Honor on the Cape

by M. K. Meredith

  She swallowed hard and played with the tasseled edge of the throw along the back of the couch. “I missed ya. I wanted to come sooner, but I was scared. I needed to do something worthy of coming home first.” Her voice was low, almost unrecognizable to her own ears.

  Her da’s big, warm hand stilled hers. He moved it from the couch and held it between his own.

  “I said things I regret the day that you left,” he said.

  “No, Da. I’m the one who’s sorry. I hurt ya…” She glanced at Ruby and Emma. “And the family. I was selfish and—”

  “You were so young, and I was scared. But you’ve always been independent. Strong, feisty. So much like your mother in looks and temperament, but still yer own person. Everything I already knew ya ta be, Blayney, yet I tried ta keep ya. For me.”

  She leaned into his side. “I wasted so much time not seeing ya.” Her throat thickened with emotion.

  He beckoned Emma with a wave.

  Blayne’s sister trailed her fingers along the spines of a few books on the floor-to-ceiling shelves in the alcove in the corner of the room. Removing a leather-bound album from the collection, she turned it over then handed it to their father.

  “But I’ve seen ya.” He opened the front cover to reveal photos of Blayne.

  She leaned in for a closer look. Page after page of photographs memorializing her accomplishments. Her graduation, first job, Eclectic Finds, and the beautiful photo of the Van Buren house on the cape that she’d sent to Emma.

  Running her finger over the photo, she glanced at her little sister. “Ya did this?”

  Noah cleared his throat. “You’ve accomplished so much. I’m as proud as any da could be. But, Blayney…” He rubbed his hand down her hair. “Ya never had ta do any of this to come home.”

  “But ya said not to come back.”

  His chuckle was filled with regret. “An old man with a broken heart. I hoped the threat’d keep ya home, but instead it kept ya away.”

  Emma lowered to the arm of the chair to see the pictures, too.

  “By the time I figured it out, I was afraid to call ya home. Ya had to find yer way back on yer own in order for it ta be real.”

  Closing the album, he handed it to his youngest. “I never meant to make ya feel like ya had to choose. There’s no reason it shouldn’t all fit. The last thing ya want ta do is ta leave yer bloke the same way he left ya. Family is important, both the one ya have and the one ya want ta make.”

  Blayne shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. If I’m honest, I think I’d always be waitin’ for him to take off again. That’s no way to live.”

  “So ya left him first?” He rested his weathered palm against her cheek. “Ya can’t live in fear. Listenin’ to yer heart’s always been the best way.”

  She hadn’t left Jay the same way. Her da needed her. Her family needed her. And it was time she thought of more than just herself. Her da kept staring at her as if waiting for her to see something. He held her gaze with the deep blue intensity of his own.

  A wave of realization washed over her, leaving her a bit dizzy.

  Her da was right. She’d left Jamie due to her sense of duty, her need to prove herself, and didn’t make room for him. But she also couldn’t think of how to have done it differently. “Well, it’s no matter now,” she said softly.

  There was nothing left to fit together. She was alone. But at least she was with her family.

  “What happened next?” her da said in a gruff whisper.

  Tears burned her eyes at his question.

  “Jamie asked her ta marry him,” Emma said.

  “No, he didn’t. He threw an engagement ring at my feet.” Her chest squeezed at the memory. She’d picked the box up with shaky fingers, but she couldn’t look at what was inside. It represented all her dreams that would never be born. There was no way to bear it, so she’d slipped it into his mother’s hands, kissed the woman’s cheek, then hurried home.

  Leaving everyone she’d always loved behind as she ran toward everyone who’d always loved her. She’d never been more conflicted.

  “Because ya were leavin’ him. Seems the men in yer life have a lot in common.” Her da raised his pint in the air. “Ya always were consistent.”

  She sniffed with a watery grin as her father’s forgiveness washed over her, taking a lot of guilt with it. She was lighter than she’d felt in years. There was no getting back the years they’d lost, but she could make sure to take advantage of all the time they had left. “Well, I’m home to stay. There’s no tellin’ how long it’ll be before yer back on yer feet, and I couldn’t ask him to wait. I won’t leave ya again, Da. I promise.”

  Placing a warm kiss on her forehead, he smiled. It was the look she’d carried with her over the years whenever she missed him the most.

  With a sip from his pint, he sighed. One full of contentment and comfort. “That’s a promise I can’t letcha keep. Yer flight for Maine leaves in a week.”

  Chapter 19

  It had been almost a full week since the gala, since his future crumbled to the cape’s fertile lawn, yet the pain in Jay’s chest still took his breath away. He wanted to rage at the world, but in the end, it was his own fucking fault.

  He should have never left Blayne in the first place.

  Lifting a box of supplies, he made his way past the crowd on the front porch and into the Van Buren house. “Get outta my way.” He pushed past Ryker, into the kitchen.

  “What the fuck, man?” Ryker followed him inside.

  “Ryker!” Maxine admonished.

  He threw an are-you-kidding-me look at his grandmother. “Are we really going to go through this again?”

  “Exactly. One second we’re blamed for calling her old, the next for swearing.” Mitch rolled his eyes and ducked just in time as a wooden spoon hurtled toward his face. “Hey!”

  “Speak for yourself. I’ve never been stupid enough to imply my grandmother’s old. That’s all you, buddy.” Ryker grinned as Maxine retrieved the spoon she threw, then slapped Mitch on the ass with it.

  “What the hell?!” Mitch jumped away and slammed right into Claire. The box she carried fell to the ground, sending small jars of paint and brushes across the tile.

  Claire spun on Mitch. “Do you ever watch what the hell you’re doing?”

  The two took up a verbal sparring match that Jay had no interest whatsoever in, so he set his load by the sliding glass door then ripped the top open.

  “See what you started?” Ryker nudged him with the heel of his shoe.

  Jay stood. “Don’t fuck with me, I’m not in the mood. I didn’t start shit.”

  “Get your head out of your ass, man. The grand opening is tomorrow. This is your show. You can’t run it by barking orders and cussing up a storm. Are you trying to sabotage all the work you and Blayne have already accomplished?”

  The sound of her name was like a punch to the gut. He steadied himself against the wave of pain, gripping his fingers in fists at his sides.

  “Look, man. Obviously, you miss her. We all do. This doesn’t have to be the end.”

  “She made it clear that she wasn’t coming back. Not to mention apparently you all knew she was heading home to Ireland, but no one thought to fucking tell me about it.”

  “Yeah, Jay? I don’t think about what the hell is going on in your life every goddamn minute. Get over it. Figure your shit out and start treating all the volunteers helping us set up for tomorrow like it means something to you.”

  “Boys, the two of you are making a scene.” Maxine joined them with Jay’s mother at her side.

  Ryker looked up at the ceiling as if praying for patience. “You’re one to talk, Grandmother. Has the judge showed up yet?”

  The question did its job and Maxine’s lips clamped closed, but Ryker didn’t get off easy, because she grabbed his arm and hauled him toward the front door. Jay did not wish to be in his shoes.

  His mother touched his arm. “What’re you doing? Maxine said you
’ve been charging through here like a bull all week.”

  Jay smiled. “Don’t worry about it. I’m fine.”

  “Obviously, you’re not. Come.” She reached out.

  “Mom, I have too much to get done.”

  “You do, but you’re not going to do it right in the mood you’re in. Come,” she demanded.

  “Where?”

  “Seriously?” She gave him the look she always gave him when he was dumb enough to argue as a kid.

  But he stubbornly resisted.

  “Walk with me in the woods. It won’t take long.”

  “Fine, but I’m getting something done while we’re out there.” He let her lead him out the front door and down the front porch but stopped to grab a wheelbarrow filled with plaques and carved stakes. She headed toward the path into the woods.

  As soon as they stepped through the opening in the foliage, the world took on a hushed buzz, softened from the clanging of reality. The light dimmed to a glow, filtered by the canopy of trees. His mother followed a small path to a little bench that had hummingbird feeders around it.

  One of Ryker’s beehives buzzed in the distance, and Jay remembered watching Stuart Van Buren, Maxine’s late husband, working his magic when they were children. Every one of Ryker’s friends thought he was a superhero. He could take a bee sting like it was the caress of a feather.

  Jay dropped to the bench.

  “When you and Blayne came for dinner, you said a few things, implied them anyway, that gave your father and me pause.”

  The last thing Jay wanted to be doing was having this conversation. “Mom, I say a lot of things.” He pushed up from the bench, grabbed a post hole digger, and got to work setting up the informative nature signs that Claire had designed for the grounds.

  The work felt good to his muscles, the burn a relief from the heavy feeling in his chest.

  “I won’t argue with that.” She chuckled and sat on the bench closest to where he worked. “But this seemed a bit like an accusation against your father.”

  He set the carved pole that would support the sign. “Mom, I love you and Dad, but I didn’t like how you were always left behind.”

  “Left behind?”

  He gave a decisive nod. “Every time he had a deal, was setting up a new account. He’d be traveling Europe while you were stuck at home, stuck with me. Until I joined the business, then I was guilty of it, too. Though I realized leaving her was a mistake right away, I knew I couldn’t do that to Blayne. Couldn’t ask her to give everything up because of my sense of duty. Especially not before I had enough to offer her that might somehow make up for it all.”

  She shook her head. “Give what up? You’re not making any sense.” Pushing up from the bench, she steadied the plaque he was attaching to the pole as he finished the job.

  “I was never left behind, Jay. First of all, and I mean this in the nicest way, I hate to break it to you, but I’ve never needed to be with your father, or you for that matter, every second of the day in order to be happy. I never sat anywhere, waiting. I worked, and I thrived, and I lived a great life raising my son and nurturing my community. I’m a woman full of passions that reach far beyond the walls of our home. The fact that you don’t or didn’t see that means I failed you somewhere.”

  He stared at his mother trying to work his brain around her words. “You’ve never failed me. I…” A weird pinch intensified between his shoulder blades. No more words formed coherently, though he tried to wrap his tongue around a few. All this time, he thought she’d been lonely. And he wouldn’t lie, it was a bit of a kick in the ass to hear she didn’t need him to be happy.

  What the hell?

  He truly was a selfish bastard.

  Forcing himself to find an answer, he focused on the task at hand and tested the stability of the sign.

  “Mom, I…”

  She dropped her hands to her sides. “Look, I love you, but sometimes you’re a bit dense.”

  “Hey!” He rubbed his neck as if she’d tugged his hair.

  Handing him another pole, she continued. “Blayne isn’t the sit-at-home-and-wait kind of woman. And she certainly isn’t the type to stare out a window pining for her love. How could you not know that?”

  As he lowered the pole into the hole he’d created, he considered taking its place since he felt like he might as well have dug it for himself.

  His mother put her hands on her hips. “Thinking I had no life shows how little you thought of me and, more importantly, how little you actually think of Blayne. Grow up.”

  She turned and stomped back the way they’d come.

  “Mom! Wait!” What the fuck? Was she actually mad at him for caring? Nothing about this day or week, hell, his whole return to Cape Van Buren, made any sense at all.

  He dropped his tools and ran to catch up to her. “Wait.” Gently grabbing her by the shoulders he turned her around. “I’m sorry. I just always thought…”

  “You mean you didn’t actually think.”

  He dropped his chin to his chest.

  “Is that why you left her so long ago? Am I the cause of you losing out on the love of your life? And if I’m honest, me losing out on the daughter I always wanted?” Her eyes had a glassy look as if she might cry. If she did, screw the damn hole he dug, he’d simply throw himself off the rocks by the lighthouse.

  “You aren’t the cause of anything. I let my own perceptions and ambitions and insecurities cloud my judgment.”

  “Do you love her?”

  “You know I do.” And saying it eased some of the pain in his chest.

  She shook her head with a shrug. “Then what’re you going to do about it?”

  “Nothing. She made her choice.” And the pain of it all threatened to swallow him whole.

  “The only choice she made was to be there for her father. After ten years, don’t you think she deserves the time?”

  “She said she wasn’t coming back!” The shock of his voice echoing against the trees caught him off-guard.

  “Because she doesn’t want you waiting for her. She needs to be there for her father. Sound familiar?” She raised her brows. “But the question is since when does my son back away from a challenge…especially the hard ones?”

  She rubbed his arm. “Someday, you’re going to realize the only person expecting you to prove anything is yourself.”

  He studied the determination in her eyes. How had he never seen it before? He’d been a fool. She was right. He never saw her sitting anywhere—the woman had been a whirlwind of activity his whole life. Not only that, she’d traveled all over the world, sometimes with his father, sometimes with her girlfriends.

  He could see Blayne doing that. Hell, with her he’d probably be the one left behind. Not on purpose, but because she was such a force in her own right.

  His mother was right. A surge of adrenaline rushed through him like it did when he was about to close on a big deal. What the hell was the matter with him? Coming home to the Cape was the whole point of everything.

  He may be a selfish bastard, and he never backed down from a challenge, but Blayne MacCaffrey belonged to him. She made him the man he always worked so hard to prove he was to everyone else.

  She thought an ocean would keep him at bay? Fuck that. She wasn’t getting away from him that easily. Or ever again. He said he’d always be there for her.

  Now was the time to prove it.

  “I’m going to put a proposal together to share with dad about expanding into Ireland,” he said.

  “Now it sounds like you’re thinking.” She removed the engagement box from her pocket. “I think this belongs to you.”

  “No, but I know who it does belong to.” He took the box and flipped up the top. A beautiful green Paraiba tourmaline-and-diamond engagement ring with an antique square cushion wrapped in white gold. The main stone was the exact color of her eyes, a crystal seafoam green unlike any other he’d ever seen before.

  “When do you leave?”

 
“Right after the grand opening,” he said.

  “I’ll help you pack. I’m sorry she’ll miss it.” His mother kissed his cheek.

  “That’s okay. If I can make things right, she’ll never miss out on anything again, and neither will I.”

  For the first time in a long time, the tension in his neck eased and anticipation filled his chest.

  They belonged together. On the Cape and in Ireland. Home was where their families were, and no one said they couldn’t have more than one.

  The Archer Conservation Park of Cape Van Buren officially opened its doors to the town and hearts and needs of all the people who long before had become family. Jay stepped aside to let one of Cape Van Buren police department’s finest walk on through.

  Cindy Majors gave him a saucy wink. “Thanks, Jay.”

  “You’re very welcome,” he returned with a tip of his head.

  “Is Maxine inside?” The hopeful look in Cindy’s dark eyes was one he recognized.

  “She is but lay off asking any questions about the moonshine. She and Judge Carter still aren’t talking, which is stressing out Larkin. He’s here, too, but lurking along the perimeter.”

  She snapped her fingers. “Damn it. Okay. Thanks for the heads up. Larkin’s due to pop any second, isn’t she?”

  For some reason, the visual made him wince, and Cindy laughed. “Any day now.”

  “Moving on so soon, Jay?” Mitch joined them in the foyer.

  Cindy stuck her tongue out at him in a playful manner. “Don’t be an ass, Mitch…or a sore loser.” Turning to Jay, she patted him. “And thank you. I hope you get things figured out with Blayne. You know we all love her.”

  “Yeah.” He gave a nod. “Me, too.” Slapping Mitch on the shoulder, he asked, “What the hell is wrong with you? One of these times, you’re gonna get knocked on your ass or find yourself at the altar.”

  Mitch smirked. “Hasn’t happened yet.”

  “It’s only a matter of time, my friend.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’ll leave that to you and Ryker. Watching what the two of you have gone through has cured me of ever wanting a serious relationship.”