A Wildflower Summer

by Caroline Flynn

  ‘What a lovely evening.’ Nancy’s eyes fluttered as well, but for a very different reason.

  ‘It was a nice night.’ He left it at that. Seeing the woman so eager for something, anything, to latch on to only gave Jason greater satisfaction at offering up little in the way of elaboration.

  ‘So, was—’

  ‘Jason?’

  Lily’s head poked over the banister at the top of the stairs.

  ‘Everything okay?’

  ‘Eden wants to say goodnight. She’s adamant.’

  ‘I’ll be right there.’ He kicked off his shoes. It was impossible to miss Nancy’s tight-lipped expression.

  Upstairs, he pressed a reassuring hand against Lily’s back in the doorway. ‘It’s okay,’ he whispered to her, then entered the bedroom.

  The room was just as he remembered, a gazillion pillows on an oversized bed. This time, he knew the angelic little face would be in the middle of the downy comforters and feather pillows, and he jokingly sat down on the edge of the bed with a little bounce, ruffling the linens and eliciting a giggle from Eden. She looked on the verge of sleep, barely awake. Yet, the girl clung to the model car with one hand. The other was rested atop the crisp, white covers, fingers fluttering in a gesture to stay conscious.

  ‘You need to get some shuteye, little girl,’ he said softly. ‘Shut those peepers.’

  ‘Peepers.’ A stifled chuckle followed. ‘Night night, peepers.’

  Jason reached out and held her hand. It was something he always did for Carlie, and the gesture always managed to render him awestricken at how small and fragile a child’s hand was compared to their larger-than-life personalities. ‘Night night, Eden.’

  He gently let go and made to stand, but tiny fingers wrapped around his wrist with surprising strength.

  ‘You’re my friend, Jason.’ Jathon. His name, coupled with her lisp, tugged at his heart strings.

  ‘You better believe it.’

  She released her grip, curling her fingers under her thumb with only her pinky outstretched. ‘Friends forever.’ Her voice was thick with impending slumber. ‘Pinky promise.’

  He watched her for a moment, took in her rounded cheeks and her heavy-lidded eyes. She fought like a trooper to keep them open, and each time they widened for a fraction of a second, the grayish depths pleaded with him to make her this one promise, and to keep it.

  Eden wanted him to stick around. Forever, even though he knew she had no concept of what that meant. He wasn’t sure he knew the vast concept of forever, either. Maybe no one did.

  What he did know was that he wanted her and her mother to stick around as well. How in the world did he say that, though?

  He couldn’t expect openness from others if he didn’t put his feelings out there and open himself up to them, too. And if it was easier to tell a child he adored her than it was her beautiful, talented mother, so be it.

  Things didn’t have to make sense to still be true.

  ‘Friends forever, sweetheart,’ he said, wrapping his finger around hers. ‘Pinky promise.’

  Chapter 17

  Lily

  As a child, Lily was afraid of many things. She didn’t like insects for the most part, and anything creepy-crawly tended to send a shudder racing up her spine. Snakes were worse; the mere sight of one made her heart beat so fast and so hard that she was sure it would burst from her chest. Watching fifteen minutes of the movie It made sure she feared even the most docile of clowns, and there was no way she would ever look at cornfields the same after a few of her friends pulled a prank on her as a teenager.

  But nothing scared Lily the way hearing that promise to Eden fall from Jason’s lips did.

  Worried her daughter would rope him into reading a storybook or talking about the model car in a bid to fend off sleep, she had crept up the stairs. She heard Eden’s request just as she reached the doorway.

  Her daughter’s little voice was enough to suck the air from Lily’s lungs and render her immobile. She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. She could only listen. Lily wasn’t sure what she wanted Jason to say in response, but his choice to make such a heartfelt promise to her five-year-old evoked more fear than any colorfully painted face or centipede.

  Lily didn’t mention the promise when Jason retreated from the bedroom, turning the light off in his wake.

  ‘There, she’ll sleep now,’ he whispered.

  She was glad to hear it, but, somehow, Lily knew that her daughter would be the only one sleeping tonight.

  She was right. Hours after Jason left, hours after she had thanked him for a wonderful evening at the pier and gently brushed off Nancy in a bid to be by herself, Lily lay awake beside Eden. Sleep was the furthest thing from her mind, too consumed by her rampant thoughts. Her daughter’s soft, even breaths were the only thing keeping her calm, allowing her to remain under the covers and stare at the stucco ceiling instead of wrapping herself in her borrowed robe and wandering through her borrowed house in the middle of the night.

  The entire life she had begun in Port Landon was exactly that—borrowed. To say otherwise would be to kid herself. Whenever she spent time with Jason, Lily forgot that fact for a little while, permitting the companionship she hadn’t known she so badly craved to take over her rational mind.

  But it was temporary. All of it. She had known that since the moment her car chugged to a halt. So did Eden, and Nancy, and Jason. They knew, just as she did.

  And still, Lily had been the one to forget the very fact she had been trying so hard to convince others of. No wonder folks were having such trouble believing her. She didn’t consistently believe herself.

  It was time to change that. Time to remember that there was an internship waiting for her in Chicago, that her life started when she accepted the job and pointed her car toward the city. To stay sitting in Port Landon any longer than necessary was merely spinning her wheels, preventing the inevitable and the life she had dreamed of. Port Landon was never part of her plan.

  Neither was Jason. She needed to remind herself of that, too.

  His promise to Eden—he meant well. But promises were sacred in a child’s eyes. Preschoolers were still innocent to the indiscretions and pain brought on by the world around them. They didn’t understand that adults could be anything but their knight in shining armor, the ones who bandaged their skinned knees and wiped away their tears. Adults could do all those things and still break a promise as simply as they’d first uttered it without meaning to.

  Jason had spoken his promise to Eden from a place of comfort, with the desire to ease a child’s mind and lull her into a much-needed sleep.

  However, Lily saw it for what it was: a broken heart in the making. The promise was dangerous.

  So was staying in town any longer. It pained Lily to realize she was the one who had put Eden in such a situation, giving her a chance to grow fond of someone, especially when that someone in question had meant well. When that someone in question was so worthy of such fondness.

  But there was a time when Michael Pennington meant well, too. His broken promises had come from a different place, one of greed and a narcissistic sense of entitlement. Eden’s father was nothing like Jason Forrester.

  Yet, both men wielded promises they couldn’t deliver, that would ultimately crush the trusting and naïve mind of a little girl.

  And Lily had no one to blame but herself.

  Friends forever, sweetheart. Pinky promise. Lily heard those words as though a ghostly presence was whispering them into the darkness. Forever was a long, long time. Especially to a child.

  She needed to stop the vicious cycle. No more pretending the stopover in this tiny town was anything but temporary, and no more chances for Eden to get hurt in the process.

  It was time to leave Port Landon.

  ***

  With the coffeehouse closed, Lily was thankful for the long Sunday that stretched out before her. She was going to need every second of it to get Paige’s dress closer to a finishe
d state. Shirley was a godsend, working on bits and pieces of it even when Lily wasn’t there. After seeing the elderly woman in action, the way her hands looked so frail yet moved with such innate capability as though the sewing machine were nothing but an extension of her own arms, Lily trusted her wholeheartedly to create the dress exactly as it had been designed. It didn’t mean she didn’t want to be a part of the process as much as possible, though.

  Nancy had insisted that Eden spend the day with her while Lily went to Shirley’s. Something about a girls’ spa day. Seven colors of nail polish sat in little glass bottles on the kitchen island, and Lily prayed that, by the time she returned, one of those vibrant shades wouldn’t be permanently splotched on the hardwood floors. The décor in the bed and breakfast was timeless, but even someone as eccentric as Nancy couldn’t make a slime lime spatter match an antique pre-1900s hutch.

  Lily looked forward to the day to focus on her creative endeavor. Spending hours bringing one of her designs to life with the aid of an expert was something most people only dreamed of. A full day of thinking about silk, lace, and the perfect pintuck meant not having to recreate yesterday, which had been a full day of thinking about paying debts, making plans to leave, and—

  ‘Jason.’

  Bounding down the front porch steps into the sunlight, Lily had been smiling to herself, too engrossed in the tulips and dahlias that filled planters on either side of the stairs to see that Jason’s Dodge Ram had pulled up at the curb. He was out of the truck before she registered his presence.

  ‘Hey, Lily.’ He wore the crooked smile that Lily had come to recognize as the perfect accessory to whatever outfit he might be wearing. Today, that happened to be a pair of worn jeans and a black T-shirt that accentuated his broad shoulders. ‘I found this in my truck. Must be from Friday night at the pier.’ He held out Eden’s long-sleeved Paw Patrol shirt, the one she had worn over her T-shirt to fend off the harbor breeze.

  ‘I didn’t even realize. Thank you.’ She slung the shirt over her purse to toss in the passenger seat of her car. ‘You’re up and about early. I hope you didn’t come here just because of that. It’s the weekend, Jason.’

  ‘What can I say, I’m a morning person.’

  ‘That’s just the coffee talking.’

  He chuckled. ‘Touché. And is the caffeine the reason you’re so chipper this early?’

  ‘I’m headed to Shirley’s to work on Paige’s dress. For the whole day. What’s not to love about that?’

  ‘Sounds like a perfect day for you,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to admit, I’m excited to see this dress. Someday, I’ll be able to say I knew you before you were famous.’

  ‘You’re getting a little ahead of yourself.’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not.’ His cheeky grin remained as he shrugged. ‘If nothing else, you’re famous in a small town.’

  ‘Like you,’ Lily quipped.

  ‘Like me.’ Hands in his pockets, Jason rolled a stray pebble around with the toe of his boot. ‘Port Landon’s as good a place as any to get your start. Who knows, maybe it’ll turn into something bigger down the road.’

  There was something about the way he said it that made Lily’s stomach twist. She recognized the acidic taste at the back of her throat—guilt. Tell him, she willed herself. Be honest with him. ‘Fame in Port Landon is a little different than fame in the city.’

  ‘You just wait and see. Another few weeks, after folks see Paige’s dress and what you can really do, it’s anyone’s guess where we’ll be by then. I might have to grab a number in order to get my chance to talk to you.’

  Another few weeks. Where we’ll be. We, he’d said.

  ‘Jason, there’s something I should tell you.’

  ‘That sounds ominous.’ He laughed, but it was tainted by hesitation.

  ‘I should have told you when I first found out, but I—’

  ‘It’s okay, just tell me.’

  She could almost see the fortress being constructed, the way his breathing slowed and his posture tightened, steeling himself against whatever came next.

  ‘I heard back from one of the companies I applied to in Chicago.’ Her voice came out weak, riddled with the guilt of not telling him sooner. ‘They offered me an internship.’

  ‘You got a job in Chicago. Lily, that’s great.’ His words didn’t match his expression. Or maybe it was the other way around seeing as Jason’s face gave nothing away. If he was surprised or elated or sad, he didn’t show it. In fact, his words suggested congratulations, as did the smile he wore, but there was something she couldn’t put her finger on that made the words sound flat, made his smile resemble a mask of sorts.

  Was she imagining it? No, it wasn’t a fabrication. It was hope. Hope that he wore the joyful mask for her sake. Hope that he wanted her to stay just as much as he wanted her to go.

  He ran his hand through his hair. ‘When did you find out?’

  Her face burned. ‘Friday, before …’

  ‘Before we went to the pier.’

  ‘I wanted to tell you. I should have.’

  He waved a hand. ‘You don’t owe me an explanation, Lily.’ Another chuckle rose from his throat. ‘You don’t owe me anything.’

  ‘You’re wrong,’ she insisted, taking a step toward him. Surely, he could see that wasn’t the case at all? ‘I owe you everything. I wouldn’t even be able to leave if it weren’t for you.’

  Jason took a step back. ‘I was just doing my job. I’d never dream of leaving someone stuck here if they didn’t want to be.’

  Immediately, Lily wondered if he was hopeful, too. Hopeful that she would correct him and confess that she wanted to be there. That she hadn’t felt stuck in Port Landon since those first trying days. It was the truth, yet the words caught in her throat like thick cotton. ‘I know you wouldn’t,’ she replied. ‘It’s not that I don’t—’

  ‘When do you leave?’ The intensity in his dark eyes belied his outward calm demeanor. She didn’t know how to interpret it, but it was enough to make her second-guess her previous assumption about what he might be thinking or waiting for.

  ‘I …’

  There were so many things she wanted to confess to him, whether he was willing to hear them or not. There were so many reasons to go, but also so many reasons to be there, right where she stood.

  I want you to ask me to stay, she realized. With you. Ask me to reconsider. To make this work. I want you say something. Not that you were just doing your job, but something, anything, that proves I’m not the only one who wants to hold on to what we’ve found in each other.

  ‘After the wedding,’ she breathed out, choking down every other wistful phrase. ‘I’ve still got a dress to make and some loose ends to tie up.’ She cringed at her choice of words. Her nerves were getting the better of her. It was impossible to wrap up the life she’d begun there with a neat little bow and stow it away like a forgotten memento.

  ‘That’s not far off.’ Jason’s throat moved as he contemplated it. ‘This time next week, you’ll be gone.’

  ‘If I take them up on their offer,’ she clarified quickly. She chanced another step in Jason’s direction, her heart beating like a frenzied bird in a cage. With a sigh, a plea left her lips. ‘Tell me what you’re thinking, Jason. I feel like I’m making a mistake, somehow.’ Hysteria built like frothing water against a dam. ‘What do you think I should do?’

  There it was. A chance offered up to him on a silver platter to open up to her, to tell her what he was concealing behind the mask of detachment. She didn’t want him to make the decision for her—she would never ask that of anyone. But she didn’t want to have to wonder what he would have said had she failed to give him the open invitation to reveal what was in his heart. ‘Let me in, Jason,’ she added in a whisper, as much for herself as for him.

  It could have been the bright sunshine that made him blink rapidly, once, twice, then again. Jason’s chest rose and fell, sighing out an audible breath. Lily anticipated his response as his lips
parted. He took a tentative step forward, closing the gap between them.

  Then, the mask he wore slipped, unveiling a flicker of sadness. Jason held his hands up, palms out, as though to prevent himself from getting any closer. As though, like a moth to a flame, he didn’t trust himself to keep a safe distance.

  ‘Take the job in Chicago, Lily.’ He strode back to his Dodge Ram and left her standing there, more alone than she had ever been before.

  Chapter 18

  Jason

  There’s an expression regarding assumption and what it makes those who assume. Whoever they are that coined the phrase knew exactly what they were talking about.

  Lily was leaving Port Landon. And with good reason. He would never begrudge her the chance to chase her dream as a fashion designer. Hell, those folks in Chicago would have been crazy to look at her portfolio and not want to offer her a job. Jason believed in Lily’s talent, and he believed in her drive to achieve her goal.

  He also believed in their connection. Despite everything, he had begun to feel like they were getting somewhere, together. Getting closer. Unfortunately, Chicago would undoubtedly pull her farther away, undoing whatever loosely knotted ties had been formed. He’d known it was coming, yet it still pained him in a way that defied his common sense.

  It wasn’t the fact that she was leaving that hurt him the most, though. She had known about the job offer before meeting him at the pier. He thought of the way her hand had held his as she prodded him about talking to Natalie and getting a fairer schedule figured out for Carlie, the way she had looked into his eyes and whispered Maybe when he suggested that all he needed was someone who listened to him the way she did.

  He had really thought they had grown close enough that she would have shared such a huge revelation with him. He had thought she would want to tell him, as a friend.

  As maybe more.

  So much misinterpretation on his part. He had been out of the dating game so long, and so wounded by his own failed engagement, that Jason couldn’t even distinguish romantic interest from old-fashioned kindness. What they had was friendship, blossomed on the foundation of a broken car and their daughters of the same age. The connection he had latched on to was based on the mirror image he saw in her; a generous soul broken by the actions of another, determined to rise from the ashes of that heartbreak and find oneself again.