She was not sleeping with Nate, she told herself sternly. Even if it was her birthday and Eleanor told her she deserved a treat.
“I’ll see you there.”
She kissed the older woman on the cheek, thinking how dear she was. Of all the clients Jess had worked with over the past five years, Eleanor had quickly become her favorite. She was sharp, kind, funny, generous. She had embraced Jess from their first interaction, treating her with warmth and welcome.
Jess would miss her when she left Cape Sanctuary.
And Nate. And Sophie.
All of them had impacted her life. This job would leave its mark.
She frowned as she carried the box of mismatched china to her truck.
That wasn’t the plan. She was supposed to be the impersonal hired help who swept into town, took care of business, and then hooked up her Airstream and moved on to the next job.
She didn’t need or want to make connections. Connections only led to heartbreak. That lesson had been imprinted on her psyche after years as a military brat, moving bases and schools just as she started to form one or two solid friendships.
It had always seemed more intuitive for Rachel, somehow. She always loved easily, gathering friends around her like Eleanor collected cookbooks.
Jess struggled to say goodbye each and every time, until she decided when she was about twelve or thirteen that she was done trying. She had Rachel. She didn’t need other friends.
And then Rachel had betrayed her, too.
The ugly thought poked up like a noxious weed.
She didn’t like thinking about that time, how lost and alone she had been after Rachel chose to remain here in Cape Sanctuary with her new foster family instead of coming to live with her once Jess turned eighteen and aged out of the system.
Intellectually, she knew her sister had made the right choice. Rachel had bloomed like never before when she finally found a home with Kurt and Jan Miller. She had been thriving in school, had friends, played the flute in the marching band. She even had a boyfriend, Cody, whom she would later marry.
The Millers had been wonderful to Jess’s sister, giving her a safe, supportive home to finish high school. They loved Rachel and she loved them.
Even after she married Cody, Rachel had stayed part of their family. Jess knew Rachel’s children considered them their grandparents and wrote to them weekly on their church mission working at a South American orphanage.
She couldn’t blame her sister for making the mature choice to stay in a stable home here in Cape Sanctuary instead of leaving it all behind to live in a crappy studio apartment in a bad neighborhood in Sacramento.
Any sane person would do the same.
It still hurt.
When they had been separated after that first miserable foster care experience, Rachel had sobbed and sobbed, worse than the night their parents had died. Jess had vowed she would figure out a way for them to be together again as soon as possible.
She had worked two jobs in fast food after school and on weekends, scrimping and saving for first and last months’ rent on an apartment. All along, through emails and phone calls and texts, she and Rachel had talked about moving in together, just as they had always planned.
Things hadn’t worked out that way. Jess had stayed in the group home a few weeks after turning eighteen, until her June high school graduation, then she had packed up her few belongings and moved to her new apartment. She had paid a kid at school a hundred bucks to borrow his broken-down car so she could drive here to Cape Sanctuary and get Rachel and her things.
They had a plan, one they had talked about for more than a year. They would be together, finally. The two Clayton sisters against the world.
They had the small inheritance from their parents’ life insurance policies and Jess planned to work however she had to so she could support them while Rachel finished high school.
She planned to take online classes at the local community college, then they would both use their military benefits inherited from their father to go to college together.
It had been the only thing keeping her going that long, lonely last year of high school by herself at the group home.
Instead, the day she had shown up here in Cape Sanctuary, Rachel had finally confessed that her bags weren’t packed because she wasn’t coming with her.
Rachel had looked awful, Jess remembered. Shadows under her eyes, her hair a tangled mess. She told Jess she hadn’t slept in two nights, trying to figure out how to tell her that Rachel felt like she should stay in Cape Sanctuary.
She wanted to be with Jess but this was the best place for her right now, she had tearfully said. Things were finally good for her. She was happy.
That day—that horrible day—was permanently engraved in her memory. She had felt as if the entire world had crashed in on her. Her beloved sister, the one constant Jess had left, had chosen another life, another family.
She had been completely gutted. The worst part had been trying to pretend to Rachel that she wasn’t. If Rachel had any idea how wrecked Jess had felt, she would have marched inside and packed her bags, even knowing it was the wrong choice for herself.
Jess couldn’t do that to her. For her sister’s sake, she had to pretend she supported Rachel’s decision, that she understood completely and wanted this happy, rosy world for her. Jess had smiled until her cheeks hurt, all while inside she feared she would crumble apart.
Shattered.
Rachel still probably had no idea how completely lost Jess had been. Instead of driving back to Sacramento with her sister as she had so eagerly anticipated, chattering about starting the rest of their lives together, she had driven her borrowed car straight to the nearest recruiting office. Why not? What did she have to lose now? She knew all about the military life from her childhood. At least in the army, she wouldn’t have to scramble to survive. She would have food, housing, somewhere to go.
Rachel had made the best choice for her life. Jess knew that and couldn’t fault her sister for choosing stability and a family over chaos and uncertainty.
In return, Rachel certainly couldn’t fault Jess now for protecting herself from the devastation of broken dreams.
24
Rachel
She didn’t know how she pulled it off, but everything was turning out better than she could have imagined.
The steak and chicken thigh pieces were on skewers along with fresh pineapple, ready to be grilled after soaking all day in a teriyaki marinade she had found on Pinterest. The coconut rice smelled delicious, keeping warm in her electric pressure cooker. She had bacon-wrapped shrimp appetizers ready on a pineapple-shaped platter and she was especially proud of the spinach dip with veggies served up in cute individual baguettes.
She had to admit, her absolute favorite part was the birthday cake, a white-and-raspberry drip cake that was truly her best work. She had created colorful tropical flowers out of fondant that looked too real to be edible.