by Marie Force
Jenny turned on the light for him. “What’s wrong?” she asked, blinking him into focus.
With his back to her, he stepped into his shorts. “My mom. Paul thinks she might be having a heart attack.”
“Oh my God.” Jenny got up and went to her dresser for clothes.
“What’re you doing?”
“I’ll drive you so you can get there quicker.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know I don’t.” She got dressed as fast as she could, which wasn’t easy with hands that didn’t want to work the way they were supposed to and a body full of sore muscles. When they were dressed, they rushed down the spiral stairs to the kitchen, where Jenny looked for her purse and keys before remembering she’d left them in the mudroom earlier.
In the car, she blasted the air-conditioning, taking the relief from the heat where she could get it. She glanced over to find Alex staring straight out the windshield, his jaw rigid with tension. “Has she had heart trouble before?”
“No.”
“Am I taking you home?”
“Would you mind going to the clinic? Paul called rescue, and they’re on their way there.”
“Of course.” Jenny drove as fast as she dared on the winding road to town and pulled up to the clinic’s emergency entrance ten minutes later. “Do you want me to come in with you?”
For a second, he seemed torn with indecision. “No, you don’t have to. Thanks for the ride.”
“I hope she’s okay.”
“So do I.” He got out of the car to meet the ambulance as it turned into the parking lot.
Jenny moved her car out of the way but couldn’t seem to make herself leave. She parked and watched from a distance as Paul emerged from the back of the ambulance. He and Alex stood together to watch the paramedics remove the stretcher from the back. David Lawrence came out of the clinic to meet them, and Alex and Paul rushed inside with him.
She knew she ought to leave. His family crisis was none of her business. But that second of indecision she’d seen on his face had her shutting off the car. It had her reclining the seat ever so slightly. And it had her watching the clinic door for the rest of the night.
***
Alex emerged into the soft dawn light feeling like he’d been assaulted after the long night without sleep—and the sexual marathon that had proved he wasn’t as young as he used to be. The relentless heat smacked him in the face as he left the cool interior of the clinic. He did a double take when he saw Jenny’s car in the lot. Other than David’s car, it was the only one there, so it was hard to miss.
Approaching the car, he saw that she was asleep with all the windows open. Seeing her there, obviously waiting for him, hit him square in the chest, making him ache for much more from her than what they’d already shared. He knew it was stupid to feel that way. After all, what did he have to give her besides a family and business in disarray? But he couldn’t deny the ache in the vicinity of his heart as he touched her shoulder gently, trying not to scare her.
She came awake, blinking her eyes. “How is she?”
“She had a bad case of heartburn from something she ate at bridge night.”
“Oh thank goodness.”
“David is keeping her for observation for a few more hours. I’m going home to get my truck and coming back to get them.”
“I’ll give you a lift.”
“You didn’t have to wait for me, Jenny.”
“I know.”
He looked at her for a long time, drinking in the sight of big brown eyes, kiss-swollen pink lips and soft blonde hair and trying to decide what it was about her that had him so undone. She’d waited all night for him, even after he’d told her she didn’t have to. Why had she done that?
“Are you coming?”
Realizing he’d been staring at her, he nodded and walked around the car to the passenger seat.
Without asking him where she was going, she drove him home. As they went through the entrance to Martinez Lawn & Garden, he directed her around the greenhouses.
“Home sweet home,” he said, looking to break the silence—and the tension.
“It’s nice,” she said as they approached the ranch house where he’d grown up.
“It was nice of you to wait.”
She shrugged as if it had been no big deal to sacrifice a good night’s sleep for him. “I had a lot of time to think while I waited.”
Oh please don’t let her say she doesn’t want to see me again. He really would lose his will to live if he couldn’t lose himself in her once in a while. Or every day. Every day would definitely be preferred to once in a while. He held his breath while he waited to hear what she had to say.
“You fired the woman who runs the retail business.”
He released a deep sigh of relief that she wasn’t telling him they were over. “You heard that, huh?”
“I think the whole bar heard it.”
The reminder of the new challenge facing them made Alex feel even more exhausted than he already was.
“I’d like to help you.”
He was shaking his head before the words were even completely out of her mouth.
Her hand on his arm stopped him cold. “Hear me out. I have an MBA from Wharton, and I have extensive retail experience. I put myself through college managing a clothing store. I don’t know a thing about plants or greenhouses or horticulture, but I could probably fake it well enough to lend a hand. If it would help you.”
Touched by her offer and her sincerity, he said, “You may not know much about horticulture, but you grow—and throw—a mean tomato.”
Jenny’s laughter filled him with an unreasonable amount of happiness. Similar to a limb reawakening, the feeling bounced through his body like a bad case of pins and needles. It’d been so long since he’d felt anything resembling happiness. “It’s really nice of you to offer.”
“I want to help.”
Those four simple words packed one hell of an emotional punch. He was a fucking mess this morning if that was all it took to unravel him.
“And for what it’s worth,” she added. “This,” she said, gesturing to the greenhouses and retail store in front of them, “has nothing to do with what happened last night.”
“Sure, it does.”
“Well, that’s not why I offered. You and your brother are going through a tough thing. My grandmother had dementia, so I know how difficult it is. I’d like to think that while we were frying each other’s brain cells, we might’ve formed the start of what some people call friendship. That’s what I’m offering you—friendship and professional assistance. No strings, no ties, no obligations. If it would help.”
He took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “It would help tremendously. Sharon came to us with management experience. The rest of the staff is made up of college kids, so it’s not like there’s someone else who could easily take her place.” Glancing at her, he said, “If you’re serious, I gratefully accept your offer, but only temporarily until we can get someone permanent. I don’t expect you to upend your life to help me.”
“I’m not upending anything, but I’m happy to help you in the interim.”
“I’ll need to run it past Paul. The hiring and firing are usually his department.”
“Of course, that’s fine. Let me give you my number, and you can call me if you want my help. If you don’t, no worries.” She recited her number, which he programmed into his phone.
“Isn’t that a New York area code?”
“I used to live there.”
“I’ll talk to Paul this morning and give you a call later.” He leaned across the console to kiss her. “Thank you.”
She cupped his cheek. “Try to get some sleep.”
“Not seeing that on the day’s agenda.” Because she was so gorgeous and sweet, he took one more kiss. “It means a lot to me that you waited and that you offered to help. Thank you.”
Her smile was lovely and potent. “That’s what friends are for.”
<
br /> “I’ll call you later.”
“Okay.”
As he walked into the house to shower and change before going back to the clinic, Alex’s thoughts were full of Jenny. He couldn’t deny their amazing physical connection, which was unlike anything he’d ever had with another woman, but more significant all of a sudden was the emotional connection. She’d touched him deeply this morning, and he couldn’t wait to see her again.
***
Jenny drove home in a daze, stunned by the way Alex had looked at her when he told her it meant a lot to him that she’d waited for him and offered to help. She’d be a fool to deny that something powerful was happening between them. What started off as a purely physical thing had taken a turn toward something far more significant in the last twenty-four hours.
If she were being honest, what she’d found with him was exactly what she’d been hoping for when she told her friends she was ready to start dating again. The connection she felt with him was one she’d experienced only one other time, and it had been just as immediate with Toby. They’d met in an accounting class and commiserated over the relentless pace of the class and grad school in general.
She’d talked to him exactly once and had known he was someone special. It hadn’t taken long for them to be inseparable. They’d stayed that way for three incredible years until they were forced apart by horrible tragedy.
For a long time after Toby died, she’d expected never to feel that way again, and she hadn’t until she met Alex and knew right away there was something different about him. At first she’d thought it might only be physical, but now she knew it could go beyond that—if they wanted it to.
Did she want it to? Yes, she thought without a doubt. Yes, I want it to go beyond the physical. Seeing him in pain over his mother’s condition had made her hurt, too. She’d felt elated when she had the idea in the middle of the night to help him and his brother at the store. It might not be much, but it was something she could do to relieve their overwhelming burden.
Jenny returned to the lighthouse and went straight up to bed. Every muscle in her body was sore and stiff from the sexual gymnastics of the night before. Despite the merciless heat, she slept for a couple of hours and actually felt worse when she woke up.
“If I was looking for proof that I’m not cut out for nonstop sex, here it is,” she said to herself as she sat on the edge of the bed. Shuffling to the bathroom, she decided it wasn’t possible to feel this bad from having too much sex. This felt more like the flu—with an overdose of sex thrown in to make it worse.
She swallowed some painkillers, took a long, cool shower and emerged feeling barely human. The thought of eating made her want to vomit, so she went downstairs for some water and returned to bed.
Lying in bed, looking up at the ceiling, Jenny could only hope that Alex didn’t get whatever she seemed to have. That was about the last thing he needed at the moment. Her cell phone rang, and she checked the caller ID, delighted to see her mom’s number.
“Hi there.”
“Hi, honey. How’s it going?”
“I’m actually lying in bed wondering if I might have the flu.”
“Oh, too bad. What’re your symptoms?”
“Achy all over and nauseated.” She didn’t mention the unreasonably sore muscles or the reason for them, even though her mother would probably be delighted to hear that Jenny had found someone special to spend time with.
“That doesn’t sound good. Is it still hot?”
“Crazy hot.”
“I wish I was there to take your temperature and bring you ginger ale the way I used to.”
“I wish you were, too.” Jenny missed her family in North Carolina, but the opportunity to go somewhere new, where no one knew what’d happened to her, had been greatly appealing when she’d read about the Gansett Island lighthouse-keeper job in the newspaper. “What’s going on there?”
Her mom regaled her with news about her sisters and their families, including a funny story about her nephew Tyler being scolded at preschool for kicking his friends with his new boots. “Needless to say, Emma took the boots away from him until he can play nice with his friends,” her mom said of the younger of Jenny’s two sisters.
“Poor Tyler. He loves those boots.”
“I know, but as Emma said, who knew they came with attitude?”
Jenny smiled as she pictured her pintsize nephew with hair so blond it was nearly white. She and Toby had planned to eventually move back to North Carolina after they got their careers off the ground. They’d also hoped to wait a few years to start a family, so their children should’ve been growing up alongside her nieces and nephews.
The sheer unfairness of what had happened to him—and to her—was never far from her mind, especially when she was around her sisters and their families.
“Are you and Dad still hoping to come visit?”
“We’d love to. He’s trying to figure out a few things at work, and then I’ll email you some dates.”
“Sounds good.”
“Let me know how you’re feeling, okay?”
“I will. I’ll text you tomorrow.”
“Love you, honey.”
“Love you, too.”
Jenny put down the phone and toyed with the idea of getting up and trying to eat something, but her stomach turned from the idea alone, so she stayed put, dozing intermittently until Syd called later that afternoon.
“Were you sleeping?” Sydney asked.
“I hate to admit that I was. Not feeling too hot. Well, that’s not true. I feel like I’m going to implode I’m so hot, but I might have a fever on top of this miserable heat wave.”
“Ugh, that doesn’t sound like fun.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about. I just feel like shit. But how are you? It was good to see you out last night.”
“It was good to be out. I’m sick of looking at my own four walls.”
“You’re feeling better?”
“Still a little tired and sore, but much better than I was.”
“Glad to hear it. How long do you have to wait to test out the new plumbing?”
Sydney laughed. “Another two weeks, not that Luke is counting down or anything.”
“Aww, poor guy.”
“Poor guy will survive. We’ve been…improvising.”
“I’m sure you have,” Jenny said, amused by her friend. “You know… You two, you give me hope.”
“How so?”
“Seeing you so happy with Luke after all you’ve been through, it makes me believe it could happen to me, too.”
“It will happen for you. I know it will.”
Jenny thought of Alex and what they’d shared the night before. She wanted to tell Sydney about it but hesitated, because if she did, it wouldn’t belong just to them anymore. For now, she wanted to keep it private.
“Speaking of things happening for you, Luke ran into Mason yesterday. He said he had a really nice time with you, and he’d like to see you again.”
Jenny cringed and was grateful Sydney couldn’t see her expression. “He’s a great guy, but he’s not the great guy for me.”
“I know you said the jury was still out on Linc—”
“He’s not the great guy for me either.”
“Oh, I was so hoping… You seemed to be having a good time together last night.”
“We did. It’s just, you know, no spark.” Jenny sighed. “I must sound like the biggest princess. You guys have gone to all this trouble to arrange dates for me—”
“Stop,” Syd said gently. “If it’s not there, it’s not there. You’re not eighteen anymore. You know yourself and what you’re looking for. Please don’t feel like you owe us any explanations.”
“Still, I hope you know I appreciate the fix-ups, even if they haven’t worked out the way we hoped.”
“We know that. Let us know when you’re ready to try again. We’ve got other guys in the stable.”
Jenny laughed at the visio
n of hot guys lined up next to each other in stalls waiting to be found by the right woman. If only it were that easy. “Did I miss anything after I left last night?”
“Oh, you should’ve seen it! Evan played the song he recorded for release from the studio—‘My Amazing Grace.’ He brought Grace up on the stage and sang it to her. I swear, we were all bawling our heads off—no one more so than her.”
“I’m sorry I missed that.”
“It was quite something, and apparently they’ve set a wedding date. January eighteenth in Turks and Caicos.”
“A destination wedding,” Jenny said with a sigh. “How nice.”
“They thought it would be fun to get everyone out of here in the dead of winter.”
“It’s a great idea.”
“We’re getting together here this afternoon to go over the details of Tiffany’s shower. If you feel better, come on over.”
“I will as long as I’m not communicable.”
“Sounds good. Hope to see you.”
“Syd… I just want to say… You and the others have been such a godsend to me. You have no idea.”
“Oh, honey, yes, I do. The people here saved my life in every way that matters, and we love having you as part of our group.”
“Thank you. I hope to see you later.”
“We’ll be here.”
Jenny ended the call and turned on her side, snuggling into her pillow, counting her many blessings. Before she’d come to Gansett, she’d been floundering at home in North Carolina, working for a PR firm and surrounded by well-meaning people who watched her all the time for cracks in the armor.
Here, no one had known her before the great tragedy. No one had known Toby. No one had known them together. Though her friends on Gansett knew what had happened, her tragedy didn’t define her relationships here the way it had at home.
She could breathe here, and at some point during her time at the lighthouse, she’d finally healed. The night she’d spent with Alex had shown her she was still capable of emotions she’d thought buried forever. Part of her heart would always be broken over the loss of such a wonderful, beautiful man in the prime of his life. But her life wasn’t over, and her time with Alex had reawakened her desire and her passion and her hope for a second chance. Whether her second chance would be with him or not was yet to be seen, but he’d shown her it was possible to find that connection again.
