Winter's Path: (A Seasmoke Friends Novel) (2 page)

CHAPTER ONE

Matt

Late October

T
omorrow was the big move. I’d be uprooting my life in Greensboro and transplanting myself in Myrtle. The past couple months, I’d been darting back and forth, helping the firm set up the new location and transferring some of our clients’ files who’d be following. It had been tedious and exhausting.

Trying to put my things in order here hadn’t been pleasant either. My folks weren’t all that pleased with my decision, but they understood. It wasn’t as if I were moving to Timbuktu. But we’d always been close, in proximity and as a family. Though I loved them, they were a big factor in my relocation. Sometimes, it was just so damn hard to look them in the eye knowing I wasn’t that good son they thought I was. Perhaps I was once, but that ship had sailed. The guilt was unbearable to live with most days, and I just couldn’t hack their adoring affection.

Sighing, I laid the back of my head against the living room wall, where I’d been sitting on the floor the past hour. Boxes of personal items were stacked everywhere, the house nearly empty. Any remnants of me were all but gone, not that my house had much personality anyway. I sucked at decorating.

The furniture would be staying. A cousin on my dad’s side had bought my house. He’d just tied the knot and they were looking for a home. It saved me the trouble of listing it and helped him out, as I’d reduced the sale price. I didn’t need the money. I’d accumulated quite a lot in savings and my job paid well.

I’d be living at my parents’ beach house at Seasmoke come tomorrow morning when the movers showed. Well, my place now. I’d bought it from them, in fact. They only traveled to the coast a couple times a year, so no loss to them and it stayed in the family. I loved that house, loved the location, but I had to wonder if it was the right call living there. If a fresh start was my plan—and it was—then I should’ve looked elsewhere for real estate.

Nervous anxiety and dismay coiled in my gut. To be expected, I suppose. A part of me also recognized the flare of optimism, the blip of excitement, too. It was time, long past time, to move on. Easier said than done, and guilt was an entity, but I couldn’t keep hanging by my fingernails anymore. The ledge was crumbling.

Dusk had come and gone, and I was too lazy to switch on an overhead. Besides, the dark had its own soothing appeal. Sins and regrets were so much harder to see under the disguise of night. I relished the quiet and tried to get my mind to do the same. Focusing on the gentle hum of the refrigerator from the kitchen or the whoosh of warm air through the vents, I rested my elbows on my knees and scrubbed my hands over my face.

My cell lit up and vibrated on the hardwood floor by my hip. Jenny Winter’s face grinned on my screen. I smiled for the first time all day.

Unlike our other Seasmoke friends, Jenny and I stayed in contact throughout the year. Aside from the past twelve months when I’d been dating Summer, it had stayed that way. I was content only seeing them once in a hot blue summer moon. Jenny and I emailed a lot, texted, and often Skyped. Been doing it since we were sixteen and I’d first encountered her on the beach. She didn’t have any family, aside from her grandfather, so I typically talked her into coming up for holidays to torture her with my mine. I made the trip down a few times in the off season, as well.

I swiped my screen and answered, knowing she was just what I needed tonight. No judgment. No BS. Just a good laugh and a well-tuned ear.

“Are you all packed?”

I glanced at the boxes through the shadows of the room. “Pfft. I’m nothing if not organized.”

Her laugh filled my ear. Such an unusual sound. A combination of cute, edgy, and squirrely. Levels below irritating and hovering near wild. That was Jenny in a tidy bow. Her laugh indicative of her personality. “Organization takes the fun out of everything.”

Tilting my face up, I thunked my head on the wall, laughing. “I adore your Jenny-isms.”

“I’ll have a T-shirt made.” She paused. “What time do you get in tomorrow? I took the day off. I’ll meet you, help you unpack or whatever.”

And she was kind. Not many knew that about her, but her heart was tender under the tough outer coating. “You didn’t have to do that, but thanks. I should be there by lunch. It’ll be good to hang out.”

She hummed in her throat. “Are you freaking out? Big day tomorrow.”

Intuitive little devil. “Yes and no.” I’d been good until my parents had thrown a surprise going away party earlier tonight, and told her as much. “Made the whole situation slam home.”

“You got this.” She said that phrase a lot when she thought I was doubting myself. Avoiding the placating answers or hand-holding, she’d just simply demonstrate her faith in me with three words. “Have you heard from her?”

Her being Summer. Jenny knew the whole convoluted story, and to add drama to the mix, she used to date Ian. Yeah, that Ian. They were never serious, nothing more than a once a year hook-up at Seasmoke, but they’d been doing it for ten plus years. She had to have her own feelings about Summer and Ian, but she’d never mentioned it and avoided the topic when I’d tried to ask.

I closed my eyes and let out a heavy sigh. “I called her last week. Told her about the move.”

Jenny was silent long enough to have me check the connection. She eventually cleared her throat. “They were always going to wind up together. You knew that.” The resigned tone in her voice belied her grave understanding, as well.

“Yeah. I like to delude myself that I was the catalyst who finally shoved them together.” Lord knew Summer and Ian had tiptoed around their affection for eons. Jenny and I just got caught up in the crosshairs.

“Would’ve happened regardless.” Her soft breathing shushed through the line. “For the record, you deserve all of someone, deserve not to be the guy a woman settles for. You’re some girl’s prince, Matt.”

I was no one’s prince. I wasn’t even a knight.

Rubbing my lips with my fingertips, I tried to get a handle on her and couldn’t. It was a rare day Jenny got contemplative. She was a great listener, the best at giving advice, but rarely pensive. And, once upon a time, I would’ve agreed with her about what I did and did not deserve, but that was before Cara. Jenny didn’t know what went down two years ago, only that something awful had, but I suspected even if she did know, she’d say the same thing.

“Back atcha, Jenny. Back atcha.”

“Fresh start. Clean slate.” She sighed, and I could all but feel it whisper across my skin. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Get some sleep. Drive safe.”

“Will do.” I paused. “Thanks, Jenny.”

“Laters, handsome.”

Disconnecting, I smiled at my phone and her own form of goodbye. She’d been saying that phrase since the day we’d met.

I glanced at the ceiling, realizing she’d soothed some of my anxiety. She was great at doing that. Feeling a little nostalgic, I scrolled through my camera roll. I didn’t have older photos, but there were a few from our annual trip this past July. Quite a few of Summer, a handful of group shots, and many of Jenny. She had a thing for stealing my phone and surprising me with selfies. Ridiculous, silly faces.

I stopped at the last one I’d taken. In profile, she stared at the ocean, arms crossed and sunlight streaming through her cocoa hair. Years ago, when we’d first met, she’d been a wisp of a thing with hair all the way down to her ass. Thick, gorgeous waves. It was cut a few inches below her shoulders now, still just as silky. She’d grown into her body since then, developing curves, angular face filling out, but she was still a waif in stature, just not as frail.

And she had the same look in her eyes in the shot I’d taken that she’d had the day I’d encountered her at sixteen. Lost, distant, and glancing at the vast Atlantic like she’d wished it would sweep her away. Pull her under.

Through the years, Jenny and I had talked a lot, opened up to one another. It was the kind of raw, brutal friendship that a person might be gutted to lose and was hard-pressed to find. Honest to a fault, and she wasn’t the type to sugarcoat things. But I hadn’t told her about Cara, and there was something hovering in the fringes of her past she hadn’t mentioned either. I had the sinking suspicion that, whatever it was, it had left the kind of scars invisible to the naked eye.

Slowly through our twelve-year friendship, she’d changed. Nothing drastic. Nothing that caused concern. Little things. A tattoo here and there. She’d laugh less often. A hardness in her otherwise soft eyes. Her backbone developed in varying degrees. She wore pastels less often and stuck to cool, dark colors.

People mature. That was expected. But Jenny’s changes had seemed more like coping than growth.

Not for the first time, I toyed with the idea of telling her about Cara. I was certain she wouldn’t condemn me, and perhaps it might help get the weight of the events off my chest. Maybe then she’d expose what haunted her golden brown eyes. Something had always held me back. Poor timing or maybe an ingrained intuition I couldn’t handle what she’d tell me in return.

Well, we had nothing but time.

Shoving off the floor, I stretched my stiff muscles and eyed the couch. My bed was stripped and in pieces down the hall. My bedroom furniture was coming with me, unlike the other pieces, so shut-eye meant the sofa or the floor. Stretching out on the black leather sectional, I stared at the shadows on the ceiling.

Eight hours later, I directed the movers on what was staying or going, and climbed in my Buick to make the six-hour drive to my new life.

Jenny Winter

W
hen Matt’s text pinged my phone saying he was getting off the interstate, my heart pounded so hard it shoved ribs. Up until this moment, I kind of figured he’d back out. Go the safe route and stay in Greensboro. Matt wasn’t a coward by any means, but he did like his world neat. Orderly. And a change as big as moving to the coast disrupted that perfect bubble he’d lived in.

I was so damn proud of him. I knew his relationship with Summer would never pan out, and I think he did, too. Yet, he’d pursued her anyway. I’d never deluded myself into wishing Ian could ever be mine. We were a seasonal hookup and nothing more. Had I looked forward to Fourth of July week every year? Yes. Ian was a great lover who’d treated me well. He’d never led me on or made what we had feel cheap. But that’s all it was. Friends with benefits.

Matt, however, had clung to the hope Summer would choose him. I shook my head. Truth be told, Matt loved her, but there wasn’t a spark between them. He might be sad, hurt even, but Summer’s refusal hadn’t broken his heart because it had never become engaged in the first place.

But none of that mattered now. He was moving to Seasmoke.

Smiling at my phone, heat crept into my cheeks. But that was stupid. After twelve years, Matt had never shown any interest in me as a woman. He loved me as a friend. Perhaps even more deeply than he had Summer, but getting giddy would only set myself up for a crash. What had started out as a teenage crush morphed into lust and now I was beyond smitten. Which sucked. Those feelings would never be reciprocated.

The quiet rumble of my grandfather clearing his throat jerked my gaze from my phone to him. He wasn’t having a very lucid day today. Sadly, he was slipping more and more into his mind as the minutes ticked by. Alert blips where he recognized me were infrequent, and it gutted me hollow.

In the care facility where I’d been forced to place him, he was at least getting his medical needs met. Because I owned and operated his former tavern, I worked all hours of the night. He’d built Winter’s Den from the ground up fifty years before the tourist boom of Myrtle Beach was what it is now. I’d always known the place would be handed down to me. I just hadn’t expected it to be so soon, nor for this reason.