Trusting Love, page 20
“Becca and I taught together for a couple of years before I retired. I think both Josh and Connor had her for history at least one year. Which reminds me. Do you know if Connor has made up his mind yet? I think Becca would be perfect.”
Connor and Becca? He gripped the empty glass. “Isn’t he a little young for her?”
His grandmother’s lips twitched. “I don’t see what Connor’s age has to do with hiring Becca to be the substitute head teacher at The Kids’ Place, the daycare center at the church, for the summer. She could use the money.”
“Nothing.” He studied a small chip in his sandwich plate, most likely courtesy of him or one of his brothers or cousins. Gram had been feeding them sandwiches on the same plates since they were kids. “My mind was elsewhere.”
The twitch turned into a knowing smile. Except Gram didn’t really know anything about it. Becca Norton was an adolescent dream he had no intention of pursuing as an adult. They had been too different then and were too different now.
“Would you like a piece of strawberry-rhubarb pie?” She stood and turned to the counter behind her chair. “I baked one this morning. I remember it was always your favorite.”
Jared pursed his lips, irritated that Gram’s smile bothered him.
“It’s not that big of a decision,” she said making as if to place the pie back on the counter.
“Sorry, Gram. I’d love a piece of your pie.” He lifted his empty plate toward her, and she cut and placed a large slice on it.
“Something’s bothering you.” It was a statement, not a question.
“I’m fine.” He bit into a forkful of pie. “This is great.”
“You haven’t said anything about what the lawyer said this morning. I assume it was about Bert Miller’s will.”
Jared chewed the pie, savoring the combination of sweet and tart. “He left Connor a trust for the church, paid off Josh’s student loans, and gave me that land he owned west of the lake.”
His grandmother’s eyes widened. “Did you know?”
“Not about Josh and Connor.”
“But about the land?” she pressed.
He tapped his fork on the side of the plate before setting it down. “He sent me a letter a couple of months ago.”
“Oh.”
“He used to do that, send me a letter every so often.”
Gram tilted her head and studied him. “Bert always did like you boys.” She hesitated as if weighing her following words. “Said you were the sons he never had.”
“He was with Dad that night...you know...he told me in one of his letters.”
“I know.”
Jared jerked his head up. From what Bert had said in his letter, he’d gotten the idea that fact wasn’t common knowledge.
“Your father told your grandfather one night when he’d been drinking.”
Jared stifled a snort. That could have been about any night.
“Your grandfather told me your dad and Bert had been best friends since kindergarten. Until then.”
Gram was the only grandmother he remembered. But she hadn’t married his widowed grandfather until after Jared had been born. She’d always been able to talk about Dad with a lot more detachment than he or either of his brothers could.
He pushed away from the table. “I should get going.” Now that Gram wanted to talk about Dad, Jared wasn’t sure he did anymore.
“JJ.” His grandmother reached across the table and touched his hand.
He pulled away from her touch at her using his childhood nickname, short for Jared Junior. “Don’t call me that. Please.” He softened his tone.
“You’re not your father.”
Jared released his pent-up breath. “I know, but I did enough stupid things before I left Paradox Lake and some after to make people think I am.”
“Honey, you weren’t the first or the last teenager in Paradox Lake to be stopped driving while impaired.”
“I’m the only son of the town drunk who was, after knocking over the Sheriff’s mailbox and running down his front fence.”
“You paid back Sheriff Norton for all the damages to his property.”
“After which he strongly recommended I take myself elsewhere as soon as I finished high school.”
“He was harsher on you than he might have been on someone else. There was bad blood between him and your father. But now you’re back. And I, for one, am glad you are.”
“Yep, I’m back.” And there wasn’t anyone or anything that could make him leave again. At least not before he cleaned up the Donnelly family name and made amends to his brothers for bailing on them and his mother.
Becca kept an eye on Brendon and Ari from the kitchen window that overlooked the backyard as she put away the groceries she’d picked up in Ticonderoga. Her son was racing his bike around Ari and the jungle gym her father had built for them before he and her mother had moved to North Carolina. Probably pretending he was Jared. He and motocross racing were all Brendon had talked about on the drive home from Edna Stowe’s house.
She closed the cupboard and walked out to the deck to call the kids in to get their things ready to go to their other grandparents’ for the night.
“Hey, Mom, watch.” Brendon rode his bike up a small rise behind the jungle gym and sped down, yanking on the bike’s handlebars and doing a wheelie for several feet across the yard. She stifled a screech as he circled and laid the bike down on the grass in front of the deck steps.
“What do you think?” He beamed.
What she thought was she was likely to be completely gray by the time she was 35. “Impressive,” she said.
“Do you think if I asked Dad, he would buy me a dirt bike for my birthday?”
Becca closed her eyes and breathed in and out. If her ex-husband knew how much that thought terrorized her, he probably would and count the cost as child support. She’d never shared it with Matt, but her parents had instilled a fear of motorcycles in her when she was a child after a close friend of theirs had died in a bike accident.
“I think you should wait a few more years on that one.” Brendon was only nine going on ten.
“Aw, Jared could teach me how to ride. The story in the magazine said he’s going to start a school to teach kids like me how to race motocross, with a real motocross racetrack and everything.”
“I don’t think he’s building his racetrack here.” Jared Donnelly hadn’t been back to Paradox Lake for more than an occasional short visit since he’d left 15 years ago. Even if he were in town for an extended visit, she doubted he’d build his motocross school here in the North Country where he could only operate it part of the year.
The disappointment on Brendon’s face made her chest tighten. He was just a little boy, even though he often seemed older because of his self-appointed role as the man of the family since her ex had left them.
She draped her arm over his shoulder, expecting him to duck out of her loose embrace, and her heart warmed when he didn’t. “You and Ari need to get ready to go to Grandma and Grandpa’s. They’ll be here soon to pick you guys up for pizza and the movie night in the park. Is Ian going?”
“Yeah.” Brendon shrugged away. “His parents would probably let him get a dirt bike.”
Back to that. Becca was pretty sure her son’s best friend’s parents would no more buy Ian a dirt bike than she’d let Brendon have one. “Go on and get your sleepover stuff ready. I’ll be right in with Ari.”
Brendon stomped off.
“Ari, we need to pack your things for Grandma’s.”
“Okay, Mom.” She jumped off the swing and skipped up the stairs to the deck.
A few minutes later, Becca watched her former in-laws and her kids drive away. Fortunately, they’d been running late, so she hadn’t had to talk with them much beyond finding out when they’d be bringing the kids back tomorrow. She walked to the kitchen, poured a glass of ice tea, and took a carton of yogurt from the refrigerator before returning to the deck. Brendon had left his magazine on the umbrella table. She sat on the matching chair and leafed through the magazine to a page with a picture of Jared standing beside a racing bike with his helmet tucked under his arm. His hair was tousled as if he’d just taken off the helmet, and he oozed masculine bravado. In the accompanying article, Jared talked about starting a motocross school for kids, particularly underprivileged and fatherless kids.
She closed the publication and placed it on the table. Brendon wasn’t underprivileged, but she often felt he was growing up fatherless. She’d taken her wedding vows seriously. Done everything she could to keep her marriage together and, despite knowing better, couldn’t shake the final remnants of failure that she hadn’t been able to. As if to block out the pain, her mind went to Ari and Brendon sitting on either side of Jared on his grandmother’s couch looking at Ari’s storybook. A perfect family picture. Something beyond her reach. Obviously she wasn’t cut out for marriage if she couldn’t make a go of it with someone she’d grown up with and had known as well as Matt. Or thought she’d known.
The picture of Jared with her kids popped back into her head. She had no idea why her mind was flitting from him to marriage and back to him. Regardless of what he’d said at his grandmother’s about getting used to Adirondack winters again, she couldn’t imagine he was back to stay. What attraction, besides his family, could Paradox Lake hold for someone who’d traveled all around the world?
Becca pushed Jared and her failed marriage out of her head. Looking past her yard beyond her property to the meadow and woods that Bert Miller had owned, she wondered what would become of the acreage. Her ex-mother-in-law had been sure Bert would leave it to her, his only relative. But that didn’t seem to be the case. She placed her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her entwined fingers. Last year, she and the two other families on Conifer Road had heard Bert was considering selling it to a resort syndicate that was vying for one of the gambling casino licenses New York State had up for grabs at the time. They’d banded together in an informal homeowners association, ready to oppose that project or any other undesirable one that might endanger the quality of life they wanted for their families.
She hoped it wouldn’t come to anything like that. Recently, hanging on to her property had become enough of a fight for her. She didn’t need another one. Raising two kids and paying the mortgage on the dream house she and her ex-husband had built was tough on a teacher’s salary, especially at a small school such as Schroon Lake. She nudged a stone under the table with her toe. Getting the job she’d applied for running The Kids’ Place for the summer would really help. Disappointment welled inside her. She’d thought she would have heard back by now. The only other jobs available were in the tourist trade and wouldn’t pay enough for her to make any money once she’d paid for daycare. Unless she asked her ex-mother-in-law to watch them, which she wasn’t about to do. Ari and Brendon could come with her to The Kids’ Place. She kicked the stone and watched it arch up and hit the deck rail before landing on the grass several feet away.
She rose to go inside. Why did she always have to second-guess herself and overthink everything? Why couldn’t she simply accept her situation as it was and go on? Her mind flashed again to Jared reading to her kids, and she halted midstep. That couldn’t possibly be what life had in mind for her.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jean C. Gordon’s writing is a natural extension of her love of reading. From that day in first grade when she realized t-h-e was the word “the,” she’s been reading everything she can put her hands on. She and her college-sweetheart husband tried the city life in Los Angeles, but quickly returned home to their native small-town Upstate New York, where she sets many of her books. She and her husband share a 175-year-old farmhouse in Upstate New York with their daughter and her family.
Contact Jean on her website at JeanCGordon.com.
ALSO BY JEAN C. GORDON
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Can’t Say No to Puppies: A Puppies for Christmas Novella
Hopeless Romantics of Willow Ridge
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The No Brides Club Series
No Time for Apologies
No Time for Detours
No Time for Adventure
Indigo Bay Series
Sweet Entanglement
Sweet Horizons
Sweet Tidings
Holiday Stories
Caro’s Gift (Small-Town Christmas Wishes series)
Team Macachek Series
Holiday Escape Novella
A Team Macachek Christmas Novella
Christmas Pizza to the Rescue Novella
A Team Macachek Christmas Anthology
More Team Macachek
Mending the Motocross Champion
Upstate NY…where love is a little sweeter Series
Bachelor Father
Love Undercover
Mandy and the Mayor
Candy Kisses
Mara’s Move
Love Inspired
FRESH-START FAMILIES
Reuniting His Family
A Mom for His Daughter
See a Complete List of Jean C. Gordon Books
Jean C. Gordon, Trusting Love
