Expectations. Brenda Novak

to blame his faults on anyone, least of all his parents. His mother, when she was alive, had enough troubles of her own, and no one knew who his father was. Besides, he wasn’t about to lay that psychological mumbo jumbo on his poor grandparents. They’d feel as though they’d failed him in some way, when they’d always been the best part of his life—along with those three years with Jenna.

      “You told me you were going to hire someone, but you didn’t say who,” he said.

      “Does it matter?” Pop Durham glanced at him over his paper as the scent of cinnamon and cloves wafted through the kitchen. The smell brought back the autumns of Adam’s youth: the crisp sea winds, the crackle of a warm fire, melting butter on homemade bread and, most of all, the safe haven the Victoriana had provided him under the loving care of his grandparents.

      He owed them so much, yet he couldn’t give them the one thing they wanted. He couldn’t move back home.

      Using his fork to draw designs in the whipped cream his grandmother had ladled over his warm pie, Adam lifted his gaze to meet Pop’s. “I think it matters. You both know Jenna and I were once close.”

      “That was fifteen years ago,” Gram asserted, pouring him a tall glass of milk. “I wasn’t sure you’d even remember Jenna.”

      Adam took a bite of his pie, savoring the spices and the smooth texture of the filling. How could he ever forget Jenna? She was his first love and, in some respects, his last. “So what happened between her and Dennis?”

      “She told you. They got divorced,” Pop said. “It’s over.”

      “When?” Adam wasn’t about to let his grandfather put him off. He’d suffered through too many years of imagining Dennis with Jenna, in every way he had once been with her, to settle for just “It’s over.”

      “’Bout six months ago.”

      “That boy’s got problems.” Gram shook her head. Her hair, now dyed a harsh black, was flat on one side, where she’d been sleeping on it. “But it’s none of our affair. You’d better let Jenna tell you about Dennis.”

      Adam downed his pie, wondering how Jenna had managed to claim so much of his grandparents’ esteem and loyalty in the short time she’d lived with them. “Does he come around?”

      “Not yet, and he’d better not show up while I’m here,” his grandpa said, finally folding the paper and setting it aside to accept his own pie.

      Adam opened his mouth to ask another question, but the ringing of the telephone cut him off.

      He glanced at Gram in surprise. Who would be calling the Victoriana at nearly one o’clock in the morning?

      His grandmother clucked her tongue, but neither she nor Pop made any move toward the phone, so he reached over and picked up the receiver himself. Before he could say hello, he heard Jenna’s voice. She sounded…wary.

      “Hello?”

      “Jen?”

      “Dennis? Why do you keep calling me? I’ve asked you not to bother us here.”

      “You think I’m going to let you get away that easy, Jen? You’re my wife, and that’s my boy you got there.” Dennis’s words were slurred and difficult to understand, and Adam realized immediately that he’d been drinking. Reluctant to intrude on Jenna’s privacy, Adam started to hang up when her shaky response made him pause.

      “Dennis, the divorce has been final for months. I’ve got a restraining order against you. If you don’t leave me alone, I’ll call the police. Besides, I won’t have you bothering the Durhams. They’re old and they need their rest.”

      Dennis gave a throaty laugh. “It’s not the Durhams I plan to bother. You go ahead and call the police, Jen. That karate shit won’t help you this time. They’ll need to bring a body bag by the time I’m through with you.”

      Then the phone clicked and the line went dead.

      CHAPTER TWO

      JENNA SAT ON THE EDGE of her bed, trying to stop the tremors that racked her body. Dennis had rattled her, which was exactly what he’d intended. She shouldn’t have let him, but there was a craziness about her ex-husband that frightened her, for Ryan more than herself.

      Dennis had been getting worse since she and Ryan had left him. Would he, one day, follow through with his threats?

      “Mom? Was that Dad?” Ryan’s voice came from the other room, where his light had just snapped off.

      Drawing in a deep breath, Jenna wondered what she should say. She didn’t want to blacken Dennis’s name. Ryan was only eight. He needed a man in his life, a healthy role model. But the boy’s father was far from healthy right now, and Ryan had, no doubt, already heard her responses to the caller.

      “Yes,” she told him.

      “Was he drunk again?”

      Jenna squeezed her eyes shut, hating the truth and the pain it caused her son. “I think so, honey.”

      Ryan didn’t answer. The springs of his bed squeaked and, in a moment, he shuffled into her room. “I know he scares you.” He stared at her, his large brown eyes as earnest as his words. “I wish I was big enough to protect you.”

      Smiling, Jenna beckoned him to her. “Ryan, it’s not your job to protect me, especially from your own father.” She blinked back tears brought on by her son’s sweet devotion—and aggravated by her own raw nerves. “Dennis is…just confused right now. When he gets a handle on his drinking, he’ll be the fun dad we once knew.”

      “Will we go back home, then?”

      Jenna searched her son’s face for any sign of hope and found none. “I don’t think so. Why?”

      “Because I don’t remember him being any fun.”

      Standing, Jenna rested her hands on her son’s thin shoulders. At four foot five he was only a foot shorter than she was.

      “That’s a real shame, Ryan, because your father was…is…a wonderful person. He’s just got a big problem.” She didn’t add that their troubles had started long before his drinking. That piece of information wasn’t relevant, anyway, because Jenna would have stayed with Dennis, for Ryan’s sake, had he not become abusive.

      Ryan nodded. “I’d better get back to bed.”

      “Okay.” Jenna gave him a squeeze. “We’re doing just fine on our own, don’t you think?”

      He smiled. “Yeah. I like it here.”

      “So do I.”

      “Do you think that Adam guy will really help me catch a black widow tomorrow?”

      Adam. Another sensitive subject. Refusing to dwell on the man she’d just kicked—hard—Jenna looked at the clock next to her bed. Nearly one-thirty. What a night.

      “I think so,” she said. “Now hop into bed.”

      Ryan gave her a quick kiss on her cheek and headed to his room, leaving Jenna to climb back into her own bed and stare at the ceiling. She listened to the ocean, hoping it would calm her, soothe her mind into sleep, but she was still awake when the Durhams went to bed. As they passed her door, she heard Mrs. Durham ask her husband if he’d taken the medication for his high blood pressure.

      Then Adam’s sure step sounded in the hall. If she wasn’t imagining things, he paused by her room, and she half hoped he’d knock so they could talk the rest of the night away. Over the years she’d wondered countless times about his life. Was his career as fulfilling as he’d thought it would be? Did he still like motorcycles? Was he in love?

      She knew he’d never married. Occasionally Mr. Durham grumbled something about how quickly Adam went from one woman to the next, but neither of them had said much more than that. They were disappointed