The Day He Stopped In: Hawthorne Harbor Romance, #3

CHAPTER 1

"I don’t want to go," Adam Herrin said, but his best friend would not be deterred.

Come on, Matt said, that perpetual smile still stuck to his face. You like the Fall Festival. He nudged him, making Adam slop milk over the side of his cereal bowl. Besides, you can pretend like you’re already on the force. You know, scan for vandals and all that while I find the prettiest girl there and ask her to dance.

Adam grunted and wiped the spilled milk from the countertop of the apartment they shared. He’d been back in Hawthorne Harbor for just over a month, and he’d just finished his final round of police interviews.

I’m starting work on Monday, he told Matt.

His friend whooped and sent his spoon clattering into his cereal. You got on? They hired you?

Adam let a smile spread across his face. Yeah. I found out last night.

And you’re just now telling me?

You were out really late with Bea.

The joy on Matt’s face disappeared as if Adam had flipped a switch. Yeah, well, not tonight.

You mean we won’t be out late? Adam’s heart lifted, as he preferred the early-to-bed, early-to-rise method of living.

Of course we’ll be out late, Matt said. I just meant not with Bea.

You don’t like her?

She’s not my type.

Adam pictured the tall, beautiful blonde that he and Matt had grown up with. Both men had gone away to college and then returned to their hometown, and they were both settling back into the social scene of the small, beach-side town of Hawthorne Harbor. Bea Arnold had gone to college too, but only for a couple of years. Just long enough to get an accounting certificate so she could handle the finances of her father’s hardware store.

Well, if she’s not, good luck finding someone here, Adam said, picking up his bowl and rinsing it out in the sink.

There are lots of women here, Matt said, his blue eyes taking on that glint that said Adam wouldn’t like what was about to come out of his mouth. But he said nothing. Just re-focused on his breakfast.

Adam didn’t need a lot of women; he had his eye on one: Janey Burns. He’d known her for as long as he could remember, as she was his youngest brother’s age. Just a few years younger than him, and still single. She’d been back in town for a few months, and she was already putting her Natural Resource Management degree to use at Olympic National Park, just a few minutes away from Hawthorne Harbor.

He’d had a crush on Janey since his junior year of high school. She was beautiful and kind and smart. But she’d had a boyfriend on the football team, and Adam had graduated before her and left town while she still had three years of high school to finish.

But tonight...

He banished the treacherous thought and said, I'm going to go running.

Again? Matt lifted his eyebrows and Adam shook his head and started down the hall to his bedroom to change. You already got the job! Matt yelled after him, with a loud bit of laughter coming with it.

Sure, Adam had gotten the entry-level policeman job with the Hawthorne Harbor Police Department. But he wouldn’t stay there for long. Oh, no. Adam had plans to climb that ladder until he stood at the top of the department, and that meant he had to maintain his top physical condition.

So he ran. His favored route took him right past Janey’s house, which sat near the beach. He told himself it wasn’t stalking, because she didn’t even live there anymore. Her parents did though, and he waved to her mother as she worked in the rose garden to prepare it for the winter ahead. Though it didn’t snow in Hawthorne Harbor, because the town sat right on the northwest edge of the North American continent, it got plenty cold.

Adam loved the cool sea spray in his face as he ran, the homes eventually fading behind him and the cliffs coming into view. High above the water sat the Magleby Mansion, where he’d worked mowing lawns and raking leaves as a teenager.

Without a job to fill his time, Adam spent the day working out and making plans for his first day on the job in just a couple of short days. When Matt knocked on his door and said, Are you coming? Adam couldn’t wait to get out of the house.

They arrived at the Fall Festival, which took place in the square in downtown Hawthorne Harbor. The shops on Main Street seemed to glow among the twilight as dusk came quicker now that autumn was upon them.

He hunched his broad shoulders and stuck his hands in his pockets, his eyes constantly scanning for danger. Okay, fine. He wasn’t looking for danger. Not tonight, at least. He let his mind have a brief fantasy of this time next year, and if he’d be on duty like the two officers he spotted hanging out near the face-painting booth.

The scent of freshly juiced apples hung in the air, along with a heavy dose of cinnamon. Matt brought him a cup of hot apple cider, and Adam wrapped both hands around it, back to searching the crowd for the one woman he wanted to see.

Janey Burns.

Tonight was the night. He was going to ask her to dance, and not just because they’d been old friends. His pulse picked up, and he couldn’t make sense of what Matt had said. His friend handed him his plastic cup of cider and pressed through the crowd to an auburn-haired woman Adam couldn’t quite remember.

Her name sat on the tip of his tongue, and he watched as Matt smiled and laughed and somehow knew exactly how to casually touch Nina—aha! Nina Goodwin—on the back as they walked out to the dance floor that had been laid over the grass in the park.

A band sat down on the other end, where a temporary stage had been erected. The slow warblings of a ballad filled the air, and Adam turned away from the blissful couples swaying together.

Carved pumpkins glittered with candlelight, and he smiled at their garish faces as he passed. Families were finishing up with the pony rides and petting zoo, and he leaned against a fence post as the day crowd thinned and the evening festivities took over.

A flash of brilliant brown hair the color of unroasted coffee beans caught his eye, and he finally saw Janey squeezing between two people as she headed toward the food booths. A jolt shot through Adam’s bones and muscles, somehow kickstarting him into following her.

She was with one of her sisters, and he kept his eye on Anabelle’s head, as she stood quite a bit taller than Janey. They stopped for funnel cakes, and he paused as if he were going to get a hot dog.

This is stupid, he told himself as the two women turned. Anabelle looked right at him and so did Janey.

Hey, Adam, she said, a brilliant smile lighting up her whole face. Adam wanted to bask in the warmth of it for the rest of his life.

He managed to say, Hey, Janey. Anabelle, but his voice sounded like he was suffering from a bad chest cold. He tried to clear the nerves from his throat and he almost ended up choking.

Are you heading over to the dance? he asked.

Yes, Anabelle said, her eyes sliding down him in an appraising way. Are you?

He shrugged as if he wasn’t really sure what his evening plans were.

Why do you have two cups of cider? Janey asked.

Adam looked dumbly at the red plastic cups he held. Oh, one’s for Matt.

Matt Germaine? Anabelle asked, her interest obviously piqued. I didn’t know Matt was back in town. She looked at Adam as if he’d deliberately kept the information from her.

He’s dancin’ with...someone, he said.

Anabelle hooked her arm through Janey’s and bent her head toward her sister’s. They moved away, pressing back through the crowd to the dance floor.

Adam followed, because he didn’t have much else to do and well, he wanted to dance with Janey. If he could get her sister off with Matt, Adam might have a chance at more than friendship with the girl he’d been thinking about for eight years.

See? There he is. Adam gestured with Matt’s apple cider toward where he stood on the dance floor, this time a blonde in his arms. Adam once again marveled at the easiness with which Matt did everything. He’d studied mechanical engineering at school while Adam had done a year in the police academy and then three years to get his criminal justice degree.

What’s he doing back? Anabelle asked.

He’s working for the ferry system, Adam said. He’s their lead engineer. Started last week. He wanted to blurt out that he’d be starting with the police department on Monday, but neither Anabelle nor Janey asked.

They both couldn’t seem to tear their eyes from Matt, and Adam frowned. He lifted his drink to his lips and in that brief flash of time, both women slipped away from him and out onto the dance floor.

Janey danced with a man named Clint that Adam recognized from the automotive shop on the edge of town. His mood darkened by the moment as she laughed and spun, her dark locks spraying out behind her when her fourth dance of the night twirled her.

He finished his cider and threw both cups in the trash.

It was his turn.

No more sitting on the sidelines, watching.

He’d taken two steps onto the dance floor when the people parted to give him an unobstructed view of Janey. Her face was flushed and her smile captivated him.

A man stepped up to her and half-bowed to her, his hand extended as he asked her to dance. She ducked her head, the flush turning into a full-blown blush as she put her hand in his and they situated themselves for the next slow dance of the evening.

Adam stared, sure he’d be able to ask Janey to dance after Matt finished with her. After all, neither of them had danced more than one song with the same partner.

But the song ended, and Matt kept his hands on Janey’s waist. They danced another song, and then one that wasn’t even meant for couples as the beat took the music into the rock category.

Adam’s feet seemed to have grown roots. He couldn’t move them though he desperately wanted to. He couldn’t look away either.

So he saw Matt lead Janey off the dance floor, her hand tucked securely into his, and watched them disappear into the night.

FOURTEEN YEARS LATER

Janey Germaine stood in front of her mirror, wondering when the lines around her eyes had gotten so deep. Or when the bags underneath had become so dark.

Mom! Her twelve-year-old son yelled from the kitchen, and Janey startled away from her reflection. So much had happened over the past decade and a half, and each line probably had a dozen stories to tell.

So don’t be embarrassed by them, she told herself as she exited her bedroom and found Jess standing in the kitchen, the pantry door flung wide in front of him.

Do we have any blueberry Pop-Tarts?

If we do, they’ll be in there.

I don’t see them.

Then we don’t have any.

Jess grumbled and frowned and slammed the pantry door, shaking the old house. She’d bought it the first summer she’d returned to Hawthorne Harbor, fresh out of college and with a job she’d been lucky to get.

She still had the job at Olympic National Park, something she was grateful for every day. She filled a coffee mug as she kept one eye on Jess. He’d started complaining that she watched him too much, so she’d been trying to do it on the sly these days.

What are you doing after school today? she asked.

Don’t know, he mumbled.

I’m off today, and we can get Dixie when the elementary kids get out and go out to the lavender farm. She lifted her mug to her lips and took a sip of the bitter liquid. I mean, if you want. She didn’t want Jess to think she really cared about what he did or who he spent time with. She hoped he wouldn’t veto the idea just because she’d suggested it, something that had been happening a lot since he started at the junior high a few weeks ago.

He picked up his backpack and threaded his arms through the straps. Sure, whatever. He stomped on the end of his skateboard and caught the front of it as it popped up. Bye.

Bye, she called after him. Have a good day!

She used to drive him to school every day, or her best friend Gretchen would stop by. Both single moms, they’d been watching out for each other for years. But with Gretchen engaged now, and to be married by Christmas, Janey stared out the window and wondered if she should get back into the dating pool.

Problem was, she didn’t even own an appropriate swimming suit for such things. She had no idea who was available in town, or how Jess would take the news of her dating again, or why anyone would be interested in a thirty-seven-year-old woman with a twelve-year-old son and a husband who’d died thirteen years ago.

Everyone had loved Matt. It was always Matt and Janey, never Janey and Matt. He had a laugh that could fill the sky with fun, fill her heart with joy, fill anything that needed filling.

She saw so much of him in Jess and she stepped into the living room and ran her fingertips along the top edge of a gold frame. The picture inside showed Matt, with his trademark smile on his face. He sat with a very pregnant Janey at the Silver Lake Lodge, a commercial venue inside the National Park where she worked.

She got one free night at the lodge every year, and that year, she and Matt had used it for their anniversary getaway. Little did anyone know that he’d be dead within four months, drowned and presumed lost at sea after the ferry he’d been on had caught on fire and simultaneously gone up in flames and sank into the bay.

Janey turned away from the picture, wondering if it was time to purge the house of them. She’d lived in this space with Matt for exactly thirteen months before he’d left for work and never came home.

She hadn’t been able to move, because the scent of his skin was still in some of his shirts. At least back then. She’d brought Jess home to this house. She loved the neighborhood, and everything about the small cottage spoke of home to her.

Carefully, so she wouldn’t break the glass, she pushed the frame face-down. Matt’s face no longer watched over the happenings in the house, and Janey paused, trying to find her feelings.

One breath in, and everything was okay. Just fine. Two breaths and a sense of...strangeness flowed over her. By the third breath, she could barely get her lungs to expand from the guilt crushing them.

She lifted the picture frame and stared into the handsome face of her husband, the man who had captivated her that night at the Fall Festival all those years ago. Boy, had her older sister been maaad.

Anabelle had apparently had a crush on Matt Germaine for a couple of years, and when he’d barely looked her way, Janey wanted to leave the dance with her sister. After all, she and Anabelle had always been close.

Matt had put a wedge between them for the first six months, and then Anabelle had come to terms with the relationship. Meeting her own husband had certainly helped, and she’d gotten married only two months before Matt’s accident. Anabelle had been Janey’s biggest support during that time, and then her life had moved on. She had three kids now, and while she stopped by often and called or texted Janey everyday, Janey had learned to rely more on Gretchen if she needed help with rides, homework, or babysitting for Jess.

She stared at the picture, the all-too familiar questions flowing through her mind. Do I have to grieve for him forever? Can I ever love someone else again? Should I start dating again?

Sometimes her life felt absolutely unfair. So unfair that it would be hard to breathe and she’d press her hand against her heart to feel it firing against her ribs. Other times, she existed in the world without a care. The taste of butterscotch in her mouth as she hiked, or the scent of pines as she helped junior rangers earn their badges, as easy as anything.

Most days, she oscillated between the two feelings, and the worst part was she never knew when one would strike or how long it would stay.

She listened to the analog clock in the kitchen tick, waiting waiting waiting for something to happen. What, she wasn’t sure, and she turned away from the pictures neatly lined up on the mantle and returned to the kitchen.

Janey got a couple of days off each week, but it usually wasn’t Saturday and Sunday. Wednesday seemed to be one of the slowest days at the park, so she had that day off. And usually Mondays as well. Jess didn’t seem to mind going out to the Loveland’s Lavender Farm, but he’d become surlier and surlier in the past couple of months.

On her days off, she usually went back to bed with her cat, Princess, as she had a hard-to-break habit of staying up until all hours of the morning reading. With a bowl of chocolate chips and pretzels nearby, no less.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t nighttime that haunted her, but the early morning hours just before the sun rose. She imagined the ferries getting prepped and ready for the day and wondered why her mechanical engineer husband had to be on the only ferry that had malfunctioned in the past two decades.

With a piece of toast and a banana in her hand, she retreated to her bedroom to eat and enjoy her second sleep. As she drifted from consciousness to unconsciousness, she wondered how she could meet a man in this town who didn’t know everything about her.

Impossible, her hazy mind thought.

Might be easier anyway, she told herself. Then you won’t have to explain everything about Matt.

That afternoon, fresh from her morning nap, and showered, and done with the yard work for the season, Janey sat on the front steps, waiting for her son to come home. When he didn’t show up by three-ten—his usual arrival time—she started flipping her phone over and over.

Worry ate at her, first in small bites and then in huge, sweeping waves. But she didn’t call. Jess didn’t like it when she babied him by calling if he was ten seconds late. Sure, they’d had a talk about why it was important to be on time, and that he should send a text, even if it was only five minutes.

Five minutes could mean a lot. So many things could happen in five minutes.

Janey glanced both ways down the street, her heart catapulting to the back of her throat when the police cruiser eased around the corner and headed her way. She knew it was Adam Herrin—the Chief of Police himself—just by the way the car stayed right in the middle of the street and came to a simple stop at the end of her driveway.

With the tinted windows, Janey couldn’t see into the backseat, and she didn’t want to rush the car anyway. If it was an emergency, Adam wouldn’t have driven four miles an hour down the street and he wouldn’t have gotten out so slowly a moment ago and be stretching his back like he’d been driving for days now.

She’d known Adam Herrin for almost four decades. Her whole life. They’d been friends in elementary school, a relationship which had lasted all the way through high school and into adulthood. Matt had been his best friend, and Adam had been the best man at their wedding.

He opened the back door of the cruiser and Jess got out, his face set into an angry scowl. Adam said something to him and Jess nodded before he marched up the driveway to where Janey sat on the porch.

What’s going on? she asked.

He took my board, Jess said, taking the steps two at a time and disappearing into the house with a slam of the front door.

Janey flinched, a sigh leaking from her body as Adam popped the trunk on his cruiser and extracted Jess’s skateboard.