“Oh, well—”
“I heard he runs along the beach every morning.” She sighed as if that was the most wonderful thing on the planet. “Makes a girl want to start running, don’t you think?”
Janey had no idea what to think, but all the staring suddenly made sense. Two check stands away, another woman had turned around to stare at her, and Janey ducked her head and willed Carol to scan faster.
The town had obviously gotten the memo on her and Adam’s relationship, and Janey wasn’t sure how to feel about being recognized in the grocery store.
Chapter Eighteen
Adam waited outside Janey’s house on Saturday morning, the rain pounding against his car. He’d called Jess and told him not to skateboard over. Adam was afraid the boy would get washed right off the streets, what with the way the weather had turned during the night.
Janey had texted and said she’d made it up to the lodge okay, and Adam hadn’t gotten in his run on the beach. With the Fall Festival only three weeks away, he was already starting to check the long-range weather forecasts to see if they’d need to move everything indoors.
They had contingency plans for that, of course, but he hoped they wouldn’t have to use them. His officers had a hard time working long hours in the rain, and less people would show up for the festivities if Mother Nature didn’t get her act together before the festival.
He was just about to call Jess again when the front door opened and the boy dashed down the steps. He ran across the grass and practically dove into the front seat of the cruiser. “Whew! It is so loud in the house.” He brushed water from his shoulders and hair.
“And still no jacket, I see,” Adam commented, remembering when he was thirteen and it was so uncool to wear anything that provided any protection whatsoever. It seemed like that hadn’t changed.
“I figured I’d be in the car or the house most of the time.” Jess grinned at him. “Surely we’re not still hiking to the waterfalls today.”
“Nope.” Adam flipped a U-turn and headed down the street to get back to his place. “But we are meeting your mom at the lodge for lunch.”
Jess groaned, and Adam asked, “What?”
“I don’t like the food at the lodge.”
“You can eat the soup we’re about to make.” He turned right and then left to get out of Janey’s neighborhood, went down the road a ways, and pulled into the grocery store parking lot.
“We have to go grocery shopping first?” Jess peered out the windshield like Adam had brought him to the dump.
“The food doesn’t magically show up in your fridge by fairies,” he said. “I take it you’ve never been grocery shopping.”
“I mean, I’ve come with my mom.”
“It can be fun.” Adam unbuckled his seatbelt. “I always get to buy whatever I want.”
Jess laughed and together, they ran through the torrential rain to the safety of the store. “Will you let me buy whatever I want?”
He handed Jess the list he’d made for the corn and crab bisque they were making. “You get all of this. And one other thing. One thing. Your choice.”
Jess’s dark eyes glittered like this would be a great adventure, and Adam was reminded of Matt so much, his breath petered out of his body. He trailed along behind Jess, who pushed the cart and selected onions, vegetables, butter, and cream. Adam had never had a problem spending time with Jess; he wanted to do it. First, to help Janey if he could. Second, he genuinely liked the boy.
Of course he saw Matt every time he looked into Jess’s face. He’d just never been hit by such a wave of longing to have his best friend back before.
They moved into the canned area, and Jess got chicken broth. The crowd at the grocery store seemed thinner today, and Adam remembered it was dumping buckets outside. He was suddenly glad for the terrible weather, as it probably saved him and Jess from more curious stares.
As it was, everyone who passed looked at Adam and smiled. When they saw who he was with, they either blinked like they couldn’t believe it or grinned wider. Thankfully, Jess didn’t seem to notice.
“I don’t know how to choose crab.” Jess turned back to Adam, the anxiety on his face. He looked back to the seafood counter, his feet shifting.
“You just ask,” Adam said, leaning his arm on the meat case. When Taylor Locke, the butcher came over, Adam grinned at him. “Hey, Taylor. We’re making crab bisque. We want the best crab you’ve got. Anything good today?”
“Sure thing. How much do you think?” He glanced at Jess and back to Adam. He was used to people staring at him, making judgments about who he was with and what he bought, and he could practically see Taylor’s wheels turning.
So the rumors are true. He is dating Janey Germaine. Here he is, with her son.
“How much, Jess?” Adam looked at the paper, where he’d written down what to get.
“One pound,” Jess said when he found the info.
“Comin’ up,” Taylor said.
Jess beamed at him and crossed off the last item on the list while Taylor wrapped the crab. He put it in the cart, and said, “Okay, I just need my one thing.” He pushed the cart toward the front of the store.
“What are you going to get?” Adam asked when Jess didn’t detour toward the cookie aisle, or turn back toward the bakery—both of which Adam would’ve done at his age.
Almost to a check stand, Jess paused where a bunch of boxed baked goods were displayed on the end of the aisle. “These.” He picked up a box of oatmeal pies, and brandished them toward Adam.
“You want boxed cakes?” Adam looked at them with disgust.
“My mom never lets me get them, and Thayne always has them at lunch.” Jess took the box back and put it in the cart. “You said I could get one thing. Anything I wanted.”
Adam’s eyes flickered to the price tag. Two bucks. “That’s fine. I’m just surprised you don’t want an apple fritter bear claw. I mean, they make those fresh every day.”
“These are good.” He pushed the cart toward the check stand. “Are you going to get something?”
“Yeah, you start loading those groceries on the belt, and I’ll be right back.” He headed over to the bakery and procured his bear claw. He’d just turned around to rejoin Jess when he nearly plowed into Mabel Magleby.
“Oh, good morning, Mabel.” He tried to step to the side, but the old woman blocked him again.
“Are you dating that sweet Janey Germaine?” she asked, her voice creaky and crotchety at the same time. At least she’d come right out and asked him, no staring, no speculating.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, almost saluting her. He wasn’t sure why Mabel was frowning so deeply. “What’s wrong with that?”
Mabel stepped in closer and pointed one knobbled finger at him. “You better not break her heart.”
“Oh, Mabel, come on now.” He chuckled and noticed a few other shoppers watching the exchange. He leaned in closer and lowered his voice when he said, “If anything, she’ll break mine.”
He nodded and whistled as he stepped around her and hurried back to where Jess had already unloaded the whole cart’s worth of groceries onto the belt. He nodded back toward the bakery, which could just be seen from where they stood. “What’s with Mabel Magleby?”
“Do you know her?”
“Yeah, of course. Everyone knows Mabel.”
“More than that, I mean.” Adam glanced back to the bakery too, and then focused on Jess.
“Yeah, she always brings leftovers when there’s a big event at the Mansion. She’s been doing it for years.”
“Huh.” Adam stepped forward to pay for the groceries. “Your mom never told me that.”
“We have someone else who leaves stuff for us too,” Jess said. “We don’t know who it is. Mom calls them our anonymous angel.”
Adam’s movement stuttered as he swiped his debit card through the reader. “What kind of stuff?”
“Food, cookies, sometimes presents. They left me a scooter once on my
birthday, and Mom says they left diapers and clothes when I was a baby.”
Adam lifted the bags back into the cart and said, “You stay here. I’ll run out and pull the car up.”
Jess agreed, and Adam walked away from the boy before he spilled his guts and confessed that he was their anonymous angel. Why does it matter? he thought as he jogged through the rain and took shelter in the cruiser.
“And you’re going to have to tell them sometime.” He pulled up to the store and he and Jess loaded the groceries into the trunk with at least some shelter from the rain. Once Jess was back in the car, Adam looked at him and asked, “Can you keep a secret?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“This has to actually stay secret,” Adam said. “Not like when I told you I liked your mom and you blabbed to Dixie the first chance you got.”
“I didn’t—” Jess ducked his head. “All right. So I did. But I swear I won’t say anything to her—to anyone—about this.”
Adam drove through the rain, his words taking their sweet time to align. He’d made it all the way back to his house and put the car in park before he turned to Jess. “So your dad was my best friend. Did you know that?”
Jess nodded, his eyes serious. “Yeah, Mom’s mentioned that.”
Adam exhaled. “So a few days before he and your mom got married, Matt pulled me into the groom’s room, and he asked me to take care of her. And any kids they might have. You know, if anything ever happened to him.”
Jess’s eyes widened and he blinked.
“He didn’t know something would happen,” Adam said. “He just wanted to know I’d be there if he couldn’t be. And I have been, Jess. I stayed with you and your mom the night he died. And I’m your anonymous angel.”
“You’ve been leaving stuff all this time?”
Adam nodded. “And I don’t want your mom to know quite yet.”
“Why not?” Jess asked.
“I don’t know. I just...it’s always just been something I do. I don’t need thanks, and I knew she’d never ask for help.” He looked at the front door, wondering if he and Jess could get all the groceries inside in one trip. “All right? This is just between you and me, right?”
“Right.”
“All right. This bisque isn’t going to make itself. Let’s go.”
“Hey, you made it.” Janey rose from the couch in the lobby of the lodge as soon as Adam walked in. She embraced him, and he held her tight, taking a deep breath of her floral scent before stepping back.
“He has all his fingers, as you can see.” He beamed at Jess, who launched into telling her how he’d diced carrots and chopped onions for the corn and crab bisque.
“And I sautéed, Mom. And made a roux—that’s this thickening thing with flour and butter. And the soup was sooo good.”
Janey laughed at him and looked back to Adam. “So a successful morning.”
“And now he wants to go play a video game on your computer. I guess he said you let him do that sometimes?”
She smoothed his hair off his forehead. “You don’t want to eat lunch with me and Adam?”
“I already ate.” Jess looked at her with those dark, puppy dog eyes. “I never get to come up here and play on your computer anymore. And I don’t even like the food at the lodge.”
“That’s true.” She looked at Adam, who shrugged. It was her call. He wouldn’t mind dining alone with her again. “All right,” she said. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her keys. “Lock the door behind you.”
He whooped, gave her a quick hug, and high-fived Adam on his way out of the lobby. Adam chuckled and watched him go, his fondness for the boy expanding.
“You should’ve seen him in the kitchen,” Adam said as they walked over to the restaurant and got a table. “He was a little nervous at first, but he did great.”
“He really chopped and diced and sautéed, huh?”
“Oh, yeah.” Adam pulled her chair out for her and bent down to kiss her. “He’s such a great kid, Janey. You’ve done so well with him.”
Something crossed her face, but he couldn’t catalog what before she turned away. “You think so?”
He sat down across from her and tilted his head. “You don’t think so?”
“How much of it do you think is me, and how much of it do you think is just him being him?”
“I think it’s a combination of both.” Adam opened the menu, needing something more than soup this time. “But your influence shouldn’t be discounted. A boy can easily go the wrong way without the love of a good mother.”
Chapter Nineteen
Janey let Adam’s words tumble around in her head. A good mother.
She’d never given much thought to how good of a mother she was. She was doing the best she could, that was all.
“I’m going for the bacon wrapped filet mignon.” He snapped the menu closed “What about you?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” She looked at the entrees, even though she had the menu memorized and had eaten there hundreds of times over the years she’d worked at the National Park. She wanted to make new memories with Adam here. Things she could think about while she was here, where he starred in the scenes in her head instead of Matt.
“Are you ready for the Fall Festival?” she asked.
“Getting there.” He flashed her a smile, and Janey loved the formation of it, loved the way it transformed his handsome face into something akin to a heavenly vision.
The waiter arrived and she ordered soda and the appetizer platter and then indicated Adam should order his steak. Once the waiter left, he lifted his right eyebrow into a cute quirk and asked, “The appetizer platter?”
She sighed and tugged her shirtsleeves farther down before placing her hands on the table. “Sometimes a person just needs a large quantity of fried foods.” She grinned at him and took his hands in hers. “Thanks for coming up here.”
“Yeah, of course.”
Her courage felt a little wobbly, but she wanted to be honest with him. “I have so many memories of Matt here,” she said, looking down to fiddle with her silverware. “And I like that you’re coming here, making new memories in this space with me.”
Everything about Adam softened, and he squeezed her hands. “I want to make all kinds of memories with you.” His smile was kind and beautiful, and Janey thought for the first time since Matt’s death that she could fall in love with someone new.
The weeks passed, with rain falling more days than it stayed dry. Janey didn’t mind, though she knew that as the days marched closer to the Fall Festival, every drop of rain caused Adam grief.
Because it was almost the end of October, and crowds in the National Park normally thinned about this time of year, she managed to get another Saturday off so she could go to the Fall Festival with Adam and Jess.
They’d been spending the weekends together, and she’d been making new memories with Adam on Wednesdays and Mondays, determined to eat lunch at a new spot until they’d gone everywhere in Hawthorne Harbor.
Janey was used to the staring now, and sometimes she smiled back at the prying eyes. She’d talked with Adam about it, and he said he’d gotten used to living in the public eye. He’d asked her if it bothered her, and he seemed really anxious about that.
She didn’t answer right away, because she’d never thought about if it bothered her. In the end, she’d said, “Not really,” and that had seemed to appease him.
He’d decided on the butternut squash soup for his entry in the Fall Festival, and Jess was going to make the corn and crab bisque. When she asked Adam if he was worried her son would beat him, he’d remained straight-faced and said, “Absolutely. He’s good in the kitchen, and it’s a great recipe.”
On Saturday morning, Jess woke her by jumping on her bed. “Mom, I’m going over to Adam’s to start on the soup.”
She groaned and rolled toward him. “What time is it?”
“Seven.”
“Is it raining?”
“Nope.
Gonna be a great day.” Jess bounced to the edge of the bed and laughed. “See you at the festival, okay?”
“Okay,” she called, listening for the smack of his board against the hard floor and then the slam of the front door. She stayed in a bed for a couple more minutes, warm and cozy and completely satisfied with her life.
She wasn’t sure she’d ever felt this way before and she wanted to hold onto it for as long as she could. Eventually, she got up and showered. She’d made plans to meet Adam and Jess at the festival after they’d turned in their entries, which were due by ten-thirty.
A buffet-style lunch was then served from all the entries, and the public had an opportunity to vote for their favorites. The top three from the general vote then went to a panel of judges, who decided on the final winner.
The festival had been running all week, and she’d hardly seen Adam at all. The parade was that morning, but he’d made sure other officers could cover it, and Jess didn’t seem to care to run out and get the salt water taffy that was thrown by businesses and high school groups.
Janey had attended the Fall Festival parade every year, and she didn’t want to miss it this year. So she called Gretchen and asked, “Where are you sitting? Is there enough room for me?”
“Of course,” Gretchen said, the wind scratching across the line too. “We’re right in front of the Anchor.”
“I’ll be there soon.”
Janey drove the half-mile to downtown and parked on a side street to avoid the traffic. It felt good to walk when it wasn’t her job, and she arrived at the Anchor after only a few minutes. Dixie sat on the curb, a blanket beneath her, with Drew and Gretchen sitting in camp chairs behind her.
“Hey.” Janey sidled up next to Gretchen, who jumped up.
“Hey.” She laughed as she hugged Janey. “How are you?”
“Great.” She waved at Drew, who smiled back at her. “Have you got someone in the shop this morning?”
“Oh, I just closed it for the day. We won’t die.”