“How?”
“To host events. I’m a wedding coordinator. The grounds are picturesque. And I might give it to someone,” she whispered. “Someday.”
“Who?”
She finally turned, those tears she feigned earlier all but gone. Classic Chloe.
“Nobody you know.”
“Don’t count on that, cupcake. You can’t just give away something that belongs to me. Not without repercussions.”
His hand was on the front door when he heard her reply.
“You already punished me.”
The soft, sad comment made no sense, and he’d dismissed it by the time he climbed into his truck and headed to a local hotel, driving away from his own fucking house.
Away from the girl he could never forget, no matter the days passed, the distance between, or the devastation inflicted.
It’s never how you remembered it. Your hometown.
Especially if it was a small town.
But with age came perspective, the view you saw as an adult far different—both good and bad.
It’s never as good if, say, you were the Homecoming King slash quarterback for the varsity team, dating the head cheerleader, and you peaked in high school.
It’s never as bad if, say, you were the only kid of the quirky couple who lived in the faded Cape Cod named by your great-great-grandfather, and the only employee of that couple’s hardware store, a business barely making it selling nuts and bolts, while you did your math homework next to an old-timey cash register.
Jameson had been good at sports. “A natural athlete,” coaches said but, other than baseball, he hadn’t participated in any. He’d been good at school, breezing by with an A average without even trying. He’d been good at getting girls, though none felt much like taking him home to meet the parents. He’d been good at keeping his objective in sight—becoming a SEAL. A goal established on the Christmas morning of his sixth year, a gift of green toy soldiers under the tree.
Technically Army men, but semantics. The ocean his back yard, the Navy had him at the promise of water.
What he’d not been back then . . . was in the same tax bracket as most of East Hampton.
Certainly not with a girl—the girl—one year younger, who happened to live next door, geography the only thing they had in common. To an outsider, anyway.
Chloe never brought up money during that long, hot summer that changed his life. But when you had it, it wasn’t a topic much worth mentioning.
Which made this whole damn mess even more confusing.
He made sure his father had money. Sent him that check every month, and like clockwork, his father cashed it. Every month. He balked at the first few, his pride as big as his heart.
“I can’t, son. I can’t take your money,” Jonah Maine said, his voice clear even through a phone line spanning half the globe. “You work too hard for this. Risk your life for it. It’s your money.”
“What else am I gonna spend it on?” Jameson replied, keeping the finer details of his daily life to himself. “I have everything I need.”
There were no shopping malls in Afghanistan. No suburban family homes to purchase in the hills of Pakistan. No swanky country clubs to play a round of golf on in Syria. Insert any material item coinciding with any godforsaken terrorist country where he’d resided, and the result was the same. Unessential. That was his life back then. If he had body armor and bullets, his needs were met.
And since he didn’t have Chloe, nothing else really mattered. So he sent the money.
Right up until two months ago, when he got the call from an ER doctor at Stony Brook. His father had driven himself to the hospital, complaining of chest pain.
“I’m sorry,” the doctor said.
They did all they could.
As a specimen of health, nobody anticipated his massive heart attack.
Jameson’s foot eased off the accelerator as he drove through downtown East Hampton, morning sunshine beaming through his windshield as he passed by a deserted storefront at the beginning of the block. The sign attached to the shaker shingles above the window was faded but achingly familiar. Maine Hardware.
There was a sign on the door, too. Sorry, we’re closed. Please come again later.
Jesus.
His lungs tightened. His fists clutched the wheel. His chest burned from lack of oxygen. That sign took his breath away.
Closing his eyes briefly, he called on his survival training. Inhale slowly, to the count of ten. Hold it. Exhale slowly, to ten. Regulate your pulse. Slow your breathing. Give no information. Show no weakness. Live to fight another day. Hour. Minute.
The hardware store now in his rearview, he parked a few blocks down, in front of the law office of Donovan Partners. An exaggeration, if not all out false advertising. There was only one partner, Doug Donovan. A buddy from way back.
“Jameson, good morning,” Doug said, walking out of his office and into the lobby after his receptionist—who looked ready to phone the police—announced his presence. “I figured our conversation from last night wasn’t over. Cleared my first appointment just in case.”
“Wise assumption.”
“Don’t break anything today, okay? That includes furniture and bones.” His grin was friendly, but his request fear-based. And warranted.
“I didn’t break anything last night.” He shook Doug’s hand then followed him into a wood-paneled office for the second time in twelve hours. “Or did I?”
He saw Chloe Morgan’s name listed as owner of Maine Lane. Then, he saw red.
“Only verbal threats,” Doug replied wryly. “Unless you made good to wring sweet little Chloe’s neck once you found her?”
“I restrained myself.” He sat in the chair, facing Doug’s messy desk. “And sweet, my ass. She’s cold-hearted.”
Doug shrugged, sensible enough not to debate the issue.
“I’m not sure what I can tell you this morning that we didn’t already go over last night.” He leaned back in his executive chair, fiddling with a ballpoint pen. “The purchase of the house is a done deal.”
“What I want to know is why it was for sale.” And why his dad never mentioned it to him. “None of this makes reasonable sense.”
Jameson left East Hampton for good, yes, but he’d remained in close contact with his father. As close as the Navy allowed, what with regular deployments. Even when he was stateside in Virginia Beach, his team was spun up regularly.
Spun up. A fun way to describe spur-of-the-moment clandestine ops.
After retirement, he moved to Florida, his father visiting annually.
“It wasn’t for sale. It was in pre-foreclosure,” Doug explained. “The bank didn’t own it yet, but they soon would. They’d already served a Notice of Default. Weeks from taking possession. Chloe made Jonah an offer that paid off the bank note. He accepted it, and all parties were satisfied. She let your dad live there. Planned to indefinitely, I believe. They were close.”
He smirked. “How kind of her.” And this closeness was news to him.
“He died a few months after the purchase. It was so unexpected.” Doug’s expression turned sympathetic. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
Sipping coffee from a cardboard to-go cup—courtesy of the hotel he stayed at last night—Jameson averted his eyes.