Wrecked (Stories of Serendipity #8): #8 (9 page)

“Okay, Grandma.” Jessie handed her the lemon juice, and Renae added it to the goat’s milk. “Isn’t your birthday next week? Do you have plans?”

Renae swallowed. She’d hoped this wouldn’t come up. She didn’t really feel like celebrating this year.

“It’s today, actually.” She managed a shrug.

“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me? I would have remembered to get a damned present at least!” She towered over Renae, with her hand on her hip and a twinkle in her eye. Jessie was pissed, but she’d get over it.

Another shrug. “I don’t know. It’s forty-five, you know? I don’t really want a big deal made. This is my present to myself, a day with a friend learning how to make cheese.” Desperate to change the subject, she asked, “How’s Emma? Is she sleeping well?” It seemed as if all her friends had babies these days. She wouldn’t be alone in her endeavors this time. Was there something in the water?

“I guess. Connor’s the self-proclaimed night nanny. You know, he takes his responsibilities as a dad very seriously and pretty much does anything I ask. He’s amazing, really.” Jessie’s voice had taken on an uncharacteristic swoony quality. It was odd. The Jessie Renae had always known had been sort of a bad ass, love ‘em and leave ‘em kind of girl before she’d met Connor. Now she was experimenting with her softer side.

Renae smiled absently. “You’re lucky to have him around.” She didn’t want to point out the obvious contrasts to her own life, as it was something Jessie had actually been around for. Renae had gone to school with Jessie, albeit several grades ahead of her. In fact, Renae had babysat Jessie a time or two, and they’d been friends until Renae had gotten married and eschewed friendships for the married life she thought would be perfect. Then, when Cody had been killed in the car accident, some of her friends had come out of the woodwork to support her in her time of need, but she’d been so distracted by raising Kelly that she hadn’t really done much to let them.

Her life had ended up so different from her friends’ lives. She found she couldn’t relate to anyone anymore. And seeing them fulfill her own dreams of college and satisfying careers had been too difficult to stomach when she was younger. Jessie was one of the few who’d tried to understand her motivations behind her reclusiveness and stuck by her anyway.

Jessie had set the timer for the curds to form and laid out the rest of the supplies to finish the cheese. “I’ve got a man bringing his elderly dad out for a tour of the farm this afternoon. He’s trying to find things to interest the old guy. You probably know them. Mr. O’Niel? He runs the mailbox place downtown? I was hoping we’d be finished by the time they got here, but they’ll be here any minute.”

“That’s okay. I think I know what to do after this. I cut the curd with that knife and pull it out with that strainer thing then put it in the cheesecloth?”

“Yeah, pretty much.” Jessie cocked her head sideways. “I think that’s them.” She wiped her hands on her apron. “Let it set about five more minutes and it should be ready to cut.” As she went outside to greet the car that had driven up, Renae peeked out the kitchen window to see the son Mr. O’Niel had told her about so many times.

A gasp escaped her throat as she saw a familiar brown head emerge from the driver’s side of the Buick sedan. She could see Mr. O’Niel sitting in the passenger seat, a vacant smile on his face, but what completely stole her attention was Jason in a pair of jeans and his worn out motorcycle boots climbing out to shake Jessie’s hand.

Her memory hadn’t been playing tricks on her. He was still as good-looking as she’d imagined. Reminding her of the way he looked when she’d hit his motorcycle, his hair was messy, as if he’d recently showered and just ran his hands through it. His piercing blue eyes surveyed the farmhouse as he ambled around the car to the trunk to get out a wheel chair and rolled it around to help his dad out.

He was wearing a brown t-shirt stretched taut over muscles Renae had traced with her fingertips on that fateful night, watching them ripple as she tickled them. Now, her fingers clenched with the desire to repeat the process. Jason started pushing the wheelchair behind Jessie as they made their way to the house, and Renae was suddenly filled with panic.

He wasn’t supposed to be here. He had gone back to Houston. Renae wasn’t supposed to ever see him again. She had to tell him she was pregnant, but she still hadn’t figured out how.

Heart thudding in her chest, Renae quietly let herself out the back door as Jessie led them in the front. She looked around for a hiding place, realizing immediately the childishness of it all. She should just face him, but in all the ways she had imagined telling him, in front of his dad and her friend weren’t a possibility. And with the inevitability at the forefront of her mind,
not
telling him wasn’t possible. It would probably be the first words out of her mouth.

Renae ducked past the windows lining the porch and sprinted towards the greenhouse. They probably wouldn’t go back there, as it was too small for a wheel chair to fit in between the plants. She managed to get inside, hopefully without being seen running full-tilt across the yard. If they were walking slowly, they wouldn’t have seen her.

Hands on her knees, Renae took in gulps of air, trying to calm her racing heart. If sprinting across a yard did this to her, she really needed to start working out. The idea flitted across her racing mind as a possibility of an alone time activity as she immediately ducked down further out of sight.

He was here. She needed to talk to him, and all of her reasons for not calling him fled her mind like remnants of a dream upon waking. She couldn’t remember why she hadn’t called him to tell him he was a father. Now wasn’t the time, she hadn’t seen him in a month, hadn’t returned his calls. She couldn’t just throw it at him out of the blue now. That would be awkward. Who was she kidding? It would be awkward anyway.

She was sitting cross-legged on the ground behind a bench of tomato plants, still trying to calm her ragged breathing when she heard the greenhouse door open.

“Renae? I saw you come in here.” His smooth deep voice washed over her, sending prickly goose bumps over her flesh, even inside the warmth of the greenhouse. She inhaled sharply, attempting to hold her breath. “I heard that.” His tone of voice was mocking as if he were laughing at her. “Come on out,” he coaxed. “It can’t be too hard to find you in here.” She heard boot steps crunching on the pea gravel Jessie had covered the ground with as he walked further into the greenhouse, coming closer to her hiding spot. “Why are you hiding?” His delicious voice was close now, and childishly, she put her face between her knees in an ‘I can’t see you, so you can’t see me’ move.

She heard a rustling next to her and looked over to find him sitting cross-legged beside her, his blue eyes piercing her with questions. He didn’t say anything else, just watched her.

Renae was trapped. She felt stupid for hiding from him in the first place. It was a cowardly move, an attempt to not have to face him, to talk to him. Even now, with him two feet away from her, his body heat reached over and caressed her skin, making it difficult to think, much less say anything, certainly not anything meaningful.

“I thought you went back to Houston.” She didn’t mean for it to, but her voice sounded accusatory, and Jason flinched.

“Is that why you didn’t call me back?” He rubbed his hands on his thighs, and Renae’s eyes were drawn to the motion, watching the denim material cling to the muscles there. “Dad had more problems than I realized, and I stayed. I’m working on some things for him, trying to get his shop back in shape and figuring out what to do with him. I’ll be here a while.”

How long would a while be? A month? A year? What was she supposed to say to that?

“I’m sorry your dad’s not doing well.” Her fingers idly traced patterns in the pea gravel floor while she avoided his eyes.

“Yeah, me too. I’m also sorry you never called me back. I had a great time with you that night.”

“About that…” Renae found herself fidgeting with the hem of her own t-shirt. “I’m afraid you got the wrong impression of me. I don’t typically go out and do stuff like that. I’m not—”

“You don’t go out and have a good time? You don’t like meeting interesting people who you connect with?” She looked up at him then, and the edges if his eyes crinkled with mirth.

Heat flamed her face. “It’s not that, it’s just… I don’t sleep with people I’ve just met. I don’t know what happened that night, and I’m sorry, I just can’t do it like that again.”

Jason reached out like he wanted to touch her, but stopped himself and Renae found she wanted to be touched. Ached for it. A pent up breath she didn’t know she was holding escaped.

“I think you are a beautiful woman who needed to unwind that night. Mission accomplished.” He paused and looked at her through hooded eyes, possibly re-living the same memories that were flashing through Renae’s mind at that moment. “I also know that I want to get to know you better. Not just more sex, although that was amazing, but I want to take you to dinner and talk to you. Laugh with you. Find out what makes you happy or sad. I want to know why you never called back.”

“I don’t know if I’m looking for that. I’m trying to figure some stuff out right now.”

“Just let me try again. Let me take you to dinner tomorrow night.” His eyes pleaded with hers, and she dropped her eyes to her lap, needing to think. Looking at him made chaste thoughts impossible.

She did need to talk to him, and telling him over a quiet dinner would be preferable to the greenhouse floor. “No expectations?”

He flashed her a smile that tweaked her insides, making her belly flop over. “None other than you having another good time. After dinner, I’ll take you home. End of date. No expectations.”

“I’ll meet you there.” After she told him, he may not want to take her home. Or ever see her again.

Hurt clouded his eyes, but he agreed. “Sure. I’ll meet you there. Let me figure out where there is, and I’ll text you. Okay? You haven’t changed your number, have you?”

She shook her head.

“Good.” He lithely got to his feet and held a hand down to help Renae up. She took it, trying to be gracious, but the contact with his warm skin almost made her regret it. As he pulled her up, she skimmed against his body, and hers reacted instantly. Weight flooded her breasts and she wanted to melt against him until she couldn’t tell where her body ended and his began. She could feel his body tense at her proximity, and it was as if he held his breath, waiting to see what she would do. Taking a step back, she extracted her hand from his grip and tried to smile at him.

“I’ve got to go. Stuff to do.” Anything to get out of this place with him. Her emotions were careening dangerously out of control, and her body was doing things she didn’t want it to do. She could only blame it on herself. She watched his shoulders slump almost imperceptibly before she turned and walked as quickly as she could out to her car and left. Jessie would probably wonder why she didn’t say goodbye or finish her cheese, but she didn’t care. She would call her friend later and explain some of it.

J
ason was whistling a jaunty tune to himself as he locked up the shop. It wasn’t open today as it was Sunday, but he’d been working nonetheless. It was finally up to par with his own standards. The pigeon holes were actually filled with envelopes of various sizes, prices marked for customers to see. The packing materials were stowed away for customer usage, not strewn everywhere. The different carriers’ packaging was also organized with the excess boxed away and stored in the storage closet. Jason had posted pricing changes for customers to see, and the ones who had been using it had expressed their gratitude for his new system of actually charging the correct shipping costs. Most people knew and liked Joe and appreciated his son’s helping to make his business a success. People who lived in Serendipity wanted to see small businesses thrive, not go under.

Jason was also working on a theme for the shop’s décor, something to make the place a little more visually appealing. He’d moved his baseball collection up from Houston and was making plans to frame some of his more unique cards and memorabilia for customers to look at while they were in there. It could also be a conversation starter to aid with customer service. Jason didn’t know much about making small talk about kids, but he could talk baseball ‘till he was blue in the face.

He’d made reservations at Estelle’s, which was run by the lady ran whose goat farm he’d taken Dad to yesterday. Where he’d found Renae hiding from him. He could only assume he’d done something to scare her. Maybe she was afraid of the intensity between them. If he thought about it too much, he would probably be afraid of it too. But he didn’t want to think about it. He wanted to experience it again.

Jason had texted Renae the time and location for her to meet him. He just had to run by Dad’s place to check on him real quick, and then he’d be on his way to see her again. Pulling on his helmet, Jason straddled his bike, remembering the first time he’d seen Renae.

When he’d come to, she’d been straddling him, leaning over trying to determine if he was alive. The scent of cinnamon had seeped into his conscious like rays of sunshine, waking him. He’d almost immediately regretted his rough treatment of her, all the yelling he’d done. He’d been thrown off, though, both literally and figuratively. As he kick-started the machine, he felt the rumbles radiate through him, the power surging as he took off from the curb.