by Rachel Hanna
"Fine. I'll come home for a few days, but then I have to get back. If I'm not here..."
"Yes, I know, the world will come to an end," Kyle said laughing. "See you next week."
* * *
Rebecca Evans pulled her curly red hair back in a ponytail and wiped down the counters at her coffee shop. It seemed like the latte machine was screwing up again and causing the contents to leak a little more than she would've liked. But, unfortunately, she didn't have the funds to fix the machine yet again. After all, she had only owned the coffee shop for a few months, and she wasn't even breaking even yet.
A single mother of a fourteen-year-old boy, Rebecca had recently relocated to January Cove in early spring. Looking for something totally new to do with her life, she had taken all of her savings and bought the old coffee shop on the corner of Main Street. It was a popular place for local residents to go, but she was still trying to make a profit on the purchase. Thinking ahead with her marketing skills, she had added entertainment on Friday nights in the form of local musicians who played guitar and sang. She had also added Wi-Fi so that local business people could work from the coffee shop during the day.
It was an old place, and she really needed to have some renovations done but that would have to wait. The coffee shop had been there for ages, even before it was popular to have coffee shops.
Working beside the beach gave her peace, and she needed that right now. Her life was anything but peaceful with an unruly teenage son to deal with every day. She understood why he was so upset all the time, but she didn't know how to fix it. She had done everything she could do to try to fix it before finally picking up and moving from New York all the way down to the small coastal town in Georgia.
He needed a fresh start. Truthfully, she needed a fresh start too. She'd been stuck in a rut for many years now, and she thought this move might push her to try something new. Live her life again. Start over.
Unfortunately, it hadn't worked out that way so far. Her son was already getting in trouble at school in their new town, and she felt more alone than ever being hundreds of miles away from what little family she had back in New York.
This certainly wasn't the way that Rebecca thought her life was going to turn out. It all started so wonderfully. She was from a close family in a small suburb outside of New York City. She grew up in an upper-middle-class family where her mother was a counselor and her father was a physician. Unfortunately, they had both died when Rebecca was only fourteen years old herself. Her father's hobby was being a private pilot of his own plane, and he had crashed with her mother on board as they headed to a medical conference in Colorado.
Rebecca had been raised after that by her aunt Mary. Her aunt was a wonderful person, but Rebecca felt lonely. She pushed herself academically and got a scholarship to a local community college and obtained a degree in marketing.
Fast forward several years and Rebecca was married with a young son when the unthinkable happened to her all over again.
She shook her head vigorously as she heard the bell ring on the front door at the coffee shop. It was times like these that she welcomed the distraction of meeting new people around town. She didn't want to think about her past anymore.
"Good morning. Welcome to Jolt," Rebecca said, forcing a smile. It just wasn't a good morning to be peppy, but she had learned that Southerners expected a proper greeting. Truth be told, being in the South had opened her up in a way she couldn't have expected. They were so welcoming to her.
"Good morning," the man said. He was handsome with dark black hair and a warm smile. "This is the first time I've been in here since you bought the place and renamed it."
"Well, thanks for stopping in," she said. "I'm Rebecca Evans." She extended her hand to shake his and he took it.
"I'm Kyle Parker."
"Parker, as in the real estate company around here?"
"Yes. My mother owns the real estate company. I'm actually a real estate investor myself," he said with a proud smile. "Nice to meet you, by the way."
"What can I get for you?"
"Just black coffee please. Oh, and two chocolate chip cookies."
"Isn't it a little early for cookies?" she asked with a chuckle as she took the cookies out of the glass case.
"They're not for me. My girlfriend and her little girl love chocolate chip cookies." Her heart fluttered for a moment at the thought of having a man who cared like that. What she wouldn't give to have that back in her life again, someone to love her, hold her, protect her. It had been so long.
"You okay?" he asked looking into her eyes concerned.
"What? Oh. Sorry. I just got lost in thought there for a moment. Your total is five dollars and fifty five cents."
He gave her a ten dollar bill and dropped two dollars into the tip jar on the counter when she handed him his change.
"How are you enjoying January Cove so far?" Kyle asked leaning against the counter.
"I love it here. It's a beautiful place to call home. Have you always lived here?" she asked as she poured his coffee and handed it to him.
"Always; I grew up here. Of course, it's a small town which means everybody knows everybody else's business."
"I can see that. I've heard all kinds of stories."
"Oh yeah? Do tell..." Kyle leaned in with his hands on his cheeks like he was enraptured with what she was about to tell him.
"Well, let's see. I heard Delilah Smith is opening a new tea room that is going to be the talk of all January Cove. I overheard Sander Thomas saying that he and his wife are divorcing because she's cheating with Emmett Mathers..."
"Wow, you do have the scoop!" Kyle said laughing. "I like you, Rebecca. I think you'll fit right in."
"Thanks," she said with a halfhearted smile. "I hope so."
"Anyone who moves to January Cove usually has scars to heal. I don't know your situation, but I can promise you one thing."
"What's that?"
"That ocean out there will heal you. Every day, it brings something new to the shore. You just have to wait for your delivery of good luck and blessings. I'll see you around," he said with a wink and walked out the door.
Rebecca sure hoped her new friend was right. She needed good luck and blessings because she felt pretty alone right now.
Chapter 2
Jackson drove down the interstate, as he had a hundred times, but this time it felt different. It had become harder and harder to drive into January Cove. He loved his family more than anything, but he felt empty lately. He felt left behind, but he couldn't put his finger on why.
Sure, he was stubborn to a fault. He refused to let people help him. He refused to fall in love and become some sappy, lovesick man enslaved by a woman and her whims. But he couldn't help but wonder if he was the problem. At the root of every complaint he had about his life, the only commonality was him.
He took a drink of his sweet tea and adjusted the visor to block out the bright sunlight. Turning up his music, he tried to tune out his own thoughts. Like it or not he'd always been considered the deep thinker in the family. He had to be, after all. He was the father figure to four younger kids, or at least that's how he thought of himself. He grew up faster than everyone he knew.
While his high school buddies were rolling yards with toilet paper and playing strip poker with the Callahan twins, he was babysitting and cutting the yard and learning to build tree forts. While everyone else was going to prom and experimenting with pot, he was busy earning extra money working at the dock and putting out flyers for houses that were for sale with his mother's real estate company.
He remembered those lean times. Money was so tight that he'd seen Adele go without meals more times than he could count, but he never told that to his siblings. He didn't want them to worry. He wanted to give them the stability that his father would have given them, so he shielded them from anything bad whenever he could.
It was hard to think back to the day his father died. It was a place he hardly ever went in his mind,
but a long car trip into January Cove would usually bring it on. Thankfully, he only remembered parts of that day. It wasn't as if it played in his head like a movie. Instead, there were fragments that shot through his soul and heart every time he thought about it.
He was thirteen years old at the time, and he was a typical boy. He was just starting to get a deeper voice, more muscles, and hints of teenage acne on his chin. Hair was starting to grow in places he didn't expect, and his mother was constantly after him to put on more deodorant. He was an avid baseball player on the city rec team, and his father spent hours throwing the baseball with him after work in the evenings.
It was a Tuesday night like any other. His father was supposed to be home around six, like always. But six came and went, and a confused Jackson sat on the front stoop of their small home waiting and wondering. His mother was inside cooking dinner and had lost track of time until the sheriff pulled up in the driveway just before seven. The sun was going down, and Jackson would never forget the red streaked sky above the sheriff's head as he took off his hat and asked to speak with Adele.
The rest of the evening was murky in his mind. He remembered his mother screaming and falling to the kitchen floor. He recalled that her cries seemed to come from the deepest parts of her soul, and he'd never heard sounds like that before. He never wanted to hear that again. Ever.
Adele had been making his father's favorite meal, spaghetti, and Jackson had to run to turn off the meat sauce before it burned. Looking back, it was probably his first act as man of the house. Take care of mom. Take care of the kids. Make sure the house doesn't burn down.
The sheriff explained that his father had been killed in a car accident about two miles from home. Two miles. Jackson remembered hearing the sirens when they went by about an hour before the sheriff showed up. He never imagined they were for his father.
Shaking his head to release the memories, he pulled into the January Cove city limits and stopped at the pier. He had to get himself together before he got to his mother's house. He was the rock of the family, and he couldn't let them see him upset.
He walked slowly down the pier, listening to the crashing of the waves and smelling the salty ocean air. The ocean calmed him, soothed old wounds. It was a salve for his problems, but even the ocean couldn't change what his life had become lately. Always a bit of a workaholic, he'd allowed his job to take the place of everything in his life. He knew logically that he should have more. He should be more. But he felt stuck for the first time in his life.
* * *
"Leo, I just don't understand this. We moved all the way here, but your grades are still slipping. This isn't okay." Rebecca said with a sigh as her apparently disinterested son slouched in the kitchen chair beside her. "What do you have to say for yourself?"
"Nothing." Leo was the epitome of a fourteen year old boy who had lost his way. Raised without his father, he'd always ached for a man in his life. Rebecca had only dated one man, and that was only for three months. When he didn't measure up to what she used to have with Tom, she broke it off. She wondered if she would ever find a man who would love her the way Tom did.
"It's not nothing. Don't you have dreams for the future? Don't you want to make good grades and go to college?" she asked, exasperated at his lack of enthusiasm for school.
"College is for nerds."
"No it's not. What do you think you're going to do with your life if you keep getting grades like this?" She tried so hard not to push him, probably out of guilt. But she was growing tired and frustrated, and tough love seemed like a route she hadn't taken yet.
"I'll be a professional skateboarder. Or maybe a football player," he said flipping a ball of paper across the table. "Can I go now? I'm supposed to text Gina."
"Who's Gina?" Rebecca asked, alarmed that he might be getting involved with girls now.
"Relax, Mom. She's just a friend of mine who likes to play the same online game I do."
Rebecca wasn't sure she bought his answer, but she was too tired to argue.
"Leo, these grades have to come up or I'm going to start taking things, starting with that cell phone in your hand," she said sharply. Her sudden change in tone got his attention for a moment, but then he looked back down at his phone. "Did you hear me?" she asked as she grabbed the phone from his hand.
"Yes, Mom! Jeez, can we be done with this conversation now?" he growled at her. She sighed and nodded as he stood up and walked to his room, slamming the door behind him. The failed quiz and test sitting on her kitchen table made her stomach churn. He was a smart kid, but it was like he'd stopped caring. He had no direction at all, and she felt like the worst mother on the planet.
It hadn't started this way. Tom was going to be the perfect father. He was tall and strong and authoritative. Leo had only been two when his father died, but it was almost as if he'd never adjusted to life without a Dad. No one to throw the ball with. No one to explain girls to him. No one to teach him how to treat women or be a gentleman. It was one of the reasons she'd moved to the South. She had hoped that some of that supposed Southern chivalry would wear off on him.
She and Tom had had a whirlwind romance, and they had a wonderful life all planned out. Until that day; the day she couldn't think about. Every single year when the anniversary of his death came around, she found an excuse to stay home, curled up in bed. Twelve years had passed, but it didn't get any easier. She was no longer grieving Tom, but the life that she had lost that day too: the future that had been taken with him to his grave. All of her plans and hopes and dreams had vanished in an instant, and there was no one to blame or take out her anger on. She just had to forge ahead with Leo by her side, and now she wondered if she'd made so many mistakes raising him that he was scarred for life.
She walked outside of their small apartment above the coffee shop and stood on the terrace facing the ocean across the street. She breathed in the salty air and closed her eyes. Would January Cove prove to heal her and her son, or was she forever hopeless?
* * *
Jackson drove through the square noticing a couple of new businesses that had opened since he was there last. The ice cream place had changed its name to Scoops, and the old coffee shop looked like it was undergoing a transformation also. He decided he needed to try it out before he left town again, but it was getting late and his mother was waiting for him.
He pulled up to her house and felt a little bit of peace for the first time in a while. There was just something about coming home again.
Before he could put his car in park, Adele came running from the house; arms open wide and a big grin on her face.
"My baby!" she squealed as he opened the door and pulled her into a long hug. Jackson was the tallest of the Parker men, and his mother was as petite as they came so he always felt like a bear squeezing a defenseless kitten when he hugged her.
"Momma," he said kissing her on top of the head. "Well, you certainly look a lot better than the last time I saw you," he said referring to her short hospital stay.
"Oh, well, you know me. I bounce back pretty quickly, son," she said smiling up at him and putting her arm around his waist. "Kyle, Aaron, come get your brother's bags. My baby's home!" she yelled to his brothers who were coming down the front steps. Both of them laughed and rolled their eyes.
"Mom's favorite son has arrived," Aaron said as he shook his brother's hand.
"Well, I am the most handsome," Jackson said with a shrug.
"I'd have to disagree on that one," Jenna said coming down the stairs. Kyle's girlfriend and her daughter had become a big part of the Parker family, and Jackson had known Jenna for years. She was like a sister to him already.
"Hey, Jenna. Good to see you again," he said hugging her and ruffling little Kaitlyn's hair. "Where's this Tessa I've been hearing about?"
"She's inside stirring the pot of chili I made," Adele said.
"Chili for Thanksgiving?" Jackson said with a laugh.
"No, silly, I'm freezing it for after Tha
nksgiving," Adele said. "It's turkey and all the fixings for Thanksgiving."
Aaron and Kyle grabbed Jackson's bags and headed inside while Adele took her time strolling with her oldest son. He felt guilty that she was so excited to see him. It meant that he'd failed her by not coming home more often. She was getting older, and he didn't want to have regrets about not seeing her enough.
"So, where's Addison?" Jackson asked as they made it inside. He immediately took in the sights and sounds of home. He could smell his mother's famous peach cobbler mixed with her even more famous stuffing.
Adele shook her head and sighed. "She and Jim are on a trip to Greece right now. You know that girl never stays home. I miss her so..."
"I'll have a talk with her," Jackson said under his breath. His duties as head of the family always stuck with him even though he lived hours away.
"No, honey, don't. I have a feeling something isn't right with her and Jim right now. No need to rock the boat. She'll come home when she feels the time is right. I talked to her just this morning, and she texts me all the time, but I sure would like to put my arms around all of my babies for Thanksgiving."
"You must be Jackson." He turned to see a new face standing in the living room. "I'm Tessa Reeves," she said with a smile. "And this is my son, Tyler." The adorable little boy grinned and ran into Aaron's arms. It was so strange to see his youngest brother, the boy he'd helped raise himself, holding a child that was basically his own now.
"Nice to meet you. I've heard a lot about you," Jackson said with a wink toward his little brother. "Glad you've decided to put up with this guy." He squeezed Aaron's shoulder.
"Oh, he's not so bad," she said, almost gushing with love. Jackson wondered for a moment what that might feel like to have a woman, a real woman, love him for who he was.
The next few hours were filled with laughter as everyone talked about what had been going on in their lives recently. For Jackson, it was bittersweet. He loved the interaction with his family and the women who were now going to become family, but he wished that he had something new about his life to share.