Until Winter Breaks

by Elana Johnson

  Her eyes turned into glass. She shook her head, her mouth a thin line of disapproval at his question.

  “Then you have no idea why I left.” Jared wanted to stomp out of the house, get on his bike, and ride until it ran out of gas. He settled for clenching and unclenching his fists. “I thought we’d gotten past this.”

  She waved her hand like he was making a big deal out of nothing. “I was just trying to figure out why you’d left Denver. At Sophie’s wedding, you said you loved it there.”

  Jared thought of the Rocky Mountains, the spectacular sunsets, the bustle of city life. “I did love it there. But it was time to go. Surely you understand that.”

  “Of course I do.” She nodded toward the backyard. “You want to come see what I’ve done in the backyard?”

  Anything to get her to stop asking questions about his motivations, his life. Maybe if she could talk about landscaping, lilies, and lilacs for the next two days, he could survive.

  * * *

  After two nights of sleeping on his mother’s couch, and more than twenty-four hours of enduring her questions, Jared’s patience stretched like spandex almost ready to snap. He declined to stay for lunch, donned his leather jacket, gave his mom a hug, and vowed he’d return soon.

  But he’d need at least a month to drive this visit from his memory. He hadn’t remembered his mom being so quietly hurtful. Hadn’t known her words could cut so deep. Hadn’t realized that seeing her with her yard work man-friend would conjure up such strong protective emotions.

  Exhausted, he set his bike on the coastal highway and allowed the rush of the wind and the thrumming engine to blow everything away. Halfway home, he caught sight of a sign that read, “Wildlife Refuge Viewing Area.”

  He veered off the road as strong nostalgic memories of searching for sea life flooded him. He and Sophie used to love going out on the boats their dad made, hanging over the sides, watching the waters for whales, sea lions, and dolphins.

  His father had taken them to tide pools, where they found starfish and snails. Jared removed his helmet as he remembered that not every memory with his father was bad. He pictured his dad at the helm of the boat, the ocean breeze tousling his sandy hair, a wide smile on his face. His father had belonged on a boat in the ocean.

  It was only on land, with the pressures of raising a family and running a business—and the help of a whiskey bottle—that he turned ugly.

  Jared wandered down the path to the cliff’s edge. A wooden fence marked where he should stop, and he leaned against its rungs, his focus on the horizon. Clouds foamed in the distance, but plenty of daylight remained on this Sunday. For the first time since arriving in California, Jared couldn’t wait to get back to his empty house, where no one asked him inane questions about a life he’d left behind, a woman who didn’t love him, and a father who probably had but hadn’t known how to show it.

  The barking of sea lions captured his attention, and Jared looked down to see a creature higher on the beach than it should be. Adrenaline burst through Jared like water gushing through a broken dam. Before he knew it, he’d vaulted the fence and was stumbling down the steep and rocky incline to the secluded beach below.

  He tripped, the horizon dipped, pain punched through his leg as he fell and rolled on the rocks, but he didn’t stop. He collapsed on the gravelly beach, scrambling to regain his feet. He knelt next to the elephant seal, whose warbled yelp sounded like a groan.

  His skin felt like plastic under Jared’s fingers, and though he hadn’t touched a seal in nearly two decades, he knew it shouldn’t feel quite so pliable.

  “He needs to get back in the water.” Jared examined the beach from the seal to the water’s edge and found no tracks. The pup had definitely been out of the ocean too long. The seal flopped, but got nowhere, his flipper falling uselessly back to the sand.

  “Come on, boy,” Jared said, moving around the seal and heaving his shoulder under its back. “Flop like that again.”

  The pup complied, and Jared managed to roll it a whole turn before it wobbled to a stop. His injured leg protested; his head spun; the horizon darkened; he blinked, and everything came into focus again.

  Including the pool of blood seeping into the sand.

  His blood.

  He swayed, his knees meeting packed sand. The elephant seal bellowed, and Jared pushed past the pain in his leg, past the medical attention he needed, past his boundaries. He heaved against the seal again, and watched as it rolled, rolled, rolled into the ocean.

  The satisfying splash of water brought a fresh wave of nausea to Jared’s gut. He shrugged out of his jacket, feeling the bite from the breeze stronger now that he’d lost a pint of blood. He chewed a small hole in the bottom of his shirt, and used the weakened spot to tear away a patch of fabric.

  The wound in his calf pa-pulsed, pa-pulsed. He couldn’t stop his vision as it co-convulsed, co-convulsed. He bit down hard, and focused.

  He pressed the patch of fabric against the wound on his left calf, grinding his teeth against the groan emanating from deep in his core. Whiteness blanketed the red as the pain spiked. He closed his eyes. His breathing became labored. He counted his heartbeats. One, two three.

  Four, five, six.

  The pain subsided, and he opened his eyes. Keeping pressure against his calf, which must have been punctured by one of the sharp rocks littering the cliff he’d practically fallen down. His jeans bore a gash, and he tugged at it with his free hand until it ripped.

  He swore as the fabric met the seam and wouldn’t budge. He worked it with his teeth, using his incisors against the threads until the lower part of his pants released.

  Relief sang through his bloodstream so strongly he almost lay down on the sand and cried. Keeping his composure, he wrapped the piece of denim around his calf, knotting it tightly against the patch of fabric he’d torn from his shirt.

  Pleased with the makeshift bandage, he managed to bear his weight on his good leg. Through a pattern of limp-drag, limp-drag, he got himself up the well-worn path and back to his bike.

  He had plenty of time before darkness fell, but his new worry centered on how much blood he’d lost, the food he hadn’t eaten at his mom’s, and if he was strong enough to get himself back to Redwood Bay.

  Without insurance, he couldn’t afford a trip to the hospital. His leg hurt, sure, but he could doctor it up at home with a few bandages and a lot of painkillers. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed the person he wanted to see most. The person he wanted at his bedside when he woke. The person he hoped would be able to carry him to bed when he managed to get home.

  “Jared?”

  His insides quivered at the mere sound of Millie’s voice.

  “Hey, sweetheart.” He exhaled, hard. “I have a favor to ask.”

  * * *

  Millie sat on Jared’s front porch, her right foot twiddling around and around a pebble resting on the steps. She couldn’t seem to stop herself. The normally calming roar of the ocean was driving her mad. She needed something to fill this silence. Preferably a very loud motorcycle engine.

  Finally, after what felt like hours, she heard the noise she sought. She leapt from the porch, her gaze easily finding Jared’s injury. He’d barely stopped the bike before she arrived, bearing his weight as he slid from the seat.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “What happened?”

  “Elephant seal. Rocks. Cliff.” He panted as he limped up the steps. “Door’s locked.”

  “I went in the garage,” Millie said, straining under his weight. It’s true what everyone says, she thought. Muscle weighs more than fat. She kicked open the door and they entered the house.

  “I got out Sophie’s first aid supplies,” she continued, using her placating, patient tone. “You’re going to be just fine.”

  He collapsed on the couch, and she helped him put one leg on the couch and his injured one on the coffee table.

  “I’ll get you some pain medication.” She hurried
to the fridge for a bottle of water and gave him four pills to swallow. He leaned his head back, his eyes closed, as his chest rose and fell in a shallow pattern.

  Millie’s mind sloshed back and forth. She’d experienced this before, when the deputies came to tell her they’d found a body in a crevice. She’d screamed then. Wailed. Lost her memories for a few hours.

  She would not be that person again. She shook her head to dislodge her past, snapped on a pair of gloves, and gently untied the knotted denim around Jared’s calf.

  The smell of blood hit her like a wall, a cloying, metallic scent that stalled her fingers and sent a tremor through her well-constructed wall that would’ve registered on the Richter scale.

  “I’ve dreamt about you being my nursemaid,” Jared said, his words running over each other.

  Millie ignored the thrill squirreling over her shoulders just like she ignored his words. She dabbed at his leg, trying to find the source of the wound amidst all the congealed blood.

  “Ouch!” he complained, jerking his leg back, and she was certain he didn’t want her to be his caretaker anymore.

  “Hold still.” She gathered a fistful of his jeans just above the knee to keep him in place while she worked.

  “I also imagined you speaking in a nicer tone.” He sighed as the pain medication kicked in. She continued her exploration of his calf, gently cleaning away the mess, hoping he’d fall asleep.

  Sure enough, only moments passed before his breathing evened out, before his hand fell slack over the edge of the couch.

  Millie wilted too, her backbone turning to putty. She allowed herself a few moments of grief. Fresh, new, overwhelming grief at what she’d lost. Then resolve came slithering back, bringing with it a measure of fury. The cracks inside her filled, overflowing with angry feelings. The bricks in her emotional protections that had crumbled at the sight of Jared broken, bleeding, bruised, solidified again.

  She cleaned the wound, a puncture about an inch in diameter, and placed a gauze pad over it. He’d need stitches, but she’d wait until he woke up to get him to the hospital. After everything had been taped in place, she leaned against the couch, Jared’s good leg pressed into her back.

  Tears slipped down her face, but this time they weren’t because of her misery. This time they weren’t because she was suddenly only one half of a whole.

  This time they were because she’d almost lost something she cared about, but this time, she hadn’t.

  * * *

  Millie curled into Jared’s bed, the manly scent of his skin coiling around her. Light fell across her closed eyes, and she sat up straight, her heart thudding as she remembered why she’d slept over.

  “Mornin’, sweetheart.” Jared emerged from the bathroom, a towel secured around his waist.

  She clamored out of bed. “How are you feeling?” Her gaze slid down his body to his calf. “Can you walk all right?”

  “I did okay,” he said, hooking his thumb over his shoulder. “Good thing Sophie has one of those fancy showers with the built-in bench.”

  “You need stitches.” She glanced to the bandage still on his leg. “I can drive you to the hospital.”

  “I’m not going to the hospital.” He set his mouth in a determined line. “I’ll be fine.”

  “Do you need more pain medication?”

  “I woke up with the worst taste in my mouth and my leg throbbing like it had it’s own heart. I took whatever you’d left on the coffee table.” He put two fingers under her chin and lifted her gaze from his leg to his face. “Thank you, Millie.”

  She hadn’t known him for long, but she recognized the softness in his eyes, the tenderness in his touch. She’d seen him gaze at her shop like this as he admired his handiwork. Seen him exude these vibes as he ate his favorite sandwich.

  “Ibuprofen,” she said through the scratches in her throat. “Thought you might need it in the night, but I couldn’t sleep on the hard floor.”

  His eyebrows twitched upward. “You tried to sleep on the floor?”

  “Yes.” She brushed a lock of his damp hair off his forehead, trailing her fingers down the side of his face, over his bare shoulder, and down to his hand where she held on for a mere inhalation. “I’ll let you get dressed.”

  She retreated from the bedroom as fear spiked her blood sugar. She couldn’t allow him to look at her with such affection. She couldn’t allow herself to touch him so intimately. If she did, she’d fall in love with him, and she simply couldn’t risk losing someone once she fell in love with them. No, it was definitely better to remain single.

  “Millie?” Exasperation rode in his tone, making Millie hurry to his closed bedroom door.

  “Yeah?”

  “I—I need your help.”

  She gripped the doorknob with one hand and the door itself with the other as she slowly pushed into the bedroom. “My help?”

  He sat on the edge of the bed, fully clothed, thank goodness. “I think I overexerted myself. I can’t seem to stand up.”

  She crossed the room to him, hoping she had the strength to shoulder his weight. Instead, he took her outstretched hand and pulled her onto his lap. “Oh, this is much better.” He nuzzled his face into her neck and took a deep, deep breath.

  “Stop it,” Millie said, smacking his shoulder and trying to stand. “You’re just fine.” A giggle escaped her lips, effectively diminishing her chastisement.

  “I’m not fine,” he insisted, his hands tightening around her waist, keeping her close. “I need you.”

  His whispered confession shot panic straight to her heart. He could not need her. He could not possibly want her. He simply could not.

  He seemed to sense her desire to put distance between them, because he released her.

  She stood and took a step away from him. “Jared,” she started, but couldn’t seem to find the words to continue.

  “At least you didn’t start with ‘look’.” He tried for a grin, but didn’t quite pull it off.

  “I’m—this really has nothing to do with you.” Millie escaped to the bedroom door. “I just—you can’t need me.”

  “Why not?” He stood, putting little weight on his injured leg.

  “Because we barely know each other.” She ticked off the first item on her fingers. “Because you can’t stand me and my opinionated mouth. Because I don’t like men who take risks with their lives. Because I’m—” The word married died on her tongue.

  Horror snaked through her, and she spun away from his inquisitive stare. She fled, the gulf inside her gaping as she realized, not for the first time, that she was no longer married to Brady.

  Chapter Eleven

  Jared tried to stop the hemorrhaging in the area around his heart. He must’ve misread the signals. Or maybe he just made them up. But Millie had seemed so concerned about him, had been waiting on his porch, had answered his plea for help so readily.

  He limp-stomped after her, wincing as he thunked down his porch steps and up hers. He rapped on her door, intending to turn his knock into a pound if she didn’t open up.

  She did, whipping the door open so fast he almost hit her in the face.

  “Look—”

  “No, you look,” he interrupted. “I’ve worked with you for almost two weeks. I know more about you than you think I do. Second, I do like you and your opinionated mouth. Third, I don’t know what you’re talking about with the whole risking my life thing. I went down to the beach to save a seal.” His chest heaved, but the storm didn’t lessen in her eyes.

  “Are you done?” She cocked her hip and put one hand on it.

  How he wanted to take her in his arms, make her feel safe and secure. “No.” He leaned against the doorway to provide some relief to his leg. “What were you going to say last? You’re what?”

  The storm inside her died. The emotion blinked out. Her face became that plastic mask of Millie Larson, the one she wore when she caged everything deep inside. The one that concealed her true self from those she wanted to
hide from.

  He hated that she was wearing it now, with him.

  “Why do you hide from me?” he asked, barely keeping the river of unrest from infesting his voice.

  “I am not hiding from anyone.” She lifted her chin a good three inches.

  “Then finish the sentence.”

  “Get out of my house.” She pressed her palm against his chest, but he refused to budge.

  “You’d shove an invalid off your property?” He allowed himself to fall back a step, though his leg poured a protest of pain into his hip.

  “You’re not an invalid. You made it over here just fine.”

  “Same way I made it home: Adrenaline,” he said. “Millie, please.”

  She brought the door almost all the way closed, speaking through a two-inch gap. “You want me to finish the sentence? I’ll finish it. I’m not interested in you.” The door clicked closed with a finality Jared had felt several times in his life. How could he be reliving it again? What changes did he need to make in order to get a different outcome?

  He loathed the sound of closing doors, like the one he’d slammed when he’d left Redwood Bay. Like the one Carla had crammed down his throat in his office, not even having the decency to break-up with him in private.

  And this closed door? This door with Millie still breathing on the other side?

  “You’re lying,” he called through the solid wood. “I know you’re lying.”

  She didn’t answer, and Jared had no choice but to return to his own house.

  * * *

  Jared didn’t go into work with Millie that morning. She was reopening the shop for the first time since the storm, and he’d imagined himself standing next to her, maybe his hand securely in hers, while her friends and customers oohed and ahhed at the transformation. Maybe he’d imagined her kissing him after everyone had left, and maybe he’d fantasized about pressing her against the wall in her sewing room and showing her that she wasn’t a rebound, that he cared about her even if they’d only met a couple weeks ago.