That Thing Called Love (24 page)

That was it? She was an adult and she’d get over it? Then her question sank in and he shook his head. “Not yet, no.”

She sighed in disgust and his honed-through-experience defense machine barricaded guilt firmly behind the walls he’d spent years erecting. He squared his shoulders. “It wasn’t like he was thrilled at the prospect of moving to New York in the first place, Jenny. No doubt he’ll be relieved.”

Her jaw dropped, but she quickly snapped it back in place. “Really. That’s the best you can come up with. My
God,
you’re an idiot.”

It was a direct jab at some of the reservations he’d felt himself but had shoved down and tried to bury, and he scowled at her. “Is name calling really necessary?”

“Can you honestly say it’s
not?
”

“Hell, yes. I’m trying to do the best thing for him
and
you. And it’s not like I’m abdicating my responsibilities here. I’ll provide for you both, and I’ll come by when I can between
National Explorer
gigs.”

For the first time, he saw genuine fury cross her face before she about-faced on her bare heel and strode out to the living room. Hotfooting it after her, he found her perched stiffly on the edge of the couch, pulling on socks and a pair of shoes she must have kicked off earlier. He opened his mouth, but didn’t really know what to say. Which, as it turned out, probably didn’t matter, because in the two seconds he had to think of something, she’d furiously surged to her feet.

“You. Can.
Keep.
Your stinking. Money. That’s never been what Austin needed from you—and neither do I.” Her eyes burned like hellfire, but her voice was more frigid than an arctic winter as she stepped close. If she were a taller woman, she would have been nose-to-nose with him. “As for swinging by as the spirit moves you?” All that fury abruptly disappeared and she stepped back, her eyes eerily un-Jenny distant.

“If you’re going,” she said flatly, “you should just go. Because Austin might’ve been leery about moving away from Razor Bay, but he was willing to do it anyhow. Everything that he loves here was outweighed by finally having the one thing he’s always longed for more than anything else—a father.”

He jerked. Oh, Christ. The very last thing he’d ever wanted was to bring Austin more pain. And yet—in the long run the kid would probably thank him.

Jenny clearly didn’t give a shit about his anguished regret, nor was she finished. “Trying to do your best for him would be you busting your ass to make this relationship work. You’re either in or you’re out, Bradshaw. Austin deserves better than a half-assed father who will drop by when he can fit it into his oh, so important schedule.”

She took a sudden big step back. “And you know what? So do I. It took me way too long, but I finally vowed this year that I was through accepting the crumbs of other people’s affection.” She thrust her chin up at him. “So, excuse me if I won’t take them from you—a man who refuses to commit to anyone because he had a few things go wrong in his life.”

He was grateful for the fury that snapped to life. “A few things? I had a brother who hated me, a dad who walked out, leaving Mom and me flat, and a wife who died, all before I was nineteen years old.”

“Oh, boo-hoo, Jake! Tasha grew up with a mom who’s an addict. Before I was seventeen, I had a father who was only available to me when it suited him and a mother who took to her goddamn bed, leaving to me the responsibility of finding a roof to put over our heads and earning a living to keep it there. And not because my dad was a crook, mind you, but because her fucking tony friends
knew
he was. Who the hell doesn’t have issues? Most of us just suck it the hell up and get on with it! We don’t use our troubles to dodge responsibility for the rest of our lives.”

He stared in stunned fascination at the passionate conviction on her face—even as her words took a sledgehammer to the wall he’d thought he’d so solidly built around his heart. That in turn thundered in his chest like a charge being set off as his fortifications began to crumble piece by piece.

Hugging herself, she looked around. “I’ve gotta get out of here.” She strode over to the coat tree by the front door, grabbed a thin windbreaker from it, then turned to look him in the eye as she pulled it on. “If you go, don’t come back. You’ll be leaving wreckage in your wake, and I will not subject Austin to that again. And don’t you dare leave it to me to break the news. You can damn well look your son in the face and see firsthand what it does to him when you tell him you rescind your invitation to be a family. Because I swear to God, Jake, if you just sneak off—” She sucked a deep breath in through her nose, then gustily exhaled it.

“There will be no place on earth you can hide. And make no mistake, when I find you, I
will
hurt you.” She whirled and banged through the door.

Staring at the solid panels that still quivered from the strength of her slam, Jake didn’t doubt her claim for a second.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

J
ENNY
STORMED
DOWN
the porch stairs, stalked several yards along the path toward the beach...then stumbled to a halt when it hit her that she didn’t have the first idea what to do next. She’d left Jake in possession of her cottage, for God’s sake, when she should have pointed the righteous finger of wrath at the front door and demanded that
he
get out of her house. But she’d been so damn furious she simply hadn’t been thinking straight.

Nor were her abilities along that line improving as she stood there. What did she do now?

Okay, there was never a shortage of things needing her attention at the inn. Except...what was the point? It wasn’t as if she’d be able to concentrate worth a damn. And God knew she wasn’t up to being around people and carrying on actual conversations. Not when all she really wanted to do was howl.

She supposed she could take her troubles to Tasha, since that was always comforting. But it was Friday night, and her best friend was no doubt up to her eyeballs in the weekend rush. Plus friends and neighbors liked to stop by to say hello at Bella T’s, and just the thought of having to pretend she was okay added to her urge to howl.

Hell, even if she had Tash to herself, a bottle of red to drown her sorrows and total privacy for a heart-to-heart, she wasn’t up to talking about this yet.

Not without falling to pieces—something she felt treacherously close to doing as it was.

Straightening her backbone, she sucked in a calming breath and reminded herself that she’d known the end was coming. Well, she couldn’t have guessed Jake would suddenly reverse his decision to take Austin with him to Manhattan. But she’d certainly known his time with
her
was finite and that the day was rapidly approaching when he’d pack up his bags and leave. What she hadn’t known—and for some reason had never once even considered—was that when the don’t-examine-it-too-closely day arrived, it would break her heart.

Boy, did I miss the mark on that one.
She stared dejectedly at the path beneath her feet. Of course, neither had she realized she was in love with him until the words left her mouth and she’d recognized the sheer...rightness of them. Up until then, heartbreak hadn’t been part of the equation.

Now it was a part wider than the canal she couldn’t even summon the energy to look at.

A bitter laugh escaped her. Make that wider than the solar system, she thought. Because her heart wasn’t simply broken. She was pretty sure if she looked, she’d find an honest-to-God hole in her chest where it had been before Jake ripped it out. In truth it was taking every ounce of strength she possessed not to drop to her knees, curl tightly into the fetal position and bawl her eyes out until she had no tears left. Which, given the way she was feeling, might be the week after never.

Her breath hitched, then shuddered as she clung tightly to her quickly eroding composure. In rising desperation, she realized she had to find a place to vent her sorrow without witnesses. But with her home occupied by the author of her misery, she simply couldn’t think where to go.

Her head snapped up as the obvious solution came to her. Doing her best not to think beyond putting one foot in front of the other, she strode down the path to the dock where they moored the inn’s boats. She was going to Oak Head.

They were still a few weeks shy of the season for bringing most of the inn’s half-dozen Crestliners out of winter storage in the boathouse. But because the weather had been pretty decent recently, two of the twelve-foot aluminum boats, each sporting a small motor, were tied up at the dock where Austin moored his Bayliner. Striding out onto the wharf, she stopped at the boat tied nearest the end. She stooped to unwrap the line from the front cleat.

To her horror, being this close to making an escape weakened the iron grip she’d been maintaining on her emotions. The tears she’d held back by willpower alone began to roll silently down her cheeks.

Ignoring them as best she could, she worked faster.

She was in the midst of tossing the line, which she ordinarily would have taken the time to neatly coil, onto the tiny bow seat when a male voice boomed, “Excuse me! Miss!”

“Crap,” she whispered and, with a sniff, surreptitiously swiped her fingers beneath her eyes. Then she looked over her shoulder.

Dan, the inn’s longtime head of maintenance, strode down the dock with a purposeful stride, a slight frown on his weather-beaten face.

It was replaced by a look of surprise and perhaps some embarrassment as he pulled up short with an abruptness that rocked him onto his toes. “Oh. Hey, Jenny.” The heels of his Carhartts returned to the decking with a solid thump. “Sorry, I didn’t realize that was you. I just saw a girl getting ready to take the boat and wanted to make sure she was a guest.”

“Not a problem. You probably knew we don’t have any young women in residence at the moment.” Or maybe not. She really didn’t care; she just had to get the hell away from here, to get to a place where she didn’t have to pretend everything was hunky-dory.

Still, she forced herself to say calmly, “Austin’s out with friends, and I thought I’d take advantage of the calm evening to go out on the water for a bit.” To her mortification, her voice cracked on the last words and those damn tears spilled over once again.

Dan’s already ruddy face went ruddier. “Uh, sure.” He reached over the skyward-pointing bill of the ubiquitous faded brown John Deere baseball cap he wore and gave the crown a rub. “That is...you okay?”

“Yes.” She dashed away the tears, then fanned her face with her fingers. “Don’t mind these. It’s just...that time.”

He backed away in horror. “Oh. Hmmm. Well.” He cleared his throat. “You enjoy yourself.” No doubt reconsidering that last piece of advice given her damn tears, he flushed scarlet.

“Sure.”
That time? Really?
Avoiding his gaze, she squatted to unfasten the rear line, then climbed in the boat and grabbed the life vest on the middle seat. Putting it on, she moved to the back to take the rear seat and gave Dan a little wave. She made sure the shift lever was in neutral, pulled out the choke, then gave the starter rope a yank.

It failed to catch, so she poured every ounce of her humiliation and rage into giving it another. This time the motor rumbled to life and she pulled away from the dock. The moment she cleared the last buoy marking the inn’s recreational water, she opened the throttle to get the full horsepower out of it.

Breathing a sigh of relief to be out where nobody could get to her, she pointed the bow toward Oak Head. She was going to be okay. She just needed time. Time to think, time to get herself together, then she’d be just...fine.

She kept telling herself that over and over—and was beginning to almost believe it.

Until she hit the shores of Oak Head, climbed from the boat and, with a throat-scouring sob, her defenses abruptly abandoned all pretense of anything being the least bit fine.

* * *

J
AKE
BANGED
THROUGH
the front door of the Sand Dollar. She wanted him gone? By God, that’s what she would get! The minute he made Austin understand that he wasn’t abandoning him, but rather trying to preserve the boy’s way of life, he was so out of here. And screw Jenny’s mandate that he’d better not come back. She wasn’t the final arbiter of all things Austin, and he wasn’t about to walk out of his son’s life entirely.

Austin might’ve been leery about moving from Razor Bay, but he was willing to do it anyhow. Everything he loves here was outweighed by finally having the one thing he’s always longed for more than anything else—a father.

Jenny’s voice in his head stopped him in his tracks temporarily, but he shook it off and took the stairs to the second floor two at a time. He was still going to
be
a father. He just wasn’t willing to have his kid left alone in a strange city for chunks of time while he did his job. Not when Austin already had everything he needed right here.

He headed for the little bathroom he used as a darkroom, hitting the overhead light switch as he cleared the door. He’d start boxing up his equipment and supplies for shipping.

The first thing he saw, however, were the prints he’d made of Team Day, hanging on the drying line. Turning on the halogen desk lamp he’d set up on the minuscule bathroom counter, he studied each photo beneath its light as he unclipped it.

And smiled.

He’d been blown away by how much he’d enjoyed taking these, and that enjoyment showed. It seemed to be the guiding principle of Bradshaw Images that the more he was engaged, the better his work. He’d clearly been engaged big-time the day he’d taken this batch. Because they’d turned out great.

His work with the album wasn’t done, though. He’d agreed to ready the layouts for the printer and hadn’t even started that yet. Hell, he couldn’t leave tonight, after all. He had work to do.

Plus, his kid was on his first date. Jake couldn’t do anything to take the shine from that. He’d let Austin have his big night. And he’d finish up the work he had promised.

He ignored the odd warmth the reversal of his plans seemed to spread in his chest. Because,
then
he’d go. But not on a forever basis. And if Jenny had a problem with that, well, she could just—

The shot he’d just unclipped from the line and brought down to view under the light erased his train of thought.
Aw, hell, Jenny.

His heartbeat drummed a furious rhythm. This wasn’t just any photo of her, it was the money shot. He’d managed to capture her very essence in this one. Caught her midlaugh and her shiny dark hair in midswing as she’d turned her head in his direction after someone had said something, which to anyone else likely wouldn’t have seemed more than moderately funny, but to Jenny, with her generous, inclusive spirit, had been riotously amusing.

“Jake, I love you. Love you, love you, love you.”

“Christ.” Scrubbing his knuckles over the ache in his heart, he stared at the photo. Hearing the words from her lips had thrust him over the edge, had made him come in the most mind-bending, screaming pulsations of his life.

“Well, hell, that’s just because—”

No.
He chopped his prevarication off midsentence. No lies. He had to match her honesty, if only to himself. Had to own his feelings for once.

And admit she’d also been right when she’d said hearing the
L
word had shaken him—okay, scared him...a little. Because just how much he’d needed to hear it had leveled him. Love had never exactly been his friend.

Still. Did he hide behind that excuse forever? Or did he face some home truths like a man?

Maybe he needed to have a conversation with her that was more honest than the last one had been. It might not change anything, but she deserved that. Hell, she deserved so much more than he could ever give her.

But at the very least she merited a truth for truth.

He crossed to the upstairs bedroom to look down on the back of her bungalow. The sky was turning that deep midnight-blue that preceded full night, and her place was dark.

His truth would have to wait. She clearly wasn’t back from wherever she’d gone when she’d left him in her home rather than spend another minute in his presence.

He rubbed his chest again.

He made himself go back to work on the layout, but had a hard time concentrating and found himself pausing way too often to check her place again. It remained unlighted, and his mood began to reflect the stygian gloom over there. Where the hell
was
she?

His trips to the front bedroom grew so frequent it verged on absurd. He was heading downstairs to grab a beer in hope of getting his brain out of this walk/stand/stare loop, when he heard footsteps coming up the steps and onto the porch.

He loped down the final stairs and ripped open the door before the knock that sounded on it quit reverberating. He’d hoped to see Jenny on the other side, but it was the inn’s maintenance man, Bob or Dave or—

Dan.
The guy’s name was Dan. “Hey,” he said, trying not to sound impatient. “Can I help you?”

“Yeah, look, I’m sorry to bother you,” the man said uncomfortably and scratched at his thinning hair, pushing his worn cap even farther to the back of his head than it already was. “But I’m a little worried about Jenny.”

Jake snapped erect. “Why?”

“I saw her down at the docks getting into one of the Crestliners earlier. And she was crying.”

No.
His gut iced over.

Oblivious, Dan continued, “She said it was—” his face reddened “—that time of month. But the thing is, Mr. Bradshaw, you two seem close...and she’s not back yet.”

Where the hell could she have gone?
The question had barely entered his mind before he knew the answer. “I have an idea where I might find her,” he said, stepping out on the porch and closing the door behind him. “Let me see if I can find the keys to Austin’s Bayliner. I wonder why she didn’t take it herself.” He gave his head an impatient shake, because what did it matter; she hadn’t. “If she’s not where I think she is, I’ll call Max to contact the coast guard or the navy.”

Dan blew out a relieved breath. “Okay, good. That’s a good plan.”

“Yeah. Assume I’ve found her unless I call to tell you otherwise.” He went down the stairs, but stopped to look back at the other man before he headed across the lot. “Thanks for letting me know, Dan. I appreciate you looking out for her.”

The maintenance man shrugged. “It’s Razor Bay, son,” he said as if it were a no-brainer. “Looking out for our neighbors is what we do.”

* * *

S
TUPID
,
STUPID
,
STUPID
!
The bottom of the Crestliner scraped the pebbled shore at Oak Head for the second time that evening as Jenny leaned back on the rope and hauled the bow of the boat onto enough solid beach to keep it from floating away. Because
that,
she thought as she found a good-size rock to hold it in place, would just slap a pretty blue ribbon on the idiocy that had led her to strand herself here.