Expectations

by Brenda Novak

  “Jenna!”

  Her name on the wind drew Jenna’s attention. Adam stood at the other end of the beach, waving to her, but she didn’t budge. What had woken him? How had he found her? Why had he come?

  “Jenna, you scared the hell out of me! It’s late. Come here!”

  Ignoring him, Jenna turned to the vast ocean and sank onto her rock. If she went back, he’d only knock down a little more of the barrier that shielded her heart, a barrier that was starting to crumble already. Just knowing he was so close—knowing they were completely alone in the night—sent her heart thumping wildly against her ribs.

  Only the sound of the surf filled her ears during the next few minutes. Had Adam gone back? Jenna hoped so but refused to look, afraid she’d find him waiting for her.

  When his arms closed around her, she knew he’d neither waited nor left. He’d come for her. “Let’s go back,” he whispered against her ear. “You’ll catch cold out here.”

  Still silent, Jenna let him lead her down to the sand, where they paused to stare out over the water.

  “It’s gorgeous, isn’t it?” he asked, clasping her fingers with his own.

  Jenna nodded. “How could you leave here so easily, without a backward glance?”

  Bringing her hand to his lips, he kissed her palm but didn’t answer for a long time. Finally he said, “Aren’t you really asking me how I could leave you so easily?”

  Jenna stared at her feet to hide the hurt, all the while digging the toe of her tennis shoe in the sand. She wanted to say those days were in the past, that they no longer mattered to her, but the words wouldn’t come. He was right. Even after all the intervening years, she wanted to know why the boy she’d given her heart and soul to had abandoned her—just like her father had. “Didn’t you love me?” she whispered.

  He squinted into the darkness. “As much as I was capable of loving.”

  “Then why?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve asked myself that a million times. I was wrong to hurt you, Jen.”

  “We were just kids, playing at being adults. I think it’s time I realized how young you were when you made that decision,” she admitted. “Still, sometimes I wonder how different my life would have been if we’d never met.”

  A wounded expression flitted across his face before he masked it. “Do you regret being with me that much?”

  Jenna paused. Without Adam, she might never have married Dennis. Then again, without Adam, she would never have known the ecstasy of true love.

  Rising on tiptoe, she brushed her mouth across his with the lightness of a butterfly’s wing. “No. The memories I have of you are some of my very best.”

  His gaze lowered to her lips, and Jenna held her breath, expecting him to answer her unspoken invitation with a deeper kiss, but he didn’t.

  “I’m not after a quick tumble in bed for old times’ sake, Jenna.” His arms went around her, pulling her to him, and his breath was warm on her temple. “I want a second chance.”

  Splaying her fingers against his chest, Jenna tried to push back and break his hold, but his arms only tightened. For years she’d dreamed of hearing Adam speak those words—and of throwing them back in his face in return for the hurt he’d caused her. Now she surprised herself by finding no pleasure in refusing him.

  “Adam, no. It’s not that easy. With us it won’t be like two people who meet and decide to get to know each other better. We can’t start from the beginning, only from where we left off. And the stakes are too high for me to do that. I’ve just been through a bitter divorce, I’m pregnant and I’ve got a son who needs some stability in his life. He doesn’t need me to get involved with a man right now.”

  “You mean he doesn’t need you to get involved with a man you can’t trust.”

  She stared up at him, trying to measure the sincerity in his eyes, which searched her own. “Why would you want a relationship with someone in my situation? Do you feel responsible for what’s happened to me?”

  He reached up to keep her hair from flying into her face. “At first I think I did. Maybe on some level I still do, but that’s not why I’m asking for this.”

  “Then why? You’ve got your practice in San Francisco, probably any number of women who’d love to be with you. Maybe if I wasn’t pregnant and was back on my feet and—”

  He grimaced. “Listen, Jenna. There’s no perfect time to take a risk. Relationships don’t come with guarantees.”

  “From what I’ve heard, you speak from experience there. Gram and Pop say you haven’t dated the same woman for any longer than three months.”

  “I haven’t met anyone in the past fifteen years who’s had me clamoring for a marriage license. Does that mean I should stop trying?”

  “No, but a long-distance relationship is difficult enough. Add to that children from a prior marriage, especially a new baby, a crazy ex-husband and—”

  “And this.” His hands slid down her back, pressing her more firmly against him until the curves of her body molded to the hard contours of his. “How will we know if we should be together if we don’t go with what feels right?”

  Jenna shook her head, consciously fighting the desire to wrap her arms around Adam and never let him go. “I’d have to be a masochist to get into another relationship right now. It’s not you I have to learn to trust, it’s me. I screwed up so badly with Dennis. Nothing I did worked out right. I couldn’t convince him of my loyalty. I couldn’t encourage him to succeed in his work. I couldn’t—”

  “You couldn’t stop him from drinking, dammit!” Adam gripped her chin and tilted it up to make her look at him. “Dennis is responsible for his own actions. Why are you still blaming yourself?”

  “Because I should never have married him. I was still in love with you, and I ruined his life right along with my own!”

  Jenna started to sag, and Adam drew her back, supporting her with his strength. “He knew how you felt about me. He admitted that when I talked to him on the phone. It’s not like he went into the marriage blind.”

  “The old ‘consumer beware’ theory, huh?”

  “Are my answers that hollow to you now?”

  She didn’t reply. Closing her eyes against Adam’s probing gaze, Jenna turned her face into the hollow of his shoulder.

  “We all played a part,” he said above her head. “It doesn’t help to go around kicking ourselves for the past. We can be together now, Jen. Let’s go on from here and see what happens.”

  “I know what will happen.”

  “What?”

  “You won’t leave San Francisco and I won’t move there. Dead end,” she said, and this time when she pulled away, Adam let her go.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “SO HE’S BACK?” As Laura’s voice blasted over the phone, Jenna flinched and held it away from her ear.

  “Yeah, he got here last night,” she answered.

  “Oh, my gosh! Can I come over? I’m dying to see the two of you together again.”

  “We’re not ‘together’ and we’re not going to be. I’ve failed in every male relationship I’ve ever had. Why would I want more of the same?”

  “You can’t count Dennis.”

  “Dennis should count more than anyone else. He was my husband! And then there was my father, of course, who left when I was eight and never so much as sent me a Christmas present. My stepfather considered me nothing more than an annoyance, a rival for my mother’s love and attention. And Adam took off as soon as he was old enough to leave.”

  “But what you had with Adam was good.”

  “While it lasted.”

  “So what are you going to do? Hide out? Nurse your wounds?”

  “No, it’s called using my head. For now, I’m going to protect myself so that I’ll be capable of caring for my children. Maybe when I’m strong enough, in a few years, the right man will come along.”

  “And how will you know him when you meet him? I’ve been thinking the same thing for more than a decade.”<
br />
  “You’ve been closeted away, taking care of your father. I can see why you’re ready to meet someone. But after living with Dennis, I like being alone. I don’t have to answer to anyone. I come and go as I please, with only Ryan to worry about….”

  “You’re going to have another baby. That’s a lot to worry about.”

  “More than enough. See? You’re finally hearing what I’m saying.”

  Laura made a noise of frustration and changed tactics. “I understand Adam’s rich. Money could definitely make your life easier.”

  Jenna tucked the phone between her head and her shoulder so she could continue dusting the bedrooms. “Jeez, Laura, when did you get so opportunistic?”

  “It’s called practical, and some women are more practical than others.”

  “I don’t want his money. I want to earn my own. Besides, he lives in San Francisco.”

  “So move there. What’s wrong with the City by the Bay?”

  The smell of lemon sifted through the air as Jenna sprayed wax polish on an Empire-style bureau and began to rub. “What’s wrong is it’s not Mendocino. I’ve promised Ryan we won’t move again.”

  “You said Ryan likes Adam.”

  “He does. They’re out riding bikes together right now. But what does that have to do with anything?”

  “Maybe Ryan’ll want to move, if it means being closer to his new hero.”

  “One week of charm hardly makes Adam a hero. I want a man who’s going to stick around for the long haul, you know what I mean?”

  “And you don’t think Adam has it in him?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just hard to believe that if we did get together he’d stay very long. He could have been with me before, and he walked away.”

  “God, Jenna! People make mistakes. Adam’s older now. Maybe this time he’ll know what he wants.”

  Jenna remembered Adam’s words from the previous night and pushed them out of her mind. She wouldn’t tell her friend that he’d asked for a second chance. Laura’s romantic streak kept her attacking Jenna’s resistance enough as it was. “He knew what he wanted last time. And it wasn’t me. Besides, there’s got to be something wrong with a man who changes girlfriends almost as often as he changes his underwear.”

  “He stayed with you for three years.”

  “So he did.”

  “And you were happier than I’ve ever seen you.”

  Jenna replaced the dish of potpourri and a hurricane lamp on the bureau she’d been dusting and tried to steer the conversation in a different direction. “What about you, Laura? What’s happening in your love life?”

  “We’re not talking about me.”

  Jenna laughed. “I know, but I’m finished with the Adam subject. I’ve made up my mind to keep my life simple for the next few years, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

  “Having a baby without a father isn’t simple.”

  Mrs. Durham walked into the room and handed Jenna an envelope. “The mail came while I was on my way back from the store,” she whispered, and left Jenna to her phone conversation.

  “Who was that?” Laura asked.

  “Mrs. Durham.” Jenna glanced at the letter Adam’s grandmother had given her to see who it was from. No return address. Her name, in block letters across the front, was written in a hand Jenna didn’t recognize. But the postal stamp indicated it had been mailed in Oregon.

  Inside Jenna found a piece of lined paper that had been ripped out of a spiral notebook. One side was filled with Dennis’s small printing.

  God, didn’t the restraining order mean anything to him? He wasn’t supposed to contact her, but he had, even from jail. He must have had one of his brothers mail it. They still lived in Oregon; they’d lived there since before Jenna and Dennis graduated from high school.

  She tossed the note on the bed as though it had burned her and watched it flutter down with her name staring her in the face. Her ex-husband was getting out of jail. Was he already starting to harass her again? She’d put off thinking about the inevitable approach of Wednesday, but the arrival of his letter reminded her with unmistakable clarity.

  “Listen, Laura, I’d better run,” she said. “If you’d like to see Adam, feel free to come by. I don’t know how long he’s staying, but my guess is he’ll be leaving in the morning.”

  Laura paused. “You sound funny. Are you all right?”

  “Fine. Just busy.”

  “Good. Maybe I’ll see you later, okay?”

  “That’d be great.”

  After Laura hung up, Jenna stared at the letter awaiting her on the bed. What now? A plea for money? Another threat?

  Bending slowly, she retrieved the letter and began to read.

  Dear Jenna,

  I know you probably don’t want to hear from me right now and I can’t blame you. I’ve been such a jerk. I’m so sorry, babe. I’ve spent almost a week sitting in this cell doing nothing but thinking about how badly I’ve screwed up our lives. And thinking about my son. You’ve told me so many times how much he needs a good father. I just didn’t hear you.

  But that’s all over, Jenna. I swear this time I’m giving up the bottle. As soon as I get out of here, things are going to be different. I’m going to prove to you that I can still be the kind of man you thought I was when you married me. If I do that, if I stay sober and show you that I’m capable of living a normal life again, can you forgive me? Will you let me come around once in awhile and see Ryan? Please, give me another chance, for our son’s sake.

  I’ll always love you.

  Dennis

  Jenna sat on the bed, lips pinched as she read and reread her ex-husband’s letter. This was the sober Dennis, the man she’d believed she could build a life with. When she’d married him, she’d known she didn’t feel the overwhelming depth of emotion she’d felt for Adam, but she’d thought they had a decent amount of love and respect between them. Their marriage shouldn’t have become the hell it had. Ryan shouldn’t have lost his father.

  And now Dennis was doing another about-face, managing to surprise even her. He’d been so bitter and angry for the past few months, so far from healthy, that Jenna had feared he’d never find his way back to a normal life. Evidently getting picked up by the police had been good for him.

  “There you are!” Ryan came bounding into the room with speckles of dried mud on his arms and legs, even his face. “We had a blast!”

  Jenna folded the letter and stuffed it back inside the envelope. Maybe now she and Ryan could have some peace and eventually build a healthy relationship between father and son.

  And what about the baby?

  “It looks like you fell into a puddle,” she said.

  “Nope. I rode through a creek. I wiped out a couple times, but I didn’t get hurt. You should’ve seen Adam, though. He tried to go down this pile of rocks and flew right over the top of his handlebars. It was awesome.”

  “That’s what I get for showing off.” Adam stood in the doorway, grinning from a similarly mud-splattered face. A scrape on his leg testified to the spill he’d taken, along with a matching scrape on his arm and a cut on his elbow. He lifted his torn T-shirt to show her a bruise on his ribs.

  “And this is supposed to encourage me to let you go again?” Jenna asked Ryan.

  Ryan rolled his eyes. “Come on, Mom. He wouldn’t let me try any of the hard stuff, and he’s okay. Just look at him!”

  Jenna didn’t need any encouragement to do that. The lycra biking shorts Adam wore revealed the sinewy muscles of his legs—and left very little to the imagination in other, more intriguing places.

  “Next weekend you’re coming with us,” Adam told her.

  Jenna would have tried the excuse that she didn’t have a bike, but she was afraid Adam would simply buy her one. “Pregnant women probably aren’t allowed.”

  “I have a friend whose wife biked until six months or so. I don’t plan to take you out when you’re that far along, but a few trips early in the pregnancy
should be okay.”

  The proprietary tone of his voice said that her words last night hadn’t discouraged him. He wasn’t backing off. She lifted an eyebrow in challenge, but he only winked at her and headed down the hall.

  “I’m going to shower,” he called back. “Ryan, you’d better wash up, too, before Gram catches sight of you.”

  AFTER HIS SHOWER, Adam toweled his hair and body and opened the misted medicine cabinet in search of something to clean his cuts. Rubbing alcohol. Perfect. Uncapping the bottle, he wrinkled his nose at the antiseptic smell, then gingerly dabbed the clear liquid to his injuries and winced at the sting.

  As he dressed in a pair of well-worn blue jeans and a long-sleeved jersey with a biking logo on the back, he thought of his morning with Ryan. “Dad” things were fun. Dennis had to be an idiot to let anything stop him from being with Ryan.

  Adam wasn’t going to be that stupid. He’d nearly lost Jenna for good after his decision to leave her fifteen years ago. But fate—and a rocky divorce for Jenna—had brought them back together. This time he wasn’t going to blow it. Still, he had to admit that the next few months would certainly be easier if she’d cooperate.

  He whistled as he remembered the way she’d come alive in his arms the night the police had carted Dennis off to jail. That memory stole his breath away and almost made him regret having done the responsible thing.

  Maybe next time he wouldn’t be so responsible. Maybe he’d just have to convince Jenna that they were meant to be together—and do it in whatever way he could reach her.

  “Adam?” A sharp knock on the bathroom door punctuated his grandmother’s voice. “Are you just about finished in there?”

  “Be right out, Gram.”

  “Good. I want you to get some things out of storage for Jenna.”

  Adam padded barefoot to the door and yanked it open. “Like what?”

  “Like your cradle.”