A Beach House Beginning
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RaeAnne Thayne
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Chapter One
“Jenna? Are you still there?”
Jenna Haynes slowly lowered herself to one of the kitchen chairs of her apartment on the second floor of Brambleberry House. Her cell phone nearly slipped from fingers that suddenly trembled.
“I...yes. I’m here.” Her voice sounded hollow, thready.
“I know this must be coming as a shock to you.” Angela Terry, the prosecuting attorney who had worked on the Oregon part of her case, spoke in a low, calming voice. “Believe me, we were all stunned, too. I never expected this. I’m sorry to call you so early but I wanted to reach out to you as soon as we heard the news.”
“Thank you. I appreciate that.”
“Seriously, what a shock. It’s so hard to believe, when Barker was only halfway through his sentence. Who expects a guy in the prime of his life to go to sleep in his cell one night and never wake up? You know what they say. Karma drives a big bus and she knows everybody’s address.”
Jenna didn’t know how to answer, still trying to process the stunning news that the man she had feared for three years was truly gone.
On the heels of her shock came an overwhelming relief. A man was dead. She couldn’t forget that. Still, the man had made her life a nightmare for a long time.
“You’re...you’re positive he’s dead?”
“The warden called me to confirm it himself, as soon as the medical examiner determined it was from natural causes. An aneurysm.”
“An aneurysm? Seriously?”
“That’s what the warden said. Who knows, Barker might have had a brain anomaly all along. What else would cause a decorated police officer to go off the rails like he did and spend years stalking, threatening and finally attacking you and others?”
Jenna fought down an instinctive shiver as the terrifying events of two years earlier crawled out from the lockbox of memories where she tried to store them for safekeeping.
Dead. The boogeyman who had haunted her nightmares for so long was gone.
She still couldn’t quite believe it, even hearing it from a woman she trusted and admired, a woman who had fought hard to make sure Aaron Barker would remain behind bars for the maximum allowable sentence, which had been entirely too short a time as far as Jenna was concerned.
Jenna didn’t know how she was supposed to feel, now that she knew he couldn’t get out in a few years to pick up where he left off.
“I hope I didn’t wake you, but I wanted you to know as soon as possible.”
The concern in her voice warmed Jenna. Angela had been an unending source of calm and comfort, even during the most stressful of times during the trial.
“No. I’m glad you called. I appreciate it.”
Slowly, her brain seemed to reengage and she remembered the polite niceties she owed this woman who had fought with such fierce determination for her.
“You didn’t wake me,” she assured Angela. “I have school this morning.”
“Oh good. I was hoping I didn’t catch you while you were sleeping in on your first day of summer vacation or something.”
“One more week for that,” Jenna answered. “I’m just fixing breakfast for Addie.”
“How is my little buddy? Tell her we need to get together soon for a Mario Kart rematch. No way can I let a seven-year-old get the better of me.”
“Eight. She turned eight last month.”
“Already? Dang. I can’t believe I missed her birthday. I’ll have to send her something.”
“You don’t have to do that, Angela. You’ve done so much already for us. I can never thank you enough for everything. I mean that.”
“Well, we still need to get together and catch up. It’s been too long.”
“Yes. I would love that. I’ll only be working part-time at the gift shop this summer so my schedule is much more flexible than during the school year.”
“We’ll do it. We can have Rosa join us. I’ll set up a text string and we can work out details.”
“Thank you for telling me about Aaron.”
“I know you had been worrying about his possible release next year,” the other woman said, her voice gentle. “I hope that knowing he can’t ever bother you again goes a little way toward taking a weight off your heart.”
“It does. I can’t even tell you how much.”
They spoke for a few more moments before ending the call with promises to make plans later in the summer.
Jenna set her phone on the table slowly, released a heavy sigh and then covered her face with her hands.
Dead.
She didn’t quite know how to react.
Since the arrest and conviction eighteen months ago of the man who had tormented her for years, she had been bracing herself for the moment when he might be released, when she might have to pick up her daughter again and flee.
She had hated the idea of it.
Brambleberry House, this beautiful rambling beach house on the dramatic coastline of northern Oregon, had become a haven for them. She had finally begun to rebuild her life here, to feel safe again and...happy.
Lurking at the edge of her consciousness, though, like the dark, far-off blur of an impending storm, was the grim realization that someday she might have to leave everything once more and start again somewhere else.
Now she didn’t have to.
She wiped away tears she hadn’t even realized were coursing down her cheeks.
He was gone. They were free.
“What’s wrong, Mom?”
She turned to find her daughter in the doorway, wearing shorts, a ruffled T-shirt and a frown.
Jenna gave a laugh and reached for Addie, pulling her into a tight hug.
“Nothing’s wrong. Everything is terrific. Really terrific.”
Her perceptive child wasn’t fooled. She eased away, narrowing her gaze. “What’s going on?”
Jenna didn’t want to talk about Aaron Barker. She didn’t want Addie to have to think about the man who had threatened them both, who had completely upended their lives simply because he couldn’t have what he wanted.
“Nothing.” She gave a reassuring smile. “I’m just happy, that’s all. It’s a beautiful day, school will be out next week and summer is right around the corner. Now hurry and finish your breakfast so we can get to school. I could use your help carrying the cupcakes for my class.”
Addie still didn’t look convinced. Sometimes she seemed far too wise for her eight years on the earth. Apparently she decided not to push the matter.
“Can I have one of the cupcakes? You said I could when we were frosting them last night.”
The cupcakes were a treat for her class, a reward for everyone meeting their reading goals for the year.
Jenna pointed to the counter, at a covered container near the microwave. “I’ve got two there for us. I was going to save them for dessert later tonight after dinner, but I suddenly feel like celebrating. Let’s have a cupcake.”
Addie’s eyes widened with shock and then delight. She reached for the container and pulled out one of the chocolate cupcakes, biting into it quickly as if afraid Jenna would change her mind.
“You still have to eat your egg bites and your cantaloupe,” Jenna warned.
“I don’t care. Cupcakes for breakfast is the best idea ever.”
She couldn’t disagree, Jenna thought as she finished hers, as well as her own healthier breakfast. Still, the call was at the forefront of her thoughts as she hurried through the rest of her preparations for the school day.
Twenty minutes later, she juggled her laptop bag, a box of cupcakes and a stack of math papers she had graded the evening before.
She couldn’t help humming a song as she walked out of her apartment, Addie right behind her.
A man stood on the landing outside her apartment, hand on the banister. He was big, dark, muscular, wearing a leather jacket and carrying a motorcycle helmet under his arm.
For one ridiculous moment, her heart skipped a beat, as it always did when she saw her new upstairs neighbor. Her song died and she immediately felt foolish.
“Morning,” he said, voice gruff.
“Um. Hi.”
“You’ve got your arms full. Can I help you carry something?”
“No. I’ve got it,” she said, her voice more clipped than she intended.
His eyes darkened slightly at her abrupt tone. Something flickered in his expression, something hard and dangerous, but he merely nodded and gestured for them to go ahead of him down the stairs.
Did he guess she was afraid of him? Jenna had tried to hide it, but she strongly suspected she hadn’t been very successful.
“Come on, Addie.”
Her daughter, who seemed to have none of Jenna’s instinctive fear of big, tough, ruthless-looking men with more ink than charm, smiled and waved at him.
“Bye, Mr. Calhoun. I hope you have a happy day.”
He looked nonplussed. “Thanks. Same to you.”
Jenna led their little procession down the central staircase of Brambleberry House, which featured private entrances to the three apartments, one on each floor.
As she hurried outside, she couldn’t help wondering again what Rosa Galvez Townsend had been thinking to rent the space to this man.
She had heard the rumors about Wes Calhoun. He had a daughter who attended her school, and while Brielle was a grade older and wasn’t in Jenna’s class, the girl’s teacher was one of Jenna’s closest friends.
Teachers gossip as much as, if not more than, other populations. As soon as Wes Calhoun rode into town on his motorcycle, leather jacket, tattoos and all, Jenna had learned he was an ex-con only released a few months earlier from prison in the Chicago area.
Learning he would be her new upstairs neighbor had been unsettling and upsetting.
Rosa—who functioned as landlady for her aunt Anna and Anna’s friend Sage, owners of the house—assured her he was a friend of Wyatt, Rosa’s husband, and perfectly harmless. He had been wrongfully convicted three years earlier and had been completely cleared, his record expunged.
That didn’t set her mind at ease. At all. She would have found the man intimidating even if she hadn’t known he was only a few months out of prison.
She hurried Addie to her small SUV, loaded the cupcakes into the cargo area and made sure Addie was safely belted into the back.
As she slid behind the wheel, Jenna watched Wes climb onto his sleek, black, death trap of a motorcycle parked beside her and fasten his helmet.
While he started up the bike, he didn’t go anywhere, just waited, boots on the driveway. He was waiting for her, she realized.
Aware of his gaze on her, steely and unflinching, she turned the key in the ignition.
Instead of purring to life, the car only gave an ominous click.
She tried it a second time, with the same results, then a third.
No. Oh no. This wasn’t happening. She was already running late.
Normally she and Addie could ride bikes the mile and a half to the school, but not when she had two dozen cupcakes to deliver!
Hoping against hope, she tried it a few more times, with the same futile click.
“What’s wrong?” Addie asked.
“I’m not sure. The car isn’t starting, for some reason.”
A sudden knock at her window made her jump. Without power, she couldn’t lower the window, so she opened the door a crack.
“Having trouble?” Wes Calhoun looked at her with concern.
She wanted to tell him no, that she was a strong, independent woman who could handle her own problems. But what she knew about cars could probably fit inside one spark plug. If cars even had spark plugs anymore, which she suspected they didn’t.
“You could say that. It won’t start. I’m not getting anything but clicks.”
“Sounds like it might be your battery. Do you know how old it is?”
“No. I bought the car used two years ago. It was three years old then. I have no idea how old the battery is. I do know I haven’t replaced it.”
“Pop the hood and I’ll take a look at it.”
“You don’t have to do that. I can call road service.”
He gave her a long look. “You seemed in a hurry this morning. Do you have time to wait for road service? If it’s your battery, I can give you a jump and get you on the road in only a few minutes.”
She glanced at her watch. The phone call with Angela had thrown off her whole morning schedule. She was already going to be late, without adding in a potentially long wait for road service.
“Thank you. I would appreciate a jump, if you don’t mind. Can you jump a car with a motorcycle, though?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never tried. I was talking about my truck.”
He had an old blue pickup truck, she knew. He drove that on the frequent days of rain along the Oregon Coast.
“Right.”
“Let’s take a look first under the hood. Can you pop it for me?”
She fumbled beneath the steering wheel to find the right lever that would release the hood, then climbed out just as Wes was taking off his leather jacket and setting it on the seat of his motorcycle.
The plain black T-shirt he wore underneath showed off muscular biceps and the tattoos that adorned them.
As he bent over the engine, worn jeans hugging his behind, his T-shirt rode up slightly, revealing a few inches of his muscular back. Her stomach tingled and Jenna swallowed and looked away, appalled at herself for having an instinctive reaction to a man who left her so jumpy.
“Yep. Looks like you need a new battery. I’ll give you a quick jump so you can make it to work. If you want, I can pick up another battery and put it in for you this evening.”
Jenna tried not to gape at him. Why was he being so nice to her, when she hadn’t exactly thrown out the welcome mat for him?
“I...that would be very kind. Thank you.”
“Give me a second to pull my truck around.”
“What’s wrong with the car? Is it broken?” Addie asked from the back seat after Wes moved to his pickup truck and climbed inside, then started doing multiple-point turns to put it in position for jumper cables to reach her battery from his.
“The battery is dead. Our nice neighbor Mr. Calhoun is going to try to help us get it started.”
“I can’t be late today. I have to give my book report first thing.”
“Hopefully we can still make it in time,” she answered, as Wes turned off his truck and released the hood latch, then climbed out, rummaged behind the seats for some jumper cables and started hooking things up.
“What do I need to do?” she asked, feeling awkward and clueless. She had needed to have a vehicle jumped a few times before, early in her marriage, but Ryan had always taken care of those kind of things for her. She should have paid more attention to the process.
“Nothing yet. I’ll tell you when to try starting it again.”
He hooked up the cables, then fired up his truck before coming back to her car. “Okay. Let’s give it a go and see what happens.”
Mentally crossing her fingers, she pushed the ignition button. To her vast relief, the engine turned for a second or two, then burst into life.
“Yay!” Addie exclaimed. “Does that mean we don’t have to walk to school?”
“We would have found a ride somehow,” Jenna assured her. “But it looks like we’ve been rescued, thanks to Mr. Calhoun.”
“Thanks, Mr. Calhoun. I have to give a report this morning on a book about bees and didn’t want to be late.”
“You’re very welcome. You can call me Wes, by the way. You don’t have to call me Mr. Calhoun.”
Her daughter beamed at him, unfazed by that hard, unsmiling face. “Thanks, Wes.”
“You can as well,” he said to Jenna. Their gazes met and she couldn’t help noticing how long his dark eyelashes were, an odd contrast to the hard planes of his features.
“Thank you, Wes,” she forced herself to say. “I really appreciate the help.”
“It was no problem. I’ll grab a battery for you today. Do you have jumper cables, in case your car doesn’t start after you’re done at school today?”
She was relieved she could answer in the affirmative. “Yes. I have an emergency kit in back with flares, a flashlight and a blanket, along with a few tools and jumper cables.”
“Good. With any luck, you might not need them.”
“Thanks again for all your help.”
He shrugged. “It’s the kind of thing neighbors do for each other, right?”
His words filled her with guilt. She hadn’t been very neighborly in the two weeks since he had moved in. She hadn’t taken any goodies over to welcome him and did little more than nod politely in passing.
Was he being ironic? Had he noticed how she went out of her way to avoid him whenever possible?
She hoped he didn’t notice how her face flushed with heat as she mustered a smile that faded quickly as she backed out of the driveway and turned in the direction of school.
Wes watched his pretty neighbor maneuver her little blue SUV onto the road toward the elementary school.
When he was certain her vehicle wasn’t going to conk out on the road, he returned his pickup to its customary spot and climbed back onto his Harley.
It might be easier to take the truck today but he was in the mood for a bike ride, which was just about the only thing that could do anything at all to calm his restlessness.
That was an odd turn for his morning to take, but he was happy to help out, even if Jenna Haynes looked at him out of those big blue eyes like she was afraid he was about to drag her by her hair up the stairs to his apartment and lock her in his sex dungeon.
He might have found her skittishness a little amusing if he hadn’t spent the past three years in company with people capable of that and so much worse.
It still burned under his skin how she and others considered him. An ex-con. Not an innocent man wrongfully convicted because of a betrayal but someone who had probably been exactly where he belonged. Even if he hadn’t done the particular crime that had put him behind bars, he was no doubt guilty of something, right?
He hated it, that pearl-clutching, self-righteous, condemnatory attitude he had encountered since his release. After two months on the outside, he was still trying to adjust to the knowledge that his slate would never be wiped completely clean, no matter how many neighborly things he did.
He couldn’t be bothered by what Jenna Haynes thought of him. What anybody thought of him. He had clung to sanity in prison by remembering that he was not the man others saw when they looked at him.
He lifted his face to the sun for just a moment before shoving on his helmet. He couldn’t get enough of feeling the warmth of it on his face or smelling air scented with spring and the sea.
Clutch your pearls all you want, Ms. Haynes, he thought. I’m alive and free. That’s enough for today.
He drove his bike through light traffic to Cannon Beach Car and Bike Repair, the garage where he had been lucky to find a job after showing up in town with mainly his bike, his truck and the small settlement he had received from the state of Illinois.
He had just parked the bike and was taking off his helmet when a tall, dark-haired and very pregnant woman climbed out of a silver sedan and hurried over to him.
Wes sighed and braced himself, not at all in the mood to have a confrontation with his ex-wife that morning. Though they had a generally friendly relationship, he couldn’t imagine why she would show up unless she was mad about something. Not when she could have called or texted for anything benign.
“There you are,” Lacey exclaimed. “I thought you started work at eight.”
He looked at his watch that read eight oh five. “I had a neighbor with a dead battery. It took me a minute to get the car started. What’s up? Have you been waiting for me? You could have called.”
“I know. But I had to run next door anyway to pick up something at the hardware store after I dropped off Brielle at school, so I figured I would stop here first to talk to you while I was out.”
He really hoped she wasn’t about to tell him her husband had been transferred again, after only being moved here a year ago to become manager of a chain department store in a nearby town.
Wes liked it here in Cannon Beach. He liked running on the beach in the mornings and sitting in the gardens of Brambleberry House in the evenings to watch the sun slide into the water.
He liked his job, too. He had worked in a neighborhood auto mechanic shop all through high school and summers during college and definitely knew his way around an engine, motorcycle or car.
Did he want to do it forever? No. As much as he had admired and respected the neighbor who had employed him—and all those who worked with their hands—Wes didn’t think working as a mechanic was his destiny. He still didn’t know what he wanted to do as he worked toward rebuilding the life that had been taken from him. But for now he had found a good place, working with honest, hardworking people who cared about treating their customers right.
It paid the bills and was challenging enough not to bore him, but not overwhelming as he tried to ease back into outside life.
“What’s going on?”
He could see his boss, Carlos Gutierrez, and his brother Paco watching them through the small front window of the shop.
“You know you don’t always have to cut to the chase, right?” Lacey looked exasperated. “We’re not having a quick conversation between prison bars anymore. A little small talk would be fine. You could say, Hi, Lacey. How are you? How’s the house? How’s the baby?”
Wes worked to keep his expression neutral. He might have agreed with her, except their marriage hadn’t exactly been filled with small talk, even before his arrest.
“How are you feeling?” he asked. He had learned a long time ago it was best to try humoring her whenever possible.
Lacey was a devoted, loving mother to their daughter and he still considered her a dear friend. If circumstances had been different, he would have tried like hell to keep their marriage together.
Still, he couldn’t help being more than a little grateful her sometimes volatile moods were another man’s problems these days.
“I’m good. Huge. I can’t believe I still have ten weeks to go before the baby comes.”
They had been divorced for two and a half years. She had remarried her childhood sweetheart a year almost to the day their divorce had been finalized and was now expecting a son with Ron Summers.
Wes was happy for her. When he had little to do but think about his life, it hadn’t taken long for Wes to recognize that his marriage to Lacey had been a mistake from start to finish. He had been twenty-one, about to head off overseas with the Army and she had been eighteen and desperate to escape an unhappy home life, with an abusive father and neglectful mother.
They hadn’t been a good fit for each other. He could see that now, though both of them had spent years trying to deny the inevitable.
One good thing had come out of it. One amazing thing, actually. His nine-year-old daughter, Brielle. She was his heart, his purpose, his everything.
“That’s actually why I’m here. Ron has the chance to take a last-minute trip to Costa Rica for work. He’ll be gone ten days and he wants me to go with him, if I can swing it. This is my last chance to travel for a while, at least until the baby is older.”
“Sounds like fun,” he said, trying to figure out where he came in and why she had accosted him at his workplace to deliver the news.
“The problem is that I can’t take Brie. She doesn’t have a passport and there’s no way to get one for her in time.”
Ah. Now things were beginning to make sense.
“Is there any chance she could come stay with you while we’re gone?”
A host of complications ran through his head, starting with the building just beyond her. The Gutierrez brothers had been good to him. He couldn’t just leave them in the lurch to facilitate his ex-wife’s travel plans.
He worked full-time and would have to arrange childcare. Brielle was nine going on eighteen and likely thought she was fully capable of being on her own while he worked all day. Wes definitely didn’t agree. But he couldn’t bring her down here to the garage with him all day, either.
He would figure that part out later. How could he turn down the chance to spend as much time as possible with his daughter, considering all the years he had missed?
“Sure. Of course. I would love to have her.”
Lacey’s face lit up with happiness, reminding him with painful clarity that it had been a long time since they had been able to make each other happy.
“Oh, that’s amazing. Thank you! Brie will be so excited when I tell her. The alternative was staying with my friend Shandy and she has that five-year-old who can be a real pistol. Brielle will much prefer staying with her dad.”
He could only hope he was up to the task. “When do you leave?” Wes asked.
“Next Friday. The last day of school.”
It would have been easier if she were leaving during the school year, when he would only need to arrange after-school care until his shift was over, but he would figure things out.
He couldn’t say no. He had moved to Cannon Beach, following Lacey and her new family, in order to nurture his relationship with Brielle. He couldn’t miss what seemed to be a glorious opportunity to be with her.
“No problem. We’ll have a great time.”
“You’re the best. Seriously. Thanks, Wes.”
She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek, and as her mouth brushed his cheek, Wes couldn’t help wishing that things could have worked out differently between them.
He couldn’t honestly say he regretted the end of a marriage that had been troubled from the beginning. He did regret that the decisions made by the adults in Brielle’s life complicated things for her, forcing her to now split her time between them.
“You do remember that today is Guest Lunch at the school, right? Brie said you were planning to go. If you’re not, I’m sure Ron could swing by on his lunch break.”
He really tried not to feel competitive with his daughter’s stepfather, who seemed overall like a good guy, if a little on the superficial side.
“I’ll be there,” he answered, hoping the day wouldn’t be inordinately busy at the shop.
The Gutierrez brothers were great to work with, but an employer could only be so understanding.
As he watched his ex-wife drive away, the second time he had been caught in the wake of a woman’s taillights that morning, he was reminded of Jenna Haynes and her car trouble.
If he were swinging by the school anyway for lunch, he might as well take a car battery with him and fix Jenna Haynes’s car. It was an easy ten-minute job, and that way she wouldn’t have to worry about the possibility of it not starting after school.
He told himself the little burst of excitement was only the anticipation of doing a nice, neighborly deed. It had nothing to do with the knowledge that he would inevitably see Jenna again.
