by JoAnn Ross
“Yeah. Kara’s mom is coming to town this week. We’re getting hitched.”
The grin on his brother’s face did a lot to lift the cloud J.T. had woken up with this morning. “It’s about time.” He grabbed two bottles of the IPA from the carton and used his Swiss Army knife to pop the caps.
Then, after handing a bottle to Sax, he lifted his own in a salute. “Ooh-rah.”
10
Phoebe Tyler couldn’t remember the last time she’d indulged in anything as simply pleasant as a picnic. But after she’d gone to Blue Heron farm with a meat order for the shelter kitchen, Ethan Concannon had surprised her by suggesting they have lunch out by a small lake on his farm. When she called Zelda to tell her she might be a bit late getting back to Haven House, the elderly woman insisted she just go ahead and take the day off.
And what a perfect day it was! Warm, with a benevolent, buttery yellow sun casting diamonds over the blue water. Bees buzzed lazily over wildflowers while songbirds played musical chairs in the branches of the tree they were sitting beneath.
Apparently confident that she’d accept his invitation, he’d prepared a lunch. It wasn’t fancy—a chicken Cobb salad wrap with the best smoked bacon she’d ever tasted, a grilled corn and tomato salad, and watermelon lemonade—but to Phoebe, because of the setting and the company, it was the best meal she’d ever eaten.
“This is wonderful.”
“I’m glad you’re enjoying it. You looked a little pale when you arrived.”
“It’s just morning sickness. Which is definitely misnamed. At least in my case. I have this looming fear that I’m actually going to end up throwing up on the delivery room table.”
“I remember, from going to classes with Mia, that some women have it worse than others. Are you sorry you’re pregnant?”
“Absolutely not.” She pressed her hands against her stomach, which was feeling steadier now that she had something in it. She’d been too anxious about coming out here today to eat this morning. Which had been a mistake. Some days she still couldn’t quite believe a baby was growing inside her. Until she was on her knees in the bathroom, which was always a vivid reminder.
“I was admittedly surprised when the home pregnancy test came out positive.” When he hadn’t been berating her for perceived mistakes, or blaming her for failures in his life, during their last two months together Peter had turned icily cold and distant. Except for that night he’d raped her.
The night their—no, her!—child had been conceived.
“But it was a good surprise.” Which was an understatement. Her baby was a blessing, and not just because her pregnancy had provided the impetus to escape her dangerous marriage. “Though sometimes I’m worried I won’t be a good enough mother.”
If she were to believe her soon-to-be ex-husband, she certainly hadn’t been an even adequate wife. And, although she was working with the therapist who visited Haven House every week, to overcome those false accusations that he’d wrapped her in—like a dark, clinging shroud—sometimes she felt an unbidden prick of fear that just maybe some of those painful words he’d attacked her with had been true.
“No one’s perfect. And every parent makes mistakes,” Ethan said. “I know I did. And I would have made a lot more if I’d gotten the opportunity.”
His voice had turned as rough as tires on a gravel road. Too late she thought about his wife and child, who’d been killed in a tragic accident, and felt guilty about having caused this man, who’d been nothing but kind and gentle to her, renewed pain.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “This must be hard on you.”
“What?”
“Being friends with me.”
“What?” The pain she’d seen in his beautiful warm eyes turned to incredulity. “How could you possibly think that?”
“Because every time you’re with me, you must think about your wife and son.”
“I’d think about them anyway,” he said mildly. “I loved them both with every fiber of my being, and they were, hands down, the most important people in my life.” His gaze turned serious. “But I also know that Mia wouldn’t want me to spend my life living in the past. And you, Phoebe, are proof that life does indeed go on.
“So, although I’m sorry for the circumstances that brought you to Shelter Bay, I’m not going to deny that I’m also grateful that you landed in Haven House, which, in turn, brought you into my life.”
She felt the color, which had nothing to do with the sun shining down, warm her cheeks. Confused and wary, as her unruly pulse began to sprint—either from pleasure or anxiety, she wasn’t sure which—Phoebe lowered her gaze and plucked at a wildflower, pulling off the petals.
He loves me.
He loves me not.
He loves me.
Loves me not.
No! Phoebe reminded herself. It was too soon to even think about love. She had so many other balls she was juggling—learning to cook so she could hopefully earn a living working at the new Lavender Hill Farm restaurant Chef Madeline was establishing. She needed to be able to stand on her own two feet and prepare to take care of her baby, because even if Zelda, who ran Haven House, let her stay on after the birth, no way was she going to bring her newborn home to a battered-women’s shelter.
Which meant she also had to find an apartment. And furnish it with a crib, and all those other things infants would need. Although the courts were requiring Peter to pay child support, ever since his parents had bonded him out of jail for charges of assault and battery and attempted kidnapping, she hadn’t seen a dime.
Which was just as well. This was her baby. All he’d done was provide the sperm. No way did she ever want to share her child with such an evil, brutal, manipulative man.
Ethan was nothing like her soon-to-be ex-husband. He was kind and gentle, and smelled richly of the dark earth he spent his days working.
But she still couldn’t let herself become emotionally involved with him.
“My point,” he continued, when she didn’t, couldn’t, answer, “is that despite our parents’ mistakes, look how good we turned out.”
His smile was warm and generous, earning one in return. A leaf from the tree they were sitting beneath, stirred by the wind, fluttered down and landed on her hair. With a gesture as natural as breathing, Ethan reached out and brushed it away. That simple touch—a broad, dark hand to her hair—sent heat shimmering all the way to her bare toes. When her baby turned a sudden somersault, Phoebe decided she must be carrying a girl.
Just a few more months and she’d be able to hold her child—son or daughter, Phoebe didn’t care which—in her arms. That thought, which she continued to cling to like a drowning woman might cling to a driftwood log, had given her the nerve to escape her dangerous marriage in the first place. And it continued to provide strength during those times when her fledgling, reborn confidence would waver.
11
She’d been wrong, Mary realized as she watched J. T. Douchett during the cocktail party held in her honor at his brother’s Cajun restaurant later that evening. He wasn’t the rudest man she’d ever met in her life.
He was the saddest.
She’d discovered while honing her crafts of writing and performing that she possessed a natural gift of empathy. The ability to put herself in other people’s shoes had proved helpful when creating characters an audience would hopefully identify with.
It had also helped during the military-base tours she’d been doing the past years. She was not naive enough to believe that she could—never in a million years—ever know what those troops she’d visited had gone through, but she could try to understand where they’d come from. When they talked about their loved ones—and wasn’t that what every one of those men and women was so eager to tell her about?—her own family came to mind.
She’d think of her older sister, tragically widowed. Although Nora was now happily remarried, Mary remembered how difficult that time had been for her and dearly hoped that none of the pretty br
ides in the photographs the proud soldiers would show her ever had to suffer the pain of losing a husband.
Her thoughts would then shift to her older brother Michael, now a farmer and happily married family man, who’d risked his own life as a war photographer for so many years. She’d been a typical, self-absorbed teen girl when he’d returned home to Castlelough, but she’d never forget his distant, thousand-yard stare.
While preparing for her first USO tour, she’d read up on life in a war zone, and a quote that had stayed with her was one about how, by looking in the eyes of a soldier, you’d know how much war he’d seen. She’d witnessed that same battle-weary fatigue in too many eyes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Which was why, although the visits proved both physically and emotionally exhausting, she continued to return, because the pleasure she felt when something she said could coax a soldier or Marine out of that numbness, when the rigid muscles in a face would actually loosen enough to smile, was priceless.
J. T. Douchett had that look. Oh, on one level, he was alert, ready to leap into action if necessary. But that was instinct, developed by years of training and experience. Emotionally, he was as numb as many of those troops she’d met. As sad-to-the-bone as her own brother had been.
And, just as her family had fretted over Michael, who hadn’t wanted their attention, surreptitiously watching J.T.’s family as she worked the crowded room with a practiced skill, Mary sensed they had the same concerns. Even as they chatted with friends and neighbors, their eyes would continually drift back to the former Marine. Who had cleaned up really well and was wearing a dark charcoal suit and white shirt. The only jarring, yet interesting, detail was the tie sporting a Tabasco red crawfish.
She’d been grateful that the schedule had allowed her some time to herself this afternoon. Because she’d been so shaken when he’d taken off those glasses, allowing her to look into those granite gray eyes from her dream, she wasn’t sure she could have just jumped right into chatting everyone up this evening.
Not having wanted him to know how upset she’d been, she’d turned away, and on trembling legs walked over to the balcony, looked out at the lighthouse flashing its warning, and wished that she’d had some sort of advance warning before getting on that plane in L.A.
It didn’t make sense. Despite what Kate had said about her mother sending her a man, despite the fact that she spent much of her time in make-believe worlds, Mary had discovered that, deep down, she was as levelheaded as her older sister. And her grandmother, who admittedly could be called eccentric, but certainly possessed more than her share of Irish pragmatism.
She’d have to think about how she’d come to dream of J. T. Douchett before she’d met him, later. When she had yet more time alone to sort it through, and his mere, overwhelming presence didn’t have her mind turning circles, like a leaf caught in an eddy.
After doing her best to charm the members of the city council, the Rotary Club, the chamber of commerce, and the historical society, the filmmakers whose work had been chosen to be shown at the festival, along with a gaggle of red-hatted women all dressed in purple, she turned toward J.T.
“I could use a bit of fresh air. Would you like to come outside with me?”
He glanced out the windows. “It’s raining.”
“Just a mist,” she countered. “And if you’d be concerned about melting, we’ll stay on the porch.”
“It wasn’t me I was thinking about,” he said, his shoulders stiffening.
She suspected that had been true for some time. “Just for a moment.”
“Your call.” He shrugged and followed her out onto the front patio.
“This is lovely,” she said as they stood beneath the purple, green, and gold neon BON TEMPS sign. The lighted arched bridge leading across the bay looked like a picture postcard. A plaintive air, played by the Celtic musicians Sax Douchett had hired for the occasion, drifted out an open window.
“Yeah. I guess it is.” He sounded surprised.
“Ah, and wouldn’t you be taking such natural beauty for granted?” she teased gently. “As we Irish often admittedly do.”
The sun had set and a cool breeze was blowing in off the water that had her wishing Leon had chosen something warmer for the reception than this short, shoulder-baring midnight blue dress. If she’d given the matter any thought, she’d have realized that her clothes were entirely wrong for both the weather and this small coastal town. Though she had seen a flash of something that looked like lust in J.T.’s eyes when she’d opened the door to the suite earlier. It had come and gone so quickly, if she hadn’t been drinking in the sight of him, she might have missed it.
She’d noticed a boutique on the drive to the inn. She’d have to make time tomorrow to drop in for some quick power shopping.
The cell phone she’d forgotten to turn off played Celtic Woman’s “Beyond the Sea” from her satin evening bag. She took it out, looked at the caller ID screen, then closed it.
“If you want privacy,” J.T. began to say.
“Oh, no.” She put the phone back in her bag. “It’s merely business. And none I’d be wanting to deal with at the moment.”
Or ever, for that matter. Tammi Newsome, the executive assistant to Aaron Pressler, the head of the studio that had spent a great deal of money to release her movies, was relentless in her zeal to climb her way up the ladder into a VP’s office. Whereas Mary had no interest in Hollywood politics, and there was no way she was going to make the changes Pressler was suggesting to “beef up” what he kept insisting on referring to as her selkie franchise.
“Aren’t you going to introduce me to your family?” she asked before he could question her about the call. The mayor, who’d been dragging her around from person to person for the past hour, hadn’t yet made it over to the Douchett table at the far side of the room.
“Why?” He shrugged off his suit jacket, and put it over her shoulders, revealing that he’d caught the faint shiver she’d tried to hide.
She’d watched him watching everyone else, even as he continued to keep her in his vision during the reception, and suspected very little got past him.
Again, that was much like Michael had been. When her brother had first returned to Castlelough, after the injury that had nearly claimed his life, he’d played hermit on his farm, never going into the village to talk with people he’d known all his life. Many of whom were like family.
“Thank you.” She pulled the edges of the suit jacket, which held his body heat, closer together. “Because I’d like to meet them. And, although I don’t want to sound conceited, since you obviously have your own ideas about my celebrity, I suspect that one of the reasons they’ve come here tonight is to meet me.” She did not share her belief with him that they were also here to keep an eye on the youngest Douchett son.
“You’d undoubtedly make their night. Hell, week. Month. Year. But,” he said, confirming her belief, “I suspect another reason they’ve shown up in force is to make sure I don’t make more of an ass of myself than I already have.”
Rather than the annoyance she might have expected to hear in his tone, Mary heard resignation.
“You’re overstating it.” When he shot her a skeptical look, she said, “You weren’t all that hospitable, true. And even, I suppose, a tad rude, which makes sense, since I’m sure there are other things you’d rather be doing. But you were a long ways from being an ass, J. T. Douchett.
“As for your family, if they do have concerns, it would not be because they’re afraid you’ll offend me as much as the fact that they care about you.”
She put a hand on his arm and felt the muscle tense beneath the starched shirtsleeve. A toucher by nature, she’d made the gesture unconsciously. But his reaction had her wondering how long it had been since any woman had placed her hand anywhere on his body.
Which, in turn, had her wondering when he’d last touched a woman. When her unruly imagination brought back memories of her dream lover cupping her breasts with his long dark finge
rs, reminding herself that this Marine was trouble with a capital T, she forced the erotic fantasy to fade to black.
“And, I suspect, they worry.”
He moved his shoulders, clearly uneasy with the topic. And although he didn’t rudely jerk his arm away, he did take a step back, breaking the light contact.
“I told them the same thing I told you. That there’s no damn need to worry, because I’m fine.”
“And isn’t that what my own brother said, when he came back from war?”
His gaze had been directed toward the bridge, but her words had him looking down at her with renewed interest. “There aren’t that many Irish troops serving in the NATO forces. Are you saying your brother was one of them?”
“Oh, no.” She realized how he could have misunderstood. “He was a civilian war photographer, and although he hasn’t covered these recent ones, he did spend a great deal of time in Afghanistan during the time the Russians were fighting there. You’ve undoubtedly never heard of Michael Joyce, but—”
“I’ve not only heard of him—I was assigned one of his books at the War College. I have an MA in history,” he clarified at her surprised expression. “With an emphasis on military history. Since the guy wasn’t working for the government, his photos weren’t colored by any nationalistic red, white, and blue flag waving. They were probably the closest I’ve ever seen to capturing what people who live in countries that have become a war zone experience. I should’ve made the connection from your last name.”
“Well, now.” She felt a flush of family pride even as she was pleased that she’d managed to learn something about the man, who, thus far, had not been an open book. “I’ll be telling him you said that. Although we don’t often talk about those days, as I’m sure you can appreciate, I know your compliment will bring him pleasure.”
“It’s not so much a compliment as the truth.”
“Well, won’t he be happy to hear it, just the same? These days his photos have become much more centered on family and farming.” The calendar of Irish scenes was on the wall of her home office in Malibu, which only somewhat eased her homesickness.