Hearts at Seaside (Sweet with Heat: Seaside Summers Book 3) Page 19

  It was nice to hear her mother say something positive about the time when she was married to Jenna’s father. Progress.

  When they arrived back at the cottage that afternoon, Jenna felt more relaxed. She was glad to know that her mother wasn’t going through a crazy midlife crisis that might end with her owning a Corvette and having her lips plumped.

  Jenna was putting away the new books she’d taken out from the library when her mother came into her bedroom and sat on the bed.

  “I think I’m going to pack up and take off this afternoon. You have a life to lead, and heaven knows I have to start pulling mine back together. Today was a real eye-opener for me. I’ve missed seeing you look at me like you’re not afraid of what I’ll say.” Her mom smiled up at her.

  Selfishly, Jenna couldn’t help but think that if her mother left, she and Pete would have tonight alone together, but her mother was trying to mend the bridge between them, and there she was trying to jump over it. She pushed away the selfish thought and focused on her mother.

  “This weekend is the book sale. Why don’t you stay and help us with it? You’re enjoying being here, and it’s nice to have you around.”

  Her mother looked around the bedroom with a thoughtful gaze and smoothed her dress over her hips.

  “As fun as that would probably be, there’s someone waiting for me at home.” Her mother’s mouth quirked up into a mischievous smile.

  “Someone?” Oh boy. Jenna’s nerves became inflamed again. Please don’t tell me he’s a twentysomething guy.

  “Do you remember Carlos? The butcher?”

  Jenna’s eyes widened.

  “Of course I remember him. He’s only been flirting with you since you and Dad split up. But you never pay any attention to him. You do realize he’s probably not any younger than dad?”

  “Yes.”

  “Or particularly fit,” Jenna reminded her.

  “Yes, he does have a bit of a belly, doesn’t he?” Her mother put an arm around Jenna’s shoulder. “I’ve been thinking about everything as we’ve been talking. Maybe who I am really is the person your father left. It’s fun to act young, but honestly, it’s exhausting. Carlos is kind, he’s stable as a rock, and we have a lot in common.”

  Jenna was relieved to hear her mother say that, and now, more than ever, she didn’t want her to get hurt.

  “How do you know that Carlos will still want to go out with you?”

  Her mom blinked her eyes in a dramatic fashion. “Because your mama isn’t a fool, baby. I might have been playing around with my clothes and how I acted, but inside I think I always knew who I was. I can’t compete with your father’s young thing.”

  “That isn’t making any sense. What does that have to do with Carlos seeing how you’ve been acting and wanting no part of it?”

  “Because while I have been feeling things out with you, and with some of my girlfriends back home, outside of those who love me no matter what I do, I’ve remained the same boring person I’ve always been.”

  “But I thought your closest friends had gotten tired of how you were behaving.” Jenna was totally confused.

  “Yes, they have, and I’ll make that right when I go home. And I hope we’re okay now. I’m sorry things got so weird.”

  “Me too, Mom. I was afraid we’d never get back to normal.”

  “Honey, we survived your teenage years; we can survive anything.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  THE NEXT THREE days passed without any middle-of-the-night calls from Pete’s father, but Pete wasn’t jumping to any hopeful conclusions. He was sure nothing had changed. Pete called Sky and urged her to delay her visit. I’m swamped and want to be available to see you when you come out. Thankfully, Sky had bought the excuse.

  Pete spent his days dealing with boat repairs and working through refits for his clients, while Jenna spent mornings with her girlfriends, enjoying the beaches or the pool, and early afternoons tooling around nearby towns. They came together in the late afternoons, usually when Pete was working on his schooner. Jenna read or walked on the beach with Joey. Sometimes she sat in the grass reading, stealing glances at Pete when she thought he wasn’t looking. She did that a lot, and he realized he was just as guilty of stealing peeks at Jenna while he worked.

  He wiped his hands on a rag and took a deep breath. He’d done as much of refitting the boat as he could before the final step. He’d been waiting to add the final coating of the antifouling paint to the bottom of the boat, with the hopes of his father joining him. His chest tightened as reality settled in. His father wasn’t going to be helping him with the boat this summer; that much was clear. Once the sun went down, his father wasn’t even equipped to help himself.

  “Hey, are you okay?” Jenna hooked her finger in the back pocket of his jeans.

  He hadn’t heard her approach. “Yeah, babe. Fine.” He folded her into his arms. Jenna never minded that he was sweaty or his hands were gritty from working, and he loved that about her.

  “I’m almost done. A day or two of painting the bottom, and then she goes in the water.”

  Jenna ran her finger along his abs. “And you’re thinking about your dad?”

  She knew him so well already. He didn’t want to talk about his father. It was Saturday night, and he hadn’t heard from him since they’d had the blowout on Wednesday afternoon. Pete was trying to convince himself that meant his father was making a change, but no matter how hard he tried to believe it, he knew it wasn’t so. They’d had blowouts before, and this was what his father did. He could go a few nights without needing help, or maybe he couldn’t. Pete didn’t know what his father did during those silent nights, but his father always went back to the same old habits, and Pete knew his uninterrupted evenings were limited.

  “Yeah. Let’s go inside and clean up. We can have dinner out on the patio.”

  They’d spent most nights at Jenna’s cottage so Jenna could be closer to her friends, but they’d spent last night at his house, and when they walked inside, the scent of Jenna’s body lotion surrounded him. When he pulled open a drawer next to the sink and found all of the dishtowels neatly folded and color coordinated, he knew Jenna had made herself right at home.

  “Sorry,” she said with a sweet smile.

  “Don’t be. I like seeing traces of you here.” He wiped his face with a towel, then scrubbed it down his chest and over his arms as Jenna pushed his hands aside and snuggled against him, her cheek pressed tightly between his ribs.

  “Babe, how come everything around you needs to be in order, but you take me as I am? I’m not exactly a guy who matches my clothes and shoes; my hands are always covered in grime or wood dust, and—”

  “I like things organized because they make sense to me that way. You make sense to me just the way you are.” She pressed her hands to his stomach and gazed up at him with love in her eyes.

  With all the guilt and worry he carried over his father, Pete wasn’t sure he made sense to himself most of the time, but Jenna’s love made him feel like the luckiest guy on the planet. He couldn’t wait to experience fall at the Cape with Jenna, then winter, when they could snuggle up by the fire and—Oh no. Jenna was only at the Cape for the summer, and they’d gotten so serious so fast that they hadn’t slowed down enough to talk about their future—and he wanted a future with Jenna. A shiver of worry rushed through him.

  They ate dinner out on the deck, surrounded by the sounds of the bay, and later, they walked down the beach with Joey happily trotting alongside them. As the night progressed, thoughts of the summer ending played in his mind. Jenna lived only a couple of hours away, in Rhode Island, but the thought of not being with her was twisting his gut into a tight knot.

  Jenna found a stick and tossed it for Joey to chase. She laughed when Joey tumbled nose first, diving for the stick. Man, he loved her laugh.

  “Hey, Jen, would you ever consider moving to the Cape full-time?”

  Jenna stopped walking and gazed out over the water.
Her hair blew back from her shoulders, and a few strands whipped across her cheek. She reached up to clear her hair from her face, and Pete took her hand in his and pressed a soft kiss to the back of it. Then he brushed her hair away from her cheek and smiled down at her.

  “Like give up my job and my house and move here?” Her eyebrows drew together.

  Not exactly the reaction he’d hoped for.

  “I guess. I’m just wondering what we’ll do when the summer’s over.”

  Jenna bit her lower lip. “Would you ever consider moving to Rhode Island?”

  He folded her into his arms and pressed his hand to the back of her head. He couldn’t leave his father, and he knew she wasn’t asking him to. She was throwing the ball back into his court so he could feel the same impact of the question as she did.

  “Maybe,” he finally managed. “I have a lot to work out here, so maybe we should both think about it.”

  Jenna pressed her lips to his stomach. He lifted her chin, and his stomach clenched at the sadness in her eyes.

  “Hey,” he said softly. “We’ll figure this out. I didn’t bring it up to worry you. I just…” He thought about how to explain what he was feeling without putting pressure on her. She was gaining solid ground with her mother again, which was wonderful, but it also made him realize that he had a long road ahead of him with his father. Honesty came before he could process a way to cushion his thoughts.

  “I don’t want to lose you, Jenna, and just the thought of not seeing you seems impossible. But I know you have a job, and a life, in Rhode Island, and I have both here, not to mention a messed-up father who needs looking after.”

  She clenched her fists in his shirt. “In all these years of wanting to be with you, I’ve never fallen short of seeing forever in my mind. But I never really worked out the particulars, I guess. How can I organize everything in my life except this?” Jenna’s voice was laced with worry.

  Pete draped an arm over her shoulder. “Maybe because it all made sense to you, like I did. It wasn’t a project, or a thing. It was us, and you can’t figure out us all by yourself.”

  The issue of their future expanded with every breath as they walked back the way they’d come, their path illuminated by the moonlight, the porch lights of Pete’s house beacons of their destination.

  The house was quiet, save for the curtains billowing around the living room windows. They went into the bedroom, and Jenna set her sandals beside a pair of her flip-flops in the bottom of Pete’s closet. She went to the dresser and squeezed a dab of her body lotion into her hands, then set the bottle beside Pete’s cologne. The room instantly smelled like Jenna. With one hand, Pete reached over his back and pulled his shirt off. Thinking of Jenna, he laid it carefully over the chair rather than dropping it to the floor. Everything he did, he did with Jenna in mind, and he liked it that way.

  Jenna untied the shoulder straps of her long cotton dress, and it puddled at her feet. She crossed her arms over her chest. The thin line of her taupe thong was barely visible against her tanned skin. Jenna rarely went without a bra, but at night, when it was just them, she felt comfortable enough to do so, and the flush that crept up her neck made her sexy and sweet at once, and utterly irresistible. Pete drew her body against him.

  “Love the worry away, Petey.” Her whisper brushed over his skin.

  He lifted her in his arms, cradling her against him, and kissed her deeply. Her arms circled his neck as he lowered her to the bed and kissed her again, loving her with all the tenderness and all the desire that consumed him every moment they were together. He slid his lips along the smooth line of her jaw and took her earlobe between his teeth. Jenna sucked in a breath; her fingernails dug into his back.

  “I love when you do that,” she whispered.

  He released her lobe and kissed the tender spot.

  “This isn’t bigger than us, Jenna. We’ll figure it out,” he whispered.

  Jenna tightened her arms around his back and buried her face in the crook of his neck, inhaling loudly. She held him so tightly that he felt a nervous trembling in her limbs. She drew back and looked at him with wide, trusting eyes.

  “It took so long to find us. I don’t see an easy answer.” She searched his eyes, and the vulnerability he saw in hers cut him to his core.

  “I’ll take care of this, Jenna. I promise you, I’ll always take care of us.”

  He promised over and over again as they made love.

  I’LL ALWAYS TAKE care of us. Pete’s hands caressed Jenna’s cheek, his kisses trailing in the wake of his certainty. She knew he would always take care of them. He’d always taken care of everyone. His siblings. His father. Seaside. He’d fixed her pipes, her closet, her roof, and now he’d keep her heart safe, too.

  Jenna sighed contentedly, and her mind drifted to his earlier question. She wanted to be with Pete. She’d always wanted to be with him. She knew family was as important to him as it was to her, and she loved that about him.

  “Petey.”

  Pete lifted sleepy and satisfied eyes to her.

  “If you were serious before, I would definitely consider moving to the Cape full-time. Rhode Island is way too far from you, and I’d never ask you to leave your father.”

  “Aw, babe. You can’t begin to imagine how much that means to me.”

  A vibrating noise sounded. Muffled and short, like a fleeting thought. Jenna glanced across the room at the same time that Pete’s head shot up, his brows pinched together.

  Pete groaned. “For crying out loud.”

  She knew by the look in his eyes, and his angry words, that it was his father calling.

  “It’s okay, Pete. We’ll clean up and go right over.”

  He pushed up on his palms and smiled down at her. “Do you have any idea how much I love you?” He pressed a kiss to her lips. “Maybe this was sort of okay when it was just me, but this is definitely not okay now.” He pushed off the bed and reached for her hand. “This is going to end. I promise you, Jenna, our lives will not be spent dealing with this.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  SUNDAY MORNING PETE and Jenna sat on the couch drinking coffee, neither wanting to leave before the other.

  “Want some toast?” Jenna’s leg bounced nervously.

  “You’re stalling.” Pete kissed her neck. “You have to be at the book sale in half an hour.”

  “Do you blame me?” She set his coffee cup on a coaster and climbed onto his lap. Pete was bare chested, wearing just a pair of Levi’s. His skin was still warm and moist from his shower, and he smelled delicious. Jenna nuzzled against his neck.

  “I’m getting used to this whole wake-up-to-Petey thing.” She ran her hands through his wet hair and kissed each cheek.

  He wrapped an arm around her and rested his head back. She knew he loved when she stroked his cheek, and she did so now. He had shaved this morning, and his face was smooth and soft. Jenna ran her thumb over his lips and then kissed them lightly, feeling the effect of her love beneath her.

  “Careful, or you’ll be late.” He opened his eyes and kissed her deeply. “I’m getting used to us, too, Jenna. In fact, I never want to go back to not being us.”

  PETE’S WORDS CARRIED Jenna through the chilly morning. By midafternoon the sun had burned through the clouds and crowds of people milled around the annual book sale—and Jenna was still smiling like a schoolgirl in love. Cars lined up along Main Street waiting to pull into the public parking area behind the church. The parking lot had been packed tight since eight o’clock in the morning. Churchgoers came decked out in their Sunday best, and families rode their bicycles through the quaint town, stopping to check out the titles, which were lined up three boxes deep in the alley, covering the tops of long tables and spread on blankets on the lawn.

  “Everyone here is going to know you’re a dirty girl if you don’t get that stupid grin off your face,” Amy teased.

  Amy and Jenna sat on metal chairs in front of Abiyoyo, a specialty shop with upscale toys,
gifts, and clothing. Behind them was a waist-high brick wall with a New England garden boasting colorful flowers and verdant foliage of varying heights and types.

  “You’d be smiling, too, if it were you and Tony.” Jenna handed a red-haired woman change for her purchase, and Amy bagged the books she bought for her two young children, who were tugging on her shorts.

  “Thanks for stopping by.” Jenna watched them walk away and turned her attention back to Amy.

  “So, anyway, it looks like I might be moving to the Cape!” She and Amy squealed and hugged for the hundredth time that day. No matter how many times she said it aloud, it still didn’t feel real.

  “I’m sickeningly jealous, but so happy for you.” Amy had on a pair of shorts and a light blue tank top. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and as she spoke, she tightened the elastic band, lifting her ponytail higher. She sat back with a sigh. “I can’t get over that you two are finally a couple. And when I see you two together, it’s like that’s how it’s always been.”

  “That’s how it feels to us, too.”

  “Have you told your mom you might be moving yet?” Amy asked.

  Jenna’s pulse kicked up a notch. She took a deep breath and reminded herself that her mother was figuring out her own life, and that she wasn’t losing her mind. Relief came quickly as she recalled her mother’s confession. “Not yet. But I will. He just brought it up last night, and we didn’t make any final decisions. He just asked if I would consider it. If, or when, I move, my mom and I will still live close enough to see each other often.”

  “If? I would stick with when.” Amy smiled and eyed a handsome guy in bike shorts flipping through a box of books. “It’s not like you have any obstacles. You rent your house, and you’re an art teacher, so you can work anywhere. Or maybe you can start painting again.” Amy raised her brows.