A Seaside Christmas
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“Nah,” Bree said confidently. “You’re as susceptible to Nell as the rest of us.” Bree slid Jenny a sly look. “Especially now that she’s technically your grandmother, too.”
Jenny gave her a startled look, then sighed as she considered the connection through Thomas. “I suppose so.”
“Why don’t you look happier about that? I know how much you adore her.”
“Because despite what she said about my needing time to deal with all these changes, I know she probably thinks I’m a terrible, selfish brat for leaving and not coming back,” Jenny said. “She’s bound to think I was trying to punish Mom for marrying Thomas.”
Bree gave her a knowing look. “Weren’t you?”
“I wasn’t, not really,” Jenny said earnestly. “I just felt lost, like an outsider in my safe, secure world. For all those years after my dad left, it was just my mom and me and Uncle Jake.”
“You didn’t blame me when I married Jake,” Bree noted.
Jenny flushed. “Sure, I did,” she said candidly. “But you’d gotten Uncle Jake to lighten up on me and Dillon Johnson, so it balanced out somehow.”
Bree smiled. “Ah, so that’s how I escaped your wrath.”
“Pretty much. I figured you were my one ally back then.” She gave her a resigned look. “Now, not so much.”
“Leave me out of it,” Bree commanded. “Let’s stick to the real issue. Thomas came along and you were no longer the sun in your mother’s universe. Is that how you felt?”
Jenny nodded. “Ridiculous, I know. I was going off to college, for heaven’s sake. I didn’t want her to be all alone. I should have been thrilled that she’d fallen in love. I wasn’t blind. I could see that Thomas adored her, that he wanted to do everything in his power to make her happy. She was glowing when they got married. And then, just when I was coming to terms with that, she got pregnant....”
Jenny shook her head at the memory of the way she’d taken that news, as if it had been a personal betrayal. She’d fled the Christmas celebration at their Dublin hotel the moment she’d heard the announcement. “God, I behaved so badly.”
“Everyone understood you were upset,” Bree consoled her. “You should have found out before the rest of us. They both should have been more considerate of your feelings. I just think they were so excited, it kind of came out.”
“I get that and I had no right to ruin that moment. It just hurt to see how happy they were, as if they’d been given a miracle.”
“They had been,” Bree said, then added gently, “But that made you realize that your mom was a woman, that you alone weren’t enough for her. It must have come as a rude awakening.”
Jenny gaped at her. “You get that?”
“Sweetie, observing human beings and all their frailties is what I do. You can’t write plays that mean anything without that kind of insight.” She grinned. “And I write halfway decent plays.”
“They’re more than halfway decent,” Jenny said with total sincerity.
“You have the same sort of insight,” Bree noted. “It shines through in your songs. How do you think you came up with so many hits? People respond to the sensitivity and truth in your lyrics.”
“I thought it was because I’ve been fortunate enough to have them sung by some of the hottest guys in Nashville.”
“Well, that, too,” Bree said with a grin. Her expression sobered. “I know I’ve said this before, but I’m truly sorry about you and Caleb. I know that breakup hurt.”
“Over and done with,” Jenny said, not even trying to hide her bitterness over that fact. “I haven’t heard from him since he went into rehab for alcohol abuse. If I never hear from him again, it will be too soon.”
“Said exactly like a woman who’s still fighting her feelings,” Bree commented. “Unless I’m mistaken, you two never talked about what happened, about those pictures that were splashed all over the tabloids. He went straight into treatment.”
Jenny thought back to those devastating days. There hadn’t been one single phone call, no attempt to apologize or explain. “We never talked, no.”
“Then you could probably use some closure,” Bree suggested.
Jenny gave her a startled look. “No way,” she insisted. “Caleb is history. I have no idea where he is. I don’t want to know. He trashed his career, right along with our relationship. Forget closure. If I ever take a chance on love again, it won’t be with another bad-boy singer, that’s for sure. Nice, stable and boring. That’s the way to go.”
She reminded herself of that every single night as she lay all alone in the bed she and Caleb had once shared.
If Bree had something to say about her fierce declaration, she wisely kept it to herself. Jenny was in no mood to hear her defend the man who’d chosen a bottle over her.
She stood up abruptly. “If I’m supposed to be up before dawn, I’d better get some sleep.” She gave Bree a hug. “Thanks for taking me in and for being so understanding.”
“Always,” Bree said. “And, sweetie, cut your mom some slack when you see her. She loves you so much.”
Because she knew in her heart it was true, Jenny nodded. “I’ll do my best.”
“You’ll come by the theater after you’ve seen her?” Bree asked. “We can talk about the songs for the play, maybe bounce around a few ideas?”
“Sounds good. I read the script and I’ve made some notes. I even have a few preliminary lyrics jotted down.”
Bree grinned. “I knew you would. I should probably call your agent tomorrow and work out a deal with her.”
Jenny regarded her with dismay. “No deal necessary. I’m doing this for the chance to work with you.”
“Sorry. You’re a professional songwriter now. You write songs, then you get paid. Given the kind of fees you can probably command these days, I might ask for the friends and family discount, though.”
“I’ll send an email to Margo and let her know,” Jenny said. “Come to think of it, she left me a message earlier, but I’m too beat to deal with it tonight. I’m actually surprised she called. I told her when I left that I was officially on vacation, that there was nothing that couldn’t wait till I get back to Nashville after the first of the year. I need a complete mental break from everything. I thought she understood that.”
Bree frowned. “If you told her that and she called anyway, maybe it’s important.”
“There aren’t a lot of emergencies in my line of work,” Jenny told her. “Tomorrow will be soon enough. Whatever it is could probably wait till after New Year’s, for that matter.”
“Your call,” Bree said.
In the guest room, Jenny took her cell phone from her purse and deliberately placed it in a dresser drawer. She piled a few sweaters on top of it for good measure. She’d meant it when she’d told Margo she wanted an uninterrupted break for the next few weeks.
Though she’d worked through the breakup with Caleb and the resulting fallout, enduring the pity and even a fair share of gloating from women who’d once envied her, there was no denying the stress of the past year. Since coming back to Chesapeake Shores was likely to be stressful in its own way, she didn’t need to have it compounded by professional obligations that could be put off.
As she shut the drawer on that part of her life, she smiled. If only it were that easy to lock away the memories. Unfortunately, there was no place to shove those. They were destined to keep on haunting her until she opened her heart to someone new. Right now she was thinking that wouldn’t happen till hell froze over.
Chapter Three
Caleb left Nashville as soon as he could throw some clothes into a suitcase. Since he tended to live in jeans, T-shirts and his leather jacket, packing didn’t take long. He threw his bag and several of his favorite guitars into the back of his 4x4 truck and headed east.
He liked driving at night, partly because there was less traffic, but mostly because it was what he’d gotten used to on tour. The band would finish a concert, party for a couple of hours, then head out on their bus for the next city on the tour. Of course, someone else was paid to drive them then, but he’d never tired of staring out the windows at the passing landscape, the lights of shadowy towns in the distance.
He’d always wondered what it would be like to settle down someplace, put down roots. The closest he’d come had been the couple of years he’d been with Jenny in Nashville, though he suspected if he counted up the nights they’d spent under that roof, it would have been less than half of those he’d spent on the road. And he’d never given up his own place, made the commitment to living with her. In retrospect, he wondered if he hadn’t known from the first that sooner or later he’d mess up what they had together.
Maybe he’d gotten his wandering gene from his father, who’d taken off when he was still in grade school and who was still wandering, as far as Caleb knew. To his everlasting regret, on his rare visits home he still caught his mother gazing out the window sometimes, her expression wistful, as if she thought there would eventually come a day when Noah Green would turn up again.
Caleb knew better. Wanderers never settled in one place for long. If they were anything like him, they had the same problem being faithful. He’d always believed, though, that if it was possible to make a lasting commitment, to live happily-ever-after, Jenny was the woman he’d want by his side.
It was ironic in some ways that their absentee fathers had drawn them together. When they’d first met, they’d spent long hours talking about that. Though Jenny claimed she didn’t care a bit about the man who’d fathered her, he’d known by seeing the hurt in her eyes that it wasn’t true. He’d seen that same pain in the mirror a time or two. He’d been just as clever about denying it, though.
But if the pain had given them a connection, it was music that had brought a shared passion into their lives. Caleb lived to be onstage, to entertain an audience. Jenny lived to create lyrics that people could relate to, to touch a place in their hearts or express a profound sense of joy. Her music could tug at the heartstrings or lift the spirits better than anything he’d ever heard.
At times in rehab, when he’d been struggling to break the hold alcohol had over him, he’d worried that what he’d done to Jenny would somehow silence that amazing creativity. Instead, if the song he’d heard Ricky sing was an example, the heartache he’d inflicted on her had been a source of even deeper inspiration. It was possibly the only good thing to come from his despicable actions.
Reflecting on what a mess he’d made of things was bringing him down, so he flipped on the radio, found a country station and let the music wash over him as he drove from Tennessee to Maryland.
Unfortunately, this habit he had of hitting the road late at night put him into Chesapeake Shores before dawn. Since it was apparent that the town rolled up the sidewalks long before midnight and the nearest motel had been miles back, he was momentarily at a loss.
Then he thought of the Inn at Eagle Point that Jenny had mentioned belonging to someone in her family, or in that big extended family that put a faraway look in her eyes whenever she mentioned them. Using his cell phone, he found the address and directions, then made his way along a winding waterfront road that emerged on a point of land overlooking the Chesapeake Bay. The inn stood before him with welcoming lights beckoning from the downstairs windows.
He hauled his bag and guitar to the front door, only to find it locked. A small, handwritten sign posted under a bell beside the door read Ring for Assistance, so he did exactly that. Again and again, he pressed the button, then watched through the glass panels on either side of the door for some sign of activity.
A harried-looking woman who was surprisingly young eventually padded down the stairs and unlocked the door. She was barefoot, wrapped in a thick robe and clearly annoyed, but beautiful just the same.
“It’s the middle of the night,” she pointed out unnecessarily.
“Exactly why I need a warm bed,” Caleb told her, turning on the smile that he’d been assured could melt the coldest female heart. Women the age of this one—early thirties—were reportedly especially susceptible. This woman, however, seemed to be immune. In fact, her gaze narrowed and she drew the robe even more tightly around her as a breeze swirled around them.
“You’re Caleb Green,” she announced as if he might not be aware of it.
“Guilty.”
“I’ll say,” she muttered.
Her reaction didn’t bode well, he concluded. Of course, anyone in this town who knew Jenny was likely to be on her side. He should have thought of that.
“Look, I’ve driven a long way tonight. I know I’m inconveniencing you by arriving at this hour, but I really would like to book a room, if you have one available.” Since he hadn’t seen a single car parked in the lot, he waited to see if she’d flat-out lie and send him away.
She frowned at him, clearly torn. Apparently, an innate sense of hospitality eventually kicked in. “One night,” she said at last.
“Indefinitely,” he countered.
Her frown deepened. “Why? If you’re here to cause trouble for Jenny, you’re not welcome, not at the inn, not in town.” The warning proved she knew the whole history and had already chosen sides.
Caleb smiled. “I see what Jenny meant about this town getting in her business.”
“We take care of our own. And Jenny’s not just a local. She’s family.”
He recalled the connection he should have made the instant the door opened. “You’re an O’Brien,” he concluded.
“I’m Jess Lincoln now, but, yes, I’m an O’Brien.”
“Which makes you what? Jenny’s cousin?” Not that Jenny had embraced being an O’Brien, as far as he could remember. She’d felt alienated from the whole lot of them, even as she’d longed to be one of them. Though she’d denied it, he’d recognized that yearning in her eyes whenever she talked about them.
“Exactly. Jenny and I are cousins, at least I like to think of us that way.”
He decided to forget charm, which was likely to be wasted, and go for being direct. “Okay, Jess, what’s it going to be? Do I get that room? Do you want to call around and take a family vote, while we both stand out here freezing, or what?”
Though there was no mistaking her reluctance, she stepped aside. “I suppose you might as well come on in, but if I find out later that Jenny wants you gone, you’re history.”
He nodded, accepting where her loyalties would naturally lie. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Jess pulled a key off the rack behind the desk and handed it to him. “We’ll deal with the paperwork tomorrow. I’m going back to bed before my husband comes down here, sees you and tells me what a huge mistake I’m making.”
Caleb chuckled. “A risk taker. I think I like you, Jess O’Brien Lincoln.”
She shook her head. “Save that smile for someone who’ll appreciate it,” she said. “The room’s up the stairs and to the left. We serve breakfast from seven to nine. Miss that, you’re out of luck unless you head into town.”
“Got it.”
As he climbed the stairs he wondered once more about Jenny’s refusal to come back here for so long. Sure, he knew there were all sorts of unresolved family dynamics at work, but he’d gotten the sense from Jess that any distance was all on Jenny, not the O’Briens. Jess, like Margo Welch, was a woman who’d always have Jenny’s back. Multiply that by what he recalled was a very large O’Brien clan and he wondered how much more difficult that was likely to make his mission to mend fences.
* * *
Connie paced the office at the nursery, her gaze going to the clock that seemed to be moving at a snail’s pace this morning. Jake had promised to get Jenny over here one way or another, and her brother always kept his word. But Jenny was no slouch when it came to stubbornness. He might have hit a snag when it came to persuading her to come to work with him.
She finally heard the crunch of tires on gravel outside and glanced out the window. When her daughter emerged from the passenger side of the pickup, Connie’s heart nearly stopped.
Jenny had changed so much, from a college girl to a woman. Some of that, she knew, was simply the natural result of reaching her early twenties. Some, she suspected, came from heartbreak. Though she’d reached out to Jenny when she’d learned of her shattered romance, she’d been rebuffed, turned away with the obvious lie that Jenny was doing just fine, no motherly comfort needed.
This morning there was no mistaking Jenny’s reluctance as she crossed the parking lot. She dragged her feet like a toddler heading for a shot at the doctor’s office. Jake leaned down, murmured something in her ear, then all but shoved her toward the door. Connie flung it open, half-afraid that Jenny would turn tail and leave before they’d said a word to each other.
“Hi, sweetheart,” she said, tears stinging her eyes. “Welcome home.” She lifted her arms, then let them drop back to her side, when Jenny remained right where she was.
“Hi, Mom. You look great,” Jenny said, her tone stilted, her gaze directed everywhere but at Connie.
“You look fantastic,” Connie said, hating the awkwardness of the moment. She stepped aside and let Jake by. Jenny followed reluctantly behind him.
“I brought coffee,” Jake said, stepping into the silence that fell. He handed out disposable cups from Sally’s, along with a bag of raspberry and chocolate croissants meant to smooth over any tension in the reunion, then headed right back to the door. “Gotta run. I’m on a job this morning.”
“Hey, wait,” Jenny protested, looking panicky. “How am I supposed to get back into town? Bree and I have a meeting this morning. We have a lot of work to do if this play’s going to be ready for Christmas week. I need to hitch a ride back with you.”
“I don’t think so,” Jake said. “Your mom can take you whenever you’re ready.” He walked out and let the door slam behind him.
Jenny turned to Connie then, and gave her a hesitant smile. “Not exactly subtle, is he?”
Connie grinned at the massive understatement. “He never was. Frankly, right this second, I’m grateful for that.” She studied her daughter’s face. “I can see, though, that you’re not.”
Jenny was silent for so long that Connie thought maybe Jake’s efforts had been wasted. She sighed.
“I can take you to your meeting now, if that’s what you want,” she offered.
Jenny flinched. “It’s okay. I have a little time,” she admitted. “Bree wasn’t even dressed when we left the house. She was still groaning about being up at all.”
Connie smiled. “It’s a wonder she and Jake ever see each other. He’s always been a morning person, and she’s such a night owl.”
“But they make it work,” Jenny said. “I can see how happy they are. And they both dote on Emily Rose.” She smiled. “She’s very precocious. If Uncle Jake thought I was a handful as a teenager, he’s really going to be in for it when Emily Rose hits her teens.”
“We’ve all told him that,” Connie said, laughing. “He swears it won’t be a problem, because he intends to lock her in her room and nail the windows shut for good measure.”
“Which only means she’ll grow up to excel at carpentry or lock picking,” Jenny said, then predicted, “She will get out.”
“No question about it,” Connie agreed. She held her daughter’s gaze. “I’ve missed you, baby.”
At first she thought Jenny wasn’t going to respond, but then she said in a voice barely above a whisper, “I’ve missed you, too.”
This time when Connie opened her arms, Jenny flew into them. After too many years of strained conversations and deafening silences, Connie’s world was finally right again. She wasn’t going to delude herself that everything between them was fixed. It took time to heal old wounds, but this moment with her firstborn back in her arms was a start.
* * *
For an hour as Jenny and her mother drank coffee and ate the croissants her uncle had brought along, it felt a little bit like old times. Jenny told her about her life in Nashville, the people she’d met and worked with, all the while carefully avoiding anything too personal. Caleb’s name never came up. Nor did her mother ask if there was anyone special in her life. It was as if there were an unspoken agreement to keep this first real conversation in such a long time light and superficial. In a way it felt more like catching up with an old acquaintance than the kind of mother-daughter talks she recalled. That saddened her.
Still it went well until her mom brought up Thomas.
“We’re so anxious to have you see the house,” Connie said with undisguised excitement. “Matthew designed it and Mick’s crew built it. There’s a view of the bay from your room. I’ve put all your things in there, but I thought maybe you’d like to redecorate it while you’re here. We could go shopping, pick out paint and curtains, a new bedspread.”
Jenny frowned. “Mom, I’m staying with Bree and Jake. I thought you understood that.”
“I know that was the plan, but I’d hoped maybe, now that we’ve talked, you’d want to come home, at least for a while. Thomas is so anxious to get to know you better. And your little brother is over the moon that you’re back. He thinks it’s very cool having a big sister.”
Jenny shook her head. “I can’t,” she said. “Not yet.”
She hated the unmistakable sorrow her response put into her mother’s eyes. “I’m sorry. I just wouldn’t be comfortable there.”
“Why not?” Connie pressed. “It’s your home.”
Jenny shook her head. “Grandma’s house where I grew up, where you and I lived when it was just the two of us—that was home. I imagine you sold it, though,” she said, unable to keep a note of bitterness out of her voice.
“No, I kept it,” her mother said softly. “Jake’s kept up the yard. Thomas has had Mick come in and make a few repairs and updates. He had it painted.” She held Jenny’s gaze. “He thought, we both did, that you might like to have it someday if you ever came back here to live.”
Jenny’s heart seemed to go still at the enormity of the gesture. “You saved Grandma’s house for me?” she whispered, incredulous. “Even though you knew I might never come back here?”
“I always hoped you would,” her mother said simply. “Maybe not to live, but it’s a great town for vacations.” She shrugged, looking embarrassed. “And Chesapeake Shores is home. At least I hope you’ll always think of it that way. I hope you’ll remember how much you once loved it here.”
“Jake and Bree never said a word,” she said, amazed. “And just now, until I mentioned it, you were pushing for me to stay with you.”
“Bree and Jake knew I wanted it to be a surprise. Plus, I guess I was hoping to maybe have you under my roof for just a little bit before you went off to your own place. If you want the keys now, though, you can have them. I brought them with me this morning.”
“Mom, I honestly don’t know what to say,” Jenny said, filled with a mix of gratitude and dismay that she’d thought her mother didn’t understand how she felt about that old house. She didn’t even want to think about what it meant that Thomas had understood as well. That he had shown such kindness to her, despite how aloof she’d remained, gave her a rare bit of insight into why her mom had fallen for him so hard.
Her mother’s smile was tinged with sorrow. “I take it you want the keys.”
“Absolutely,” she said at once. Not only was that house the only home she remembered, it would provide a refuge as she tried to figure out how to fit in with this new and overwhelming family.
Her mother fished in her purse and came up with a set of keys on a Chesapeake Shores souvenir key ring. She pressed them into Jenny’s hand, then enfolded it in her own. “We’ll transfer the deed into your name while you’re here, if you decide you want to keep it. Connor can take care of the paperwork.”
“Can we go see it now?” Jenny asked, unable to contain her excitement, even though she could see that her reaction was hurting her mom. Connie might have made this magnanimous gesture, but it was clear she’d hoped Jenny wouldn’t want to take advantage of it so quickly. Though she hid her disappointment reasonably well, Jenny could see through her act.