Hawthorne Harbor Box Set

by Elana Johnson

  Don’t think so hard.

  But every time she thought about him, with those crutches and needing help for the most basic of things, all she could see was that he was hurt.

  Hurt on the job.

  A job he wasn’t going to give up.

  She leaned back against the pillows, wondering if she could maybe just see how things went. That had been her plan in the beginning, and it had turned out pretty well.

  She wasn’t planning to see Adam again until Monday for lunch, but she decided she didn’t want to wait almost four more days.

  The covers got flung to the side relatively easy, and she stuffed her feet into her slippers. She paused at Jess’s door and only heard silence. Rapping lightly with her knuckles, she pushed open the door. He was sitting up in bed, a real book in his hands and his earphones in.

  After getting his attention by flipping the lights, she said, “I’m going to go talk to Adam. I’ll be back later.”

  Jess just stared, and Janey nodded once before leaving the house. At Adam’s, she sat in the Jeep and stared at the rectangles of light in his house, trying to get up the courage to go in and talk to him. She’d done it before, been here late at night, unannounced.

  But it felt different this time, and she wasn’t even sure why.

  His front door opened and he filled the doorway with his broad shoulders and those crutches. She had to get out now, so she sighed and unbuckled her seat belt to get out of the Jeep. She tucked her hands in her coat pockets and approached slowly.

  “I thought that was you,” he said when she reached the bottom of the steps. “I don’t usually have people sitting outside my house.”

  She climbed the stairs and stopped, still trying to figure out what to say or why her heart suddenly wanted to leap from her body and flee.

  “You want to talk?” he asked, shifting his weight to make room for her to squeeze by. She started toward him, thinking he’d go in first and she’d follow him. But he didn’t. He stayed right where he was, leaving a small space for her to pass.

  As she did, he wrapped his strong fingers around her wrist. “Please don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”

  She looked up at him. “What do you mean?”

  “I can tell there’s something different between us,” he said. “I’m not stupid, and you’re not my first girlfriend. If you’re going to break up with me, just say it.”

  “I don’t want to break up....” She hung onto the last two words, trying to decide what she did want.

  “Then what do you want?”

  Her mind spun, and she hated how it wouldn’t stop. “I want things to go back to how they were at the beach house,” she blurted. “Fun, and new, and not too heavy. Light. I can’t do anything heavy right now, and this....” She gestured to his stormy face and cast leg. “This, this feels heavy.”

  “This is real life,” he said. “Sometimes it’s beach houses and sometimes it’s broken legs. There’s only one person I want to do all of the above with, and that’s you.”

  A flicker of a smile touched her lips, but it was quickly followed by a half-sob. “I’m scared. I think maybe...maybe I just need more time to make sure this is right. For me. For Jess.”

  “Don’t bring Jess into it. We talk every day, you know. He tells me stuff, and I tell him stuff.”

  Janey narrowed her eyes at him. “What kind of stuff?”

  “Guy stuff.”

  “Like who he has a crush on?”

  “Among other things.” He dropped his hand from hers. “I don’t want you to use him for an excuse. You’re better than that.” He hobbled backward on his crutch. “My door is always open. Come on back when you know how you feel and if you think we could be right for each other.”

  He nudged the door with the rubber tip of his crutch and it started to swing closed. Janey wanted to throw her hand out and stop it, but she didn’t. “Are you breaking up with me?” The door snicked closed right as she finished her sentence.

  She heard him say, “You know where the key is.”

  Janey stared at the closed door just a few inches from her nose, every cell in her body unsure of what to say, what to do, how to react. She turned on wooden legs and took slow steps away from his front door.

  At the bottom of the porch, she turned and looked back half-expecting him to have returned, his sexy smile back in place and his leg miraculously healed. The door was still stubbornly shut.

  She sat down on the bottom step, unwilling to go home and face her son. Adam was right; she had used her son as an excuse, and she was better than that. She also didn’t want to get into a serious relationship with Adam just because Jess liked him.

  A while later, she got up and drove home When she checked in on Jess, she found him asleep, his book nowhere to be seen. His earbuds still trailed from his ears, and she crossed the room and switched off his lamp and pulled the headphones out of Jess’s ears. “Love you, bud,” she whispered.

  She went to what comforted her and allowed her to get outside of her own head. Her digital books. Her chocolate chips. And her pretzels.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Adam pulled his new cruiser into his parents’ farm, Janey’s forest green Jeep like a siren’s call to him. He couldn’t look away from it though it made his heartbeat snake through his veins in a strange way.

  He missed seeing it parked in front of his house at ten o’clock at night. Hated that they weren’t still going to lunch at every restaurant in Hawthorne Harbor until they’d tried them all. Wanted to curl up and cry every time he felt like texting her and then remembering that he couldn’t.

  He’d put the ball squarely in her court, and she hadn’t bounced it back yet. Or even picked it up, from what he could tell—and he had spies on the inside.

  Jess skated over to the police station after school now, since Adam was working full days again. His leg was getting better and better every day, but he was letting Jess come over on Saturdays and make him lunch and dinner. The kid was a whiz with a knife and a recipe, and Adam was so glad that he hadn’t lost Jess just because Janey needed time to figure things out.

  His phone buzzed, and he checked it, half-hoping for a major fire or ten-car pile up that he’d need to leave for immediately. Unfortunately, it was his mother. We can all see your car out there. Are you coming in? Do you need help?

  He thought about telling her he was on a call with dispatch, but the fib felt bigger than he was comfortable telling. Instead of answering, he reached for the door handle.

  He technically shouldn’t be driving by himself, but since his injured leg was his non-driving leg, he’d been using the new cruiser for a couple of days now.

  Send Jess out to get the pies. He sent the text as he swung his legs out of the car and put all his weight on his good leg and the top of the car. He’d just gotten himself stabilized when the screen door slapped closed and Jess came running down the front sidewalk.

  “Hey, man,” he said, coming all the way around the front of the car with a big smile on his face. “Dixie wants to know if you’ll take us out to the wishing well after dinner.”

  “You drivin’ the ATV?” Adam knew Janey worried when Jess even rode on the ATV, and he wasn’t sure if the boy even knew how to drive one.

  “Yeah.” He spoke without hesitation, and Adam grinned at him.

  “Then, sure.” He nodded toward the passenger side. “Pies over there. There are three. Make two trips, okay?”

  But Jess balanced the pumpkin pie on his forearm and gripped the pecan and the key lime in his fingers before setting off for the side door.

  “Mom!” he yelled, and someone opened the door for him, and Adam caught sight of Janey’s beautiful face and heard her admonish Jess for carrying too much at once before he disappeared inside.

  His heart twisted in his chest, and he faced away from the farmhouse and drew in a huge breath. Drew’s back door opened, and he came out with Gretchen. They held hands and talked, their faces the picture of hap
piness and love.

  Adam couldn’t go inside. Not with them there. Not with Janey present. He wanted to hold her hand and kiss her and tell her he loved her. Having her so close and so out of reach was like torture. Torture he’d already endured once and couldn’t do again.

  “Hey,” Drew wove through the fence posts that created a gate between the two properties. “You made it.”

  “I can’t do it.” Adam shook his head, his jaw clenched.

  Drew’s face fell as he frowned. “Do what?”

  “He and Janey broke up,” Gretchen said. “Remember I told you that?”

  Drew whipped his head to her and back to Adam. “No, I don’t remember that. What happened?”

  “I got hurt.”

  “That’s not why,” Gretchen said.

  Adam looked at her, a growl starting somewhere in the bottom of his gut. “Oh, no?”

  “She’s just scared,” Gretchen said.

  “Of what?” Drew asked.

  What a great question. Adam wanted to know the answer too. Surely she understood that people got in car accidents. Survived broken legs—and much worse.

  “I don’t think she even knows what she’s afraid of,” Gretchen said, her blue eyes wide and worried. “She’s here?”

  Adam nodded, short little bursts of movement. She walked away, her feet crunching on the gravel before she reached the house.

  “You’re really not going to come in?”

  “How can I?” Adam looked at his brother, his emotions rolling through him like an angry wave. “She broke up with me because I got in a car accident.” He leaned his weight against the cruiser to alleviate the pressure of the crutches under his arms.

  Drew joined him, and together, they faced the water in the distance. “You’ve loved her for ages,” he said. “You’ve loved her from across a table for twelve years, man. What’s one more meal?”

  He stayed for a few more moments and then said, “I’ll buy you some time.”

  Adam wasn’t sure how Drew would do that, but he let him go without asking.

  What’s one more meal?

  Adam took a moment to enjoy the Thanksgiving sunshine, and then he turned and made his way inside. The kitchen was a flurry of activity, with Jess, Dixie, and his mom manning different pots and pans on the stovetop.

  “There you are,” his mother said. “Take these napkins into the dining room.” She tucked them between his arm and the crutch, leaving him little choice but to do as she asked. Joel was the only one in the dining room, setting out plates, and he smiled and retrieved the napkins from Adam.

  “How’s the leg?” he asked, placing a burnt orange napkin beside each cream-colored plate. If there was something his mother knew how to do, it was make a meal festive.

  “Getting better every day,” Adam said. “The doctor says I’ll be off the crutches by the wedding.”

  “Great news. What about getting back to running?”

  “She wants me to wait until the new year, and then I have to go into the physical therapy unit to use the treadmill so they can test the strain.” Adam missed his morning beach runs more than he thought he would. For the first few days, he’d enjoyed lying in bed later than he normally did.

  He did not enjoy the attitudes and high-energy shenanigans the dogs got into when he didn’t run them for an hour in the morning. With the rain this fall, his yard hadn’t been a great option, especially because Gypsy gravitated toward mud like it was beef liver.

  Joel nodded and said, “You lay out the silverware, and I’ll be right back with the cups.”

  Adam did as his mom had taught him, and put the knife and spoon on the napkin, on the right side of the plate, with the fork opposite them. He’d only made it halfway around the table before Joel returned.

  Working together, with the busy kitchen as background noise, they had the table ready in only a few minutes. Janey entered the room from the door that led to the living room, in the middle of a conversation with Gretchen, and they both froze when Adam glanced up from where he’d been adjusting the salt and pepper shakers at the end of the table.

  Silence fell on the room; even the happenings in the kitchen seemed to mute. Joel had disappeared somehow, and Adam hadn’t even seen him leave.

  He could barely take in a breath, but he did. His lungs still worked. All the necessary functions, so it was nice to know he wouldn’t die from a broken heart.

  “Hey,” he said. “Place cards?”

  She nodded, her big brown eyes wide and beautiful. Now that Adam had held her hand, kissed her, smelled the scent of her hair, he didn’t have to fantasize about how wonderful those things would be.

  The loss of them hurt, and badly.

  “I want to sit by Jess,” he said. “If that’s not too much trouble.”

  “He made the same request,” Gretchen said, plucking a couple of cards from Janey’s fingers and starting around the table away from him. Janey followed like a lost lamb, and Adam thunked his way after them until he could escape through the door they’d come through. He went past the bathroom and down the hall toward the living room, and right on out the front door.

  The air out here wasn’t as filled with Janey’s sweet scent, and he simultaneously enjoyed that and loathed it. He took a few breaths to cleanse his mind before turning to go see what else his mother needed him to do.

  He caught sight of her back as she went in the dining room, leaving the kitchen empty. The stove was off, and it looked like a bomb had detonated.

  “Where’s Adam?” she asked.

  “Coming,” he called, hurrying as fast as the crutches would allow him to. He entered the dining room last, which made for an awkward dance between chair legs and people as he tried to get to his spot in the far corner.

  Janey and Gretchen had placed him beside Jess and Drew, thankfully. Next to Drew was Gretchen, and then Janey, Dixie, and his parents. She was in his direct line of sight, and practically across from him. Where was he supposed to look for the whole meal?

  He focused on his plate as Joel said nice words about being grateful and gathering together as family and friends. A bitterness entered Adam’s throat, and it wasn’t until Joel finished his speech and everyone reached for their sparkling cider glasses that he could swallow it away.

  “Okay, so there’s turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and gravy,” his mother said. “Creamed corn, rolls, butter on both ends of the table....” She scanned like she’d forgotten something. “Leave room for Adam’s pies. He outdoes himself every year.” She beamed at him and sat down. “Let’s eat.”

  Adam reached for the stuffing that had been placed directly in front of him and scooped some onto his place. He offered it to Jess, who said, “I only like the crispy parts on the edge.”

  “Then that’s what you get.” Adam gave him some, and dishes got passed around, and conversations started. Laughter rang out, and Adam was able to endure one more meal with Janey where she wasn’t his.

  It was different though, and the feeling writhed deep down in his stomach. Because this time, she knew how he felt about her. Every glance her way said something to her he didn’t want to say. Every time he heard her say something, he tensed.

  But he made it through and even managed to ask her for the pepper once without acting like a fool.

  * * *

  Adam gripped the overhead bar on the ATV tightly, hoping Jess didn’t smash into the wishing well. He brought the vehicle to a stop—herky jerky style—and Dixie hopped out of the backseat while Adam was still making sure he had all the right pieces in all the right places.

  “Hey!” Jess yelled after her. “You said I could go first.” He twisted and pulled the key out before racing after her.

  Adam chuckled, glad the actual meal of Thanksgiving had ended. The real grown-ups—the people with significant others and too much to do during the day—had been pouring coffee when he’d left with the kids. They’d probably converse and laugh and reminisce before pie made an appearance.

/>   He’d much rather be out here than stuffed in the too-small farmhouse, wishing Janey would say something to him. Heck, at this point, he’d take a glance from her.

  Sighing, he got out of the ATV and followed the kids over to the wishing well. Both of them stood on their tiptoes, peering over the edge at something inside.

  “You guys don’t tell each other what you wish for, do you?”

  Dixie rounded on him, her cherubic face set on serious. “No way. Drew said the wish won’t come true if you tell.”

  Adam leaned his right hip against the stones to give his injured leg a break and looked down at the brackish water too. “Sometimes that’s true, and sometimes it’s not.”

  Jess copied his stance but looked at him. “What do you mean?”

  “My dad built this well,” Adam said. “Because I wanted to make the football team. Everyone knew that was why I ran out here every morning before school and every day after school too. After a while, he bought me weights to carry. But the wish stayed the same.”

  Dixie started nodding before Adam finished speaking. “My teacher was just talking about this.”

  “About Adam running out to the wishing well?” Jess asked.

  She glanced at him and then Adam, her bright purple coat making her pale skin seem even more translucent. “No, about not just sitting back and wishing for things to happen. She said you have to work for them.”

  “A-ha,” Adam said. “What was I really doing when I came out to the wishing well?” He watched the line between Jess’s eyes deepen as he frowned, thought, worked through the problem.

  “You ran out here,” he said. “You were conditioning.”

  “Exactly. I didn’t have an ATV, and it’s what? A mile out here? Maybe more.” Adam smiled at the kids. “So sometimes, even if someone knows your wish, it can still come true. If you work at it.”

  Dixie fished a coin out of her pocket. “I’ve made lots of wishes here.” She flipped the coin up in the air and caught it again. “I’ve learned that it’s best to only wish for something you can actually control.”