His Hometown Girl

by Karen Rock

  If it was a custody issue, he could help her negotiate it. It didn’t sound like the absentee father would put up much resistance. She needed to trust him enough to confide in him. As strong as she was, he wanted to be there for her. The anchor that would give her family stability, the wall she could lean on, the extra pair of arms that would hold her and Tyler both, a foundation strong enough to support them all.

  “Can you give me a hand with the coolers, Daniel?” called his friend Frank.

  He headed over, peering once more into the shadows darkening the eating area. Had Jodi left to put Tyler to bed? He hoped she’d changed her mind and stayed. He’d even taken Grace aside earlier and offered to drive Jodi home. From the knowing look she’d given him, he sensed his feelings were more obvious than he thought. But if he couldn’t get through to Jodi tonight, then when? He needed to seize the moment before she slipped out of his life again.

  Grabbing the nearest cooler, he hefted it, a hand on either handle, and lugged it down to the waterline. They’d have a great view of the fireworks over the lake from here, the coolers doubling as places for kids to stand if they couldn’t see.

  As he returned for another, he passed a stranger wearing a pressed shirt, dress slacks and a tie. Was this Brady?

  “Hello,” the man called as he walked by. “Need a hand?”

  Daniel looked over the guy’s gelled hair, his groomed jaw stubble and gym muscles, and shook his head.

  “No, thanks. I’ve got it.”

  “I’m quite strong, actually.” The man tagged along, his voice reminding Daniel of one of the prep school kids he’d roomed with at Cornell. “I’m glad to help.”

  Daniel sighed. The stranger was more annoying than the mosquitoes whining by his ear. “Suit yourself. Grab any one you like.”

  “By myself?”

  He lifted another cooler and turned. “I can ask one of the women to help you.”

  The man’s angular jaw worked. “I’m sure I’ll handle it. And the name is Brady, by the way.”

  “I figured,” Daniel muttered, his sandals sinking into the cooling sand as he walked back to the lake. Jodi had been dodging the guy for days and now he’d shown up to ambush her. His temperature rose.

  A series of non-prep-school-sounding words made him stop and turn. This was a small town, not a truck stop.

  “Hey, buddy,” he called. “There are kids here. Watch the language.”

  Brady looked abashed, his arms straining as he inched forward. “My apologies.”

  “Just put the thing down and I’ll come back for it,” Daniel grumbled, and continued down to deposit his cooler.

  “So who’s that guy?” Frank jerked a thumb at the man, who now dragged the cooler.

  Daniel filled him in on Brady and his mission, the news making Frank’s eyes narrow.

  A moment later, Mary dropped a cooler close enough to Daniel’s toes to make him dance back. She looked around at the gaping men, her hands on her hips. “What? Who do you think helps out as bar back at The Lounge? This isn’t all just looks, you know.”

  Frank snorted and Ted Layhee lunged and caught her around the waist.

  “Back off, Hands.” When she stomped on his instep, he released her with a yelp. “Or I’m dropping the next cooler on your head.”

  Frank and Ted watched her as she walked purposefully back up the beach.

  “What a woman,” Ted said, then whistled.

  “She can handle more coolers than that joker over there.” Frank nodded at Brady, who’d progressed less than a yard. “Hey, mister,” Frank bellowed, and a red-faced Brady looked up, the cords in his neck visible. “Give it a rest. Mary will get it.”

  Mary whirled and gave Frank a rude gesture that he pretended to catch and press to his heart.

  Despite his worry for Jodi, Daniel laughed at the gang’s good-natured ribbing. This was exactly what he loved about living in Cedar Bay, the generations of family and friends, the experiences and traditions that connected them.

  Sand sprayed as a cooler thudded beside him. “That’s one,” said Brady, his shirt damp under the arms, his hair spiking in every direction. “Does anyone here know Jodi Chapman?”

  “Did someone say my name?”

  Daniel whirled alongside Brady, his eyes drinking in her impish grin, her face framed by a cloud of pale, tousled hair.

  He couldn’t help staring. He’d grown used to seeing her in formal clothes, her demeanor just as reserved. Tonight, though, she seemed more relaxed. Almost dreamy. And so beautiful in a light blue sundress that matched her eyes.

  “Hello, Jodi.” When Brady stepped forward, her eyes turned cold. “You haven’t returned my calls.”

  “I’ve been busy making sales.” And the assertiveness in her tone, the firm set of her features, made Daniel admire her business persona all over again.

  Brady’s smile revealed perfect teeth.

  “Caps,” he heard Mary mutter to Frank.

  Brady ignored the comment and stepped closer to Jodi. “Is there somewhere we can talk?”

  She caught Daniel’s eye. “There’s nothing you have to say that my friends can’t hear.”

  Brady looked around the group. “Friends?”

  Mary linked her arm through Jodi’s. “Yes. Friends. So you were saying?”

  Daniel flanked Jodi’s other side, his fingers lacing through hers. “Say what you’ve come to say. Fireworks are on in ten minutes.”

  “I’m doing a Midland family picnic,” Brady began, his dark eyes on Jodi. “And I’ll need your help to set up. I’m meeting a farmer at eleven, but the caterers are arriving at ten in the town hall, so—”

  “A picnic inside a building?” Mary snorted. “Makes sense.”

  Frank gave her shoulder a light punch and guffawed.

  “Either way,” Brady breezed along, “the weather tomorrow is inclement so I’m arranging a series of indoor entertainments. I’ll need you there to supervise the setup.”

  Daniel tightened his hand around Jodi’s and he felt a surge of pleasure when her fingers curled through his.

  “I won’t be able to help. I’ve already made an appointment with Spencer Tisdale.”

  “Tisdale? The farmer with all the lakefront property?” Brady’s eyes widened and his cocky expression slipped. “Well. Well. Nice work. Heard he was a bit of a recluse.”

  Jodi’s jewel-toned eyes shot toward Daniel and he smiled back at her. “Yes, well. I have connections.” And she did. He’d personally arranged the meeting, for both of them.

  “Then lend me a hand tomorrow and I’ll help you out on that appointment.” Brady’s broad smile smeared the words with honey.

  “No, thanks.”

  “But we’re on the same team.” His friendly expression collapsed into a pout.

  “Not the way I see it. Goodbye, Brady.” She caught Daniel’s eye, angled her head to the left and limped away in her boot.

  When she stumbled on a rock, he was there, his arm around her waist, a hand under her elbow.

  “Thank you,” she said, her blue eyes shining up at him.

  A few minutes later, they’d found a secluded rock a distance from the growing crowd. Daniel’s pulse thrummed. Here was the opening he’d wanted. The chance to convince her to trust him again. And to get the answers he needed from her at last.

  They settled on the stone’s wide surface; every accidental brushing of skin against skin made him feel potent, alive and grateful for the opportunity to spend time alone with her.

  “Brady seems nice,” he joked to wipe the pensive look off her face.

  “If you put rattlesnakes in that category.” Her uncertain laugh faded away. “I’ve got to reach my sales quota before he does.”

  “You will,” he reassured her. “I heard he’s only go
tten verbal agreements. He’s rubbing a lot of people the wrong way.”

  “Good.” Jodi’s shoulders lowered and she sighed as they gazed out at the vibrant sky.

  It was a midsummer’s twilight. The kind an artist would want to paint—a blood-orange sun dripping behind banks of cloud washed with colors ranging from a pale pink to ink-blue. But none of it matched the beauty beside him.

  “And I’ll get Frank and Mary to go to the picnic. Stir things up. He won’t get a sale and you might add the Tisdale farm to Midland’s acquisitions. That should get you closer to the five thousand you need.” She’d been quiet about how much acreage she’d acquired, but from the sales he’d seen her make this week, and the ones he’d heard of, she had to be closing in.

  She looked at him sharply. “Aren’t you going there to persuade the man yourself?”

  He stared at her, struck dumb by the realization that he’d thought only of her. Had forgotten the co-op, what Cedar Bay needed. But what about what he needed?

  He flipped her hand over in his, spreading her fingers out to expose her palm. “See? It’s written here. ‘Tisdale is selling to Midland.’”

  “Since when are you on board with Midland?” She looked at him, puzzled.

  He pulled her hand closer, his fingers running over the mound at the base of her thumb and up toward the underside of her wrist where the skin was almost translucent. He felt her shiver under the caress, his gut tightening in awareness. “I’m not. But I’m on board with you.”

  “Oh,” she said, and her hair fell in front of her lowered face like a golden waterfall.

  * * *

  “MAY I ASK you something?” Daniel’s deep voice jolted Jodi from her thoughts.

  She tensed. “Okay.”

  He looked at her, his gaze steady and measured. “What was in the letter you sent my dad?”

  She relaxed. Safer topic. “Just that I was grateful for everything, appreciated all that he’d done to help, that he’d made what could have been the worst summer of life better and I wished it hadn’t had to end.”

  His fingers skimmed along her sensitive forearm, the touch sending a tiny current buzzing through her. “And were you sorry that we ended?”

  She cleared her throat as emotions battled each other: confusion, regret, shame, hope.

  “I never wanted things to happen the way they did,” she admitted in a croaky whisper.

  “Then why did you leave without saying anything?” His voice sounded as ragged as a battlefield flag. “You wrote my dad a letter, which I appreciate, but you never gave me any warning.”

  Her pulse leaped. Did he still care? “You admitted you pitied me and I didn’t want your charity. You only dated me because you felt sorry for me. What more was there to say?”

  “That I loved you.”

  After a moment of shock and pleasure, something else worked its way to the surface—a dull feeling of disappointment. And stubbornness. Part of her still doubted him.

  “I didn’t know.”

  “Now you do.” He smiled unevenly.

  “But that was a long time ago.” She didn’t trust herself to follow this line of thinking.

  “Was it?” His eyes moved over her face and the breath whooshed out of her lungs, everything freezing for a second.

  She dragged her gaze away, dazzled, her vision clouded by floating black spots. Was he suggesting that he still cared for her? Impossible. And even if he did, it changed nothing. So many people she’d trusted, thought she could count on, had eventually disappointed her. A disturbing sensation pounded through her. That category most likely included her, as well. A sinking sensation made her limbs feel heavy, her foot throb.

  “I have Tyler to think about now,” she said over the throaty song of crickets in the brush behind them.

  He was quiet for a moment as they watched the crowd swell farther down the beach. A few sparklers flared to life and children splashed through the lake’s edge, tracing sizzling light patterns in the evening sky.

  “And there’s no room for anyone else?” His tone was calm, but the shoulder that brushed Jodi’s was stiff with tension.

  Her throat squeezed closed and she shook her head, her mind spinning like wheels on ice. Wishing for Daniel was like wishing for another reality. “Tyler’s my priority.” How strange that guilt accompanied that thought more often than joy. Ever since he’d spoken in front of Sue, she’d had the fleeting sense that there was a reason he hadn’t done so around her. Yet whenever her mind got too close to an answer it shied away like a skittish calf.

  “Couldn’t he be someone else’s priority, too?” Daniel asked, his voice quiet, steady as a heartbeat.

  Now it was her turn to be silent. Questions crowded her brain at once, a fog that had rolled off Lake Champlain and settled there.

  “I can’t imagine it.” And that much was true. If Tyler’s father couldn’t love him, then who?

  He cupped her shoulders gently and turned her to face him. Goose bumps pricked up over her arms. “I can.”

  “Oh.” In her head, her pulse tapped out the passing of time. Let me stay here forever, she thought. Then the reality of their situation wouldn’t drag them apart again.

  “If anything’s bothering you, some problem back home that you need help with, tell me.” Concern darkened his hazel eyes to emerald. “We’re on opposite sides about Cedar Bay, but otherwise I’m with you all the way. Or want to be.”

  She laughed, the sound light but unconvincing. “There’s nothing wrong that a few more sales and a flight home won’t fix.”

  His palm held her chin, gently lifting it so that she met his earnest eyes. “Jodi, trust me. I want to help.”

  As the first bloom of color exploded above them, she pulled away and gazed skyward.

  “I don’t need it. But thanks,” she said. For some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to open up about this last secret—her need to raise the tuition for Wonders Primary. She’d told Daniel so much, yet there was something about her desperate need to get Tyler there, a feeling that had strangely intensified since he’d started verbalizing, that she couldn’t explain. Even to herself.

  As a rocket shrieked into the sky, she wished she could scream along with it, release the frustration inside her. She’d come to Cedar Bay to find redemption for Tyler, not herself.

  Red, pink, yellow and purple flashed as she watched fireworks paint colorful patterns against black velvet. Her mouth trembled when she felt his eyes on her. “Daniel. Aren’t you going to watch the show?”

  “When I see something more beautiful, I will.”

  She looked at him then, her mouth parted in surprise and, as if unable to resist, he pulled her against him. The feel of him drove away rational thought, the drumbeat of her heart registering in her stomach.

  “Daniel. No,” she murmured, but couldn’t move from such warm arms, every breath drawing in his faint smell of musk and fresh air, her heart full of him.

  He laid his cheek against hers. “Why?” he whispered in her ear, his voice rough.

  “You know why,” she whispered back, though there was no one to hear them; the distant crowd more focused on the sky. It was getting harder and harder to remember her reasons for resisting him.

  Her gaze drank in the shape of him—the breadth and contours of his chest, the sharp line of his widow’s peak that her fingers had traced so many times, and his eyes—above all, his incredible eyes. Confronted with his nearness, Jodi understood that she was fighting familiarity, a profound kind of recognition.

  He stroked the back of her head. “I know the timing is lousy, but if we—”

  “But we’re not. It makes no sense when I imagine it,” she said, almost to herself, and pulled away. His absence registered, the way it had once before, as cold rushing in to fill the void.

 
; “So you do think about it.” His eyes lit up. “About us.”

  Her sigh felt as though it came from the deepest part of her. “Oh, Daniel.”

  He cupped her cheeks. “We can make this work.”

  Her brows came together. “Impossible. We both have too much to lose.”

  He seemed ready to argue, opening his mouth and then closing it at her firm head shake. At last, he pulled her close instead. “Our loss, yes.”

  The thought caught in her soul as he let her go.

  She rose unsteadily, an impressive display of pyrotechnics signaling the show’s end.

  “I’d better get back in case Tyler wakes.”

  They looked at each other. She didn’t want to go, the thought of leaving him and this beautiful moment behind an almost physical ache.

  “If you’re sure.”

  “I’m sure,” she said, her trembling voice giving her away. There was nothing more to say. Or too much.

  They waited for the crowd to disperse, darkness falling on them like a warm cloak. Elation that Daniel cared about her, saw a future for them, warred with disappointment that it could never be.

  He led her through the lingering locals, her hand clasped in his. She’d resisted him tonight, but how much longer could her heart hold out? The sooner she got the sales needed for her promotion and left, the faster Daniel could get on with his co-op and they’d return to their old lives.

  It was for the best. But no matter how many times she repeated it, the hollowness in her stomach didn’t go away. And ridiculous as it was, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d forgotten something, or missed something, or lost something forever....

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE AIR WAS stifling and the sky sack heavy with rain as Jodi rode beside Daniel to the Tisdale farm the next day. It felt too hot to move, too hot to think, almost too hot to conduct this critical meeting. She plucked at the green knit dress sticking to her thighs and leaned her head out of the window. She needed to cool her restless mind and focus on acquiring this coveted property.