Catching Her Heart

by Carolyne Aarsen

  Would that even happen now that he had Brittany to take care of?

  Jess shook his head, dropped his keys in his shirt pocket and trudged up the walk to the hospital. Something would come up. He just felt it.

  He walked down the hallway to the room, then stopped when he heard Brittany talking.

  “I’ll come and take care of you.”

  Jess stood outside the door of the hospital room, Naomi’s words ringing in the quiet following her announcement. What? What was she saying?

  No, this couldn’t happen.

  Then Brittany squealed with happiness. “That’s awesome. I’m so glad.”

  He thought of how his stepsister had clung to Naomi’s hand and he sighed. He had just prayed for someone to come and do the job, hadn’t he?

  At the same time his doubts were eased away and he allowed himself some relief that Brittany’s care was taken care of. But could he stand to see Naomi every day and keep his own emotions in check?

  Then he squared his shoulders and pushed aside his foolish reaction. He and Naomi were adults. Sure they had dated at one time. Been close. No reason they couldn’t move past that. Ten years was a long time ago. A decade.

  He took a deep breath, then strolled into the room, the picture of casual.

  Naomi stood by Brittany’s bed, looking down, her long hair hanging loose and framing her face just the way Jess always liked it. The sweater she wore was the gold of the trees in the fall and set off her reddish-brown hair and hazel eyes. As she reached out and took Brittany’s hand, Naomi’s gentle smile transformed her features and brought out memories from the back of his mind. Naomi laughing and screaming as the tire tube they floated on plunged over the rapids. Naomi lying back on a picnic blanket in a quiet cove by the river, the hot summer sun drying them off, her face tipped to the sky, the same smile on her face as she declared the day to be like a perfect jewel, bright and shiny and precious.

  Jess gripped his hands into fists, banishing the memories, replacing them with the sight of her with Billy a few months later. Perfect Billy who was going to be a minister. Billy who would never have taken advantage of her the way he had.

  Then Brittany turned her head and saw Jess.

  “Hey, Jess. Guess what? Naomi is going to take care of me.” Brittany’s exuberant grin and the joy bubbling out from her balanced out his own uncertainty about hiring Naomi. “You’re off the hook now.”

  “Awesome,” he said with forced enthusiasm. He avoided looking at Naomi as he walked to the other side of the bed, yet he was fully aware of her presence. Of the scent of her perfume, different than the sweet lavender she used to wear.

  Brittany reached out and held his hand, becoming a bridge between him and Naomi as she looked from one to the other.

  “So that means you don’t have to come to class today or tomorrow,” Brittany added. “I know you didn’t want to.”

  “I would have come,” he assured her.

  “But now you don’t have to and you can get the stuff done on the house like you wanted to.” Brittany turned to Naomi. “Jess is building his own house. Can’t figure out why when he and his mom have this awesome place on the other side of the valley that they both own. That house is ginormous. Have you seen it?”

  “Actually, I have,” Naomi said with a reserved smile. She looked across the bed at Jess and in her eyes she caught a hint of puzzlement. As if she, too, was wondering why he thought he needed another home.

  A lab tech came into the room rescuing him from explaining something to her she didn’t need to know.

  “I’m sorry,” the tech said, glancing from one to the other as she set her tray of vials on the bedside table. “But I need to draw some blood for blood tests.”

  “Again?” Brittany complained. “I hate those. They hurt.”

  “We’ll wait outside the room,” Naomi said, patting Brittany on her shoulder. “You’ll be fine, honey.”

  Then she walked past Jess and out the door. Jess gave Brittany a quick smile to encourage her, then followed Naomi. She stood outside in the hallway, her arms folded over her chest, glancing up at the sunlight pouring in through the skylight overhead as if drawn to the light. The sun caught the reddish highlights in her hair, burnishing it to a brownish-copper. Her hair was darker than it used to be and now it flowed over her shoulders halfway down her back.

  She didn’t look at him, though.

  Jess rocked back and forth on his heels, trying to find the right thing to say, frustrated at how easily his old attraction to her surged from his past into the present.

  “So I guess you’ll be working for me,” he said, needing to break the silence. Then he mentally rolled his eyes. Brilliant. That sounded positively feudal.

  “I guess.” Naomi drummed her fingers against her arms. “I know you didn’t want me, but—”

  “Please, let’s not go back there.” Jess felt a mixture of embarrassment and shame over his reaction to Dr. Brouwer’s suggestion that he hire Naomi. “When I said that I was feeling overwhelmed...seeing you again....”

  “I’m sure you were. It was a dramatic moment after Brittany’s collapse at Mug Shots,” she said, thankfully ignoring his last comment. She tapped her fingers some more, then finally looked over at him. “Just curious about your mom. Will she be involved at all?”

  Jess stifled a cynical laugh. “My mother is, according to her, unable to deal with Brittany because she is still grieving the loss of her husband. Never mind that Brittany is still dealing with losing a father.” He couldn’t keep the bitter tone out of his voice. Even though he felt bad for his mother, he was frustrated and upset with her selfishness. “So, no, I don’t think she’ll be in the picture, which is typical.”

  Naomi held his gaze a moment, the hint of pity in her eyes creating a prickle of annoyance. He had often shared his frustration with his absent parents and his subsequent loneliness with her. She knew that behind his frustration with his mother lay a deeper sorrow that he had hinted at in their long talks together.

  But now, in spite of his parents’ lack of involvement in his life, or maybe because of it, he had become an independent person. He had inherited the ski hill from his father and had turned it around from a failing business to a successful venture. He wasn’t the needy young man she had tutored. He didn’t need or want her pity.

  “I understand,” was all Naomi said. “So let’s discuss Brittany.”

  “Yes, good idea.” He slid his hands in the back pockets of his blue jeans, shooting her a quick glance. “I was supposed to come for classes this afternoon on how to take care of her. I’m hoping I don’t need to anymore.”

  Naomi shook her head. “No. I know what needs to be done, though I will come in tomorrow to the hospital to finalize her care plan. Do you know when she’ll be discharged?”

  “Dr. Brouwer was saying something about Tuesday.”

  “Okay, then. I’ll come to the house tomorrow to have a look at how you’ve got things laid out for Brittany and we can take it from there.” She kept her voice brisk and professional, and her confidence reassured him that Brittany was in good hands.

  Her detachment created a distance that he was thankful for. She was trained to take care of people. To her this was a job. Nothing more. If she could see it that way, then so could he.

  “You may as well know the house is not in the best of shape,” he said. “It’s an older house I bought for the property while I built my own place. I didn’t figure on having a pregnant teenager come and stay.”

  Naomi held her hand up to stop him midapology. “I’m not coming to inspect it. Just to see how we can set things up for Brittany to make her room more accessible.”

  Jess nodded, realizing how defensive he sounded. He wasn’t sure why he felt he had to justify his current living conditions to Naomi when, as Brittany said, a ginor
mous house sat across the valley. Maybe it was because he remembered how impressed Naomi was by his parents’ home. She especially loved the grand room, as his mother liked to call it, with windows soaring three stories up and overlooking the valley. Naomi would stand by the window and look down into Hartley Creek trying to find the apartment she shared with her mother and her sisters.

  He didn’t need to explain his desire to have his own house. To start his own place free from the dark and heavy memories of the house he grew up in. He had wanted to sell it, but his mother owned half of it. So they rented it out instead.

  Naomi took a breath, then turned to him, her smile apologetic. “By the way, I was sorry to hear about your father’s death. I know it was a while ago, but I’m sorry I didn’t send a card or anything. Billy said I should have, but I just...I felt like it wasn’t my place. I know you weren’t close to your father, but I’m sure it was still difficult.”

  Jess rocked back on the heels of his boots as he acknowledged her sympathy with a curt nod, preferring not to talk about his father right now. Like his relationship with Naomi, he, too, was part of a past he was trying to move on from.

  “Thanks for that,” was all he said.

  An awkward quiet fell between them after his acknowledgment of her apology, then, thankfully, the lab tech came out of the room, giving them both a quick smile. “All done in there. You can go in now.”

  Jess nodded and as the lab tech bustled away, vials rattling in her carrier, he took a step toward Brittany’s room. “I should go in and visit with Brittany. So I’ll see you tomorrow?”

  Naomi nodded, wrapping her arms around her midsection as she held his gaze. She looked so dispassionate, so calm, it was as if the turbulent emotions that had overcome them both so long ago had been eased away by time.

  And wouldn’t they? After all, she’d had Billy to help her in the forgetting.

  He’d had no one.

  * * *

  Well, this was it.

  Naomi parked her car in front of Jess’s house, pulled down the visor and checked her makeup in the mirror.

  The hair was okay. The serviceable ponytail made her look more professional, she thought. Never mind that the ponytail drew attention to eyes made overlarge by the hollowness of her cheeks.

  According to her sister Hailey she could use a haircut, but then according to her sister, she should do anything but go to work for Jess Schroder.

  Naomi decided not to listen to Hailey on either count. She was doing this for Brittany and it was a good way to get more experience if that part-time job came up at the hospital.

  Naomi slapped the visor up and stepped out of the car.

  Before she went to the house, she took a moment to look over her shoulder at the town below her, nestled in the valley. Hartley Creek, British Columbia.

  She had lived here until she graduated from high school. All during Grade Twelve she and Billy, her boyfriend since junior high school, had made plans to leave. He was studying to be a minister, she was taking an arts degree, which hopefully, would turn her love of stained glass into more than a hobby. Then, that fateful summer, Billy changed plans. He suddenly decided he was going on a mission trip and before he left, to Naomi’s shock and surprise, he broke up with her. His rationale was that he thought she would be a distraction to him. He needed to focus on the Lord’s work.

  She was brokenhearted. Then she got the summer job tutoring Jess Schroder, son of the man who owned Misty Ridge Ski Hill and various other enterprises.

  Jess had done poorly in most of his classes despite repeating them for another year.

  Instead of focusing on his school work, Jess had spent his time touring the countryside with his newest car, paid for by his parents, usually some girl from school accompanying him. Now he stood a good chance of not being able to go to college. So to help him write his college entrance exams, Naomi was hired to tutor him. Reluctantly she took the job, concerned about Jess’s wild reputation. Her sisters warned her and so had Nana, but the money was too good to pass up.

  Jess was so far behind, he needed help in every subject, so they spent every day together. Then, in spite of missing Billy, Naomi did what every other girl in Hartley Creek had done. She fell in love with Jess Schroder. And, to her amazement, he claimed he fell in love with her. They started dating, spending every spare moment together. She taught him to buckle down and practice self-discipline. He taught her to take risks, to live life. To enjoy herself. They shared kisses up on the tops of mountains, at the edges of quiet pools hidden in the hollows of the hills. They shared confidences, they made plans as they tore around the countryside in Jess’s car. Then, one night, alone in his parents’ house across the valley, they made love.

  Naomi slammed a mental door on those memories. She knew she was flirting with disaster by accepting this job, but she also knew that to move on, she had to get through this.

  Think of Billy and what he did for you, she reminded herself, drawing out another set of memories. A picture of Billy’s friendly smile. His kind eyes. His gentle nature.

  A gust of wind surged up from the valley and up the mountain and she wrapped her sweater more snugly against the sudden chill as she turned away from the town and her memories.

  Even though Jess had prepared her, she was still surprised to see the peeling shingles and faded siding painted an anemic pink. Old Mr. McNab, an elderly man who used to own the flower shop in town, used to own it. Now the flower shop had been sold to Mia Verbeek, and Jess Schroder owned the house overlooking the valley.

  As she walked up the cracked and broken sidewalk to the house, the ringing sound of hammers and saws echoed over the valley from the larger home that was in the process of being built a couple of hundred yards away.

  She glanced at her watch. She said she would meet Jess here at about four. She was early but knocked on the door nonetheless.

  To her surprise she heard heavy footfalls, then the door opened and there was Jess. Sawdust was sprinkled through his hair and on the shoulders of his shirt and today a dark stubble shadowed his lean jaw.

  She just wished her heart wouldn’t falter each time she saw him.

  Give it time, she consoled herself. Keep remembering why you broke up.

  “So why don’t you come in?” he asked, pulling the creaking screen door open and standing aside.

  She stepped into the house and as the door closed behind her, she looked around the room.

  A large, worn and overstuffed couch perched under the window and beside it sat a cracked leather recliner. Opposite that was a futon that had seen better days before she was born. She couldn’t help comparing it to the house Jess and his parents used to live in.

  Jess’s former home had been located on the other side of the mountain that held Misty Ridge Ski Hill. It had been built to impress, and it did. The first time she’d gone inside she’d gotten turned around and actually got lost. Naomi could still remember how her voice used to echo in the vastness of that cold, often empty house the first few weeks she was tutoring Jess.

  “Told you it wasn’t much,” Jess said, his tone apologetic. “Come, I’ll show you where Brittany is staying.”

  Naomi followed him down a dark, narrow hallway and into a small room containing a double bed and the detritus of a teenage girl’s life.

  “It took her only a week to transform my storage room into this nest,” Jess said as he picked up a sweater from the floor and laid it on a chair already full of clothes. The sweater fell off the pile, he picked it up and tried again.

  The room’s walls held a few posters, and some family pictures in frames jockeyed for space on a long shelf with stuffed animals, candles and brightly colored tins. Scarves and necklaces hung from hooks on the wall and were draped over the lamp beside a bed overflowing with pillows.

  “It helps that she’s on the main floo
r,” Naomi said looking around the room. “Does she read?”

  “Magazines,” Jess said, his hands on his hips as he surveyed the room with a disgruntled look that in spite of her heightened awareness of him, made her smile.

  “You might want to think about putting in a television for her so she can have something else to do,” Naomi suggested.

  “That’s no problem. I can hang one on the wall here,” Jess said, grimacing at the poster pasted up on the wall behind him. “It wouldn’t break my heart to take Justin Bieber’s grinning mug down.”

  “Where is the bathroom?”

  “Right across the hall.” Jess gestured. “It’s been taken over, too. Curling irons, makeup and enough hair stuff to start a beauty salon.”

  Naomi laughed at his comment, which netted her a quick glance.

  Jess’s mouth curved in a slow-release smile and his eyes held hers.

  She couldn’t look away and for a moment it was as if time circled backward. Naomi felt her breath catch in her throat as old emotions rose up between them, palpable and frighteningly real.

  She swallowed and jerked her head away. “What about your mother? Has she been staying here?”

  “No, she’s staying at a hotel in Cranbrook.”

  “So why did your mother come here if she isn’t staying?”

  “She had just found out that Brit was pregnant and she flipped. Guess the father didn’t want to get involved. So she brought her here, hoping I could help out.” He released a harsh laugh. “As if I can be any kind of influence on her. I’m not her brother and I’m certainly not father material.”

  Naomi’s heart twisted at his words. “You still think that?” she asked quietly, as old memories rose attached to old pain. And behind that came the ruinous emotions of the fight they had over this very issue. She’d thought he loved her. Thought after becoming intimate they would become more serious. She had hinted at commitment and family, but Jess shut her down with the same words he spouted now. How he didn’t want to be a father. He wanted a easygoing life without the trouble of kids. She’d felt betrayed and the words, angry and hurtful, were lobbed like grenades between them. In the end their relationship could not stand up under the conflagration.