Paradise Cove

by Jenny Holiday

  “You’re a lot of fun, Jake.”

  He pulled his T-shirt over his head. “You’re a lot of fun, too, Doc.” Stepping toward her, he reached out and smoothed her hair.

  “Do I look like I just got laid in my own exam room?” she teased, making a mental note to come in early tomorrow to disinfect the table.

  He tilted his head and considered her, apparently taking her question seriously. “You kind of do.” He must have liked that answer for some reason, because he grinned.

  Back out on the sidewalk, it occurred to her that they’d had sex twice today. And twice yesterday. And twice the day before that. It had been a three-day weekend on account of the holiday—during the preceding week they’d only seen each other twice—but still. “Do you think we’re having too much sex?”

  “Uh, no?” When she didn’t say anything, he added, “Do you think we’re having too much sex?”

  “No, not really. I’m just thinking I’ve basically never had this much sex before. Or had sex at this rate, I mean. With this frequency. Whatever—you know what I mean.” Even at the beginnings of relationships, in the flush of new love and new lust, she had never had this much sex.

  He chuckled. “It’s probably because we’re both so sex-starved.”

  “Right.” Although she’d had much longer dry spells between relationships. But no. He was right. They were in the right place at the right time. They were attracted to each other and shared the same outlook on what that meant—and didn’t mean.

  “But do you think we should cool it?” he asked.

  She didn’t want to cool it. But would it be harder to stop later, if they kept going at it this furiously?

  They had arrived back at the Mermaid. She shook her head. She was overthinking this. What had happened to not letting her brain get bogged down with worries and junk? So she smiled at him. “No. I do not think we should cool it.”

  He smiled back. “Good.” He saluted and started backing away.

  For some stupid reason, this walking-backward thing he did was hella sexy. Like he knew it was time to go, but he wanted to keep looking at her? Or maybe that was overthinking, too. She ran a hand over her scalp, like she could physically calm her overheated mind.

  His gaze followed her hand. “I like your hair, Dr. Walsh.”

  “I like your hair, too, Mr. Ramsey.”

  It wasn’t until he got almost all the way home that Jake realized with a thud in his gut that he hadn’t paid any attention to Jamila’s prayer at dinner.

  He wasn’t sure what made him think of it now. He was just walking across the dark beach, still basking in the glow of the definitely-not-playing-doctor sex he’d just had. He’d forgotten to leave his porch light on, so it was darker than usual. He rounded the outcropping and looked up, and it hit him.

  Usually the waves came with a warning, but not always. He’d grown familiar with the triggers, and with the subsequent little tells in his body. Seeing someone he hadn’t seen for a long time. Hearing them say, “How are you?” Feeling his shoulders tense.

  But sometimes they just came, like a freak storm from out of nowhere.

  And sometimes, maybe, he made them come.

  Because they were his due.

  Because he forgot sometimes, and that was the worst thing of all.

  He hated those fucking prayers. He dreaded them. He had to work hard not to punch the table during them.

  He knew, with his rational mind, that Jamila meant well. Intellectually, he could even appreciate that she didn’t try to paper over the past. She was kind. She loved his dad—and him. She understood that her happiness was conditional on their having lost Mom, and she didn’t try to pretend otherwise.

  But Goddammit, he hated it when she invoked Jude. She sometimes said something generic, something about missing loved ones who were gone. But sometimes she got rolling and got all specific. Her first year together with his dad, she’d made what felt like an endless speech, asking God to look after Jude, and he’d wanted to stand up and scream. Where had God been when Jude was alive? When Jude was hooked up to so many machines he looked more like a robot than a little boy? Or when Jake decided to wait until the trip to London to get him the flu shot? Where the hell had God been that day?

  He’d calmed down somewhat in subsequent years, because he’d learned to anticipate it. He would do an internal version of plugging his ears and saying La la la I can’t hear you as he said his own prayer of thanks. He thought about his boy and thanked the God he wasn’t sure if he believed in for his nine months and thirteen days with Jude. It had become his own thing, his own little silent Thanksgiving ritual.

  So what the hell had happened to him tonight? He’d been dreading the prayer, as usual. He distinctly remembered sitting in the kitchen, playing with the label of his beer, and fretting about it as dinner drew near.

  But then…what? He’d been too busy holding Nora’s hand like a schoolboy with a crush to even notice it happening right in front of him? He’d let his lust crowd out his tradition of remembering his boy at Thanksgiving?

  Usually, when the waves came, he rushed home. Partly so he could freak out in private. But also because he had found that sitting by the lake, by the real waves, helped. Sometimes, when it was really bad, he’d go into the water. The waves there were stronger than the waves inside him. He could sync his breathing to them, and eventually they would overpower the storm inside him. He could sit until the only waves left were the ones outside his body. Until order was restored.

  But that was assuming he wanted the waves to stop. That he deserved for them to stop.

  He stopped walking as his face heated. Sometimes, when he thought back to laying his hands on Jude’s forehead that first night, his own skin heated in some kind of macabre sensory echo. Jude had been like a little furnace as Jake got him out of his crib, gave him some Tylenol, and sat with him in the rocking chair waiting for the medicine to kick in.

  Jake’s breathing grew short, just like Jude’s had that night as he’d gotten hotter and hotter.

  Panic. Waking Kerrie. Calling Sawyer, who gave them a police escort to the hospital in Zurich.

  He felt it now as though no time had passed. Stumbled forward as he fought the urge to double over on the sand. He needed to go inside. Sitting by the lake would help. Would lessen the attack. But if he was just going to fucking forget about his boy, his child, he deserved the full brunt of what was coming for him.

  He dragged himself up the steps and into the cottage to hunker down.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Surprise! We’re here!

  The next weekend, Nora was having a lazy Sunday afternoon in the back parlor of the inn when the text from her sister arrived. She eyed it with suspicion.

  She was about to text back something along the lines of What are you talking about? when the bell on the front desk started ringing nonstop.

  Uh-oh. That couldn’t be—

  “Happy Walsh-giving!” Aiden, one of her nephews, shouted when she appeared in the reception area.

  Holy crap. Her sister was here with her kids.

  “Wow, when you said mermaid, you weren’t kidding.”

  And her grandma.

  Who was in a wheelchair?

  Nora blinked as they all swarmed her with hugs and exclamations of “Happy Walsh-giving!”

  “What are you guys doing here?” she asked after she had been passed around and hugged by all. She frowned at her grandma. “And what’s with the wheel—”

  “You didn’t honestly think we were going to let you skip out on Walsh-giving, did you?” Her grandma swatted her on the arm.

  Nora was on duty at the inn, covering Eve and Sawyer’s vacation. She’d explained to her family why she couldn’t attend Walsh-giving in Toronto this year, and after an initial flurry of objections, they’d acquiesced pretty easily.

  Which, in retrospect, she should have found suspicious.

  “Grandma thought it would be fun to surprise you.” Erin made a Sor
ry face at Nora behind Grandma’s back.

  “I was hoping maybe we’d catch you in flagrante delicto with that large hunk of a man from last time,” her grandmother said.

  “Jake.”

  “That’s the one.”

  Oh no. Jake. She had to call him. He was planning to come by with dinner, but hopefully he hadn’t left yet. With Eve and Sawyer gone, they’d decided to “revisit first base,” also known as “rolling around mostly naked in a pink room.”

  She hadn’t seen much of Jake since actual Thanksgiving a week ago. She’d been a little worried about it, in fact. Had she come on too strong in the clinic? Was she inadvertently giving off let’s-be-a-couple vibes? She didn’t think so, but he hadn’t shown up with Mick for lunch until the end of the week—that had been the longest stretch she’d gone without seeing him since they started sleeping together. To her relief, when he finally showed up, he seemed his usual self. And when she’d reminded him that she was going to have the inn to herself and suggested a “change of venue,” he’d done his eyebrow wagging and his backward walking and enthusiastically agreed.

  She was bummed to have to put him off, but it couldn’t be avoided. While she adored her family, they were a lot. Walsh-giving would last hours, and Jake didn’t need the hassle.

  She grabbed her purse and started rummaging through it to find his phone number—he’d written it down for her after they’d done “second base” at his place that time, but she’d never used it. “You should have told me you were coming. I would have made food.” She would have tried, anyway.

  “We brought leftovers from the big dinner yesterday!” Erin said. “It’s in a couple coolers in the car.”

  “We have enough to feed an army,” her grandma said. “So if you have anyone you want to invite…like, say, Hunky Jake…”

  She had to call Hunky Jake and uninvite him. “I’m so glad you guys are here. If you’ll excuse me for just one moment, I’ll—”

  “Hunky Jake!”

  Nora followed her grandmother’s gaze to the door, the bells on which were jingling to announce the arrival of a visitor.

  Hunky Jake. Early Hunky Jake. Filling the door frame entirely with his oversize self.

  His eyes darted around. He was trying to make sense of the unexpected scene.

  Oh boy. Sighing, she moved toward him. “Jake. Hi.”

  “Welcome to Walsh-giving, Jake!” her grandma said. She pounded the armrests of her wheelchair in frustration. “If I’d known you were going to be here, I’d have left this thing at home and let you do your knight-in-shining-armor thing. But you can help with the coolers. And dessert. We need to source some dessert. My heathen family ate all the pie yesterday.”

  Payback was a bitch.

  Jake wasn’t really sure how it had happened. He’d thought he was arriving for a booty call, but somehow here he was, seated around the inn’s big kitchen island with Nora covertly feeling him up.

  At least there had been no prayers at this dinner.

  “Thank you so much for the pie, Pearl,” Nora said sweetly as her hand slid up his thigh. After they’d gotten all the food inside, a discussion had ensued over where they would eat. The inn had a bunch of two- and four-person circular bistro tables in the dining room, where Eve served cocktails and snacks a couple of afternoons a week. But there were guests on the premises, and Nora didn’t think they should take over that public space with a big family dinner.

  So Jake had dragged one of the tables into the kitchen, and it was accommodating Nora’s grandma’s wheelchair and her two grandchildren. He and Nora were sitting on stools on one side of the kitchen island, and Pearl and Erin were on the other.

  Thankfully, someone had found tablecloths to cover the surfaces. So at least there was something concealing Nora’s groping.

  “Thanks for letting me crash your party.” Pearl beamed at the assembly—when Nora had gone next door to buy a pie, she’d come back with the bakery’s proprietor, too.

  “This crust design is so clever,” Nora’s grandma exclaimed. Pearl had developed a signature pie for the inn after Eve inherited it. It was a double-crust lemon pie, and the top crust was made to look like fish scales. “What kinds of tools do you use?”

  “The scales are made with cookie cutters and laid over the finished pie. The edge of the crust is made with a pastry wheel.”

  “Maybe I should take up pastry making!” Dr. Walsh said. She turned to Pearl. “I’m a retired surgeon. You have no idea how much I miss cutting people up.”

  “Oh! Why don’t you come over when we’re done? I also have a pastry knife with a bunch of different-size blades you can swap out. It’s basically a scalpel for dough.” She looked at the boys. “Do you guys like video games? I have a brand-new Nintendo Switch.”

  “Pearl’s not just a baker,” Nora said to Erin. “She’s a championship gamer.”

  A few minutes later, the old ladies and the little boys were trundling out the back door, leaving him alone with Nora and Erin—and a boner.

  Nora hopped off her stool and smiled at him. “Want to help me with the dishes, Jake?”

  He glared at her. But keeping an eye on Erin and making his move when she wasn’t looking, he stationed himself at the sink. “Sure. You clear, and I’ll rinse and load the dishwasher.” Which he could do standing at the sink with his back to them.

  She patted him on the shoulder, but she didn’t give him any more grief.

  “What’s with the wheelchair?” Nora asked Erin as they shuttled dishes to Jake.

  Erin sighed. “She’s going to talk to you later.”

  “The cancer’s back, isn’t it?”

  Erin didn’t say anything, but she didn’t have to. Even Jake could tell the news wasn’t good.

  “But why the wheelchair? If it’s spread, isn’t it in her lungs?”

  “She’ll want to tell you herself.”

  “Erin.”

  “It is in her lungs, but there’s another tumor on her ankle. A new one.”

  Aww, shit. Jake wanted to turn and check on Nora, but he didn’t. Not because of the boner. That was gone—nothing like cancer to take care of that. But because to do so felt too intrusive. He wasn’t sure if they even remembered he was here.

  “She says she’s not going to treat it.”

  Something clattered as it hit the marble of the island. “What?”

  He did turn then. Nora had her hands flat on the island, her arms straight, like she was bracing herself. He wanted to be the one bracing her. But he knew she wouldn’t appreciate that. And she seemed to be holding herself up just fine.

  “Yeah, I was hoping you could talk her out of it.”

  “I’ll try. What does Dad say?”

  “He says she’s an adult, and—”

  “Mom! Look what Mrs. Brunetta gave us!”

  The sisters turned toward the younger of the two boys, who was clattering back into the kitchen. They pulled away from each other like they’d been caught doing something wrong.

  The little guy was followed in short order by his brother, who was pushing Dr. Walsh’s wheelchair.

  Jake cleared his throat. “Hey, would anyone like to stroll down to the lake? This town has a tradition of folks making wishes by throwing flowers into the lake.”

  “Yes! Can we, Mom?”

  Erin flashed him a sad smile. “That would be great. Thanks, Jake.” She turned to Nora, who gave a small nod. “I’ll come with you.”

  Maya was working at A Rose by Any Other Name. Of course she was. Maya went out of her way to avoid working at the store. He wasn’t really sure what was going on there, but he got the sense, from overhearing her at the bar, that there was some conflict between her and her father over her role in the family business.

  But naturally, the one day he appeared with Nora’s family in tow was a day she was behind the counter.

  “Jake!” she said with surprise.

  “Hey, Maya.” She looked pointedly at Erin and the kids. He stifled a sigh. �
�This is Erin Walsh, Nora Walsh’s sister, and her kids, Aiden and Brady.”

  “Well!” Maya stuck out her hand to shake Erin’s, but she turned her head and shot him an exaggeratedly inquisitive look.

  “We’re here for some wishing flowers,” he said, keeping his tone as neutral as possible.

  “Of course!” She went to the refrigerated case and returned with a basket of them. Carefully she laid the flowers out on the counter one by one.

  “We only need three,” he said, after she’d laid the third and was reaching for a fourth.

  “Nonsense,” Maya said. “There are four of you. Or maybe you actually need five. Is Nora meeting you?” She raised her eyebrows. She was fishing for information, wanted to know what he was doing here with Nora’s family but not Nora.

  “Nope.” She wasn’t getting anything from him, though he suspected he would pay for this stonewalling later.

  After a minor stare-down, she rang up the flowers—four of them, he noted with annoyance. Erin started to try to pay for them, but he pulled his wallet from his pocket. “No, no. I’ve got them.”

  “Hmm,” Maya said as Erin murmured her thanks.

  And so Jake found himself, for the second time in recent months, standing on the pier thinking about what the hell to wish for.

  He was holding everyone up, too. After he’d explained the tradition to the Walshes, they’d all chucked their flowers in pretty quickly, Brady proclaiming his wish—a Nintendo Switch of his own—out loud and Aiden informing him it now wouldn’t come true.

  They were all waiting for him.

  Why did he keep doing this? It wasn’t like anyone would know if he threw the flower in without making a wish. He would just do that.

  But then it came to him. Even though it was a stupid wish, one that, from the sounds of things, didn’t meet his specific and likely-to-come-true criteria. But he made it all the same.