The Sea Glass Cottage

by RaeAnne Thayne

  She just hadn’t expected it to be Henry.

  What would she do if her condition worsened and she needed more consistent care? It was a worry that kept her up at night. This hip injury had only reinforced it.

  She was a lousy patient and had a feeling she would only get worse.

  “You don’t have to tell me. I should be more careful about keeping my cell phone on me at all times so I can call the garden center if something happens.”

  “Good thing I was passing by and happened to see you up there—though I think I lost ten years of my life.”

  Too bad he hadn’t. Then he would be two years older than she was and one more obstacle between them would be gone.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said gruffly.

  “Would you mind letting the dog back in?”

  “Sure.”

  He went to the back door and opened it for Otis, who rushed inside and immediately jumped into her lap, as if to reassure himself that she was all right.

  Henry followed more slowly. “Since I’m here, I’ve got a truck full of shrubs and plants ready to go in at Hidden Creek. I bought them yesterday and I’m heading down today. Do you want to see what we’re planting?”

  “Yes!” she exclaimed. “I would love to. I think I’ll have to use the wheelchair, though.”

  She started to wheel through the house, but Henry quickly took over, helping her out onto the porch and down the ramp to his vehicle.

  She couldn’t see everything from her vantage point in the chair, but what she did see was beautiful. “Love your choices,” she said. “Did Olivia help you pick them out?”

  “No. Melody Baker, actually. She’s very knowledgeable and actually directed me away from a couple of things, toward some choices I think actually will work better.”

  “Oh, I’m so glad she’s working out. I hope she’ll stay on after I’m back. If I ever get back.”

  Suddenly, without warning, she could feel tears burning again in her throat. She was so tired of the pain and the uncertainty and, yes, the fear. She had been afraid when she was stranded there on the ground earlier. Only now did she realize how much. It had been a terrifying thing when she couldn’t make her body cooperate, something she worried was only a precursor of things to come.

  “You’ll get there,” he said softly. “I know it’s hard to be patient but right now your body just needs time to heal.”

  “I know.” To her mortification, she felt a tear slide down. Henry reached a thumb out and wiped it away, which only made more tears trickle down after the first one.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m crying.”

  The lie tangled in her throat. She knew why. She was crying because her heart ached at the idea that soon she would have to push this wonderful man out of her life and she was crying because she selfishly wanted to hold on to him as long as she could.

  “I’ve got a crew meeting me down the coast to help me plant these tomorrow. Want to come along?”

  “I shouldn’t.” She wasn’t sure she could afford to spend more time with him.

  “But you want to.”

  So desperately.

  “It will take you the better part of the day to plant everything. I don’t think I’m up to that,” she said honestly. “I would hate for you to have to cut away early to bring me back.”

  “Understood.” He sounded as disappointed as she felt. “Maybe we could take a drive down later to see it, though.”

  She should not be encouraging him to spend more time with her. She knew it would not end well. But she was weak and stupid and hopelessly in love with him.

  “I would love that,” she murmured.

  He pushed her back into the house, Otis trotting after them.

  “Where do you want to settle while you wait for Olivia and Caitlin to get back?”

  “The wheelchair is fine for now. By the window, where I can enjoy the view.”

  He situated her just so, then stepped back. “Anything else I can get you before I leave?”

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  He leaned in to kiss her cheek. The feel of his mouth against her skin sent shivers down her spine.

  One kiss.

  What would be the harm in sharing another one?

  She turned her head, her gaze locked with his, but before their mouths could meet, she heard someone at the front door and quickly leaned her head away just as Caitlin rushed inside.

  “Hi, Mr. Cragun.” She sounded slightly breathless, as if she had run up Harper Hill.

  “What are you doing home so early?” Juliet demanded, grateful beyond words that Caitlin hadn’t caught her kissing Henry.

  “It’s not that early. I just skipped my last hour, which is PE. I had a stomachache. I talked to Coach Landry and told him I would go for an extra run this weekend to make up for it.”

  She didn’t appear to have a stomachache. She seemed fine, if a little on edge. Juliet frowned but didn’t want to reprimand her in front of Henry for skipping her last class again.

  “Well, I need to take off. I feel better now that you’re here,” he said to Caitlin. “Take care of your grandmother. Make sure she takes her pain medicine, since she fell a little while ago.”

  Caitlin’s distracted expression shifted to concern as she focused on her grandmother. “Wait—what? Are you okay? Did you reinjure your hip or your ribs?”

  “I’m totally fine. Don’t worry about me, darling.” Juliet glared at Henry. He should never have even mentioned that to Caitlin. The girl had enough worries on her mind.

  “I’ll see you later,” he said. “Be careful.”

  She nodded, though she knew it was far too late for that.

  23

  CAITLIN

  She was about to go out of her freaking mind.

  Caitlin carefully set her backpack on one of the kitchen chairs, her attention completely focused on the laptop and the email that had come in just as she was shutting down in the school library at the end of fifth hour.

  Her DNA results were in.

  She had wanted to stay in the library and explore everything contained in that email but she had been terrified at the same time. What if she lost it? This wasn’t something she wanted to read in a public place, where anyone could see her if she broke down.

  She was about to find answers. She knew she was. She simply had to pore over the information until she found them.

  Where was Jake? She needed him! He was so much better than she was at sifting through this kind of information to make the connections.

  She had texted him again, asking him to come over as soon as he was done with his orthodontist appointment, but she had yet to hear back.

  Could she wait long enough for him to come over? Or should she open the email and start looking herself?

  She gazed at her laptop like it was a coiled snake, about to hiss at her.

  “What’s on your mind, honey?”

  Mimi had wheeled into the kitchen behind her, her expression concerned. Caitlin shifted, embarrassed at her self-absorption. Mimi had fallen, Mr. Cragun had said, and had been hurt. Instead of worrying about her grandmother, she was sitting here glaring at her laptop.

  “Nothing,” she lied. “Just schoolwork.”

  “Anything I can help you with?”

  “I think I’m good,” she mumbled. “Thanks, though.”

  For a moment, she was tempted to confide in her grandmother. This news seemed too huge to hold inside and she would die if she couldn’t tell someone. Since Jake wasn’t here, who else could she tell?

  No. She couldn’t tell Mimi. Her greatest fear was that Mimi might think she had embarked on this quest to find her father because she felt like her grandmother wasn’t enough for her.

  That wasn’t the truth at all. Mimi was th
e most amazing grandparent anyone could ask for and Caitlin loved her with all her heart.

  “Are you sure? What course are you having trouble with?”

  “Uh...” Her mind went blank. “Biology,” she finally said quickly.

  “Really? You usually do well in the class.”

  “We’re studying DNA and it’s kind of confusing but I’m sure I’ll be fine. Jake’s really good at this stuff, though. I’m sure he can help me as soon as he gets here.”

  “All right. Well, if you change your mind about me helping you, I won’t be far. I’m going to move to the recliner for a while.”

  “I’ll help you transfer,” Caitlin said.

  “Not necessary,” Mimi said. “Stay here and have a snack or something.”

  She didn’t want a snack. She wanted to go on her laptop and read that blasted email. Instead, she went with her grandmother and, despite Mimi’s protests, helped stabilize the walker so she could transfer out of the wheelchair.

  “Thank you,” Mimi said. “Now don’t worry about me. I’m fine. Go focus on your homework.”

  Homework. She couldn’t even think about homework right now. She wanted to run to Jake’s house with her laptop. She would have, except she didn’t feel good about leaving Mimi after her fall.

  To keep herself from opening the email, she sat on the sofa, not far from Mimi, and texted Jake again.

  To her vast relief, he texted her back immediately.

  Just got this. Sorry. On my way. Be there shortly.

  “Is that Jake?” Mimi asked.

  “Yes. He’s on his way. Whew.”

  “That’s a relief.” Mimi smiled. “You might as well invite him for dinner, if he’s interested. Olivia put something in the slow cooker this morning. It smells like sweet-and-sour chicken.”

  Her stomach growled, reminding her she hadn’t eaten much lunch.

  She should get a snack now but she was way too excited to wait.

  To her relief, Jake showed up at the door just a few moments later.

  “Hey,” he said, with a worried look. “What’s up? You said it was urgent.”

  “Um, yes. You said you would help me with my biology homework.”

  When he looked confused she gave a pointed look at her computer. “You know. We’re studying DNA and stuff.”

  He stared at her for a second, then shook his head. “I’ll help you. But you know how I feel. DNA can only take you so far. The choices we make and the people we surround ourselves with are more important than our DNA.”

  She frowned, not in the mood for a lecture. Jake knew how important this was to her. She didn’t want to hear how she should focus on being grateful she had a loving grandmother.

  “Before you start on homework, maybe you could help out with dinner,” Juliet suggested.

  Ugh. Caitlin wanted to bang her head against the door. She couldn’t wait another minute.

  “Sure. No problem. What can we do to help?” Jake asked.

  Some days, Caitlin really wished her best friend wasn’t such a nice person.

  “Not much. I think we only have to throw some rice into the rice cooker.”

  Caitlin ground her back teeth. Dinner was the last thing on her mind right now, when the answers to her quest might be only a few clicks away. But how long did it really take to start a rice cooker? It was so brainless, even she could do it, and she didn’t like to cook.

  She and Jake worked together measuring out brown rice then adding the water and a smidge of coconut oil, Mimi’s special twist.

  Once they hit the right button on the cooker, Caitlin scooped up her laptop.

  “Okay. Rice is cooking. It will take about fifteen or twenty minutes, which will probably be enough time for us to make a good start on my homework. Are you okay if we go up to my room?”

  “Sure,” Mimi said. “I have a feeling whatever you’re burning to talk about has nothing to do with homework, but go ahead.”

  It was very hard to get anything past Mimi. Caitlin leaned down and kissed her grandmother on the cheek. “Thanks. Love you. Be back in fifteen.”

  She raced up the stairs to her bedroom that overlooked the ocean. She sat in one corner of the window seat and Jake sat in the other one.

  He had grown so tall over the past few years that it was hard for both of them to fit here anymore.

  He would be going to college in another year.

  What would she do without him?

  She wasn’t going to worry about that right now.

  “My results came in, if you couldn’t figure that out by all the hints I dropped on your head.”

  “Yeah. I got that,” Jake said. “What do they say?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t had time to look. And anyway, I feel better about waiting until you are here with me to help me interpret them.”

  She opened her laptop and quickly hit the link in her email that took her to the genealogy website.

  “I’m so nervous,” she whispered.

  He reached a hand out and squeezed her knee. “You won’t know until you look. But just remember, even if you don’t find any connections, you still have a family and friends who love you.”

  “I know that.”

  “I just don’t want you to be too disappointed if you end up not knowing anything new.”

  She drew in a deep breath and looked over the chart showing her results.

  “I have some Native American in me. That’s cool. That’s got to be from my dad, since I don’t think Mimi has any on her side. And I have some from Eastern Europe. Russia or the Ukraine. That could be from my grandpa Steve’s side.”

  Jake looked over her shoulder. “Look. You’re 20 percent Irish. My mom’s mom came over from County Clare.”

  What if Jake was related to her? She’d never thought about that. Wouldn’t that be weird?

  And more than a little horrible.

  “That’s interesting info. I have a lot of Western European ancestry, too.”

  “Where’s the part that shows who you might be related to?”

  She looked around. “I don’t see anything like that.” Had this all been for nothing, as he had warned her?

  “Can I take a look?”

  Jake was tons better at computer stuff. Caitlin handed over her laptop, and after a few clicks around the website, Jake paused and gave her a funny look.

  “What?” she finally asked when he said nothing.

  “There’s a link. Someone else related to you has entered their DNA into the database.”

  She wanted to snatch the laptop back from him. “Is it my dad?”

  He shook his head. “It says first cousin. But according to the info, that could also be an aunt or a grandma or grandpa. It just means one step removed from a sibling or a parent.”

  “It’s probably Mimi or Olivia,” she said, kind of afraid to think anything else.

  “It’s not. There’s a username. Do you want to see it?”

  Suddenly, she wasn’t sure. Fear seemed to hit her in the gut like one of those giant inflatable balls from PE class.

  Why had she ever started this? What a stupid idea. Jake should have talked her out of it.

  She didn’t want to know. Her mom hadn’t loved her enough to stay off drugs. What made her think her dad would want anything to do with her? He had walked away and had never looked back, as far as she knew.

  “No,” she whispered, closing the lid of her laptop. “We should forget this whole thing.”

  “Really? After you’ve gone to this much work to find answers? I mean, we went to the church youth group the other night and everything. This is a big clue, Cait. Everything you wanted to know.”

  She had dragged him along with her, every step of the way. From the moment she put the dream of finding her dad into words, Jake had supported her. She
couldn’t chicken out now. He was right. She was so close.

  She opened the laptop, still facing the screen away from her. “Is there an email address we can look up?”

  “It’s a username. And it’s someone you know. We both know.”

  “Who?”

  He met her gaze. “It says Melody Baker is a close relative of yours. You share a significant portion of DNA with her.”

  Melody Baker.

  Holy shit. She hadn’t seen that coming.

  “Mel is related to me?”

  “Looks like it. It says first cousin, aunt or grandparent.”

  Melody Baker. Melody Vance Baker, whose brother, Cooper Vance, had been her mother’s best friend. The implication left her light-headed.

  “She’s my aunt.” She drew in a breath then another one, feeling like someone had just thrown another of those balls at her. “Mel is my aunt. She has to be. It’s the only explanation that makes sense. Will, Ryan and Charlie are my cousins.”

  “You can’t know that for sure.”

  “I do. I absolutely know it for sure.”

  She should have seen it before. How could she have been so stupid? Her mother only mentioned him every other page in the journal.

  “So that means...” His voice trailed off.

  “That means Chief Vance is my father. That’s the only possibility.”

  “We can’t know that for sure. Maybe there’s another brother. Maybe there’s a dad somehow in the picture.”

  “First of all, ew. My mom would never sleep with her best friend’s dad.”

  She didn’t know how she could be so sure of that but she was, 100 percent.

  “Second of all, Melody told me once that her dad was not in the picture from the time she was little. Third, I know there’s not another brother. Melody and Cooper were the only two kids. Their aunt and uncle lived here, but she told me he was an uncle to her by marriage, so he can’t be my dad. And they didn’t have kids. No. It has to be Cooper.”

  All this time, the answer had been right in front of her. She had wondered if he might be one of the candidates, but her mother’s diary only mentioned him as a friend. Never anything romantic.