Beloved in Blue_Sweet Contemporary Beach Romance

by Elana Johnson

  Chapter Nine

  A thread of awkwardness still connected her and Adam while they waited for their food. He made small talk and didn’t seem to care that she barely contributed to the conversation. She couldn’t. Every internal organ was quaking, shaking, wondering what in the world she was doing.

  Dating her late husband’s best friend? Who did that?

  But Maya hadn’t seemed to have a problem with it, on any of the numerous occasions Janey had brought it up with her. She really needed to talk to Gretchen about it, but she didn’t want to. Didn’t want this weekend to be anything but perfect for her best friend. And besides, Adam wanted to keep their relationship in the shadows for now too.

  Their number was called, and he got up to get their food. When he returned, she’d finally managed to quell the tremors in her stomach. Her pulse still rippled whenever Adam trained his handsome eyes in her direction.

  He’d ordered a buffalo chicken wing mac-and-cheese as well as a cheesy chips and queso. She stared at the huge portion and asked, “Can you eat all that?”

  “Sure.” He picked up a chip and dunked it in the spicy cheese dip. “You can have some, though.”

  She picked up one half of her waffle grilled cheese, which had been cut into triangles, and bit into the corner. Salt, cream, and crispy, browned waffle met her tongue, and she moaned. “Oh, my gosh.”

  “Right?” He nudged his queso closer to her and she took a chip to try it.

  “Also delicious,” she said, grinning at him.

  They ate in silence for a few minutes, and then he cleared his throat. “So, we should probably talk about Matt.”

  Janey’s muscles seized and then seemed to melt, leaving her feeling discombobulated and out of sort. “Oh, uh....”

  “Just something you said on the phone last night,” he said.

  “Oh, what did I say?” She searched her memory for what she could’ve said during their brief call the previous evening.

  “You said you never dated, which I know isn’t true.” He took a drink of his soda. “You meant you haven’t dated since Matt died.”

  Janey swallowed and nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I meant.” She dunked her waffle sandwich into her bisque and took a bite, the spiciness of the soup only enhancing the mellow cheese.

  “Why’s that?” he asked.

  She paused, searching his face to see if he was joking. He didn’t seem to be. “Are you asking me why I haven’t dated since my husband died?”

  He flinched as if she’d flicked water in his face. “Yes, that’s what I’m asking. It’s been twelve years. I mean, I didn’t expect you to start dating the next day or anything.” He stirred his mac and cheese. “But twelve years?” He shrugged, like that would punctuate it all perfectly.

  She squinted at him. He’d never been vague like this before. What Adam Herrin thought, everyone knew, because he said it. Unapologetically, the way he had last year when he’d argued against increasing the budget to expand the library. He hadn’t been popular with moms for a few months, but in the end, he’d been right. The old community center functioned brilliantly as the new library, and the smaller building now housed the public works city offices.

  Tilting her head, she took another chip and dipped it. “What are you really asking me?”

  He shrugged one of those powerful shoulders again, and while she’d found it cute before, she didn’t now. “Come on,” she said. “Tell me.”

  He exhaled and put his fork down. “I guess I’m just wondering if I even have a shot here.” He looked away. “I mean, I don’t think how I feel is a secret anymore, and I’m not gettin’ any younger. So.”

  Since he was the first man she’d even seen since Matt’s death, Janey had no idea how to tell if he had a shot or not. They’d been friends for a lifetime. How could he not have a shot?

  “Why haven’t you gotten married?” she asked, dipping her sandwich again.

  He cleared his throat and then put an overly-large bite of food into his mouth. She waited until he chewed and swallowed, admiring the slow flush that crawled across his cheeks.

  “I’d rather not say,” he said. “Right now. Maybe after—I mean—maybe in the future.”

  Janey liked that she could fluster the tough, tall chief. “I think you have a shot,” she said, causing his gaze to fly to hers.

  “Yeah?” He looked so boyish with all that hope shining in his eyes.

  She laughed and reached across the table to squeeze his hand. “Yeah. Why are you so surprised?”

  “I don’t know.”

  But he did, Janey could tell. The Chief of Police wasn’t a great liar. He just had another thing he didn’t want to tell her. Right now, she thought. And she had time to get answers from him. She wanted to go slow, see if she could work out her knotted feelings before she made any big life changes.

  Since he’d put something on the table between them, she leaned forward and said, “I’m interested in whatever you want to tell me in the future.”

  “Could be a while,” he said, his voice taking on the gruff tone he used as a police officer.

  “I’ve got time,” she said. “I—I don’t want to go too fast anyway.”

  He nodded, the sparkle in his eyes so darn attractive Janey could barely maintain eye contact. “Sounds like a plan.”

  She groaned. “No plans until the weekend. Then I’m sure Gretchen will have me running from dawn until dusk.” Her phone chimed and she glanced at it to see she’d gotten a text from her best friend. “Speak of the devil....”

  Janey swiped open the email and read quickly, a laugh starting in her chest. She turned it toward Adam. “I was so right. Look. An itinerary for this weekend.”

  He studied her phone and then picked up his. “Do you think I got one of those?” He swiped and tapped and scrolled. “Yep. I sure did.” He shook his head but he was smiling. “She’s detail-oriented, isn’t she?”

  “She’s the best.” Janey flipped her phone over and set it on the table, a wild idea occurring to her. “Have you ever been up to the bell tower this town is named after?”

  “Oh, sure,” he said. “I got to come when they rededicated it and stand in uniform behind the podium. You know how cops sometimes do.” He rolled his shoulders as if to say No big deal. I’m just a celebrity.

  Janey finished her soup and sandwich and said, “Well, I’d like to go see it. I’ve only been there once, and it was before the rededication.”

  “Oh, it’s great,” he said. “They built new bathrooms, and put down a huge field, and there’s a nice plaque and monument now.”

  She stood and extended her hand toward him. “Care to take me there, Chief?” The moment his hand met hers, Janey’s whole body sighed. She remembered feeling like this with Matt too, and she basked in the memories instead of pushing them away.

  Adam had already brought him up; maybe Janey could too. “I miss him a lot, some days,” she said as they left the cheese restaurant. “And other days, I don’t think about him at all. It’s strange, and there’s no rhyme or reason to any of it.”

  She couldn’t look at him, but the way his hand tightened on hers was enough of an indication that he’d heard. That he was okay talking about Matt.

  “Sometimes I wonder what he’d be doing if he was still alive.” Adam’s voice was so quiet, Janey could barely hear him.

  “He loved the ferries.”

  “But he was more than that,” Adam said.

  Janey scrunched up her face, trying to imagine Matt now. She couldn’t. “He’s completely frozen in time for me,” she said. “I can’t even imagine what he might look like now, or what he’d be doing. He’s still that twenty-four-year-old man I fell in love with.”

  “He was a great man,” Adam said, his head down and his hand still tight in hers.

  “He was.” Janey lifted her head and put one foot in front of the other as Adam led her down the street and through a park. She’d only spoken to her mother and sisters about Matt, and it felt cl
eansing to add Adam to her very short list of trusted confidantes. It also reminded her to call her mom and talk to her about Adam.

  Why hadn’t she thought of that before? She didn’t need Gretchen—she could call Annabelle after she put Jess to bed that night. Set on her plan, and hoping for some good advice about the upcoming beach weekend with Adam, she could focus on the beautiful bell towers that had been built on the rise of the hill and thus earned the town of Bell Hill it’s name.

  “Oh, my gosh, I was just going to call you.” Annabelle didn’t even use “hello” to answer Janey’s calls anymore. Janey swore her sister just picked up and continued a previous conversation whenever she called.

  “What? Why?” she asked.

  “Guess what I just heard?”

  “I’ll never guess.” Janey sorted through the pretzels in her bowl to find three chocolate chips in the bottom. She popped the pretzel and the three chips into her mouth together, the best treat on the planet.

  “Tommy Ryan is back in town.”

  Janey let the chocolate melt against her tongue. “Tommy Ryan, my high school boyfriend?”

  “Yes!” Annabelle shrieked. “And he’s divorced, and you should totally go out with him.”

  Janey sighed, but Annabelle kept talking. “I know you don’t date, but I really think you should break your vow of celibacy when it comes to him.”

  “I didn’t take a vow of celibacy.” Janey scoffed. “And I’m not interested in Tommy Ryan. Or have you forgotten why we broke up?”

  “So he went out with another girl when he got to college.”

  “No, no,” Janey said. “No. It wasn’t a girl. It was his English professor, and it was more than one date, and we weren’t even broken up yet.”

  “He was out of high school. It wasn’t illegal.”

  “I’m not interested.”

  “Janey,” Annabelle whined. “He even asked about you.”

  “You’ve seen him already?”

  “He came into the shop.” Her husband owned a sailboat shop. Rentals and purchases.

  “Oh, is he in the sailboat market?”

  “Maybe.” But the tone of her voice said Totally not.

  “I’m not interested.”

  “Come on, you—”

  “I’m not interested, because I’m already seeing someone else.”

  A deathly silence came through the line, and a sliver of satisfaction squirreled through Janey that she’d rendered her mouthiest sister quiet.

  “I’m sorry,” Annabelle said in a freaky, calm voice. “I don’t think I heard you right.”

  “I’m sure you did. In fact, he’s why I called.”

  Another shriek came through the line, and Janey held the phone away from her ear while she collected another pretzel and it’s accompanying chocolate chips.

  “Who is it?”

  “Oh, I can’t say yet,” Janey said, a teasing quality in her voice.

  “So I know him.”

  “He’s a native of Hawthorne Harbor, so yep.” She could practically hear her sister’s wheels turning, and Janey wondered if she’d already said too much. “Anyway.” She cleared her throat. “This is okay, right? Me dating another man.”

  “Oh, honey.” Annabelle’s voice turned compassionate. “Of course it’s okay. Matt’s been gone for a long time.”

  Janey’s attention wandered to the picture of her and Matt sitting on her bedside table. It showed the two of them up at the lake at the lodge, the day he’d asked her to marry him. It was just a quick selfie, but it was a day Janey didn’t want to forget.

  “I feel like I don’t know him anymore,” she said.

  “You didn’t get enough time to really know him,” Annabelle said. “It’s normal and healthy for you to move forward. Find someone new to spend your life with.”

  Janey snuggled deeper into her pillows, her reading device dormant beside the picture on the table. She’d stay up for another couple of hours after she finished with Annabelle, because reading in the middle of the night was the only time she truly felt free.

  “So tell me about this mystery man. How many times have you gone out?”

  “Just twice,” Janey said.

  “So no kissing, I assume?”

  “Too early for that,” Janey said, though she had thought about what it would be like to kiss Adam. It was kind of hard not to imagine it with the man’s arm around her shoulders and the bells vibrating in the wind and the beautiful Washington countryside sweeping out in front of her.

  “But you like him?”

  Janey took a deep breath and said, “Yeah, I like him,” as she pushed the air out of her lungs. It felt good to say it out loud to someone else.

  “Well, I can’t wait to hear who it is.”

  If Janey knew her older sister—and she did—she’d have already sent a text off to Lily Stoker, the owner of the bridal shop on Wedding Row. The dress shop was the hotbed of gossip in Hawthorne Harbor, as it had a constantly rotating door of women coming and going. Just because they were all engaged didn’t mean they didn’t know who was dating who.

  Janey plugged in her phone and reached for her book, satisfied that she and Adam had kept their two dates as far from prying eyes as possible—and hoping they could continue to do so this weekend at the beach.

  Chapter Ten

  Adam ran down the beach on Friday morning, his feet matching the rhythm of his breathing as he kept his eye on Gypsy. She frolicked out in the surf, as usual, barking at an errant bird that hadn’t flown south yet.

  The summer had clung to Hawthorne Harbor for a few extra weeks this year, something his step-father was thrilled about because it meant better lavender growth for next year. Adam didn’t mind it either, and he hoped the warmer weather would last through the weekend.

  Ah, the weekend. He’d never spent a lot of time lying on the sand at the beach, but he’d looked through Gretchen’s itinerary, and there seemed like there’d be plenty of time for relaxing in the sun.

  He’d texted Janey early, before he’d started his run, and said, Seems to be plenty of free time this weekend. Maybe we can sneak away for a stroll down the beach?

  She hadn’t answered by the time he’d put his headphones in and started his morning ritual. The house where they were staying this weekend was located at Double Bluff Beach, one of the sandier beaches on Whidbey Island. He wasn’t sure what the running conditions would be like, as he didn’t take many beach vacations. But there was an exercise room in the clubhouse nearby, and Adam thought he might use that.

  Or he might not run at all. But running provided such a great way for his mind to work through things that he couldn’t usually go too long without pounding the pavement.

  Today, all he could think about was Janey, and while she’d haunted him for years, this was different. This was him holding her hand, and smelling her perfume, and having fantasies of more than that.

  He’d never allowed himself to venture too far into those dangerous waters, because there was no point. Matt had claimed her on the very night Adam had wanted to make his move, and there was nothing he could do to change history. Sure, he’d dip a toe in when he took her presents, but he was always quick to remind himself that she wasn’t really available.

  But his last date with her had said maybe she was. And it was that slippery maybe that he clung to, hoped in, ran for.

  When he got back to his car, his phone flashed with a blue light. His heart kicked up a notch as if he was still running. “Could be anything,” he told himself as he reached for the sports drink in the console. Bypassing the phone beside the bottle, he pulled the drink out and guzzled it, silently hoping the blue light belonged to Janey.

  Satiated and ready to shower, he sat behind the steering wheel and allowed himself to brighten the phone screen. Just to see who’d texted.

  He had eight texts, one of which was from Janey.

  We’ll see.

  What a perfectly diplomatic answer. He sighed as he ignored the texts from Sar
ah, his secretary, and Trent, the officer assigned to the early morning shift that day. He wasn’t going in to work today, and their questions could wait until Monday. Or they could ask Milo, who should be walking in the door within the hour.

  After showering, packing, and hunting around the shed for a football, Adam tossed his bag in the backseat and returned to the house to face the dogs. “All right, you two,” he said. “Come on.”

  Gypsy almost trampled him in her enthusiasm to please him. “Sit down, sit down.”

  She complied, her smile infectious. He grinned at her and said, “Come on, Fable.”

  The husky approached more slowly, still licking his jaws as Adam had interrupted his breakfast. He stopped beside Gypsy, but Fable didn’t sit. He would—if Adam had a treat to give him. But otherwise? He could stand, thanks.

  “Brenda is coming over after work,” he said. “You remember her, don’t you?”

  Gypsy cocked her head as if truly trying to figure out if she could remember Brenda. Fable just stared at him.

  “She’s taking you home with her while I’m gone. I don’t want any trouble.” He gave a stern glare to Fable. “All right?”

  The husky yawned, extended his front paws out in front of him, and kept his hindquarters up in the air as he stretched.

  “All right.” Adam gave them both a scrub along the ears, grabbed his wallet and keys, and left the house. He drove out of town and down around Discovery Bay, marveling at how much lighter he felt just being outside the Hawthorne Harbor city limits.

  It was miraculous, really, that he could drive for a couple of hours and end up somewhere that felt completely different from Hawthorne Harbor. While he loved his job, he didn’t get outside the city limits much, and he rolled the windows down on the cruiser to let in the fresh air and the scent of freedom.

  He took the ferry from Port Townsend, wondering how Janey was going to make it to Double Bluff Beach. The ferry from Port Townsend to Coupeville was about a forty-five minute ride, and to his knowledge, Janey hadn’t been on a ferry since Matt’s death. She rarely left town at all. He stood at the railing, the sound of the seawater splashing the sides of the ferry filling his ears, as well as the scream that he probably kept too close of an eye on her if he knew such things about her.