Falling For Zoe (The Camerons of Tide's Way #1) (11 page)

“Sometimes things happen for a reason. If things had been different, Celia might have gone to Paris, but you wouldn’t have Ava. Would you want to change that?”

Jake dropped his forehead into the palms of his hands, blocking out the scene around him as if he were trying to picture such a life. He shook his head without lifting his face. “No.” His admission was muffled. “But I still wish I didn’t have to think about nursing homes.”

“Celia doesn’t need a nursing home. At least not right off. Have you ever been inside an assisted living home, Jake?”

“No,” he admitted, then raised his head and looked at Zoe. “But I’ve been in a nursing home, and I hated every minute of it. My grandmother used to get parked in a chair with a table that held her captive for hours on end. Every day. For three years. I was pretty little at the time, but even so, I saw and understood the helpless despair in her eyes. No,” he repeated. “I don’t like the idea of putting Celia in any kind of a home. It’s not the same as being with a family who loves you.”

“I’ve never had to make such a choice for anyone I loved, and I’m not sure I wouldn’t feel the same as you, but . . .” At the bleak look in Jake’s eyes, Zoe wanted to reach out and hug him, but refrained.

“Look, Jake. On Sundays I deliver flowers from the altar at church to shut-ins. A couple of the people I visit are like Celia, and they live in protected environments within an assisted living facility. It’s nothing like the nursing home you remember from your grandmother’s day. Why don’t you come with me this Sunday and check it out?”

“But she belongs with us,” Jake insisted.

“She belongs where she’ll be the safest,” Zoe countered gently. Jake clearly had no idea what an assisted living facility was like. He was thinking with his heart, not his head. “It wouldn’t be like you’d never see her. Or like she isn’t still part of the family. It’s like she has her own apartment, and you can visit anytime you like. And you can take her out anytime you want, too. Take her out to dinner and her favorite restaurant. Bring her to the house for parties and holidays or just because you want her around. Like on weekends, maybe, when you’re not working and the kids are home from school. But when you can’t be here to watch out for her, she’ll have a place where she’s taken care of and protected.”

“That’s what her doctor said, but . . .” Jake scrunched his shoulders up, then dropped them.

Zoe reached across the dark span that separated them and placed her hand on his forearm. “The best place I’ve visited is less than five minutes away. They have a great staff that engages the residents in all kinds of activities. They have movie nights. Bingo games. Cards and crafts and picture puzzles. There’s a lovely outdoor area that’s entirely enclosed. They can sit out there and enjoy the sun on nice days.

“Come with me this weekend,” she urged. “Maybe the meds will bring about a big improvement, and it will turn out you don’t need to do anything right now. Maybe you could even take her to Paris in a month or two. But eventually you will have to consider a home. Wouldn’t it be nice to know what your options are?”

Jake gazed at Zoe in silence. Light from the front hall illuminated the strong planes of his face and glittered in his eyes. “You seem to care an awful lot. How come?”

It was on the tip of Zoe’s tongue to say,
because I love you
. Instead, she said, “Because we’re friends. And because I like Celia.”

As they gazed at each other in silence, Zoe felt the pull that Jake always had for her. This man who was so capable. So gentle. So caring. And so torn up by the things life had done to him and those he loved. He was the man she’d been waiting for all her life. She was as incapable of pulling herself away from his magnetism as the moon was of breaking out of the earth’s orbit.

When he leaned slowly toward her, Zoe knew he was going to kiss her. She wanted to close her eyes and be surprised by the touch of his mouth on hers. But she kept her eyes open. She watched him close the distance. Watched the play of emotions across his face. Probing the depth of his eyes, she hoped to see her love returned.

When his lips did touch hers, they were soft and ever so gentle. Just a brush of his flesh against hers. Excitement raced through her as if he’d lit off fireworks. She saw a flare of heat in his eyes in the brief moment before he closed them. Then he kissed her again.

Chapter 18

JAKE KNEW HE shouldn’t be doing this. He shouldn’t be kissing her. Shouldn’t be holding her like this. His emotions were so close to the surface these days, and it had been too long since he’d been with a woman. Zoe was there. She was desirable and willing. And he could so easily end up taking them both to a place he shouldn’t go.

He’d be taking advantage of her. And that was the last thing he wanted. But her mouth tasted so sweet. The way she melted against him just made him want to hang onto her forever.

Forever!

There was no forever! Jake dropped his arm and stood up abruptly. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”

He glanced down at Zoe. He saw the hurt in her eyes. Hurt he’d brought upon her. This had to stop. She was too vulnerable. She was his friend.

“Please, Jake. Don’t be sorry. I’m not.”

He reached down to take her hand and pulled her to her feet. “Then I won’t be sorry either. But your friendship means a lot to me. I don’t want to mess it up.”

“I don’t think you can mess it up. We haven’t known each other that long, but our friendship means a lot to me, too.” She cupped his cheek with one hand. Her fingers were cool against his skin.

“You’re a very special guy, Jake. I treasure whatever it is we have going between us, so please don’t be sorry. I—” She pressed her lips together for a moment, then the corners of her mouth turned up in a sweet little smile. “Good night, Jake. And don’t forget to think about Sunday.”

She tiptoed and quickly kissed him on the lips. Then she hurried down the steps and faded into the night just as she had done a few nights ago. He watched her reappear in the circle of light under the lamppost at the end of her front walk. She mounted her front stairs with a skipping step and headed for her door. At the last moment, she turned and blew him a kiss. Then the screen door slapped shut behind her, and her porch light went off.

Jake sank back onto the steps, thinking about what had just happened. Like an unseen wave that took one by surprise on the beach, desire had slammed into him, soaking and shocking in its power. But Zoe was his friend, not his lover.

He’d never had a woman as a friend before, and he wasn’t sure just how to act. But he was damned sure that the notion of friends with benefits didn’t work in the long run. Sooner or later one or both parties got hurt.

Zoe had burst into his life, bringing a houseful of animals and more problems than he could have thought possible. But somehow none of that mattered, because she was so full of life and optimism. She seemed wise beyond her years and generous to a fault. She glowed with something that came from within. Something he was incapable of putting words to, but felt inescapably drawn to. He felt as if he’d known her for years instead of mere months. He felt like he could tell her anything and she’d understand. That kind of friendship was rare, and he didn’t want to lose it. He’d told Philip he wasn’t going to mess around with her, and he meant it.

He’d just have to behave with her like he did with his friends on the fire crew, or the guys at work. Like he did with any of his other friends. But the memory of her mouth melting beneath his lingered and made him squirm. Maybe just being friends with a woman wasn’t really possible after all.

ZOE LEANED against her door in the darkened hall with her fingers pressed against her lips. Lips Jake had just kissed. A kiss that had not been about passion, yet she’d sensed that passion lurked beneath the surface. Why had he pulled away from her and leapt to his feet so abruptly? What kind of signal was she sending that made him back off every time they got close?

She’d wanted him to kiss her. How could she have made her desire any clearer? Could she have been mistaken about the passion after all? Jake said he treasured their friendship and didn’t want to jeopardize it. So maybe that really was all he wanted from her.

Zoe thought about the other men she’d known. Not that she had all that much experience to review. She laughed at herself, but there wasn’t any humor in it.

Starting with her father who needed someone to take over running the household, they’d all wanted something. The boy next door had wanted the thrill of feeling a girl’s breasts. Male acquaintances in high school had been pretty much interested in getting help with their homework. Bree had set Zoe up on a blind date once, but after Zoe balked at making out in the back seat of his car, he hadn’t asked for a second date. Porter had just wanted a convenient bed partner and maybe a leg up in her father’s firm. But none had ever wanted to be her friend. Not until Jake.

Zoe had never had a male friend. A man she could be herself with. Who made her laugh and shared her political and religious views. Someone comfortable enough in his own skin to share his problems with her and wasn’t afraid to admit to his mistakes. Not only had she never had a friend like Jake, she’d never even known a man like Jake. Jake was special.

Zoe sank to the floor, sliding her back slowly down the panels of the door.

She wrapped her arms tightly about herself and relived the intoxicating feeling of watching Jake’s mouth descend on hers and the wonderful sensation of homecoming as he’d pulled her close. She’d wanted the kiss to last forever.

But Jake apparently didn’t share such a desire. Otherwise, why would he jump to his feet, putting instant distance between them as if kissing her was forbidden?

Would friendship be enough? Could she live next door to a man to whom she felt so physically drawn without always wanting more?

Chapter 19

WITH A DISPLAY of flowers clutched in each arm, Jake followed Zoe through the automatic doors. He didn’t want to be here. Ever since his discussion with her, he’d avoided thinking about it, but common sense told him to take Zoe’s advice and check out his options.

He had driven past the Safe Haven Assisted Living Facility every day since it had been built more than five years ago and never really thought beyond the construction of it. He might have bid on the project except that at the time bids went out, he had been swamped with work, so the details weren’t familiar to him. Even as he’d watched it grow from another lost parcel of the old Jolee plantation to the sprawling, low profile, red-brick building it was now, he hadn’t considered what it would look like inside.

It definitely surprised him. Instead of the antiseptic feel of a hospital, it looked more like the lobby of a four-star hotel. If Zoe was right, and he ended up liking the place, he suspected it would turn out to be way out of reach financially. Outside, the raw new brick half-hid behind a lush wall of thick green shrubs and half grown maple trees. Inside, at the center of the spacious foyer, a small fountain bubbled merrily, adding an air of serenity and elegance.

Several groupings of comfortable-looking chairs were set around coffee tables strewn with colorful magazines. At the far end, beside a currently unlit fireplace, an elderly man in a wheelchair smiled at his equally elderly companion who perched on the edge of a chair with her hand clasped in his. Jake guessed they were husband and wife. Closer to the fountain at the center a woman who looked old enough to be a centenarian chatted with a much younger woman while a toddler dragged his fingers through the water, making motorboat sounds with the tip of his tongue protruding between his lips.

Beyond the fountain, wide sliding doors opened out into an enclosed, open-air courtyard. A paved pathway led away from the building and branched out to meander through a well-manicured lawn punctuated in places with stone benches. Slender brown trunks gave evidence of more young maples, their canopies out of sight from where Jake stood. Hydrangea bushes laden with heavy blossoms added bright splashes of color.

Jake hesitated by the doorway to the courtyard to watch a small, dark woman in a maroon uniform who sat on one of the stone benches chatting with a white-haired gentleman. A dog wearing the bright orange vest of a therapy animal had his paws resting on the old man’s thigh while the man fondled the dog’s ears. It was such a pleasant, comforting scene that Jake was hastily revising his long-held antipathy toward homes for the elderly.

“This way.” Zoe caught his attention and pointed toward a pair of closed elevator doors.

Jake took one last look at the old man and the dog before hefting the floral arrangements he still carried to a more comfortable position and turning to follow Zoe. “This place must cost a fortune.”

“No more than a nursing home. Less than most, in fact.” Zoe punched the
Up
button.

“I thought you said the Alzheimer’s unit had a self-contained outdoor area. Do the residents have to navigate an elevator to get to it? I should think they might get confused and forget how to get back.”

The door slid open. Jake and Zoe stepped inside. Zoe pressed two. There were only two floors, but Jake guessed elevators were required with so many folk in wheel chairs.

“Sometimes they do come down to the main courtyard, either with someone on the staff or a family member, but they have a private deck connected directly to the entry-controlled unit. It’s on the roof of the main dining area with a fantastic view of the inland waterway. On a clear day you can see as far away as the ocean. One of the ladies I visit is nearly always outside, watching for boats passing through the waterway and speculating on where they are from and where they might be going. The unit has its own kitchen and dining area too, but sometimes—”

The elevator door slid open, interrupting Zoe’s description, and they moved out into a hall that looked as much like a classy hotel as the foyer had. To their right a set of doors with small windows in them closed off the hall beyond. Zoe punched a string of numbers into a box on the wall, and the door lock clicked. Zoe pushed the door open and held it for Jake to pass through.

“Sometimes wh—?” Jake started to ask what Zoe had been about to say when the elevator had delivered them to their floor, but then noticed the large travel posters decorating the walls. He stopped in stunned surprise, recognizing the Eiffel Tower lit up brightly against an inky night sky. Next to it, another poster depicted a sidewalk café with menu items written in French in the window. He took two more steps and studied a third poster of a tourist boat cruising on the Seine at dusk.

Slowly, Jake pivoted, glancing at each of the remaining posters in turn. The Louvre with its famous glass pyramid. The Pont-Neuf bridge decorated with sculptured heads. The Champs-Élysées in the rain dotted with brightly colored umbrellas. There were more that Jake couldn’t identify, but they were unmistakably scenes that could be seen only in Paris.

“What is it?” Zoe returned to his side and followed his gaze.

“It’s . . .” Jake had to clear his throat. “It’s Paris.”

Zoe did the same three-sixty Jake had just executed, then looked up at him with a growing grin of delight. “So it is! You know, I never paid much attention to them before. I mean, I’ve been coming here almost since I moved in, and I’ve seen the posters, but I just never stopped long enough to think about them. Amazing! What my friend Bree would call a
God’s incidence
.”

Jake looked down at Zoe’s eager face through the fronds of ferns protruding from one of the arrangements. “A
God’s incidence
?”

“She doesn’t believe in coincidence. She says there is always a reason for things, even if we can’t always see it, and that’s when God is arranging things. So—
God’s incidence
.” Zoe did another little pirouette, her hand gesturing to the posters as she spun. “You wanted to take Celia to Paris, but maybe you will bring Paris to Celia instead.”

It’s not the same
, Jake’s heart stubbornly insisted. But still—the coincidence left him feeling a little dazed. What if God was directing him to this place? Jake closed his eyes against the overwhelming feeling of inevitability that he didn’t want to face.

“Maybe,” he muttered, turning his back on the posters. He strode off down the hall in an effort to escape the feeling. “Then again, maybe not.”

Zoe hurried to keep up, but didn’t argue with him.

In his haste, Jake didn’t pay much attention at first to the rooms as he passed, but eventually he slowed and looked around. Even here in the lockdown ward, the place seemed more and more like a hotel and less and less like the nursing home Jake remembered.

“Here we are.” Suddenly Zoe veered left into a room filled with sunshine and people. At tables scattered randomly around the room, residents were eating some kind of pudding or sipping coffee.

“Miss Zoe!” An elderly woman set down her coffee cup and stretched her hands toward Zoe. A warm smile creased her wrinkled face.

“Hello, Mrs. Warren.” Zoe took both of the woman’s hands and bent to kiss her cheek. “Look, I’ve brought a friend to visit today.”

The older woman craned her neck to look past Zoe to where Jake stood with his arms still full of flowers. She wiggled her eyebrows at Zoe. “Is he someone special?”

Zoe’s cheeks turned pink as she glanced toward Jake. “Put the flowers on the counter and come on over.” She slid into a vacant chair next to the woman. “He’s very special. He’s my very good friend, Jake.”

Jake felt the scrutiny of curious gazes as he deposited the flowers on the counter and then joined Zoe and her companion at the small table by a sliding door onto the private outdoor area Zoe had told him about.

With the introductions taken care of, Mrs. Warren began talking about her grandchildren. Photos were produced for Jake’s inspection. Soon the soft babble of other conversations resumed, and Jake felt less conspicuous. He was able to relax and admire Zoe’s ease with this lady she’d met only a couple months ago.

A dark-haired, well-built, young man dressed in the same maroon uniform as the woman in the courtyard wheeled in a cart and began clearing the tables of the remains of lunch. He took the time to chat with the people still sitting at the tables, and they clearly enjoyed his banter. He appeared to be telling them jokes because at one point a little bald man with a Santa Claus beard erupted into belly-jiggling chuckles. Everyone smiled at the young man making his rounds, and several of them waved at him as he departed.

This was definitely
not
Jake’s grandmother’s nursing home.

Zoe got to her feet and kissed Mrs. Warren on the cheek again. “Shall I put your flowers on your dresser?”

“If you wouldn’t mind, that would be so very nice, dear,” Mrs. Warren replied in her soft southern voice. Then she turned to Jake, who’d realized they were preparing to move on and had gotten to his feet. “It was a pleasure to meet you, young man. I do hope you will come again.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jake answered automatically. Then, without thinking about it, he copied Zoe and bent to kiss the old woman’s cheek.

The smile she bestowed on him told him how much she appreciated his response. It made him feel warm inside, as if he’d done a good deed. In a way, he supposed he had. Not that he’d gone out of his way to do anything special, but the twenty minutes they’d spent chatting with her had clearly brightened Mrs. Warren’s afternoon.

Zoe grabbed one of the vases filled with flowers, and Jake picked up the other. He followed her out of the dining room and down the hall to a room that he assumed belonged to Mrs. Warren. It was furnished in dark oak with a pale orange afghan thrown over the back of a battered old rocker and a pastel floral bedspread on the bed of roughly the same vintage as the rocker. A barrage of photos lined the dresser: a large, very old wedding photo, several graduations, a few weddings, and a myriad of children dressed in everything from school uniforms to Halloween costumes. Mrs. Warren clearly had a large family. Jake wondered how often any of them came to see her.

When Zoe had arranged the flowers she’d been carrying on a small round table near the window, she headed for the door again. “Now we go to visit Durbin. You won’t understand much of what he says, and he won’t remember seeing you five minutes after we’ve gone, but he likes the company, anyway. We’ll leave those flowers in the television room for everyone to enjoy.”

As they strode down the hall, Zoe leaned close and asked, “So, what do you think so far?”

“It’s not much like I imagined.” If he hadn’t been carrying the flowers in that arm, he’d have taken her hand in his to keep her close. She was like a ray of sunshine. She made everyone she touched feel good. Including him.

“Didn’t I tell you?” she asked with an impish grin.

“You did. At least you tried. I guess I wasn’t in a mood to listen.”

“I understand where you’re coming from, so I’ll forgive you. This time. Here’s the TV room.”

The television room was far busier and noisier than the dining room had been. Two women playing cards in the corner were arguing over whether one of them had cheated. Another maroon-clad man held a skein of bright red yarn stretched out between his large hands while a diminutive little woman wound the yarn into a ball. And a child of about four was pushing a small toy racecar along the back of a couch with appropriate sound effects while his mother chatted with a dapperly dressed older man.

Three more men parked in front of the television were cheering on a batter who faced a left-handed pitcher and had three men on base with two outs. Jake couldn’t help being distracted long enough to see if the guy would get a hit or strike out. When the ball sailed into the stands in fair territory, all three of the men watching erupted into cheers. By the time Jake tore his attention away from the television, Zoe had already arranged the flowers on a side table and was headed back out the door. Jake gave the men a thumbs-up gesture and then followed her.

“It’s not always that crazy in there,” Zoe told him. “But it’s Sunday afternoon. And there is Durbin. He was a jockey back in the day, and that’s about all he talks about. Horses and racing.” In a small alcove to one side of the hall, a trio of easy chairs was grouped against the wall. A man no bigger than Ava, yet wrinkled like a prune with dark skin and a full head of white hair, perched on the middle chair.

Durbin’s conversation, as incomprehensible as Zoe had predicted, was entirely about horses. Also as predicted. But Durbin hadn’t required any response. He was just happy to have someone to talk at, and Zoe made all the right sounds in all the right places. When they got up to leave, Durbin winked at Zoe in a way that suggested he’d once been a ladies’ man as well as a horseman. Then he happily returned to his worn copy of
American Turf Monthly
.

As they waited for the elevator, Zoe smiled encouragingly. “So, you want to stop by the office and see if anyone is in? Maybe they have some printed information you could take home with you to read.”

“I suppose,” Jake said as he put a hand to Zoe’s back to usher her into the elevator. He hoped the office would be locked up, and he wouldn’t have to talk to anyone. Not today. He still wasn’t ready, even though Safe Haven had turned out vastly different than his expectations. The posters of Paris unnerved him as much on their way out as they had when he’d first seen them. “Do you come here every Sunday?”

“No, just on my week to deliver the altar flowers, but sometimes I stop in on my way home from work. One time a client brought a bunch of helium balloons into the office for my boss’s birthday. He didn’t want to keep them, so I brought them here. The old folks loved them. Durbin thought it must be a birthday party, and he was disappointed there was no cake. But most of the residents thought it was fun. So, I stop in from time to time, and I usually try to bring something unexpected.”

“Unexpected like what?”

“One time I brought a bunch of foam balls, and they had a grand time tossing them at each other. Then the staff got into the game and found a couple laundry baskets to shoot at. Everyone loves to play. Doesn’t matter how old or forgetful you get.”