Seaside Hearts (Love in Bloom: Seaside Summers, Book 2) Contemporary Romance (2 page)

“She’s coming along.” Pete had been refinishing a custom-built 1966 thirty-four-foot gaff-rigged wooden schooner for the past two summers. Working with his hands was not only his passion, but it was also cathartic. He’d spent the last two years pouring the guilt over his father’s drinking into refitting the boat.

“What will you do with it when you’re done?” Amy Maples looked like the girl next door, with her sandy blond hair and big green eyes, and acted like a mother hen, always worrying about her friends.

Pete shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll sail someplace far, far away.” He’d never leave his father, or the Cape, but there were days…

That brought Jenna’s eyes to him. Jesus, she had the most gorgeous eyes. They weren’t sea blue or sky blue or even midnight blue. They were more of a cerulean frost, and at the moment, pointedly icy.
What the hell did I do?
He racked his brain, going over the last two weeks, but he hadn’t seen Jenna for more than a minute or two. He couldn’t imagine what he’d done to warrant her attitude.

Jenna raised her eyebrows in Amy’s direction. “Time for
me
to go away.” She rose to her feet, bringing her red-string-bikini-clad body into full view. The tiny triangles barely covered her nipples and the bottom rode high on her hips, exposing every luscious curve.

Pete shot a look around the patio—every male eye was locked on Jenna. Jenna wasn’t even five feet tall, but she had a better body than any long-legged model.
How the hell can a woman have a body like that and not be one hundred percent confident at all times?
He stifled the urge to stand between her and the ogling men.

“Where are you going?” Bella’s eyes bounced between Pete and Jenna.

“I’m going to do what I came here to do. There’s a construction guy with my name on him over there.” Jenna lifted her chin toward the sky, and her pigeon-toed feet carried her fine ass off the patio, across the grass, and directly toward one of the young construction workers.

“What’s she doing?” Pete narrowed his eyes as Jenna approached a ripped construction worker. He expected Jenna to put her hands behind her back and sway from side to side like she did when she spoke to him—reminiscent of an excited girl rather than a sensual woman—adorable and confusing as hell.

“Oh. My. God.” Bella rose to her feet, her eyes wide.

“Nothing, Pete. She’s…Oh God.” Amy put Joey in Pete’s lap. “Take her. I um…Darn it.” Amy reached for Bella’s hand as they gawked, mesmerized by Jenna’s bold move.

Her shoulders were drawn back, her beautiful breasts on display—proudly on display!
What the hell?
She put one hand on her hip, and holy hell, Pete didn’t need to see her face to feel the slow drag of her eyes down that bastard’s body in a way similar to how she usually looked at
him
when she thought he wasn’t looking. But then she’d go all nervous when he’d approach.

What the fuck?

“Holy shit. She’s going for it.” Bella sat back down, as Jenna put her finger in the waistband of the guy’s jeans and shrugged. “She’s something this summer, isn’t she?”

Jealousy clutched Pete’s gut.

“Yes, and this summer’s rock fixation? What’s up with pitch-black rocks? She’s never collected them before.” Amy’s voice trailed off as she watched Jenna in action.

Pete made a mental note of the rocks Jenna was collecting this summer. He’d spent five years taking mental notes about Jenna. Every summer she collected different types of rocks—egg-shaped, all white, gray, and oval. There was never any rhyme or reason that Pete could see for her rock selection, but she knew what she liked, and the ones she liked ended up all over her cottage and deck.

Jenna’s eyes were fixated on the guy.
That
was the Jenna Pete had hoped would talk to
him
, and now…Now he was getting pretty damn pissed off. 

“Those aren’t local guys; they’re contractors,” he warned. “They probably have women in every town around here. Want me to intervene?” Jenna wasn’t his to protect. They’d never even gone out on a single date, but somewhere in his mind, despite his confusion, she
was
his. Summers to Pete meant six to eight weeks of seeing Jenna, and over the last two years, while his father buried his troubles in alcohol, seeing Jenna meant even more to him. But until this very second, he never realized how much he wanted her, or how much she meant to him. Joey turned her tongue on Pete’s chin. Frustrated, Pete lifted his face out of reach.

Leanna shook her head. “God. Look at her go.”

Look at her go? You think this is okay?

“Pete, have you heard something bad about them? Should we worry?” Amy’s voice was laden with concern. “Bella, maybe we should…”

Pete watched Jenna take her phone from her pocket and type something. A second later the blond guy took his phone from his back pocket and nodded.

“She gave him her number. I can’t believe it,” Leanna said.

“She wasn’t shitting us,” Bella said. “Damn, our girl’s getting her groove on.” She settled back in her seat and petted Joey. “Oh, Pete…
tsk, tsk, tsk
.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He clenched his teeth so tight he thought they might crack.

“Nothing.” Leanna smacked Bella’s arm.

Bella set her eyes on him. “A woman like Jenna only comes around once in a lifetime.”

He was just beginning to realize how true those words were.

“Bella, don’t,” Amy warned.

Bella shrugged. “Just sayin’.”

He didn’t know what to make of the woman who was a wallflower around him and a sex kitten around a random dipshit in the street. Jenna sashayed back toward the table with a grin on her face. That was Pete’s cue to get the hell out of there before he was stuck listening to Jenna going on and on about that dipshit. He rose to his feet with Joey in his arms.

“Wait. Don’t leave,” Amy pleaded. “You didn’t get Joey her water.”

“I’ve got to get going.” With Joey in his arms, he headed off the patio. Jenna brushed past him without so much as a word, and it pissed him off even more. He couldn’t escape fast enough.

“Guess who’s going to the Beachcomber tonight? Oh my God. He’s even hotter up close.” Jenna’s voice echoed in his mind as he crossed the street to get Joey a bowl of water from Mac’s.

Holy Christ. Like I needed to hear that shit
.

“JENNA, YOU CANNOT go out with a guy you met in the middle of the road.” Bella stood in front of one of Jenna’s bedroom closets later that evening as Jenna sifted through outfits.

Her one-bedroom cottage didn’t have much space, but the space it did have was supremely organized. Jenna was so OCD that she organized her clothing by color, season, and length of the outfit. There were two small closets in the tight master bedroom, one on either side of the door. She’d hired Pete a few years earlier to lower the rods to accommodate her four-eleven stature and to build shelves above and below, leaving just enough room for shoes along the floor.

“What are you talking about? How do you want me to meet men? They don’t exactly line up outside my front door with résumés in hand.” Jenna held up a black sundress. “What do you think?”

“Too sexy. He’ll think you want to get down and dirty,” Amy said from her perch on the bed. “She does have a point, Bella.”

“Yeah, I know, but I think this is just Jenna rebelling.” Bella pulled a white sundress with puffy sleeves from the closet.

“No. No way. Who am I, Little Miss Innocent? Hell no. Rebelling against what, anyway?” Jenna snagged the dress from Bella’s hands and placed it back where it belonged—with the other short, white dresses.

“Rebelling against Pete not being interested.” Bella shook her head at a red dress Jenna pointed to.

“That’s not called rebelling. It’s called moving forward. Why do you care if I look for someone other than Pete anyway? You got the man you wanted—and Caden’s like a dream come true. A loyal police officer who worships the ground you walk on. Shouldn’t you want the same for me?”

“I care because I love you, Jenna. And you, my friend, are still hooked on Pete.” Bella cocked her head and held Jenna’s stare.

“What is with you? I’m not hooked on him, and I’m not getting any younger. Leanna got her man, you got yours, and now it’s mine and Amy’s turn. Right, Ames?”

“Don’t drag me into this, but Leanna said she thinks you’re doing the right thing,” Amy said. “She and Kurt went back to their beach house a little while ago, because she has a big jam order to fill and was going to work late tonight and early tomorrow, but she was all for Jenna’s new approach to dating.” Leanna owned Luscious Leanna’s Sweet Treats, a jam-making business that she ran out of a cottage on Kurt’s bay-side property. She sold jam, as well as baked goods she made, at the Wellfleet Flea Market and to restaurants and grocery stores around the area.

“And what do you think, Amy?” Jenna plucked a black miniskirt and white button-down, sleeveless top from a hanger and set them on the bed beside Amy.

“I don’t know. I feel bad for Pete. He looked like he wanted to kill that construction guy.” Amy smoothed Jenna’s blouse.

“Charlie,” Jenna corrected her. She’d told them his name four times already, and she was annoyed that her friends refused to use it.

“Charlie. Right,” Amy said.

Jenna’s cell phone vibrated, and Amy snagged it from the center of the bed. “It’s a text from your mom, Jenna.”

“Oh, God.
Please
.” The last thing she needed was to spend thirty minutes talking to her mother about anything. Gina Ward had been acting so ridiculous that her lifelong friends were tired of dealing with her. And while Jenna was with her friends, they were battling about Pete, whom she really didn’t want to talk about. She’d gone to talk to Charlie only to escape the way Pete made her entire body hum. She knew that if she didn’t hightail it away from him, she’d fixate on him all summer long. She wasn’t even sure that Charlie was enough of a distraction to keep her feelings for Pete at bay, but she had to try.

“Jenna, she’s having a hard time. Want me to read you the text?” Amy asked.

“Why not? It’s not like she won’t text me eight hundred times in the next hour anyway.” She slipped on turquoise and leather sandals and surveyed them, then set them back in the closet.

“J, it’s Mom.” Amy smiled. “I love how she still does that, like you wouldn’t see her name on the phone.”

“She’s still getting a grip on that kind of stuff,” Jenna said.

“Hope you’re having fun. I was thinking I’d come visit for a few days if you won’t come see me. Okay?”

“
Ugh
. That’s the last thing I need.” She took the phone from Amy’s hand and texted her mother back.
I’m really busy. Let’s talk about it in a few days.
Jenna and her mother both lived in Rhode Island, though they lived almost an hour away from each other when Jenna wasn’t at the Cape. The Cape was only about two hours from her mother’s house, but she had no interest in leaving Seaside and going back to deal with her mom, when she could be drowning her Pete Lacroux woes in Charlie. Maybe.

“Let me show you what I’m dealing with.” Jenna scrolled through her pictures and held the phone out toward her friends.

“Oh my God.” Bella laughed. 

Amy’s eyes widened. “Oh, hon. Your poor mother is really having a hard time. She’s dressed like Madonna, or Madonna’s grandmother.”

“Exactly. See what I’m talking about? Too tight, too short, not to mention that these outfits went out of style ages ago, and she wants to go dancing.” Jenna shoved her phone in her skirt pocket. “Dancing. My mother. The woman who spent her nights needlepointing in front of the television and her Sundays at church. Suddenly she’s lost her mind.”

“No, Jen.” Amy reached for her hand. “She’s lost the man she loved, and that’s not an easy thing to go through after thirty-plus years of marriage. She probably feels like her whole life’s been ripped out from under her.”

“I know. I’m trying to be patient, but come on. It’s been
two years
. Two years since their divorce. Shouldn’t she be building a new life and not mudding things up for me when I’m trying to get my own life in order?”

Bella looked at her watch. “Oh gosh. I have to go soon. Caden and I are taking Evan up to P-town tonight to see a comedy show.” Provincetown was an artistic community about thirty minutes from Wellfleet. Bella handed Jenna a tie-dyed aqua sarong. “It’s supposed to be chilly tonight.”

Jenna looked at the sarong and wrinkled her nose. “With a body like Charlie’s, do you seriously think I’ll be cold?” Jenna dressed in the skirt and top, leaving the top two buttons of her blouse open. She slipped on the sandals she’d chosen, a pair of dangling silver earrings, and a big red plastic ring that looked like a flower and covered the entire space between the knuckles of her index finger.

Bella planted her hands on her hips. “Jen, what are you doing? You’re not the kind of girl who goes out looking for sex, and with your girls on display like that, any guy would think you’re up for a good time.”

Jenna rolled her eyes and brushed her hair away from her face. She’d always worn her hair in a bob cut just below her ears, but over the winter she’d grown it out, and she liked the way it felt brushing against her shoulders. She felt sexier, and this summer, she needed all the sexy she could muster.

“No, I don’t look like that, and I’m not looking for sex. Although it has been so long since I’ve gotten any that I wonder if my body’s revirginized itself. You guys heard Pete say he might sail away. What do you expect me to do? Hang around vying for his attention for another lonely summer? He’s not interested. Period. Now let me get into the swing of summer dating again. I’m totally out of practice, and it’s so much more fun than dating back home. Everything is better here, and not that I’d remember, but I bet the sex is better here, too.”

Bella held up her finger. “I can attest to that. Come here.” She grabbed Jenna’s arm and pulled her into a hug. Jenna face-planted between Bella’s breasts. “I don’t expect you to wait around for Pete to make a move. But I swear to God, Jenna, if you turn into a scrump-and-dump whore, I’ll kick your ass.”

Jenna laughed. “I know you will, and I love you for it. I just want…” She pushed from Bella’s arms and gazed out the window. “I want someone to adore me like Caden adores you. I want to experience that moment when our bodies come together for the first time and my stomach dips like I’m going downhill on a roller coaster. That first moment of bliss when everything I worried about—my breath, what I wore on the date, if sex would change things—disappears, and all that remains is total, unencumbered ecstasy. You know that moment when your mind falls to pieces, and it’s all you can do to remember to breathe?”

Amy fell back on the bed with her hand over her heart. “I want that moment, too.”

“I know that moment well.” Bella sighed.

“We know,” Amy and Jenna said in unison.

“So, then, what’s your plan?” Amy sat up and asked.

“I don’t have a plan. When I saw Pete this afternoon and he still wasn’t looking at me like…Well, you know, like he
wanted
me, and he said he might sail away…
Ugh
! And you know what’s even worse? I was jealous of his adorable little puppy. I wanted to take her from his arms so I could climb into them and snuggle up against his chest and have him hold me like he wanted to protect me.” Jenna sighed dreamily. “That’s stupid, I know, because I love puppies. I just had to get out of there and refocus my attention on moving forward. I’ve been stuck for too many years.”

“I meant your plan for tonight, goofus,” Amy said. “I know you think you’re over Pete.”

“Which you’re totally not,” Bella added.

“Yes, I am. Or at least I am trying to be.” Jenna pulled Amy to her feet and they went into the living room. The interior of Jenna’s cottage was painted white. Her furniture was Scandinavian in design with sharp edges and neutral flavors of beige with black-and-white accents throughout. The living room was only about twelve feet long and ten feet wide, with a kitchen that was really more of a nook tucked off to the side. The bathroom was built off the living room, and the master bedroom took up the back of the tiny cottage.

Jenna patted Amy’s hip as she walked past and weaved around the coffee table. “Okay, I have to run. I’m meeting Charlie at the Beachcomber.”

“That was smart. No need to be locked in to driving with him. You never know if he’s a freak or not.” Amy motioned for Jenna to spin around. “You look really cute, but, Jenna, are you sure you want to do this? You’ve wanted to be with Pete for so long that I can’t help but feel sad that you’re supposedly done with him. It should be him you’re going out with tonight, not
Charlie
.” She lowered her voice and said Charlie’s name like a curse word.

“Yeah, well, he had his chance, and obviously I’m a nimrod around him. Can’t you just put your pretty little ideas away and support me on this?” Jenna stuck out her lower lip in a feigned pout.

“Okay, okay, fine. You win.”

Jenna bounced up and down on her toes and hugged Amy. “Thank you. I feel better now. Walk me to my car so I’m not so nervous. I haven’t been on a date in forever.” She took Amy’s hand—borrowing a little of her strength and confidence to carry along with her on her date—and followed Bella outside.

“Do we need an emergency call for tonight?” Amy asked. An emergency call was when they called each other at designated times while they were out on dates, just in case the one on the date needed an excuse to leave. If Amy called and Jenna was having an awful time, she could tell Charlie she had to tend to an emergency—and
voilà
, the date would end.

“Yes, she does.” Bella pulled her phone out and set an alarm. “It’s seven thirty. I’ll call you at eight fifteen.”

“I’ll call you at nine,” Amy assured Jenna. “Why does this feel so nerve-racking? Bella didn’t need an emergency call when she first went out with Caden.”

Bella climbed into her car. “Maybe because Jenna picked up a construction worker.”

“Oh, please. So what? You picked up a cop.” Jenna settled into her car and reached for Amy’s hand. “When are Tony and Jamie getting here?” Jamie’s grandmother, Vera, owned the cottage on the far side of Leanna’s, and Tony owned the cottage on the opposite side. Vera was in her eighties, and Jamie came up during the weekends to look after her.

“Jamie’s started some new project, so he’s not sure when, maybe in a week or two, but Tony is booked solid with speaking engagements. He texted last night and said that between his surfing competitions and the motivational speaking schedule, he’s not sure he’ll come at all this summer.” Amy’s eyes filled with sadness. She’d had a crush on Tony for years, and like Jenna with Pete, every summer she hoped for more.

“Oh no, Amy. I’m so sorry. I can stay home with you tonight,” Jenna offered. Part of her hoped Amy would ask her to stay.

“Go. Have fun. I’m fine. I have a juicy romance novel to read.” Amy tucked her hair behind her ear and pushed Jenna toward her car.

“Aww, Ames. We both need to get a life, don’t we? You can’t hang on to the hope that Tony will finally come to his senses and realize you’re the best woman on the planet any more than I can wait around for Pete to notice how magnificent I am.” Jenna smiled and pointed to her head. “Men are thick. I’m telling you, thick.”

Amy glanced at Tony’s cottage, then brought her attention back to Jenna. “Yeah. I know. Let’s see how your summer goes before I throw my hope into the wind.”

Jenna blew her a kiss and then headed for the Beachcomber with her heart beating so hard she was sure she’d pop the few buttons she’d secured. What was she doing? She didn’t pick up men on the street, not even fine-looking, hard-bodied men. She thought about what Amy had said about Pete and she wondered if he really had looked like he was going to kill Charlie. The thought made her smile, and then it made her angry. He had no right to get upset, especially since he never seemed to think she was worth asking out.

As she pulled into a parking spot at the Beachcomber, her cell phone rang.
Mom
. She might as well get it over with now, or her mother would call her a hundred more times before the night was over.

“Hi, Mom. I’m sorry, but I’ve only got a minute. I’m on my way to meet someone.”

“Oh,
really
?” Her mother was using the new and improved, overly dramatic and far too interested tone that grated on Jenna’s nerves.

“Don’t get your hopes up. We’re just having a drink, maybe going dancing.” Jenna loved to dance, but she hadn’t been since she and the girls went dancing two summers ago. She only wished she were meeting—and going dancing with—Pete instead of Charlie.
I’m definitely losing my mind.