Authors: Holly Jacobs
Just One Thing
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2014 Holly Jacobs
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of
Amazon.com
, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781477820070
ISBN-10: 1477820078
Cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013954785
To Katie, this one’s for you!
Contents
Epilogue The Other Side of the Line
Sometimes healing begins with one step, with one friend . . . with just one thing.
It was a Monday. I finished my day’s work, fed Angus, and headed for the bar.
I went to The Corner Bar every Monday.
Why Mondays?
Well, Fridays and Saturdays were for dates and desperate people looking to “hook up” with others. I wasn’t dating, nor was I interested in hooking up. Sundays were for church, and it seemed wrong to go to a bar that day, even though I wasn’t attending church anymore . . . God and I weren’t on speaking terms. Still, no bars for me on Sundays.
Midweek was filled with work around the cottage.
So, Mondays were my day.
I spared the briefest glimpse in the mirror as I left and couldn’t help but notice the grey hair that had started to weave its way through the darker strands. I fingered one particularly wiry piece, thought of plucking it, but in the end, I let it fall back in place.
I walked the mile down the long dirt road to Mackey Hill, a tarred and chipped country road, then down it another mile to Lapp Mill.
The people in town said that if you blinked as you drove through Lapp Mill, Pennsylvania, you could miss it entirely. Though it was home to a thriving Amish community, the northwestern Pennsylvanian town didn’t get the attention that its eastern cousin, Lancaster, did. It was a small, quiet community. It didn’t have a grocery store, though it did have a post office, two churches, and a bar.
I passed by the churches and the post office, then walked into The Corner Bar and sat down on my stool.
Sam, the bartender, served me a Killian’s in an iced glass. He was tall with dark, shaggy hair and light blue eyes. I’d only noticed his eyes on my last visit, but the hair—I’d wanted to tell him to trim it for weeks, but I’d refrained.
“Hey, why does she get special treatment?” a regular at the other end of the bar shouted as he eyed my iced glass.
“She’s prettier than you; that’s why,” Sam shouted back. Then he looked at me. “One thing.”
“One thing,” I agreed.
I’d been coming to the bar for about six months. Six months of Mondays.
The first four months I kept to myself and everyone pretty much let me be. But eight weeks ago, Sam had insisted I tell him one thing before he’d serve me my Killian’s.
What was different that week? What had made the taciturn bartender change our newly formed routine? I didn’t know, but I didn’t argue. Telling him one thing about myself seemed easier than arguing.
I started with my name that first week. Lexie McCain.
As I got older I thought about forgoing my nickname and using my more formal given name, Alexis. Lexie seemed like a younger woman’s name. A carefree woman. I wasn’t that. But in the end, I kept Lexie. It’s who I’d been my whole life and I couldn’t change that now.
The following Monday, Sam issued the same ultimatum—one thing in exchange for a Killian’s. I told him about the cottage I lived in. It was never intended as a long-term residence, but it was working out just fine.
The rest of that week I noticed things about the cottage I hadn’t noticed in a long time. I noticed that the creek that had tripped merrily in the spring had slowed to a mere trickle under the summer’s unrelenting sun. I noticed that there was a squeaky board on the porch. But mostly, I noticed how quiet it was at the cottage. That silence was like a balm. I reveled in it.
During the weeks that followed, I told him about Angus, my horribly ugly Irish wolfhound. I told him about the wood I’d split, preparing for the winter to come, even though it was still August. I told him about the spring at the edge of my eighteen acres. It gurgled along, even during the hottest, driest summer days, and fed the small pond. I told him about the vegetables from my garden that I froze for winter, and explained I liked freezing much better than canning.
I told him that I liked crafts—I didn’t say art because I’d always thought it sounded pretentious to call what I do art. I taught art, but I’m more of a crafter. I brought Sam a small clay jar I’d made a few years ago. It wasn’t one of my best works, but it was sturdy and honest and in that respect it reminded me of Sam.
I told him that I liked Guinness more than Killian’s. He offered to stock a case, but I assured him bottled Guinness wasn’t the same. Only draught would do. I’d stick to Killian’s in a bottle.
Last week, I told him about the month I spent hiking through Ireland during the summer of my college freshman year.
And now, he waited for tonight’s one-thing.
“I was twenty when I got married,” I told Sam
. . .
Lexie Morrow was using her sweatshirt as a makeshift blanket in the middle of the quad, cursing Robert Boyle, a fellow Irishman who was considered the father of chemistry. It hurt her heart to curse someone else who’d come from Ireland—her father had instilled a great sense of Irish pride in her from birth—but the reality of the situation was simply that the subject sucked.
Lexie had rapidly come to the conclusion that you were either a chemist, or not.
It didn’t take any great insight to realize that she was not.
“This seat taken?”
She looked up. There in the dappled sunlight she saw a cute guy with dishwater-blond hair, standing. He sat down on the grass next to her without waiting for a response.
She wasn’t quite sure how to react. Men didn’t generally seek her out. Her mother would have scolded her for undervaluing herself, but truth of the matter was, Lexie was ordinary. Not ugly, but not beautiful. Not rich, but not poor. Not brilliant, but not a dolt. Though at this moment, staring at this strange, cute guy sitting next to her, she felt decidedly doltish.
“What on earth are you studying that makes you growl like that?” he asked.
“Uh, chemistry. It is the bane of all things holy. And probably some unholy things as well.”
The guy’s hair was on the longer side and was already receding, though he couldn’t have been older than his mid-twenties. “Julian McCain.” He grimaced as he said his first name. “I go by
Lee
now. I would have in school as well, but Mom and Dad shelled out for a good Catholic education and the nuns didn’t hold with nicknames.”
He waited, looking at her expectantly. There was nothing to do but introduce herself as well. “I’m Lexie Morrow, Lee. My mother tried to make me an Alexis, but the name just wouldn’t stick. I’ve always thought I was more of a Lexie.”
“Lee McCain and Lexie Morrow. They fit. I mean, if we got married, we’d share monograms.” He laughed at himself.
Lexie couldn’t help but laugh, too, though normally if someone else had mentioned marriage within seconds of introducing himself, she’d have been put off. But there was something about Lee McCain that couldn’t be put off or ignored. There was something infectious about his chuckle. It dared her not to laugh, too.
“So, Julian? You’re not overly fond of the name?”
He sighed. “It was my grandfather’s name. I was the second son. My brother is John—named after my dad. I got Grandpa. John won the family name lottery.”
He grinned as he made the proclamation and Lexie found herself laughing again. “Your parents gave him that name. There’s nothing much he can do with
John
. But you gave
yourself the name Lee. That’s a powerful thing—naming yourself is rather like charting your own destiny.”