Page 5 of A Beach House Beginning

He hooked up the cables, then fired up his truck before coming back to her car. “Okay. Let’s give it a go and see what happens.”

Mentally crossing her fingers, she pushed the ignition button. To her vast relief, the engine turned for a second or two, then burst into life.

“Yay!” Addie exclaimed. “Does that mean we don’t have to walk to school?”

“We would have found a ride somehow,” Jenna assured her. “But it looks like we’ve been rescued, thanks to Mr. Calhoun.”

“Thanks, Mr. Calhoun. I have to give a report this morning on a book about bees and didn’t want to be late.”

“You’re very welcome. You can call me Wes, by the way. You don’t have to call me Mr. Calhoun.”

Her daughter beamed at him, unfazed by that hard, unsmiling face. “Thanks, Wes.”

“You can as well,” he said to Jenna. Their gazes met and she couldn’t help noticing how long his dark eyelashes were, an odd contrast to the hard planes of his features.

“Thank you, Wes,” she forced herself to say. “I really appreciate the help.”

“It was no problem. I’ll grab a battery for you today. Do you have jumper cables, in case your car doesn’t start after you’re done at school today?”

She was relieved she could answer in the affirmative. “Yes. I have an emergency kit in back with flares, a flashlight and a blanket, along with a few tools and jumper cables.”

“Good. With any luck, you might not need them.”

“Thanks again for all your help.”

He shrugged. “It’s the kind of thing neighbors do for each other, right?”

His words filled her with guilt. She hadn’t been very neighborly in the two weeks since he had moved in. She hadn’t taken any goodies over to welcome him and did little more than nod politely in passing.

Was he being ironic? Had he noticed how she went out of her way to avoid him whenever possible?

She hoped he didn’t notice how her face flushed with heat as she mustered a smile that faded quickly as she backed out of the driveway and turned in the direction of school.

Wes watched his pretty neighbor maneuver her little blue SUV onto the road toward the elementary school.

When he was certain her vehicle wasn’t going to conk out on the road, he returned his pickup to its customary spot and climbed back onto his Harley.

It might be easier to take the truck today but he was in the mood for a bike ride, which was just about the only thing that could do anything at all to calm his restlessness.

That was an odd turn for his morning to take, but he was happy to help out, even if Jenna Haynes looked at him out of those big blue eyes like she was afraid he was about to drag her by her hair up the stairs to his apartment and lock her in his sex dungeon.

He might have found her skittishness a little amusing if he hadn’t spent the past three years in company with people capable of that and so much worse.

It still burned under his skin how she and others considered him. An ex-con. Not an innocent man wrongfully convicted because of a betrayal but someone who had probably been exactly where he belonged. Even if he hadn’t done the particular crime that had put him behind bars, he was no doubt guilty ofsomething, right?

He hated it, that pearl-clutching, self-righteous, condemnatory attitude he had encountered since his release. After two months on the outside, he was still trying to adjust to the knowledge that his slate would never be wiped completely clean, no matter how many neighborly things he did.

He couldn’t be bothered by what Jenna Haynes thought of him. What anybody thought of him. He had clung to sanity in prison by remembering that he was not the man others saw when they looked at him.

He lifted his face to the sun for just a moment before shoving on his helmet. He couldn’t get enough of feeling the warmth of it on his face or smelling air scented with spring and the sea.

Clutch your pearls all you want, Ms. Haynes, he thought.I’m alive and free. That’s enough for today.

He drove his bike through light traffic to Cannon Beach Car and Bike Repair, the garage where he had been lucky to find a job after showing up in town with mainly his bike, his truck and the small settlement he had received from the state of Illinois.

He had just parked the bike and was taking off his helmet when a tall, dark-haired and very pregnant woman climbed out of a silver sedan and hurried over to him.

Wes sighed and braced himself, not at all in the mood to have a confrontation with his ex-wife that morning. Though they had a generally friendly relationship, he couldn’t imagine why she would show up unless she was mad about something. Not when she could have called or texted for anything benign.

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