Loving Tessa (January Cove) (3 page)

BOOK: Loving Tessa (January Cove)
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“Yes, sir,” Paul said as he watched his boss’s face finally relax.

 

“I’ve gotta run. I need to check on some things around the beach area,” he said as he slipped his sunglasses onto his face and walked out the door.

 

***

 

Tessa wiped the tiny counter, cleaning up random bits of tomato sauce from her attempt at making good spaghetti. She feared that her son would never know what good food tasted like as she wasn’t the best cook in the world, and when she wasn’t damaging his taste buds with her own cooking, he was eating from a can or a jar.

 

“Mommy? Go to the beach?” Tyler said with his pleading blue eyes. He’d been asking for days now. It had been impossible to keep him from seeing the ocean waves out of the tiny camper windows.

 

“Not today, sweetie,” she said patting the tuft of blond hair on his head. It was the same hair his father had. The same head of hair she’d fallen in love with and subsequently come to fear. Maybe Tyler’s hair would darken as he got older. She hoped so, and that made her feel guilty for wanting anything about her son to change.

 

“Why not?” he asked with tears welling in his eyes. How could she tell him that they were in hiding? How could she explain that it wasn’t worth the risk to go outside more than they had to, even though they were hours from home.

 

“Honey, it’s getting late. It’s after dinner. We need to get baths…” she said. He started to cry. She knew this was hard for him. He’d been uprooted from everything he knew, even if what he knew was violence. His toys were gone. His room was gone. Guilt rose like bile in her throat, and she turned away from him to stop her own tears from escaping.

 

The truth was that she couldn’t give Tyler a real bath anymore. The old vintage camper had a small stand-up shower with a handheld hose. When she bathed her son, it felt like she was giving her dog a bath. What kind of mother was she? Every option she'd weighed hadn't seemed safe. The only way to be safe was to be alone. She’d learned that the hard way. But Tyler was now paying the price for her poor decisions from long ago.

 

As Tessa looked outside, she saw the sun starting to set over the ocean. Maybe they could sneak down to the shore and Tyler could play in the ocean for a little while without anyone noticing. Most people would be near their motorhomes and camp sites getting dinner ready. Deciding that it was worth the risk, she turned to Tyler.

 

“Okay, bud, I’ve got a surprise for you!” she said smiling as Tyler’s eyes got bigger. “We’re going to put on our swimsuits and play in the ocean for a little bit before it gets too dark.”

 

Tyler squealed with delight as he jumped up and down. Within minutes, he was buck naked running to the tiny bedroom on the other end of the camper, throwing the few articles of clothing in his rolling suitcase up in the air. Tessa giggled as she watched him. It was the first bit of normalcy she’d felt in a long time, and she prayed that showing their faces on the beach wouldn’t prove to be a big mistake.

 

***

 

Aaron sat on the small front porch of his cabin with a beer in one hand and his cell phone in the other. He wasn’t expecting a call, but it was a habit of his to keep his phone close ever since his mother’s stroke. Plus, running a campground meant that anything could happen at any minute, so he liked to be reachable.

 

As he swigged a sip of his beer, he leaned back in his chair and surveyed the beautiful sunset view. He couldn’t help but look at the old camper next to his cabin and wonder where the beautiful, if not secretive, woman and her unruly dog were. Were they inside, cooped up like convicts? Or had they finally gone somewhere. It seemed awfully quiet over there.

 

Tired of sitting still, he got up and walked toward the beach, dropping his bottle of beer into one of many receptacles along the way. The last thing he wanted was for any of his patrons to see him chugging alcohol as he walked around the campground. Most of his customers seemed to be near their campers, firing up their grills for dinner time.

 

What he saw next stopped him in his tracks. It was her. She was wearing a pale pink two piece bathing suit, and the orange glow of the sunset radiated off her skin even from far away. The gentle sea breeze was lightly blowing her long hair across her shoulders, and she seemed relaxed for the first time since he’d seen her. As she ran her fingers through her hair and stared into the ocean, he couldn’t help but feel like she was haunted by something. Or maybe someone.

 

As he moved closer, he crouched behind a dune. Feeling a bit like a stalker, he decided that he needed to at least know what was up with this reclusive woman staying on his property. Suddenly, he heard a child’s voice screaming and crying, and she began to run toward the outcropping of jagged rocks near the shore. He froze in place for a moment as he saw her, panic-stricken, running across the sand toward the sound of a small child crying.

 

Without thinking, he ran from behind the dune to find her crouched next to a rock and scooping a small boy up into her arms. She clutched him close to her, and Aaron’s legs felt like they were in quick sand as everything seemed to go in slow motion. He knew he was running, but he couldn’t get to her or the child fast enough for his taste. What was that about?

 

With no time to think too hard, he called out to her. “Is he okay?”

 

“I don’t know!” she said through tears as she looked back at him with a terrified look in her eyes. Aaron finally made it to her and fell to his knees beside her. There was a big cut across the boy’s forehead, but at least he was crying. Still, the mound forming behind the cut was threatening to open it up even larger.

 

“We need to get him over to the urgent care center,” Aaron yelled above the sound of the waves crashing against he adjacent rocks. “Come on!” he yelled as he stood up. He carefully took the small boy into his arms and she stood up beside him. They ran toward his cabin with the boy crying all the way. As they reached his cabin, he unlocked the Jeep with his remote and carefully placed the boy in the back seat, buckling him in and trying to assure him everything was going to be okay.

 

“It’s going to be okay, Tyler,” she said, trying to soothe him through her own tears as she sat close to him in the backseat. “Thank you for taking us. My camper… it doesn’t really…” she said pointing to the beaten up old clunker that she and her son were living in.

 

“It’s okay. Glad to do it. Doc Clayton is the best around here, and he’s usually working at the urgent care center today. They stay open pretty late, so he should still be there.”

 

“Okay…” she said, obviously tending to Tyler and paying little attention to Aaron. Still, as he drove, he couldn’t help but listen to her genuine love for the little boy. The sounds of a real mother, much like his own. It took him back in time to those days when his mother was the only parent around to soothe him. Every skinned knee, broken bone, broken heart. His father was gone before he ever had a chance to know him. Where was this little boy’s father?

 

Within a few minutes, Aaron was pulling into the parking lot of the urgent care center. Before he had a chance, she swooped the boy out of the car and inside like she had the strength of ten men. There was just something about the protection of a mother. It left him in awe for a moment as he watched her push the double doors open before he had a chance to open them for her like the Southern gentleman he’d been brought up to be.

 

“Can I help you?” the woman behind the counter asked.

 

“Can’t you see? He has a cut on his head and this bump is forming…” she stammered.

 

“And your name?” the woman asked, trying to fill out the basic paperwork.

 

“What does that matter?” she asked in a frustrated, yet almost terrified, tone.

 

“Ma’m…” the woman started.

 

“Hey, Kelly,” Aaron said coming up behind her.

 

“Oh, hey, Aaron!” the woman behind the counter said with a smile. The perky blond was thrilled to see Aaron Parker, especially since he’d been her high school crush for four years. Aaron knew that little tidbit, and he needed to use it right now for some leverage.

 

“Listen, can you do me a favor and get little Tyler here back to see the doc pretty quickly? We’ve got one shaken up momma here,” he said with sexy smile.

 

Kelly stared at him with a smile for a moment and then nodded as she buzzed them back into the triage area. After doing some minor clean up, the nurse put Tyler in a room as Aaron waited outside for him and his mom to finish up.

 

When she walked out of the room without him, Aaron looked concerned.

 

“Everything okay?”

 

“Yes. The doctor is just finishing up a couple of stitches. Poor baby just tuckered out, so he’s asleep,” she said with a tired smile. “Thanks for helping me back there…”

 

Aaron waved his hand. “It was nothing. I heard him scream…”

 

“No, I mean at the front desk.” She had a look of knowing on her face. She obviously knew that he knew something was amiss and she wasn’t who she said she was.

 

“It’s not my place to judge, Dawn. I mean, Dana? What do I call you anyway?” he asked with a laugh.

 

“Either one is fine,” she said looking down. The doctor reappeared in the doorway.

 

“All finished up, ma’m. He's got a few dissolving stitches that will take care of themselves ina few days. Now, he’s mighty tired, so I would check in on him several times during the night. I don’t think he’s got a head injury, but when they bang their noggin, it’s always a good thing to check every hour or two. ‘Course, if he starts throwing up or running a fever, you get him to the ER, okay?”

 

“Thank you, doctor,” she said with a grateful smile as she reached her hand out to shake his. He held it for a moment longer and looked into her eyes.

 

“You’re gonna be okay, ma’m,” he said and walked off. She stood there stunned for a moment, shook her head and walked into the room to get Tyler. Aaron wasn’t sure what the Doc meant, but it was like he knew that she needed to hear that she was going to be okay.

 

As they drove back to the campground, there were no words spoken between them. She was quiet, looking out the window as if she was looking into some other realm far away. They pulled into the driveway in front of his cabin and Aaron carefully unbuckled Tyler, carrying him toward the cabin instead of the camper.

 

“Where are you going?” she asked.

 

“Into my cabin,” he said as he unlocked the door and pushed it open with his foot.

 

“Um, excuse me, but I want to take my child home. He needs to rest,” she said with her hands on her hips in the doorway.

 

Aaron placed him on the sofa and covered him with a nearby blanket as she stared at him dumbfounded. He motioned for her to come back outside so as not to wake Tyler.

 

“Listen, I don’t know you very well. Actually, I don’t know you at all. But that’s not the point. The point is that Doc Clayton told you he has to be checked on every hour or two. You look completely exhausted already. There’s no way you’re going to be able to get up over and over for eight or more hours and check on him. What if you oversleep?”

 

“He’s my child, Mr. Parker.”

 

“Aaron.”

 

“Fine. Aaron, he’s my little boy. I can take care of him.”

 

“I have no doubt about that. You’re a terrific mother.” Her eyes got wide and her mouth started to curve into the sexiest little smile he’d ever seen.

 

“How do you know?” she asked trying to keep the smile from spreading across her face. It made him ache a little to think that she would question herself as a mother, of all things.

 

“Anyone can tell how much you love that boy. And how far you would go to protect him,” Aaron said, realizing that he might be getting a little too personal.

 

“Yes, I would. Whatever it takes, I will protect him.”

 

“Are you in danger?” he asked without thinking.

 

She turned toward the ocean and leaned her elbows against the railing of the porch as the ocean breeze blew her hair back against her shoulders. He heard a barely audible sigh and knew it wasn’t the time to question her. Still wearing her swimsuit, Aaron realized she might be cold and uncomfortable.

BOOK: Loving Tessa (January Cove)
7.97Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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