Whisper of Surrender

by Melanie Shawn

  Then, when Ethan was twelve, his dad had been killed in the line of duty, and he’d come to live with Nana in Whisper Lake. It had been quite a culture shock, since he’d only visited the small town a handful of times when his dad was alive and those were only quick day trips. But Nana had done her best to make him feel at home. They may not have been blood-related, but she’d always treated him like a true grandson. He owed so much to her. Not only for taking him in, but for raising a man that would adopt a baby he found beside a dumpster.

  For the past couple of years, Nana had upped the pressure on him to settle down. Ethan had never been quite the ladies’ man that his dad had, but he’d also never let things get serious with anyone he dated. As soon as he felt things were moving in a commitment direction, he moved on. But that’s because he wasn’t with the one woman he wanted a commitment with.

  “What about Kennedy Dawes? I heard that you’ve been seeing her?”

  “I’m not seeing Kennedy, no matter how many times The Needlepoint Mafia tries to throw us together.”

  “They just give little pushes.”

  Nana was not a card-carrying member of the matchmaking dons knitting club, but that was only because she had arthritis. She was thick as thieves with Mrs. Chen, Mrs. Dobrinski, and Mrs. Weathersby. The four women played bridge together every Saturday.

  And that made him think. “Did you put them up to this?”

  “And if I did? Would that be so bad? I just want my grandson to be happy!”

  He knew then at that moment that it was not going to stop. It would’ve been bad enough if the old women had done it solely on their own. But now that he knew that his grandma was behind it, he knew that the only way to stop the matchmaking madness was to start dating someone.

  The problem with that was, he didn’t want to date anyone except…

  An idea struck him that he couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of sooner. Jess wasn’t the girl that he could woo with flowers, pretty words, or promises. She wasn’t going to willingly agree to a romantic dinner with him. But, she might agree to a fake relationship, if there was something in it for her. It was the in he’d been waiting for, now he just needed the right leverage.

  CHAPTER 7

  “You’re gonna blind someone with that thing!” Jess jokingly covered her eyes as Ali joined them. She and Brynn had been vegging out on their beach towels on the lake shore after spending the day on the water.

  “I know, right?” Ali stared down at the sparkler on her left ring finger.

  Brynn lifted onto her elbows, reached over and tilted Ali’s hand to get a better look. “It’s so beautiful.”

  “Thanks. And thanks for talking Ryder into volunteering today with the boys. He was such a huge help.”

  Brynn’s son was Ali’s nephews’ best friend, and all three boys had worked at the rental shop Ali owned to help with the busy Memorial Day crowd.

  “He loves helping out at the shop.” Brynn insisted.

  Ali smiled and clapped her hands together. “Hey, did you guys hear that the Battle of the Badges is going to be a talent show this year? I bought a table for Whisper Rentals, and you are both welcome to join me.”

  A visible shudder ran through Brynn, “I will, because it’s for charity, but I think it’s going to give me flashbacks.”

  Brynn had been in pageants growing up and even made it to the Miss Teen USA competition. Jess had always secretly wanted to compete in them, but she’d been sick, so it was a nonstarter. Although, she’s not sure her parents would’ve been into it even if she had been healthy.

  “What was your go-to talent?” Jess asked. That had always been where she thought she would’ve shined.

  “Well, thankfully, the talent portion of my pageant days was over by the time I was ten since Miss USA doesn’t have that category. When I did have to compete in them, I was at a serious disadvantage since I don’t sing, play an instrument, or twirl a baton, so I usually just went with dancing.”

  “Really?” Jess’s interest was piqued. She loved dancing. “I didn’t know you could dance.”

  “I can’t,” Brynn said flatly.

  “I’m so bummed I didn’t get to hang out with you guys on the boat.” Ali looked longingly out onto the water, where boats and inner tubes bobbed in place.

  “Kade offered to man the shop so you could hang out.”

  Ali grinned at the mention of her fiancé. “I know, but I would’ve felt bad if I was out on the water relaxing and he and the boys were working,” she explained. “How long are Kingston and Miko in town? I’d love for them to meet Kade.”

  Kingston and his husband Miko were two of Jess’s favorite people. She’d met Kingston in cosmetology school when they were both babes out of high school. He’d been one of the only students that hadn’t treated her any differently just because of her illness. His brother had been born with a congenital heart condition. The two had bonded instantly. He worked in an upscale shop in Chicago but was up visiting for the holiday weekend. The men had a boat and invited Jess and her friends to spend the day out on the lake with them.

  “They are heading back to the city tonight, but they’ll be back up for the fourth of July.”

  “Oh, good. Kingston promised to show me how to make his lasagna. I messaged him on Facebook and asked for the recipe, but he told me that he didn’t trust the recipe to be delivered online. He wanted to give it to me in person.”

  “You should see if you can get him to show you how to make his Cajun rice and beans.” Jess’s mouth watered at the thought.

  “I will.” All three women’s eyes naturally drifted out to the boat that Miko and Kingston were laying out on. “I don’t understand how they keep those bodies when he cooks all that fatty food.”

  Both men were near perfect male specimens. Kingston had a lean frame where Miko was a little bit beefier. Neither had an ounce of fat to pinch and the hours a day they spent in the gym was evident in the contoured musculature of their bodies. Still, neither of them had anything on Ethan.

  “I asked Kingston about that, and he said that it was just good genes and fast metabolisms.” Brynn rolled on her back. “But I don’t know how serious I can take him since he also said that I needed to let my freak flag fly.”

  The ladies chuckled.

  “I told him that I hung that up thirteen years ago.” Brynn stretched her arms over her head. “Today was exactly what I needed. Kingston made me feel like Chaka Khan, like I was every woman.”

  “He’s the best.” Jess wasn’t just saying that because Kingston was her self-esteem cheerleader, always making comments like she had a body that would stop traffic in Times Square. Though that was nice to hear. She was saying it because he was hilarious and always had her back. No matter what was going on in his life he somehow always remembered when she had doctors’ appointments or tests and called to check in on her.

  Just like Ethan. That thought hit her out of the blue, and it took her a moment to process that it was true. When Kingston checked in, she thought it was sweet, but when Ethan did the same thing, it frustrated her.

  She glanced down at the dock where Ethan was working with the kids in his program. Logically, she knew why things he did irritated her while one of her other friends doing the same thing didn’t. She didn’t want him to see her as weak or fragile.

  She wanted him to look at her the way he had when she’d climbed into his truck and he’d told her she was beautiful. When she closed her eyes, she could still feel the way his stare had made her entire body come to life.

  “Oh look, Daisy’s back in town.” Ali’s voice interrupted her memory.

  Jess opened her eyes and saw Ethan’s grandma walking toward them. She couldn’t help but smile as she took in and appreciated the woman’s choice of bright pink capri pants with matching floppy hat and tiger print button-up shirt. “How was your cruise Mrs. Steele?”

  “I told you, it’s Daisy.” The woman pointed her finger at Jess. “Mrs. Steele was my mother-in-law. An
d my cruise was heavenly. I’ve never seen so much food in my entire life. Morning, noon, and night there was food as far as the eye could see. I gained ten pounds just looking at it.”

  Daisy was a slip of a woman, and Jess doubted that she’d gained an ounce on the cruise.

  The brim of her floppy hat bounced as she excitedly announced, “And I met someone.”

  “Oh?” Jess, Ali, and Brynn all chorused, their interest piqued.

  “She’s perfect for Ethan,” Daisy completed her thought, and her words deflated Jess’s interest.

  “Dr. Susie is smart, funny, and I just know that if Ethan would give her a chance the two of them would hit it off. He’s a good boy and just needs to find the right woman to settle down with.”

  Jess could feel both Ali and Brynn’s attention turn toward her, and she hoped that Ethan’s grandma didn’t notice.

  “Speaking of settling down, I hear congratulations are in order, dear.” Daisy reached out and examined the ring on Ali’s hand. “Kade did good.”

  Ali beamed. “Yes, he did.”

  She held Ali’s hand between hers. “Patrick would’ve been so happy for you both.”

  A layer of sheen glossed Ali’s eyes as she teared up. “I know.”

  “What about you two? Any young men that might be getting down on one knee?”

  Brynn and Jess both looked at one another and then laughed.

  “Nope. I’ve been there and done that.” Brynn had been what she described as happily divorced for a decade. She’d been a teen mom before the MTV show made it popular and then divorced before she could legally drink.

  “So has that one.” Daisy motioned down toward the pier. Laura had arrived and was standing beside Ethan, her hand resting on his shoulder. “And you don’t see her throwing in the towel.”

  Throughout the day, Jess had noticed that Laura took every opportunity to brush her hand against Ethan’s arm, his shoulder, his leg. It wasn’t that she’d been spying on them, but she’d noticed that Laura didn’t let five minutes pass without touching him. Though the fact that Jess had noticed that probably meant she technically had been spying on them.

  “She’s a braver woman than I am,” Brynn said sincerely. “I think I’ll concentrate on trying to raise a man, not marry one.”

  Daisy accepted that response before turning to Jess. “What about you? Any man, or woman, of your dreams?”

  It was sad that Jess’s love life was so inactive that a woman that had known her her entire life didn’t even know what her sexual preference would be.

  “Nope,” she lied.

  Her eyes drifted back down toward the pier as the conversation around her shifted to talk of the twins and Ryder starting high school this year. There was absolutely a man of Jess’s dreams. She was just too stubborn or scared, or both, to do anything about it.

  But maybe it was time to change that.

  CHAPTER 8

  Ethan stood on Jess’s porch and took a deep breath as he lifted his hand. He hesitated before knocking on the door. It was late. But he was on call the next few days and he wasn’t sure when he’d get another chance to talk to her.

  He’d thought about texting her, but since she still hadn’t responded to the last message he’d sent her checking on her doctor’s appointment, he figured showing up was a better way to go.

  And after seeing her out on the boat with those guys today, he knew this couldn’t wait. He still wasn’t sure what leverage he could use to get her to agree to his proposal, but he’d decided he would let her set the terms. Something told him that Jess wouldn’t be able to pass up that kind of power.

  The thudding of his heart was pounding in his head. He was probably more nervous today, standing on Jess’s front porch than he was yesterday in Chicago when he and his team broke down the door of a violent offender known to be heavily armed.

  This girl had always done things to him. Even before the day that he’d found her unconscious in the hallway, she’d engendered protective instincts in him.

  He flashed back to the first time he’d seen her.

  It was a day that was seared into his memory because it was the day after his father’s funeral and the day he’d moved to Whisper Lake to live with Nana. He’d been walking by the shore and saw a girl, crying, sitting on the pier with a big silver tube beside her. Now he knew that it was her oxygen tank, but at the time he didn’t have any idea what it was.

  He was immediately concerned, and he walked out to see if she was okay. He remembered the sound of the water splashing against the pilings and the birds chirping in the air. He could still feel the heat of the sun on his face and smell the fresh air that he hadn’t been used to growing up in the city.

  With every step he took toward her he was struck by just how small she was. She was tiny. Frail. And the sight of her thin legs dangling precariously off the pier had every fiber in his being screaming for him to pick her up and carry her to the shore.

  When he was a few feet away, she looked up.

  “Are you okay?”

  It took him by surprise because she’d been the one who was crying.

  “Yeah, are you?” he’d asked a little bit more defensively than he probably should have. But he was a preteen boy that had just lost his dad and felt like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.

  “No.” Her voice was steady and strong as she sat up straighter and although she was small and young, there was a maturity well beyond her years in her as she matter-of-factly stated, “I’m going to die.”

  “What?”

  “I heard my mom talking to my dad. They were downstairs and didn’t know I could hear. I’m going to die.”

  Her answer had shocked him so much. He just stood and stared at her for a moment before he sat down beside her and let his own confession slip out. “My dad died. His funeral was yesterday.”

  “And you’re sad,” she said.

  “Yeah.” He looked over at her and asked, “Are you scared?”

  “No.” She shook her head and looked back out over the water. “Not really for me.”

  After a few moments, he heard her sniff, and he glanced over and saw that tears had filled her eyes again. “But…my parents…I don’t know what they’re going to…”

  “It’s okay.” Ethan had been so wrapped up in his own tragedy that seeing this girl devastated, not for herself, but for her parents was eye-opening. And then he said what any boy would say to a girl with tears falling down her eyes. “Don’t cry.”

  “I’m not.” She barked back at him as she sniffed and wiped her cheeks.

  They sat beside one another, neither saying a word, for what, at the time, felt like a lifetime, before she turned to him and said, “I’m okay with dying but there is one thing I’m scared about.”

  “What?”

  “Not knowing what this feels like.”

  “What what feels—”

  She cut him off by pressing her lips to his. The feel of her lips against his was so shocking he almost didn’t notice the feeling of the oxygen tube beneath his nose. It wasn’t a long a kiss, and he hadn’t even really participated. He’d been so shocked he didn’t do anything.

  When she pulled away, they stared at each other for several beats before a look of unimpressed indifference crossed her face. “That’s it? That wasn’t so great.”

  He remembered at the time the challenge that her response had ignited in him. He wanted so badly to lean over and kiss her again to redeem himself. But he never got the chance. Just as he leaned forward, he heard screaming and looked up and saw a frantic man and woman running across the shore toward the dock.

  “Jess!” a woman yelled. “Jess!”

  “Are you okay?!” the man bellowed.

  “That’s my parents,” Jess said as she slowly, carefully stood. “I snuck out. Thanks for the kiss. At least now I know.”

  He remembered watching as she made her way down the wooden planked wharf. Her parents met her halfway, throwing their arms around her a
s they cried.

  It was almost two years before he saw her again around town, and another three before he talked to her again when he found her passed out in the hallway. To this day, they’d never spoken about that day on the pier. To this day, he didn’t even know if she remembered it, or that it was him on the dock.

  All these years that he’d ignored his feelings for Jess made him wonder now if it might have something to do with that day. That look of disappointment on her face. Was his hesitancy to tell her how he felt because he was scared to see that look on her face again?

  Maybe. But it didn’t matter anymore. She might not feel what he did, but it was time he found out once and for all.

  Lifting his hand, he rapped his knuckles on her door.

  Jess peeked out the window and glared at him for several seconds before opening the door. “What are you doing here?”

  Ethan opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

  Jess’s dark hair was down, flowing like a waterfall around her shoulders. Her sea glass gaze was usually surrounded by a thick black line but was now bare and even more breathtaking than usual. She was wearing an over-sized T-shirt and sweats and somehow managed to look sexier than she had when she’d been in a bikini on the lake earlier.

  “Hello.” She waved her hand in front of his face. “Earth to Ethan.”

  He blinked at the motion and managed to ask, “Can I come in?”

  Indecision flickered in her eyes. She inhaled slowly, and on the exhale stepped back and opened the door. “This better be good. I was just at my favorite part.”

  As he stepped into her house, he saw that it was dark except for the light coming from the television flickering against the far wall. As he took a seat on the couch, Ethan noticed Patrick Swayze in a leather jacket, frozen on the screen. “What are you watching?”