by Zoe York
“What was Dean talking about before?” he asked when she finally lifted her unsweetened coffee to her lips.
She sipped slowly.
He waited. He’d caught the edge of their conversation, something about the right thing to do. Depending on who you asked, that could be a lot of different things.
She couldn’t leave. That wasn’t right.
He couldn’t keep her here, though. That wouldn’t be fair.
Fair and right weren’t the same thing anymore, though. Not in his new normal.
For months, he’d buried the memories deep. All the things he’d said to her. All the promises he’d made. He hadn’t known jack shit when he’d been spouting that nonsense. Thought he could offer her the moon when really, all they got were a few dances in the moonlight.
Borrowed magic. That’s what they’d had.
“You seem like you’re doing a lot better now,” she finally said, softly.
His chest tightened. Let her go. That had been the plan, but now that it was here, now that she might be done…it hurt. Selfish at every turn. “Yeah. Well, I’m motivated.” Her eyes lit up. He couldn’t have that. There was no room for hope. “I need to get out of here.”
“Really?” Her eyes got brighter still. “I wondered if you were happier with everything your brothers were doing.”
“I don’t want to rely on them,” he said tightly, and then to drive the point home, he added, “Or anyone.”
Bam. Direct hit. He put that light in her eyes out like a fucking pro, like an emotional sniper, and his stomach turned.
“Good,” she said softly, glancing back to her coffee. “That’s great.” She didn’t look at him. She played with her spoon. “So…are you more mobile now? I mean, I feel kind of horrible for not noticing the improvement over the last month.”
“There wasn’t much change, at first.” He gave her a rueful smile. “I did my degree in kinesiology. I should have had more faith. But I wasn’t sure it was going to work. I didn’t know what else to do, but I was pessimistic.”
She lifted her head, her eyes wide as she searched his face. “Did you worry I would be too optimistic?”
The question startled him, and he answered before he could stop himself. “Maybe. Yes.”
“Oh.” She nodded slowly. “I understand that.”
“The real breakthrough came last week. And then I really was exhausted the next day when you came over.” He hadn’t needed to lie to her as much as he’d thought he would.
And he’d found himself increasingly uncomfortable with that plan, anyway.
“So how mobile are you?”
“It’s a lot faster than with the walker. I haven’t started testing myself on distance, but I can move around the house no problem.”
“That’s amazing.” Damn it. Nothing could keep her hope dimmed for more than a minute or two. She fiddled with her spoon as she looked at him. “How would you feel about…”
When she trailed off, he leaned in. “About?”
She pressed her lips together. Her eyes shifted, like she was re-categorizing her thoughts before continuing. “Come over for dinner. I…I go for a walk most nights now. It’s been a soothing routine. And the sidewalk in front of Dean’s old place is easier to walk on than the gravel drive here, I bet.”
“Dinner.”
“No pressure. Would lunch be easier?”
“Dinner’s fine,” he heard himself say.
Was it fine?
It was something.
Definitely not part of the plan, that was for sure.
But he found himself struggling to find a good reason to shut her down again.
NOT ONCE IN her early relationship with Sean had Jenna felt nervous. Excited, yes. Shy, a couple of times. Overwhelmed with want…constantly.
But nerves hadn’t played a role in how they started. There’d been no expectations. What was there to be nervous about flirting with a man who was going to disappear from her life? And then by the time they were travelling together, they were friends and lovers, and the time for nerves was past.
Their wedding day, maybe.
She pulled out their rings, carefully stowed in the small wooden box he’d bought her in Arcos. She tried to remember that day, but it was cloudy now, fogged up by all the frustration and fear since.
Definitely something to talk to her therapist about. Not something to dwell on tonight. Sean would be arriving soon. Dean said he’d drop him off around four.
She looked at her phone. Five minutes to the hour, and her stomach was a riot of butterflies.
When she heard the growl of a truck out front, she forced herself to go to the kitchen instead of racing to the front door. If she was too excited, that would stress Sean out. They both knew she wanted this desperately. She didn’t need to highlight it for him with sparklers and a neon sign.
When the knock came at the door, she counted to three—and then the door opened.
“Hey,” Sean called out, letting himself in.
She stepped into the hallway. “Hey.”
They stood there, exchanging nervous looks for a moment. Then she laughed and pointed to the living room. “Want to sit?”
He gave her a tired smile. “Yes. Thanks.”
Out the front window, she spotted Dean pulling away.
Sean followed her gaze. “I told him he wasn’t allowed to come in. I didn’t need a chaperone.”
“He worries about you.”
“We get on each other’s last nerve.”
“That too.”
“Last time I was here, we were having a house party,” Sean said as he eased into the corner of the couch. “Dean was away, falling in love with Liana, and Matt’s apartment was too crowded. That feels like a lifetime ago.”
Jenna curled up in the arm chair and frowned in confusion. “What about your place?”
“I was staying at the Colonel’s house. I was gone so much that maintaining a separate apartment here stopped making sense.”
“But…” Sean despised his father. Spending any amount of time together didn’t make any sense, either. Jenna still hadn’t met the man. He was the only Foster who hadn’t actively sought her out, and Pine Harbour was a small town. Not having met yet meant the man was avoiding her, which she didn’t care about—except in any way that affected Sean.
Sean gave her a lopsided, tired smile. “Yeah. Looking back, that seems like a weird choice. I don’t know. We both seemed to like the antagonism. I wouldn’t do it now. Couldn’t. When I was injured, he didn’t even offer to take me in. I think it was just understood that Dean would do it.”
“Have you seen him a lot since you’ve been back?”
“No. A few visits in the first week or two. But his thing is that he likes to have us all over for dinner every so often. So far we’ve only managed one, just before you arrived, and it was at Dean’s house. I think the old man is waiting until I’m mobile again to rally his sons around. That’s what he likes to do, summon us.”
She’d promised him no pressure. But a regular family dinner raised all sorts of questions. She took a deep breath and changed the subject. “Speaking of dinner, what would you like tonight? I’ve got salad stuff, stew in the freezer, and chicken breasts.”
“I’m easy. Can I help?”
“Sure. But we’ve got some time first. Do you want a drink?”
He shook his head. “Thanks.”
So polite. So shallow. Small talk might just kill her.
“Nice weather—”
“Do you want to watch something—”
They stopped at the same time and laughed. Sean gave her a lopsided grin. “So how about that sports team?”
“Right? Really slaying the ball stats this year.” She groaned and rolled her head to the side as she laughed with him.
He pointed to her tablet on the coffee table. “Have you been listening to anything new?”
“Yeah. Actually, I got a new album.” She reached for it and swiped into the music player
. “Folk rock, a little bit country, a little bit blues. Good for walking to.”
“You said you were walking after dinner. How far have you explored?”
And just like that, they slid into a real conversation about Sean’s home town. They laughed together about the house painted purple and teal, and she filled him in on the latest gossip she’d overheard at Mac’s—and he in turn explained who the gossip was about, since a lot of the names were still unfamiliar to her.
After a while, she stretched her arms and declared it cooking time. He excused himself to the washroom, and she went to the kitchen to get the prep started.
As she chopped vegetables, she listened to him move through the house. The thunk of his cane, the squeak of the wood floor as he slowly walked down the hall. She smiled to herself. She liked the noises of having Sean here.
Barely five weeks. They were still in early days, and if only for a meal, she had her husband back. If she squinted, she could see this as their future.
“What did you decide to make?” he asked from the doorway.
“Stirfry,” she said, glancing at him over her shoulder. Just a second, just enough to soak up the sight of him filling the doorway. Did he know he was standing taller lately? She even liked the beard. He needed a haircut, but she’d let him figure that out on his own. “Would you rather rice or noodles?”
He scratched his belly, pulling up his shirt a bit, and she had a visceral flashback to Spain. She turned back to her cutting board lest he see the desire in her eyes.
No lusting after her husband. Not yet.
“Rice sounds good,” he said from behind her. “What can I do?”
“Set the table? The rice will take twenty minutes, and then it’ll be time to eat.”
“I can do that.”
Baby steps. She smiled again to herself. One thing at a time.
FOR SEAN’S next rehab session, Jake and baby Calvin picked him up and drove him down the peninsula to the hospital.
Jenna hadn’t pushed back on his preference to do this without her. She’d just smiled and wished him luck.
It wouldn’t be, though. It never was. He hated the circuit of exercises they put him through. Balance and orientation stuff designed to retrain his brain, but all it did was make him so tired he always passed out on the drive home.
He knew they worked. He was using a cane, wasn’t he?
That didn’t mean he liked them, though, and on a day-to-day basis, they hurt more than they helped.
He had to get his attention back on the long term goal. Independence. Getting to a place where everyone around him could stop watching him like he was an invalid.
Speaking of his independence…
“Do we have time to stop and get me a new cell phone?” he asked Jake when his brother picked him up.
Jake looked at Calvin, sleeping in his car seat. “Yeah, of course.”
The phone he’d taken overseas had been lost in transit back to Canada. Some of his personal belongings had shown up, but not others. And in the weeks after he’d returned home, he hadn’t cared, hadn’t wanted any contact with the outside world.
But it was ridiculous that Jenna—or anyone else, not that anyone else did—had to contact him through Dean and Liana. That needed to change.
The clerk at the store set it up for him on the cell network, but as soon as they left, he turned it off and put it in his pocket. One thing at a time. Phone acquired. Check. Didn’t mean he had to use the thing.
“I’m gonna rack out for the drive back, if you don’t mind.”
Jake just squeezed his shoulder. “Of course.”
The most common refrain his brothers said to him now. Sure, Sean. Whatever you need. Of course.
It had been what he wanted after coming home. But now it was starting to chafe, and that was his own making, wasn’t it?
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
JENNA NOTICED a pattern emerge over the next week. On the days that Sean did rehab, he needed an early bedtime that night, and food was invisible to him.
But the next day, he was ravenous, and those days, she claimed him, and not just for dinner. She started picking him up earlier and earlier, even if he protested that he’d just nap the afternoon away. That was fine by her. She didn’t need to be Suzy Homemaker, with small talk and a formal dinner on the table every night. They weren’t playing some fantasy version of house.
She just wanted to be together, alone. Or as alone as they could be in a town almost entirely populated by people he was related to by blood or marriage. So she had to share him a bit when Sophia saw Uncle Sean sitting on the back deck, or when Matt popped in for a cold one. And she’d backed down on her righteous indignation that he needed to live with her—that had been rushing things.
It was rewarding enough to see him wander into the kitchen and grab something. To watch him graze on food that filled him up, all day long, on the days that he had energy to eat.
Something had shifted between them. Sean wasn’t pushing her away, wasn’t angry. She didn’t quite trust the peace, but that didn’t stop her from enjoying it.
And their new friendship wasn’t all she was enjoying, despite her best efforts to keep things platonic. The summer heat had settled in, bringing with it basketball shorts instead of sweatpants.
Not that she’d minded the sweatpants. They had a certain appeal, too, when they rode low on Sean’s hips.
But she liked the shorts a lot. The way they slid up his thighs as he napped, for example.
One afternoon she found herself standing in the living room, just watching him sleep. He was stretched out on the couch, his arm thrown over his eyes, his shirt rumpled and pulled up above his waist.
His legs were bare, long and muscular, but leaner than before. All of him was thinner, but still so familiar. The golden hair on his legs, and on his belly, where it decorated the remnant of a tan from his shirtless runs in Spain. Her heart leapt into her throat as she looked at him.
She knew this man intimately. But not this man. He’d shown no interest in her in that regard, and she knew he wasn’t well, but…how could he be so different? The intimacy they’d shared in those two weeks now seemed like a dream. It wasn’t the first time she’d had that thought, but this time she didn’t push it away.
She just stood there, and let herself remember.
It hadn’t been a dream. It had been amazing and special and very, very real.
She’d become pretty adept at ignoring her attraction to Sean, which hadn’t abated any. Fallen secondary to concern at times, but it was always there. The tease of his broad shoulders. The tight, warm skin of his neck and his forearms, just begging to be touched.
And now her head swirled with the reminder of how that line of hair ran south from his belly button.
A knock at the door startled her out of her remembering, and she quickly hustled to get it before Chloe knocked again.
She eased it open and pointed around to the back. “Sean’s sleeping,” she whispered. “Come around to the other side.”
This afternoon, Chloe brought the fixings to make cold salads that worked as full meals. One pot to boil some pasta, but everything else was chopping and mixing and waiting while they drank lemonade.
When she checked on Sean an hour later, she found him still snoring.
“He’s still fast asleep,” Jenna said. “I’ll leave him a bit.”
Chloe nodded as she crumbled feta over the pasta. “I’ll pack up my portions and head home. I’ve got a date with Netflix tonight.”
“What are you watching?” Sean hadn’t shown any interest in television, but maybe she could suggest a movie. Or a show…shorter episodes might be easier to follow.
“I like to listen to stand-up comedy. Lets me do something else at the same time, because I don’t need to keep my eyes on the screen.”
Jenna snapped her fingers. “That’s genius.”
“Right? The laundry mountain can’t best me and my clever mind.”
She laughe
d. “You win. But I also mean for Sean. It would be great for him to listen to something, because the visual stuff is annoying.”
Chloe did a little dance. “Even better. I do enjoy being helpful and making smart suggestions. Go Chloe!”
“How are you still single?”
Chloe sighed. “I know. It’s a tragedy. Except… I love my life, and who needs a man? Other than you. You need that man.” She pointed toward the living room. “But that’s different and special.”
Jenna laughed. “Fair point. Did you get enough of the chickpea salad?”
“Yep.” Chloe spooned some of the pasta salad into a takeaway container. “And now I’ve got some of this, too, and I’m gone.” She disappeared out the back door, the same way she’d come in.
Jenna was tidying when Sean woke up. He was getting pretty quick with the cane in general, but he was slow when he first woke up. Tap, step, tap, step.
He stopped in the doorway of the kitchen. “Hey.”
She turned around and leaned back against the counter.
“You getting ready to make dinner? I can help.”
“All done, actually. You’ve got your choice of pasta salad or chickpea salad. And there’s watermelon for dessert.”
“You’ve been busy.”
“Chloe helped.”
“She was here? I didn’t hear her arrive. Or leave, I guess, for that matter.”
“You were out cold.” She found herself smiling at him, in a flirty way, and she couldn’t help it. “I came to wake you up earlier.”
He didn’t notice the flirting. “Yeah, I was dead to the world.”
I know, she wanted to say. You always are the day after rehab. You just eat and sleep and recover, and that’s okay. I see you. Don’t worry.
But he didn’t want her to care too much, so she kept that to herself.
She pulled two plates out of the cupboard then got the salads from the fridge. “Which one do you want?”
“I’ll try both.”
She already had the spoon of chickpea salad ready. “Here you go.”
