Five of Hearts, page 19
Well, she was done with New York City. She was done with broken dreams. And she was especially done with men. Quinn Baker was starting over — and she was in Scallop Shores to stay.
• • •
Did he really look that cranky? He looked mean. She made him look mean. Jonah threw the sketch back on the kitchen table where he’d been staring at it, off and on, since they got home earlier.
“What do you think, Cuteness? Do I look like a grouch?” He turned to Lily, fresh out of the tub, all pink cheeks and footy PJ’s.
“No, silly. You aren’t green and you don’t live in a trash can.” She giggled, referring to a Sesame Street character.
Jonah grabbed his daughter close and tickled her ribs. Hauling her over his shoulder, her shrieks ringing down the hallway, he carried her to her bedroom. He paused in the doorway of the room he had painted pale pink the very day the ultrasound revealed they were having a girl.
He pretended like he was going to set Lily down on the floor, but at the last second, dropped her onto the mattress. This was their nightly routine, and one would think she’d tire of it. Jonah grinned when she laughed breathlessly, and asked for more.
“It’s late. Time for a quick story before I send you off to dreamland.” He reached for the well-worn copy of Goodnight Moon in Lily’s book basket.
“No, Daddy, read me the one about the fairies tonight. Please?” She pointed to a picture book with a group of brightly colored fairies on the front.
“Only because you’re the cutest little girl I know.”
He’d long ago memorized the words to Goodnight Moon when Paige had read it to Lily. It was a safe book. This one he had to make up on the spot, and that scared the hell out of him. He took a deep breath and prayed that he told it the same way he had the last time.
It wouldn’t be long now. She was a smart kid. Heck, she was almost four already. Jonah couldn’t bear to see the look on his precious daughter’s face when she learned his secret. Daddies were supposed to know everything.
Lily snuggled under the covers, clutching her stuffed friends. Jonah kissed his daughter goodnight and smiled as she waved goodbye with her teddy bear’s paw.
Jonah threw on an extra layer of dry clothes, still chilled after the soaking he’d gotten changing a tire for the woman stranded out on Rangeley Way. He couldn’t get her out of his head.
She’d been driving the latest model BMW. Though evening had been setting in, he’d still been able to see that her outfit looked like something straight off a boutique store mannequin. A fitted wool jacket, tall leather boots (oh, yeah, he’d noticed how high those went!) and brand-new jeans that still had a crease down the middle.
She’d taken perfectly nice honey-blonde hair and had those professional highlights painted on to make it blonder. He couldn’t understand why women did that to themselves. Waste of good money, if you asked him.
So why was it that she looked so “city” and still seemed “small-town” approachable? Unbidden, Jonah suddenly pictured her in one of his old plaid, flannel shirts and nothing else. She’d have her fancy hair all piled up on her head, and her bare toes painted some ultra-feminine shade of pink. Whoa! Down boy! It wasn’t like him to react so physically to a stranger he happened to meet on the road.
Refocusing the direction of his thoughts, Jonah felt a pang of guilt. Lots of tourists missed the turnoff to the highway and ended up lost out on those back roads. He should have offered that woman directions. Wait, what was he thinking? He hadn’t noticed it, but surely a fancy car like that would have state-of-the-art GPS. Frowning over how much time he was spending obsessing over soft brown eyes and lush curves, he shook the woman from his thoughts and headed down to his workshop.
He’d lived his whole life in this house and had learned woodworking beside his father as soon as he’d been old enough to safely wield the tools. They had started out making birdhouses and spice racks, the usual father/son woodworking stuff. Then as his skill set grew, his dad had taught him how to make furniture.
Jonah wished his dad were still alive. He’d love to be able to show him how he’d improved on some of the basic designs they had worked on together. He liked experimenting with the lathe, creating more and more intricate designs.
Tonight he had some sanding to do on a cradle he was making for the neighbors across the road. Ken and Thea were having their first baby in January. Thea had seen some of his previous work and gushed over the detailing. He hoped they hadn’t bought a cradle yet, because this was going to be a gift from him and Lily.
Settling down on the cold cement floor, Jonah winced, thinking he should have brought down a nice, hot cup of coffee. He drew the cradle onto his lap as best he could, and gently began to buff the surface smooth. If he had a wife, she could sew a nice quilt to go inside. Now that would make a fine gift.
If he had a wife. He’d been thinking about that a lot lately. Not the wife part, really, but a mother for Lily. The older his daughter got, the more out of his element Jonah felt. Lily wasn’t a baby anymore. Now she wanted her hair braided, she wanted to wear fairy costumes, girl things that he didn’t have the first clue about. She needed a woman’s influence.
But before he could convince someone to take them on and be a mother for Lily, he had to learn to read. Pure luck had allowed him to skate through life so far. The only person in his adult life that had figured out what he kept hidden from the world was his wife, Paige. She’d taken his secret to the grave.
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Jennifer DeCuir, Five of Hearts
