Page 7 of The Sandover Beach Billionaire

Chapter Three

Rachel calledas Jenna was waiting for the coffee to finish brewing. She was a little concerned about the outcome. She had remembered to buy coffee, but not filters. She was using a paper towel and hoping for the best. It did not bode well. If anyone was to blame, it was Jackson Wells.

After seeing him, Jenna had forgotten the rest of her list and arrived home with half the things she needed and the start of a stress headache. Less than twenty-four hours home and she had already run into the most infuriating man—other than her ex-husband—she’d ever known. Actually, Jackson was more infuriating than Mark, which was a hard feat. Her ex inspired less fury and more a crushing sort of pain. With Jackson, it was pure rage.

The fact that he was even more attractive than the last time she had seen him only made her more furious. “Pretty is as pretty does,” her mother used to say when they were growing up. Jenna wished that the phrase worked literally. If it did, Jackson would be an ugly man. But of course, life wasn’t fair. Jerks could still be overwhelmingly hot.

“How is it? Overwhelmed? Getting lots done?” Rachel always spoke hurriedly if they talked during the day. Her oldest daughter, Ava, was in third grade, but the twins were only three. The sound of Casey and Olivia playing or screaming was a constant soundtrack in the background to their phone calls. “GET OFF THE TABLE, OLIVIA!”

Jenna put it on speakerphone, so she wouldn’t have to have Rachel shouting directly in her ear.

“Are you kidding? I haven’t even started. Is there a blog post somewhere with a checklist on how to clean out your childhood home? Maybe we should just burn it down. Also, did you know that Bohn’s still has that stupid rule about not buying wine before noon?”

There was a pause and Jenna realized her mistake. “Why are you trying to buy wine before noon, Jens? STOP HITTING YOUR SISTER, CASEY. Are you okay? How much are you drinking?”

“Simmer down, sister. Not that much. I don’t even get drunk. Just a glass a night.” Or two. Sometimes three. Jenna flinched.

Maybe wine had become too much of a crutch lately. She hadn’t grown up drinking. Her mom never did, hence the need to buy the corkscrew at Bohn’s. She hadn’t lied about getting drunk, though—she never did. It was more about having something to look forward to at the end of the day. Something that took the edge off. When you lose your marriage and your mom in the same year, you should get a reward for surviving, right? Maybe not being able to buy wine was a good thing. It might be time to think about a different kind of reward. Or to just accept the fact that life was rough and getting through the day was a basic expectation, not an accomplishment. She sighed.

She used to turn to God. Prayer, church, her Bible study. But Jenna had let all that fade away over the past year. She liked to pretend that it just kind of happened: miss a week of church and then another, forget to open her Bible for a few days. If she was being honest with herself, though, she felt angry with God. Abandoned. She didn’t slide away so much as walk away, one step at a time. Now he felt so far.

Rachel interrupted her thoughts. “You know I’m going to keep asking you about this. You’ve had to deal with more than anyone should this past year. I don’t want to see you spiraling into some kind of place where I have to stage an intervention.”

“I’m fine. And will continue to be, if for no other reason than to avoid an intervention.”

“Good. Speaking of wine, you should ask Bohn’s for wine boxes. I left some in the house last time I was there, but there aren’t nearly enough. That’s where you start packing. Free boxes from Bohn’s. Jackson will give you some. Oh, and Jackson’s company can help with sales! Wells Development. They have a residential real estate arm. You can ask him when you ask for boxes. See? I helped.”

Hearing Jackson’s name made her stomach sour. This was one of the reasons she had been so eager to move Off Island and not return. Sandover was too small a town. She couldn’t avoid even the things—or people—she most wanted to, and it seemed like little changed. Other than all the development on the island.

Because of its location—just north of the popular Outer Banks—and the single toll bridge, Sandover had remained somewhat unknown for years. Until Southern Living ran a feature on it about fifteen years ago, calling it an “undiscovered gem.” Now the old, historic beach cottages were all-too-quickly being replaced by beach mansions like the one she’d seen the other night by the beach access. The one with the creeper who waved at her the night before.

Jenna had her real estate license but didn’t want to sell the house herself. She wasn’t objective enough. In her emotional state, she might really lose it hearing people talk about the pink tile in the bathroom—even if it was hideous—or the worn carpets and dark wood paneling. The word she feared most was teardown. Their neighborhood was a mile from the beach, but backed up to the wildlife refuge, with the Sound just on the other side. Realistically, it might be worth more for the property than the 1970s-style home.

“Let’s not talk about Jackson Wells. Please. I already saw him this morning. Before I had coffee, even. It was horrible. Did you know that he still works—”

“NO SNACKS. WE ARE HAVING NO SNACKS. NONE. I SAID OFF THE—” The sound of wailing came from the phone. Double wailing. “Jenna, I’ve got to go. Sorry. I’ll try to call again tonight. Or at nap time. But either way, I’ll be there this weekend. Party time! Give Jackson a break, though. He’s really—OLIVIA, NO!”

Rachel hung up before Jenna could respond. Jackson was really what? She stared at the phone. How could Rachel defend Jackson? She was the one who suffered through the fallout from the rumors he had probably started. If anyone should still be mad, it was Rachel.

No, Jenna was not going to give him a break or ask him for boxes or for help selling the house. In fact, Jenna should start shopping at Harris Teeter just to avoid his smug smile and those amazing eyes.

Amazing? Ugh.

She could not think about the fact that he was attractive. It was all on the outside. Like a poison dart frog. She didn’t know why she was thinking about frogs, but it was the perfect comparison to Jackson. Beautiful on the outside, drawing you in, but toxic.

Why couldn’t she stop thinking about Jackson? For as much as she hated him, he consumed her mind. She knew what that usually meant, at least in movies or romance novels. Even in Shakespeare. If the lady doth protest too much … but no. She did not harbor secret feelings for Jackson. He simply infuriated her and happened to be attractive. That’s it.

Jenna opened the junk drawer. She needed paper and pen to make a to-do list. As she had hoped, Rachel hadn’t cleaned this out. Something about its contents shook loose her emotions. She stared down at rubber bands, paperclips, cherry lip balm, fingernail clippers, takeout menus, a black plastic comb, keys to something, stamps, pencils with no points, and a spool of thread. Her mother didn’t even sew.

She clutched the sides of the drawer, her breathing fast and shallow. This was a drawer of the living. This drawer—it was the real stuff. It was the slap in the face to remind her that her mother was gone.

When she felt like she could move again, Jenna plucked out a piece of amazingly blank paper from the middle of a stack of Chinese takeout menus and closed the drawer. She sat down at the kitchen table with her coffee—which was surprisingly passable. She wrote down an order that made sense to her: dining room and the formal living room first, since they were used less and had fewer items. Then the TV room, bathroom, and her old bedroom.

Her mother’s door was shut. Jenna knew she couldn’t open it without Rachel there. Both because she didn’t think she could handle it alone and because it felt like something they should do together.

Rachel had already emptied out her own bedroom, just as she had with the kitchen. When Jenna looked into Rachel’s room that morning, it looked bare and lacked all Rachel’s vibrant personality. It hurt to look at it. For the first time Jenna really realized what it meant to sell their childhood home.

Before she arrived, Jenna had considered what it might be like to move back in permanently. At the moment she was basically floating through life. Though the divorce had been finalized just before her mother’s stroke, she and Mark had been over for years. Well, if breaking your wedding vows by having affairs counted toward a marriage ending, then technically, their marriage had been over from the start. Too bad she hadn’t gotten the memo until she went to see her OB and found out that she had contracted an STD.

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