Falling into Forever

“I’ve got our holiday meal covered,” she said firmly, “including a delicious jerking turkey.”

“That’s jerk turkey,” her mother corrected.

“Regardless, I’ll expect you two, along with our entire family, here on Thanksgiving Day, ready to eat.”

Then she made a mental note to figure out what exactly she had to do to make a turkey jerk.

Chapter 2

“I know, Dad,” Isaiah Jacobs answered for the umpteenth time.

His old man was spoiling for a fight, but he wouldn’t get it. Not today. No matter how hard he tried. Not with the news Isaiah had been blindsided by just two days ago still sinking in.

Isaiah tightened his grip on the old Ford pickup’s steering wheel and navigated the winding state road leading back to Wintersage. He was barely a week into civilian life, but tension stiffened his posture as if he was awaiting a fleet admiral’s inspection.

“I don’t need you hauling me around like a soccer mom, either,” Ben Jacobs groused. “I drove myself back and forth for six weeks of treatments. I can certainly do it this last week.”

“I know, but I’m here now, and I want to drive you.” Isaiah’s conciliatory tone belied the fact that he hadn’t given his father a choice in the matter. He’d parked the old pickup, which he’d driven back in high school, crossways, blocking the door to his parents’ four-car garage.

“It’s bad enough your mother’s got me on this god-awful macrobiotic diet. She also banned me from my own office. Threw the fact it’s technically her family’s business in my face and dismissed me like some grunt. After all these years.”

Isaiah glanced at the passenger’s seat. His father’s arms were crossed over his chest and weight loss had made the mulish set to his jaw more pronounced.

“Mom’s trying to look out for you,” Isaiah said. “And as far as work goes she just insisted you take sick leave. Like she would have done with any Martine’s employee in your situation.”

“I’m not any employee.” The elder Jacobs’s thunderous baritone rattled the windows of Isaiah’s old truck. “I’m president of that damn company.”

A president who had been outranked by Martine’s Fine Furnishings’ worried chairwoman, Cecily Martine Jacobs, who’d resorted to a power play to force her husband to make his health a number-one priority.

“Mom’s doing what she thinks is best to—” Isaiah began.

“Don’t need mothering or smothering,” his father interrupted. “I’m not some kid. I’m a grown man.”

So am I. The words sat unspoken on the tip of Isaiah’s tongue.

The logical part of him understood his folks’ reasoning for not revealing his father’s status as soon as they’d found out, camouflaging it in every email, phone call and Skype chat. They hadn’t wanted to worry him.

However, the son in him wished he’d been told immediately that his father had been diagnosed with prostate cancer two months ago. Instead of being blindsided by the news his first day home in three years.

“Don’t need you patronizing me, either,” Ben groused. “We may have the same military rank, Lieutenant, but I’m still the parent here.”

Keeping his eyes on the road, Isaiah stuck with the same noncombatant phrase he’d repeated all afternoon.

“I know, Dad.”

His mother had warned him that while the course of radiation therapy wasn’t painful, it had left his father fatigued and ornery.

“And we should have taken my Benz instead of your old truck,” his father added. “When was the last time this beater was taken through a car wash, anyway? The neighbors are going to think I’ve hitched a ride with some backwoods hillbilly, instead of a decorated navy lieutenant.”

“Retired lieutenant,” Isaiah corrected.

A harrumph came from the passenger’s seat. “Who the hell retires at twenty-nine years old?”

I do, Isaiah thought.

Like his father and grandfather, he’d gone from Wintersage Academy to the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. Isaiah had graduated a commissioned officer and dedicated the next seven years of his life to the navy, proudly serving his country.

Now, for the first time in over a decade, he was a free man. No longer weighed down by tradition, expectations or duty, he was finally going to follow his own life plan and fulfill his long-held dreams.

Ambitions he hadn’t shared with anyone.

Actually, there was one person who knew, he thought. They’d even made plans to pursue their goals, together.

But that was a lifetime ago.

Before he could banish it, a faint recollection of a teenage girl with deep chocolate skin and a long raven mane swept up in a high ponytail popped into his head.

Sandra Woolcott.

Isaiah felt the corner of his mouth quirk upward in a half smile at the sweet memory of the first girl to claim his heart. He’d driven along this same road, in this same truck, with a brand-new driver’s license in his pocket and Sandra in the passenger’s seat.

He could almost hear her laughter as the wind freed her hair from her ponytail and her hair whipped around her face that long-ago spring day.

Isaiah had traveled the world and dated his fair share of women, but he’d yet to come across one more beautiful than Sandra.

Curiosity replaced his musings, and he wondered how her life had turned out. Had she pursued their big plans on her own, after he’d put family expectations and tradition ahead of his own desires and her?

“Hey!” His father’s strident tone jarred him out of his reverie. “Have you been gone so long you forgot your way home? You were supposed to make a left at the intersection.”

“I know, Dad.”

Staring through the windshield at the gray skies, and trees nearing the end of their autumn peak, Isaiah banished thoughts of Sandra to the back of his mind, chalking up the out-of-the-blue flashback to being back in Wintersage.

Ben heaved a drawn-out sigh. The one he used when he was on the brink of losing his patience. “Son, if you say ‘I know, Dad’ to me one more time...” His father’s voice trailed off.

“Sorry,” Isaiah said.

“Well, aren’t you going to turn this heap around?” Ben groused. “Or do I have to drive us home.”

Isaiah shook his head. “We’re not going home yet. So just sit tight.”

“We’re headed downtown?” Ben asked after Isaiah made a left turn.

He nodded, bracing himself for inevitable blowback.

“For what? To give the town busybodies something else to gossip about?” his father protested. “‘Poor Ben Jacobs. He looks like a scrawny chicken,’” he mimicked. “Then they sanction their tongue wagging by tacking the words bless his heart on the end of every juicy tidbit.”

“You may have lost a few pounds, but you look fine,” Isaiah said.

His father rested his chin on his chest. “I have my pride, son,” he said finally. The volume of his usual booming baritone was so low Isaiah strained to hear.

He swallowed hard, pushing a lump of emotion down his throat, and along with it the urge to turn his truck around and take his dad home.

“Give me ten minutes. After that if you still want to go home, I’ll be more than happy to drive you.”

Isaiah slowed the truck to the lower posted speed limit as they approached the downtown area near the waterfront. Main Street, usually bustling with tourists and traffic during summer and early autumn, unfurled before him, with only a few residents walking along it.

As his father appeared to be mulling over his offer, Isaiah continued, “Life is short for all of us. Don’t let something as trite as pride keep you from enjoying every moment.”

He caught his dad’s nod in his peripheral vision as he pulled the pickup into an open parking space in front of the bakery. The place had changed ownership in the years he’d been away. A purple awning hung over the storefront window, which boasted a red, white and blue placard asking citizens to vote Oliver Windom to the state house of representatives in the upcoming election.

Both of his parents had raved about the new baker in their emails. His mother was partial to the cinnamon rolls, while his father was wild for the cupcakes. Their enthusiastic reviews had Isaiah raring to try one.

He climbed out of the truck. His first instinct was to go around to the passenger side and help his father, but he decided not to push his luck. Instead, he leaned into the cab.

“Coming?” he asked.

“But what about your mother and that miserable diet?”

“You telling her about this?”

A blast of cold wind and the aroma of cinnamon-laced baked goods wafted through the truck’s open door. His father’s nose twitched.

“No. I don’t think I’ll mention it to her, son.”

“Good,” Isaiah said. “Neither will I.”

Ben bounded from the truck with more energy than Isaiah had seen in the few days he’d been back. His father stopped short at the bakery door. He frowned, and then grunted at the sign in the window. “I wouldn’t vote to elect Windom dogcatcher,” he grumbled.

A rush of heat and more heavenly smells greeted them inside the bakery. Isaiah’s stomach rumbled, reminding him he’d only picked at his breakfast and skipped lunch altogether.

“Ben!” A woman clad in a purple apron with the bakery’s logo etched on the front greeted his father with a warm smile. “Long time no see. Where have you been keeping yourself?”

His father mumbled something about being busy, not quite meeting the woman’s eyes.

“Well, it’s good to see you. I thought I’d lost one of my best customers to some cockamamy low-carb diet.” She turned to Isaiah. “And this must be the son you’ve told me about, because he looks just like you.”

His father perked up, any self-consciousness pushed aside by his deprived sweet tooth and the array of cupcakes on display behind the glass case. He briefly introduced Isaiah to the middle-aged woman called Carrie, before the two launched into a discussion about her latest culinary creations.

“I know you’re partial to the red velvet.” Carrie held up a cupcake heaped with white frosting and red sprinkles. “But you’ve got to try my new salted caramel and corn candy cupcakes.”

Ben pressed a finger against his lips as he glanced from the cupcake in her hand to the ones in the display.

“I’m only baking the corn candy ones until Halloween, on Friday. After that they won’t return until next year,” she coaxed.

“I’ll take two of the corn candy,” Isaiah said, not sharing his father’s indecisiveness.

Carrie put two cupcakes smothered in orange icing and topped with corn candy on a purple plate. Isaiah’s stomach rumbled again as she placed them on the counter.

“Okay, give me one of the salted caramel,” his father finally said.

“One?” Carrie raised a brow. Ignoring his request, she placed two of the oversize cakes on a purple plate and handed it to Ben.

Isaiah retrieved his wallet from his back pocket and pulled out a twenty to pay.

Carrie shook her head, refusing it. “It’s on the house. Thank you for your service, son.” She glanced briefly at his father and back at him, understanding brimming in her warm brown eyes. “And for bringing one of my favorite customers back.”

Isaiah nodded and returned his wallet to his pocket.

“Have a seat,” she continued. “I’m brewing a fresh pot of coffee. I’ll bring some over when it’s done.”

He retrieved his cupcakes and followed his father. After his old man’s initial reluctance to even step inside the bakery, Isaiah was surprised to see him select a table by the window, overlooking the town’s main thoroughfare.

Not bothering with preliminaries, they immediately took huge bites out of the tower of creamy icing covering their confections.

One mouthful and Isaiah knew why his father was hooked. The rich, sugary rush of flavor was addictive.

“Mmm.” Ben closed his eyes briefly and sighed. “Is this not the best thing you ever tasted?”

His own mouth stuffed with another huge bite, Isaiah could only nod.

Neither man looked up from his plate until Carrie returned with coffee and a purple box with the bakery’s logo.

“I wrapped up a cinnamon roll for Cecily.” She glanced down at their nearly empty plates and winked. “You two make sure she gets it.”

After Carrie left, Isaiah sipped his coffee and looked at his father, who was staring out the window. His face still bore the fine lines of weariness, but he sat a little straighter and the pastry appeared to have elevated his mood.

Ben took a sip of coffee. “Thanks for bringing me here,” he said, continuing to gaze out at the passing cars and occasional pedestrian. “Sorry I gave you a hard time.”

“No big deal.”

The sun made a sudden appearance, poking through the blanket of gray clouds dominating the skies. His father squinted against the beams streaming through the storefront window.

“We can move to another table,” Isaiah offered.

“No, it’s cool.” Ben faced the sun. “Other than driving back and forth to Boston for my treatments, I’ve been holed up at the house.”

Isaiah figured as much. It was why he’d insisted on bringing him here.

His father turned away from the window. Wrapping his hands around his coffee mug, he looked down at the still-steaming brew before focusing his attention on Isaiah. “You haven’t said what your plans are now that you’re out of the military,” he said. “I don’t suppose they include staying in Wintersage permanently.”

They didn’t. He’d intended to spend only the next month with his folks. The day after Thanksgiving, he was booked on a flight bound for London.

He shook his head. Although his father’s prognosis was excellent, the cancer diagnosis had shaken Isaiah. He didn’t want to think about leaving. Not yet. Not until after his father completed his course of radiation therapy this week, and they’d gotten a follow-up report from his doctors.

“I’m here now,” he said.

Ben smiled, sunlight washing over his drawn face.

“Then how about doing your old dad a favor?”

“Sure. What do you need?”

His father rubbed a hand over the stubble along his chin.

“As you know, Martine’s Fine Furnishings still sponsors the children’s Halloween party at the recreation center. This year, I’d like you to stand in for me and your mother.”

The tradition had started with Isaiah’s maternal great-grandfather, a Halloween night nearly a half century ago, when the town’s residents had taken shelter in the basement of the recreation center as a late-season hurricane battered the Massachusetts shoreline. It went on to become an annual event and a Wintersage institution.

Isaiah speculated that his father was more exhausted than he’d let on if he’d consider missing it.

“No problem. You just take it easy and rest up for next year.” Isaiah drained the last of the coffee in his mug with one gulp.

“Rest?” Ben laughed. “I can rest when I’m dead.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’ve been sitting here thinking about what you said about life being short. Cancer has hung over me like a dark cloud the past few months. Even before my diagnosis, life for your mother and I revolved around the company,” he said. “I can’t think of the last time either of us has done anything unrelated to the company and now illness.”

Isaiah listened as his father continued.

“I plan to remedy that. Starting this Friday with Halloween,” Ben said. “My last radiation treatment is Friday morning. Afterward, I’m going to persuade your mother to take off work and spend the day in Salem for some good, scary fun. We can take one of those corny ghost tours, visit the House of the Seven Gables and the Salem Witch Museum and then spend the night at a local bed-and-breakfast.”

Isaiah couldn’t help wondering if his father was moving too fast. Four more days of treatments would leave him more fatigued than he was now.

Isaiah looked down at his empty coffee mug and searched his brain for a diplomatic way of saying so without offending him.

“Our first date was on Halloween, you know,” his father said. “I took her to see one of those gory slasher films that were all the rage back then. Somewhere between the on-screen screams and Cecily spilling an entire tub of popcorn on me, I fell in love.”

His father’s reminiscence caught Isaiah off guard. It was the first time he had heard that story.

While Isaiah was growing up, Ben’s references to the past had focused exclusively on stories of the Jacobs men who’d come before him, and Isaiah’s duty to follow in their footsteps to Annapolis and then the navy.

Isaiah credited the uncharacteristic sentimental recollection to the cancer diagnosis.

“Perhaps you should give your body a little recovery time before playing tourist and considering an overnighter. Who knows how you’ll feel come Friday?”

Ben opened the box Carrie had left on the table, pulled out the cinnamon roll earmarked for his wife, and took a bite out of it. He appeared to mull over Isaiah’s concerns as he chewed. “Salem’s right down the road, and a shorter drive from here than Boston. If I get tired, we’ll check into the bed-and-breakfast early.”

“How about renting a scary movie and chilling out at home?” Isaiah suggested.

“I’m not asking your permission, son. All I’m asking is for you to stand in for us at an event sponsored by our family business.” Picking up a napkin, Ben wiped white icing from his fingertips. “Will you do that for me?”

Isaiah nodded.

He wanted to spend his short time in Wintersage helping his folks, and if that meant playing host at a children’s party, so be it.

Chapter 3

Why couldn’t she have just kept her mouth shut?

Sandra walked the short blocks to The Quarterdeck restaurant in a zombielike stupor.

Autumn was her favorite season. Yet she couldn’t appreciate the scent of firewood permeating the crisp night air or the wind rustling the few leaves still clinging to trees. The jack-o’-lanterns and campaign placards in the shop windows she passed were a blur.

Reality had set in, and all she could think about was the big fat Thanksgiving mess she’d gotten herself into. Thanks to a childish need to constantly prove herself to her dad.

She yanked open the door to the restaurant and blinked as she walked inside.

The usual elegant ambience of her Monday night haunt had undergone a transformation since last week. Paper lanterns adorned with bats and witches riding brooms hung from the rafters, while faux cobwebs, plastic skeletons and gravestones held up the corners of the restaurant’s spacious dining room.

Sandra gulped. First Halloween, then before you knew it, Thanksgiving would be upon them.

Looking up at a witch silhouetted on one of the paper lanterns, she briefly wondered if it could cast a spell that would give her Martha Stewart’s kitchen skills in less than a month.

Sandra sighed. Probably not.

She scanned the room and easily spotted her friend seated at a table near the bar. The old-fashioned, schoolmarm bun Vicki Ahlfors kept her long hair swept up in had given her away.

Sandra smiled, the sight of her friend buoying her sagging spirits.

“Sorry I’m late.” She leaned over and gave her a quick hug.

“Where have you been hiding all day?” Vicki asked. “I came upstairs to see if you were free for lunch, but the lights in your studio were off and the door was locked.”

Best friends since high school, Sandra, Vicki and Janelle Howerton were also business partners. The trio ran their complementary businesses out of a three-story Victorian located a block from Main Street.

Vicki’s flower shop, Petals, occupied the first floor, Sandra’s Swoon Couture was on the second, while Janelle operated her events planning business, Alluring Affairs, from the top floor. The arrangement had been profitable as well as convenient, and the three of them often collaborated on some of the town’s splashiest weddings and social functions.

“I worked from home today.” Sandra plopped down at the table across from her. “Then my folks stopped over.”

Vicki frowned. “But I thought they went to New York City right after Janelle’s wedding to visit friends.”

Sandra’s gaze flicked to the empty chair at their table, before turning to the waiter who’d come to take her drink order.

“White wine?” the college kid who often waited tables on Monday nights guessed.

Sandra looked across at Vicki’s white wine spritzer. She automatically nodded, but changed her mind. She definitely needed something stronger this evening.

“On second thought...” She picked up the drinks menu. Within moments she’d narrowed down her choices to either a manhattan or a red apple cidertini.

“It’s not on the menu, but this week’s special is a pumpkin martini,” the waiter suggested.

“Sounds great,” Sandra said. “I’ll take it.”

When he’d left to retrieve the drink, Sandra noticed her friend eyeing her suspiciously.

“What did your dad say this time?” Vicki asked.

Sandra’s mouth dropped open. “How’d you know he...”

“The combination of your folks dropping by unexpectedly and you ordering a cocktail make it obvious,” she said. “So what did he do? Call your sketch pad a coloring book again? Complain you were rotting your brilliant brain playing paper dolls and dress up?”

“Doesn’t matter what he said now,” Sandra said. “I’m the problem. Me and my big mouth.”

She quickly filled her friend in on her parents’ visit, from them dumping another designer’s dresses on her to alter, to her father’s nonstop praise of his friend’s superdaughter, and finally Sandra’s big, dumb Thanksgiving offer.

Vicki’s eyes widened to the size of Ping-Pong balls.

“But...” her friend began. The horrified look on her face matched the restaurant’s scary decor.

Their waiter returned with Sandra’s martini. When he left, Vicki leaned across the table. “I know your dad can sometimes be a bit much, but what on earth possessed you to say such a thing?” she asked. “You can’t cook.”

“That’s an understatement.” Sandra took a tentative sip of her drink, the syrupy sweetness of pumpkin and maple syrup disguising the vodka’s kick.

“Remember when you baked chocolate chip cookies for the cheerleader fund-raiser?”

Sandra rolled her eyes skyward and snorted. “Don’t remind me. I think my dad is still getting dental bills from people biting down on those hockey pucks.”

The waiter reappeared to take their dinner orders. Again, Sandra opted for one of the restaurant’s Halloween specials, pumpkin ravioli in a lobster cream sauce, while her friend ordered the broiled haddock.

“So what are you going to do?” Vicki asked after the waiter left.

Sandra sighed. “The way I see it, I only have two options. Either tell my folks I misspoke, or buy myself a cookbook, a set of pots and pans and start practicing. I could do a trial run with a small dinner party with you, Janelle and Ballard.”

“Oh, no. I’m not playing guinea pig.” Vicki put her hand up and shook her head. “And I’m sure Janelle isn’t going to subject her new husband’s stomach to your kitchen experiments.”

Again, Sandra glanced at the empty chair. “But you’re my best friends, and I need you,” she said, her tone a mixture of whining and pleading. “We’re The Silk Sisters, remember?”

She’d hoped tossing out their old high school nickname, now the name of the corporation the trio had formed with their businesses, would soften Vicki’s stance.

Instead, the florist frowned. “As your best friend, I’d suggest you swallow your pride, go crawling to your dad and beg off cooking Thanksgiving dinner.” She took a sip of wine. “Or for that matter, any meal.”

Sandra took an unladylike gulp from her own drink. “Crawl and beg, huh?”

Vicki nodded once. “Exactly.”

Fifteen minutes later, their waiter slid hot plates bearing their dinner in front of them. Sandra gazed down at her food. It looked and smelled delicious, but all she could think about was the smug expression on her father’s face when she reneged after insisting she’d cook.