Trusting His Promise (Love on Sanctuary Shores #5)

Chapter 5

Beckett couldn’t help smiling at the little girl with the missing teeth, curly brown hair, and large hazel eyes. He’d helped her reach the last two jelly donuts on the top rack—the ones he’d been about to put in his own donut box—and she’d struck up such an earnest conversation with him that he hadn’t had the heart to walk away and finish his shopping.

Something about her smile felt familiar, but he couldn’t put a finger on what it was.

“Samantha.”

The voice was so quiet that Beckett probably wouldn’t have registered it if the little girl’s eyes hadn’t widened.

“Sorry, Mommy.” She looked over her shoulder with a guilty expression.

Beckett followed the girl’s gaze, his mouth opening as he spotted Jo. Had the little girl called her mommy ?

The girl grabbed the still-open box of donuts off the little table, nearly sending the whole thing toppling to the ground. Beckett reached out to steady it, then closed the box before handing it to her.

“Thank you,” the girl said politely, starting toward Jo.

“I told you to come right back to the front of the store with those,” Jo said sternly, her eyes locked on the girl—her daughter, though Beckett still couldn’t wrap his head around that.

“Sorry, Mommy.” The girl sounded so repentant that Beckett couldn’t imagine anyone not melting at the words. “I couldn’t reach the jelly ones you like, and this man helped me. His name is Mr. Beckett and he’s nice. He didn’t kidnap me or anything.”

Jo frowned as if she wouldn’t put it past him.

“It was really my fault,” Beckett spoke up, taking a few steps closer. “I asked her what occasion the donuts were for, and she told me her mom said she could get them for the first day of school. I didn’t realize—” He cut off before the rest of the sentence came out, I didn’t realize you were her mom.

“Thanks for your help.” Jo still didn’t look at him. “Come on.” She took the girl’s hand and tugged her down the aisle. “All of our other stuff is already paid for.”

“Jo.” Beckett called. “I was wondering if—”

But Jo kept walking, as if she hadn’t heard a word. Beckett sighed. The grocery store probably wasn’t the best place for this conversation anyway.

He returned to the donuts and finished filling his box, feeling a strange satisfaction over the fact that he had given Jo the last two jelly donuts.

He closed the box and started toward the front of the store just in time to see Jo and Samantha step out the door. As if sensing he was there, Samantha looked back over her shoulder and waved. Beckett waved back.

So it turned out that Jo had gotten married after all. But to whom?

Probably Alex Gibbons. Those two had always been close.

Well, good. Beckett was happy for them. As for him—he’d stick to pretending to fall in love on the screen.

“Hurry up.” Jo glanced over her shoulder toward the door of the grocery store, as if she were a fugitive making her escape.

“Why do we have to hurry, Mommy?” If anything, Sam moved slower as she lifted a bag out of the cart, nearly dropping it.

Jo caught it and settled it into the wagon, blowing out an impatient breath. “We’re going to Lisa’s for dinner,” she improvised. Eating at her friend’s seafood restaurant had not been part of the plan at all—but desperate times called for desperate measures. If she was at the restaurant, then Beckett wouldn’t track her down at her house.

You’re being ridiculous , she chided herself. It wasn’t as if Beckett had followed her to the store. He had been here before she was. But the fact that he had met her daughter, had been talking to her daughter, shook Jo in ways she couldn’t explain.

She hated the thought of him knowing she was an unwed mother. After all of the times she had tried to talk to him about God, what must he think of her now? That she was a raging hypocrite, she supposed.

Jo shoved the thought aside. What did it matter what Beckett Knox thought? He wasn’t even a believer, whatever he might pretend in his movies.

She loaded the donuts on top of the pile of groceries, grimacing at the jelly ones she could see through the transparent film in the box’s cover. Beckett had helped Sam load those into the box. Jo should go home and throw them straight into the trash. She would too, if it weren’t for two things: she didn’t want to hurt her daughter’s feelings. And she couldn’t bear to see a good jelly donut go to waste.

“Come on.” She grabbed Sam’s hand and tugged her toward the sidewalk, checking over her shoulder again to make sure Beckett wasn’t on his way out of the store.

“Ouch, Mommy. You’re pulling me.”

Jo tightened her jaw but loosened her grip.

“Why did you use your mean voice with Mr. Beckett?” Sam asked, her little legs working hard to keep up with Jo.

“My mean voice?” Jo turned to her daughter, genuinely surprised. The only thing she had said to Beckett was “thanks for your help,” and she’d thought she said it civilly enough.

But Sam nodded. “Yes. The one you used when I dumped all of the sugar on the porch for the ants.”

Jo puffed out a breath. “That wasn’t my mean voice. That was my discipline voice.”

Sam wrinkled her nose. “What does that mean?”

“It means—” Jo searched for a simple explanation. “You did something wrong, and I had to tell you not to do it again.”

“Oh.” Sam seemed to take the explanation in stride. “So why did you use your disk-uh-lin voice on Mr. Beckett? He didn’t do anything wrong, did he?”

Oh, for heaven’s sake. Jo choked back an exasperated sigh. “It’s discipline . And I didn’t use my discipline voice on Mr. Beckett. I was just in a hurry, that’s all. Now let’s scoot a little faster.”

Fortunately, Sam let the topic drop and moved on to tell Jo about the cardinal nest she had been watching with Grandma Gail all summer. Jo half listened to her story about the baby cardinals’ antics, but she couldn’t seem to stop fuming about Beckett.

He’d tried to call something to her as she was rushing out of the store. He said he was wondering something—but what?

Whatever it was, he could keep on wondering forever, for all she cared.

At home, she quickly put the groceries away, then changed out of her dirty jeans and t-shirt—trying not to cringe at the stains crisscrossing the clothing after a day out on the boat. So what that Beckett had seen her dressed like this. It wasn’t like she was trying to impress him.

She looked both ways as she and Sam stepped out the door again, but there was no sign of Beckett. As they walked toward the town square, Jo’s head felt like it was on a fishing swivel, and she jumped at every man she saw, afraid it was Beckett.

But they made it to the white restaurant that perched between the town square and the shoreline without any Beckett sightings. Jo let out a long breath as she opened the door.

“Well, hey, you two.” Lisa swept down on them with a smile as soon as they stepped inside. “I didn’t think you were coming tonight.”

“Changed my mind.” Jo slumped against the hostess stand as Lisa made a note on her seating chart.

Her friend gave her a sympathetic look. “Long day?”

“Not really. Just . . . strange.”

“This will cheer you up.” Lisa grinned as she led Jo and Sam to a table for two near the windows. “Guess what’s happening in our little town?” She paused dramatically, then burst out, “They’re filming a movie!” She bounced on her toes as if it were the best news ever.

“So I heard,” Jo said dryly. “And did you hear whose movie it is?”

“Oh, I forgot you have that weird Beckett Knox issue. But I gotta tell you, I saw him walking around town today with his crew, and he’s even dreamier in person than on the screen.”

Jo shook her head and snatched the menu out of the holder at the edge of the table even though she already knew everything on it.

“Mr. Beckett?” Sam sounded interested. “I met him at the grocery store. He’s nice. But he wasn’t sleeping so I don’t think he’s dreaming.”

Lisa laughed, but Jo glared at her friend. The last thing she needed her seven-year-old to think about was boys being dreamy.

“Not that kind of dreamy, honey,” Lisa explained. “Good-looking dreamy.”

“Oh.” Sam made a face. “That’s dumb.”

“Exactly,” Jo seconded. “I’ll have the walleye plate. And a hamburger for Sam, of course.” She still couldn’t figure out how the girl, whose mother and grandfather were both fishermen, could hate fish.

She had to have gotten that trait from her father.

And Jo hated that fact.

But there was nothing she could do about it.

“There you are.” Alex Gibbons strode toward the table, dressed, as always, in his police uniform. He stopped close—but not too close—to Lisa. Jo smirked. Lisa lived next door to her, and Alex across the street, so she’d had a front-row seat to the way the two of them had been circling around the fact that they liked each other.

“Did you hear about the movie they’re filming?” Lisa asked Alex, clearly hoping she could surprise someone.

But Alex nodded gravely and looked at Jo. “Beckett is back.”

Jo nodded. “I saw him.”

Alex winced. “And?”

“And nothing. He—”

“I saw him too,” Sam piped up. “He helped me get donuts, but Mommy used her mean voice with him, and then we left.”

Jo sighed wearily. “It wasn’t my mean—” She shook her head. “Never mind.”

“What are you going to do?” Alex asked.

Jo shrugged. “Avoid him. He’ll only be here a couple of months.”

Lisa laughed. “You do realize how small this island is, right? Short of locking yourself in your house, I don’t see how you’re going to avoid an entire movie production for two months.”

“That’s an option I’m willing to consider,” Jo muttered.

Lisa studied her. “I knew you had an issue with the guy, but wow— He couldn’t be that bad, could he? Everyone loves his movies. And they’re all faith-based.”

Jo scowled. “Don’t even get me started on that.” The fact that Beckett Knox made Christian movies was the biggest farce she’d ever heard. There was no way he actually believed what his movies preached.

Lisa looked to Alex, as if for an explanation. “You went to school with him too. He wasn’t that bad, was he?”

Alex grimaced. “Worse.”

“Well, anyway, neither of you have seen him for years, right?” Lisa said brightly. “He could have changed. I’m going to watch some of the filming. They’re using extras from town.” She glanced toward the door as a sunburned family came in. “This conversation isn’t over,” she warned as she glided away from the table. Alex followed, leaning close to say something that made Lisa laugh.

Jo’s chest tightened.

She was happy for her two friends—and though people had repeatedly tried to pair her and Alex up over the years, neither of them had ever had any interest in the other that way.

Still, seeing them together made Jo feel like she was missing out on something. Something she’d always thought she’d have before she had a child. Something she would never have now.

“Mommy?” Sam asked as a server set two glasses of water on the table.

“Yes, Sammycakes?” Jo took her daughter’s hand, reminding herself that Sam more than made up for anything she was missing out on.

“Do you think Mr. Beckett is dreaming?”

“No,” Jo huffed, snatching at her glass of water. “I do not.”