A Seaside Christmas

Connie paced the office at the nursery, her gaze going to the clock that seemed to be moving at a snail’s pace this morning. Jake had promised to get Jenny over here one way or another, and her brother always kept his word. But Jenny was no slouch when it came to stubbornness. He might have hit a snag when it came to persuading her to come to work with him.

She finally heard the crunch of tires on gravel outside and glanced out the window. When her daughter emerged from the passenger side of the pickup, Connie’s heart nearly stopped.

Jenny had changed so much, from a college girl to a woman. Some of that, she knew, was simply the natural result of reaching her early twenties. Some, she suspected, came from heartbreak. Though she’d reached out to Jenny when she’d learned of her shattered romance, she’d been rebuffed, turned away with the obvious lie that Jenny was doing just fine, no motherly comfort needed.

This morning there was no mistaking Jenny’s reluctance as she crossed the parking lot. She dragged her feet like a toddler heading for a shot at the doctor’s office. Jake leaned down, murmured something in her ear, then all but shoved her toward the door. Connie flung it open, half-afraid that Jenny would turn tail and leave before they’d said a word to each other.

“Hi, sweetheart,” she said, tears stinging her eyes. “Welcome home.” She lifted her arms, then let them drop back to her side, when Jenny remained right where she was.

“Hi, Mom. You look great,” Jenny said, her tone stilted, her gaze directed everywhere but at Connie.

“You look fantastic,” Connie said, hating the awkwardness of the moment. She stepped aside and let Jake by. Jenny followed reluctantly behind him.

“I brought coffee,” Jake said, stepping into the silence that fell. He handed out disposable cups from Sally’s, along with a bag of raspberry and chocolate croissants meant to smooth over any tension in the reunion, then headed right back to the door. “Gotta run. I’m on a job this morning.”

“Hey, wait,” Jenny protested, looking panicky. “How am I supposed to get back into town? Bree and I have a meeting this morning. We have a lot of work to do if this play’s going to be ready for Christmas week. I need to hitch a ride back with you.”

“I don’t think so,” Jake said. “Your mom can take you whenever you’re ready.” He walked out and let the door slam behind him.

Jenny turned to Connie then, and gave her a hesitant smile. “Not exactly subtle, is he?”

Connie grinned at the massive understatement. “He never was. Frankly, right this second, I’m grateful for that.” She studied her daughter’s face. “I can see, though, that you’re not.”

Jenny was silent for so long that Connie thought maybe Jake’s efforts had been wasted. She sighed.

“I can take you to your meeting now, if that’s what you want,” she offered.

Jenny flinched. “It’s okay. I have a little time,” she admitted. “Bree wasn’t even dressed when we left the house. She was still groaning about being up at all.”

Connie smiled. “It’s a wonder she and Jake ever see each other. He’s always been a morning person, and she’s such a night owl.”

“But they make it work,” Jenny said. “I can see how happy they are. And they both dote on Emily Rose.” She smiled. “She’s very precocious. If Uncle Jake thought I was a handful as a teenager, he’s really going to be in for it when Emily Rose hits her teens.”

“We’ve all told him that,” Connie said, laughing. “He swears it won’t be a problem, because he intends to lock her in her room and nail the windows shut for good measure.”

“Which only means she’ll grow up to excel at carpentry or lock picking,” Jenny said, then predicted, “She will get out.”

“No question about it,” Connie agreed. She held her daughter’s gaze. “I’ve missed you, baby.”

At first she thought Jenny wasn’t going to respond, but then she said in a voice barely above a whisper, “I’ve missed you, too.”

This time when Connie opened her arms, Jenny flew into them. After too many years of strained conversations and deafening silences, Connie’s world was finally right again. She wasn’t going to delude herself that everything between them was fixed. It took time to heal old wounds, but this moment with her firstborn back in her arms was a start.

* * *

For an hour as Jenny and her mother drank coffee and ate the croissants her uncle had brought along, it felt a little bit like old times. Jenny told her about her life in Nashville, the people she’d met and worked with, all the while carefully avoiding anything too personal. Caleb’s name never came up. Nor did her mother ask if there was anyone special in her life. It was as if there were an unspoken agreement to keep this first real conversation in such a long time light and superficial. In a way it felt more like catching up with an old acquaintance than the kind of mother-daughter talks she recalled. That saddened her.

Still it went well until her mom brought up Thomas.

“We’re so anxious to have you see the house,” Connie said with undisguised excitement. “Matthew designed it and Mick’s crew built it. There’s a view of the bay from your room. I’ve put all your things in there, but I thought maybe you’d like to redecorate it while you’re here. We could go shopping, pick out paint and curtains, a new bedspread.”

Jenny frowned. “Mom, I’m staying with Bree and Jake. I thought you understood that.”

“I know that was the plan, but I’d hoped maybe, now that we’ve talked, you’d want to come home, at least for a while. Thomas is so anxious to get to know you better. And your little brother is over the moon that you’re back. He thinks it’s very cool having a big sister.”

Jenny shook her head. “I can’t,” she said. “Not yet.”

She hated the unmistakable sorrow her response put into her mother’s eyes. “I’m sorry. I just wouldn’t be comfortable there.”

“Why not?” Connie pressed. “It’s your home.”

Jenny shook her head. “Grandma’s house where I grew up, where you and I lived when it was just the two of us—that was home. I imagine you sold it, though,” she said, unable to keep a note of bitterness out of her voice.

“No, I kept it,” her mother said softly. “Jake’s kept up the yard. Thomas has had Mick come in and make a few repairs and updates. He had it painted.” She held Jenny’s gaze. “He thought, we both did, that you might like to have it someday if you ever came back here to live.”

Jenny’s heart seemed to go still at the enormity of the gesture. “You saved Grandma’s house for me?” she whispered, incredulous. “Even though you knew I might never come back here?”

“I always hoped you would,” her mother said simply. “Maybe not to live, but it’s a great town for vacations.” She shrugged, looking embarrassed. “And Chesapeake Shores is home. At least I hope you’ll always think of it that way. I hope you’ll remember how much you once loved it here.”

“Jake and Bree never said a word,” she said, amazed. “And just now, until I mentioned it, you were pushing for me to stay with you.”

“Bree and Jake knew I wanted it to be a surprise. Plus, I guess I was hoping to maybe have you under my roof for just a little bit before you went off to your own place. If you want the keys now, though, you can have them. I brought them with me this morning.”

“Mom, I honestly don’t know what to say,” Jenny said, filled with a mix of gratitude and dismay that she’d thought her mother didn’t understand how she felt about that old house. She didn’t even want to think about what it meant that Thomas had understood as well. That he had shown such kindness to her, despite how aloof she’d remained, gave her a rare bit of insight into why her mom had fallen for him so hard.

Her mother’s smile was tinged with sorrow. “I take it you want the keys.”

“Absolutely,” she said at once. Not only was that house the only home she remembered, it would provide a refuge as she tried to figure out how to fit in with this new and overwhelming family.

Her mother fished in her purse and came up with a set of keys on a Chesapeake Shores souvenir key ring. She pressed them into Jenny’s hand, then enfolded it in her own. “We’ll transfer the deed into your name while you’re here, if you decide you want to keep it. Connor can take care of the paperwork.”

“Can we go see it now?” Jenny asked, unable to contain her excitement, even though she could see that her reaction was hurting her mom. Connie might have made this magnanimous gesture, but it was clear she’d hoped Jenny wouldn’t want to take advantage of it so quickly. Though she hid her disappointment reasonably well, Jenny could see through her act.

Because she didn’t want to deal with all the undercurrents, she forced a smile. “I rode by yesterday and saw that it looked like it had a new coat of paint. I was glad to see that someone was taking good care of it.”

“Then you can thank Thomas and your uncle for that when you see them.” Connie hesitated. “Will you at least think about coming to dinner at the new house tonight, so you can do that? I’ll make spaghetti or a pot roast, whatever you want, though I think pot roast is probably on the menu at Mick’s for Sunday dinner.”

Jenny desperately wanted to put off her first encounter with her new stepfather until Sunday when they’d at least be surrounded by a crowd of O’Briens, but maybe this would be better. There’d be no watchful gazes, no people ready to jump in to defend Thomas from any cutting remark she might make. Not that she would do such a thing intentionally. They’d both walked on eggshells whenever they were together for her mother’s sake. It would almost have been better if they’d blurted out whatever was on their minds and then dealt with the fallout.

“What time?” she asked her mother eventually.

The smile that spread across her mother’s face was worth any discomfort the evening was likely to bring, Jenny concluded, glad that she’d said yes. Now she just had to make a real effort to open her heart to the man who’d given her mom the bright future she’d never dared to envision.

“How about seven? Thomas is usually home from Annapolis by then. Now that he has Kevin on board, Thomas runs the foundation from home a lot of the time. Today just happened to be one of the days he needed to go into the office for meetings.”

“Has Mick finally accepted the fact that one of his sons is working for Thomas?” Jenny inquired curiously. “I know he hated it when Kevin first said that’s what he wanted to do, rather than working with Mick or doing something else right here in Chesapeake Shores.”

“Oh, Mick blustered for a few months, but he’s admitted more than once that he’s proud of the work both of them are doing to preserve the bay.”