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So far, the transition from military to civilian life had been anything but smooth sailing. Thank God for his aunt, and the new start she offered him.
Kiptohanock Kayaking was an opportunity to make a home for Brody. Maybe Jax’s last chance to bond with his son. If it wasn’t already too late.
He shook himself. He couldn’t afford pessimism. As a former member of the elite Special Forces, he was trained to never quit. And no matter what it took, whatever sacrifice, he’d make this work with Brody. Their survival as a family depended on it.
Per his training, Jax scoped out the terrain. On this mid-June Saturday, two vehicles were parked outside the outfitters shop. A seen-better-days bronze SUV with an empty roof rack, and next to it, his aunt’s burgundy Grand Cherokee.
A bell jangled as his aunt stepped out of the shop onto the porch. Grinning, she waved them over. A lot had happened in his life since he’d worked here during high-school summers. More than the years or mileage would indicate.
He took Brody’s small hand. “Let’s go meet Aunt Shirley.” He towed his son toward the porch.
After spending a disastrous six months with Adrienne’s family, Jax found it good to see a friendly face. In cargo pants and the buttoned-up sleeves of her quick-dry shirt, his aunt was a walking advertisement for an outdoor provision company. Only these days, her hair was more salt than the pepper he remembered.
Dropping his hold on Brody, Jax engulfed her in a bear-size hug. The sheen of tears in the eyes of his unsentimental, take-no-prisoners relative surprised him.
“You haven’t changed a bit.” She clapped Jax on the back, jolting him. At six foot three, he wasn’t easy to jolt. “A little taller, certainly broader in the shoulders.” Her twinkling blue eyes teased him. “Far more handsome, if that’s possible.”
For the first time since driving over the Bay Bridge Tunnel from the mainland, he smiled. “And you are eternally youthful.”
“Not true, but thank you.” She gave him a wry smile in return. “I like to think I’ve mellowed with age.”
“Aunt Shirley, this is my son, Brody.”
Hunkered near the railing, Brody turned his little mouth upside down.
Jax bit off a sigh. “Brody, come meet Aunt Shirley. We’ll be living at her old house.”
Brody’s brows drew together like two wiggly caterpillars. “No.” His favorite word.
“I see the resemblance in the scowl.” Shirley blew out a breath. “Is he as stubborn and mule-headed as you’ve always been, dear nephew?”
Scrubbing his hand over his face, he laughed. Blunt as always. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same.
“He’s got Pruitt blood in him. Won’t take long for him to fall hopelessly in love with Shore life.” She winked. “You, too.”
Jax felt hopeless, though not with love. Time had run out for him and Adrienne. The enormous responsibility of being a single parent weighed heavy on his not-feeling-so-broad shoulders.
“I’m grateful for this lifeline you’ve thrown me, Aunt Shirl.”
Like a swift kick in the pants, she poked him with her bony elbow. “So don’t blow it, soldier.”
His lips twitched. His maiden aunt would’ve made an excellent drill sergeant.
Shirley squeezed his arm. “Darcy’s not happy about our arrangement. She’s not exactly your biggest fan.”
He grunted. “I can always count on you to give it to me straight, Aunt Shirl.”
The short bark of her laugh echoed over the tidal estuary behind the shop. “But I’ve no doubt with that renowned Pruitt charm of yours, you’ll find a way to convince her to stay for the busy summer season.”
His so-called charm was his fallback position. As comfortable as a broken-in, well-loved baseball glove. Where he kept his feelings safely hidden.
Jax made a face. “The way I remember it, Darcy Parks doesn’t charm easily. Or maybe she’s just immune to mine.”
“Nothing worth having is ever easy.”
“I’m prepared to give the business everything I’ve got.” He frowned. “We are talking about the business, right?”
Shirley stuck her tongue in her cheek. “Don’t tell your brothers I said so, but you’re my favorite Pruitt nephew. I have full confidence in your ability to handle every challenge that comes your way.”
“Like fiscal management?”
“That, too.” Her eyes sparkled. “It’s good to have you home, Jaxon.”
With his face pressed between the railing spindles, Brody peered out over the village green. Like a prisoner through iron bars.
She tossed Jax a ring of keys. He caught them with one hand.
His aunt plodded down the wooden steps in her hiking boots. “How about I take this little sea urchin over to the Sandpiper Café for some Long John doughnuts before they close this afternoon?”
In true Tidewater fashion, her “about” came out sounding like “a boot.” The soft musicality of her speech brought an unexpected welling to his eyes. It had been a long time since he’d been among his own people on the Eastern Shore. Too long.
Brody let go of the railing. “Hungwy.”
She smirked. “You trying to starve this growing boy, Jaxon?”
“We had a burger at the Bay Bridge Grill for lunch.” He squared his shoulders. “Shakes, too.”
One of the few things he knew about kids: keep feeding them so they don’t turn on you.
She held her hand out to Brody. “Ready?”
He snatched his hands behind his back. “No.”
Jax gasped. “Brody...”
His aunt widened her stance. “Do you want doughnuts or not, young man? Makes me no never mind, either way.”
Brody jerked his thumb in Jax’s direction. “Him?”
Not once since Adrienne died had Brody called him Daddy. Most of the time, he refused to communicate with Jax at all. Except for no. He’d mastered that word.
“Your dad will be waiting right here when we get back.” She patted Brody’s shoulder. An awkward “I don’t know what to do with a child” pat.
Join the club. He didn’t, either.
“I’ll be here, I promise, Brody.”
His son glared at him. An indication of what he thought of his father’s promises?
“Just like you.” Shirley chuckled. “In so many hardheaded, annoying ways...”
Great. Just great. He rubbed the back of his neck.
“Darcy’s on the dock. You two best get reacquainted.” A strange smile flitted across Shirley’s lips. “Welcome home, Jaxon. To the first day of the rest of your life.”
Jax swallowed. I know we haven’t talked in a while, but please, God, make it so.
With visible reluctance, Brody took her hand. As they walked toward the diner down the street, his dark head swiveled for one last glimpse of his father.
Like Adrienne that last day before they’d both deployed on separate assignments, never to see each other again. Jax’s lungs constricted. Guilt cutting off his air supply.
In a single bound, he came off the porch and rounded the corner of the shop. His legs ate up the ground, past the stacked kayaks and paddles. Dodging the pile of orange lifejackets.
Leaping onto the wooden planks, he felt the dock shudder beneath his weight. But spotting the silhouette of a woman sitting on the far end, he came to an abrupt halt.
Midafternoon, the sun arced high in the cerulean sky. The cove glimmered like a treasure chest filled with glistening diamonds. Her legs dangled over the water, but in one lithe motion, she rose. And bathed in golden light, she faced him.
His heart sped up. “Darcy?”
She bridged the distance between them on the dock. And he got his first good look at her in over a decade. She hadn’t changed much.
His breathing slowed. Somehow he’d been afraid she had. To him, Darcy was summer sunshine. Like the shimmery light playing across the pearlescent string of the barrier islands.
A sea breeze lifted a silky wave of the strawberry blonde hair skimming her shoulder. Freckles still sprinkled her nose. Her sun-kissed tan reflected the beach girl she was and had always been.
Darcy Parks, the little tomboy who lived next door to the Pruitts. Athletically slim, but rounded with more womanly curves than the sixteen-year-old he’d known. But like him, older.
Her blue-green eyes—like many here on the Shore—reflected the cool depths of the Machipongo Inlet. Becoming aware of her appraising scrutiny, he stuffed his hands in his pockets, striving for a nonchalance he didn’t feel.
Full of an untried optimism, he’d joined the army right out of high school to fight global terrorism. And his success or failure now depended on the grown-up version of a girl he’d once possessed a great fondness for.
Eyes flashing, she raised her chin. “Long time no see, Jaxon.” She shouldered past him toward the store.
His defenses climbed. Not the same girl he remembered. His mistake. He followed Darcy into the shop. Not the welcome he hoped for.
But after how he’d left things between them the day he reported for Basic, probably the welcome he deserved.
* * *
She’d been robbed.
Though perhaps not in a literal sense. And robbery wasn’t even the worst of it.
Inside the outfitters shop, Darcy glowered at her best friend’s older brother. “Nepotism doesn’t become you, Jaxon.”
Jax leaned one hip against the nearest available surface. Shirley’s desk. Soon to be his.
Her fingers curled against her thighs. The leaning drove Darcy crazy. Always had.
When they were children, Jax had leaned against the oak tree, straddling their adjoining backyards. In high school, after football drills, he’d leaned against the gymnasium wall to watch his sister, Anna, and Darcy during volleyball practice.
Leaning. Always leaning. Had the military taught him nothing? Was the ex–Green Beret incapable of standing upright?
He cocked his head. “Don’t make this more than it was. A simple business transaction, Darce. Nothing more.”
She bristled. “Don’t call me Darce.”
Not only had she lost the chance to buy Shirley Pruitt’s kayaking company—her dream since high school. Now she had to work for the new owner: Jaxon Pruitt, the bane of her existence.
But despite the unbridled hostility in her voice, he smiled at her in that half-lidded, ridiculously stomach-quivering way of his. “You didn’t have the money to buy her out. I did.”
“You don’t have the experience to run the business.” She ignored the fluttery feeling in her belly. “I do.”
He shrugged. “We’re at an impasse, then.”
Jax was the poster boy for too-handsome-to-be-real. A perfect specimen of Uncle Sam’s finest with his almost-grown-out military haircut.
He crossed his arms across his navy blue shirt. “How can we work this out?”
An outrageous combination of charm coupled with an aggravating self-confidence. And judging from the rippling muscles underneath his T-shirt, a hint of something slightly dangerous.
He opened his arms shoulder width. “I’m willing to do anything it takes to make this work.” Shoulders that tapered to the narrow waist of his jeans.
She wrinkled her nose. “Frankly, Jaxon, I don’t care what you—”
The bell clattered above the glass-fronted door, and Shirley burst inside. A little boy clung to her sturdy hand. She looked as if she’d been through a whirlwind.
Darcy found it hard to swallow past a sudden lump in her throat. His mouth encircled by a ring of powdered sugar, the little guy was all Jax. Dark eyes, dark hair. So, so cute.
One day, he’d be handsome. As handsome as his dad. Jax would have to fight the girls off his son with a stick.
Jax crouched eye level to the child. “Looks like you enjoyed the Long Johns.” He ruffled his son’s hair.
But the small boy moved, putting himself out of reach of his father. Darcy’s stomach knotted at the stark pain on Jax’s face.
Shirley nudged the boy. “Tell your dad who we ran into at the Sandpiper.”
The child inserted a thumb into his mouth. “No.”
Hands on his thighs, Jax rocked onto his heels. “It’s okay, Aunt Shirley. With my multiple deployments, Brody and I spent a lot of time apart. We’re still getting reacquainted.”
It wasn’t okay. And from her taut expression, Shirley didn’t think so, either.
“We ran into your mother, Darcy.” Shirley laid her calloused hand on Brody’s shoulder. “Agnes was quite taken with this little guy.”
Darcy got on her knees in front of Brody. “Long Johns are my favorite, too.”
Unmoving, the too-solemn child studied her.
