Summer at Seaside Cove (42 page)

“Crap,” Jamie muttered. She released him and bent down to scoop up her panties from the floor, affording him a view that damn near stopped his heart. With a sigh Nick moved into the bathroom and turned on the shower while Jamie quickly dressed in the shorts and tank top he'd taken off her the night before.

“To be continued,” she said, giving him a quick kiss.

“Can't wait.”

He watched her hurry out to answer the door, and with a sigh, he stripped and stepped into the shower, gritting his teeth when the cold water hit him in the chest. Damn. Her family wasn't just driving
her
crazy—they were bringing him along for the ride as well.

 

 

J
amie exited the bedroom, closing the door behind her, then hurried toward the screen door, where Heather was trying to calm Godiva, whose excitement over seeing her was thwarted by the screen between them.

“Good morning,” Jamie said, opening the door. “C'mon in.”

Heather entered the kitchen and Godiva immediately flopped on her back to present her belly. “You are shameless,” Heather said with a laugh, bending down to oblige. She looked up at Jamie. “I know it's early, but I saw Godiva outside, so I figured you were awake.” She looked around, her gaze resting on the two coffee mugs. “Where's Nick?”

“Shower. What's going on? Everything okay?”

Heather stood and pushed up her glasses. Jamie noted she looked tired, but not upset. “I wanted to tell you about my talk with Mom.” She rolled her eyes. “My really
loooong
talk with her.”

“Sure. Did you eat breakfast?” Jamie asked, opening the fridge.

Heather nodded. “A huge piece of leftover birthday cake. Yum.”

“Well, be happy you ate because, let me tell you, unless you want mustard spread on a moldy piece of bread, there's zilch to eat here at Casa Nick.”

Heather giggled. “Thanks, I'll pass.”

“Me, too.” She closed the fridge, hiked herself onto a bar stool, and patted the one next to her. “Sit. Talk.”

Heather seated herself and Jamie took a sip from the now lukewarm cup of coffee Nick had poured her earlier. After clearing her throat, Heather said, “We walked to the beach and sat in the sand. She asked me to tell her what was bothering me, and I did. I told her everything. How I hate that she's always blowing me off and trying to change me and how she just doesn't
know
me at all. How I feel like I'm last on her list and how she never listens to me and hardly talks to me except to lecture me.” Heather picked at her chipped nail polish—bright green this week. “I kept expecting her to interrupt or yell or something, but she just sat there and listened. Just like she'd said she would. I was pretty shocked.”

“Then what happened?”

Heather shrugged and red washed into her cheeks. “And then . . . and then she cried.” She looked up, her expression utterly baffled. “Aunt Jamie, she just put her face in her hands and cried. I didn't know what to do. I'd never seen Mom cry before.”

Jamie tried to recall the last time she'd seen Laurel cry and drew a blank. “Then what happened?”

“I just sort of patted her back and gave her a hug and she finally stopped crying. And then she said stuff I never thought I'd hear from my mom. She told me I was right. That she'd been selfish and focused on her own stuff and not there for me—not like she should have been—and how sorry she was. How she'd lost sight of what was important and how much she wanted things to be okay between us. Spend more time together. Really get to know each other. She told me she was never close with Grandma Cindy when she was growing up and didn't want that mistake to carry over to us.

“Then she told me about Raymond dumping her. Not only dumping her, but for one of her close friends. Can you believe that?” Heather shook her head. “That's really low. What a douche.”

“I believe it,” Jamie said dryly. “Happens all the time.”

“She said she really loved him and thought he was The One. He really broke her heart, Aunt Jamie. It happened almost a month ago but she didn't tell me. Didn't tell anyone. She said the breakup made her do a lot of thinking and she realized she had a lot of regrets. And wanted to fix things. Like her relationship with me.”

Heather looked up from her polish picking. “And with you. She said one of the things she regretted most was a fight with you. That she was really sorry for it.”

Jamie kept her expression completely blank—not easy given the emotions careening through her. “I see. Did she ask you to tell me that?”

Heather shook her head. “No. She said she's going to tell you herself.”

“Did she tell you what the fight was about?”

“Sort of. She said you were still with Raymond when she started dating him. That you were really hurt when you found out. I told her that was a totally shitty thing to do, especially to her own sister. And she agreed.”

Heather hesitated, then said, “I don't blame you for being totally pissed at her, Aunt Jamie. But I know she's really sorry. I thought about it like all night long, and you know how sometimes good stuff comes from bad? Like lemonade from lemons? Well, it occurred to me that the totally shitty thing Mom did to you maybe turned out okay for you because in the end, the guy was a complete dirtbag.”

Jamie stared at her niece, nonplussed. Once again the kid had said a mouthful. And this time a very unsettling one.

She was saved from replying when Heather rushed on, “And if you hadn't fought with Mom, you never would have come to Seaside Cove, which means you never would have met Nick. I know you guys really like each other.” She dipped her head and shrugged. “So, you know, lemons and lemonade.”

And yet another mouthful.

“I also wanted to tell you I've decided to go to Italy,” Heather said.

Jamie blinked, needing a few seconds to grasp the rapid subject change. Then she reached out and clasped Heather's hand. “I'm glad, sweetie.”

“Mom's coming with me. We're leaving tomorrow.”

Jamie's brows shot upward. “She is? You are?”

Heather nodded. “When I told her why I didn't want to go, she said she'd come with me. That way I'd have somebody to hang with when I wasn't doing stuff with Dad so I wouldn't feel so out of place and alone. And it would give us a chance to spend some time together. She spoke to Dad early this morning—it's like five hours later over there—and made all the arrangements. Mom and I are staying together in the guesthouse at Dad's villa.”

“And your dad's okay with that?”

“He said he was.” Heather giggled. “Although I don't think Mom gave him much of a choice. On our way home from Dad's, she's taking me to Spain for a few days—not to shop, but so I can visit some of Hemingway's favorite haunts. I told her that after we did that, hitting a few stores would be cool.”

Jamie leaned over and gave Heather a hug. “It sounds like your talk went really well. I'm happy for you, kiddo.”

“Thanks. Me, too. I feel better and I know Mom does, too.” She slid off the barstool and stretched. “So are all of us going to do something today? Since it's my last day, I'd like to go to the beach for a while.”

“I won't be able to meet you there until later. Tonight's the Clam Committee's big potluck dinner and I have a lot of cooking to do.”

“I'll help,” Heather offered. “That way you'll finish faster.”

“Sounds good.” Jamie's gaze scanned Nick's kitchen. “With all these fabulous new appliances and the All-Clad cookware . . . I'd love to do the cooking here. I'm going to ask Nick if it'd be okay.”

“Ask Nick if what would be okay?” came his voice from behind her.

She turned and her stomach performed a swoop as she watched him walk out of the bedroom. Dressed in board shorts and a white T-shirt, his hair still shower damp, his face freshly shaved, he looked big and tall and totally yummy.

“To use your fancy new kitchen to cook my contributions for tonight's Clam Committee potluck dinner.”

“I guess I'd be willing to do that. Provided there's some home-cooked food in it for me. Deal?”

“Deal—provided you help Heather carry all the ingredients I bought at the Piggly Wiggly over here from Paradise Lost while I grab a quick shower. She knows where everything is.” And it was a perfect excuse for her to avoid going over there and facing her mother and/or Laurel.

“Consider it done.”

Nick and Heather left, and Jamie took the world's fastest shower, then quickly dressed, all the while pondering what Heather had told her. She'd just left the bedroom to head back into the kitchen when she heard Nick and Heather climbing the stairs. She ran to open the door. In walked a smiling Nick, his arms laden with Piggly Wiggly bags. Next came Heather, weighed down with more bags.

Then Jamie stilled as Laurel climbed the stairs, followed by Jamie's mother, and finally Alex.

“They all wanted to help,” Heather said as everyone filed into the kitchen. “Think how fast we'll get done and be able to hit the beach, Aunt Jamie. What do you say?”

Jamie's gaze shifted from Heather's hopeful expression to Laurel, who looked tired and wary, to her mother, who looked exhausted and unhappy.

Blech. With the tension gripping Jamie at the thought of sharing a kitchen with them, a happy outing this did not promise to be. No, more likely this would turn into a dramafilled disaster. But there was no way she could refuse that hope in Heather's eyes.

So she'd suck it up and take another one for the team.

“I say let's get cooking.”

J
amie turned to Nick and Alex. “You guys feel like peeling garlic?”

She had to bite the insides of her cheeks to hold in her laugh at the identical looks of horror that passed over their faces.

“Ah, as fun as that sounds—and really it does,” said Nick, “you ladies probably don't need two clumsy men taking up a bunch of room in the kitchen, and I could use Alex's help digging out the area behind the carport where I'm going to build an outdoor grill.” He turned to Alex. “Unless you'd rather peel garlic.”

“I'd rather dig in the dirt,” Alex said without hesitation. As they exited the house, Alex said, “Owe you big-time for that save,” and Nick laughed.

“Figured the old ‘wanna peel garlic' ploy would get them out of here,” Jamie said with a smirk.

Her comment broke the tense silence and they all gave halfhearted laughs. “Could they have gotten out of here any faster?” Jamie's mother asked.

“Not unless they'd jumped out the window,” Jamie said. Determined not to allow the tension she felt simmering in the room to explode into an unpleasant, awkward situation, she continued, “Now that we have more room, let's get to it. Mom, how about you chop the herbs—”

“On it,” her mother said, reaching for the cutting board, clearly relieved to have something to do.

“And I'll puree the tomatoes for the sauce. Heather, you're on garlic duty and we need water to boil for the lasagna noodles. After we get the sauce cooking, we can start on the meatballs.” She turned to Laurel and hesitated. Just to avoid being in such close confines with her, Jamie wanted to suggest that Laurel simply sit and watch—preferably from the other room—or better yet, go outside with Nick and Alex. The fact that her pampered sister possessed zero cooking knowledge was only more incentive to banish her. Still, Jamie would be damned if
she'd
be the one to prove unpleasant.

“Laurel, how about you wash the herbs before my mom chops them?” Jamie suggested, deciding that was an easy enough, damage-free task.

Laurel hoisted her brows and shot Jamie an “I don't think so” look. She calmly reached for the apron on the counter and tied it around her waist. “Maggie can easily do that. How about I chop the onions?”

Jamie stared at her. Okay, this had to be an act. This Laurel she'd seen signs of last night and who Heather had described couldn't possibly be the real deal. Still, Jamie never would have believed she'd see Laurel wearing an apron or hear her offering to help in the kitchen—yet there she stood, looking ready to chop the crap out of anything that wasn't moving.

“I'll do the onions, Mom,” Heather said, with a nervous laugh, wading into the tense silence. “I don't want you to lose a finger.”

Laurel lifted her chin. “I know how to chop onions. I also know how to make spaghetti sauce.”

Heather rolled her eyes. “We're making it from scratch. Not opening a jar.”

“I realize that. And I'll have you know that the last pot of sauce I made turned out pretty good, if I may say so myself—except for the burned part on the bottom, of course.”

Heather folded her arms over her chest and shot her mother a classic teenage “you've got to be kidding me” look. “Uh-huh. And where did you learn to make this fictional sauce?”

Laurel snatched an onion from the bag on the counter and applied herself to the peel as if her life depended on it. Jamie and her mother exchanged a glance, then stopped what they were doing and simply listened.

“I've taken a few cooking classes,” Laurel said in a clipped voice.

Heather couldn't have looked more amazed if her mother had announced she was an alien. “No way. Where?” Heather demanded. “When? Why?”

“At a cooking school in the city. I've gone once a month for the last few months. As for why—I've always secretly been interested in cooking, but never pursued it. I finally decided to do so.”