Secrets in the Surf: Driftwood Key Beach Reads #1

1. Jess

Jessica Steele stopped in the hallway outside the greenhouse room, just listening for a moment.

It was an unseasonably cool May morning for the suburbs of Philadelphia, but she knew it wouldn’t last. From where she stood, Jess could hear rain lashing the glassy walls of the greenhouse, providing a lovely backdrop to the soft conversation of her two best friends in the world, who were chatting while they waited for Jess to bring in a tray of homemade treats to go with the fresh coffee whose fragrance already filled the space.

Jess loved her home and adored the greenhouse her husband had built for her—a replica of just the kind of greenhouse that might have been original to the gothic Victorian home they shared.

It had been the perfect wedding gift. After all, Jess had fallen in love with Silas’s garden before she ever fell in love with him. The handsome widower’s broken heart had slowly healed through their shared love of helping tender green things grow.

But the best part for Jess now wasn’t the house, or the lush indoor garden, or even her beloved orchids. It was the company of her two best friends. For a long time, she had just assumed she’d never get a morning like this one. Hanging out with Marta, the sweet yet reserved mayor’s wife and Nikki, the no-nonsense women’s shelter director at the same time was special. The two of them hadn’t really gotten along in their younger days.

But as time passed, her friends had mellowed. Their first Friday breakfast in the greenhouse had been a little stilted in the beginning, but by the end of it they’d all been howling with laughter.

Now it was a time-honored tradition.

Jess swallowed over a lump in her throat. Everything seemed so much more beautiful now that she was losing it. Soon, there would be no more greenhouse breakfasts—no more greenhouse at all. But at least the friends would still have each other, she hoped.

“What are you doing out there?” Nikki called, pulling Jess out of her quickly darkening thoughts. “I can smell that coffee cake.”

Jess laughed and stepped down from the black and white tiles of the hall into the warmth of the greenhouse. An antique chandelier hung down from the cupola over a big, wood-plank table where her friends awaited.

Marta caught her eye.

Jess could practically feel the other woman’s empathy, as if Marta were hugging her without touching her. Jess hadn’t told them about the apartment yet, but Marta knew anyway somehow. She was that kind of person. A bit like someone else Jess had known, once up on a time.

“Here it is,” she said, placing the tray on the table.

She was pleased with the way the coffee cake had come out today—nice and moist, with a thick layer of crumble on top. There was a bowl of raspberries alongside it, and a little chocolate syrup, which Marta liked to put in her coffee.

“Amazing,” Nikki said happily.

Jess took her usual seat, and the room was quiet except for the rain as they all served themselves.

“It’s so cozy in here today,” Marta remarked as she stirred in the cream and chocolate.

“I love this house,” Nikki said over a sip of her own coffee—black, of course. “You’d better hold onto it for all you’re worth. That’s the best way to get old Silas to surrender it.”

Marta hummed in agreement over a bite of coffee cake.

It wasn’t the first time Nikki had said it. And everyone else had told her basically the same thing. Jess had signed a prenup, but because their youngest was still in high school, most people seemed to have the idea that Silas should let her keep the house anyway.

The trouble was that Jess had fallen for Silas when she was twenty, been married by the following year, and a mother soon after. She had never worked outside the home, or even really had to make a big decision on her own.

She had always told herself that as long as she surrounded herself with smart, good-hearted people like Silas, Marta, and Nikki, and followed their advice, it was just as good as calling her own shots. But now she was nearly fifty, and had to stop and take a good look at where doing what other people suggested had gotten her.

For starters, Silas had left her, for no reason he cared to share. And he’d left her with only enough funds to run the house for a year or two. That was nearly a year ago.

Jess had never used the associate’s degree in business she’d been so wild to finish up before they married. And she had never once applied for so much as an apartment or a credit card on her own. It wasn’t exactly a great foundation for success.

So, once her heartbreak began to recede, the worry set in.

The man she had always loved really wasn’t coming back. And every day in the beloved home she knew she was about to lose felt like a noose was tightening around her neck.

After some time just sort of dealing with the shock of it all, she had woken up last Thursday determined to follow her own counsel for a change.

The funds Silas left would run out in a few months if she kept coasting along in the house. But they would be plenty for Jess and Glory, their only daughter still at home, to live in an apartment for a year, maybe two. And when Jess found work, she would be able to earn enough to keep that apartment on her own. It might not be the sprawling Victorian where Glory had lived all her life, but at least they wouldn’t have to leave the community they both loved.

But it only worked if they moved now, while there was enough left in the checking account to cover them until Jess was working, and still leave them with a sensible, if small, emergency fund. And even then, only if the estimates she had plugged into the budget she had drafted were correct. But she was pretty sure the numbers were accurate.

I finally used that business degree for something,she told herself grimly.

“I’m moving out,” Jess said quickly, before she could change her mind. “I took Glory to see an apartment over the weekend. She’s pretty angry, but she’s accepted it. I hope the three of us will still see each other, even if it can’t be here.”

She was proud that her voice didn’t break.

“What?” Nikki practically yelled.

“Oh, Jess,” Marta said softly, reaching for her hand across the table. “Of course we’ll always see each other.”

Jess took her friend’s hand and squeezed.

“I can’t believe he’s being rewarded for his awful behavior,” Nikki was already ranting. “Why didn’t you just get a good lawyer? Do you want Debbie Lin’s number? She’s a shark. That’s who Betty Anne used, and she even got to keep the dog.”

“I signed a prenup,” Jess said simply. “And anyway, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life haunting this house like a lonely ghost. If he can leave and survive it, so can I.”

“This is a lot of house for you and Glory,” Marta said, nodding as if the move made perfect sense.

“Uncle Brian always said it was over the top,” Jess said with a fond smile. “But he still loved my orchids almost as much as I did.”

The uncle who had cared for Jess after her mother passed away spent his entire adult life living in the small flat above the tiny theater that he ran. He had always counseled his young actors never to own more personal effects than they could pack into a car and drive to the other coast for an audition.

“This is really what you want?” Nikki asked, with an air of despair.

“It is,” Jess told her truthfully. “I don’t want to fight over the past. I want to focus on the future.”

Nikki sighed and looked over at Marta, who only smiled and shrugged, as if to say it’s her life.

“Then I’m happy for you,” Nikki said, though her brow was still furrowed as if rain clouds were gathering there.

“Thank you, Nikki,” Jess told her, grabbing her hand as well.

“We’ll have our Fridays at my place,” Nikki said. “But I’m not baking, so don’t ask.”

“I’ll still bake,” Jess laughed. “Don’t worry.”

They had just let go of each other’s hands, and Marta was asking about her moving plans, when Jess’s phone rang.

A wicked little tendril of hope swirled in her heart before she could stamp it out.

Silas?

No matter how many days, weeks, or months passed, her first thought when her phone rang was always of him. But of course, it never was.

She pulled the phone from her pocket, expecting another telemarketing call as she glanced at the screen, but was surprised to see it was from Wintergarden Academy, her daughter’s school.

“Oh wow,” she said, getting up from the table and heading to the orange trees on the far side of the room before picking up. “This is Jess Steele.”

“Mrs. Steele, it’s about Glory,” the school secretary said softly. “Principal VanWyck needs you to come in right away.”