Hawthorne Harbor Box Set

by Elana Johnson

  Bennett’s laugher joined in with the joy of the dog, and Jennie edged to the doorway so she could see him. He interacted with Gemma like he really loved her, and Jennie thought it was entirely unfair of him to bring her here.

  Because she felt herself falling, and it was the good kind of falling in love.

  Gemma spotted her, and she trotted over, her big tongue hanging out of her mouth already.

  “Gemma, stop.” Bennett’s voice was commanding yet kind, and the dog paused. “Sit.” The dog sat. Bennett came up beside her, positively beaming. “Good girl.” He scrubbed her head, and Gemma’s eyes closed halfway as she leaned her head back, clearly in bliss.

  Jennie was suddenly jealous of a dog.

  A dog.

  “See?” he said, drawing her attention back to him. “She’s nice.”

  “She’s probably just hot.” The dog was black all over except for some white hairs growing in around her mouth. Still, Jennie felt a pull to the canine she didn’t understand, and she reached out and patted her. Gemma didn’t snap or growl, but put that blissful look on her face.

  Jennie giggled, and Bennett stepped past her. “Told you. C’mon, Gemmy.”

  Gemmy. Such a cute nickname from the tough firefighter. Jennie had a hard time making all the different sides of him match up.

  He spread several papers across the counter and pushed his breath out. “Okay, let’s see what I agreed to build.”

  Jennie laughed, unable to help herself. She joined Bennett at the workbench and peered over his bicep. “I know there’s a buffet.”

  He pointed to a spot on the paper. “Yeah, that’s here. Looks like several end tables, a huge armoire…and the buffet.” He glanced down at her. “What do you think?”

  Jennie met his eye. “What do you mean, what do I think?”

  “What would you like the buffet to be made of? Maple? Oak? Redwood is kind of nice.”

  “I only know one of those.”

  “Cherry would be pretty too.” He focused back on the paper. “I should probably ask Mabel if that would go with her interior design. It’s a redder wood.”

  “My parents had a solid redwood table from a fallen tree from California. It’s beautiful.”

  “Had?” He fell back a step and looked at her.

  Jennie’s nerves bounced around in her body, almost like they had decided to have a dance party and forgotten to tell her. He was so handsome, and that falling sensation happened again, and why couldn’t she look away from his lips?

  “They still have it,” she said, realizing she’d misspoke.

  “Do you see your folks often?” he asked.

  “Here and there,” she said. “They’re thinking of buying an RV and traveling all over.”

  Bennett smiled, a soft, beautiful smile that drove Jennie’s thoughts irrationally toward kissing. “I think that would be awesome.”

  She returned his smile. “I know. You’ve already got plans, don’t you?”

  “Not really, no.” He stepped back over to the workbench and looked needlessly at the papers.

  Jennie trilled out another laugh. “You really can’t lie to me, Bennett.”

  He cut her a glance full of heat and playfulness. “One day.”

  She shook her head and leaned into him, threading her arm around his. “I don’t think so.”

  “You’re not great at hiding things either, you know.”

  “Better than you.”

  “If you say so.”

  Jennie leaned away without removing her touch from him. “What do you mean?”

  “It means I can see you staring at my mouth all the time.” He settled his weight on his far leg and smirked at her. “You’re dying to kiss me.”

  Jennie wanted to deny it outright, but the words stuck in her throat. “So what?” she finally challenged. “You wouldn’t let me?”

  Bennett’s dark eyes devoured her, making her simultaneously cold and hot. Oh, so hot. He leaned toward her again, the glint in his expression saying he wanted to kiss her too. “I’d let you,” he said, his voice somewhat croaky.

  “All right, then.” But Jennie couldn’t seem to make her body close the eight-inch distance between them and get the deed done. Her head swam with the nearness of him, what it would be like to kiss him as a grown woman, not a teenager, and it seemed like her brain had frozen.

  The air filled with the scent of wood shavings and cologne, and only she and Bennett existed—even though Gemma’s panting was loud enough to wake the dead.

  “So?” he asked. “Are you going to kiss me?”

  Jennie wanted to, but she didn’t want to be the instigator. She wanted him to sweep his arm around her waist and draw her close, whisper something romantic, and claim her mouth. Why, she wasn’t sure. Bennett just had that power over her, she supposed.

  She tipped up on her toes, putting more pressure on his forearm to steady herself, and pecked him on the cheek. “There. You big baby.”

  He growled, clearly not satisfied with the kiss, and said, “That wasn’t a kiss.”

  “I never do anything right when it comes to you,” she said with a smirk.

  He searched her face for a few moments, then leaned down, bypassing the romantic whisper, and touched his lips to hers. Feather-light, almost seeking for permission she’d basically already given, the touch lasted long enough to send Jennie into a tailspin but not nearly long enough to be labeled a kiss.

  Her eyes had drifted closed, the world around her marshmallow soft. “Bennett,” she said, the one doing the throaty whispering.

  “Hmm?” His breath washed across her cheek, so he couldn’t have pulled back too far.

  “That wasn’t a kiss either.”

  One hand slipped around her waist while the other trailed down the side of her face, causing her to open her eyes. He hovered only inches from her, wearing a look of complete adoration in his expression.

  “I really like you, Jennie Zimmerman.”

  Before she could tell him she really liked him too, Bennett matched his mouth to hers and kissed her. Now, this was a kiss, and since Jennie hadn’t been able to tell him how she felt, she poured her emotion into the action, hoping he’d get the message loud and clear.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Bennett had kissed other women, and none of them compared to Jennie. It was as if she’d been made for him to kiss, and no one else would do. She leaned into him and kissed him back with as much passion as he felt coursing through his body. He couldn’t get her close enough, couldn’t kiss her long enough.

  When he finally pulled away, the temperature in the woodshop could never be cooled by the weak air pumping out of the swamp cooler. He opened his eyes and looked into Jennie’s light ones to find happiness there.

  “Wow,” she said.

  “That good, huh?” He grinned down at her.

  She playfully slapped his chest as she giggled. “It’s just…better than I remember.”

  “We were seventeen before,” he said, skating his lips across her cheek to her earlobe. She pressed into his touch, and Bennett’s ideas about spending the afternoon measuring and cutting wood flew right out the window.

  He wanted to lead Jennie over to the hammock in the corner of his yard and hold her while they talked the rest of the afternoon away. Fine, he wanted to kiss her in between every word, but he certainly didn’t want to build a buffet when he could be kissing Jennie.

  “So I think redwood,” she said, stepped out of his arms. Bennett let her go, because Jennie probably needed some time to process what had just happened. Bennett himself felt buzzed, and he forced his focus back to the contract.

  “Let me text Lauren.”

  “What for?”

  “Measurements.” He glanced at her. “Oh, wait. You have them, don’t you?”

  “Yes…somewhere in my studio.” Her eyes sparkled, and she burst out laughing a moment later. Bennett joined her and swiped open his phone anyway.

  “I’ll ask her about the interior des
ign.” Twenty minutes later, he’d decided on the redwood and had the dimensions for the end tables and the armoire. He sketched ideas on a notepad while Jennie took his truck back to her place to get the dimensions for the buffet. When she returned, she had a plastic bag hanging from one arm and two sodas, one in each hand, from Duality.

  “You’re an angel,” he said, taking the drink she handed him. “It’s hot in here, right?”

  “It’s not as bad as outside.” She put the bag on the workbench. “I got some of those cheddar bacon tots you like.” She met his eye. “At least, you used to like them.”

  “I still love ‘em,” he said. “And there better be a Kit Kat in there.”

  She produced a king size candy bar and grinned. “Right here.”

  Bennett smiled and took the chocolate bar. “And what did you get? Wait. Let me guess.” He cocked his head like he was really thinking about it, but he’d been to Duality a zillion times with her. “Some of that crusty mac-and-cheese…with a ranch packet to squeeze on top.”

  She reached into the bag and left her hands in there as if preparing for a big reveal. “Ta-da!” Sure enough, she had a container of mac-and-cheese—which looked entirely too orange to be real—in one hand and a packet of ranch dressing in the other.

  “I guess we’re both predictable,” he said, opening his box of tots. “Did you find the measurements?”

  “Yep, right here.” She pulled a folded piece of paper out of her back pocket and handed it to Bennett.

  The sound of clicking claws came over, and Bennett turned toward Gemma as the dog sat, an expectant look on her face. Her eyes were earnest, like I sat, Dad. Aren’t I so good? I have some of those tots?

  Bennett gave her one, along with a quick scrub behind the ears, and looked at the numbers Jennie had scrawled on the paper. He quickly started a new drawing, adding the numbers she’d provided and turned it toward her.

  “What do you think?”

  She studied the sketch, taking a few bites of her afternoon snack as she did. “No ornamental stuff on the doors or anything?”

  “I thought your pieces would be the ornamental stuff.”

  “It would be kind of cool if the same swoops from the pottery went down into the wood.”

  “But what if Mabel wants to put something else on the buffet?”

  “Then it would have character.”

  Bennett took the paper back and started to add a few swooshes down the front of the doors. “Like this?”

  Jennie nodded and said, “Yeah, like that. How hard is that?”

  “I can do it with a carving gouge,” he said. “I’ve got three of them.” He indicated the shelf where his carving tools were. “Big, medium, and small.” He collected the tools and handed them to her. “I’m thinking medium.”

  “Show me,” she said, looking at the gouges like they’d attack her at any moment.

  Bennett turned from the workbench to get a piece of scrap wood. “So it would be sanded and ready to assemble already,” he said as he sifted through the pile for a good sample. He found a decent sized piece of oak and moved back over to her. “So imagine it was a finished piece.”

  “Yeah, sure I can imagine that.”

  Bennett looked up at her dry tone. “Oh, you think you’re so funny.” He chuckled and had the desire to kiss her again.

  She grinned at him like she was indeed funny and shrugged. “I don’t expect you to know what my art is going to look like.”

  “But I can imagine the difference between a finished piece of pottery and one that’s raw.” He held up the wood. “So this would be better than this. You just gouge in the pattern you want. This is a pretty hard piece of wood—it’s oak—so each gouge might need multiple passes.” After picking up the carving gouge, he positioned it against the wood and pressed it away from him, creating a riverbed in the wood.

  He repeated the action several more times, leaving some high areas of wood and making some deeper. “See? It’s kind of like the swooshes on your pots.”

  She picked up the wood and studied it, lovingly stroking her fingers along the ridges and valleys. “It’s beautiful. Exactly like my pottery.” She gazed at him with wonder, and Bennett couldn’t fathom why.

  “What?” he finally asked when her gaze got a little too heavy.

  “You’re an artist.”

  He shook his head. “No, not like you.”

  She looked back at the wood and set it on the workbench. “I think that would look beautiful on the front door panels.”

  Bennett did too, and he turned to sort through the redwood stock he had. When he turned back to the bench, several lengths of lumber in his arms, he found Jennie perched on his stool, Gemma at her side. She patted the dog and said, “Don’t say anything.”

  So Bennett laughed and shook his head, glad his dog had won Jennie over so quickly.

  * * *

  Bennett got used to a new schedule over the course of the next couple of weeks. He worked his shifts at the fire house, trying to keep Jennie’s voice out of his head about the memes. There were no more emergencies—not even a badger had fallen into a window well and scared a homeowner. Nothing.

  In his off-hours, he worked in the shop, putting together tables and the armoire. He’d been saving the buffet for last, hoping to work on it while Jennie was too busy to come watch. He knew she’d completed her collection, because she’d texted him to say how great the kiln had worked.

  And no flames!

  She’d been so proud, and Bennett liked the long text conversations they had too. He saw her a lot too, as he’d taken to texting her when he was leaving the station to see if she’d like to eat breakfast, lunch, or dinner with him, depending on what kind of shift he’d just finished.

  She always said yes, and then she’d come linger in the shop while he worked. A couple of times, he’d hardly gotten anything done because she’d spent so long kissing him.

  Not that he minded. But if she thought she’d need to wait until next summer to marry him, Bennett sometimes wondered what she was doing. Because he felt himself already knee deep in love with her, and he’d started imagining what it would be like to have her waiting at home for him when he got done with his monotonous shifts at the fire house.

  One day, she didn’t answer his query about lunch, so he headed past Duality and toward his house. As soon as he turned into his driveway, he spotted her bicycle. This is new, he thought as a smile carved its way across his face. She’d never come over to his place without him before, and he wondered if something was wrong.

  He went in the house with a “Jennie?” but was only greeted by silence. That was when he knew something serious was going on, because even Gemma wasn’t there to slobber all over him and wind between his legs like a cat.

  “Gemma?” he called. The dog barked—from outside.

  Bennett stepped over to the door that led onto the back deck and went outside. Gemma barked again, but she didn’t come running over. Instead, she sat next to the hammock, near Jennie’s head.

  “Come on, girl,” he said, but the dog didn’t move. Bennett’s heart twisted in his chest as he went down the few steps to the grass. Something was seriously wrong. “Jennie?” he asked as he drew closer.

  Sniffling came from behind Gemma’s huge head, and the dog turned and licked Jennie’s arm. Bennett half expected her to yelp and shove the big dog away. But she didn’t. In fact, she turned onto her side in the hammock and wrapped both arms around Gemma’s neck.

  “What’s wrong?” Bennett could clearly see tears now. He reached out and patted Gemma’s head, glad the canine could give Jennie some sort of comfort. He pushed Jennie’s hair off her forehead and she opened her tear-filled eyes and looked at him.

  “It’s my mom,” she said. She started to say more, but her voice broke and a fresh wave of tears spilled down her face.

  “Oh, honey.” Bennett nudged Gemma out of the way so he could climb into the hammock with his girlfriend. She let him take her into his arm
s, and she cried into his chest for a few seconds. Bennett had several questions, but in that moment he just let Jennie take all the comfort she needed, his heart breaking for her.

  Finally Jennie regained some control, but she didn’t relinquish the grip she had on his body. “She’s been diagnosed with breast cancer.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Bennett made his voice say. “She just found out?”

  “This morning.”

  “Did you call me? I didn’t get a message.”

  “I didn’t call.” She snuggled deeper into his side. “I just came over. Gemma kept me company.”

  “What are the doctors saying?”

  “They’re still doing a bunch of tests, but it’s already in her lymph nodes.” Jennie sniffed. “She’s only sixty-four, you know?”

  “I know, sweetheart,” Bennett said though he wouldn’t have been able to pinpoint Jennie’s mother’s age. “Have you seen her?”

  “Yes, just for a few minutes. They had another appointment this afternoon up in Seattle.”

  “I’m sorry,” Bennett said again, wishing words could be adequate enough to erase heartache. But he knew they weren’t. Cynthia had apologized when she’d left, and it hadn’t even come close to helping Bennett understand or accept her decision to leave him.

  He pushed his ex-wife from his mind, determined to be with Jennie, be present, while she needed him.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Jennie lay with Bennett for a long time. Until the sun started going down and she realized that his stomach was complaining loudly that he hadn’t eaten in a while. He hadn’t said much, and Jennie hadn’t either.

  She couldn’t explain why she’d come straight to his house after learning about her mother’s health problems. Only that she knew this quaint home would provide her with the comfort she needed. She’d gone inside only to let Gemma out, and the dog had sensed her distress instantly, staying beside her and giving her an occasional lick when the tears got a little too thick.

  She’d almost cried herself out by the time Bennett got home, but she’d had one good sobfest into his chest before exhaustion had finally stemmed the flow of tears.