marrying Thomas.”
Bree gave her a knowing look. “Weren’t you?”
“I wasn’t, not really,” Jenny said earnestly. “I just felt lost, like an outsider in my safe, secure world. For all those years after my dad left, it was just my mom and me and Uncle Jake.”
“You didn’t blame me when I married Jake,” Bree noted.
Jenny flushed. “Sure, I did,” she said candidly. “But you’d gotten Uncle Jake to lighten up on me and Dillon Johnson, so it balanced out somehow.”
Bree smiled. “Ah, so that’s how I escaped your wrath.”
“Pretty much. I figured you were my one ally back then.” She gave her a resigned look. “Now, not so much.”
“Leave me out of it,” Bree commanded. “Let’s stick to the real issue. Thomas came along and you were no longer the sun in your mother’s universe. Is that how you felt?”
Jenny nodded. “Ridiculous, I know. I was going off to college, for heaven’s sake. I didn’t want her to be all alone. I should have been thrilled that she’d fallen in love. I wasn’t blind. I could see that Thomas adored her, that he wanted to do everything in his power to make her happy. She was glowing when they got married. And then, just when I was coming to terms with that, she got pregnant....”
Jenny shook her head at the memory of the way she’d taken that news, as if it had been a personal betrayal. She’d fled the Christmas celebration at their Dublin hotel the moment she’d heard the announcement. “God, I behaved so badly.”
“Everyone understood you were upset,” Bree consoled her. “You should have found out before the rest of us. They both should have been more considerate of your feelings. I just think they were so excited, it kind of came out.”
“I get that and I had no right to ruin that moment. It just hurt to see how happy they were, as if they’d been given a miracle.”
“They had been,” Bree said, then added gently, “But that made you realize that your mom was a woman, that you alone weren’t enough for her. It must have come as a rude awakening.”
Jenny gaped at her. “You get that?”
“Sweetie, observing human beings and all their frailties is what I do. You can’t write plays that mean anything without that kind of insight.” She grinned. “And I write halfway decent plays.”
“They’re more than halfway decent,” Jenny said with total sincerity.
“You have the same sort of insight,” Bree noted. “It shines through in your songs. How do you think you came up with so many hits? People respond to the sensitivity and truth in your lyrics.”
“I thought it was because I’ve been fortunate enough to have them sung by some of the hottest guys in Nashville.”
“Well, that, too,” Bree said with a grin. Her expression sobered. “I know I’ve said this before, but I’m truly sorry about you and Caleb. I know that breakup hurt.”
“Over and done with,” Jenny said, not even trying to hide her bitterness over that fact. “I haven’t heard from him since he went into rehab for alcohol abuse. If I never hear from him again, it will be too soon.”
“Said exactly like a woman who’s still fighting her feelings,” Bree commented. “Unless I’m mistaken, you two never talked about what happened, about those pictures that were splashed all over the tabloids. He went straight into treatment.”
Jenny thought back to those devastating days. There hadn’t been one single phone call, no attempt to apologize or explain. “We never talked, no.”
“Then you could probably use some closure,” Bree suggested.
Jenny gave her a startled look. “No way,” she insisted. “Caleb is history. I have no idea where he is. I don’t want to know. He trashed his career, right along with our relationship. Forget closure. If I ever take a chance on love again, it won’t be with another bad-boy singer, that’s for sure. Nice, stable and boring. That’s the way to go.”
She reminded herself of that every single night as she lay all alone in the bed she and Caleb had once shared.
If Bree had something to say about her fierce declaration, she wisely kept it to herself. Jenny was in no mood to hear her defend the man who’d chosen a bottle over her.
She stood up abruptly. “If I’m supposed to be up before dawn, I’d better get some sleep.” She gave Bree a hug. “Thanks for taking me in and for being so understanding.”
“Always,” Bree said. “And, sweetie, cut your mom some slack when you see her. She loves you so much.”
Because she knew in her heart it was true, Jenny nodded. “I’ll do my best.”
“You’ll come by the theater after you’ve seen her?” Bree asked. “We can talk about the songs for the play, maybe bounce around a few ideas?”
“Sounds good. I read the script and I’ve made some notes. I even have a few preliminary lyrics jotted down.”
Bree grinned. “I knew you would. I should probably call your agent tomorrow and work out a deal with her.”
Jenny regarded her with dismay. “No deal necessary. I’m doing this for the chance to work with you.”
“Sorry. You’re a professional songwriter now. You write songs, then you get paid. Given the kind of fees you can probably command these days, I might ask for the friends and family discount, though.”
“I’ll send an email to Margo and let her know,” Jenny said. “Come to think of it, she left me a message earlier, but I’m too beat to deal with it tonight. I’m actually surprised she called. I told her when I left that I was officially on vacation, that there was nothing that couldn’t wait till I get back to Nashville after the first of the year. I need a complete mental break from everything. I thought she understood that.”
Bree frowned. “If you told her that and she called anyway, maybe it’s important.”
“There aren’t a lot of emergencies in my line of work,” Jenny told her. “Tomorrow will be soon enough. Whatever it is could probably wait till after New Year’s, for that matter.”
“Your call,” Bree said.
In the guest room, Jenny took her cell phone from her purse and deliberately placed it in a dresser drawer. She piled a few sweaters on top of it for good measure. She’d meant it when she’d told Margo she wanted an uninterrupted break for the next few weeks.
Though she’d worked through the breakup with Caleb and the resulting fallout, enduring the pity and even a fair share of gloating from women who’d once envied her, there was no denying the stress of the past year. Since coming back to Chesapeake Shores was likely to be stressful in its own way, she didn’t need to have it compounded by professional obligations that could be put off.
As she shut the drawer on that part of her life, she smiled. If only it were that easy to lock away the memories. Unfortunately, there was no place to shove
