by Mariah Dietz
“Did you get hot, girl?” Ella asks, reaching down to pet the dog.
“She was sitting in the house, scratching and barking at the walls, so we forced her outside, and within fifteen minutes she was sprawled out like she’d been speared.” Coen pats her hindquarters.
“We forgot the root beer!” Hayden cries, pulling open the fridge door and ending our conversation.
Ella drops her head back on her shoulders. “Shoot! I’m sorry, dude. I completely forgot.”
“That’s okay. I’ll run out and grab some really quickly,” I offer, fishing my keys from my pocket.
“No!” Ella objects. “It’s okay. We can go get some tomorrow for the leftovers.”
“Leftovers?” I ask. “There aren’t going to be any leftovers. Have you seen the three of us eat?”
Hayden smiles but shakes his head, too. “Don’t worry about it, Uncle Joey. Next time.”
Uncle Joey.
This kid has shot like a rocket straight into my heart, and with those words I’m reminded of the fact. “The store is five minutes away. I’ll be right back.” I ruffle his hair and then punch Coen in the arm before he can add to the chorus of objections and head out to my truck in the driveway.
The trip is short, and while I’m there I can grab a case of beer, which I know my back will need later tonight.
The small parking lot is surprisingly full as I navigate down the first aisle. I pause at the sight of reverse lights.
Bam!
My truck likely rocks less than an inch, but the impact made one hell of a sound that has me craning my neck over to see a small black car sticking out of the bed of my truck.
“What in the hell!” I grumble. “Five fucking minutes. That’s all I needed.”
I slide out of my driver’s side door and go around the back to inspect the damage. “Holy shit.” I brush a hand over my dark hair, noting the dent that will require my truck to be in the shop for days, possibly longer.
“What in the hell were you doing? Why’d you stop?”
I swing my head around, anger rounding my eyes as I face the woman from the hardware store—Kennedy. Looking over the top of her car in my direction, a scowl is etched across her face, which is curtained by her long blonde hair. “We’re in a parking lot, lady. What do you think I was doing? This isn’t rocket science. I was trying to find a goddamn parking spot.”
“You were going, and then you stopped!”
I shoot my arm out, pointing to the spot I was waiting for. “Because a parking spot opened up!”
“The speed limit isn’t listed as mosey!” she fires back.
“Oh, sweetheart. Here in Haven Point, you might be the Southern belle, but in the real world, we take ownership of our mistakes. What we don’t do”—I take a step in her direction—“is shovel our messes onto some poor schmuck, that schmuck in this case being me.” I point to my chest. “Especially not when one does something so brazenly stupid, like gunning it out of a parking spot.”
“Don’t call me sweetheart. I’m no one’s sweetheart.” She glares at me through narrowed eyes that are as icy as they are hard. “You obstructed traffic!”
I cross my arms over my chest and stare at her. “Are you out of your ever-loving mind? Do you know anything about the law?”
“Let’s call the sheriff. I’m sure he’d love to educate you on the law.”
“Do it,” I challenge her, folding my arms across my chest. “Please, call Ray. Do you need his home number? Because I’ve got it here.” I reach for my cell phone.
Her shoulders don’t fall like I expected. Instead, she stands to her full height and lands another glare on me. “You just can’t admit you were in the wrong, can you?”
“No!” I cry. “Because I wasn’t in the wrong.”
“You hesitated!”
“You gunned it!”
“‘Gunned it.’” She mocks me with an eye roll followed by a scoff. “You really need to venture outside of the town’s limits if you think that was ‘gunning it.’”
“Do you see the dent you put into my truck?” I ask. “A family of raccoons is likely going to make residence in this hole.”
“Oh my God, and you’re an exaggerator. Perfect. Let me guess, your neck hurts, too, right? You can’t go to work? You might need additional compensation?”
I pull my chin back.
Is she kidding?
“Look, sweetheart. You hit my truck. It’s that simple. Your car is exhibit A, my truck is exhibit B, and this fresh dent is exhibit C. Are you following how that adds up? I didn’t hit you. You. Hit. Me.”
“Do you think talking to me like I’m some sort of child is going to make this better?”
“It certainly can’t make it any worse.”
“Let’s end this fun dance. Why don’t you grab your information, and I’ll grab mine, and we can sort this through our insurance companies. They can tell you that you’re wrong.”
“Can’t,” I tell her, scrolling through my list of contacts.
“What do you mean, ‘you can’t’? Are you uninsured?” Her frown grows deeper.
I lift a finger and listen to the phone ring twice before Ray answers. “Hey, Ray,” I greet him. “Got in a fender-bender down at the market.”
“Someone hit you?” Ray asks.
“Yup.” I release a deep breath. “Apparently, they were in a hurry.”
“Claire made pork chops. Let me see if someone can come; otherwise, I’ll be there in ten.”
I hang up and turn to the woman who I’ve decided doesn’t know how to do anything but scowl.
“I can’t believe you called the police over this.”
“You’re who wanted to,” I remind her.
“This is unreal. You’re unreal.”
I nod. “I’m all natural, baby. It is pretty unreal.”
Her eyes narrow with disgust. “Just stop talking.” She looks between our cars again. “Can’t we just exchange information and get going? My car runs, your truck runs; you’re fine, I’m fine. Let’s move things along.”
“Can’t,” I tell her again.
“Why not?” She yells the words, frustration coloring her cheeks.
“Because in the beautiful state of Virginia, you have to report all accidents that involve damages over fifteen hundred dollars to law enforcement, and since I’m not an active-duty cop down here, I have to call someone in.”
“You’re a cop?” Her voice drops.
“Detective, actually.”
She expels another deep breath. “Perfect. Just perfect.”
Chapter 6
Kennedy
A cop.
I hit a freaking cop!
That would be my luck.
And not just any cop—I hit the cop whom I gave the proverbial middle finger to yesterday morning at the store. Sure he deserved it, but I doubt he’ll see it that way.
While Violet will likely laugh and ask me to describe what this guy looks like, I fail to see any humor in the situation. Of all the things that could go wrong, why now when I’m already broke and failing at life?
A sheriff’s car pulls up sans lights, and an officer steps out. “Kennedy? Kennedy Wallace?”
My shoulders slump. To make this disaster even greater, I now get to endure another homecoming. I breathe in deeply and turn toward the person calling my name.
His face is mostly shaded by a baseball hat, but what I can see tickles my memories as I try to pinpoint the nervous smile he’s flashing me. “Oh, hi!” I cry with false bravado—I can’t concentrate on him long enough to recall if I remember him a decade after leaving this tiny town behind.
“Jelly Bean . . .” His lips curl, then he yanks off his navy-blue baseball hat to reveal his face. It isn’t necessary though. I recognize the drawl and drawn-out pronunciation of my name regardless of the time lapse.
“Oh my gosh! Ethan!”
His smile grows wider. “You look as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room filled with rocking chairs.�
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“I had no idea you were back in town!” I’m still searching over his face, which isn’t nearly as familiar as it was fifteen years ago, before he graduated and enlisted in the army, leaving Haven Point and taking my older sister’s heart with him.
Ethan nods, folding his arms across his broad chest. “Got back last year.”
“That’s amazing. Terrific . . .” I close my mouth to stop the dozen other adjectives that wish to join the first. Then I think of Grace and of mentioning her, and whether that would be appropriate or not.
“You haven’t changed a bit,” Ethan tells me. “How’s your sister? I bet she looks the same, too, doesn’t she?”
His smile slips, and my heart aches. A twinge for him. A twinge for her. And a third for the loss of what could have been.
What should have been.
I paste a smile across my face to hide the emotions that have me imagining myself as an aunt to their children and then nod for good measure. “She hasn’t changed a bit,” I lie.
“How’s your dad? I heard your folks expanded their store.” Ethan shakes his head. “I keep meaning to stop in and say hello.”
I understand exactly why it’s taken him so long. I’m sure it would be difficult to see the parents of the girl whose heart you broke.
Ethan’s shoulders fall as he expels a deep breath. “Are you back? Like back back?”
“No.” My reply is instant. “Just short term.”
He smiles but doesn’t ask for more of an explanation. “And Grace?” His blue eyes grow wider as they slip past my shoulder, avoiding my gaze, and then darting back to me, assessing my face quickly before moving his attention again.
Is he nervous? Afraid?
His gaze again bounces between my eyes and across my face before falling over my shoulder.
He’s terrified.
I’m about to reply when there’s a loud guttural sound that has Ethan and me turning to face the man who called this little party—Joey DeLuca.
“Sorry to break up the reunion, but I was anticipating being gone for five minutes to grab some domestic beer—and some of the root variety—and getting back to dinner with my family . . . which will likely be cold by the time I make it back.”
Family. Growing up here I knew what that word meant. I understood the expectation was to go home and sit around a table with your parents and siblings, say grace, and eat a hot supper. Over the years, that single word and the definition have changed so monumentally, I never know how to interpret it. Is he married? Does he have kids? Do his parents live here?
“In this heat?” Ethan asks, breaking my litany of thoughts. “It’s like God made you an oven today to ensure your supper won’t get cold.” He laughs, and it has the same warmth it did when he was eighteen and camped out on our living room couch with my sister. But now there’s a gravel to it that exposes he’s grown into a man. Ethan turns his full attention to Joey and his dark hair and even darker eyes, though Ethan likely isn’t noticing those details nor the width Joey’s dirty and stained T-shirt has to spread across his chest or the defined planes of muscles in his biceps. He’s also likely not noticing how ample and soft his lips appear.
I shake my head to dispel the thoughts and turn to the truck they’re both staring at with the dent that is the same size and shape of my car.
“You must be Joey,” Ethan says. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Joey. In my head I hear myself saying his name, drawing it out for no other reason than the fact I likely won’t ever be able to say it aloud without following it with a dozen expletives.
He nods. “Joey DeLuca. Nice to meet you.”
“And you’re related to Coen, right?”
Joey smiles broadly, the look of triumph clear with his shoulders squaring. “He’s my kid brother.”
“I can see the resemblance. This whole town’s grateful to have him here.” Ethan’s sentiment closely matches the one my father shared yesterday after the DeLuca brothers had left the hardware store and Jackson asked me if they had bothered me. Dad laughed and explained Coen was a firefighter with expansive medical knowledge.
Shit.
Shit.
Shit.
“So what happened, Jelly Bean? Did you forget to check your mirrors?”
I cock my head and stare at Ethan with stretched eyes. “Aren’t you supposed to remain neutral? You sound completely biased! I mean, what you just said has to be illegal. You’ve just influenced everything.”
“The hood of your car fits into the side of my truck. He’s not making assumptions—he’s stating facts.”
Moving my glare to Joey, I stand straighter, waiting for him to cower or at least roll his shoulders. Something. Anything to lessen his confidence.
He doesn’t slump, though. Instead, he stares me down, initiating a challenge that is so much more welcoming than anything I’ve faced over the past few days, and one that I feel confident in not just facing but also winning.
“Luckily, our mechanic, Lynne, is still at the shop. She said she has a couple of jobs she has to get done but can fit you in later this week. We’ll just need to take it over to her place, and then I can drive you home.” Ethan pulls out his cell phone.
Joey tears his glower to Ethan.
With rounded eyes and a slack jaw, he stares, as if waiting for a second option. “What?” he finally asks.
Disdain runs through me as his chest puffs out.
Ethan notices it, too, standing straighter before shrugging. “It’s a small town. We only have one mechanic.”
My lips involuntarily curl as Joey’s jaw locks and then tics. It’s the first time in days that I’ve wanted to laugh out loud, and though I feel a twinge of guilt for this unfamiliar sense of unadulterated hatred toward someone I hardly know, I’m able to shove that aside and bask in the knowledge that this week is going to put a small thorn in his ass, too.
Welcome to the party.
“Why don’t y’all be sure to trade insurance information, and then we can back your truck up so Jelly Bean here can leave.”
Joey leans forward, his mouth popping open. “You aren’t writing her a ticket?”
“Nah,” Ethan says. “There’s no use in making all of us suffer longer in this heat. Not when it’s something that’ll be easily repaired.”
“Easily be repaired?” Joey looks at the dent in his truck again.
“Is everything okay?”
I turn to see Jackson walking toward us, a grocery bag in his hand as his eyes sweep over the scene. I smile at him, grateful for his presence because I know without a doubt he’ll be on my side.
“Just a little fender-bender,” Ethan says. “How are you doing, Jackson?”
Jackson studies my face slowly and thoroughly. “You all right?”
Guilt swirls in the humid air, binding itself to my thoughts and forcing me to look at Joey. I never asked him if he was okay. I’m sure he is since he barreled out of his truck with no problem, but the fact that I didn’t ask makes my heart thrum, allowing the guilt to sink deeper.
I nod.
Joey’s eyes are trained on me, hard and unrelenting; then he nods in reply to my silent inquiry. He swiftly moves his attention to Jackson, who meets it with a hard glare. I don’t know what was shared between the two yesterday morning that made Dad laugh, but evidently it wasn’t finished.
“Jelly Bean, grab your papers, and I’ll take a quick picture of them so you can head out. I’m sure your mama’s waiting for you.” Ethan ends the heated stare, his stance calm—relaxed, even, as he leans against the hood of his cruiser.
I’m about to chime sure thing, when I grit my teeth together. It took me years to get rid of my southern accent, yet it takes only a second for it to grease its way back into my vocabulary, making me sound far less like the accomplished professional I’ve been striving to become.
Smiling is safer. So I do, then head to the passenger side of my car and extract my insurance and title information.
Ethan makes quick work of taking pictures of the information, and then, using his same charm he possessed as a teenager and a level of authority he gained sometime after he left, he asks for Joey to move his truck so I can head home.
With a tight jerk, Joey shakes his head, clearly shocked that he’s receiving orders.
“You want me to follow you home?” Jackson asks.
I shake my head. “I’m fine. Really. But thanks.” I smile in assurance. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”
Jackson’s gaze averts to Joey and Ethan before returning to me. He wraps his free hand around my shoulder. “See you tomorrow, Jelly Bean.”
Joey watches me get into my car, his gaze unnerving and intense. I shift my attention to Ethan and Jackson, waving goodbye to them as I back up. What I don’t do—what I resist doing—is looking to see if Joey’s still watching me.
Once his truck is a few feet forward, I slowly pull out of my spot and onto the main road in the direction of home.
Parked in the driveway, I walk around to the back of my car to see how extensive the damage is. My right taillight is cracked, and the bumper is severely dented and scratched.
“What’s with the long face?”
I spin around, a high-pitched squeal bubbling out of me at the sight of my older sister. “Grace!”
She grins, and though it doesn’t reach her eyes, it’s a vast improvement compared to the last couple of years.
“When did you get in?”
Grace leans against the deck’s cedar railing. “The better question is, what took you so long? Mom said you were going to the store to grab tomatoes, and that was like an hour ago.”
“How are you?” I volley another question to her, not wanting to discuss the accident or anything else that seems so trivial in comparison.
“Do you feel like we’re in The Twilight Zone?” She asks, avoiding my question. Her blue eyes spark, but it fades as quickly as it came.
I stare at her, searching for the same differences and similarities I’ve been seeking within everyone since returning to Haven Point. Grace drops her gaze to the deck, reminding me once again how many of her changes aren’t visible on her skin or long auburn hair.
