Chapter 25
“Thank you, sweetie pie.” Selma pulled Jenna into her arms and held her tightly, which she had to admit felt really good. “I’m so happy he has you.”
Jenna glanced at Deacon who was outside on the deck speaking to the pilot because there was a storm coming in. They’d stayed longer than either of them had expected, it was already six p.m. The time had flown by.
“I didn’t do anything.” Jenna wasn’t going to take credit for something she hadn’t done. “I was here for moral support as a friend.”
The entire day had been like she was living in a movie or in one of her daydreams. Selma had welcomed them both with the most maternal open arms Jenna ever experienced in her life.
Literally and figuratively. She might be the sweetest, kindest woman on the planet.
It broke Jenna’s heart that all those years she thought Deacon wanted nothing to do with her, she thought he blamed her for giving him up.
She’d made them lunch, they’d Facetimed with her sons, who all knew about Deacon, and were on an annual camping trip that Deacon was now invited to go on next year, and the year after, and the year after that.
When Selma released her, she smiled and tilted her head, giving her a look that she recognized she gave Blake when she thought, oh, that’s cute that you think that.
“Really, we are just friends,” she assured her, not wanting Selma to get the wrong idea. She’d had enough disappointments.
“Okay.” Selma nodded, but the smile and expression remained in place, which only made Jenna want to defend the position more, but that would only make her look more guilty. Selma turned to look at Deacon. “Does he know that? Cause if he doesn’t, I think you’ll break his heart.”
“Believe me, he’s fine. Women throw themselves at him, and he has more money than god, so he’s not crying himself to sleep at night.” Jenna had no clue why she was being so snarky. She just didn’t want signals to get crossed.
When Selma looked back at Jenna, she was still smiling at her.
She brushed a piece of Jenna’s hair behind her ear, and Jenna once again felt like she was on Blake’s end of the conversation.
“Maybe, but I doubt he looks at any of those women like the sun rises and sets in their eyes, and I don’t think their smiles make his heart happy or his soul sing.
And I might have just met you today, but I think you know better than most that while money is important, especially when you don’t have it, and while it should be respected, earned, and never taken for granted, it can’t buy what’s actually important.
Family. Love. Trust. People. You can have all the money in the world but have no one who loves you and be the loneliest man which makes you quite poor, or you can have no money but have love, and in my opinion be quite rich. ”
All Jenna could do was nod. Selma was absolutely right. Why did she want to cry?
The glass door slid shut, and Deacon walked towards them. “We need to go. The storms coming in.”
Jenna could hear the disappointment in his voice.
Selma nodded and smiled, but Jenna could see that the smile was a mix of joy, sadness, love, fear and so many emotions. “Okay, well, drive and fly safe.”
It was as if she didn’t want to let him out of her sight because she was afraid she wouldn’t see him again.
They all walked out the front door onto the porch, Rex, Ranger, Duchess, and Lady escorting them on their way, and Deacon and Selma stopped and faced one another.
Jenna felt as if she were intruding on a private moment and tried to slip away, but Deacon snaked his arm around her back and pulled her tightly against him.
It was then that she realized his body was shaking.
“Thank you so much for today.” Selma’s large green eyes were welling up, and her bottom lip began to tremble, but Jenna could see she was trying hard not to allow herself to give in to the emotions threatening to overwhelm her.
“No.” Deacon shook his head. “Thank you. I’m sorry for…I’m sorry.”
“No, you don’t have anything to be sorry for. I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t apologize. You don’t ever have to—”
“No, I’m sorry!” Jenna interjected, hoping to add a little levity since they were both trying to out-sincere each other with their declarations that the other had nothing to be sorry for. “I don’t know for what, but if Blake were here believe me, she would have a laundry list for you.”
They all chuckled.
“Blake.” Selma wiped the two tears that had fallen down her cheeks. “I hope I get to meet her one day, and I can’t wait to meet Tabitha.”
“Your first grandchild.”
When Deacon had spoken about her earlier, he hadn’t used that word. Using it now broke whatever dam had been holding Selma’s emotions at bay. Tears poured over her bottom lids as a wide smile spread across her face.
“You’re a grandma.” Deacon’s voice softened.
“An abuela,” she corrected him still wiping her tears away.
“Right.” His smile widened.
Selma was originally from Spain. She moved to the United States when she was sixteen with no money, no family, nothing, and had Deacon when she was only nineteen. Jenna couldn’t imagine.
Deacon released his arm from Jenna’s back and pulled Selma into a hug. She watched as Selma melted into her son’s embrace, the tears streaming down her face.
Jenna’s eyes were watering as well. Witnessing the reunion today had restored her faith that good things did happen to good people.
Selma never gave up hope. She kept writing even when her letters and cards were returned, along with letters explaining from Deacon’s dad saying his son wasn’t interested in a relationship with her.
She even saved the negative letters that “Deacon” had sent her.
She only stopped when legal action was threatened.
The agreement she’d made with Mr. St. Claire was that she’d be allowed to write and send cards and that she could have a relationship with her son if he wanted one.
Mrs. St. Claire left the hospital with Deacon three days after he was born, and Selma never saw or spoke to her again.
So, Selma had no idea if Mrs. St. Claire believed Selma was dead or if she was aware of what Mr. St. Claire was doing.
“We’ll see you soon.” Deacon said as he stepped back. Selma and her husband were going to come to Hope Falls soon to meet Tabitha. And Deacon planned on taking a trip back up to Oregon so Tabitha could meet her uncles and see the ranch.
Selma reached out and gave Jenna another hug, and Jenna closed her eyes and absorbed every second of it. She wasn’t sure she’d ever have another Selma-hug, and the thought of that made her much sadder than it should.
The crack of thunder snapped Jenna out of her melancholy thought, and the rain that began pouring in buckets from the sky cut their goodbye short as Deacon and Jenna raced to the SUV with promises of Facetime calls and visits.
As they drove along the coast, on the way to the airstrip, the rain came in sheets, so dense that even the SUV’s wipers at max speed could not keep ahead of the flood.
On the other side of the windshield, the world turned to watercolor, a hundred shades of gray and blue with headlights smeared into glowing comet tails.
Deacon’s hands tightened on the steering wheel.
He didn’t speak, but Jenna could read his anxiety in the way his jaw clenched and unclenched, the occasional sideways glance at her as if to check that she was still okay, feeling safe.
She wanted to tell him that she loved this, the cocoon of the car, the warmth of his presence, the sense of being carried through the violence of weather by someone who would never let anything happen to her.
But she didn’t know how to put it into words that didn’t sound like the confession of a stunted adolescent.
A call came in, and Deacon pulled over to the side of the road to answer it.
It was brief, Captain Morse was clipped and to the point: no flights out tonight, ceiling zero, standby for possible windows in the morning.
Deacon nodded, thanked the pilot, and then sat for a long moment with the engine idling.
Jenna could tell he was running calculations in his head, always three or four moves ahead, never yielding to the uncertainty of chaos even when chaos—in the form of thunder and lightning—was pounding at the gates.
He looked over at her, a question in his eyes. “We’re not going anywhere tonight. Hotel, or—?”
“Anywhere is fine,” Jenna said, and then, before she could stop herself, added, “I trust your judgement.”
He made a quick call to Poppy, and she sent a quick text to Blake, who had already planned on staying at her dad’s after cheer tonight, just letting her know she wouldn’t be home till the next day.
She also let Robbie know to reschedule her clients, at least all her morning clients, and she’d keep him updated on the afternoon.
Which meant she’d miss Yaya again. That was the third week in a row.
She hadn’t seen her since her wedding day, and she missed her.
They pulled back onto the road and drove in silence.
Jenna felt herself soothed by the regularity of the rain.
For all the uncertainty of the day, she felt safer than she had in months.
It was as if the storm outside had built a wall around them, a little bubble of time and space where nothing could intrude.
She would have been content for the drive to last forever.
After a few miles, Deacon veered off at the blinking lights of a roadside sign: “Bluewater Inn & Grill—VACANCY.” It looked like a relic, all faded clapboard and neon, the kind of place that had once catered to summering families and now mostly served long-haul truckers and lost souls in off-season.
The parking lot was half-flooded, the only other car was a battered Camry parked beneath a listing pine.