Chapter 22
That stupid well.
Jo had a good mind to take a bat to it. It sure was tempting, but she also knew that jail wasn’t an item on her bucket list, nor did she want to take that off her never-have-I-ever list.
Pacing, she would throw a glare every few steps. She’d wished. Wished hard, too. A week later, school started, and Craig took an interest in her. No one had really filled in the gap Jack left, and Craig moved to town. Suddenly, he was new and exciting. He wasn’t the same sort of good Jack was, but he was funny and likable.
Of course, Jack had big shoes to fill. Craig wasn’t as philanthropic or as noble. He didn’t always stop the older guys from picking on the younger ones. He didn’t rally troops to fix houses or do clothing drives, but he was funny and friendly and charming.
When he’d turned an eye in Jo’s direction, she’d thought there was no way, but Craig flirted with her, did his best to be wherever she was, and eventually, he’d asked her out.
At the time, she thought the well had granted her wish. He wasn’t perfect or fit the list of things she wanted in a guy, but she’d reasoned that maybe she’d been too picky. Craig was a nice guy. He wanted her.
Sort of.
She’d fallen so hard for him. He was the catch. Every girl wanted to date him. That had to mean he was great, right? She’d been the one to kiss him first. He hadn’t exactly wrapped himself around her, but he’d wanted her just enough that it worked.
Here she was, ten years later, and that well had suckered her. Craig hadn’t been the one.
She stopped pacing, walked to the well, and kicked it just hard enough to feel it in her toes. “First Craig, then Jack. You had one job, man, one job!”
A snicker caught her attention, and she spun on her heels. “It’s rude to eavesdrop, Lucy.”
“It’s also rude to stand people up.” She gave her a pointed look.
Jo snatched her phone from her pocket. “Oh, no. I’m so sorry. I totally forgot I was supposed to meet you for dinner.”
She closed the distance between them. “I saw you talking to Jack, and it didn’t look like the conversation went so well. I thought I’d ask you about it when we met for dinner, but you didn’t show, so I went looking for you. Your grandma told me about the offer. Based on that and what I saw at the rehearsal lunch, I thought maybe you’d be here. Want to tell me what happened?”
Jo shook her head, crossed her arms over her chest, and stomped to the nearest grassy area to take a seat. “I don’t want to talk right now.”
“Okay.” Lucy marched to the spot next to Jo and parked herself, mirroring Jo with her arms over her chest. “No talking.”
“I meant I wanted to be alone.”
“Yeah, I think we both know I’m not going anywhere.” She smiled.
Throwing up her hands, Jo growled in frustration. “Why can’t people just leave me alone?”
“You are just too loveable.”
Jo glared at her, trying to keep her lips from curving into a smile. With a sigh, she dropped her hands to her lap. “I feel like my life is in chaos. I came here with the goal of interviewing a bride, visiting my grandma, and returning to New York. It was supposed to be easy and quick and painless, and it’s been none of those things.”
“Is it in chaos? Or maybe you’ve slowed down long enough to realize it’s been in chaos, and what you’ve really wanted isn’t what you’ve been telling yourself you wanted.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about your sudden and unexpected hatred of Wishing Well and anything small town. You were going to New York, getting a degree, and making something of yourself.”
“It wasn’t. I’d been?—”
“Save it. Craig moved here from New York. He was miserable but knew that he needed to play it cool; otherwise, he could forget about teacher recommendation letters or anything of the sort. He needed those if he wanted to get into a good school. The girls went gaga over him because he was new candy, and he loved the attention. He was no Jack Turner, though. Remember?”
Jo chewed her lip. Yeah, she remembered. The first time Lucy and Jo saw him, that was their first thought. Then he’d taken interest in Jo, and that changed everything.
Lucy bumped Jo with her shoulder. “It’s okay. He was cute, and you fell for him.”
“I sort of lost myself in him.” Not sort of. She’d wandered down a maze and had never found a way out.
“Yeah.” She waited for a beat. “I think you wanted to be wanted. I was your best friend, and your grandma was your grandma. Here was a big city guy who was popular. Every girl wanted him, and he only wanted you. For a girl still hurting from being left by her mom, he was a serious draw.”
“That wasn’t—” Jo stopped short. She couldn’t finish the sentence and keep her integrity.
She may not have been angry at that point, but she was still dealing with all the other emotions. It was during a college psychology class that she started the process of letting it go and moving on. That was about the time that she and Craig began growing apart. It was slow, too slow to really pinpoint when it happened.
He was, for lack of a better word, stable and secure. Her heart was safe with him because she’d never really given it to him. She had loved him or thought she loved him. She’d been a kid when she started dating him.
What he felt for Craig seemed deep at the time, but now, it was infatuation at best, especially when she compared it to her feelings for Jack.
Craig was safe.
Eternal Vows was safe.
New York was safe.
Everything, everything about her life was safe. Reliable disappointment because having hope in something better could hurt her worse. What if they just decided they didn’t want her anymore? All the broken promises… she’d come to expect them. It was easy to brace for the blow when you knew it was coming, especially when she’d spent her life fashioning armor tough enough to withstand it.
Loving Jack would be reckless. It would hurt if something went wrong, deep and profoundly. He was all the things she’d wished for, plus some. When she’d made that wish, she’d based it on Jack. Or what she knew of him when they were in high school.
Now, she was back in Wishing Well, and she was running from something she’d wanted since she was seventeen. Real love. Someone who wanted her, who cherished her, listened to her, considered her when they made plans, and all of it was staring her right in the face.
“You’re right,” Jo said softly. “I’ve been at war with myself, trying to make myself happy with the life I’ve built, but it’s not what I want.”
“What do you want?”
“A home. Somewhere I belong. Somewhere with roots. Somewhere with people who love me and push me to be the person I’m supposed to be.”
Lucy hugged her around the shoulders. “That’s my Jo.”
“I owe you a huge apology.”
She leaned back. “For what?”
“I’m the one who dropped the ball. I’m the one who put all the distance between us. You were pushing me at the time, trying to understand why I suddenly wanted to leave Wishing Well and had to get out as quickly as possible. I didn’t want to hear it or talk about it.”
“I know. You wanted to be what Craig wanted. It didn’t take a genius to see what was going on.”
Jo ran her hands through her hair. “I’ve hurt Grandma. She thinks that she wasn’t enough, and she was. I pushed Jack away and told him I never wanted to see him again. I—” She groaned. “I’ve made a huge mess.”
“So… fix it.”
“You think I can?”
“Charlie loves you, and if I’m reading him right, Jack does too. The people who love you, really love you, love you when you aren’t likable. They forgive you. See your faults and understand that they have faults of their own. They meet you in the middle.”
With a laugh, Jo nodded. “Yeah, and when they’re a little too broken to get there, you walk a little further and help them get there.”
Jo pushed off the ground and held out a hand to Lucy, “I need to talk to my grandma.”
Lucy grabbed her outstretched hand, letting Jo pull her to her feet. “You go talk to your grandma, and I’ll run to the café and get goodies. Meet you there in say, an hour?”
“Deal,” Jo said and darted off.
By the time she hit the steps and burst through the door, tears were streaming down her face. “Grandma!” When there was no answer, she took the steps two at a time, racing to her bedroom, disappointed when she found it empty. “Grandma!”
She jogged down the steps and nearly bowled into her grandma. “Grandma!”
“I heard you. What’s wrong?” She took Jo’s hands. “Why are you crying, sweetheart?”
“Because you were right. I was running.” Her bottom lip trembled. “I played it safe all my life, and I’m tired of it.” She held her grandma’s gaze. “I stopped wanting to open the bed and breakfast because Craig said it was too big of a financial risk. That you’d go bankrupt, and you’d taken me in when I had no one else. I knew you’d try, even if it meant you’d fail, and I couldn’t let you do it.”
Her head tilted to the side, and she replied, “Oh, Jo…”
“Craig hated it here because he wanted to go back to New York. He started saying that he thought we should break up because long-distance relationships didn’t work. I love Wishing Well, so I had to convince him I didn’t. He didn’t want me resenting him later if I changed my mind.”
“I stayed at Eternal Vows because it was a reliable disappointment. There was no risk, and anytime there was even the inkling that I’d get hurt, I’d run. I don’t want to do that anymore.”
Taking Jo’s face in her hands, her grandma smiled. “I knew you’d figure it out.” Then she pulled her into a hug. “I’m so proud of you.”
They held each other a few moments, and Jo leaned back. “I have so much to do.”
“You need to go talk to Jack.”
“I will, but there are a few things I need to nail down before I do. We need to talk, and then I need to call Delia.”
Her grandma nodded. “All right. I’ll make some coffee, and we’ll talk.”
“Lucy should be here in a bit with goodies. We’re going to need her, too.”
Then she’d find Jack, tell him how she felt, and, for the first time in her life, take a risk.