing your eagerness to be rid of me. It’s not polite.”
Jenna shrugged. “This is your home, not mine.”
“For the moment it looks like we both live here. So how about it? Will you give us a ride to the store?”
The expression on Jenna’s face said she didn’t want them to go, but her reluctance only made Adam push harder. “Well?”
“Actually I was going to walk. My van’s in the shop,” she said, and winced visibly when Ryan added, “It’s a junker. My dad bashed up one whole side of it.”
Adam leaned his rake against the nearest tree, acting as though this piece of information didn’t surprise him—but it did. After Dennis’s call, his grandparents had admitted that his old friend had become an abusive alcoholic, but Adam couldn’t picture the somber boy he’d once known beating up on Jenna. Dennis had been so lovesick he’d dogged Jenna’s footsteps all through high school. His infatuation with her had destroyed his and Adam’s relationship—and they’d been friends since Little League. It was difficult to believe someone as devoted as Dennis had been could turn on the object of his affection. Had his drinking really gotten that out of hand? And if so, how badly had Jenna and Ryan suffered?
Adam peeled off his gloves. “We can take my car,” he told her. Nodding at Ryan, he added, “As long as arachno-lover here doesn’t mind sitting on your lap. There’s no back seat.”
Ryan’s eyes lit up. “We get to ride in your car? Cool!”
Jenna fidgeted with the strap of her purse as though she was about to protest again, but Adam didn’t give her a chance. “The spider stays behind,” he said, taking the jar from Ryan and setting it under the tree next to his rake. With a hand on the boy’s neck, he guided him to the parking lot on the other side of the house.
Jenna met them at the car. Her eyes widened slightly as she took in the sleek contours of the black Mercedes coupe, but she made no comment.
“Isn’t this great, Mom? Have you ever seen a car like this?” Ryan asked.
“Only on Miami Vice,” she muttered, sliding onto the black leather seat when Adam opened her door.
“Miami what?” he asked.
She chuckled. “Never mind. It was before your time.”
Adam climbed in and started the car. “Don’t pretend you’d be more impressed if I drove a station wagon,” he said.
Jenna threw him a playful look, reminding him of the girl he used to know. “If you really want to impress me, you’ll let me drive.”
He dropped his jaw in mock surprise. “This from the person who wrecked my friend’s motorcycle in high school?”
“Mom wrecked someone’s motorcycle?” Ryan echoed.
Jenna’s delicate brows drew together, creasing her forehead. “You can’t still hold that against me. It happened more than sixteen years ago.”
Adam pinned Jenna with a level stare. “I’ll let bygones be bygones if you will,” he said softly.
Jenna turned toward the window, but Adam could see the stubborn tilt of her chin reflected in the glass. “I didn’t want to drive, anyway,” she said.
A FEW LOCALS milled about the grocery store eight miles up the coast. Mrs. Trumbill, the chiropractor’s receptionist, looked over the painkillers and allergy-relief medicines. Mr. Francis, the town pharmacist, thumbed through the latest issue of People. Jenna acknowledged them both on her way to the produce aisle, wondering what she was going to buy, now that she couldn’t purchase her pregnancy test.
“What is it you need to get?” Adam asked, hefting two good-sized oranges in his hands. Jenna watched his fingers curl around the fruit and remembered his touch on her body. He’d driven her crazy with those hands, those lips…
Making an effort, Jenna pulled her gaze and her thoughts onto safer ground and picked out six golden delicious apples. “Just some fresh fruit for Ryan’s lunches.” Although Jenna had carefully timed her departure from the Victoriana so that Mrs. Durham would be finished with her shopping and on her way home, she couldn’t calculate the other woman’s movements with any accuracy. She was afraid they’d run into Adam’s grandmother and then Mrs. Durham would say something about the teeming drawers of fresh produce they already had at home.
“It’s not like Gram to run out of that sort of thing,” Adam said.
Jenna glanced at him, but his face held no suspicion. He bagged the oranges and dropped them in the basket as Ryan tugged him toward the ice-cream aisle.
“Hey, do you think we can talk Mom into buying us some ice cream?”
Jenna knew Adam hadn’t dampened Ryan’s enthusiasm for treats when they came back with ice cream, fudge and caramel toppings, M&Ms, a container of popcorn and whipped cream.
“We’re going to make sundaes and watch movies tonight,” Adam explained when Jenna raised a questioning brow.
“Great.” She didn’t ask who made up the “we.” At the moment she didn’t care. She was too busy looking for things to put in her cart that would constitute more than a waste of money. She managed to remember the new toothbrush she’d been wanting to purchase for at least a month, but when they got in line at the checkout, she still didn’t have what she really needed. And that was when she decided to get it.
“Adam? Would you mind taking Ryan to pick out a package of lunch meat? I forgot to get some,” she said.
A refrigerated section at one end of the store contained lunch meat. Shelves at the opposite end displayed feminine hygiene products. With any luck she’d have just enough time to grab a pregnancy test and have it rung up and bagged before the two of them returned.
Fortunately Adam agreed to do as she asked. Unfortunately, by the time Jenna retrieved what she wanted and raced back, another customer had engaged the checker in conversation.
“Are you going out of town for Thanksgiving this year, Mrs. Jones?” the checker was asking an older white-haired woman dressed in an expensive velour jogging suit.
Having already paid, Mrs. Jones paused in wheeling her groceries away. “Not this year, Karen. We usually go to a cabin at Lake Tahoe, but I
think I’m ready to have the family out here. The grandkids are getting older, so I don’t think it’ll be too hard on me. Say, did you ever try that stuffing recipe I gave you?”
The checker propped a freckled arm on the back of her booth. “No, but I tried one off the bag of bread crumbs I bought here, and it wasn’t too bad. I thought this year I’d add a bit of celery, even though my husband doesn’t really like celery. It’s my Thanksgiving, too, and my mother always put celery in her stuffing.”
Jenna’s toe tapped, and her eyes darted from the cash register to the pregnancy test. It seemed to be lying on the conveyor belt, screaming, “Jenna thinks she’s pregnant!” She craned her neck to see down the aisle and, just as she feared, spotted Adam and Ryan on their way back.
She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry…um, I don’t mean to interrupt, but I’m kind of in a hurry.”
The checker smiled with forced tolerance. “Sure. I’ll be right with you.” She pushed away from the back of the booth. “Well, Mrs. Jones, tell your husband I said hello. And maybe I’ll try that stuffing recipe of yours this year.”
By the time Mrs. Jones said her goodbyes and the checker turned her attention to Jenna’s purchases, it was too late to ask her to ring up the pregnancy test separately. Adam and Ryan were within hearing distance, and the sight of it, right there in front of them both, was almost enough to give Jenna heart palpitations. She didn’t want Ryan to get his hopes up about having a sibling unless it was true, and she didn’t want Adam to know, period. He’d already made her feel like a fool, appearing out of nowhere in his flashy car and his expensive suit, while Dennis had ruined their credit and lost them their 1996 Oldsmobile, which wasn’t much of a car to begin with, as well as their house.
Besides, the whole thing might be a false alarm.
Jenna’s eyes flicked over the pregnancy test again. Maybe Adam and Ryan wouldn’t notice it, she prayed, but lost all hope of that when the checker tried to run the thing through her scanner and it wouldn’t beep. Holding it almost at eye level and frowning, she said, “I wonder why this isn’t in our system.” She brought the microphone to her lips. “Johnny? Would you get me the price of the First Choice Pregnancy Tests? Aisle nine, I think.”
Jenna took a gulp of air and held it as Adam’s jaw dropped and his eyes flew to her face. She gave an uncomfortable laugh. “Where did that come from?” she asked. “That’s not mine.”
The checker blinked at her. “You don’t want this?”
“No, it’s not mine.” Jenna could feel her cheeks burn with embarrassment, but she tried to act as natural as possible. “Maybe it belonged to the person in front of me,” she said, because there was no one behind her.
“Mrs. Jones?” The checker scoffed outright. “She must be sixty-five. I don’t think so, honey.” She shoved the pregnancy test off to one side, where the smiling woman on the box stared at Jenna.
The next few minutes stretched into what felt like an hour. Jenna kept her eyes on her checkbook until it was time to pay, then Adam gently nudged her aside and threw two twenties on the counter. She didn’t fight him. She only wanted to get out of the grocery store and away from the First Choice box as soon as possible.
“Thank you, sir, and come again.” The checker smiled at Adam, her thick makeup creasing as she handed him the receipt.
Adam gave the lighter bag to Ryan and carried the other out himself. He didn’t say anything as they walked back to the car, but Jenna didn’t have to look at his face to know he wasn’t smiling.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE BRINY SMELL of the sea wafted through the cracks of the old building, permeating the entire room Jenna used as her studio. She sat staring at a half-finished stained-glass window portraying a small lake surrounded by great willowy trees. Natural light, which flooded the square room through a series of skylights, passed through several of the finished pieces hanging from the rafters and made small rainbows of color on the cement floor. Shortly after she’d moved in, the Durhams had hired their contractor to turn one of the old gardening sheds into a small studio for her, and there wasn’t another place on earth she felt more at home.
Outside, Adam and Ryan were talking and laughing as they tossed a football, but Jenna felt no inclination to join them. She’d fled to her studio as soon as they returned from the store and hadn’t come out since. Though normally she would have spent some of her day with Ryan, working on a school project due next week, he seemed to be occupied well enough without her. That her son already adored Adam, her nemesis, after only one day in his presence annoyed her—even more than Adam catching her trying to purchase a pregnancy test.
Allowing herself a deep heartfelt sigh, she picked up her carbide glass cutter, determined to finish the lake or to sit up all night until she did. She was using antique glass, one of the most delicate and expensive kinds, to make the water, but it varied in thickness by almost three-quarters of an inch. She couldn’t get a clean cut, couldn’t get the feel of her medium. Normally her hands worked almost independently of her mind, somehow sensing just how much pressure to use to score the glass without breaking it, how to tap gently near the cut and separate the two pieces. But not today.
After ruining yet another section that was supposed to be a lapping wave, Jenna slouched onto her stool. At this rate, she would be buried in broken glass by sunset! She couldn’t concentrate. Not with Adam just outside.
Standing again, she skirted the waist-high worktable and walked to the back of the studio where utility cupboards lined the wall. Taking out a large rectangular window she’d finished shortly after returning to Mendocino, she lifted the fabric she’d used to protect it and gazed down at a secluded cove—the stretch of beach where Adam had made love to her the first time.
She kept this piece hidden, as though someone else might guess its history, but really there was no need. With tall black cliffs and a green, tempestuous sea, it could depict almost any part of the Northern California coast. Except for the house she’d put in the background. She’d seen the same house over Adam’s shoulder that day sixteen years ago; she’d gone back to look at it since and had created a perfect likeness.
Closing her eyes, Jenna drifted back in time and felt the sand of the cove radiating heat beneath her naked body, the wind stirring her hair. When she thought of how Adam had touched her, his voice from outside the shed made the memory that much more real. She shivered as she relived it, feeling his hands move over her flesh, raising goose bumps along their path, as they curled around her limbs with the strength of the sea.
Moving in unison with the water that lapped at their feet, he’d covered her body with his, gently coaxing her to succumb to him like the pull of the tide. Let go…let go…
She’d wrapped her arms around him and relinquished control, and soon Adam began to pound into her with the rhythm of the waves against the rocks. Then her nerves tightened and leaped, like the spray flinging itself freely into the air, and she seemed to burst into a million fragments of brilliant light.
Opening her eyes, Jenna stared numbly down at her own representation of that day. It reminded her of what it felt like to be loved.
To be loved by Adam.
“Incredible.”
Jenna jumped and nearly dropped the window, but Adam’s sure hands grabbed hold of it.
“Damn, don’t you believe in knocking?” she snapped.
Adam’s gaze didn’t falter from the stained-glass depiction of the cove. “I did knock. You didn’t answer.”
Jenna’s eyes moved guiltily to his face. Maybe she hadn’t heard him. She’d touched an emotional memory so deep it had eclipsed all else. Like the actual event.
“Does Ryan need me?” Seeing him looking at the cove made Jenna feel as if he was reading her journal. Exposed, she wanted to distract him, but he didn’t answer her question. And he resisted her efforts to pull the window away.
“When did you learn to do stained glass?”
“I started about six years ago when I took a
course at a community college. But I’m just an amateur, really. I’ve sold a few pieces to the tourists who come through here, nothing more.”
Did he know what he was looking at? Did he guess Dennis had never been able to replace him?
“Gram told me you were good. But I never imagined anything like this. You’ve definitely got more than your share of talent.”
The space heater that hummed a few feet away was making the place unbearably hot. Jenna yanked out the plug, wishing Adam would stop looking at the cove. “Thanks. There’s more over there if you’d like to see them. This one’s actually not my best,” she lied, relinquishing her own hold on the piece as if it meant nothing to her.
Retrieving a little broom hanging on a hook inside another cupboard, she began to clean up the glass splinters at her worktable.
He circled the room, carrying the window with him, then paused at the partially finished lake. “They’re nice, really nice.” He held the cove up again for closer inspection. “But I like this one best.” He turned to look at her for the first time since he’d made his presence known.
Did he know?
No! How could he? It was sixteen years since they’d been on that beach. And she’d been the one to stare up at the house in a dreamy half doze as he slept facedown on her breast.
Still, Jenna couldn’t meet his eyes. She finished sweeping up the glass chips, then glanced beyond him to the subject of their conversation. “It’s a fairly good rendition of the coast, I guess.”
He studied the window, a thoughtful frown on his face. “I think I’ve been there.”
“Then you know how beautiful it is.”
“I do.” He smiled at her. “In fact, I’ve never experienced anything like it.”
Jenna gave a shaky laugh and stepped back to avoid the scent of his cologne. “Sounds like you need to travel more.”
“Or purchase this window. How much?”
She shook her head. “It’s not for sale. I’m trying to accumulate some inventory for a spring show. Maybe when that’s finished—” or when hell freezes over “—I’ll let you know.”
