Seaside Dreams (Love in Bloom: Seaside Summers, Book One) Contemporary Romance (14 page)

“That’s exactly
why
you need this shit. You tell me the deal and that you still respect it, or you can get on that bike and head home. And before you say anything, know that your word is about the only thing that matters. I’m on your side, Ev.”

“Yeah, right.” Evan kicked at the ground.

He crossed his arms and set an icy stare on his all-too-adolescent son. “Yeah, right? I’ve never been anything
but
on your side.” Caden knew things had been brewing between them for a while, but this was not the time or the place he wanted them to come to a head.

Evan flashed his own icy stare. “If you were on my side, we would have stayed in Boston.”

Caden held his stare. He hated this push-pull, and he’d fooled himself into thinking that maybe they’d avoided it altogether. That maybe if he was a good enough dad, they’d make it through Evan’s teenage years unscathed. George had warned him enough times that he was living in a dream world with that notion, and he’d brushed off George’s comments because George wasn’t Caden, and Caden believed that his dedication to Evan would make their relationship different from any other parent-teenager relationship.

Boy, had he been wrong.

“Fine,” Evan relented. “The deal is, if I tell you the truth, no matter what it is, you won’t punish me, but if I lie or hide the truth, I’ll get nailed. Satisfied?”

He hated having to tighten the reins, but the challenge in Evan’s eyes told him it was time.

“New rule. Home by ten.”

“But—”

“Evan, this isn’t a negotiation. Home by ten o’clock. Off the streets and inside someone’s home by nine. I want to know where you are at nine, and I want to receive a phone call at ten telling me you’re at home, not a text. Got it?”

Evan turned away with his teeth clenched tight. “Yeah, you really trust me.”

He took a step away, and Caden grabbed him by the arm. “I do trust you, but I don’t know them, and this
new
you, the one who challenges his father? The judgment is still out on him.” He took him by the shoulders and leaned down so they were eye to eye. He knew the intimate hold would be a little embarrassing for Evan, but he did it as much to drive home the fact that he loved him no matter what happened between them as he did to let the other boys know that Evan had a father who cared about him. His gut ached at the way Evan’s entire body went stiff, and the fire in his son’s eyes drove that pain deeper.

“This uncomfortable part of our relationship is new to us both, and I know there are parts of it that you can’t control, and there will be parts that I can’t control either.” He’d sworn he’d never make Evan feel bad about pushing the envelope, and he was finding it a difficult tightrope to walk. “Ev, you don’t need to like me, but you do need to know that I love you.” He felt the tension in Evan’s shoulders ease just a hair and continued with the hope that Evan was really listening. “And I’ll be damned if I’m going to ignore what my gut’s telling me about these kids. My job is to protect you, so no matter how hard it is for either of us, we’d both better get used to it.”

Evan shrugged out of his grasp. “They’re my friends, Dad.”

“I know. I get it. Let’s just make sure they’re the right friends.”

He watched Evan walk away and felt as though he was losing him a little more with each step. He questioned again if he’d done the right thing by moving. He’d made it for almost thirteen years on the force without getting killed. Should he have pushed his luck by staying and hoped for the best? It was a question he’d asked himself a million times, and he knew he’d ask it of himself a million more times before Evan came out on the other side of his transition into manhood.

Inside the patrol car, he checked his cell, but still there was nothing from Bella. He called her, and the call went to voice mail. He needed a Bella fix. Forty-eight hours was too damn long to go without seeing her.

He played the conversation with Evan over and over in his mind on the way to Seaside. He was certain he’d done the right thing by flexing a little parental muscle, but it still made the muscles in the back of his neck pinch tight. A thread of guilt tightened inside him. In Boston, time off had meant Caden would have more time to spend with Evan, watching him show off at the skate park or hanging out at the house while he and his friends bopped in and out during the day as they went from one of their houses to the next, doing whatever kids did. Lately, Evan preferred to spend time with his friends instead of his father, and Caden allowed Evan extra time with them because
he
craved time alone with Bella. That guilt had been nagging at him over the last forty-eight hours while he’d been working nights and wishing he could be with her.

He drove up the sloped gravel road into Seaside and parked beside Bella’s car in her driveway. He waved to Amy as she came out of the laundry room.

“Aw, no tool belt today?” Amy held a laundry basket against her hip and pulled the laundry room door closed with her free hand.

“I think my chief might have a heart attack if I wore that to work.”

She crossed the gravel road. “You obviously have a male boss.”

“Very male.” Caden looked at her basket. “Do you need help?”

“You’re such a gentleman. No, thanks. I’ve got it. Bella’s still at the beach with Jenna. Want me to tell her you came by?” Amy tucked her hair behind her ear.

“Sure. I’ll try to come by later while I’m on patrol, but it may not be for a few hours, if I’m able to at all.” He noticed that Amy had her bathing suit on beneath her dress. “Why aren’t you at the beach?”

“Hey, Caden. How’s it going?” Tony waved from the deck of his cottage. His hair was tousled, which seemed a perpetual state for Tony, and it gave him the look of always having just come from the beach, which, by his board shorts and lack of a shirt, Caden imagined he had.

Just had a run-in with my son, can’t find my girlfriend, and I’m sure I’ll have three more thefts to deal with tonight. Life is grand
.

“Great. Just stopped by to see if I could catch Bella.” Damn, he missed her.

“I was with them at Cahoon, but the sun’s really warm today, so I came back to get some things done.” Amy shifted the laundry basket to her other hip. “She’ll be bummed she missed you, but she had a great day and I know she’ll be excited to tell you about it.”

“Yeah. I’ve been texting her, but if she’s at Cahoon, she won’t get them until she leaves.” He ran his hand through his hair and debated driving over to the beach, but the chance of catching her in the parking lot was nearly zero. “Can you just ask her to check her phone?”

“Sure.” Amy shifted her eyes to Tony and her cheeks flushed.

The dispatcher’s voice came across the radio in his patrol car. “Thanks, Amy. I’ve got to take this. She can text me, and if I get a break, I’ll swing by again.” He waved to Tony, took the call, and headed back to Nauset to handle another vehicle break-in report. He had a feeling it was going to be a very long night.

BELLA AND JENNA stayed on the beach long after the sun went down. Her hair whipped across her cheeks, reminding her of the night Caden tied her hair back with fishing line. He was always doing thoughtful things like that—taking care of her in ways that no man had done before. He was different in so many ways from the other men she’d dated, and she realized that she was different when she was around him, too, and even though she wasn’t her snarky self, she liked the softer woman she became when she was with him.

Jenna pulled her chair closer to Bella and draped a blanket over their legs. “You look like you’re deep in thought.”

“Thinking about Caden.” She inhaled the cool, salty air, and her mind drifted to Caden’s fantasy. Bella had always been adventurous, and she’d never been especially modest. Having sex in places other than the bedroom wasn’t new to her—tents, cars…been there done that. Outside, though? That had always carried a trace of danger, but the thought of doing that with Caden didn’t feel dangerous at all. Caden wouldn’t let them do anything dangerous. Maybe they could find an adventurous, private spot to satisfy his fantasy...

“Aren’t you always thinking about Caden?” Jenna wore a sarong draped around her shoulders and it blew behind her like a colorful mane.

“Am I a total loser for tossing away my convictions so quickly and agreeing to date, aka commit to, Caden?” She had tried to get herself to believe that she might be making a mistake or setting herself up to get hurt, but being with Caden didn’t feel anything but right.

Jenna reached for Bella’s hand and cupped it between her own. “Bella, Bella, Bella. Haven’t you learned anything from me? Convictions are meant to be broken.” She reached into her bathing suit top and pulled out three small rocks.

“Jenna.” Bella laughed. Ever since they were little girls, Jenna had found creative ways to carry rocks home from the beach. She would put the tiniest of rocks between her gums and her cheek and then forget they were there. Her cleavage was another favorite hiding place, and Jenna’s cleavage could hide a boulder.

“I can’t help it. I love them.” She ran her index finger over a gray-white rock. “They’re not perfectly heart shaped, and they’re not perfectly gray or white, but look at them.” She petted the rocks in her palm. “Can’t you just see them on my coffee table beside the big one that looks like an ostrich egg?” Her eyes widened, and she flashed that killer smile of hers and blinked her eyes in rapid succession, the same way she had when she was fifteen and had scored a date with the hottest surfer at the beach.

“Yes. I can totally see it there.” Bella leaned her head on Jenna’s shoulder. “I needed this time with you. I wish Amy had stayed longer. I’ve missed spending our days at the beach this summer.”

“Me too. But this is all for a good reason, and next summer we’ll be back on track with the beach all day and hanging out at night.” Jenna gasped. “Oh no.”

“What?” Bella scanned the water, thinking that Jenna saw someone in trouble.

“You can’t date Caden.”

“What?” Bella turned to face her. Jenna’s thin brows were drawn together. Her eyes were full of concern. “Why not?”

“Leanna has Kurt, and we see her maybe half as much as we used to. If you and Caden stay together, then next summer we’ll only see you half as much.” She shook her head. “No, this isn’t good. We can’t lose you, too.”

“You’d never lose me, and we see Leanna a lot. She and Kurt stay at Seaside all the time. I mean, it’s different with him around, but you love Kurt. We all do.”

“I totally love him, and from what I know of Caden and Evan, I really like them, too, but it’s different.” Jenna tucked her rocks back into her bathing suit top.

“Yeah. But it’s kind of better, too. I’m happy for Leanna. She’s never been happier, and you know how much Kurt adores her. He moved from New York to be with her. That’s love.” Caden had moved from Boston to the Cape for Evan.
That’s love, too
.

“I know, but what if you end up with Caden? Amy’s cute as a button. She’ll get swooped up next. Jamie’ll show up here one summer with a computer geek girlfriend, and Tony…Hell, he’ll have a harem. Then it’s just going to be me, lusting after Pete.” She covered her face with her hands. “Oh, God, Bella. I can’t be a forty-year-old-woman lusting after Pete.”

Bella laughed. “Wow, a little dramatic, aren’t we?” She patted Jenna’s arm. “You aren’t going to be a forty-year-old woman lusting after Pete. He’ll be long married by then.” She leaned away and Jenna swatted her arm.

“God, I hate you.” Jenna feigned a scowl, but her teasing eyes gave her away. “You watch. That man will be mine before I’m thirty-five.”

“I should hope so. That gives you five and a half years. If you can’t snag your man in that long, then maybe it’s time to move on.” Jenna had been nursing a crush on Pete for years, but while she was a total extrovert around everyone else, she turned into a mousy introvert around him.

“Bite your tongue.”

“Can we get back to me for a minute?” She used her foot to bury Jenna’s foot beneath the sand.

“Always.” Jenna wiggled her toes free from the mound of sand, and Bella went to work covering her foot again.

“Here’s the thing. I’m not worried about dating Caden, and I wonder if that means I’m already not paying enough attention to red flags or something. We’re already serious. Super serious. I mean, Jenna, serious like I’ve-never-been-this-serious-in-my-life type of serious. And what if my house doesn’t sell? Then what will I do? What if the job doesn’t come through here? What if it does but my house doesn’t sell? Then what will I do?”

“The answer to the first question is that I’m not seeing any red flags. I think Tony was right. The guy’s been a single dad for fourteen years. He’s a committer for sure. As far as the rest goes, you’re asking a lot of questions to a woman who isn’t holding a margarita.”

“You’re right. Sorry. That was the big question that I was stressing over.” She folded her chair and gathered her belongings. “But if you think I’m seeing clearly, and you know I trust you to not let me fall into some dark man-abyss, then let’s go home and we’ll fill you up with the good stuff.”

“First of all, put that shit down and look at me.” Jenna stood with her hands on her hips.

Bella dropped her beach tote and looked at her.

“Here.” Jenna pointed to her eyes.

Bella stared into her eyes, and Jenna leaned in so close Bella thought they might bump noses.

“Nope. Those eyes are wide open and wiser than mine will ever be.”

“You’re such a fool.” Bella picked up her tote.

Jenna swung her tote over her shoulder, and they carried their chairs up toward the parking lot. “I say trust your gut with Caden Too-Good-To-Be-True-Grant.” Jenna stopped at the bottom of the dune.

“Why’d you stop? Let’s go. I want to stop at the package store.”

Jenna pointed to the top of the hill, where Caden stood beside his police car.

“Oh my God!” Bella ran up the dune with Jenna laughing as she hurried behind. Bella was out of breath by the time she reached the parking lot. She dropped her tote and ran into his open arms.

“I’m sorry to just show up.” He kissed her quickly and shifted his eyes to the people watching them.