Hawthorne Harbor Box Set

by Elana Johnson

  His eyes met hers, and horror replaced the humiliation. “Anita,” he managed to say.

  “Adam.” Her surprise was only matched by his. She giggled and lifted the peanut butter jar his cart had obviously been blocking. “Just getting the all-natural stuff I like off the bottom shelf.” She tucked her auburn hair behind her ear and ducked her head.

  Adam had once found the gesture so sweet, so adorable. Now, he didn’t know what to make of it. They’d broken up a few months ago, and he’d texted her to find out the reason she’d broken up with him, but this was the first time he’d come face-to-face with her.

  She surveyed his cart while he tried to find something to say. “Looks like you’re making soup.”

  He nodded, some thoughts finally coming together. “Yes. The theme for the Fall Festival is soup this year.”

  “What are you making?” She tucked her peanut butter jar into the basket hanging on her elbow.

  “Oh, just this new chicken noodle recipe.” He didn’t want his ideas out in the open, and two women walked by, noting the exchange.

  “You have no pasta.”

  “Not there yet,” he said, his annoyance starting to drive his need to get away from Anita. He had, in fact, been down the pasta aisle, but he wasn’t making chicken noodle soup. So he’d told half the truth. He wasn’t going to have one of his officers arrest him over it.

  Anita tucked that same lock of hair that hadn’t come loose yet and stepped almost past him. “Well, it was good to see you, Adam.” She touched his bicep, a feather-light touch that was there, then gone. “Call me.” She walked away.

  Adam stared at his arm where she’d touched him, wondering why it felt like ice, and then spun, sure he’d just hallucinated. “Call me?” he whispered to himself upon finding himself alone in the aisle.

  There was no way that was happening. He turned back to his cart for a second time and gripped the handle, angry at Anita’s toying ways. She wasn’t hard to clear from his head, and he finished his shopping and got on home to start the French onion soup—which reminded him of Janey, the woman he really wanted to focus on.

  Chapter Seven

  Janey pulled into Adam’s driveway, Jess still chattering about the triple chocolate chip cookies from last night, and the day on the farm. She loved that Jess had this place where he could go, where he could experience such different things than she could provide for him.

  At the same time, the burden of guilt that came with his excitement always stuck with her for days and was hard to shake. And every time she took him out to the lavender farm and let him have any experiences there, it took a little longer and was a little harder to purge herself from that negative emotion.

  She simply couldn’t give him the life he was meant to lead. Without Matt, she’d had to work since the time Jess could roll over. She’d taken him up to the National Park as often as she could, and she knew of his love for the outdoors, for animals, for hiking, and fishing, and canoeing.

  But she didn’t have eighty acres of lavender, or goats, or a wishing well. She flashed her son a smile as she put the Jeep in park.

  “What are we doin’ here again?” Jess asked, peering out the windshield to Adam’s house.

  “He made a bunch of soup for the upcoming Fall Festival.” Janey tried to make her voice light, easy, conversational. “He wants to win again this year, and he wanted you to taste it and tell him what you thought.”

  Jess turned toward her, a dubious look in his dark eyes. “I don’t believe that.”

  “No? He wanted you to come cook with him today. Seems Donna has been talking you up.”

  A glimmer of light stole through Jess’s expression, and he turned back to the house. “All right.”

  “What?” Janey laughed as she reached over to tousle his hair. “You’re too cool to be a soup taster?”

  “No, it’s....” Jess shook his head. “It’s nothing.”

  But Janey noticed how he looked up and down the street before practically sprinting to Adam’s front door, which was more protected by the awning and deep porch.

  “Heya, Jess,” Adam said when he opened the door. “You made it.” He searched for Janey as she came up the steps, and she gave him a small smile she hoped would convey to him not to indicate anything about their date the previous evening.

  Jess ducked inside, leaving the two of them on the porch, and Adam glanced at the boy’s retreating back and then to Janey. “So...what’s goin’ on?”

  “He didn’t really say,” she said. “But I get the feeling he doesn’t want anyone to see him here.”

  A cloud overtook Adam’s face, and he practically growled, “Well, come on in,” before striding back into the house. No sly touch while they were alone. No, “You look great, Janey,” whispered so Jess couldn’t overhear.

  She sighed. What did she expect? Bringing her son here without properly telling him where she’d been last night, who she’d been with, and what they’d done.

  Not that they’d done anything wrong. She wasn’t married anymore. Adam was available. She’d liked holding his hand, and listening to him laugh, and hoping he’d kiss her later.

  He hadn’t, and she hadn’t really quantified “later” anyway. He could kiss her now and it would be “later.”

  The scent of something salty and savory filled Adam’s house, along with the tell-tale smell of freshly baked bread. Janey had never been so happy in her life to have been so busy, she’d worked through lunch.

  A golden retriever trotted toward her as she shut the door, and she paused to give the dog a pat. “Oh, she looks so happy,” she called toward the kitchen, really burying her hands in the dog’s fur now.

  “You pet her, she won’t leave you alone,” Adam called to her, adding a laugh to the end of the statement. So maybe tonight’s tasting would go just fine. Janey entered the kitchen to find Jess at the stove, stirring a pot of soup.

  “Oh, well, you’ve put him to work already.”

  “He just added the cream to the chicken and wild rice soup,” Adam said. An alarm sounded, and he added, “Oh, that’s the bread. Look out, Jess.”

  Jess stood back while Adam pulled a round loaf of bread out of the oven and set it on the counter beside the stove. “So there’s three kinds,” he said with a sigh. “That chicken and wild rice Jess is finishing up. The French onion, which I will cheese up in just a minute, and a more traditional beef stew.”

  “I’ll take one of each,” Janey said, a secret nod to their date last night she hoped he understood.

  Adam held her gaze for an extra heartbeat and said, “Right, well, you heard your mom, Jess. Let’s get the bowls out. What do you want?” He pulled bowls from the cupboard and told Jess where to get the spoons.

  Janey stood back and watched them work in the kitchen, marveling at how Jess looked like he could easily belong to Adam. Her pulse stuttered, and she blinked to try to put Matt in Adam’s place. But her husband had been a horrible cook, unable to even scramble eggs.

  Adam had the same dark hair as Jess, the same brooding jawline. Adam’s had a couple day’s worth of scruff on it, and she wanted to feel his face with her fingertips. Startled, she turned away from the kitchen and looked out the French doors that led to the backyard. Of course, it was trimmed and neat—everything about Adam seemed to be in order. Nothing out of place, which made her wonder what in the world she was doing there.

  “French onion,” Adam said, and Janey turned back to the bar, where nine bowls of soup now sat. How long had she been staring out the window? Neither Jess nor Adam seemed like they’d tried to get her attention, so she moved to sit on the middle barstool, the Swiss cheese perfectly melty and browned on top of the French onion soup.

  “This smells divine,” she said as Adam put a butter dish on the counter in front of her.

  “Mom, can I invite Thayne to the beach next weekend?” Jess sat on the stool next to her, his spoon already poised to dive into the chicken and wild rice soup.

  Frustrati
on expanded her chest, and she took an extra moment to school the emotion out of her voice. “I don’t know if it’s a friend weekend, Jess,” she said. She hated it when he asked her things like this in front of other people, which was exactly why he’d done it.

  “You’re going with your friend.”

  “To plan her wedding. Dixie will be there. If you bring a friend, what’s she to do?”

  Jess slurped up a spoonful of soup, but Janey knew the conversation wasn’t over. She dug into her cheese and soup, the scent of beef broth making her mouth water. “This smells great, Adam.”

  “Mine’s good too,” Jess said.

  Adam had a spoonful of beef stew poised, but he stuck a piece of bread into the broth first and took a bite. He nodded, still chewing.

  “Dixie’s a girl,” Jess said as if Janey didn’t know.

  “And she’s only a year younger than you, and you’ve always been best friends.”

  Jess’s spoon clinked against the bowl. “Well, me and Thayne are best friends now.”

  Adam’s elbow bumped Janey’s, and she cut him a glance. But he didn’t look up at her, didn’t say anything.

  “I’ll need to talk to Gretchen and make sure it’s okay with her.”

  “Mom—”

  “There are only a certain number of beds, Jess. Food to be bought and meals planned. Activities for a certain number of guests. It’s in a week. We can’t just bring extra people without talking to the host. It would be rude.” She gave him a look that said, So drop it, and Jess focused back on his soup, a disgruntled look on his face.

  Janey took a deep breath, trying to surface through the awkward tension that now existed in the kitchen. She tried to think of something to say, but nothing came to mind. So she scooped another bite of the delicious soup into her mouth.

  “Maybe you two would like to go see my latest project.”

  Janey twisted toward him. “A secret project, huh?”

  “What is it?” Jess asked.

  “Finish up and I’ll show you.” He threw a smile to the both of them before taking another bite of his stew. Adam asked Jess something about skateboarding, and Jess said, “Yeah, my trucks are pretty stiff.”

  Janey had no idea what that meant, but Adam seemed to, and they talked for a minute or two about Jess’s preferred method of travel. Even though she’d bought him a bike for his birthday, he usually only rode it down to the beach and back, preferring the skateboard for going to school or Main Street.

  Adam finished first and got up to clear his bowls. Jess helped, saying, “The best one was that chicken one.”

  “Even with the rice?” Adam asked, peering down at the boy.

  “I like that wild rice.” He made a face. “I don’t like the onions. My mom always makes me eat them too.”

  “Oh, come on,” Janey said. “When’s the last time I made you eat anything?”

  “You put them in the meatballs,” he said. “They’re actually the best thing she cooks.” He looked at Adam now. “When she makes anything.”

  “Hey.” Janey stood, though she’d only had a few bites of the other soups. Her French onion bowl was empty, and she handed it to her son. “I work all day. If I don’t want to cook, it’s okay. We’re still alive, aren’t we?” She put her hands on her hips and gave Jess a smile that didn’t reach further than her lips.

  She couldn’t believe he was bringing up her lack of cooking in front of Adam. She couldn’t believe she cared to hide all her flaws until later in her relationship with him, because that indicated that she wanted a relationship.

  “Only because I know how to open cans.” Jess smirked at her, because he knew she wouldn’t reprimand him in front of Adam.

  “Well, then maybe you should start cooking for her,” Adam said, one eyebrow cocked. “Pretty much all I did here was open some cans and mix some stuff together.”

  “She won’t let me use a knife,” Jess said as if Janey wasn’t standing right there.

  “Really?” Adam tossed her a glance. “Well, you come over any time, Jess. I’ll teach you how to use a knife.”

  “Your mom won’t let me either.”

  Adam chuckled and started for the back door. “We can’t really blame them,” he said as he opened the door and the dogs streaked out ahead of him. “Knives are dangerous.” He walked onto the back deck and down the steps, Jess practically tripping over his feet as he hastened to follow.

  He started peppering Adam with questions like, “Do you have any horses? This yard is huge, so you could totally have some horses,” and “Do you ever go out to the wishing well anymore? Drew said your dad built it for you when you wanted to make the football team.”

  Adam spoke to him, his voice too deep for Janey to understand discernable sounds and form them into words. Jess laughed as Adam led them toward a shed in the corner of his backyard. There wasn’t anything too remarkable about it. Made of wood and roughly the size of a three-car garage, the shed had been painted blue in the distant past. Bits of the paint still clung to the wood, but she flicked one chip off with her fingernail.

  “No way!” Jess’s whoops from inside the shed made Janey increase her pace. “Mom, you gotta see this!” He appeared in the doorway and then ducked back inside.

  Janey entered the shed too and found it filled with sunlight. A light had also been turned on, but Janey didn’t need it to see the huge motorcycle sitting in the front third of the shed. Jess jumped around it, exclaiming about horsepower and brand names Janey had at least heard of.

  “What is all this?” she asked, tucking her hands into her back pockets and trying to take in the beast before her. There were lots of little parts on the dropcloth that had been spread over the ground.

  “I’m rebuilding the engine,” Adam said. “In my spare time.”

  Her gaze flew to his. “You have spare time?”

  His dark-as-coal eyes glittered at her as he stared straight into hers. “Here and there.” He waved her closer. “Come see.”

  Janey wasn’t sure what there was to see, but she wanted to be closer to Adam, so she stepped over to him, the heat from his body brushing against her forearm as she pointed to a particularly large piece and asked, “What’s that?”

  Adam started telling her about a carburetor and while she didn’t understand hardly a word he said, she loved listening to the rumbly sound of his voice as he talked, as he pointed out parts, as he shared with her something she hadn’t known about him and that meant a great deal to him.

  “I like solving puzzles and problems,” he said. “Putting things together.” He added a shrug that couldn’t have been any sexier. “This satisfies part of that craving, I guess.”

  “Does it run?” Jess asked, at least the tenth question out of his mouth.

  “Not yet.” Adam smiled at him. “But you can come help me work on it any time you want.”

  “Yeah!” Jess pumped his fist in the air, and Janey felt like she’d just entered a deliciously warm hot tub as she watched Adam interact with her son. By the time she left in her Jeep, she was warm and woozy from head to toe and hoping the next weekend at the beach wouldn’t leave her burned.

  Chapter Eight

  Adam had so much leftover soup that he took it into the crew working that Sunday. He didn’t normally go in on weekends, but he stayed and talked with some of the boys, as well as his Deputy Lieutenant—the man in charge when Adam was gone.

  “So you’re good for this Friday, right?” he asked Milo.

  “What’s this weekend?” He paused in shoveling his mouth full of more beef stew.

  “I have to go help my brother plan his wedding, remember?” Around and around the Rubix cube went. A new one, one with only black and white squares that needed to be lined up and squared off. He wasn’t really trying to solve it at the moment, but his hands needed something to do, so the cube got twisted.

  He supposed that was why he’d bought the black Harley Davidson from an older gentleman in Bell Hill and started trying to fix it
up one weekend at a time. It was something to keep his idle hands busy. Between a mechanic manual and the Internet, Adam had made some real progress on the motorcycle.

  “Oh, right,” Milo said. “We’ll be fine.”

  “I just need you to go over the procedures for public safety if a weapon is presented in the park.”

  Milo patted a stack of folders on the corner of his desk. “Right here.”

  Adam had no idea what was in the colorful assortment of folders. He didn’t much care, as long as his officers got the training they needed before the Fall Festival in only five weeks.

  Five weeks.

  He drew in a deep breath. Drew’s wedding planning weekend wasn’t exactly convenient for Adam. He supposed no time would be, as Hawthorne Harbor seemed to have something going on every weekend. If it wasn’t the biggest lavender festival in the world, it was a farmer’s market. And if not the Fall Festival, then the Festival of Trees, which happened from the Friday following Thanksgiving and lasted all the way through Three King’s Day in January.

  “I’ll do the tourist influx training on Wednesday,” he said, more to himself than to Milo. The other man nodded anyway and turned toward the soups on Sarah’s desk, where Adam had placed them. “Is there any more of that chicken and wild rice?”

  Adam shook his head, a chuckle escaping his lips. He was glad he could provide lunch for the weekend crew, as he didn’t get in to see them all that often. He was also surprised the chicken and wild rice soup had been such a hit. From twelve-year-old boys to fifty-year-old men, the soup seemed to be a winner.

  He looked into the pot after Milo had ladled himself another bowl. Was it a winning recipe? Maybe he should try reducing the size of the carrots. He’d noticed that Janey had left most of hers in the bowl, but maybe she just didn’t like cooked carrots.

  Adam riddled through the recipe the same way he poured over puzzles and problems. He liked trying to put together flavors and increments of ingredients, the same way he twisted the Rubix cube until it was perfect.