The cake was brought in from the kitchen and the candles lit. Scott looked around the group that gathered around the table, especially the kids, and he grinned and turned his attention to the candles. He paused to make a wish.
Lord, how did I ever think I could go through my entire life single? I’ve enjoyed the freedom and the success in my career, but I never intended it to become a permanent arrangement. There isn’t someone to go home to tonight, and I’m feeling that sadness. I really miss not having a wife and having that close, intimate friendship I see in these couples around me. I want to change that, Lord. I want to get married. I want to have what the others around me have. I don’t want to be alone anymore.
Scott blew out the candles.
It was a cold morning for late August. The darkness was giving way to the dawn, creating an early-morning twilight. Jennifer St. James pushed her hands deeper into the lined pockets of her windbreaker, trying to ward off the chill. The wind coming off the lake was sending shivers up her spine. The peaceful beauty of the deserted beach, however, more than made up for her discomfort. It had been a difficult night.
She walked along the water’s edge, kicking up sand and watching the water smooth it back into place.
“Good morning.”
Her older brother had drilled safety precautions into her for so long that she reacted by instinct, her feet breaking into the start of a sprint to ensure she wasn’t pinned between water and a threat. No sane person was up at this time of morning.
“Easy!” the man walking a few feet over from her exclaimed, “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Jennifer let her sprint fade away and came to a stop several feet up the beach, her heart racing. He had said good-morning. That was all. Good-morning. She’d made a fool of herself again. She felt the heat warm her face. Was she cursed to live her entire life starting at every surprise? She had badly overreacted. She rested her hands against her knees, ignoring the hair that blew around her face, trying to still her racing heart. She watched the man warily as he moved toward her. He was a tall man, reminding her somewhat of her brother’s build, probably a basketball player with those long legs and upper-body muscle. As he drew nearer she could see dark brown hair, wavy in a way that made her envious, clear piercing blue eyes and strong features; he was probably in his mid thirties. She had never seen him before, he was the type of man she would have remembered. Not that she came to this stretch of beach very often anymore. Her gut clenched. She hadn’t been back in precisely three years.
“Are you okay?” He had stopped about five feet away.
She nodded. Why did he have to be out taking a walk this morning of all mornings? The beach was supposed to be deserted at this hour. The last thing she wanted was conversation with a stranger. She looked and felt a mess. Normally she could care less what she looked like, but when it led to being embarrassed, she cared. Her jeans were the most ratty in her closet, and the jacket hid what had once been a paint sweatshirt of Jerry’s.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you.” His voice was deep and full of concern.
“I didn’t realize you were there.”
“So I found out.”
She straightened slowly, pushing her hands off her knees and forcing her legs to take her weight again, fighting the weakness and the light-headed sensation that hallmarked the exhaustion and dwindling adrenaline.
“You’re not okay.”
She shied away from the concern in his face, in his voice, instinctively took a step back as he took a step forward. “I had a long night. I’ll be fine.”
She looked down the beach to the distant grove of trees she had arbitrarily been walking toward. Awkwardly, because he was here and her solitude had been broken, Jennifer turned to resume her walk. The weariness was suddenly weighing heavily on her, and her desire to keep walking was fading, but her only choice was to go home, and that was not an option. She shoved her hair back from her face again and twisted the long hair once, in an old habit, to temporarily prevent it from blowing in her eyes.
“Would you mind if I walk with you?”
She was surprised at the question, surprised at the sudden tenseness in his voice, surprised at the rigidness she saw in his stance as if he had momentarily frozen. She couldn’t understand the change. His hands had closed into fists at his sides, but as she watched, they opened and relaxed, almost as if he consciously willed them to do so. He had kept his distance after that one step forward and her one step back. She was not a very good judge of character, but she somehow knew he was not going to be a threat to her. She shrugged. It really didn’t matter. “No.” He fell into step beside her, slowing his pace to match her slow wander.
They walked along the beach in silence, a few feet apart, both with hands tucked in their jackets, the wind blowing their hair. Jennifer’s thoughts drifted back to the night before, and she winced as she remembered, began to mentally draw big Xs through each scene and force herself to deliberately try to discard the memories. It had worked in the past and it would work again. With time. When the memories faded to the point she could discard them. She sighed, haunted. These memories were not going to go away. Not for a very long time. There was a distraction at hand and she chose to ignore her own rule of respecting silence. “What’s your name?” she asked, not looking at him, but knowing he was looking at her. He had been watching her since they started walking and it was a disconcerting sensation. Hers were the first words spoken in several minutes, and the sound of her voice was out of place in the quiet dawn.
“Scott Williams,” he replied. “Yours?”
“Jennifer St. James.”
She realized immediately her mistake. Questions prompted questions. On this particular morning, even a polite social exchange felt like an intrusion. She breathed a silent sigh of relief when he asked that one question and then went silent. She was grateful he was content with his own thoughts, but she wished he would move his gaze away from her.
“I haven’t seen you walking on this beach before. Do you live around here?” he asked eventually.
She shook her head.
“My home is up ahead, off the point,” he told her. Jennifer thought it must be nice to live on the lake, be able to enjoy this beach whenever the notion struck. It was expensive property. They walked in silence again and Jennifer hoped the next thing said was going to be goodbye.
“What happened last night, Jennifer?”
His voice was low and deep, the emotion carefully checked. He had stopped walking and was watching her closely, watching her reaction. “What?” Jennifer honestly didn’t know how to answer the question.
“You’re married. You have a beaut of a black eye. I want to know what happened, so I can decide what I should do,” he elaborated patiently, but tensely. There was nothing idle about his body language or his focus on her.
She didn’t answer him right away. What was she suppose to say? She already felt horrible. The last thing she wanted was someone treading in an area of her life where she herself was not yet able to cope. “They are not related.”
He removed a hand from his jacket pocket and reached out slowly, clearly afraid he would startle her again, to gently touch the swelling that radiated around her right eye and down her cheek, and when he spoke, the emotion was no longer contained. “Jennifer, this is recent.”
His touch burned and made her cringe inside over everything she had lost. “I walked into a door,” she said flatly.
He frowned. His entire face