Love in a Sandstorm (Pine Harbour Book 6)

by Zoe York

  “See you tomorrow,” Jenna muttered.

  Then she went to Mac’s and bought another slice of pie, because she’d left her first one in Sean’s room, and she’d hardly eaten any.

  The next day, she didn’t bring cards, or the paper. If he didn’t want her to push him, she wouldn’t.

  “Morning,” she said as she poked her head around the open door to his room.

  He was stretched out on the couch, staring at the ceiling. “Hey.”

  “Dean said you already ate breakfast.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I could bring you another cup of coffee—”

  “Are you flying back to Vancouver?” He didn’t look at her as he asked the question. “Or are you thinking about doing another rotation overseas?”

  Neither, but the weird, aching feeling in her gut told her the honest answer wouldn’t be well received. “I haven’t decided yet.”

  “What did your mother say about you coming here?”

  “I haven’t told her yet.” She sat in the chair. She didn’t know where he was going with this, but she was making herself comfortable anyway.

  “That’s smart.” His voice was cold, clipped.

  Was it? Jenna was pretty sure it was cowardly. And she didn’t like the barbed way Sean had said that. She changed the subject. “What are you doing?”

  “Taking a nap. Or trying to, anyway.”

  And being a passive-aggressive asshole, too. She should praise him for his multitasking. “I’m not in any hurry to go back overseas,” she finally said quietly.

  His face twisted. “Don’t sacrifice your dreams for me.”

  He was no sacrifice. He was her dreams. But she couldn’t tell him that.

  There had been a time—a short, fragile time—when he’d wanted to know all her secrets. Had practically begged to get inside her head, under her skin. And now he was acting like he couldn’t care less.

  And maybe he couldn’t.

  She knew brain injuries could change personalities. She wasn’t so naive she hadn’t considered that. But there had been a few moments when they’d been playing Go Fish, that she’d thought she’d glimpsed her husband inside this stranger.

  No, he was her husband no matter what. Until he outright asked her for a divorce, she was committed to him.

  Even if he was being a sullen jerk.

  Was this what he was like as a teenager? No wonder it was a trying period for his brothers.

  “Anyway,” she finally said, standing up again. There was no point in trying to continue a conversation with his profile, no matter how handsome it was. “I’m returning the rental car. I’ll be back tomorrow. I’ll speak to Dean about getting the truck in order.”

  “I’ll tell him,” Sean muttered, not looking at her.

  “He’s just downstairs, I can—”

  “It’s my damn truck. I’ll tell him. He doesn’t know what needs to be done to it, anyway. And neither do you.”

  Great. Their first fight was over car maintenance. How romantic.

  She bit back a snarky response—which would be as much out of her character as this sullenness was out of his. They didn’t both need to contribute to a downward spiral.

  Instead, she just left.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  SHE WENT home and called the car rental company to figure out where she could return it.

  While she was on hold, she wandered into the backyard, and as soon as she stepped onto the deck, Sophia streaked across the lawn.

  “Jenn-ah!”

  “Hey, Sophia. What’s up?”

  “Play-doh.” The little girl held out a grimy fistful of bright pink dough, dotted with grass and dirt.

  “Awesome.”

  “Eat it?”

  Jenna chucked, some of her tension easing. “No, sweetie. Thank you, but I’m good.”

  Sophia pointed at the phone pressed against Jenna’s ear. “Talk?”

  Jenna held out the phone so the little girl could hear the on-hold music. Sophia wiggled her diaper-covered butt in a little dance, and that made Jenna feel good too.

  But her grumpiness returned when the rental company customer service person came on the line and blandly informed her they would charge her a ridiculous return fee for a pickup anywhere near the peninsula.

  She groaned and hung up. “I guess I’m driving to Toronto this afternoon,” she said regretfully to Sophia.

  “No,” said the little girl.

  “I know, right? I wish I could say that.” Jenna waved at Olivia, who was making her way across the lawn.

  “Sorry. She slipped over here while I was hanging up laundry on the line. I didn’t notice she wasn’t playing behind me.”

  Jenna shrugged. “That’s why both yards are fenced, right? It’s all good.”

  Sophia shook her head. “No.”

  Jenna laughed and replayed their conversation for her neighbour. “So now I’m driving to the city.”

  Olivia gave her a sympathetic look. “How will you get back? Do you want Rafe to follow you? He’s got three days off starting tomorrow.”

  “No, I’m good. I’ll grab the bus back. But maybe he could pick me up from wherever it stops?” With her luck, that might still be somewhere far-ish away from Pine Harbour.

  “Of course. Just text me when you’re heading back and someone will meet you.”

  “Chloe could probably do it…”

  Olivia made a humming noise that told Jenna it would probably be a Minelli who showed up.

  “Thank you,” she said, truly grateful for the kindness.

  “Of course. Okay, Sophie-Dophie, time to say see you later to Jenna.”

  Sophia shook her head solemnly. “No.”

  “Story of my life.” Olivia sighed and hoisted the toddler onto her hip. “Here’s hoping she’s out of this no phase by the time I’m as big as a house.”

  JENNA TOOK advantage of the long drive and the car’s built-in Bluetooth to make some long overdue phone calls.

  Jenna’s mother answered on the third ring. “Hello?”

  “Hi, Mom.” Jenna swallowed hard. “How are you?”

  “Jenna.” Relief poured into how her mother said her name, but just as quickly, she bounced out of it. “Busy with the usual. How are you? What time is it there?”

  About that… “I’m not in Turkey any longer. I’m back in Canada. Ontario, specifically.”

  “My goodness.” Jenna heard a clatter in the background. Whatever her mother had been working on had now been set aside and she now had Eve’s full attention.

  Great. “I’m looking for work here, actually.” Not a lie.

  “So you’re not working right now?” That was always her mother’s fear, and Jenna understood the reasoning behind it. As a single mom from day one, Eve had always lived close to the edge of not having enough to make ends meet.

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “It’s a slippery slope if you start to dip into your savings.”

  “I know. I’m living pretty low-cost at the moment, and it’ll only take a few weeks—” maybe months “—to get registered with the college. Then I’ll be able to pick up work quickly. And I’m staying in a friend’s place, so it’s fine.”

  “A midwife friend? That girl in Toronto?”

  Maybe deep down, this was why Jenna had waited to call her mom. Because now she wasn’t lying. “I’m on my way to the city right now, and I’m going to try to see Grace tonight. But no, I’m not staying with her. I’m up in cottage country.” Tell her, tell her, tell her… “I, uh…I met a guy.”

  As expected, that was met with silence, then a long, loaded sigh. “Oh, Jenna.”

  If she weren’t driving, Jenna would have closed her eyes and thunked her head against the steering wheel. She was thirty years old. Why did her mother still have to see her as a teenager liable to get knocked up at any second? “We actually met in Turkey, but he’s Canadian, too.”

  “And he’s from cottage country?” Eve didn’t need to spell out tha
t she thought Jenna had followed a man to the middle of nowhere for what could only be a stupid reason like lust.

  “It’s not like that.”

  Eve made a noise that could have been a snort, but Jenna was choosing to hear it as a laugh so as not to be annoyed. “So…you didn’t chase a man halfway around the globe after falling for him in a whirlwind romance?”

  Fine, it was exactly like that. Damn it. “His name is Sean. And he’s really lovely.” Not today, exactly, but in general. “Remember the pictures of the prime minister playing hockey? Sean’s the soldier who was the captain of the other team.”

  “Ah.” So much loaded into a single syllable. Ah, well it’s your life to gamble with. Ah, well of course you’d be distracted by a handsome man in uniform. Ah, well at least he’s gainfully employed. “Speaking of that, did you ever follow up with those media contacts? I saw a doctor on the news the other day—”

  “Mom—”

  “Maybe that would be a good use of your time in Toronto.”

  Hardly. A good use of her time in Toronto would be drowning herself in a bottle of red wine with Grace. Jenna decided that was enough sharing for the day. “I’ll keep you posted on the job search,” she said weakly. “What’s the latest from Annie?”

  “She’s decided she likes boys again.”

  “She never stopped liking boys, Mom. She’s bi.”

  “I know that.” Of course Eve sounded defensive. Jenna wasn’t going there, either.

  Jenna rolled her eyes. “Okay. Did she find a summer job?”

  “Yes. On campus. It doesn’t pay much, but they’ll work around her summer class schedule.”

  “That’s good. I’ll give her a call next.” In the distance, she saw a sign for a Tim Horton’s coffee shop. “I’m going to stop and get a coffee now. I’ve still got four hours of driving ahead of me.”

  “Be safe, Jenna.”

  She swallowed the retort that desperately wanted to spill out. Instead, she took a deep breath and jammed on her good-daughter hat. “Love you, Mom.”

  After she re-caffeinated, Jenna called her baby sister. Annie had been another unexpected pregnancy. Their family was unconventional, but they’d made it work. Her mother had made it work.

  Jenna didn’t tell Annie anything beyond what she’d told their mom—the marriage news could wait for a better time—but Annie’s general reception was warmer.

  “Is that why you were so vague about what you did on your trip to Spain?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Jenna!” Annie laughed gently. “That’s awesome, actually. You’re always so responsible. It’s good to know that you do impulsive things from time to time.”

  That conversation gave her the courage to call her friend Grace, who she’d gone to college with out in British Columbia, but who had moved to Ontario for love and was now working in Toronto.

  It turned out Grace was free for the evening, so after Jenna returned the rental car, she hopped on the subway and headed downtown.

  They met at a bistro on Queen West. Grace was waiting outside, her dark red hair piled high on her head in a bun. She was dressed down, in leggings and a long tunic, with three long silver necklaces hanging around her neck.

  She hadn’t changed a bit.

  “Hey, stranger,” Jenna said, holding out her arms for a hug. “It’s been too long.”

  Grace gave her a good squeeze. “I’m so glad you called. I didn’t realize you were back.”

  “I’ve been keeping it quiet for reasons.”

  “Ooh, sounds interesting. Come on, let’s get some food and wine and you can tell me all about it. Are you staying over tonight?”

  “I was going to catch the midnight bus…” She trailed off. She was going to say home. And it did feel like that, maybe. A tentative home, but yes, there it was. A little kernel of attachment to the place, not just the man. In the last week, she’d grown quite fond of Pine Harbour. “Back up north,” she finally said.

  “Are you in a hurry to get back? You can stay at our place tonight if you want.”

  “Maybe. Thank you. Let’s see how much wine we get into.”

  They ordered, then once they both had a glass in their hand, Grace leaned back and opened the conversation up with a gleam in her eye. “So…what’s up north?”

  “A man,” Jenna admitted. “But it’s complicated.”

  “When is it not? Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Yes.” She stopped there, and they both laughed.

  “More wine first?”

  She shook her head. “I just want to be careful about how I lay the story out.”

  Grace waved her hand. “How about I promise not to make any judgements? You tell me everything you want to tell me. I’ll just listen.”

  Jenna shuddered, and it wasn’t until that moment that she realized how much she needed that. “Well…so…I met this guy. In February. He was kind, and smart, and tall.” She smiled as she remembered their first meeting in the food tent. “Really, really good looking. And we ended up travelling together. We went to Spain, and Gibraltar, and…we got married.”

  Grace didn’t blink. She didn’t gasp, or drop her jaw, or freak out. She just waited.

  Jenna’s heart hammered in her chest. “I fell in love,” she whispered, as the happy memories slid into the rougher ones. “And then he was injured.”

  The rest of the story spilled out, between sips of wine and tugs on her hair. When she reached the bottom of her glass, Grace silently refilled it.

  “And now I’m here, and he wants me to leave, but I know that’s the injuries talking.” That sounded thin, even to her own ears. “Well, I’m pretty sure it’s not what he wants, deep down.”

  “Is it what you want?” It was the first time Grace had spoken since Jenna started.

  Jenna gave her a startled look. “Being in Pine Harbour?”

  “Yes. Are you where you want to be right now?”

  She was where she needed to be. Want didn’t enter into it. But then she thought of how much she liked sharing a yard with Olivia and Rafe. Of cooking with Chloe, and how everyone—Dani, Dean, Liana, Matt, and the entire town—had taken one look at her and claimed her as one of their own.

  She nodded, surprising herself. Yes, she was exactly where she wanted to be.

  She missed working, but when she thought about returning overseas or finding a position locally, again her answer was surprising. She wanted to stay on the peninsula.

  “Then don’t worry about what he wants, or thinks he wants. As long as you aren’t unhappy being there, let it play out. Give him space if he needs it, but it’s a free country. Even if he doesn’t want you in his face, you can share a town.”

  That hurt her heart. “I…it’s hard to stay away from him.”

  Grace leaned in and took her hand. “I can see that. You must love him a lot.”

  “So much. It’s crazy, really. We only had two weeks together.”

  “But then you had that time after you got married, when you thought you were coming back to Canada to build a life together.” Grace squeezed her fingers before letting go to empty the wine bottle into their glasses. “We’re going to need another one of these.”

  Like magic, the waiter appeared with their food, and promised to return shortly with more wine.

  “Have you thought about counselling?” Grace asked after they took a few bites.

  Jenna shook her head. “He won’t go.”

  “For you.”

  She jerked her head up and looked at her friend in surprise. “Oh. No.”

  “You should. You were traumatized, too.”

  “I didn’t even know about the injury until weeks after it happened.” Three weeks in which she’d worried and fretted, but generally carried on with her life.

  “But when you found out, it was new and raw for you. And I bet you didn’t get any chance to process that properly.”

  “No, I guess I didn’t.” Sadness swelled again as she thought about the dead ends and
road blocks she’d run into every time she’d tried to find out information about him, to get in touch and let him know that she was coming. In hindsight, the weeks after she found out, before she could leave the camp and fly to Sean’s side, had been deeply traumatizing—and she still couldn’t let herself relive that panic. “I really want to be strong for him through this.”

  “It sounds like you are doing just that. Which is great. But everyone has a breaking point, and you can’t help him if you hit yours.”

  “I know,” she whispered.

  “Then take care of yourself while you give him the space to heal.”

  “That’s…” Jenna played with her dinner. “Really smart advice.” She laughed. “I guess I needed to hear it from someone else.”

  “Always the way. Now tell me more about this delightful little town. It sounds like quite an adventure, really. Small town living for the big city girl.”

  Jenna told her about Mac’s, about meeting Chloe and Dani and Olivia, and all the Foster and Minelli men. She found herself waxing on about the landscape of the peninsula, too, and as she talked, she realized that yes, it was an adventure. Maybe not as exotic as Turkey or Spain, but wasn’t charging in to Pine Harbour, not knowing what she’d find, just as daring?

  Her wanderlust had taken her to some strange and wonderful corners of the Earth this year. Pine Harbour was simply the least expected of those corners.

  By the time they finished the second bottle of wine, and were weaving their way back to Grace’s apartment, Jenna had a Pine Harbour travel pitch down pat, and Grace was promising to visit towards the end of the summer.

  Grace’s partner Alex was waiting up for them. He’d made Jenna a bed on the couch, and she passed out as soon as she lay her head down.

  SHE DIDN’T WAKE up until noon the next day.

  Oh, her eyes hurt. She squeezed them shut and—

  Was it possible that she had invited random strangers on Queen Street to visit Pine Harbour?

  With a groan, she rolled off Grace’s couch and stood up. Yep, definitely hung over.