hesitated, then decided now wasn’t the time to add a lie to his sins. “Can’t deny it,” he admitted.
He thought back to the first time he’d laid eyes on Jenny. His manager had brought her over to his place, but he’d been hung over and miserable. While he’d pulled himself together, his manager had sent her onto the patio to wait.
A half hour later, showered and in a more receptive mood, Caleb had found her strumming her guitar, bathed in sunlight. She’d looked ethereal. The music had been just as heavenly, striking an immediate chord in him.
When she hadn’t noticed him, he’d continued listening, falling just a little bit in love with the songs and the woman. It was hard to say which had grabbed him more. The music, more than likely, because his work was his life at that point. His feelings for Jenny had deepened with time.
And then he’d gone and ruined it all.
He sighed, remembering.
“Oh, Caleb,” Margo murmured, real pain in her voice. “If you still love her, can’t you leave her in peace?”
Long after he’d hung up the phone, he thought about Margo’s heartfelt request. The older woman was probably right. The kind thing to do would be to let Jenny go to start over with someone more deserving. And if it was all about a song, perhaps he could do that, but it wasn’t. It was about reclaiming the missing piece of his heart.
* * *
When Jenny left Bree at her theater, she walked along the waterfront trying to get her emotions under control. Leave it to Bree to call her on her behavior in the gentle, chiding way that forced her to see herself more clearly. It hadn’t been an entirely comfortable confrontation.
Not that she could argue with a single thing Bree had said. She’d struggled with herself over those very things for a long time now. Each and every time reason had lost out to emotion.
Chilled after just a few minutes in the icy breeze off the water, she crossed the street, walked briskly back toward Main and went into the café. Her cell phone rang, but a glance showed that the call was from her agent. Right this second, business was the last thing on her mind. She let Margo’s call go to voice mail and settled into a booth.
“Jenny Louise Collins!” Sally said, a smile spreading across her face. “It’s been way too long since we’ve laid eyes on you in this town. Welcome home!”
“Thanks, Sally. This place hasn’t changed a bit.”
Sally glanced around at the worn, but comfortably familiar decor and shook her head. “It could use a good sprucing up, if you ask me, but every time I mention making a few changes, the customers carry on as if they’re afraid I’ll turn it into some highfalutin gourmet restaurant and raise my prices.”
“It’s reassuring to know that it’s just the same,” Jenny admitted. “Any chocolate croissants left? I know it’s late in the day.”
“I must have had some idea you’d be home today. I held one back just in case someone special came in.”
Jenny didn’t believe her for a minute, or at least not that she’d been the someone Sally had been expecting. Still, she was grateful for the sentiment. The prospect of the treat had her mouth watering. “I’ll take it, and a cup of coffee. It’s colder out there than I was expecting. It almost feels like snow in the air.”
“That’s what I was thinking, too, but there’s none in the forecast. Hard to believe we actually had a warm spell just a week ago. It was sixty on Thanksgiving. Didn’t feel much like winter coming on then.”
Jenny smiled, remembering how many times she’d heard similar comments over the years. Once the calendar flipped over to November and all the leaves were on the ground, it seemed everyone in Chesapeake Shores started watching the skies and hoping for snow. Sadly, though, white Christmases were few and far between. That made the ones that did come along that much more magical.
“Let me grab that coffee and croissant for you,” Sally said, hurrying off to fill the order.
She’d just returned when Jess O’Brien came in on a blast of frigid air, shrugged out of her coat and slid into the booth opposite Jenny without waiting for an invitation.
“I heard you were back,” Jess said, reaching across the table to give Jenny’s hand a squeeze. “I stopped by the theater, but Bree said you’d taken off. Since your car was still in the lot, I thought I might find you inside someplace getting warm.”
“I had a sudden craving for one of Sally’s chocolate croissants,” Jenny admitted.
Jess, who was Bree’s younger sister and the owner of the Inn at Eagle Point, regarded the croissant enviously. “Any more?” she asked Sally hopefully.
“No chocolate, but there is one raspberry croissant left.”
“I’ll take it, and a coffee, too,” Jess said eagerly.
“How’d you know I was back?” Jenny asked.
Jess laughed. “It’s Chesapeake Shores and the O’Brien grapevine is a thing of wonder. I doubt you’d crossed the city limits when word started spreading.”
Jenny wasn’t entirely sure she believed her. Oh, she knew gossip spread quickly here, but she also knew how clever O’Briens were about recruiting help with their missions. She suspected her relationship with her family was high on everyone’s to-do list at the moment.
“I spoke to Dad a little while ago,” Jess said, her tone a little too casual. “He’s rallying the troops for a welcome home dinner for you on Sunday at his place.”
Sunday dinners at Mick’s were an O’Brien tradition, one Nell had insisted on. They’d been initiated to get her three sons—Mick, Thomas and Jeff—and their families under one roof in an attempt to mend fences after they’d battled over the development of the town. More recently, they’d simply been occasions for huge, rambunctious gatherings that had always made Jenny feel like an envious outsider on the rare occasions when she’d gone with her mom.
If this one was being held in her honor, Jenny had a hunch it was Mick’s way of trying to bring her face-to-face with her mother and Thomas in a friendly setting.
“You’ve got that look on your face,” Jess said. “Like a deer in the headlights.”
“I’m not ready for a big O’Brien family gathering,” Jenny told her frankly.
“Hey, I get that,” Jess said sympathetically. “Sometimes my family is a little overwhelming even for me. I even had the joy of undergoing an occasional so-called intervention. Those were fun.”
Jenny smiled. She could imagine it, all those O’Briens focused on making some point about the way one of them was behaving. “Heaven save me from that,” she said.
“I’d try, but I know Dad,” Jess said sympathetically. “This is going to happen sooner or later. You might as well get it over with. Just think of it this way. It’s a big house. There are lots of places to hide out and still be on the premises.”
Jenny laughed despite herself. “Voice of experience?”
“You
