Love in a Sandstorm (Pine Harbour Book 6)

by Zoe York

  Back outside, Sean swung her around in a circle and kissed her twice before putting her down again. “Let’s go find you a bouquet.”

  She laughed. “He said witnesses, not flowers.”

  “And a ring,” he continued, undaunted. He took her hand and headed down the street. “There was a jewellery shop I saw when we were here before.”

  “Sean,” she tugged on his arm. “I don’t need a bouquet, or a ring. Let’s just find some witnesses and call it good enough.”

  He let her slow him down, but only so he could sweep his arm around her waist and kiss her temple. “Good enough is not acceptable.”

  “I think it is when your wedding is planned in a few hours.”

  He just grinned and waved ahead at the shopping street. “Let’s see what we can find.”

  Because he had a golden horseshoe up his butt, there were both a jewelry shop and a florist in close proximity. They hit the florist first, who agreed to make a small bouquet.

  “We’ll be back in fifteen minutes,” Sean said as Jenna paid the clerk. “And if you’d like to come to our wedding, we’d be honoured.”

  He made the same invitation at the jewellers, where they bought simple matching white gold bands. Sean had to choose between a band that was too big or one that was too small, but Jenna’s was almost a perfect fit. The jeweller started to say that he couldn’t close up, but then his son arrived to work for the afternoon, and they had their first witness.

  They went to the florist’s again, to collect the flowers, and that clerk was free to join them, too.

  So they had two witnesses, and a wedding parade, too, because the florist told everyone they passed what was happening.

  By the time they returned to the registry office, documents clutched in Sean’s hand, a bouquet in Jenna’s, there was a small crowd with them. It felt weird. Jenna thought their wedding would be private, just the two of them—which showed she really had no clue how this worked, because she hadn’t considered the witnesses.

  But it was a good kind of weird. Celebratory oddness. The jeweller took Jenna’s phone and promised to take excellent pictures.

  Sean completed the business of receiving their license and paying the fee, then the registrar showed them into an anteroom where he performed the shortest wedding service perhaps in human history.

  They started with a simple declaration, facing each other, holding hands with her bouquet resting on top.

  “Are you, Sean Edward Foster, lawfully free to marry Jenna Ann Kowalczyk?”

  The look of pride on Sean’s face made her knees weak. “I am.”

  The registrar asked her the same question back. She nodded. “I am.”

  “Then please repeat after me…” The registrar’s voice dulled to a buzz as Jenna zeroed in on Sean’s mouth, and the curve of a smile.

  “I, Sean Foster, take thee, Jenna Kowalczyk, to be my wedded wife.” His smile grew as he was prompted the next line. “To have and to hold, from this day forward. For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, as long as we both shall live.” She let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, and gave him a shaky smile of her own. He held her gaze for a long beat before saying the last line. “This is my solemn vow.”

  Tears welled up in her eyes, and she blinked them away. This was more emotional than she’d expected.

  Then it was her turn.

  “I, Jenna Kowalczyk, take thee, Sean Foster, to be my wedded husband. To have and to hold, from this day forward. For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, as long as we both shall live.” She squeezed his hands. “This is my solemn vow.”

  They quietly exchanged rings, then kissed twice, once politely and the second time a little less so—because holy hell, they’d just gotten married—and then they signed the wedding registry book on the desk in front of them.

  And that was it.

  The florist cheered. The jeweller took their picture. They shook the registrar’s hand, and then they left the office, husband and wife.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  May

  Pine Harbour

  THE NIGHT after they met in the diner, Chloe showed up with a big bag of groceries and a bigger bag of books.

  Jenna led her back to the kitchen. “I’m drinking my way through the beer left behind by the Foster and Minelli men. Would you like one? We could put some of it in the stew, too.”

  “Fancy.” Chloe unpacked the groceries. “How was your day?”

  Jenna shrugged. Shitty. She’d gone over to Dean’s, but Sean had been tired and obviously in pain. She’d suggested they sit outside, and he’d fallen asleep on a lounge chair, so she’d read for a bit. But when he woke up in an even worse mood—disoriented and grumpy—she accepted his broad hints and came back here. But all of that was private. “I started to pull together what I need to register with the Ontario midwifery college.”

  “Productive.”

  “Yeah.” In that regard, it had been. “How about you?”

  “I worked at our branch in Wiarton, hence the groceries. Pine Harbour isn’t big enough to have a full-time librarian, so I’m a floater across the county system on my off days.”

  Jenna started cooking as Chloe told her about life on the peninsula. Once the stew was simmering, they took their beer to the deck and sat out there, talking about books and food.

  They didn’t talk about Sean, or his extended family, and Jenna was grateful for the gift of a normal night with a new friend.

  When the stew was ready, they listened to a stand-up comedy show as they ate. Then they packed up the copious leftovers into individual containers.

  “Lunch for a week at least,” Chloe crowed.

  “We could do this again next week.” Jenna was eager for that. “This was a lot of fun.”

  “For sure. And if you want to just grab coffee or whatever, give me a call. I’m usually around in the evenings.”

  After Chloe left, Jenna wandered through the too-quiet house and turned off all the lights. Then she climbed into bed and wished again that Sean was there. That he’d been there for dinner, and she felt guilty for not having thought of him while she’d been cooking.

  But it had only been three days.

  Since she’d arrived, she’d lost control of her feelings a bit.

  She needed a long-term plan. Needed to think further out. What was her goal for the end of the summer? Where did she want them to be by Christmas?

  She’d promised him forever.

  One summer was nothing in the grand scheme of things.

  In Spain, he’d been ready to marry her in an instant, and she’d slowed him down. He’d been right, but she’d put the brakes on anyway. She knew all about patience, about being careful.

  She’d slow down. Way down. And she’d show him that patience was more than a virtue. Patience could be a blessing and a gift.

  ANOTHER DAY, another pounding headache.

  But when Sean heard voices downstairs, his first reaction wasn’t fear, and that took him by surprise.

  Yesterday had been a shit show. He’d thrown up his meds the night before last, which meant he’d woken up with the full force of his nausea and vertigo in play, and he hadn’t been able to stay awake. It had been a shame, really, because he’d gone to the effort to sit outside with Jenna, but when he woke up, he’d felt worse than how he’d started the day.

  Last night, he made sure to take his pills slowly, and then not move around much after, all in an effort to do better today.

  So yeah, he had a headache. But the rest of him felt okay. New normal okay, which was still debilitating if he thought too much about it. But he could deal.

  He got himself upright then grabbed the walker, which he’d left right next to his bed. Time to get over his stubborn self.

  “Morning,” he hollered down the stairs.

  “Morning,” Jenna called back.

  “I’m gonna take a quick shower.”

  �
�No rush. Liana’s going to show me her studio.”

  Sean hadn’t even seen that. It was the furthest point in the house, and frankly, the thought of walking that far made him want to go back to bed.

  He sat on a temporary medical bench in the tub and turned on the water. It felt good to scrub himself down. There was something cocooning about the shower curtain and the steam. Like it gave his brain enough near points to keep itself properly oriented.

  He was learning some tricks for managing the vertigo. Keeping his head pressed against something worked well. That’s how he got in and out of the shower, with his head pushed into the tiles. Closing his eyes sometimes helped—but sometimes it sent him into a panicked spiral, it really just depended on the situation.

  He’d learned the hard way not to dry his hair too vigorously—nothing a bruised brain likes less than being shaken around inside the skull. So he hung his towel around his neck, letting his hair drip into it, as he carefully dressed in sweatpants and a t-shirt.

  Jenna came up the stairs just as he opened his door again.

  “Squeaky clean?” she asked. She had a tray of food, too. “I haven’t eaten yet, so I brought brunch with me.”

  “I don’t have much of an appetite these days.” Even to his own ear, his response sounded surly and sullen.

  “Liana said that.” She gave him a bright smile that promised she didn’t care. Hope enough for the two of them was going to kill him. “What can you stomach?”

  He glanced at the tray. Strawberries, cheese, fruit bread, coffee. “Yeah. That looks okay.”

  She pointed at the towel around his neck. “Do you want me to put that back in the bathroom?”

  “No, it’s collecting the drips from my hair.”

  “I could dry your hair for you.”

  “It hurts.” He pointed to his head. “The jostling.”

  “Oh. Sorry.” She bit her lip and he felt bad.

  “It’s just…one of the many new lessons I’ve learned.”

  “Okay.” She reached for the milk and put a splash in his cup, which he’d noticed she hadn’t filled all the way. So she’d noticed that his hands shook. He felt both a flare of embarrassment at that, but also a small pulse of appreciation. That was dangerous. It would be easy to slip into her caring for him, when he couldn’t reciprocate.

  But he could do something for her. “How would you feel about driving a truck?”

  “Pardon?”

  “I’ve got a perfectly good truck in storage. I can’t drive it. You might as well return the rental and we can get it back up and working for you.” He cleared his throat. He didn’t want to be too kind. “Just while you’re visiting.”

  She held his gaze. “You don’t need to do that.”

  He lifted one shoulder. “It’s stupid for you to pay for a rental when you can drive my truck free of charge.”

  A long silence stretched before she agreed. “Okay. Thank you.”

  He took the mug from her and took a long sip. It was good. “I guess I should thank you for breakfast, too.”

  She glanced up at him from under her eyelashes as she fixed her own coffee. “You guess?”

  The corners of his mouth twitched involuntarily.

  “And that was…almost a smile. Are you in…almost a good mood?” She grinned at him. “Hey there, stranger. I was wondering when I’d see you again.”

  “Jenna…”

  She nodded. “Warning duly noted. I’m just making small talk. I thought we could play cards today.”

  “That sounds like a play straight out of a physiotherapy handbook.”

  “How about that? I noticed you don’t have any physio currently on your social calendar.”

  “It doesn’t work.”

  “Bit early in your rehab to say that, don’t you think?”

  “No.” He knew his body better than the average person. He was—had been—an elite athlete, for fuck’s sake. He knew what his limits were, and what training would work and what would be a colossal waste of fucking time.

  She didn’t argue with him again. Instead she leaned back in her chair and pulled her legs up so she could balance her plate of fruit bread on her knee as she ate and watched him.

  “We never talked about cards and board games,” she finally said. “What do you like?”

  “No. And I don’t.”

  She curved one eyebrow high in disbelief. “None of them? How did this not come up?”

  Because his former self had better things to do than sit around and discuss card games. He could run and dance and make a woman scream. Make Jenna scream. But that was in the past now. He wanted to growl, but instead he sighed and forced himself to be less of an ass. She hadn’t told him she liked card games, either. “Do you play cards?”

  She shrugged. “Sure. Some. I can kick my own butt in solitaire, and hold my own in a game of Go Fish.”

  “I don’t know if I can remember.” That wasn’t entirely true. He knew the rules of Go Fish and it wouldn’t be hard for him to play a hand or two.

  And he knew she saw right through him. “Let’s give it a try anyway.”

  So he moved to the edge of the couch, where he could reach the coffee table. But it was a mistake to agree to play, because every time she didn’t have a card, she’d lean forward. The v-neck of her t-shirt would show him the shadow of cleavage between her high, round breasts. Heat pooled low in his belly and he found himself remembering, for the first time since the accident, what that skin had tasted like. The sounds she would make when he licked her there.

  My wife.

  Two words he hadn’t said out loud since being back on Canadian soil. Two words he’d banned from his head, in order to keep his sanity.

  “Sean?”

  He cleared his throat and glanced at his cards. “Sorry, what were you asking for?”

  “Do you have any jacks?”

  “No. Go fish.”

  Another glimpse made him groan, low and painfully in his throat.

  She glanced up at him, freezing with her arm outstretched. She searched his face before giving him a small smile. “Getting tired?”

  “Yeah.” His head was swimming, but not with fatigue.

  He still wanted her. Or at least…he wanted to want her. Even as a fire burned in his chest, even as he wanted, suddenly, her skin under his tongue, her cries in his ear, even then, he got no reaction in the place where it mattered most.

  His dick was broken.

  “Do you want to keep playing, or should we stop?”

  “I’m okay.” His cards blurred in front of him. “Do you have any sevens?”

  “Yep.” She handed over a card, and he put the pair down.

  If he couldn’t get a fucking hard on over his gorgeous wife, at least he could play a mean game of Go Fish.

  Fucking hell.

  They finished the game, but she didn’t push a second one, and he was grateful for it. He wanted to lie down and be one with his self-loathing.

  She shifted around the coffee table as she tidied up the tray, and when she finished, she was standing next to him.

  “Thank you for humouring me,” she whispered.

  “Yeah.” He knew his voice was gruff, but not gruff enough. He needed to try harder, because otherwise she’d read this as a step forward when he knew better.

  She was close enough he knew she wanted a hug. Pain lanced through him as he turned away, a physical manifestation of a soul-wrenching ache he didn’t want to examine. He shifted his walker toward the bed. Step, lift, clunk. He didn’t deserve her softness, and she didn’t need any false promises.

  When she left, he dragged himself through almost every night in Spain. No amount of thinking about how their bodies had twisted together got him hard.

  The only day he couldn’t bring himself to imagine was their wedding, and the afternoon and night that followed. He wasn’t sure he could handle it if that didn’t raise a reaction, so he locked that memory down.

  No replaying the best day of his lif
e, knowing he’d never get that back.

  Loathing swept through him as he lay on his bed, useless and empty inside. No more cards. No more kindness.

  He needed to be clearer about the fact they didn’t have a future.

  She could stay for a while, but he needed to redirect her focus to returning to her life. To moving on and forgetting him.

  JENNA WASN’T sure she could try the card game trick again. Definitely not two days in a row. So the next morning, she stopped at Mac’s and picked up pie—almost certain to have healing properties—and a copy of the Toronto Star.

  She had fond memories of doing the crossword puzzle with her grandparents, and it was the same kind of brain work as playing cards.

  But Sean wasn’t in the mood.

  He picked at the pie, and gave her monosyllabic non-answers when she tried to draw him into working on the crossword with her.

  “Do you prefer numbers?” She refolded the section of the paper to show him the Sudoku puzzle instead.

  He batted it away.

  Shocked, she let it fall to the floor.

  “Stop pushing me,” he growled.

  “I hardly think pie and the paper is a challenge.”

  “Then you’re hardly thinking. It is a challenge.” He swore under his breath and grabbed for the walker.

  She watched, horrified, as he visibly reeled. She moved toward him and he pinned her with a glare so cold it froze her in her tracks. “Sean…”

  “I told you. I’m not that guy. Go romanticize someone else’s recovery, because this is my fucking life.” He planted his feet and with a frustrated roar, he surged to his feet, head weaving through the air on his way to being upright.

  He was right on one front. He didn’t need her hovering. This was awful for him. She knew that.

  Why couldn’t he see that she knew that?

  She was a medical professional. Sure, she usually stuck to women and babies, but she knew the human body was capable of amazing things. Of recovery and compensation. And it was early days.

  She grabbed her paper off the floor and swept out of the room.

  Downstairs, she found Liana writing on the couch. The other woman gave her a surprised look—because Jenna had only been upstairs for twenty minutes, tops—but something on her face must have given off a warning, because Liana kept her mouth shut.