Searching for Sunshine

by Linda Seed

  “You haven’t seen the guesthouse yet.”

  “Oh. I wasn’t sure you’d even started that.”

  He rubbed at the stubble on his chin. “Well, I wanted to get that going, because I figured you might want to rent it out, bring in some extra income. Not that you need it, I guess. Still …”

  She was headed out the door and across the yard before he’d even finished his sentence.

  The guesthouse was small at just seven hundred square feet. The plan was to increase the size of it, adding an additional bedroom and expanding the galley kitchen into something more workable for a couple or a small family. Breanna didn’t know what she was going to do with it yet—maybe she would rent it out, as Jake had said, or maybe Colin and Julia would want to stay here when they were in town. No matter what she did with the cottage, she couldn’t go wrong adding a little more space.

  This part of the project wasn’t very far along. But the concrete foundation for the addition had been poured, so Breanna could clearly see the new footprint the house would occupy when it was done.

  “It’s not much to see yet,” Jake began.

  “No, you’re wrong. It is.” Breanna’s heart felt full—full of the life she and her sons would live here in this beautiful place, this place that was theirs alone.

  She turned to Jake, thinking to thank him. Instead, she threw her arms around him impulsively. At first, taken by surprise, he didn’t return her embrace. Then, he put his arms around her and held her.

  “Well. You’re welcome,” he said, his voice husky.

  * * *

  If this wasn’t the opening he was hoping for, he doubted he’d get a better one. It wasn’t like she was going to present him with a handwritten invitation to ask her out.

  He let go of her and took a step back.

  When he was a teenager and painfully awkward with girls, he’d always thought that when he became a man, things like asking women out on dates would get easier. It never did. In fact, it was worse now, because when he was a kid, everyone just assumed he’d be a hopeless mess. Now, the expectations were higher, but the actual asking was still a nightmare of insecurity and vulnerability and a mélange of other things best avoided.

  Still, there was no way around it, unless he wanted to stay single into his golden years.

  “So …” he began. He rubbed the back of his neck and scrunched up his face slightly as though in pain. “I was thinking. We could maybe … uh … go out some time. If you wanted. But I get that you might not want to, because you’re my client and I’m working on your project, and it might be weird, especially if things don’t go well and we still have to work together. You know what? That really would be weird. Forget I said anything. Let’s just …”

  “Jake.”

  “That’s just … It’s probably uncomfortable for you that I even asked, right? Shit. I’m sorry. Just forget that I—”

  “I’d love to go out with you,” Breanna said.

  His eyebrows shot up in his surprise. “You would?”

  “Sure.”

  “That’s … wow. Okay.” He grinned, pleased with himself and the overall situation. “How about Friday night?”

  “Perfect,” she said. “Should we take a look inside the guesthouse?”

  9

  Breanna hadn’t gone to the Moonstone Beach house expecting to get asked on a date. If she had gone over there expecting it, she’d have planned to say no. Yes, she was attracted to Jake. Yes, she’d enjoyed talking to him at the coffeehouse. And yes, their light flirtation had been fun. But he was right—what if things didn’t go well between them while they were still working together?

  And anyway, she had enough to worry about without a new man in her life. She had her boys, a move to a new home …

  It was a lot to think about. And dating Jake would add a new level of stress to something that was already stressful.

  Of course, it would also add a new level of excitement to something that was already exciting.

  She’d been so pleased and happy about the progress on the property, the yes had popped out before she’d even thought about it. And then there had been the hug, which also had been unplanned.

  Later that evening, Breanna was making dinner for her family—giving Sandra a rare break from the cooking—and Gen was sitting at the kitchen table feeding homemade macaroni and cheese to her son, James Redmond Delaney, whom they’d all taken to calling J.R.

  At thirteen months old, J.R. was chubby, happy, and active. When Gen didn’t shovel the food into his mouth fast enough, the boy smacked his hands on the tray of his high chair and made an uh-uh-uh noise that suggested a deep and enduring love for food.

  “So … a thing happened today,” Breanna said as she stirred a big pot of chili.

  “A thing,” Gen repeated.

  “Well … not so much a thing as an incident,” Breanna clarified.

  “What kind of incident?” Breanna spooned pasta into her son’s mouth, then scraped the excess sauce off his face with the tiny, baby-sized spoon.

  “Nothing, really. Just … the kind where I hugged my contractor and then he asked me out.” She focused on the chili, as though avoiding eye contact with Gen would make the news seem less significant than it was.

  “Oh ho!” Gen said.

  Breanna set the spoon from the chili on a small plate she’d set aside for that purpose, then turned and looked at Gen. “Let’s not make more of it than it is. I probably shouldn’t have even said yes.”

  “But you did say yes?” Gen prompted her.

  “Well …”

  “That’s great, Bree,” Gen said. “Really. You need to be dating. You deserve to have some fun. And he’s hot and manly and all … contractory, with the tools and everything.” She looked at Breanna significantly.

  “I don’t think contractory is a word,” Breanna pointed out.

  “Doesn’t make it any less true,” Gen said.

  Breanna gathered the ingredients for cornbread and started making a batter. “Yeah, but …”

  “But what?”

  “But that’s part of the problem. He’s too … too Jake. How am I going to stay focused on things like the new house, and the boys, and the move, and all of the things I’ve got going on if my brain is turned to mush over a really hot guy?”

  J.R. was banging the tray again to protest the slowed rate at which Gen was feeding him. Gen said, “Okay, okay, do it yourself, then.” She gave him the spoon, which he promptly threw to the floor. Gen retrieved the spoon, put it in the sink, and got a clean one out of a drawer.

  “So, your brain is turning to mush?” she asked Breanna. “That’s intriguing.”

  Breanna faced Gen, both hands on her hips. “I didn’t say my brain was turning to mush. I said my brain might turn to mush if I were dating him. And that would just be really…”

  “Awesome?” Gen suggested.

  “Distracting,” Breanna corrected her.

  “God, Bree,” Gen said, frustration in her voice. “Just have some fun. I mean, why not? Look at what your life has been these past God-knows-how-many years. You take care of the boys. You help your mother with the housework. You cook and clean and do laundry, you volunteer at the school, you work at Mrs. Granfield’s place for free …”

  Breanna was starting to feel the sting of tears in her eyes. “What are you saying, Gen? Are you saying none of that is worth anything? That what I do doesn’t have value?”

  “No!” Gen looked alarmed. “God, no. You and Sandra are the heart of this house, and you know it. You make things better for all of us. And the kids—you’ve busted your ass to be both parents at once. You’ve given all of yourself to them. You give all of yourself to anyone who needs it. I’m just saying, it’s time to give something to yourself.”

  J.R. had started to spit out the food Gen was giving him—a sure sign that he was full. Gen wiped his mouth with a damp washcloth and lifted him out of the highchair and into her arms.

  “Well … that’s wha
t the Moonstone Beach house is about. It’s for me. Doesn’t that count?” Breanna heard a hint of a whine in her own voice, and she silently chided herself for it.

  “Of course it counts,” Gen said in a soothing voice as she held J.R. to her shoulder and rubbed his back. “It’s a huge, terrific first step. I’m just saying … maybe take the second step.” She raised her eyebrows significantly.

  * * *

  There was one good thing about having a date lined up with Jake for Friday night: obsessing about the date meant that Breanna wasn’t obsessing about the progress at her house.

  On Thursday morning, she did a visual inventory of the clothes in her closet and realized that, somewhere along the line, she’d stopped dressing like a woman and had started dressing like a mom.

  “When did I get so frumpy?” she asked herself as she sorted through the jeans, the cardigan sweaters, the practical fabrics, the permanent press slacks.

  Cambria was a casual town—there was nowhere locally where you’d put on a cocktail dress to go out to dinner—but that didn’t mean she wanted to look like she’d come to her date straight from a water board meeting.

  Since Gen was the one who’d insisted she had to go through with the date, Breanna figured Gen should be the one to help her with her wardrobe problems. Breanna drove to Main Street, where Gen’s art gallery was located, and popped her head in to find Gen alone at the reception desk, tapping at the keys of her laptop.

  The Porter Gallery was all blond wood floors and clean white walls punctuated by colorful canvases. Here and there, pedestals held small sculptures or pieces of blown glass done by local artists. One wall was dedicated to the more tourist-friendly items: watercolor seascapes, locally made jewelry, and reasonably priced ceramics made by Central Coast artisans.

  The early February day was cool and crisp, and only a handful of tourists were scattered on the Main Street sidewalks.

  “Hey, Bree,” Gen greeted her as she came into the gallery. Gen was wearing a sleek black dress and pointy high heels—her usual gallery attire—and Breanna reflected that at least one of them knew how to dress like a girl.

  “I have a problem,” Breanna said, plunking down into a chair across from Gen’s desk.

  She laid out the issue: a date with a sexy man on the horizon, and not a single outfit that said I’m an attractive, vibrant woman who has a life outside of housework and child-rearing.

  “Oh,” Gen said thoughtfully. “I hadn’t considered that.”

  It wasn’t like Cambria was full of stylish boutiques where a youngish woman could find a kick-ass date outfit. The town had a number of shops with beautiful clothing, but the styles tended more toward upscale artistic woman nearing retirement rather than I’m under forty and I’m trying to lure a delicious hunk of man into my bed.

  Was she trying to lure him into her bed? She pushed that thought aside, preferring to deal with one problem at a time.

  “I’d loan you something, but …”

  There was no need for Gen to finish the sentence, as her meaning was clear. Gen was six inches shorter and her figure was curvy and womanly, while Breanna had a more athletic build.

  “We could drive down to Santa Barbara,” Gen suggested. “Alex is coming in to work at eleven, and I have the sitter for the whole day, so—”

  “I can’t,” Breanna moaned. “I told Mrs. Granfield I’d put in a couple of hours at the Whispering Pines, and the boys get out of school at three.”

  “Sandra could pick up the boys.”

  “But I can’t skip out on the Whispering Pines. Mrs. Granfield has a doctor’s appointment, and I said I’d be there.”

  “Crap,” Gen said. She appraised Breanna for a moment, a thoughtful look on her face. “I have an idea. Hang on, let me make a call.”

  * * *

  Breanna’s figure wasn’t at all like Gen’s, but she was very similar in build to one of Gen’s best friends—Kate Bennet, who owned the Swept Away bookstore a few doors down on Main Street.

  Kate closed the bookstore for an hour at lunch—which she’d been planning to do anyway—and Breanna and Gen met her at her Marine Terrace house a little after noon.

  “I’m not exactly fashion-forward,” Kate told Breanna as she sifted through the things hanging in her closet. “But we’re about the same size, so that should be okay, at least.”

  Kate, a slim brunette with short, spiky hair and a sense of style that skewed toward the funky side of traditional, pulled a silky, hot pink blouse out of her closet and held it up to Breanna.

  “Nope. Not right for your coloring,” she said, putting the hanger back on the rod.

  “Thank you for doing this,” Breanna said. “But I don’t want to put you out. If you’d rather not—”

  “She’s looking for excuses to cancel the date,” Gen told Kate.

  “Ah. Nerves,” Kate said knowingly.

  “No, I’m not,” Breanna protested.

  “Of course you’re not,” Kate said in the kind of soothing voice that said she knew it was bullshit but was trying to be compassionate. She pulled another top out of her closet, this one in a rich shade of magenta. She held it up to Breanna and nodded. “Okay, now we’re getting somewhere.”

  10

  Breanna wasn’t used to wearing makeup—she usually didn’t see the point. She liked to look presentable, of course, but that usually meant that she was tidy, her clothes clean, wrinkle-free and appropriate, and her hair brushed.

  The idea of getting dolled up for a date seemed foreign to her, as though she were making an awkward but not entirely unpleasant visit to someone else’s life.

  Also, there was the fact that Jake hadn’t said where they would be going. In selecting her overall look for the occasion, she had to factor in that the destination was unknown.

  Was all of this worth it, just for the possibility of a little romance? When Jake showed up at the front door of the Delaney house to pick her up, she decided that it was.

  She’d only ever seen him in his work clothes—jeans and a T-shirt, sometimes liberally dusted with various kinds of dirt and debris. It turned out, he cleaned up well. He was wearing a pair of khaki chinos and a dark blue button-down shirt open at the throat, and his short, dark hair was combed back from his face. He was freshly shaven, and he smelled lightly of some kind of manly cologne.

  He smiled when he saw her, and the smile undid her. When was the last time a man had given her that kind of smile? His eyes were deep blue, and the lines around them hinted of a life well lived.

  “Wow,” she said when she opened the door.

  “Wow yourself,” he told her. “You look great.” He didn’t say it like someone who was trying to be polite. He said it like he meant it.

  As she began to walk out the door, he asked, “Is your family home?”

  They were. The inside of the house was a veritable clown car of Delaneys, including her parents, Sandra and Orin; her brother Ryan, Gen, and J.R.; her brother Liam, who was over for dinner with his fiancée, Aria; and of course, Michael and Lucas.

  “You don’t want to go in there,” she told him.

  “Why not?”

  “Because if we go in there, you’ll have to meet everyone, and they’ll make small talk that will seem like it’s friendly, but it’ll really be them grilling you about your intentions.”

  He laughed. “I’d like to meet your family. I think I can take the grilling.”

  “It’s just easier this way,” she said, coming out onto the porch and closing the door behind her. “Trust me.”

  * * *

  Jake had asked around, and it seemed that pretty much everybody took a first date to Neptune, which was considered to be the best restaurant in town. Jake bucked that trend, taking Breanna to a restaurant at a winery in Paso Robles instead.

  The restaurant looked romantic and inviting, with a lot of dark wood and candlelight. Soft jazz was playing on the sound system. Breanna thought she’d been here once before, years ago, but she wasn’t sure if t
his was the same place.

  It was nice to be somewhere new, since she’d eaten at every restaurant in Cambria so many times she could recite the menu selections.

  “This is pretty,” she said as the hostess showed them to their table.

  “I don’t even know if you like wine,” Jake said.

  “I like wine.”

  They ordered a local Chardonnay and drank some of it with hot bread the waitress had brought them. They ordered their entrees—sea bass for her, seafood pasta for him—and started the standard getting-to-know-you chat while they waited for their food.

  Naturally, she asked him how he was settling into Cambria, and how he was adjusting to the change from the bustling metropolis of Los Angeles.

  That brought them to the subject of Jake’s divorce.

  “There were too many memories in LA,” he told her. “I needed a new environment. A new start. A new … everything.”

  “So you’re here hiding out from your past?” she asked, only partly teasing.

  “No, actually. I don’t feel like I’m hiding from the past. More like I’m moving toward the future.”

  “Well, that sounds positive.” Breanna sipped some wine, then broke a piece of bread off and popped it into her mouth.

  “I think so.”

  “Was the divorce amicable?” she asked. This might be territory best unexplored for now, but the question was right there waiting to be asked.

  “More or less,” he said, without going into any further detail about the more or the less. “I’m not trying to be evasive, but if we get into a discussion about my divorce, then our first date is about my ex-wife. I don’t really want that, do you?”

  “No. I don’t.” She considered that. “In that case, we won’t talk about my husband, either. At least, not yet.”

  “Deal.”

  With that agreement in place, they avoided talk of former relationships and focused on each other: his work and the challenge of getting settled in a new town; her plans for the move to the new house and what it was like being a Delaney.