Grant reached into the refrigerator and pulled out the gallon of milk Jenna had brought. He’d have to remember to include this in the reimbursement for all of the other things she’d gotten for the girls tonight. She’d been doing these things since before Ally’s death, when Ally had gotten too weak to take the children out. Once in a while, Jenna would just herd them all into her car and head for a mall, or a movie, or something. It was a nice break for him, and the girls loved her.
“So what I was saying, Dad…”
He poured himself a glass of milk, not sure he wanted to hear what Hannah had to say, but listening anyway. He knew parents who would give their eyeteeth for their teenaged daughters to voluntarily offer their opinions on anything. To be able to have conversations with them that didn’t involve shouting or accusations. But something told him that the direction Hannah was headed with this conversation wasn’t somewhere he was ready to go yet.
“I think you should think about dating.”
Grant knew he must have stood frozen for a moment because the glass almost overflowed with milk. He caught himself and capped the gallon container. So that was where she was headed. “Date? Me?” He laughed.
“Yes, you. Why not?” She lifted one shoulder draped in a thick sweater. “I don’t know, Dad, you’re still cute in a geeky kind of way.”
He put the milk back into the fridge with a smile. “Well, thank you.”
She exhaled. “You know what I mean. In a dad way.”
He grabbed his glass of milk and leaned against the counter. “Hannah. Look at me. I am a geeky kind of guy. I’m not rich. I’m the principal of a school, for heaven’s sake, and I’ve got three daughters to raise. Who in her right mind would want to go out with me?” He lifted his glass to take a drink.
Again, she raised one shoulder in a half shrug. “I don’t know. How about Aunt Jenna?”
She said it just as he took a big swallow of milk. He choked, snorted and thought maybe he had inhaled some milk.
“Dad? You okay?”
He choked again and tried to suck in a lung full of air. “Okay…I’m fine,” he managed.
She laughed. “Careful there. Milk consumption can be a dangerous thing.”
You’re not kidding, he thought, grabbing a napkin out of the holder on the counter to wipe his mouth. He couldn’t believe Hannah had suggested he date Jenna. Was this some kind of conspiracy between her and Ally? He knew it couldn’t be and yet…
“Well, I’m headed for bed,” Hannah said interrupting his thoughts. “Geometry test tomorrow, first period.”
“You study?” he called after her as she disappeared into the hall. He was a principal now, but he had been a teacher first. Once a teacher, always a teacher.
“Yes, Dad,” she called. “’Night, Dad.”
“’Night, hon.”
Grant finished his milk, rinsed out the glass and placed it in the dishwasher. Then he poured some soap in and hit Wash as he did every night before he went to bed. He turned out the kitchen light, headed for bed, then veered into the study as he realized he had left Ally’s tape in the VCR. He wouldn’t want one of the kids to find it. He meant to retrieve the tape, but when he got into the den, he had to watch it again. And again. It ended shortly after the marrying Jenna part. Ally just said that she loved him and that she couldn’t have picked a better person to love him and their girls than Jenna.
Grant always went to bed by eleven. He brushed his teeth, folded his clothes and put on a pair of boxers before climbing into bed. But for the first time in his life, he fell asleep in front of the TV.
He fell asleep thinking of Jenna.
Chapter Two
Lights flickered on upstairs in Becka and Maddy’s bedroom in the front of the cape cod as Jenna backed her Honda out of Grant’s driveway and onto the street. “’Night sweeties,” she murmured. “Sleep tight and don’t let the bedbugs bite.” She chuckled. “Don’t let the weird dad bite is more like it.”
Jenna knew it was Grant’s and Ally’s wedding anniversary today. She knew they would have been married sixteen years if it hadn’t been for Ally’s death from breast cancer. That was why she had taken the girls with her after school and done the dinner out and shopping thing. To give Grant a chance to be alone. Cry a little if he wanted to. The man certainly had the right.
She had expected him to be out of sorts at the very least when she brought the girls home, but what she had not expected was for him to be acting so strangely. What was with him tonight? Why had he looked at her in such an odd way?
Jenna crossed Route One, the main road through the southern Delaware beach communities and headed for her small neighborhood on the ocean side. Her two-bedroom cottage, left to her by her grandmother, was only four blocks from the beach. Over the years, real estate agents had tried again and again to get her to sell, or at least turn the house into a rental during the summer months. Houses like hers brought in an incredible amount of money June through August, she was told. But Jenna wasn’t interested in money. She was interested in having a comfortable home to live in and providing a safe, happy environment for her sister, Amy.
Jenna turned onto her own street. The sky had grown dark, but the streetlamps illuminated the sidewalks and the small, older homes that lined both sides of the street. Seashell Drive was one of the streets that consisted mostly of year-round residents. Here, everyone knew their neighbors and no one had to worry about late-night partying next door in the summer. It was a nice place to live.
Jenna pulled into her driveway and grabbed her soft leather backpack that served as a purse as well as her book bag. She had some work to do for the kindergarten class she taught. She, Ally and Grant had all started at the Starfish Academy as teachers, then Ally had gotten sick and had to give up her job. Last year, Grant had been named principal when their principal had taken a job elsewhere. Jenna loved her job. She loved the school. She loved her students. And having Maddy Monroe this year just made it all the better.
Jenna let herself into the house with her key and flipped on the living room lights. The cottage was small with just a living room that also served as the dining room, a small galley kitchen, two bedrooms, a bath and a laundry/mudroom. What made the house, though, was the back porch, which her grandfather had closed in with glass panels. Even in the middle of the winter, it was warm and cozy on the sunporch, and plants thrived there as if living in a greenhouse. Beyond the porch, in the backyard, was a well-groomed garden of flowering plants, stone paths and dribbling water fountains that was Jenna’s pride and joy. Even now, in September, when the days were growing short, the garden was alive with late-flowering plants, fresh herbs and even a tiny patch of peas.
Jenna tossed her backpack onto the couch and went back out the front door. At the house next to hers, she tapped on the door and walked in, knowing she was expected. She could hear the TV going and the sound of a familiar newscaster’s voice as he reported on unrest in the Middle East.
“Your turn,” Jenna heard eighty-three-year-old Mrs. Cannon say. “One more roll.”
“But I haf to go. Bedtime,” Amy answered.
Jenna and Mrs. Cannon had no trouble understanding Jenna’s twenty-six-year-old sister, but she knew there were others who did. Amy’s speech was gruff and halting, but it just took a little patience to follow what she was saying. Amy, born with Down’s syndrome, was mentally handicapped and had been Jenna’s responsibility since their mother died just after Jenna received her teaching degree from the University of Delaware.
“Jenna?” Amy looked up, bright-eyed and happy to see her sister when she