Searching for Sunshine

by Linda Seed

  Shame about Bree. Losing a husband and having to raise two boys on her own is something a woman should never have to bear. When you love somebody, you want to take away their pain, but there’s nothing for it. She tries to be strong, that one. Always helping everybody else, always there when you need her. Her mother taught her that. All that work, all that helping, is supposed to cover up the fact that she’s stuck in one place, stuck in grief. She can’t move on. I guess I know something about that.

  Was that really what Redmond had thought of her? That she kept herself occupied with busy work to hide the fact that she had never gotten past her grief? And was he right?

  After Redmond’s death, when the family had learned about his long-ago affair, they’d all pitied him. The way he’d been alone for thirty years pining away for the woman he’d loved had made everyone shake their heads in sadness and incomprehension.

  She’d judged him right along with everyone else, hadn’t she? Breanna had been right there bemoaning Redmond’s insistence on remaining lonely and stagnant until the day he’d died.

  Now, here in black and white, was the evidence that he’d thought the same of her. He’d considered their situations to be similar. Both of them mourning a lost love, both of them alone, both of them rooted to the ground, unable to make new lives for themselves with new loves.

  He had pitied her. Did everyone?

  Breanna was still reading when Lucas came downstairs, sleepy-eyed, his hair sticking up in a comical case of bedhead.

  She barely noticed him until he was standing right in front of her.

  “Good morning, sweetheart.” She reached out and pulled him into her arms.

  “Morning.” He yawned.

  Breanna breathed him in, his warm, early morning scent, the smell of shampoo in his hair.

  “How’d you sleep?” she asked.

  “Okay. Mom? Could we hang out with Jake again sometime? I guess you don’t like him anymore, but maybe just me and Michael, then. Do you think we could?”

  The idea that she didn’t like Jake anymore—that Lucas could believe such a thing—gave her a little jolt, a slight realignment of her reality. She’d made so many people believe so many things that weren’t true. That she was strong. That she was selfless. That she didn’t need Jake, or anyone.

  She was a fraud.

  “We’ll see, sweetie.”

  “We’ll see usually means no,” Lucas observed glumly.

  “Not this time. This time it means … we’ll see.”

  * * *

  Jake had protested Mark’s line of thinking about the fishing and the bait. He’d made all of the appropriate noises about taking offense. But the truth was, he’d been thinking about it. Possibly, the guy had a point.

  Jake had a suspicion that maybe he hadn’t been as patient as he’d made himself out to be. Maybe he really had rushed Breanna. And maybe it had something to do with his divorce.

  He’d gone into his marriage with plans. He’d planned to have a happy home, a family, kids. He’d planned to be at a certain place in his life by a certain time. When his marriage had imploded, it had blown his timeline all to hell. He’d told himself that was okay, that he would adjust. But had he adjusted? Or had he attempted to hurry Breanna along so he could get back on track toward his goals as soon as possible?

  Jake thought about all of that as he drove down Highway 1 toward Cayucos, where he was scheduled to meet with a potential client. The drive wasn’t long, but it gave him time to think. More time than he wanted, really.

  It wasn’t Breanna’s fault that his life goals had been delayed, or that his ex had abandoned him, or that he felt the desperate need to redeem himself in terms of women, love, and family.

  It wasn’t her fault that he’d had a bad experience with a woman.

  So why was he making her pay for it?

  There was a certain irony to the fact that he thought he might want to spend the rest of his life with Breanna, but he wasn’t willing to wait a few months—or however long it might take—for her to decide she felt the same.

  Sam, sitting in the back seat of the extended cab of Jake’s truck, whined at him, as though the dog had divined his friend’s feelings.

  “I’m being an ass, aren’t I?” Jake asked the dog.

  Sam let out a low, throaty sound that Jake took to be in the affirmative. Either that, or Sam was laughing at him.

  He got to Cayucos and parked at the curb next to the job site. Then, before he could talk himself out of it, he dug his cell phone out of his pocket and called her.

  She picked up on the second ring.

  “I’d like to talk,” he said without introduction. “Could I come over and pick you up for lunch later?”

  * * *

  Breanna told herself to say no, that her heart would be safer if she let him pass her by. But Redmond’s words echoed in her mind: She’s stuck in one place, stuck in grief. She can’t move on.

  So, almost against her own will, she’d found herself with a lunch date with Jake.

  Her head said it didn’t mean anything, that she was just trying to prove something to herself—and maybe to Redmond. But her heart knew better. Her heart ached to see his face, to hear his voice, just to be with him.

  Damn it.

  She was nervous as the morning wore on, but she tried not to think about it. He’d told her he would be coming up from Cayucos at about noon, and they were set to meet at Robin’s on Burton Drive at twelve thirty.

  Until then, there was a lot to do. Breanna was in the midst of unpacking, and the chaos of boxes, packing materials, and their various belongings littered the living room.

  Sandra had bought a new set of dishes a couple of years ago—a rare indulgence for her—and she’d given Breanna the old set, which was in various stages of being unpacked and put away.

  None of the windows had curtains or blinds, and that was a task she had to attend to—she needed to go to the Lowe’s in Paso Robles, buy the materials, and install whichever window coverings she chose. It was a big house with a lot of windows. For now, she would focus on the bedrooms. The rest she would get to a little at a time.

  All of the work helped to distract her from the looming lunch date, the prospect of which filled her with such conflicting emotions—excitement and fear, eager anticipation and dread—that she thought she might need a decoder ring to sort it all out.

  She didn’t have a decoder ring, but she had the next best thing: a sister-in-law who was also a close friend.

  She called Gen at the gallery, which opened at nine-thirty on Saturdays. Gen would be unlocking the place, turning on the lights, and setting out tea service and cookies for her customers right about now.

  “Hey, Bree. What’s up?” she said in a chirpy voice when she answered the phone.

  “Oh, you know … just unpacking. The boys are upstairs getting their rooms together—or at least, they’re supposed to be. Last time I checked, Michael was texting on his phone, and Lucas was reading Harry Potter. Again.”

  She was stalling about the real purpose of her call, and she told herself to just come out with it.

  “You must be really excited about the house,” Gen said. “Having a fresh new place that’s all your own is so great. When Ryan and I built our house—”

  “I have a date with Jake.” There. It was out there.

  “You … Oh. Really.”

  Breanna could practically hear Gen’s brain changing gears.

  “But it’s not really a date, because he called and said he wanted to talk. That’s usually bad, right? When a guy says he wants to talk? Doesn’t that usually mean they want to tell you they’re moving on and forgetting about you and they want closure?”

  That was the fear and dread part of what was going on in Breanna’s head—the idea that she might be getting her hopes up about seeing him again just so he could finalize their breakup.

  “No,” Gen said.

  “No?”

  “Men don’t talk about moving on a
nd closure. That’s a girl thing. When a guy doesn’t want to see you again, he just never calls.”

  Breanna considered that bit of wisdom. “Really? Are you sure?”

  “Believe me. I had a certain amount of experience with this before I met Ryan. To men, closure means losing your phone number.”

  “Okay.” Breanna took a few deep breaths to calm herself. “Okay.”

  “What I really want to talk about is the fact that you’re worried about it,” Gen said. “You want to get back together with him. When did this happen?”

  “I don’t know,” Breanna moaned, not even bothering to deny it. Because that thought had been going through her mind endlessly since he’d called. “It’s just … I miss him.”

  “Oh, Bree.” Gen breathed out the words on a sigh, as though she were immeasurably relieved that Breanna had finally discovered a truth that everyone else had always known. “I really hope it works out. I hope you’ll give him another try. He seems good for you.”

  “I don’t know. The boys—”

  “The boys like him,” Gen said, interrupting her.

  “I know they do. But liking him is one thing. Coping with a new man in their mother’s life is something else. What if—”

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Gen said, jumping in before Breanna could let the what ifs run away with her. “Don’t worry about what might happen if this, or if that. Just go on your date and see what happens.”

  “Right,” Breanna said. “Okay. Right.”

  “And if the date goes well, you might consider … you know … sex.”

  “Gen!”

  “I’m just saying. There’s nothing like an orgasm to clarify your thinking.”

  Breanna, in her experience, had found exactly the opposite to be true. Still, it was something to think about.

  34

  Jake wrapped up his meeting on time, and he and Sam got into his truck to head up to Robin’s at just after noon. Plenty of time to get to Cambria to meet Breanna.

  He put his phone in the center console, then remembered that he’d left his clipboard with his notes on it inside the house at the job site. The impending date with Breanna was messing with his brain. It was lucky he’d gotten through the meeting at all.

  “Be right back, Sam.” He left the dog in the truck while he went inside to retrieve his paperwork.

  When he came back to the truck, the phone was missing and the dog had a mischievous look on his hairy face.

  “Okay, Sam. What did you do with my phone?”

  Sam just panted softly and drooled.

  “Seriously. Where is it?”

  He could call the phone to make it ring—if he had a phone to call with. Which he didn’t.

  Jake did a quick search of the car, then considered his options. He could search more thoroughly, but then he’d likely be late for Breanna. Which really wouldn’t help him in his quest to get back together with her.

  The phone was in the car somewhere, obviously. He just hoped it wasn’t in the dog’s gastrointestinal tract.

  “All right, let’s just go,” he said. “But I’m going to hire a trainer for you. Don’t think you can just get away with this shit.”

  The dog thumped his tail on the car upholstery happily.

  * * *

  Breanna arrived at Robin’s promptly at twelve thirty, and she considered whether to get a table or wait for him outside. When he wasn’t there by twelve thirty-five, she decided to get the table—it would make her more comfortable while she waited.

  Her nerves were making her jittery and maybe even a little sick, so she ordered a glass of wine to calm her down. Breanna wasn’t a wine-at-lunch kind of person usually, but one had to make adjustments for extreme circumstances.

  She was seated in an alcove in the front room of the restaurant, a cozy spot with hardwood floors and a stained glass window. The restaurant was filling up with tourists and locals drawn by the quaint atmosphere and the well-regarded menu.

  She sipped her Chardonnay and rehearsed what she was going to say when Jake arrived. What if he wanted to get back together? Did she want that, too? What if he insisted on taking things further than she wanted, faster than she wanted? Was she willing to do it if it meant she’d have another chance to be with him? And what if Gen was wrong? What if he was the odd man who did talk about things like closure? What if he’d asked to meet her so he could say goodbye?

  She was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she barely noticed when he was twenty minutes late, then thirty. Then she did notice, and she became alarmed. Had he changed his mind? Had he decided on the version of closure Gen said most men preferred? Was he just going to leave her here and forget they’d ever met?

  Breanna pulled out her phone, contemplated calling Jake, then called Michael instead.

  “How are you guys doing?” she asked.

  “Fine, Mom.” She could almost hear his eyes rolling.

  “Did you eat lunch?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did Lucas?”

  “Yes, Mom. God. You don’t have to check on us. We’re not babies.”

  She knew that, but she couldn’t explain to him that she was checking on him to avoid calling Jake.

  When she’d hung up with Michael, she decided that she couldn’t avoid it any longer. She dialed Jake’s number and felt large butterflies hammering her gut with their wings as the phone rang and then went to voice mail.

  Shit.

  She’d been stood up, and he wasn’t even showing the courtesy of calling to let her know. He didn’t even have the good manners to take her phone call.

  She paid for her wine, told the server she wouldn’t be eating lunch after all, and went home to her boys.

  * * *

  This, right here, was a Murphy’s Law–level fuckup.

  Jake was late and getting later. His phone was lost somewhere in the car. Traffic on Highway 1 was at a standstill, and there was no way to get off the road to find an alternative phone so he could call Breanna.

  He tried searching the car from his spot in the driver’s seat, but he hadn’t found the phone the first five times he’d done that, and he wasn’t likely to get a better result now.

  “Shit,” he muttered to the dog, the car, and the greater world around him. “Shit.”

  He’d never stood up a woman in his life—even the ones he hadn’t been all that excited about seeing. To stand up Breanna—with whom he was already on shaky ground—was both horrifying and embarrassing.

  An ambulance and then, later, a police car passed him on the shoulder of the road, lights flashing. An accident, then. He took a moment to wish the best for the poor bastards involved. Whatever had happened, it had blocked the entire highway, both ways, so it must have been a hell of a wreck.

  Much like his love life.

  * * *

  Anger and dejection turned to worry soon after Breanna got home from Robin’s. She was trying not to think about Jake and about why he’d abandoned her at the restaurant. She considered doing something worthwhile—more work on the house, maybe—but she couldn’t focus, so she decided to waste time on Facebook instead, a surefire way to turn off her busy brain. A quiz on what kind of cheese she was seemed preferable to worrying about why she wasn’t worthy of love.

  The locals of Cambria might have been geographically isolated from the rest of the world, but they were as plugged in technologically as anyone else. There was always news of local happenings on Facebook, which Breanna found to be useful. She was able to keep up with who was doing what, which local organizations were holding events, who needed volunteers for what purpose, and who felt which way about the latest increase in water rates.

  Now, the locals were passing information back and forth about an accident on Highway 1 south of town.

  Phrases jumped out at her as she read.

  Both lanes blocked. Multiple vehicles. Serious injuries.

  Oh, God.

  There’d been an accident—a bad one, on the same highway Jake w
ould have used to get here. And Jake hadn’t shown up. He hadn’t called, and he wasn’t answering his phone.

  She heard a sound—a low, wounded-animal sound—come out of her own throat.

  Oh God, oh God, oh God.

  Jake.

  * * *

  It hadn’t occurred to Jake that Breanna might think he’d been hurt—or worse. It had occurred to him, however, that she might be pissed.

  Here he was trying to patch things up with her, and he’d left her waiting more than an hour at a restaurant without so much as a phone call.

  That is, if she was at the restaurant at all anymore. Which she probably wasn’t.

  When he found his damned phone, it would be too late—she likely would have blocked his number.

  By the time the road was cleared enough for cars to pass through, Jake was rehearsing in his head how he might persuade Breanna that he hadn’t intended to leave her sitting at Robin’s nursing a glass of wine and planning his demise.

  Traffic started moving slowly, and as Jake inched his truck past the accident, he could see why the blockage had been so long and so complete. A big rig lay on its side across the center median. At least three other cars had been involved—it was hard to tell which belonged to accident victims and which to good Samaritans—and the roadway was a mess of smashed vehicles, broken glass, random car parts, and emergency vehicles.

  People were standing under their own power and talking to the cops—so that was good—but someone else had been loaded onto a gurney and was being put into the back of the ambulance.

  Jake took a moment to reflect—there but for the grace of God—and then hauled ass toward Cambria to talk to Breanna. At least he could provide evidence of the reason for his delay, if it came to that.

  He’d have taken pictures, if only he’d had his damned phone.

  35

  Breanna wanted to be at the ranch, because she needed her family. She didn’t want to leave the boys alone again, so she piled them into the car and then went to the ranch, where she could fall apart amid people who loved her.