A Summer Love, Chapter 8, by Jean C. Gordon

Jenny looked up the path to the beach house and her gazed locked with Jake’s. She had enough saved from her time with the Peace Corps and stint working in Alaska to buy his half of the house, nearly enough to buy the whole property outright. But Jake had said yesterday that that wasn’t an option. She strode up the walkway to the beach house determined to get some answers from Jake before she lost her nerve.

“Woof,” Ralph greeted her first.

She patted the dog on the head. “Good morning.”

“Good morning. Sit down.” Jake motioned to the matching rocker. “I’d ask you what brings you out here so early, but I think I know.”

Jenny warmed in a way that had noting to do with the bright sunshine. She and Jake had often known each other’s thoughts.

“You want to know why I can’t let you buy my half of the house.”

It looked like they might still have that part of their former connection. She studied his serious expression and swallowed the lump in her throat. And how much more?

“Yes.” She sat on the edge of the rocker.

His eyes narrowed. “Then, you didn’t receive your copy of Mom’s will from her attorney, didn’t know about the codicil she’d added concerning the house?”

“No, my mail-forwarding from Alaska has not been particularly timely.” A knot of irritation formed in her gut from his implication that she’d feigned ignorance about the house, and just when she’d decided this morning that they might be able to at least salvage part of their former friendship. “I told you last night I didn’t know she’d left me half ownership.”

“So that’s not why you came back?”

“No, it was time. Summer Shores is my home. When my commitment in Alaska was done, it called me back. For good.” She looked at him full faced, her heart thumping, trumpeting to him to say the same.” Jenny closed her eyes and leaned back in the rocker, stunned at the revelation. She wanted more than simple friendship.

She opened her eyes and breathed deeply. “But that’s why you’re finally home.” She hated the way the emphasis on finally had crept into her voice.

He flexed his ankle and she wanted to crawl under her chair, or maybe under the veranda. Dear Lord, why can’t I help blurting the wrong things to Jake? The night she broke their engagement flashed in her head.

“I’m sorry. You were hurt, That’s why you’re home. Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.”

Jenny didn’t know which of her questions he was answering, but she had the wisdom to keep her mouth shut.

“I want to talk about Mom’s stipulation about the house. Before either of us can sell, we have to spend six months in Summer Shores at the same time.”

Unable to speak because of the hope ping ponging through her, Jenny nodded understanding at the opportunity she … they’d been given. “Starting now,” she said, “now that you’re home.”

What looked like pain twisted his face. “No, I’m not home here. I’m only on medical leave.”

He was still in the military. The other questions she’d had for him were unimportant. The only important question was, did she still, now, love him enough to let him go to complete what he needed to do, as she’d completed what she’d needed to do before she’d come back to Summer Shores? To give them another chance?

Love at Cupid's Cove--A Valentine's serial--Lacy Williams

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1401282

He moved, or she did, and their lips brushed in a tentative, seeking kiss. Slowly, Lacy raised one hand and threaded her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck.

Noise rushed in her ears, as if she’d turned on all of the electric appliances at once; heat flushed through her like she was standing in front of an open oven door.

She could feel his tension, his muscles coiled to move away. Duncan was a man who kept things so tightly bottled inside… until she felt him break, and he crushed her to him.

Moments—or eons—later, he ended the kiss, pressing her head to his broad chest, tucking her head beneath his chin.

“That was a mistake.” She was so close that his words rumbled beneath her cheek. Stubble from his jaw caught in her hair, tugging the fine strands at her temple.

“It doesn’t feel like a mistake,” she said, heart now pounding with more than adrenaline from their kiss. Somehow, she’d found a way inside the walls he kept up to protect himself. Would he push her away?

She wrapped her arms more tightly around his waist, willing him to hold on to her.

“It does to me.” Gently, he set her away from him.

She blinked beneath the harsh kitchen lights, away from his warmth and the protection of his arms.

“I would never… purposely… do anything to hurt you.”

Then why was he pushing her away? It had to be some misguided sense of honor, because of what everyone in town thought about him. Everyone but her.

“Duncan, wait—”

He turned away, one hand on the back of his neck. Headed for the door. “I shouldn’t have come. I should—we should stay away from each other.” He sounded so determined, but she also heard the thread of doubt underscoring his words.

Luckily for the both of them, his statement only sparked a new determination within Lacy—to find a way to make things right for him.


Start at the beginning:
http://craftieladiesofromance.blogspot.com/2013/02/love-at-cupids-cove-valentine-serial.html
http://craftieladiesofromance.blogspot.com/2013/02/love-at-cupids-cove-valentine-serial_2.html
http://craftieladiesofromance.blogspot.com/2013/02/love-at-cupids-cove-valentine-serial_3.html
http://craftieladiesofromance.blogspot.com/2013/02/cupids-cove-valentine-serial-debby.html
http://craftieladiesofromance.blogspot.com/2013/02/love-at-cupids-cove-valentines-serial.html
http://craftieladiesofromance.blogspot.com/2013/02/love-at-cupids-cove-valentines-serial_5.html
http://craftieladiesofromance.blogspot.com/2013/02/love-at-cupids-cove-valentine-serial_7.html
http://craftieladiesofromance.blogspot.com/2013/02/love-at-cupids-cover-valentines-serial.html
http://craftieladiesofromance.blogspot.com/2013/02/love-at-cupids-cove-valentine-serial_9.html
http://craftieladiesofromance.blogspot.com/2013/02/love-at-cupids-cove-valentines-serial_11.html
http://craftieladiesofromance.blogspot.com/2013/02/love-at-cupids-cove-valentine-serial_12.html
http://craftieladiesofromance.blogspot.com/2013/02/happily-ever-after-in-cupids-cove-happy.html

Love At Cupid's Cove - Valentine Serial - Jean C. Gordon

Duncan kept his head down against the wind, a chill running through him that was out of proportion to the slight dip in the temperature this morning.  He crossed the street in front of his mother’s house and ducked down the alley-like short cut that he and his friends had always taken to Cupid Cove High School. Mom had been sleeping when he’d left. She wouldn’t know that he’d detoured a bit with her surprise cupcake.

His thoughts went back to the bakery and its proprietress. She’d seemed as sweet and cheery as her pastries. And, of course she knew his mother. That was the way with small towns. Everyone knew everyone else and their business. Places like Cupid’s Cove had a way of putting labels on their inhabitants. She must not have heard his. It certainly wasn’t hero.

The path he’d been following came out on the driveway of the last house on School Street before the school. The grass in the back yard was a shade longer than last week when his offer to mow the lawn had been rebuffed. He followed the driveway to the kitchen door at the side of the house and knocked.

“Hi, Duncan,” the five-year-old towhead answering the door said.

“That’s Mr. Hines, Angie,” her eight-year-old brother Jason corrected from behind her. “What do you want?”

“To see your mother.”

“She doesn’t want to see you,” the boy said.

“Are those from Miss Lacy’s bakery?” Angie asked, pointing at the box he was crushing in his hands. “For us?”

“Yes.” He unclenched his fingers. Lacy. The name suited her. Delicate, feminine.

“Jason is right. I don’t want to see you,” a disembodied voice said from the front of the house. “Please leave.”

Jason reached over his sister’s shoulder and started to pull the door closed. Duncan pressed the box into Angie’s hands before the door closed in his face. He heard the lock click.

Leave. There was nothing he’d rather do than leave Cupid’s Cove. But he couldn’t. Not yet.

Love At Cupid's Cove - Valentine Serial - Pamela Tracy

Before she had time to stop him, he dropped a twenty on the counter and was out the door.


“Wait! You only owe-"

“Let him go,” said old Mr. Valentine.

“But-"

“I said, let the boy alone.”

Lacy joined Mr. Valentine at the big picture window at the front of her store. He was a regular every morning, showing up when she opened, waiting patiently while the coffee brewed, and then accepting one of her coffee crumb cakes.  He usually wasn't this crotchety.

“Do you know him?” Lacy had only been in Cupid’s Cove for five years. She knew the residents, knew most of their stories/history, but now that she thought of it, only Duncan’s mother talked about him.

No one else.

Had his name been on the prayer list at church and she’d missed it?

“Course I know him. He was in one of my ninth grade history class that I taught at Cupid Cove Junior High. He’s was a smart one.”

“Then what-"

This time when Lacy stopped, it wasn’t because Mr. Valentine interrupted her.

Duncan’s mother Betty lived only a block from the bakery. Lacy could easily see her house – a big rambling two story - from the store.

And what Lacy saw right now was Duncan, white box of cupcakes clutched to his chest, head bent as he pushed against the brisk wind, walking past his mother’s house.