And each day his belief in the Magic grew stronger . . .
Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden
“SO,” SHE said, keeping her voice low so no one around them would hear, “are you okay? Being here?”
Another forced chuckle. “Can’t say I’m completely at ease.” His glance darted to a couple walking past, and Tamra realized he was instinctively keeping an eye on as many people as possible. “But . . . it’s fine.”
“I’m glad you came,” she told him, beyond touched that he would do this for her—even while she knew he’d done it for himself, too. “But you don’t have to stay if you’d rather not.”
Yet Jeremy shook his head. “Nah, I’ll hang out a while. Try to act like a normal human being.” He managed a wink. “Maybe I’ll finally catch Fletcher’s show.”
She’d nearly forgotten he’d never seen it. “You should. It’s amazing.”
“Might just watch it from up here on the pier with you, though.” He flashed a playful grin. “Keep a better eye on the perimeter that way. Watch for any Sunset Celebration snipers.”
A quick laugh escaped her, and he chuckled, too. She liked that he could laugh at himself a little.
And so Jeremy hung out with her, clearly inspecting his surroundings while trying not to look like a guy who kept inspecting his surroundings. But occasionally, when a shopper or passerby stopped to converse with her, he meandered to some of the nearby vendors, looking over their art, and chatting with Bethany about her paintings.
Given the lighter crowds due to the change in season, the pier emptied during Fletcher’s tightrope act and all the vendors stood at the railing to watch as well. Tamra liked watching the show with Jeremy, liked seeing him take it in for the first time. But it was a little melancholy to watch it with Bethany—because Kim stood prominently in the front row of the crowd gathered for the performance, and given that Tamra could feel her presence even more than she saw it, she was pretty sure Bethany could, too.
Once upon a time, Kim had served as Fletcher’s assistant, and while he hadn’t yet brought her back in on that same level, she was quick to pass him the props he needed throughout the performance, and it was obvious she was eager to resume her old role. Well, both of them—assistant and wife. And Tamra knew she really would have to forgive Kim—she’d come back, and she was going to be part of their lives now, part of their circle.
As Fletcher balanced on the rope, juggling flaming torches in the air as he merrily flung banter into the crowd, Tamra leaned over and whispered to Jeremy, “Amazing, right?”
He met her eyes briefly, nodding, before refocusing on the show. Then, gaze still on the tightrope and the man atop it, he murmured, “And to think I’ve been missing this out of fear.” He shook his head. “No more. That stops now.” He glanced back over at Tamra. “Because what else am I missing? I don’t want to miss anything.”
The sun was beginning to set earlier these days, ending the celebration a tiny bit sooner with each passing night. By the time Fletcher’s act had ended, most of the shoppers were heading to their cars and back to their homes or to the resorts up the road.
Bethany was excited to have sold three paintings, counting the one to Tamra, and thanked her for suggesting she come.
Jeremy had walked from the Happy Crab, so he helped Tamra load her things into her SUV, and together they drove to the Hungry Fisherman.
As they dug into their pie, Jeremy said, “I have some good news. Wanted to wait until we were alone.”
She looked at him across the table, curious. “What is it?”
“When the golf course is done in a couple of weeks, I’ll be starting a new job. On November first. I got on with Sun Coast Builders. Interviewed for it a few days ago, but I didn’t mention it in case it didn’t work out. It did, though, and the owner, Bob Metzger, is going to mentor me this winter. And whenever he thinks I’m ready, he’ll make me a foreman.”
Tamra sat before him stunned.
And when she didn’t reply right away, he went on. “I’ve been giving it some thought, and turns out I like building. A lot. Don’t know why. Maybe building something feels . . . I don’t know, just a lot more productive than war.” A sheepish chuckle echoed from his throat as he shook his head. “I don’t mean to make it more than it is, but I just want to learn something I like doing and get good at it. So I can rest easy knowing I’ll be able to keep a roof over my head. So that’s my news, Mary.”
She’d been smiling at him the last few moments—ever since she’d gotten over her initial shock. And now she said, “It’s great news! Phenomenal news! I’m so happy for you.”
He gave Abner credit for his help getting the job, after which he informed her that he’d been thinking about other aspects of his future, too. “I’m going to keep living at the Crab ’til spring since I know Reece could use the business through the winter. But come February or March, I’ll find myself an apartment and get settled here for good.”
And though she’d been happy enough already, now it felt as if something in Tamra’s heart broke into full bloom—just like one of the flowers in her garden. Because she hadn’t allowed herself to think very far ahead with Jeremy; she’d been taking one day—and night—at a time, living in the moment and enjoying each for all it was worth. But at the same time, she’d been aware that he had no real roots here. And she couldn’t be sure he’d stay—until now.
“I think this calls for a celebration, Mr. Sheridan,” she told him coyly as he ate his last bite of pie.
He narrowed his gaze on her, his expression flirtatious. “Exactly what do you have in mind, Mary?”
She bit her lip, then spoke lowly. “I was thinking we could get naked in my backyard.”
He didn’t bother replying—just called across the restaurant, “Polly, could we get the check?”
THE following evening just before the sun dropped below the horizon, Fletcher balanced atop his tightrope on the beach, as he did every night. Something about the experience felt otherworldly to him—it had always been that way, since he’d first started performing.
Maybe it was the unique vantage point it gave him. It wasn’t the kind of freedom that came with, say, being a bird, but it still allowed him to see farther, more clearly, than you could on the ground, and peering down on awe-filled faces had always struck him as a view one might have from heaven.
Or maybe it was because man wasn’t meant to balance on a tiny rope strung high above the sand. And perhaps even now, each step he took upon it reminded him that we each set our own limitations in life—and that we could all do amazing things if we only believed we could.
Regardless of the reason why, though, he always felt a little magical up there. Always—every single time.
Just then, with those thoughts rolling through his mind even as he addressed the crowd—he could do that part without thinking now—he caught sight of one particular face there. Kim. Just like he’d visualized.
And she loved him again. Just like he’d visualized.
That felt like magic. To have held that faith, to have seen that vision in his head and experience the reality of it now. So he let himself grab onto that feeling for a moment—because it reminded him how powerful he was, how powerful we all were.
There was only one thing wrong with the whole situation. He still hurt inside.
That hadn’t been part of his vision. Nope, not at all.
She’d come home—but everything was different now. No matter how hard they tried to make it the same, everything was different. Their history was different. It had this big, ugly blight on it now—a big, open, festering wound.
It almost made him want to laugh at odd moments. He’d believed in this so hard that it had actually happened, yet he hadn’t factored in that one enormous component of it all—that when someone leaves for four years, even if they come back, it isn’t the same. What a colossal oversight.
He’d built a whole life without her. Her departure had, in so many ways, made him into someone new, someone much different than she’d left behind. He had a new home, new friends. He’d become part of a community in a way he valued far more than he ever could have anticipated. He’d accumulated possessions that were his and not theirs; he’d fallen into routines that were, again, his and not theirs.
And she, too, had seen places and known people and done things that were wholly separate from him. There were parts of her life he would never know, never be a part of, even peripherally.
Though . . . if there was one thing that bothered him most about all this, it was that she seemed relatively unchanged or unscathed by any of it. In fact, a certain naiveté hung about her. She seemed unaware of the gulf four years had placed between them. Unaware of the level of pain she’d caused him. Unaware that his staying exactly where she’d left him all this time, waiting for her, was a miracle.
She can’t win with you. You’re mad because of ways she’s changed and mad because of ways she’s stayed the same.
But it’ll heal. It’ll heal. You just have to let it heal.
This was meant to be; you just have to let it be.
The song entered his head then, Paul McCartney singing those soothing words, and he let the lyrics run through his mind, let them bring him a little peace.
In the end, it’s all we have. The peace we let ourselves experience. And love.
If you’re lucky enough to be loved by someone who loves you back, you have something truly rare. Which was one more reason among many to forgive. And he would.
When we’re old, none of this will matter. The last four years will seem like nothing but a dream.
And . . . if it hadn’t happened that way, he wouldn’t be here right now. He would have long since left Coral Cove and its quirky charm and accepting people behind. He wouldn’t know as much as he now knew about friendship. Or loyalty. Or simple caring. He would have missed so much that comprised his world now.
Kim had to leave you for you to discover all that.
And now she’s back, like you wanted, so you can have it all.
Everything happens for a reason. Now heal. Now forgive.
Even as those thoughts tumbled through his head, he’d been doing his act, focusing on his balance, and now he began to juggle the torches he’d just lit. The crowd roared for him, but it was Kim who his eyes caught on, down below, and she was smiling up at him.
Let it be.
SOME nights Jeremy spent the night with Tamra; others he came back to the Happy Crab and slept in the bed he’d begun to think of as his own. It was easy to be with Tamra, easy to be at the little cottage she’d filled with color and art and made uniquely her own. But something made Jeremy not to want to get too comfortable there. He still needed his own space. It was early days of being back in the land of the living, after all.
Though he felt more alive all the time. Having a job, with a future, a job where he’d learn something he could use the rest of his life, felt incredible. He’d acted cool when Abner’s friend, Bob Metzer, had offered the position to him, and he’d acted fairly cool telling Tamra about it, too, but inside he’d felt wired—downright electrical. Like a part of him that had been unplugged for a very long time had suddenly gotten juice again.
As he awoke at the Crab, got a shower, and got dressed for another day of golf course construction, he realized he hadn’t felt this hopeful and eager since his early days as a Marine, back when he’d thought he could save the world. Now he knew he couldn’t, but he was perfectly happy not to be in the world-saving business anymore—it was enough to think he could simply be useful, be part of creating new things.
He’d called both his mom and his sister the previous night to fill them in. And it had felt so damn good—he knew they could each hear in his voice the shift in his outlook.
“What else is new?” his mother had asked once he’d given her the details about his job with Sun Coast Construction. “Nancy Romo said you’re seeing someone she knows. An artist. Tell me about her. Nancy says she’s nice.”
He’d almost laughed realizing Coral Cove wasn’t much different than Destiny in ways—in a small town, everyone knew your business. It had never occurred to him that information would make it all the way to Ohio without his knowledge. But he didn’t mind much.
“Her name is Tamra. We’re working together on the mini-golf course. And yeah, she’s an artist—makes pottery and stained glass. She’s friends with Christy Knight—lives next door to her.”
“So is it serious?” His mom sounded hopeful. Why did the whole world want everyone to be “serious” when they were dating someone?
He just shook his head slightly, even though no one could see it. “We’ve only been going out a couple weeks,” he told her, “so don’t get all excited and blow it out of proportion. It’s a new thing. And it’s nice the way it is.”
“Maybe you can bring her up for Thanksgiving or Christmas. You are coming home for the holidays, right?”
Jeremy let out a breath. He loved his mother dearly. And he should probably go home for the holidays, now that she mentioned it. But he hadn’t given it a thought—he’d been way too into living life one day at a time to be thinking that far ahead, even though Thanksgiving was next month. So he said, “I’ll have to see what my work schedule allows for—I’ll be the new guy on the job, after all. But if I make it home, I’ll be on my own.”
“Well, your father and I will probably take a week away from the winter weather in Coral Cove after the new year, so we’ll meet her then.”
“Fine,” Jeremy said.
Another big improvement in his life? Very few nightmares lately. He had better things filling his head these days, he supposed. And okay, yeah, he’d woken up in a cold sweat one night last week after visions of being trapped in a bunker with gunfire and dark shadows—but at least that happened way less now.
He almost felt guilty when he didn’t have Chuck in the back of his mind, but . . . he supposed it was healthier. He supposed things Tamra had told him were true. That Chuck wouldn’t want him to keep suffering. That he couldn’t fix what had happened.
And sure, there were moments when a little voice inside him argued, told him that was taking the easy way out, letting himself off the hook, that he should keep punishing himself since no one else was going it do it for him. But then he remembered that torturing himself just made him a useless human being who became a burden to people. Healing, trying to inject a little good into the world however he could, was starting to make a lot more sense to him.
He walked out the door to another beautiful day in paradise. Damn, he liked it here. It felt . . . downright strange in a way to realize he looked forward to each day. He looked forward to working alongside Tamra at the course, he looked forward to whatever the evening would hold, too. He looked forward to seeing the people who’d become pleasant parts of his life now—Polly and Abner, Riley, Reece and Cami, and all the other people who’d made him feel at home here in one way or another.
Life was good.
And a month ago, he wouldn’t have dreamed he could feel that way in such a short time.
As he pulled the door to Room 11 shut behind him and walked toward his truck, he took a long glance up Coral Street, quiet at this hour, and another across the way to the beach, flanked by the row of tall palm trees that swayed in the breeze. This place had saved him. The thought seemed cheesy, but he knew it was true. Coral Cove had turned his life around.
When he got in his truck and slammed the rickety old door, his eyes were drawn to the passenger seat—or more precisely, to what was in it. A big brown shopping bag. What the hell?
Perplexed and a little cautious—because he disliked mysterious things appearing out of nowhere in the same way he disliked crowds—he leaned over to peek warily inside.
And he found . . . cat stuff. A litter box and bag of kitty litter, some dry cat food, a couple of bowls with cartoony cat faces on them, and—holy shit—even a collar. Powder blue.
Then he noticed a little white envelope on the seat next to the bag. He didn’t have to open it to know who it was from. He tossed a suspicious glance toward the restaurant next door as he ripped into the envelope and pulled out a folded sheet of Hungry Fisherman stationery that looked like it had been around as long as the restaurant—the edges were even yellow. Polly’s probably been trying to use up this paper since the seventies. He read the handwritten note.
That cat needs a real home. Consider this a housewarming gift for him. But if Reece ever finds out you got an illegal boarder in your room, you never got this stuff from me.
Polly
Well, shit.
He loved Polly—he really did. But this was going too far.
He’d looked out for the cat some, but God knew it was early enough in his recovery that he had no interest in being permanently responsible for anyone else’s care—even a tomcat.
Just then, out of nowhere as usual, the big gray cat bounded up onto the hood of Jeremy’s truck.
“Shit!” he bit off through the windshield, immediately relieved it was only the cat but still feeling a little bit stalked.
“Meow,” the cat said, though it was muffled with the windows up.
“I’m pretty sure you only like me for my fish,” Jeremy muttered toward him.
“Meow.”
He shook his head. “You’re not even skinny anymore. Kind of a hog, really.”
“Meow.”
And then Jeremy made a decision. He wasn’t going to be shanghaied into this. He might be fond of Polly, but he didn’t like these tactics. And he’d felt charitable toward the damn cat, but having it around constantly was getting annoying.
“Look,” he said through the window, “we’re not gonna do this anymore, okay? I got too much else going on.”
“Meow.”
And something in the cat’s plaintive tone made Jeremy realize he had to quit playing softball here—he was being too nice. So he yelled through the windshield, “Get outta here!” He waved his arm, shooing the cat away.
When the cat didn’t go, Jeremy opened the door, got out, and reached up onto the hood. And, grabbing the cat by the scruff of his neck, he flung it off the truck. The cat let out a yowl in midair, landing on his feet on the asphalt, then darted around the building and out of sight.