by Goode, A. J.
“Go home, Ethan,” Sean finally told him one night. “I’m back at work, and I go back on full duty with the Department next week. Everything is back to normal. You can stop checking up on me.”
“Wow. You’re welcome.”
Sean laughed. “Dude, I’ve got a date in an hour. I appreciate everything, but you’ve got to go. Not that I don’t enjoy your company, but she’s a lot prettier than you are. And she smells better.”
Wordlessly, Ethan reached for his coat. Sean stopped him with a hand on his arm. “You might want to think about going on a date, too,” he said. “Get out, go meet a nice girl. Or a not-so-nice one, if that’s what you’re into. But it’s time for you to start moving on.”
“I have moved on.”
“Right. That’s why you haven’t gone forward with the paperwork to buy out Tara’s half of the house.”
“I—I’ve been busy.”
“Right.”
Ethan grabbed his jacket and pushed past Sean. His friend was right; he had been putting off finalizing the sale, waiting for Tara to make the next move. He kept telling himself that he was waiting out of concern for her well-being; he heard from Melissa and Dan that she had started school and gotten an apartment, and he knew she must be exhausted. Let her have a little longer, he thought every time he was tempted to pick up the phone.
“You’re still an idiot,” Sean told him.
“I know. I screwed up with the whole loan business.”
“Call her. Talk to her.”
“’No’.” That’s all she said to me, Sean. I asked her to come home, told her I was sorry, and all she said was ‘no’. She said things would be different if we had met before her accident, and I told her I didn’t care about that. I even said I wanted to help her, and the only things she said to me was ‘no.’ “ Ethan took a deep breath and tried to smile at his friend. “Thanks for the advice anyway, Pal. I’ll leave you to get ready for your date. Just remember to take it easy – you’re still recovering from everything.”
“I’m not made of glass.”
Don’t treat me like a china doll.
“Ethan? You okay?”
If only we had met before my accident.
“I’m an idiot.”
“I’ve been telling you that for years.” Sean patted him on the shoulder. “The truth hurts, huh?”
“Shut up.”
“Idiot.”
* * *
Tara got a thank-you card from Suzanne Jackson a few weeks after that night at the hospital. She was touched by the gesture, and somewhat surprised that the older woman had even noticed she was there that night. According to the hand-written note, Sean had recovered and was already itching to be permitted to resume his job with the fire department.
She re-read the note during her break at beauty school, tucking it carefully into her smock when she was done. She could just imagine the spirited debates going on between Sean, his mother and Ethan.
In the weeks since she had said farewell to Ethan, her life had moved steadily forward. She moved into a tiny studio apartment within walking distance of the beauty school where she had registered to begin classes for her Instructor License. The combination of attending school and physical therapy was exhausting, but also liberating. It felt good to be taking charge of her life again.
As long as she didn’t think about Ethan.
That was the hard part. She thought about him from the moment she woke up missing his arms around her to the second she drifted off alone in her tiny fold-out bed. She checked her phone countless times every day, even though she told herself she wouldn’t answered his calls anyway. And she relived the scene in the hospital waiting room, seeing the hurt in his eyes and willing him to understand that this was for his own good.
He’s better off without me, she told herself a hundred times a day.
“Miss Tara?”
Startled, she glanced up from her cold coffee and realized that one of the young students was peering into the break room. Even though she was a student herself, the Cosmetology students were required to treat student instructors with the same respect they showed fully licensed instructors. It still seemed odd to be called “Miss Tara” by students who were only a few years younger than she was.
“Yes, Lisa?”
“There’s a problem out on the floor, and um, Miss Kathy, um—“
“Take a deep breath and start over, Lisa.”
Lisa did as she was told. “I messed up a haircut,” she blurted. “It’s bad. Miss Kathy wants you to come out and talk to the client.”
That can’t be good. Tara stood up quickly and set her cup in the sink. If the other student instructor was in over her head with this one and needed help, the haircut must be really bad.
“I used the wrong guard,” Lisa told her as they hurried down the hallway. “I thought it was a three but it was a one and then I tried to fix it and then it just got worse.”
Dear Lord, she scalped him! Tara picked up speed.
The salon portion of the beauty school was large and open, with rows of mirrored stations and black salon chairs. Black-clad students worked at nearly every station, either on paying customers or on mannequin heads attached to the counters. All of the students were openly staring at the blond man seated in the chair at Lisa’s station.
Ethan.
Tara froze.
He hadn’t noticed her yet. He was staring in the mirror with an expression of horror on his face – and with good reason. The right side of his head had been shaved down nearly to the scalp, while the left side was still long and somewhat shaggy. The top and back of his head showed large chunks of gouged-out spots where the hair had been cut almost completely to the scalp as well.
“Oh . . . my,” she breathed.
He spun the chair around to face her. “I just wanted to talk to you!” He wailed.
“Ethan, I . . . Oh, Ethan.” Tara bit her lip. Laughing right now would not be a good thing. Definitely not.
“Can you fix it?”
She coughed to cover up the giggles that were trying to break through. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see her instructor watching, waiting to see how she handled the situation.
“Of course,” she told him, motioning for Lisa to step forward and pick up her tools again Step by step, she showed the student how to cut the hair shorter and blend it until it closely resembled Ethan’s usual style – albeit a much shorter version of it. “Now turn the texture shears this way,” she finished. “Follow the comb and one . . . two . . . three. See how that blends right in now?”
Lisa beamed.
“Tara, wait—“ Ethan tried to stand just as the student tried to remove the haircutting cape, and he fell back into the chair.
“Lisa, please try not to strangle the clients,” Tara deadpanned.
“I want to talk to you, Tara. Please.”
“Is there a problem, Miss Tara?”
Tara winced as her instructor approached. “No, Miss Jackie.”
“You know we have a policy here about leaving personal matters at the door.”
“Yes, Ma’am.” She shot Ethan a look, silently begging him to drop it.
He seemed to be particularly dense today. She groaned inwardly when he jumped from the chair and flashed his most charming smile at Miss Jackie. “This won’t take long,” he told her. “I promise. And after what I just went through at the hands of one of your students, I think you can let me have five minutes with your student instructor.”
“Well . . .”
“Tara.” Ethan seized her shoulders and turned her to face him in what was becoming a familiar gesture.
“Ethan, this really isn’t the time or place for this.”
“Yes, it is. I miss you. Please come home.”
“No.”
“I’ve been thinking about what you said, and it doesn’t matter when I met you. I’d feel the same if I’d known you before your accident. I just want to be with you. I want to spend the rest of my life with
you.”
She took a deep, shuddering breath. The rest of my life . . .
No. The rest of her life was going to include pain, possible surgeries, therapy. There would be doctor’s appointments and extra precautions in everything that she did, and it wasn’t fair to force Ethan to be a part of all of that. Why couldn’t Ethan see that it was about more than a few scars?
She could still hear Randy’s words: “Why would I want a crippled wife?”
“Ethan . . .” Tara fought back tears. “You don’t deserve to be stuck with a needy cripple like me.”
“The only one who sees you as needy or crippled is you.”
She gasped.
“I finally figured it out,” he told her. “You’ve gotten it into your head that you’re so needy and pitiful, but nobody else sees you that way. You told me not to treat you like a china doll, but you’re the one acting like you’re too fragile to be treated like a real woman.”
“But—“
“But what? I love you. With or without your scars.”
“You . . . love me?”
He pulled her close and kissed her, claiming her lips with his. She pressed her hands against his chest to push him away, but instead slowly curled her fingers into his shirt and pulled him even closer. She kissed him back hungrily until the whoops and applause from the students around them broke through.
“Do you believe me now?” He asked hoarsely.
She couldn’t speak.
“Marry me, Tara.”
“On one condition,” she said breathlessly.
“Anything.”
“We wait for your hair to grow back in before we take the engagement pictures.”
*The End*
Thank you for taking the time to read Her House Divided. If you enjoyed it, please consider telling your friends or posting a short review. Word of mouth is an author’s best friend and much appreciated. Thank you,
A.J. Goode.
A Word From The Author
The Seashell was a real house and the characters of Bea Ahrend and the two Hyde sisters are all loosely based on the women who lived there for almost forty years. It was, quite simply, the most beautiful place on Earth. I spent every summer of my childhood at that house with those ladies, and I always knew that I would someday write a book that told a story about the Seashell and its quirky inhabitants.
Writing this book has been an act of healing for me. The beach is where I’ve always gone when I need to mend my mind, body, or spirit, so it only made sense for me to go there to tell this story, even if I could only be there in my imagination.
If you enjoyed your visit to Beach Haven, please take a moment to leave a review at Amazon.com.
To check out more of my work, please visit my blog at ajgoode.com, or follow me on Twitter at @GoodeAJ.
Other Books by This Author
Please visit your favorite ebook retailer to discover other books by A.J. Goode:
The Beach Haven Series
Her House Divided
His Heart Aflame
Their Love Rekindled (Coming in 2015)
Other Books
Have a Goode One
Love’s Little List (A Beach Haven BBW Story)
Sneak Peek: His Heart Aflame
Sean Jackson knew better than to drive in this condition. He was an experienced First Responder who had worked more than his fair share of accident scenes created by idiots who didn't think they were too tired to drive. He knew first-hand that driving tired could be just as dangerous as driving drunk, but here he was, tired beyond all belief, driving his exhausted self home down a dark stretch of road and calling himself every name in the book.
He opened the window to let in the fresh air and a few drops of rain, and turned up the volume of the vintage Lynyrd Skynyrd he always played when he was exhausted after a fire call. Just a few more miles, and he'd be home safely. A few more miles, and he'd be able to take a long, hot shower and fall into his nice soft bed for at least a few hours.
Until it was time to go to work, or until some idiot started another grass fire.
He groaned out loud. Normally, he could handle the pressure of a full-time job and his work as a volunteer firefighter. But there had been a rash of grass fires over the past few weeks that had pushed him to the point where he just wasn't sure how much longer he could continue doing both. He couldn't remember the last time he had slept more than two or three hours at a stretch.
Sean wished he had a cup of coffee in the truck with him. He was beyond the point where caffeine was going to do him any good, but at least the warmth and steam would help keep his eyes open. He blinked rapidly and cleared his throat, ready to start singing along with Gimme Three Steps until he realized that he was too tired to remember the words.
He was just going to have to pull over on the shoulder and sleep it off right there in the front seat. That was all there was to it. He was just too damned exhausted to drive those last few miles. All he had to do was round the curve on County Road 388, where the shoulder widened out and gave a nice smooth spot to park and—
The woman came out of nowhere.
He had a split second to take in the fact that she wore something white that seemed to glow in his headlights. He caught a glimpse of a pale face and wide terrified eyes, and then he was spinning out of control on the wet pavement as he jerked the wheel to the left. He pumped the brakes and swore, not sure if he was angrier at himself for driving when his reflexes were this slow, or at that stupid woman for running down a dark country road at three o'clock in the morning.
He wasn’t sleepy any more.
He finally fought the truck to a stop on the wrong side of the road, facing the opposite direction. He sat there for a moment, breathing deeply.
There had been no thud. He hadn't hit the woman. At least, he didn't think he had. Sean jumped out and ran around front to examine the front of his truck. No new dents, no blood, no sign of any kind of impact. He hadn't hurt anyone.
But where was she? He reached under the seat for his flashlight and Detroit Tigers baseball cap. Pulling the hat brim down low to keep the rain out of his eyes, he ventured into the darkness and aimed the light towards the woods.
"Miss?" he called. "Are you hurt? Do you need help?"
Silence.
"I can help you. I'm with the Beach Haven Fire Department. Miss?"
He thought he heard something behind him, but it was just the metallic clang of raindrops hitting his truck. Really could have used this rain an hour ago to help put out the grass fire, he thought. Not doing me much good now.
He crossed the road and peered intently into the trees. He did not want to go in there. It wasn't exactly a jungle wilderness full of dangerous beasts, but he didn't care to come up against beasts of the non-dangerous sort at three in the morning on a lonely country road. Still, it was his responsibility to look for the woman, damn it.
The very stupid woman who enjoyed running out in front of moving vehicles on dark rainy nights. He had a few choice words for her when he found her.
If he found her. "Come on, help a guy out here," he shouted. "It's wet and I'm tired and I just want to go home. I'm not in the mood for Hide and Seek." The smell of smoke and sweat arose from his clothes as the rain soaked through to his skin, and the tap-tap-tap of his headache was quickly becoming more of a bang-bang-bang against the inside of his skull.
He skidded down the slight incline from the shoulder of the road into the trees. Damn, it was dark. No moon, no stars, just heavy clouds and too many trees bursting with an abundance of late-spring leaves. The flashlight beam seemed pitifully insignificant, swallowed up by the night.
Ahead of him, a pair of tiny yellow eyes glittered his light. He swallowed and forced himself to take another step, nearly jumping out of his skin when his shirt caught on a tree branch.
Sean took a deep breath and told himself to calm down. You’ve been in the woods in the dark before, he scolded himself. Camping, hunting -- hell, the whole department was
out here just a couple months ago looking for body parts after that train/pedestrian accident. This is nothing compared to that. Man up.
Determined, he pushed aside a pine branch, only to have it slip out of his grasp and give him a wet slap in the face.
Okay, time to re-think this. He was basically getting his butt handed to him by the wet, dark woods, and he was armed with a flashlight and a lifelong familiarity with the area. Was it really possible that a woman in a big, bulky dress was slipping around silently in these same woods without a light? He shined the light around again, looking for flashes of white or pieces of fabric caught on the same kind of branches that had torn his t-shirt, but saw nothing. He then stood perfectly still and listened.
Nothing but rain hitting the leaves with increasing intensity.
There is no one else out here, he realized.
Which meant one of two things: Either the mystery woman had vanished into thin air, or he had imagined her. Neither answer really appealed to him, but he decided that he’d rather solve the mystery from somewhere safe and warm. And preferably dry. He turned and slogged his way back through the trees and scrambled back up the incline to the road.
He was surprised to see the tailgate of his truck hanging open. That was strange; he remembered shoving his gear bag in there under the tonneau cover when they'd cleared the scene, but he could have sworn he'd latched it. He shined the light inside to satisfy himself that his things were still there, nodding when he saw the vague outlines of his belongings, and slammed it shut before climbing back into the seat.
Damn, he was tired. So tired that he'd driven all this way with his tailgate hanging open, which could have cost him his all of the gear and tools he kept stowed in the back of his truck. So tired that he had imagined seeing a strange woman in white running down a lonely country road at three o’clock in the morning.
I wouldn’t be this tired if I did this full-time, he thought. Sure, the pros worked several days in a row, but they got to go off-duty afterward. They didn’t have to work two jobs, either. And full-time professional firefighters seemed to earn a certain degree of respect that volunteers just didn’t get. Sean thought about the interview he’d gone to earlier in the week in a Grand Rapids suburb and wondered for the hundredth time what he would do if they actually offered him the job.
