“SO HE’S BACK?” As Laura’s voice blasted over the phone, Jenna flinched and held it away from her ear.
“Yeah, he got here last night,” she answered.
“Oh, my gosh! Can I come over? I’m dying to see the two of you together again.”
“We’re not ‘together’ and we’re not going to be. I’ve failed in every male relationship I’ve ever had. Why would I want more of the same?”
“You can’t count Dennis.”
“Dennis should count more than anyone else. He was my husband! And then there was my father, of course, who left when I was eight and never so much as sent me a Christmas present. My stepfather considered me nothing more than an annoyance, a rival for my mother’s love and attention. And Adam took off as soon as he was old enough to leave.”
“But what you had with Adam was good.”
“While it lasted.”
“So what are you going to do? Hide out? Nurse your wounds?”
“No, it’s called using my head. For now, I’m going to protect myself so that I’ll be capable of caring for my children. Maybe when I’m strong enough, in a few years, the right man will come along.”
“And how will you know him when you meet him? I’ve been thinking the same thing for more than a decade.”
“You’ve been closeted away, taking care of your father. I can see why you’re ready to meet someone. But after living with Dennis, I like being alone. I don’t have to answer to anyone. I come and go as I please, with only Ryan to worry about….”
“You’re going to have another baby. That’s a lot to worry about.”
“More than enough. See? You’re finally hearing what I’m saying.”
Laura made a noise of frustration and changed tactics. “I understand Adam’s rich. Money could definitely make your life easier.”
Jenna tucked the phone between her head and her shoulder so she could continue dusting the bedrooms. “Jeez, Laura, when did you get so opportunistic?”
“It’s called practical, and some women are more practical than others.”
“I don’t want his money. I want to earn my own. Besides, he lives in San Francisco.”
“So move there. What’s wrong with the City by the Bay?”
The smell of lemon sifted through the air as Jenna sprayed wax polish on an Empire-style bureau and began to rub. “What’s wrong is it’s not Mendocino. I’ve promised Ryan we won’t move again.”
“You said Ryan likes Adam.”
“He does. They’re out riding bikes together right now. But what does that have to do with anything?”
“Maybe Ryan’ll want to move, if it means being closer to his new hero.”
“One week of charm hardly makes Adam a hero. I want a man who’s going to stick around for the long haul, you know what I mean?”
“And you don’t think Adam has it in him?”
“I don’t know. It’s just hard to believe that if we did get together he’d stay very long. He could have been with me before, and he walked away.”
“God, Jenna! People make mistakes. Adam’s older now. Maybe this time he’ll know what he wants.”
Jenna remembered Adam’s words from the previous night and pushed them out of her mind. She wouldn’t tell her friend that he’d asked for a second chance. Laura’s romantic streak kept her attacking Jenna’s resistance enough as it was. “He knew what he wanted last time. And it wasn’t me. Besides, there’s got to be something wrong with a man who changes girlfriends almost as often as he changes his underwear.”
“He stayed with you for three years.”
“So he did.”
“And you were happier than I’ve ever seen you.”
Jenna replaced the dish of potpourri and a hurricane lamp on the bureau she’d been dusting and tried to steer the conversation in a different direction. “What about you, Laura? What’s happening in your love life?”
“We’re not talking about me.”
Jenna laughed. “I know, but I’m finished with the Adam subject. I’ve made up my mind to keep my life simple for the next few years, and that’s what I’m going to do.”
“Having a baby without a father isn’t simple.”
Mrs. Durham walked into the room and handed Jenna an envelope. “The mail came while I was on my way back from the store,” she whispered, and left Jenna to her phone conversation.
“Mrs. Durham.” Jenna glanced at the letter Adam’s grandmother had given her to see who it was from. No return address. Her name, in block letters across the front, was written in a hand Jenna didn’t recognize. But the postal stamp indicated it had been mailed in Oregon.
Inside Jenna found a piece of lined paper that had been ripped out of a spiral notebook. One side was filled with Dennis’s small printing.
God, didn’t the restraining order mean anything to him? He wasn’t supposed to contact her, but he had, even from jail. He must have had one of his brothers mail it. They still lived in Oregon; they’d lived there since before Jenna and Dennis graduated from high school.
She tossed the note on the bed as though it had burned her and watched it flutter down with her name staring her in the face. Her ex-husband was getting out of jail. Was he already starting to harass her again? She’d put off thinking about the inevitable approach of Wednesday, but the arrival of his letter reminded her with unmistakable clarity.
“Listen, Laura, I’d better run,” she said. “If you’d like to see Adam, feel free to come by. I don’t know how long he’s staying, but my guess is he’ll be leaving in the morning.”
Laura paused. “You sound funny. Are you all right?”
“Fine. Just busy.”
“Good. Maybe I’ll see you later, okay?”
“That’d be great.”
After Laura hung up, Jenna stared at the letter awaiting her on the bed. What now? A plea for money? Another threat?
Bending slowly, she retrieved the letter and began to read.
Dear Jenna,
I know you probably don’t want to hear from me right now and I can’t blame you. I’ve been such a jerk. I’m so sorry, babe. I’ve spent almost a week sitting in this cell doing nothing but thinking about how badly I’ve screwed up our lives. And thinking about my son. You’ve told me so many times how much he needs a good father. I just didn’t hear you.
But that’s all over, Jenna. I swear this time I’m giving up the bottle. As soon as I get out of here, things are going to be different. I’m going to prove to you that I can still be the kind of man you thought I was when you married me. If I do that, if I stay sober and show you that I’m capable of living a normal life again, can you forgive me? Will you let me come around once in awhile and see Ryan? Please, give me another chance, for our son’s sake.
I’ll always love you.
Dennis
Jenna sat on the bed, lips pinched as she read and reread her ex-husband’s letter. This was the sober Dennis, the man she’d believed she could build a life with. When she’d married him, she’d known she didn’t feel the overwhelming depth of emotion she’d felt for Adam, but she’d thought they had a decent amount of love and respect between them. Their marriage shouldn’t have become the hell it had. Ryan shouldn’t have lost his father.
And now Dennis was doing another about-face, managing to surprise even her. He’d been so bitter and angry for the past few months, so far from healthy, that Jenna had feared he’d never find his way back to a normal life. Evidently getting picked up by the police had been good for him.
“There you are!” Ryan came bounding into the room with speckles of dried mud on his arms and legs, even his face. “We had a blast!”
Jenna folded the letter and stuffed it back inside the envelope. Maybe now she and Ryan could have some peace and eventually build a healthy relationship between father and son.
And what about the baby?
“It looks like you fell into a puddle,” she said.
“Nope. I rode through a creek. I wiped out a couple times, but I didn’t get hurt. You should’ve seen Adam, though. He tried to go down this pile of rocks and flew right over the top of his handlebars. It was awesome.”
“That’s what I get for showing off.” Adam stood in the doorway, grinning from a similarly mud-splattered face. A scrape on his leg testified to the spill he’d taken, along with a matching scrape on his arm and a cut on his elbow. He lifted his torn T-shirt to show her a bruise on his ribs.
“And this is supposed to encourage me to let you go again?” Jenna asked Ryan.
Ryan rolled his eyes. “Come on, Mom. He wouldn’t let me try any of the hard stuff, and he’s okay. Just look at him!”
Jenna didn’t need any encouragement to do that. The lycra biking shorts Adam wore revealed the sinewy muscles of his legs—and left very little to the imagination in other, more intriguing places.
“Next weekend you’re coming with us,” Adam told her.
Jenna would have tried the excuse that she didn’t have a bike, but she was afraid Adam would simply buy her one. “Pregnant women probably aren’t allowed.”
“I have a friend whose wife biked until six months or so. I don’t plan to take you out when you’re that far along, but a few trips early in the pregnancy should be okay.”
The proprietary tone of his voice said that her words last night hadn’t discouraged him. He wasn’t backing off. She lifted an eyebrow in challenge, but he only winked at her and headed down the hall.
“I’m going to shower,” he called back. “Ryan, you’d better wash up, too, before Gram catches sight of you.”
* * *
AFTER HIS SHOWER, Adam toweled his hair and body and opened the misted medicine cabinet in search of something to clean his cuts. Rubbing alcohol. Perfect. Uncapping the bottle, he wrinkled his nose at the antiseptic smell, then gingerly dabbed the clear liquid to his injuries and winced at the sting.
As he dressed in a pair of well-worn blue jeans and a long-sleeved jersey with a biking logo on the back, he thought of his morning with Ryan. “Dad” things were fun. Dennis had to be an idiot to let anything stop him from being with Ryan.
Adam wasn’t going to be that stupid. He’d nearly lost Jenna for good after his decision to leave her fifteen years ago. But fate—and a rocky divorce for Jenna—had brought them back together. This time he wasn’t going to blow it. Still, he had to admit that the next few months would certainly be easier if she’d cooperate.
He whistled as he remembered the way she’d come alive in his arms the night the police had carted Dennis off to jail. That memory stole his breath away and almost made him regret having done the responsible thing.
Maybe next time he wouldn’t be so responsible. Maybe he’d just have to convince Jenna that they were meant to be together—and do it in whatever way he could reach her.
“Adam?” A sharp knock on the bathroom door punctuated his grandmother’s voice. “Are you just about finished in there?”
“Be right out, Gram.”
“Good. I want you to get some things out of storage for Jenna.”
Adam padded barefoot to the door and yanked it open. “Like what?”
“Like your cradle.”
“My cradle?”
“You were born in this house, you know. Your mother had you right here, with a midwife, and Pop made you a beautiful wooden cradle.” A hint of the sadness he’d grown to recognize as a boy filled her voice. He could barely remember his mother, but he knew Gram and Pop still mourned her death, still wondered how things could have gone so terribly wrong. “I think Jenna will feel more optimistic about the baby if she sees that we’re with her, that we’re all prepared and excited.”
His grandmother’s mention of the baby brought the reality of Jenna’s pregnancy into sharp focus for Adam. With Jenna’s waist still trim and her stomach flat, it was almost too easy to forget about the child. He knew he wanted Jenna—and Ryan. But how would he feel about the baby when it arrived?
“Just let me put on my shoes,” he said.
“You know where the storage area is in that old barn,” she answered. “I’ve got to pay some bills. I’ll be in the office. I’ve asked Jenna to help you in case she sees something else she might like to clean up for the nursery. There’s an old rocker out there, too, I think.”
Adam put on his socks and shoes and laced up his running shoes as his grandmother trudged away. A baby. Was he ready to share the responsibility of caring for a squirming helpless bundle? He tried to picture a toddler tearing through his home in San Francisco and couldn’t.
When Adam reached the kitchen, he found Jenna waiting for him. Dressed in a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, she’d pulled her hair into a ponytail and looked so much like the girl he’d known in high school that he almost walked over and slung one arm around her shoulders as he would have then.
“All set?” he asked, keeping his hands to himself.
She finished the glass of water she’d been drinking and nodded. “Do you remember when we were in high school and you tried to convince me this place was haunted? You said the man and woman who built the original house died mysterious deaths, and that their bodies were discovered out in the old barn.”
“It’s true!”
Jenna rolled her eyes. “I do the advertising brochures now, remember? The couple who built the Victoriana sold it long before they died. It was too much for them to take care of, so they moved to the city and bought a condo. Nothing mysterious about it.”
He grinned. “I owe a lot to that little story. It got you into my arms every time.”
“Well, scare tactics won’t get you what they used to.”
Maybe not, but he didn’t for a second believe she was as immune to him as she pretended. If words wouldn’t reach her, touch might. Fortunately he was pretty good with body language when he wanted to be.
Just the thought of touching Jenna again fired his nerve endings. He turned abruptly and headed out the door so she wouldn’t notice her effect on him.
The chilly morning had crystallized into one of those clear warm days that could belong to spring as easily as autumn. Adam lifted his face to the sun and smiled as he breathed in the smell of damp rotting leaves and wood smoke from a neighbor’s chimney.
“Is there any particular reason for the lightness of your mood?” Jenna asked suspiciously.
“You mean, like, did I win the lottery? No.”
“Someone who drives a $60,000 Mercedes doesn’t need to win the lottery,” she grumbled. “But it would be just your luck.”
“Do I detect a pang of jealousy?” They reached the locked garage on the far corner of the property and Adam produced a key.
“No, I’m going to get a new car myself. I’ve been saving, and if my stained glass does well this spring when the tourists return, I should be able to get one next fall.” Brushing aside a cobweb, she ducked inside when he held the door.
Adam thought of Gordon Motors, where he’d bought his last vehicles and knew he could co-sign for Jenna and get her a car tomorrow, regardless of the damage Dennis had done to her credit. He didn’t say anything, though. Knowing Jenna, her pride would never allow her to accept that kind of help.
Maybe when she came to San Francisco, he’d drive her to the lot and try to tempt her.
“So where do we start?” she asked, grimacing at the dust-covered collection of stacked furniture, boxes, stuffed black garbage bags, mirrors and lampshades. A narrow path had been made through the clutter, and it meandered crookedly toward the back of what had once been a barn. Gram’s storage had grown and multiplied over the years, until odds and ends and recent additions spilled into the walkway, making it almost impossible to move very far very fast.
Adam liked the cozy fit. He could easily detect the light scent of Jenna’s perfume and the tantalizing smell of her skin. “I’m guessing the really old stuff will be at the back.”
Jenna peered toward the gloomy recesses of the building. “You don’t think there are any mice in here, do you?” she asked, picking her way toward the mystery objects along the rear wall.
The farther they moved from the old dirty window at the front, the more difficult it became to see. “Should I give you the answer you want or the truth?”
She shivered. “Just turn on a light.”
“Sure.” Adam reached around her to pull the chain that dangled from the ceiling in the center of the room, and managed to plaster himself against her backside in the process.
She gave him a warning elbow to the stomach. “Very funny.”
“Just trying to accommodate,” he told her, and began to survey the items now visible beneath the harsh light of the bare bulb overhead. Several chests of drawers, an old steamer truck, a dining-room table, a piano missing its top…The rocker Gram had mentioned was buried beneath bags of clothes and an orange feather-and-flower arrangement that had to be a relic from the sixties.
Adam grimaced at the musty odor as he dug out the rocker, then nearly choked on the dust when Jenna pulled a sheet off a likely-looking shape sitting on an old coffee table.
“Voilà! One baby cradle,” she announced proudly. Running a hand over the painted wood, she added, “Wow, it’s beautiful. Look, Adam.”
Adam leaned over Jenna to see the cradle Pop had made for him. “The old guy’s pretty good with his hands.”
“Yeah.” She glanced up at him. “I’ll be careful with it. I mean, I’m sure you’ll want to use it someday yourself—when you marry and have children.”
Adam slipped his arms around Jenna’s waist. “Doesn’t it sound more appealing to get up with the baby during the night from the warmth of my bed than trying to handle this all on your own?” he whispered in her ear.
She hesitated as though unsure, but slowly her body softened and molded to his. “It sounds even better to have you get up with the baby during the night.”
“That would take an occasional incentive,” he said.
“Like?”
“Like this.” Adam slid one hand up her shirt and the other down her pants. He’d been achingly aware of her since before they left the house and no longer cared if she knew it.
Jenna moaned as his fingers reached their targets. Her head rolled back onto his shoulder as he nuzzled her silky hair aside so he could kiss the soft skin of her neck.
“Adam, stop,” she said, but her voice was thick with the same desire that pulsed through his body, and she made no move to escape him. He could hear the panting of her breath, feel the goose bumps on her body, and thought she had far too many clothes on. Turning her in his arms, he’d just planned to remedy that situation as soon as possible when the door opened with a streak of light and Pop stood at the entrance.
Jenna scrambled a few feet down the aisle, her quick movements and the flush on her cheeks enough to give them away.
“Someone’s here to see you, Jenna,” Pop said shortly, throwing Adam a disapproving frown.
Jenna darted toward the door. “L-Laura,” she said. “She called earlier.”
Adam’s grandfather caught her by the elbow as she began to skirt past him. “It’s not Laura.”
She paused, obviously reading Pop’s face the same way Adam did: something was wrong.
“It can’t be Dennis—” Adam started to say.
“It’s not.” Pop’s expression softened as his eyes locked with Jenna’s. “It’s your father.”