She was one of the most capable, take-charge people he’d ever met, with maternal instincts that more than made up for a lack of culinary skills.
“What was it like growing up in Ucluelet?” he asked. “It’s sure a beautiful part of the world.”
“It is, and I can appreciate that now. It’s also remote, and back then, especially when I was a teenager, all I could think about was getting away and living in the city.”
“Vancouver?”
She pulled her knees up under her chin and wrapped her arms around her legs. “Vancouver, New York, Paris...” She shrugged. “I had big dreams in those days.”
“Those cities are a long way from Serenity Bay. Well, not Vancouver, but still worlds apart.”
“I know. And I’ve still never been to Paris, but I hope to go someday.”
Jon’s memory flashed to a recent photograph of Georgette and Xavier posing in front of the Eiffel Tower. She had emailed it to Kate, who had inadvertently, or maybe not so inadvertently, left it open on her laptop where he couldn’t help but see it. To him, Paris now had little appeal.
“So what made a woman with big-city aspirations decide to make her home and livelihood in a quiet little place like Serenity Bay?” He knew she’d come here with her husband, but after he died she could have gone anywhere.
“It’s not a terribly long story. After high school I went to Vancouver to study business administration at the University of British Columbia, and that’s where I met my husband, Jim. He finished his MBA at the same time I earned my degree. Within two weeks he had been offered a job with a developer. He proposed and I accepted, and a week later we were married and moved into an apartment above the pharmacy on Hemlock Street.”
Huh. He’d have never pegged her as someone who’d do something so out of character. Then again, love made people do impulsive things.
“You’ve certainly been successful here. Happy, too, I hope.”
She appeared to give that some thought. “You know, not many people ask about the happiness factor. Everyone focuses on the success. But there was a time when I was neither. Jim was one of those larger-than-life people who loved being the center of attention. He basically swept me off my feet. Not that it was hard to dazzle a girl who’d grown up next door to the wilderness, raised entirely on organics and completely off the grid.”
Off the grid? That piqued his interest, but he was more interested in hearing about her marriage and what had happened to her husband.
She checked her phone again before she continued. “After six months, Jim had landed a promotion. He was playing the stock market, too, and his investments were doing well, so we bought a house, decided to start a family. We also bought a boat and he loved to spend time on it on the weekends, but that always turned into a party. I assumed it would stop after Casey was born, but it didn’t.”
He took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “I’m sorry. We don’t have to talk about this.”
She gave him a faint smile. “It helps pass the time. I’m afraid that if I don’t keep talking, I’m going to lose my mind.”
He could relate. He was barely keeping it together himself, and she was very easy to listen to. He didn’t let go of her hand, and she didn’t seem to notice.
“If something’s happened to her, to either of them—”
“They’re going to be fine.” They had to be. “You were telling me about your early days in Serenity Bay.”
“Right. Jim was always wanting to spend time with friends, coworkers, basically anyone who was into partying. After Casey was born, she was the center of my world. So sweet and smart, I couldn’t bear to leave her with a sitter. At some point I realized Jim and I had become strangers. Living under the same roof was the only thing we had in common. Then one night...it was late and he hadn’t come home after work...an RCMP officer showed up at the door. And I knew. Even before he told me, I knew. He’d crashed his car into a rock cut on the Sunshine Coast Highway, and he wasn’t coming home. He was drunk, of course, but he was alone in the car and no other vehicles involved, thank the heavens for that.”
Jon wanted to pull her in for a hug, but if he tried to make this physical, he risked severing the emotional connection that was drawing them together.
“How old was Casey?”
“Six. She had just started first grade and I was trying to figure out what to do with the next phase of my life.”
“Sometimes life has a way of propelling us headfirst into making decisions.”
“It sure does. Especially when I discovered that his investments had tanked, our credit cards were maxed out, the mortgage was in arrears and we were just barely getting by, paycheck to paycheck.”