J.T. O’Brien. It was then that Trina came to believe Chelsea had something she was holding over Adam. There was no other plausible explanation for his behavior. Adam had never been one to allow himself to be told what to do, or be controlled in any way by anyone, particularly not Chelsea. It had always been Adam in control, calling all the shots. So it came as an even bigger shock when Adam asked Chelsea to marry him…just two days following the whole J.T.-Chelsea spring break fiasco. And as he’d done with Nate, Adam told Trina to mind her own business when she questioned his bizarre decision to get engaged to an unfaithful girlfriend.
But beyond that Trina had another reason to hate her brother’s fiancée. Apparently Chelsea had once tried to seduce Walker. Shortly following the engagement announcement, Adam had gone back to MIT. But while Adam’s spring break had ended, Trina and Walker’s had just begun, and they soon found themselves back in Harbour Falls.
Two days following their return, Chelsea called Trina—drunk and asking for a ride home from a bar in Cove Beach. It was after three in the morning, so Trina sent Walker to pick her “drunken ass up”—as Helena put it—and bring her back to the Ward house. That would allow Chelsea time to sleep it off, and Trina and Walker could drive her back to her car in the morning.
Trina heard Walker returning with Chelsea, but when it seemed to be taking entirely too long for him to come back to their room, Trina got up to see what was going on. Making her way down the hall, she heard giggling coming from one of the guestrooms. When she flung open the door, she found a half-dressed Chelsea pressing herself up against Walker in front of the bed, trying to kiss him. And even though she knew nothing had happened yet, Trina—not one for subtlety—had marched right up to Chelsea, spun her around, and smacked her hard across the face.
The next day she told Adam everything. Trina became even more convinced that something was horribly awry when Adam still refused to dump Chelsea. In fact, he wouldn’t even consider calling off the engagement.
Helena stopped talking when Trina came out of the restroom and went behind the bar to start on our cappuccinos. After having heard this new information, I made a firm resolution to get the nerve up to talk to Adam. It had to be done. I needed to know what Chelsea had been holding over him. I couldn’t continue to pursue this relationship with him, knowing he’d been blackmailed and not knowing why.
When Trina returned to the table with the cappuccinos, the three of us sipped our steaming, hot drinks, and sat and talked until darkness began to fall. As our conversation began to wind down, Helena’s cell phone buzzed. It was Nate, calling to inform her that he was still with Adam, and they were running late. Unsure as to how much longer they would be, he asked if she could drive Trina back to Adam’s house.
I was readying to go myself, but Helena asked if I’d stay at the café until she got back. “I hate to ask,” she said, “but Brody Weston is supposed to be stopping here to pick up some hard-to-find part for the ferry that Nate tracked down for him.” She checked the time on her cell. “Actually he was supposed to by now, but I guess he got held up.”
I told her I had no problem with staying awhile longer and that I’d give the part to Brody when he arrived. Helena thanked me and placed a small cardboard box—I assumed it held the part for the ferry—on the counter.
After they left I paced around the café looking for something to do. I was wired from all the caffeine and consequently restless as hell. There was a pile of unfolded cloth napkins on the other end of the counter, so I reached over, pulled them to me, and began to fold them. Soon I had a row of neatly folded napkins before me. Just as I was working on the last one, I heard the café door swing open.
I turned, expecting to see Brody or possibly even Adam and Nate. But instead my eyes fell on J.T. O’Brien. Judging from his unsteady stance and the fact that he was wearing only a thin T-shirt and long shorts despite the cold, wet weather, I suspected he was