Chapter 24 Jillian
Jillian
Isat on the beach of Ramshackle Bay with a napping Blue in my arms, watching as the waves crashed on the shore.
My favorite place in the world.
I couldn’t help remembering where it all began. . .
Frankie and I were driving down the coastal roads with the top down, trying to find the best beach to get married, and our car ran out of gas in Ramshackle Bay.
“Sorry, I forgot to check. Our chauffeur usually fills it up,” Frankie said, scratching his head in befuddlement at the empty gas gauge. Then he brightened as he looked at me.
“Well, let’s go look at the beach anyway. It’s really pretty.”
And he’d held out his hand to me, hair bleached to almost a golden blonde in the summer. And he was so beautiful to look at that it almost hurt my eyes.
I twined my fingers in his, and we ran down to the water.
It was love at first sight, the beautiful pure white sand, the way the sun hit the sparkling blue waves just right.
“This would be great for surfing!” Frankie said enthusiastically, and that was it for us.
We’d gotten married on this beach.
I’d fallen in love with Ramshackle Bay and I did not want to leave it.
Was Ramshackle Bay full of nosy neighbors? Slightly burnt beer? Was Mrs. Greenberg entirely too picky with her coffee? Yes, yes, and yes.
But it was also full of love, too.
Blue and I belonged here.
But how much longer would we get to stay?
Could I stand to stay in town after Cash had been the one responsible for bulldozing Perk Up & Read down?
It felt like the loss of my coffee shop would shatter my heart into a million pieces.
And as for Frankie? What did I feel for him? Could I ever truly forgive him? Or trust him again?
After that city council meeting, I knew Cash and I could never be on the same page.
He was driven, ambitious, had big dreams in life.
About making it in the big city. The dreams I had were about my neighborhood and small town, and all of us being happy and prospering, making good money while staying connected and looking out for each other.
There was one man who felt the same way and it wasn’t Cash. . .
I heard footsteps behind me, and I felt him.
“You stupid idiot,” I said coldly. “You ruined everything.”
He sat down behind me.
“I know I did.”
“You have the fucking gall to ruin everything with your itchy penis and then, even worse, you won’t give up. You won’t go away.”
“No,” he said in a low voice. “I won’t give up on us, Jillian.”
I turned to face him dead in the eyes. How was I supposed to know if he was really in this for better or worse?
“It’ll never be like it was, Frankie,” I said. “What you did can’t be undone. We can never go back to what it was before. Never. Do you understand me?”
I held his eyes, that bright unusual green color, the golden lowlights flickering at me. . .
He nodded, and his eyes filled with tears, his lips twisting in pain.
“I k-know,” he said, his voice breaking.
“Even if I did give you another chance and accepted your apology, I might never fully forgive you. That resentment might never fully go away. I might never trust you again. You’d have to live with that.”
He swallowed and cleared his throat, the tears spilling out, dripping down his cheeks now.
“I accept that.” His voice broke again, came out high and reedy.
“Wouldn’t you rather find a woman you can start a fresh slate with?” I demanded.
“No,” he answered instantly. “The only woman I want is you. I’m so sorry. It was my mistake. I didn’t realize how precious my own life was until I fucked it all up. Spoiled stupid rich boy who couldn’t resist the world revolving around him. That was me.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“I’m just here begging for a second chance. Please let me make it right.”
“I have a baby with another man,” I said, watching his eyes. “I’ve moved on and I can move on again.”
He didn’t blink.
“Give me another chance. I will love her like my own. She’ll always know how much I love her mother.”
I didn’t answer him.
“You were right about Cash,” I said, looking down the shore. “He let his ambition get away from him and twist him into something I don’t recognize.”
Blue woke up, blinking those big green eyes at me, and the sun caught the lowlights, the gold a sparkle in each one. She waved chubby hands in the air as the breeze on Ramshackle Bay spun her curls around.
She buried her fingers in the sand, squealing with glee.
“Look,” Frankie said, dumping out his water bottle and using it to make tall sand spires in front of Blue. “This can be a fairy castle.”
Watching their heads bent together made it impossible to ignore the thought I had buried down so deeply ever since the first moment my newborn blinked at me.
She was Frankie’s
Why had I lied to myself that she was Cash’s?
I had been in such a hurry to forget Frankie that I hadn’t even considered the possibility. After all, it hadn’t been very likely. Only the tiniest possibility really. . .
“It’s not your fault,” Frankie said. “He had everyone fooled.”
Tears blurred my eyes, clumped on my lashes.
“Blue is your baby.”
There was silence for a moment.
“I know she is,” he said in a low tone.
“How long did you know about Blue? How come you didn’t demand a DNA test?”
I focused on my baby, the way her hair curled all over her head.
“I guessed. I didn’t really know. I didn’t want to distress you. It didn’t matter to me. I will love her whether she’s mine or Cash’s.”
“She is yours. Look at her.”
Tears were falling down my cheeks now.
“I can see it more every day. The curl in her hair, the color of her eyes, those dimples in her cheeks. The way she looks out at the world. But you don’t have to claim her if you don’t want to.”
“Of course I want to claim her! I just didn’t want to distress either of you if she was attached to Cash—”
I laughed. “No. He was all about the photo ops. Not being there for her every day. He didn’t even change diapers or do any of the hard work, and most of the time he came home after she was already down for the night. Why did you drag this divorce out?”
“Because I love you,” Frankie said, his voice low and throbbing, and he bent closer, smelling like salt and sand and sun on skin. “I’ve never stopped loving you. You could have a dozen babies with a dozen different men, and I would still love you and them the same as my own.”
My skin prickled and my heart felt painfully full, like I couldn’t bear to hope.
Would it even work?
“What should we do now?” I said. “I can’t bear the thought of leaving Ramshackle Bay, but it’ll be so hard to watch the Perk Up & Read get demolished.”
“I will be beside you, no matter what you want to do.”
“You? Leave Ramshackle Bay? What you’ve always said is the world’s best surfing?”
“For you two, I’d do anything.”
I felt my heart make a desperate, twisting leap inside me.
Frankie hadn’t barreled in with a DNA test demanding to see Blue. He’d just waited, letting me figure out what I wanted to do at my own pace.
He’d put Blue’s needs above his own. He’d put my feelings above his own.
“There might be a probationary period,” I said, and Frankie didn’t even wait one second before joyfully pulling me into his arms and kissing me, both hands eagerly on my face while Blue burbled happily between us.
“I said might,” I warned, but he was gasping in joy and relief. “And you don’t get to move in right away. We’ll see how it goes.”
“I don’t care,” Frankie cried. “I’ll sleep in the yard. I’ll sleep with Mrs. Greenberg’s cats. I’ll curl up under Athena’s cage. You’ve made me the happiest man in the world!”
“With a maybe,” I reminded him, but he was enthusiastically kissing me again, and I felt it swirl around me again, that old magic, maybe a little tarnished and battered now, but still there.
“Well, isn’t this nice?”
I heard a hard voice from behind me. “Good luck with this loser, Jillian.”
Frankie stumbled to his feet, but it didn’t ruffle me.
“Go away.”
“I’ll give you one more chance,” Cash said, tightening his lips.
There were little lines of anxiety around his eyes, and I could tell despite what he was trying to pretend, he was very upset.
“Let Frankie deal with the baby. He can change the dirty diapers and get up in the middle of the night. Come away with me.”
“No.”
His cheeks flushed and he dug a massive, booted foot into the sand.
“Fine. I’d never want to raise another man’s spawn anyway.”
“Asshole,” I said, but Frankie was already spitting angry beside me.
“How dare you!”
God, he was going to get crushed like a bug again, wasn’t he?
And Cash was prepared, I could tell he wanted this fight, watching contemptuously as Frankie stumbled to his feet.
He took a swing at Frankie, but the smaller man moved, dodging the blow.
“You lost, little bitch,” Cash taunted. “All these businesses are going to get crushed and I’ll leave this town filthy rich while you’ll still be living in a room with 10 cats.”
“Hey, those cats aren’t so bad,” Frankie retorted.
Shuffling sideways, he suddenly turned with an uppercut and pasted Cash right on his square jaw.
Well, damn.
Heads started popping out along Main Street again, but this time they weren’t cheering on Cash.
“Pick on someone your own size!”
“Go, Frankie! Get him!”
“Get the big lug!” Mrs. Greenberg called out. “I’d rather be led by a blithering idiot that a vile betrayer!”
Cash swung another fist, and Frankie darted away fast enough that it only glanced by his ribs.
Frankie’s elbow connected with Cash’s mouth, in a fast enough blow that the bigger man had to stagger back.
“Leave this town alone,” my husband said.
But I heard a noise in the distance. It was too late!
“Oh, look, it’s the developers,” Cash said, smiling through his split lip.
I turned in trepidation to see a big limo roll down main street, with the words Beachy Peachy Dreams Corporation emblazoned on it.
My heart sunk. Shit, there they were. Would the bulldozers be long behind?
“I can’t wait to see all these bitch-ass little businesses crushed.”
I felt tears spring to my eyes. Everything I had worked so long for—destroyed.
I can do this. I took a deep breath. I could rebuild with my family somewhere else.
Then the limousine door opened and a slim, elegant foot clad in a sleek black Louboutin emerged.
I gasped in shock.
It was my mother-in-law Claudette.
“Darling,” she said, as servants emerged to sweep in front of her so not a speck of sand would get on her immaculate shoes.
“What—who—” Cash sputtered.
Franklin, Senior, emerged behind her.
“Oh, there’s been a change in management,” he said.
“But--where are the bulldozers—” Cash sputtered, and Franklin raised an aristocratic eyebrow.
“The Beachy Peachy Dreams Corporation has indeed acquired the businesses in this town, but we are the new owners of the Beachy Peachy Dreams Corporation. And their new owners have no interest in tearing them down.”
I felt joy flood my heart as Frankie whooped in triumph beside me.
“Oh hooray!”
“Huzzah!”
The rest of the town cheered wildly behind us all along Main Street as Cash only gaped in astonishment.
“Young man, you can run along now with your tail between your legs,” Claudette said, waving her silken handkerchief at him. “I have more money than you.”
“Fine, whatever. Fuck you all!” Cash snarled.
And then he turned and left.
“And don’t come back!” Frankie called.
He helped me to my feet, Blue in my arms, and his eyes were shining like stars as he kissed me.
“I love you so much. It’s me and Blue and you now.”
“Yes, it is,” I smiled. “I love you, too. Let’s go back to our coffee shop and make everyone a celebratory cup.”