by JoAnn Ross
But then what?
There were more important issues at stake than just scratching a sexual itch. She wasn’t like her mother, following her heart, not even seeming to notice the destruction she was leaving behind in her wake. It had been Lucas, the stepbrother whose wedding gift had resulted in her coming to Shelter Bay, who’d spelled things out for her when the marriage between his father and her mother had disintegrated just weeks after that Shelter Bay summer vacation.
She’d been nine. He’d been eleven, which, looking back on it, she realized wasn’t nearly as adult as she’d viewed him at the time. He’d come into her bedroom, where she’d been sobbing her shattered heart out into her pillow, and told her that from what she’d told him about her mother’s marital record, and from what he’d witnessed for himself, Charity was never going to have anything resembling a normal family life.
So she had two choices. She could spend the rest of her life eating worms and throwing herself pity parties, or she could suck it up and realize that the only person you could ever really depend on to make yourself happy, or fulfilled, was yourself.
Which was, he’d shared with her, something he’d learned to do when his little sister had died after a long battle with leukemia when he was in the third grade. The pain the family had suffered during those three years she’d been ill had mortally wounded his own parents’ marriage. His mother had returned to her hometown in Colorado, leaving him with his father. Although he visited her during alternate Christmases and three weeks every summer, he’d never found any way to lighten the sorrow that seemed to have embedded itself into Janice Chaffee’s every pore.
Looking back on it now, Charity realized how mature Lucas had been for his age. He’d been tall, his eyes the color of melted chocolate, his brown hair streaked by the summer sun. At the time he’d been the cutest boy she’d ever met, and although she would never have admitted it, she, along with every other girl in Shelter Bay, had a bit of a crush on him.
He’d also been the most caring, compassionate, and intelligent individual she’d ever met. Which was why, after he’d dried her eyes and shared a Milky Way bar with her, she’d decided to try to follow his advice.
Which she had over the years with varying success.
As much as she’d desperately hoped for a “normal” life, whatever that was, her parents’ failed relationships, along with her own, lay behind her like flotsam littering the beach after a storm. Sometimes Charity wondered if she even knew how to be part of a couple. If she was even capable of figuring out what it took to create a family. After all, it wasn’t like earning her DVM. For that, there’d been courses to study, exams to take, and grades that pointed toward potential success. Given the divorce rate, half the people who walked down the aisle every year could probably use some marriage training.
Perhaps she was one of those women destined to spend her life alone. With only dogs and cats for companions.
And wow, wasn’t that a fun thought?
She’d assured herself that her sexual moratorium had been the logical thing to do. Didn’t all the relationship columns and self-help books warn against rebound romances? Taking some time off, especially when she’d had so many things on her plate, made perfect sense.
She had, over the months, convinced herself of that.
But then Gabriel St. James had kissed her and she’d felt ice she hadn’t even realized she’d built up around her heart cracking.
Instead of welcoming the sudden thaw, Charity was unnerved by it. Because—and, yes, it was a cliché of romantic movies and novels—she’d honestly never felt that way before.
Her mother had always been a drama queen, given to wide mood swings, her emotional pendulum never seeming to stay at calm center.
Charity, on the other had, had always been focused. Deliberate. Even when she’d accepted Ethan’s proposal, and again when she’d called off the wedding, she liked to think she’d been behaving rationally. Reasonably.
There was nothing reasonable about the storm of emotions brought about by that shared kiss. She’d felt as if she were standing atop the edge of the cliff. One more step and she could have been flying.
Of course, you could just as easily fall crashing back to earth, she reminded herself.
The fog blowing in from the sea had thickened to a swirling white blanket that wrapped around the car windows. A stand of Douglas fir trees screened both sides of the winding roadway, making it seem as if they were driving through a narrow green alley.
“I was married,” Gabriel said as they waited for the bridge, which had lifted for a ship to pass out to sea, to lower.
He had dropped that bombshell so unexpectedly, and so quietly, deep in introspection as she’d been, Charity wasn’t certain she’d heard him correctly.
“Excuse me?”
“I was married.”
“Oh.” And wasn’t that a scintillatingly brilliant response? She tried again. “Are you now?”
“What?”
Oops. Apparently that wasn’t any better, since he shot her a look that could blister the paint off a Humvee. The fact that he didn’t answer immediately was another clue—along with the back-and-forth motion of his jaw—that he wasn’t exactly pleased by her follow-up question.
She cleared her throat and tried not to feel intimidated. Which admittedly she was. Just a bit. While he might make his living taking photos, Gabriel St. James was a warrior. All the way to the bone.
“I asked—”
“I got that.” His words were clipped, his eyes hard. “What I want to know is how you could possibly believe I’d even come on to you—kiss you, touch you, dammit—if I had a wife sitting at home somewhere.”
“Some men might not find that an impediment.”
She could have sworn she saw sparks shooting from those gunmetal gray eyes. “I’m not some men. Maybe you weren’t listening when I mentioned that little detail about the Marine code about being who you are in the dark.”
And wasn’t that part of her problem? Charity had been thinking—and dreaming—about what this particular Marine might be like in the dark since they’d first met.
“It’s a great motto. But—”
“I said I was married,” he cut her off again. “Past tense.”
“I’m sorry.”
She was sorry about his marriage failing, since she knew even the most cordial breakups could be painful. But she was not sorry they were having this discussion, because it allowed her to peel back yet one more layer in the mystery that was Gabriel St. James.
“So was I.”
“Since you brought it up, am I allowed to ask what happened?” Hello, pot. This is kettle. Although she hadn’t offered up full disclosure herself, Charity was curious.
“It’s not that unusual a story. I married a woman who fell for the snazzy uniform and the idea of a Marine husband. What she hadn’t bargained for was being left alone for months at a time while that husband was deployed in war zones.” His voice echoed, deep and rich in the intimacy created by the fog. “So she found someone else to keep her company.”
“I’m sorry,” she said again.
Didn’t she know how that felt? Not that infidelity was why she’d broken off her engagement. She also noticed that Gabriel had left out the reason he’d gotten married. He shrugged. “It worked out in the end. She’s happy, living in San Diego, married to some guy who sells cars. BMWs. They have two kids—neither of which are mine in case you’re wondering—and another one on the way.”
Amazingly, he didn’t seem to hold any grudges. Then again, perhaps he hadn’t really cared. Maybe, a little voice in the back of her mind warned, he wasn’t the type of man to care about any woman. Maybe he didn’t have any family because he truly meant exactly what he’d said about not wanting one. Which, again, made him totally the wrong man for her.
“Did you love her?” She pressed a hand against her jittery stomach and realized she was holding her breath waiting for an answer.
“No.”<
br />
Okay, that was a surprise. She’d honestly expected him to at least claim to have thought he’d loved the former Mrs. St. James. Or tried. The way she’d tried to love Ethan. It appeared he wasn’t exaggerating about that Marine honor-code thing, which apparently also included a tenet about not lying.
“I guess, looking back, I just wanted to be married. To have someone waiting for me when I came back from deployment. Someone who cared whether I lived or died.”
“You wanted a home.”
This time the glance he slanted her way held more question than annoyance. She watched as he processed her comment.
“Yeah,” he said finally. “I guess that might’ve been it.” The bridge lowered.
“But you changed your mind.”
Another pause. “I suppose I did.” He glanced over at her again as they crossed over the harbor into town. Believe me, I’m not carrying any baggage from the breakup. Things happen. There’s an old saying that if the Marines wanted a guy to have a wife, they’d issue him one. It’s probably close to the mark, since I sure as hell wasn’t the only person in our unit to get a Dear John e-mail.
“I’ve moved on. The only reason I even brought the subject up is what you said about that quid pro quo deal. I’ll admit I was kind of heavy-handed, the way I pushed you about your fiancé, so I figured I ought to be up-front with you.”
“I appreciate that.” Charity also wondered how much of the surprising revelation about his failed marriage had been his way of warning her, yet again, that he wasn’t a guy looking for any forever-afters.
He nodded brusquely and turned his attention back to driving as the Jeep bumped over the railroad tracks, past the Douchetts’ bait shop, then turned onto Harborview Drive.
Neither of them spoke the rest of the way back to the house.
26
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Amanda said as Charity stood in the window watching Gabe and the still-unnamed Shih Tzu drive away.
The dog, whose ecstatic bark had risked shattering every piece of glass in the house, had literally leaped into its rescuer’s arms the minute they’d walked in the door. Although he’d held on to keep it from bouncing off him, Charity would know Gabriel was really hooked when she heard him call the poor thing something other than mutt or foo-foo dust mop.
“About what?”
“About that Marine.”
“Former Marine.”
“I’m told there’s no such thing.” She came over and stood next to Charity, watching as the Jeep drove away. “He’s a rolling stone, you know.”
“I sort of figured that out from the fact that his house has wheels.” The red taillights, blurred by the rain, disappeared around the corner and back out of town. He’d told her the campground where he was staying was located on the ocean side of Shelter Bay. “But he’s going to stay in town for the couple weeks to help out with the camp.”
“Really?” Amanda glanced over at Charity, her eyes gleaming with feminine speculation. “He doesn’t exactly seem like the camp-counselor type. I suspect his reason to stay in this admittedly charming little burg has a lot more to do with you than a bunch of foster kids.”
The pitiful thing was, Charity hoped her mother was right for once about a man’s intentions.
“He alluded to some not-all-that-pleasant family stuff growing up. I think he may identify with the kids.”
“He’s also attracted to you.”
Amanda might be clueless when it came to marriage. But surely she must have picked up a lot of knowledge about male behavior over the course of all her marriages?
“He seems to be.”
“And it’s mutual.”
“Yes.” She wasn’t about to try to deny it. “And you don’t exactly sound thrilled at that idea.”
“I worry about you. That you’ll have your heart broken.”
The weird thing was that, despite her unconventional upbringing, despite her mother being a major diva, Charity knew that her mother truly did worry about her. She’d always been more like a girlfriend than a parent. There’d even been more than one occasion when Charity felt more like a big sister than a daughter. But the one thing she’d always known was that her mother loved her.
“I know what I’m doing.” Besides, although she might treat animals, she’d taken enough anatomy to know that human hearts couldn’t actually break from a failed love affair.
“Where have I heard that before?” Her mother tapped a scarlet nail against her cover-model perfect teeth. “Oh, I know. It’s what I always tell you whenever I get engaged.”
Charity laughed. “You know,” she said, putting her arm around her mother’s waist, “growing up, there were so many times I wished I had a normal family.”
“There were many times growing up I wished I could give you a normal family.” Amanda sighed. “And I’m not dodging responsibility here, but I think it’s also partly why I kept getting married. Instead of merely hooking up like people seem to do these days. You weren’t the only one who wanted a normal family. Whatever normal is,” she tacked on. “Do you believe that’s even possible?”
Charity thought about the people she knew. From the stories Sofia told, while her marriage had been more adventurous than some, as she and her botanist husband had traveled the world searching for herbs and plants, their marriage had remained rock solid to the end.
Fred and Ethel were still obviously in love, as were Adèle and Bernard Douchett. And the sizzle between Sax Douchett’s parents had been all too obvious at Cole’s wedding.
“I think it is,” she decided. At least she hoped so. “It’s probably not easy. And I imagine you have to work at it.” Surely the loss of a daughter, along with her husband’s cancer, must have challenged Sofia’s marriage. And she suspected Adèle’s injury-caused dementia, which she’d learned about while getting her hair trimmed at Cut Loose, wasn’t easy on either her or Bernard. “But yes, I believe it’s possible.”
“Which is why you’re still yearning for an idyllic all-American family of your own.”
Yearn may be putting it a bit too strongly, since I’m honestly happy where I am in my life right now. But yes.” Charity couldn’t deny it. “I know it sounds hopelessly outdated. And not the least bit feminist.” She sighed. “But I do. Eventually. When the time’s right.”
“Well, then.” Her mother leaned her head against Charity’s shoulder. “I want it for you, too.”
They stood there in companionable silence, looking out through the rain-streaked window as the Shelter Bay lighthouse atop the cliff on the other side of the bridge flashed its bright yellow warning.
27
It was raining as the buses began rolling into the Rainbow Lake Lodge parking lot. Having learned early on to keep his emotions to himself, Johnny put on his most sullen face and wrapped himself in the cloak of isolation that had protected him like a force field during all his years in the system. No one looking at him would guess how hard he was telling himself not to cry when Angel got off one of those buses.
She was coming in from Bend, which, being on the other side of the Cascade Mountains, made it as about as remote as if she’d been sent to the moon. He’d been promised they’d have a chance to meet so they could say their good-byes before she left Salem, where they’d both been living at the time, though in different homes. But the caseworker had lied—surprise, surprise—or just been incompetent, which was just as likely, and his sister had been driven out of the city in the middle of the night.
Fortunately, he knew a girl who worked an hour every afternoon in Angel’s elementary school office, filing papers for business-class credit. She also, for some reason he’d never figured out, actually liked him, because it hadn’t taken much—just a few desperate kisses beneath the bleachers and a promise of more to come—to get the girl to look up Angel’s school transfer sheet, which had revealed her new address.
That had been the first and only time Johnny had run away. He’d wanted to lots of times, but n
o way was he going to desert his baby sister. Bad enough that, like him, she’d never known a father. But she’d also been a lot younger when their mother had been taken away, so she didn’t have the survival skills he’d taught himself. Johnny was the only family Angel knew, which was why he’d promised himself that the minute he turned eighteen and got out of the system, he was going to get her back so they could be together all the time. Instead of the few-times-a-year picnics held so prospective parents could check the kids out to see whether there were any they might want to adopt.
As soon as he’d gotten off the Greyhound bus in Bend, he’d found himself facing a sheriff’s deputy and a really unhappy caseworker. But showing she had some heart, she did let him visit his sister before she took him back to Salem. Not at the place where his sister was staying, but at a pancake house, where Angel had a strawberry waffle piled high with berries and whipped cream, while he ordered his usual favorite—blueberry pancakes—which tasted like cardboard. Then again, he figured nothing would’ve tasted good, the way he was feeling.
Thirty minutes later, after ignoring the sharp warning look from the caseworker, Johnny promised Angel he’d visit her again. Then he was sitting in the passenger seat of the official state car, headed back over the Cascades.
That had been nine long months ago. As he stood beneath the drizzling sky, Johnny zeroed in on every kid getting off each bus, watching for Angel’s blond hair, which was as soft and pale as dandelion fluff.
Years spent in the system had taught him how to sense adults’ moods, and he knew the various caseworkers who’d traveled with the kids to camp just wanted them all to line up and get inside so they could be sorted into proper groups. But the old couple who ran the place seemed to understand what their campers were feeling, because they stubbornly allowed all the early arrivals to wait and watch for their sisters and brothers.
Impatience was making his skin itch. Johnny felt as if he’d been stung by a swarm of mosquitoes.