Page 70 of The Magic of Sea Glass
His woodsy, spicy scent tickled her nose as he took another step and kneeled next to her at the desk. “I can see you’re struggling with an answer to my question, but I’m willing to bet that it has nothing to do with Joe or your responsibilities with the wedding or the inn.” He commanded her attention. When she made eye contact, she saw nothing but sincerity. “We don’t have to be anything, you know. All we have to worry about istoday.” He stood up and offered her his hand.
That was the problem: she wanted more than today, but she didn’t think she could offer it yet. Still not entirely sure, she took his hand, the sea glass bracelet gleaming in the bright summer light. At the very least, she’d found someone who didn’t want a thing from her, and he was gentle with her shattered heart.
* * *
“I’ve got your medications,” Brody said, gathering up Joe’s things and closing his suitcase. “The doctor cleared you for lunch. Wanna go out somewhere?”
Joe didn’t answer from the wheelchair the hospital staff made him use. He was clearly too busy looking Lauren over. After seeing him with Mary, Lauren struggled to understand his curiosity. He seemed so interested in her, even now. She stepped behind the wheelchair and began to push Joe out of the room and toward the hallway.
Lauren leaned over the chair to address him. “Brody asked if you wanted to go to lunch,” she said.
“Absolutely,” he replied, snapping out of whatever it was.
Brody slung a couple of bags onto his shoulder and pulled Joe’s suitcase behind him. “Where do you wanna go?”
“Anywhere that doesn’t serve hospital food. I need some fresh local seafood.”
“Done.” Brody patted his shoulder.
Joe tilted his head back in an attempt to view Lauren once more. “I’m only just now noticing how you resemble Stephanie.”
“Yes, I’ve been told that.” Lauren wheeled Joe around, heading down the hallway to the double doors that led to the parking lot. She leaned over to catch his attention once more. “I heard that you’ve known Stephanie since she was a baby, is that right?”
Joe nodded.
“He knew her mom, too, didn’t you, Joe?” Brody held the door open and Lauren pushed the wheelchair into the sunshine.
“Yes, very well. I was… a friend of the family.” He cleared his throat. “And yours, right, Brody?”
“Yep,” he said with a grin.
“Your dad coming to the wedding tomorrow?”
“I don’t know. Stephanie invited him.”
“I might have to call him and ask,” Joe said.
That look of irritation that formed whenever Brody spoke of his father surfaced. “Be my guest. I doubt you’ll get anywhere.”
Joe glanced up at him. “It was a good thing I was invited into Stephanie and Brody’s families, since I didn’t have one of my own.” He seemed affected somehow, and, given Lauren’s situation, she immediately wondered if he was still dealing with the death of Stephanie’s mother. Or perhaps his wife’s. She remembered Mary telling her he’d experienced loss at a young age.
“No family?” she asked gently, curious as to whether he and his wife had planned to have children. She came to a stop by her car and Brody opened the trunk, lumping the suitcases inside.
“Penelope passed away very young.”
The news that he’d lost his wife before their family had ever had a chance to start hit Lauren like a punch in the gut; their situations were so similar. But before she could react, Brody was at her side, his attention on her. Even with his quick reaction, her thoughts had already gone to the fact that after losing his wife as a young man, Joestillhad no family, after all these years. Would her fate be the same?
Joe tried to get up himself, and Brody redirected his energy from Lauren to the old man, reaching out for his arm to help him.
“How did you keep going?” she heard herself ask.
Brody’s gaze moved over to her as he assisted the man into the back seat.
Joe leaned forward and put himself into her line of vision. “I had to relearn who I was. It took me a while to figure out that I wasn’t the grieving man I had become. I was still the manshe’dseen in me.”
“That’s a big job,” Lauren said, having no idea how to change herself back into the person she’d been.
“The transformation began with something small—something I could manage. I used to go by Joseph, but I began to go by Joe.”
