By the time they reached her Airstream, a silvery, sleek refuge from the rain, they were both drenched.
“Do you...want to come in and dry off?” she asked, her face a pale blur in the darkness as she stood under her awning.
Saying no was just about the hardest thing he had ever done.
“I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything else in my life. More than I want to breathe. But I don’t want either of us to regret it. Though I hate like hell having to say this, I don’t think this is the right moment. Not when you’re still upset after the fight with your sister.”
She didn’t say anything for several seconds. Finally, she nodded. “You’re probably right.”
She leaned in to kiss him softly. “Thank you for listening.”
He lifted a hand to gently brush her cheekbone. “You don’t need to carry the weight of the world by yourself, Jess. It’s okay to put it down once in a while and let someone else help you.”
“I do feel better. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Happy birthday.”
“So far thirty is terrific,” she said dryly. “I can’t wait to see what the rest of the year brings.”
He smiled at her sarcasm, kissed her one last time, then he and Cinder slipped away through the rain toward his house, yearning with everything inside him that he could stay.
30
Jess
She stood under the awning, drenched and chilled, as she watched Nate and his dog hurry away until they were out of view.
She shivered from more than just the wind blowing through her wet clothes.
She didn’t want him to go. She wanted to call after him and drag him inside her cozy trailer and make love all night long, safe and dry in his arms while the rain pounded the aluminum skin.
Oh, this was bad.
She couldn’t believe she had told him about that last horrible night with Roni and Doug. The words had spilled out of her like rainwater carving a channel to the sea.
Right there under her awning, Jess stripped out of her wet clothes to her bra and panties and draped them over the bistro chairs so they wouldn’t drip all over the trailer then hurried inside.
She grabbed a towel first and wrapped it around her, then turned on her propane heater to warm the space.
One of the few things she didn’t like about living in these close quarters were the bathing facilities. She loved glorious, luxuriant showers but the water capacity was severely limited in the Airstream.
Sometimes on the road, she checked into a hotel room for a night simply so she could indulge and take a long, hot shower where she didn’t have to worry about the water running out.
Still, she made do as best she could then slipped into her favorite warm sweats and thick socks. Jess knew she ought to climb into bed. The day had been long and she felt wrung out from the wild emotions of the past few hours.
Her mind was racing too much to sleep, jumping between Rachel, Cody, her parents.
Nate.
She was relieved he hadn’t accepted her invitation to come inside. It had been a spontaneous thing, spurred by the hunger that had only been growing stronger since the first time they kissed and by the security and safety she felt in his arms down at the cove.
He was right. She would have regretted it in the relentlessly harsh light of morning.
Jess had friends who could sleep with any person who caught their eye. Sometimes Jess wished she could do the same. That casual approach fit so much better with her own personal narrative, the persona she tried to portray of someone who hurried into town, took care of what needed to be done and then moved on.
How much easier would it be to keep everyone from getting too close if she were the sort of woman who could invite a desirable man into her bed at night, take what she wanted from him and kick him out in the morning without a second thought?
Over the years, she had learned that the price for a few hours of intimacy was simply too steep. She ended up feeling more alone than ever.
Too bad.
Right now, with the rain drumming against the Airstream and her body still quivering from Nate’s touch, she wanted so much more.
No. It was for the best. She already felt closer to him than any man she could remember, even the few she had dated for more than a few weeks.
She had never told either of those guys about her parents. She had just said they died when she was a teenager and neither had pressed.
Why had she spilled everything to Nate?
She still didn’t know.
All in all, it was probably a good thing she planned to leave the following week. A few more moonlit meetups with Nate and she would be so tangled up with him, she wouldn’t be able to extricate herself.
Would that be so horrible?
Yes. She knew the answer to that. Nate was the sort of man who would never be content with a casual relationship and she simply didn’t know if she had anything more to offer.
A text came through just as Jess was finally slipping into bed.
Hey, beautiful birthday girl. How was the par-tay?
She smiled, wondering how Yvette’s simple texts sounded so clearly like her friend.
She texted back a pic she had taken of the girls in their cute little flowery sundresses holding her birthday cake. Gorgeous cake, Yvette texted back. And then a second later.
Dayam, girl. Who’s the hottie?
She looked at the photo again and saw that Nate was standing in the background. He was smiling at the scene and looked big and dark and luscious.
Eleanor’s son, she answered back. He and his daughter came to the party.
You been holding out on me. Too bad you’re almost done there. Maybe I should still fly out to help you finish up. I’d like a taste of that.
She almost texted back, Nate’s mine. That wasn’t true, of course. She just wanted it to be.
You know I always have a pullout couch ready for you, she texted.
Yvette sent her the thinking emoji, which made her smile.
Yvette was someone else who had never taken no for an answer. When they met during basic training, Jess had put up all the usual back-off signals. Yvette had shoved them all out of the way with her characteristic style and insisted they were fated to be friends. Jess had been helpless in the face of such blatant confidence.
Their bond had been cemented through their initial training and had only been reinforced when they served together in Iraq.
They had worked perfectly together building Transitions. Each had strengths that complemented the other.
She wasn’t alone, Jess reminded herself. She had a sister she loved, nieces, a nephew. She had Yvette, an interesting job, a tiny house that was just right for her, barring the unfortunate showering limitations.
So she didn’t have a man in her life. That was her choice. The smartest choice for her situation right now—even if a rainy, cold night like this one made her wish she could make a different one.
31
Jess
She was finishing her coffee and some avocado toast the next morning before heading over to Eleanor’s when someone knocked rather tentatively on the door of her Airstream.
For one wild moment, she wondered if it might be Nate, if he might have come to pick up where they had left off the night before.
Butterflies immediately swarmed in her stomach and her heartbeat edged up. No. It couldn’t be Nate. He was probably getting Sophie off to school and heading off himself to a job site. Anyway, something told her his knock would have been more forceful.
With all the heat they seemed to generate between them, maybe he wouldn’t have even bothered to knock, just would have forced the door open and swept her into his arms.
She swallowed hard and warily opened the door.
It wasn’t Nate. Instead, her sister sto
od on the other side. For once, Rachel didn’t look Insta-polished, her makeup flawless and her hair styled.
She had circles under her eyes, no makeup as far as Jess could tell and her hair was swept back into a messy bun with a few strands hanging out. She looked as if she had been up all night.
The memory of their fight the night before and the hard words they had flung at each other seemed to swirl around them like mist in the morning air.
“Rachel. Hi.” She looked over her sister’s head to her empty minivan parked next to Jess’s own pickup. “Where are the kids?”
“Cody had an issue with a supplier so had the morning off. He offered to get the girls to school and hang out with Silas while he makes some phone calls at home so that I could come talk to you.”
“Okay.”
What else did they have to say to each other? Her stomach burned a little, but she told herself it was only because she’d had too much coffee and not enough toast.
There wasn’t much room inside her trailer for both of them, especially not with these big feelings between them.
Since the morning was beautiful, the ocean gleaming in the sunshine after the rain, she gestured to her turquoise bistro set, grateful she had taken her still-damp clothing inside to dry in the shower now that she was ready for the day.
“Do you want some coffee? I was just eating breakfast. Can I make you some avocado toast?”
Rachel shook her head but slid into one of the chairs. “I’m not hungry. And I really don’t need more caffeine.”
“What do you need?”
“To talk to you.”
More than a little wary now, Jess grabbed her own breakfast and sat down across from her sister. She was still feeling vaguely queasy from the emotional turmoil of the night before. She wasn’t sure she was up to more today.
“I ruined your party,” Rachel said, her voice quivering slightly. “I wanted it to be perfect and then I...I ruined it.”
Rachel met her gaze and Jess saw that her sister looked wretched.
“You didn’t ruin anything.”
“I did. And the worst part is, I have no idea why. I have all the best intentions and then all these awful things come gushing out.”
As Jess feared, her sister started to cry, big tears dripping down her cheeks. Her nose started to run and she looked around rather wildly, as if Jess would have a box of tissue always at the ready.
Not sure what else to do, she handed over the napkin she hadn’t used yet and Rachel wiped at her nose and her eyes.
“I’m a hot mess,” Rachel sniffled. “You were absolutely right. I don’t know how to fix it. I keep thinking I’m doing okay and then something sets me off. And I’m losing my husband.”
The tears finally became one sob then another and another. Jess didn’t know what to do. She hated tears in herself and really hated them in her sister. She wanted to run inside the Airstream and close the door tightly behind her. But Rachel was being vulnerable with her. She couldn’t just stand by and stare.
She rose and hugged her sister, wishing the gesture that had once been so routine between them felt a little more natural and a little less forced.
Rachel didn’t seem to mind. She rested her head against Jess’s chest and held tight to her waist, letting the tears flow.
“You’re not losing your husband. I shouldn’t have said that yesterday. Cody adores you.”
“How can he? You were right. Everything you said last night.”
“I’m the last one to offer marital advice, sis. You know that. The only experience I have was being a witness along with you to our parents’ train wreck of a marriage. It might not have been the worst marriage ever but it would surely have a place of honor in the Bad Marriage Hall of Fame.”
Rachel eased away, wiping at her eyes with the bedraggled napkin. “Yes. If there were such a thing.”
“Yours doesn’t belong anywhere near there. You love Cody, right?”
“So much.” Rachel gave a watery smile. “Since the moment I met him when I was a scared fourteen-year-old foster kid. He was so kind to me. We had gym class together and you know I wasn’t athletic at all. He worked with me after school for a week, trying to teach me how to shoot a free throw so I wouldn’t humiliate myself by shooting air ball after air ball in my new school.”
“You never told me that.”
Rachel shrugged. “There are a lot of things I didn’t tell you. I didn’t want you to think I was a weakling. You were my tough, fearless, invulnerable sister.”
“Ha. That’s so not true. You know it’s not.”
“You became a soldier, Jess. Two deployments to the Middle East. You’ve always been a badass. Which is why I didn’t want to bother you with my dumb problems. You had bigger things to worry about. But Cody helped out. I’m actually really great at free throws now. You should see me.”
She brushed a strand of Rachel’s hair out of her face. “Cody helped you with that. He can help you deal with Silas, too, but you have to let him.”
She remembered Nate’s words to her and decided to repurpose them for her sister. “You can’t carry everything by yourself, Rachel. I don’t know why you feel like you have to.”
To her dismay, this seemed to set off the tears again. More dripped down her sister’s cheeks, so many that the poor napkin wasn’t going to cut it. Jess jumped up and reached into her trailer for the box of tissues she kept in the cabinet next to the door.
“I know.” Rachel sniffled. “It’s just that Mom was helpless about everything. She wouldn’t make a decision about changing toilet paper brands without Dad’s say-so. I don’t want to be like that.”
“It seems to me that you’ve gone in the exact opposite direction. You don’t want to rely on Cody for anything, even when your life feels completely overwhelming.”
“It does. It’s so hard. There are days I want to get in my car and just drive and drive and drive and never look back. I can never tell Cody that. It would break his heart.”
She buried her face in her hands. “I love our family. I do. I just...wish things could go back to the way they were when Silas was a quiet, easy baby, before he was diagnosed. Before I had pages and pages of books to read about how to handle him, before we had daylong doctor appointments, before the future became so uncertain and so damn scary for my child.” She sobbed again. “I don’t know if I’m strong enough to do this.”
Her shoulders shook with her sobs and Jess had never felt more helpless. How could she offer comfort to her sister? She had never had a child at all, let alone one with a serious, potentially life-changing disability. She didn’t have any words to make this better. Nothing she said would change Rachel and Cody’s reality anyway.
She picked her words carefully. “You are an amazing mother, Rachel. Every time I see you with the kids, I’m impressed all over again at how you make it look so effortless.”
Rachel scoffed. “I wish.”
“You do. The one night I stayed with the girls was one of the hardest things I ever did. And I didn’t have Silas that night, just Grace and Ava, who are basically self-sufficient. Everything the girls told me about their daily routine just reinforced what a good mother you are.”
She gripped Rachel’s hand. “The amazing thing to me about it is that you’re completely self-taught. We didn’t get any guidance from Roni. But the girls told me that every day you make them come home and report about a good deed they have done that day. They showed me the shelves full of books in their room and the reading nook you created and told me you read to them every single night.”
“I’ve always loved books.”
“I know. And you’re teaching your children to love books, too. Even Silas. Yesterday at my party, he sat on Eleanor’s lap for a long time while they looked through picture books. That’s all coming from you.”
Rachel sighed. “I do
n’t feel like anything I do is enough.”
“That’s the first thing you should stop right now. Stop comparing yourself to everyone else. I know social media is your business and that you’re great at it but somehow you have to stop looking at how everyone else defines a good mother. Give yourself a freaking break, Rachel.”
Her sister gave another watery laugh. “Is that an order, Staff Sergeant Clayton?”
“Sure. If that’s what it takes.”
She squeezed her sister’s hand again. “I also think you need to start taking time for yourself without feeling guilty about it. When was the last time you spent a few hours doing exactly what you wanted, not for a blog post or an Instagram story. Just for your mental health?”
Rachel looked pensive. “I don’t know. I honestly can’t remember.”
“There you go. Take Silas to your mother-in-law’s house while the girls are at school. She raised Cody and his siblings. Four kids born within six years, right? She can handle one two-year-old.”
“Silas is harder to handle than your average two-year-old. He can be so difficult sometimes.”
“And you’ll be the only one who can ever care for him unless you let others step in once in a while and try to figure it out. It will be good for him to spend some time with Grandma, and you can go to yoga class or something. Or better yet, put on some sexy lingerie and text Cody that you fixed lunch for him at home.”
Rachel blushed and gave a breathy laugh, but Jess thought she also looked intrigued by the idea.
“I could maybe do that.”
“You should. It will be good for you and for Cody. Don’t forget that he’s still your hero who taught you how to shoot free throws. You’ve loved him since you were fourteen.”
“I have. Silly, isn’t it?”
“No. It’s beautiful. And, Rach. If you’re the best mom I know, Cody is the best dad. The girls and Silas clearly adore him. You two make a fantastic team. You’ve just lost sight of that somewhere along the way and think you have to make all the free throws by yourself. What’s the good of being an ace shot if you won’t let anybody else on the court with you?”
The Path to Sunshine Cove Page 22
