“Tony left me a voice mail that he got the permit, so yeah.” Amy smiled as she sipped her coffee.
“One day that man will realize you’re the best thing since crunchy peanut butter, Ames.” Jenna patted her leg. “Bella, on a serious note, are you okay financially? Do you need money?”
Jenna’s offer warmed Bella’s heart. She wasn’t the type of woman to tear up, but if she had been, the compassion in Jenna’s voice and her offer to help surely would have made her. Jenna worked as an elementary school art teacher and lived on a shoestring budget. She could no sooner afford to help Bella financially than she could afford to visit Las Vegas.
“It means the world to me that you would offer, but I have a nest egg, so I should be fine for a while. Besides, once my house sells, I can live here, and if the work-study job doesn’t lead to a full-time position, I can stay here until I find a job, even if it means traveling all over for interviews.”
“You’re really doing it.” Jenna sighed. “I can’t believe it.”
“Yes, I’m really doing it.”
“Well, if it’s what you really want to do, then I think it’s awesome,” Leanna said. “I totally support whatever you want to do.”
“I do, too, of course,” Amy added. “It’s just…Leanna’s always been the gypsy in the group. She could pick up at any time and move without missing a beat, and even Jenna and I are more likely to switch apartments, or cars, or even cities, but Bella’s always been the one who sticks to things. Gee, Bell, I thought you’d live in Connecticut forever.”
Bella reached for her hand and squeezed. “I know, Ames, but this is a good thing. And who knows? Maybe I’ll live here forever. Forever’s a long time, and my gut tells me that my forever should start here.” Spending summers and school breaks at Seaside had always been Bella’s sanity saver. She wondered if she’d enjoy it as much if it were her full-time residence. “How did you like being here during the winter, Leanna? Do you regret your decision to live here full-time?”
Leanna glanced at Kurt setting up his laptop on the deck of her cottage. “I love living at the Cape, and, Bell, I think everything happens for a reason.”
“That’s because you have a hot, rich boyfriend who spends his days pumping out bestselling novels and his nights adoring every inch of your slinky little body.” Jenna raised her coffee in a toast. “To men adoring our bodies.”
The others lifted their coffee cups. “Hear! Hear!” Amy said.
“He does those things, but I believe in fate because it’s real. You’ll see.” Leanna came around the table and hugged Bella.
If Bella dared to believe in fate that would mean she had been fated to date Jay, and if that were true, then she was fated to leave a job and the community in Connecticut that she loved. Even though she was excited about the new job prospect, she had to wonder—if she’d been fated to date him, then what other crappy heartache did fate have in store for her?
CADEN STOOD IN the doorframe of Evan’s bedroom, watching him sleep. At almost fifteen years old, his toes already hung off the foot of the bed. He looked so much like Caden had at that age, with the same mop of chestnut hair and square jaw. He’d even inherited Caden’s cleft chin, which Caden had hated as a kid. He wondered, as he looked at his son, all elbows and knees lying on top of his sheets in his boxers, if he hated it, too. He tried to push away the guilt that pressed in on him for moving Evan away from his friends in Boston, but when his partner of nine years was killed during a robbery, it drove the dangers of his job home.
George Rowe had not only been an excellent cop, but he’d also been Caden’s closest friend. Losing George had been ten times more difficult than the day almost fifteen years earlier, when Caden’s then girlfriend, Caty Lowenstein, had come to his dorm and placed one-week-old Evan in his twenty-year-old arms. She’d said she was leaving town and that she’d signed custody over to him. He’d been in his second year of college and he’d thought he was in love with her. They’d been dating for five months when she found out she was pregnant. After two weeks of arguing—she wanted to abort the baby and Caden begged her not to—she’d disappeared. He didn’t see her again until that fateful day when she set Evan in his arms and took off.
He looked down at his son now, remembering the weight of Evan in his arms and the way he’d turned those serious, trusting, dark eyes up at him. In the blink of an eye, Caden had known he’d never loved Caty, because what he felt for Evan was bigger than anything he’d ever felt in his life. It enveloped him and filled him to his core, leaving no room for anything or anyone else. He’d packed his things and gone home to his parents’ house that night. Evan had been his life ever since.
Until last night, when he’d looked into Bella’s eyes and felt a fissure form in the armor he’d worn for all those years. Since the day he became Evan’s father, he’d never been affected by a woman that way, which is why now, as he watched the boy who had turned his life upside down and taught him what love was, he allowed himself to think about seeing her again.
“Dad?”
Evan’s voice pulled his mind back to the present.
“Hey, buddy. Sorry. Did I wake you?”
“Not really, but it’s kinda creepy that you’re watching me sleep.” He shifted up on his elbow. “Are we still going fishing after your shift?”
Caden had always tried to spend as much time with Evan as he could. Or at least as often as Evan would agree to spend time with him. Teenage angst was clawing its way into their lives, and Caden was doing all he could to keep it from becoming a constant companion.
He ran his eyes over the posters of video and PC game characters on Evan’s walls. When they’d lived in Boston, Evan hadn’t spent much time playing video and PC games, but Caden had noticed that he was playing them more often lately, and he worried that they were serving as a replacement for friends.
“Yeah.” Caden was glad Evan would still go fishing with him, even though he was going through a rough time. “I’ve got the surf rods ready. About six?”
“Sure. Whatever,” Evan said.
Whatever had quickly become one of Caden’s least favorite words. “What are your plans while I’m at work?”
Evan shrugged.
“Want me to come by at lunch and drop you at the beach?”
“I’ve got my bike.” Evan stretched, and his shaggy hair tumbled over his eyes. When they’d lived in Boston, Evan had spent the weekends at skateboard parks, hanging out with his friends doing ollies and kick flips. There was a skate park across from Wellfleet Harbor, and Caden had taken Evan there to check it out when they first moved in, but Evan hadn’t shown any interest in returning.
“Okay, but remember that the cell phones don’t work on the ocean beaches, so call me when you get to the parking lot if you go.”
Evan scrubbed his hand down his face. “Got it, Dad. You tell me the same thing every day. It’s not like I’ll suddenly forget.”