Snowfall on Lighthouse Lane

by JoAnn Ross

  Aiden laughed even as this conversation reminded him of the ones he’d have in Afghanistan. His fellow Marines tended to fall into two categories. Those who believed themselves invincible, who tended to lessen exponentially with each succeeding tour, when their thinking turned to more of an odds deal. Like how many tours could a guy do before his ticket was punched?

  Then there were those, like Aiden, who every time he went beyond the wire, knew it could be his last day on earth. They were the ones who’d sit around talking about what happened when you died. They’d lost one of their team in a helo crash in the Kush Mountains and it occurred to him that there hadn’t been any discussion before or after the boots and helmet ceremony where, if anywhere, that guy might have ended up. Despite his Catholic upbringing Aiden had decided that dead was dead. And death was final, right? But maybe not.

  “When you...” Damn. There were times when the pain was as raw as it had been that night. This was one of those times.

  “Died?” Bodhi prompted.

  “Yeah.” If Bodhi wasn’t a hallucination, this was definitely the most existential conversation Aiden had ever had. “When that happened, was there that tunnel of light, you know, like people who’ve been through near-death experiences talk about?”

  “Nope. Not that I remember, anyway. One of the last things I remember was thinking holy fucking shit, we’ve been ambushed and feeling like a sitting duck in the crosshairs. Then you were shot, and I figured both our asses were grass... Then the next thing I knew I was on the ferry with you, where I ended up in your parents’ rad beach house.”

  “If you went straight from being killed to landing on the ferry, then how would you know the music wherever you’d been between those times was cooler than harps?” Having been a detective, Aiden could not only spot a clue when he heard one, he could also spot when someone’s story changed.

  “I said that?”

  “The first night.” True, Aiden had been drunk a lot of the time. Which was why he’d figured Bodhi was a hallucination. But he’d been sober for nearly three months and here his partner was, back sitting shotgun, just like the old days.

  “Huh. You’ve got me there.” As Bodhi appeared to be pondering that time gap a please-ticket-me-officer red Miata convertible raced by him, headed in the opposite direction.

  “Hey, it’s just like old times,” Bodhi said as Aiden did a wheel-burning U-turn and sped up to get behind it. “Do we get to use the siren?”

  “I doubt that will be necessary.” The car had a California plate. Since they were the only vehicles on the road, he turned on his bar lights.

  The driver may have been speeding, but at least she was paying attention, because her brake lights flashed. Then her turn signal, as she pulled over to the side and waited.

  CHAPTER SIX

  AS JOLENE PASSED through scenery that changed from Venice Beach to the verdant miles of California’s agricultural flatlands north to the dazzling white peak of the Cascade’s Mount Shasta, through the Siskiyou Mountains, to Oregon’s Willamette Valley’s farms and vineyards, into the lush green of her home state she realized that she’d done exactly the right thing to drive. All those hours of alone in the quiet of the car had given her time to think about her life, which had mostly been centered around work ever since she left home.

  Although a very strong part of her wanted to take one of the state’s iconic ferries back home, if for no other reason than to stand on the deck, the wind tangling her hair, breathing in the scents of salt and fir, too impatient to risk getting stuck in a long line of cars, she decided to keep driving to Honeymoon Harbor, which involved two bridges. The first was the Tacoma Narrows art-deco-inspired suspension bridge, which many, including her, considered one of the most beautiful bridges in the world. Crossing over the high, gray-green span, she realized how much she’d missed this land of tall green trees and sparkling blue water. The weekend of Kylee and Mai’s wedding had been so hectic, she hadn’t focused on the scenery.

  Her plan to save time was thwarted when the Hood Canal floating bridge opened to allow a Trident submarine pass through, and yes, she did get out of her car to watch, just like most of the occupants of cars stuck on both sides of the bridge. “It never gets old,” a sixtysomething man standing with his wife beside her, said.

  “No,” Jolene agreed. “It doesn’t.”

  Despite her initial annoyance at the delay, she found herself as thrilled as she’d been as a child the first time she’d seen an aircraft carrier cruise by Honeymoon Harbor to the sea. Seemingly everyone in town had come out to wave goodbye to the sailors lined up on deck. When one man showed up with a bugle and played “Anchors Aweigh,” the crowd had sung along.

  As memorable as the event was, the sub and support ship ended up costing her nearly an hour. She’d called her mother about the delay, but Gloria had said not to worry, she’d simply turn the Crock-Pot down to low.

  As she’d turned on Water Street, heading toward Old Fort Road, which in turn led to her mother’s new home on Lighthouse Lane, Jolene realized she must have been speeding when she glanced up in the rearview mirror and saw the red, blue and white lights flashing atop a Honeymoon Harbor police SUV.

  And wasn’t that just what she needed? Flipping the arm on her turn signal, she pulled over to the side of the two-lane road. Then, because she’d seen enough police-sponsored public service videos broadcast in LA, she cut her engine, lowered the window down a quarter of the way, put her hands on the steering wheel and tried to stop her heart from beating out of her chest.

  It certainly took him long enough. Deciding he must be running her plates, Jolene took three deep breaths, closed her eyes and practiced a visualization skill she’d learned from a yoga instructor the studio had hired for a TV actress for her daily meditation. The extra perk was that the instructor was more than willing to share guided meditation techniques with other members of the cast and crew.

  Jolene imagined herself lying on her stomach on an impossibly empty tropical beach, while benevolent rays of sun overhead warmed her skin. And because it was her fantasy, she’d added a darkly tanned beach boy rubbing coconut oil onto her back. It was working...

  She could hear the rush of the waves, the softer sound of the frothy sea foam kissing the white sand. The slight rattling of palm fronds swaying in the wind, the distant music of a ukulele playing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” and the knocking of...knuckles on the car window?

  She opened her eyes with a yelp and covered her heart with her right hand before remembering to put it back on the steering wheel.

  “Are you all right, ma’am?” the deep voice asked.

  Ma’am? Seriously? She turned her head slowly, carefully, and found herself looking—holy guacamole!—straight into a pair of neon blue eyes set off by an indigo rim that were all too familiar. Impossibly, her already wildly beating heart kicked into overdrive. Not to mention her rebellious hormones that had always refused to behave themselves where this man was concerned. In a week of strange and unfortunate events, bad boy Aiden Mannion wearing the uniform of a Honeymoon Harbor police officer topped the list.

  Her mouth went as dry as the Santa Ana winds that roared in from the Mojave Desert, bringing all those wildfires to LA. Hoping she could speak, she managed a not-too-shaky, “Aiden?”

  Those lips she was horrified to realize that she could still taste, after all these years, quirked a bit at the corners. “Yeah,” he said, as if reading her mind. “It’s a surprise to me, too.”

  “So, you’re a police officer now?”

  No, idiot. He’s just wearing that uniform because he thinks it makes him look hot and dangerous. Which, dammit, it did. Especially with that gun at his hip. Jolene didn’t like guns. At all. But she had to admit that Shelby’s metaphor was right on the money. It did give him a sexy Western movie gunslinger look. Like Denzel Washington in the remake of The Magnificent Seven.


  “Police chief.” He tapped the badge on his jacket.

  “Wow.” Realizing her disbelief echoed in her tone, she backtracked. “I didn’t mean... Well... That’s great. So, I guess you’re living here now?”

  Although, duh, that was obvious, he gave her a long, silent look, as if considering the question. “It seems so. Do you happen to know how fast you were driving?”

  “No. Really,” she said, when an ebony brow arched. Of course he’d probably heard that excuse a bazillion times before. “My mind was on my mom. If I was speeding, and I must have been or you wouldn’t have stopped me, it’s because she may or may not have cancer.”

  “That’s one I’ve never heard before.”

  “It’s not an excuse. Honest. It’s the truth.”

  Any trace of humor immediately faded from his face. She’d often thought that when God had been handing out good looks, while all the Mannion brothers had received more than their share, Aiden must’ve gone through the line twice. His black curls, incredible blue eyes framed by long, sooty lashes and arched lips, above a finely chiseled jaw, were unfairly beautiful to have been given to a man. Jolene doubted there’d been a teenage girl in Honeymoon Harbor who hadn’t crushed on him. With the exception of Kylee Campbell—who, although she hadn’t come out yet, nearly everyone knew she was lesbian—and Zoe Robinson, who’d been inseparable from Seth Harper.

  Despite having never been part of the “in crowd,” in this one case Jolene had joined the Aiden Mannion fan club majority. And for a brief, shining time, until his arrest for stealing that beer, she’d been his secret girlfriend.

  “Your mom has cancer?” he asked, his expression turning serious.

  “I don’t know. And I truly didn’t say that so you’d feel sorry for me and not give me a ticket, which I must deserve, and I probably shouldn’t have told you about her because it’s supposed to be a secret. Even I didn’t know until your mom told me.”

  One dark brow arched. How did he do that? “My mom told you that your mother may or may not have cancer? And you can take your hands off the wheel now.”

  “Oh. Thank you.” Her hands were so wet and clammy they’d left marks on the black leather. Drawing in a deep breath, she tried to regain her Zen, but this time the image of the beach boy with the wonder hands looked exactly like Aiden Mannion. Which was no help at all.

  “And no, your mother didn’t tell me that Mom has cancer. She only called to tell me that Mom’s mammogram showed a suspicious lump and the doctor wants her to come in for an ultrasound. Which, apparently, she refuses to do.”

  Now she was squeezing her hands so tightly together, her nails were biting into her skin. “That’s why she—your mom—broke a confidence and called me. And why I’m here. To convince her to go in for the test, if I have to drag her there. And to stay with her in case something turns out to be wrong. To help her get through it.”

  “It’s probably a false alarm.”

  Said a man who, despite having handled more than a few breasts over the years, undoubtedly didn’t know anything about breast cancer. But she appreciated his attempt to reassure her. That was the thing about Aiden. Despite his reputation as a troublemaker, he’d always had a warm and caring heart. Like the time he’d come across a great horned owl with a broken wing.

  The way his sister had told the story, he’d risked his hand being mangled to wrap the wounded bird in his sleeping bag, then taken it to the Northwest Raptor & Wildlife Sanctuary where he’d visited every day until it had been set free. Most of the fights he’d gotten detention for in high school had been for protecting kids who were being bullied. Aiden Mannion had been the champion of the weak and broken. Including her.

  Until the wedding, it had been fourteen years since she’d last seen him. Since the night that had changed her life. And as horrific as it had been, those events had taken her onto a different path, one that had led to LA and the strong, competent woman she was today. And, while she’d prided herself on all that she’d achieved, Jolene had never forgotten that it was Aiden who’d made it all possible. Because if had hadn’t been for him, she might not have lived to be here for her mother.

  “Thank you,” she managed to say through those still bone-dry lips. Without warning, all the events of the past days, along with the fear of losing her mother, came crashing down on her and to her horror, Jolene felt hot tears overflowing her eyes to begin flowing down her cheeks. “I’m sorry.” She dashed at the moisture with the back of her hands. “I just can’t bear the thought of losing her.”

  “I understand. Here.” He dug into his jacket pocket, pulled out a square of fabric and handed it through the top half of the window.

  “Thanks.” Uneasy about blowing her nose in front of him (Like you haven’t done a lot worse?), she dabbed at her wet cheeks and sniffed. “I’ve never known a guy who carried a real handkerchief.” Let alone one in camo print.

  “My dad sent me a bunch when I was deployed in Afghanistan. They came in handy to use as a mask to help from breathing in all the dust.”

  “Oh. That makes sense.” She’d learned from Brianna, whom she’d kept in touch with, that he’d been deployed twice over his enlistment. She’d worried about him the entire time. “I’m sorry. I’m usually not so emotional.” Damn. Her eyes were misting up again. “It’s just been a rough week.”

  “Been there,” he said mildly. “I hope everything turns out okay with your mom.”

  “That’s it?” she asked as he tucked the citation book back into his inside jacket pocket. “You’re not going to give me a ticket?”

  “You get a pass on the first one. Especially since the speed limit has dropped five miles an hour since the last time you were here,” he added, as if not wanting her to think he was giving her any special favors because he felt sorry for her. Or guilty. Not that he had all that much to feel guilty about.

  Yet he had gone out of his way to avoid her at Kylee and Mai’s wedding. Was that because of the way she’d humiliated herself the last time they’d been together?

  “Well, okay. I appreciate the pass and promise to pay more attention to the posted limits while I’m here.” The temperature was dropping as the streetlights turned on and the sun disappeared into the bay, making the water shine like a gleaming gold wedding band. “I guess I’ll be seeing you around, then.”

  “I suppose so,” he said, his deep voice causing butterflies to flutter their wings in her stomach. Instead of hitting the ignition button and driving on, Jolene sat there, looking up at Aiden, his blue eyes locked on hers, holding them prisoner. She couldn’t have looked away if snowcapped, volcanic Mount Baker, that loomed from the north over the harbor, suddenly erupted.

  The moment must have lasted only seconds, yet to Jolene, it felt as if the world had stopped turning. Finally, the whistle of a train approaching the nearby crossing shattered the suspended silence.

  His eyes shuttered, the same way they had at the wedding. “Tell your mom hi for me,” he said his tone turning brusque, as if informing her that they were done here.

  Whatever she’d thought she’d seen in his gaze was gone. Maybe embers of emotions she’d assured herself had cooled had been stirred, causing her to imagine his hot and hungry look. Because now she was looking up at the assumedly tough alpha male her mother had told her on the drive home from the reception had become an LA police detective after leaving the Marines. Knowing Aiden’s propensity for protecting the underdog, he’d probably found his niche in police work.

  There’d been a time, back when she was in her teens and too romantic for her own good, she’d often imagined the two of them together. Probably not here in sleepy Honeymoon Harbor, because, as her mom had often said, Jolene had been born leaving, but in some bright and bustling city where their tarnished reputations wouldn’t follow them and they could start an exciting new life together.

  But she’d since come to realize that a
young girl’s dreams had as much substance as sea foam, evaporated by life’s tides. Despite her mother’s attempts to create some normalcy in their family, Jolene had grown accustomed to rough waters. Until a tsunami had swept away the last of her innocence, leaving her not completely cynical, as Shelby so often accused, but definitely a realist.

  “I will,” she said. “And tell your mom thanks for me.”

  With that she drove away as he walked back to his black-and-white SUV. Although temptation tugged, Jolene did not allow herself to look back.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “WELL, THAT WAS INTERESTING,” Bodhi greeted Aiden as he climbed back into the cruiser.

  “Just a traffic stop.” Aiden started the SUV, turned back in the original direction he’d been headed and continued on to deliver the food basket.

  “You didn’t give her a ticket.”

  “She wasn’t going much over the limit and everyone’s entitled to one break.”

  “Yet there was that moment.”

  “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

  But he did. Looking down into her green eyes, time had spun backward and he’d been back on the boat he’d shared with his brothers, the anchor dropped in Serenity Cove. Looking back, their surreptitious romance had been remarkably innocent, given the chemistry between them. And their bad boy/easy girl reputations.

  But, perhaps that had been the point. For some reason whenever they were together, the chip fell off his shoulders and he could be himself. He’d often wondered if she’d felt the same, but since teenage boys weren’t known for their verbal skills with girls, especially ones that kept them in a constant state of arousal, he’d never asked.

  “You looked as if you’d been knocked off your feet by a sneaker wave when she rolled down that window.”

  “You’re so full of it.” Sneaker waves struck without warning, higher and stronger than typical waves and were infamous for sweeping even the strongest swimmers out to sea. No way was he going to admit that the description was too close for comfort.