Read Online Rum and Raindrops: A Blueberry Springs Chick Lit Contemporary Romance by Jean Oram - Free Book Online Page B

storm within the room. She kept her head down, afraid of what she’d see in his eyes if she looked up.
    Wally had always understood her. He’d been there when she’d crashed into Blueberry Springs, lost, heartbroken, and scared. Despite saying he didn’t need help in the store, he’d hired her. She hated to think where she’d have ended up if it hadn’t been for Wally. She also hated the idea of putting him in a position where he had to choose between her or the town. The town that had to be feeling a bit peeved at her if everyone truly believed she’d started the fire. What if they felt Wally was harboring an enemy? What if they boycotted his store?
    “Okay, that’s enough sanding, I think,” Wally said.
    Jen glanced at the canoe. She had gotten slightly carried away roughing up the surface around the canoe’s hole so they could apply a patch. She blew away the dust and Wally worked carefully and quietly, applying layers over the hole.
    She couldn’t leave Wally to choose between her and the town. Tomorrow she would go to the clearing with Rob and prove without a doubt that she had not started the fire. Then everything would be solved and Wally wouldn’t have to choose.
    Because choosing sucked. Just like thinking your home was safe when it wasn’t. She’d naively thought she was safe and loved as a teen until the day her parents sat her down and told her they were getting a divorce. They hadn’t been ‘together’ in more than two years despite sharing a roof, and they had both been seeing other people. What she thought was her family and her life had been a façade. And so when she turned sixteen, they’d decided Jen was old enough to deal with them splitting up. The big question was: who did she want to live with?
    She’d told them an even split. Both.
    Her parents had pushed away from the table with pursed lips, and the next thing she knew she was in front of a judge as both parents tried to knock each other down starting with their personalities and ending with their parenting skills. Through it all, they slammed each other without reserve. Slammed traits Jen shared. Everything, split open, guts exposed like a doe on a hunting show.
    The judge, unable to get a word out of Jen, sent her to a psychologist. He wanted an answer. The answer. She was old enough to choose. To pick a side. Declare someone the winner.
    But in that office she’d discovered something that saved her. She could run. And she did. Straight into the arms of Ken. And then when she’d discovered things about him that made her realize just how much she had been hiding from herself in order to have a home, she’d run away again.
    Could she run away this time? Could she somehow find a way to survive? To make sure none of this touched Wally?
    She sighed.
    When she’d run from Ken and the town she’d grown up in, nobody had come looking for her. She’d been able to vanish, starting anew in Blueberry Springs, and leaving it all behind. But this time it would follow her. Follow her like an angered sea monster with a vendetta. Besides, she couldn’t run away from the people of Blueberry Springs. She’d never forgive herself if she did and she owed it to them to prove she was worthy of their trust.
    “Do I seem like the kind of person who would burn down a forest on purpose, Wally?” she asked quietly.
    She felt the storm within him reach a crescendo.
    “You have to start letting people in, Jen.”
    “What?” She straightened, fumbling the heat gun she’d been using to harden the patch Wally had applied.
    Wally took the heat gun and directed her to a bike that was already resting in a stand, waiting to have its tire changed.
    “It’s time to lean on someone, Jen.”
    “Like who?” She watched as he put the tools away before moving on to loosen the bolts on the bike she was standing beside. She helped him, falling into a routine of give and take.
    “You never talk about your past.”
    “Neither do you.” She knew Wally and