The Bowen Bride

by Nicole Burnham

  “That’s probably true.” Katie smiled, then took a deep breath before plunging ahead. “On the other hand, you’re pretty lucky to have the dad you have. When you look at your friends and realize how much they take their mothers for granted, do you ever wonder if you take your father for granted? All the hard work he does to make sure you’re happy at home and at school, or all the love he’s given you?”

  The look Mandy shot Katie made it plain she knew what Katie was doing. She also saw enough truth in it to look sheepish. “Yeah. I probably should be more grateful. But it’s hard, you know?”

  “Believe me, I do.” Katie took a long sip of her soda, then offered Mandy a drink.

  “Do you have orange?”

  “Nope. Love it, but can’t risk the stains.” She reeled off the choices and Mandy quickly made a selection. As Katie retrieved a can from the fridge, she said, “It sounds like you know very little about your mother. What does your father think about you calling her?”

  “He’s never let me call her before when I’ve asked, so I didn’t tell him I want to now.” She shrugged. “I figure I’m old enough to call her without asking his permission. If she answers, we can talk adult to adult. And it’s not like I’m going to ask her to take care of me or send me money or anything. I just want to get to know her, and for her to get to know me. No expectations.”

  Mandy had a point. In less than a year, she would be on her own, but she definitely harbored expectations.

  “Maybe so,” Katie replied. “But that still doesn’t mean you should. No matter how old you get, there are some things you should always talk to your parents about, especially a parent like your father, since you two have a good relationship. Contacting someone from his past is one of those things. You wouldn’t contact your best friend’s ex-boyfriend without talking to her about it first, would you?”

  “I hadn’t thought about it that way, I guess. Like, that she’s his ex as opposed to just being my mother.” Mandy glanced at the book, an uncomfortable look on her face. “Well, that stinks.”

  “You already called her? Or wrote to her?”

  The color rose on Mandy’s neck and cheeks, and she looked down at her hands. “Yeah. I did an Internet search and found her phone number. She’s in Downers Grove, a suburb of Chicago. I tried calling a few times. There was never an answer, so I finally left a message last night with my cell number. I didn’t tell her what it was about, just to call me. But she hasn’t.”

  Katie put her hand over Mandy’s, her heart aching in sympathy. She’d only known Mandy a few days, but already she’d become attached to the teen. Jared was just as fortunate to have such a wonderful daughter as the girl was to have him as her father. “I know this probably isn’t the best advice, but try to put it out of your mind. And try not to be hurt if she doesn’t call you. She doesn’t know you, Mandy. She only knows your father, and maybe that relationship is a painful memory for her, something she can’t bring herself to face.”

  “Calling was probably the wrong move.”

  “It’s done now, so no sense in dwelling on it. If she calls back, you can feel her out. But take it slowly. And consider telling your father that you called her. He might be willing to open up a little about his relationship with her and tell you whether or not it’s a good idea to let her know you and Kevin plan to get married.”

  “You really think I should?” Doubt filled Mandy’s eyes. “You don’t think he’ll just get mad? He’s already ticked off at me because I want to get married.”

  Katie squeezed Mandy’s hand. “He might be angry at first, but I think he’d want to know. And I bet, if you give him a chance, he’ll listen to how you really feel.” At least, Katie hoped so. Otherwise he’d likely be angry with her for giving Mandy lousy advice.

  The phone rang, and Katie shot Mandy a reassuring smile as she pushed back from the table to answer it. Mandy hoisted her backpack over one shoulder and signaled an Are we done? as Katie stretched across a countertop to reach the phone.

  “The Bowen Bride,” she answered on the third ring. She nodded to Mandy, who closed the design books and started organizing them into a pile at one end of the table.

  “Katie, it’s Jared.”

  The even thrum of her heart revved into overdrive. Keeping a businesslike tone, she replied, “Yes, what can I do for you?”

  His voice dropped. “Mandy’s there. Is she in the workroom? Right now?”

  “Yes. Did you need to stop by?”

  “I left my tool belt. Have you seen it? Or has she?”

  Katie’s gaze slid to the floor. As nonchalantly as possible, she scanned the area near the door, then looked toward the table until she saw the tan leather belt. She—or Jared—must have kicked it under the worktable at some point after she’d unhooked it from his waist. Hammer, nail bag, and all.

  “No, she hasn’t yet, but I’ll take care of it.” Thank goodness. There’d be no reason in the world for her father’s tool belt to be in the workroom, let alone dropped haphazardly under the table with the tape measure falling out of its designated pocket.

  Mandy wasn’t as naive as Fred Winston, either. If she spotted it, she’d add up the evidence and figure out what had happened.

  “Well, it’s probably a bad idea for me to get it now. Shoot.” He mumbled something under his breath. “She’s going to a friend’s house with Kevin tonight. There’s a show they watch together on the Wednesdays she’s not babysitting for the Winstons, and I’m pretty sure Fred and Shari didn’t need her tonight. She doesn’t have to be home until ten. Would it be possible for you to run it by my place before then?”

  “I can do that, sure.” Katie eyed Mandy, who had one foot on the chair she’d just occupied, tying her shoelace before heading out the door. “Though the situation here may change shortly.”

  “I’m at a job site now and can’t leave. I’m fine with what’s in my toolbox. Our house is the left turn before you get to the Eberhardt place. You know where it is?”

  She mentally pictured the correct turn off the highway. “Yes, I think so. I’ll see you then.”

  “Okay. Call if you need directions. The driveway’s easy to miss.”

  “I will. Goodbye.”

  Mandy finished tying her shoe, then shot a pointed look at the phone as she waved a goodbye to Katie. “Sounds like you’ve got a lot of customers.”

  “Nothing out of the ordinary.” Well, not if it had actually been a business call. “Have a good afternoon, Mandy. Don’t forget your soda.”

  After Mandy walked out, soda in hand, Katie leaned against a wall with the workroom to her back, gathering her thoughts. A pickup zoomed by on Main Street, followed by the sheriff’s white sedan. She grinned to herself, shook her head, then turned and fished the tool belt from under the table. Just in case Mandy—or anyone else—entered the workroom, she placed it on an empty shelf in a closet she hardly used.

  The wall clock near the closet read half past four. Soon everyone would knock off for the evening and Main Street traffic would pick up as folks returned home, headed to school sports, or stopped to grab pizza or Chinese takeout. She should call her supplier in Omaha before he left for the evening to check on some buttons she’d special-ordered, since the man had a serious impediment where email was concerned. But something in the closet had caught her eye, and now her brain processed what she’d seen.

  She opened the closet door again, then crouched to take a second look at the bottom shelves. There, at ankle level, were two sagging cardboard boxes. Yellowed stickers in her Oma’s handwriting labeled them as Accounts. How had she not noticed these before? Or maybe she had when she’d first moved into the space, but hadn’t paid attention.

  She thought of Mandy, glanced over her shoulder toward the thread on her pegboard, then back at the boxes. She braced her elbows on her knees and puffed out a breath, debating.

  She had to know.

  Leaning forward on her hands and knees, she pulled the two dusty boxes from their shelves, li
fted them onto the table, flipped the cardboard lid off one, then sat down to read.

  When the doorbell finally rang a little after seven, Jared was halfway through his third cup of coffee. He swigged the last drops, trying to remember if he’d brewed regular or decaf.

  Not that it’d make a bit of difference. He couldn’t imagine falling asleep easily tonight.

  He set the Bowen Railroaders coffee mug—a gift from Mandy—in the sink. After wiping his hands on a towel, he strode to the door, pausing for a beat before grabbing the knob, unsure whether to say hello, take the tool belt and say goodbye all in one breath, or to invite Katie inside for a cup of coffee.

  And then there was the third option, to grab her and kiss her senseless before his brain realized the idiocy of it all.

  When he opened the door and saw her, blond hair shining under the porch light, his fingers twitched, and he held them tight to his sides. Every fiber in his body ached to go for option three.

  “Hi.” The night was warm, but she had her arms wrapped around her. “I hope you don’t mind, but I left the belt in my car until I was sure the coast was clear.”

  He pushed open the screen door and held it with his hip. “It’s fine. Mandy’s at a friend’s. Though she probably wouldn’t have thought anything of it.”

  One side of Katie’s mouth lifted. “How many times have you left your tool belt behind on a job site?”

  “Once or twice.”

  She raised a brow.

  “Okay, once.”

  “Today?”

  “Yep.” And then he did the stupidest thing of all. He bent forward, put his hands on either side of her face and kissed her. No one could see his front porch. The neighbor’s cornfields blocked the view of any passersby on the dirt road and the Eberhardts’ house was nearly a half mile away, on the opposite side of the fields. But it felt daring, as if he’d just taken a bungee jump off a high tower without first checking the harness to be certain the clips were in place.

  His younger self—the one who’d whooped it up and partied his way through high school—would’ve laughed himself into a state at the thought of an evening kiss on a front porch being daring. Especially since he was now an adult, and a completely unattached one, at that.

  Katie returned his kiss, sending an instant shot of warmth through him. Her fingers reached to cover his and she took a step into him, molding her body to his in a way that invited him to pull her inside and onto the sofa before either of them could change their minds.

  But almost before the kiss began, she dropped her hands to his chest, then leaned her forehead against his shoulder and exhaled. “Whoa.”

  Whoa, indeed. He could think of a few other choice phrases.

  “I know this is a sentence that every man dreads hearing, but we really need to talk.”

  He buried his face in her soft blond hair. She knew—had to know—what existed between them wasn’t an everyday attraction. They both thrummed with it. If what either one wanted was a casual romp, they could have found that in Bowen anytime. He’d avoided it for obvious reasons, but wondered what had held her back. Given their interaction the last few days, and the fact he hadn’t heard any talk about her, he didn’t imagine she’d been involved with anyone local.

  Clearly, they each wanted something else.

  “Yeah,” he mumbled near her ear. “We probably should talk.”

  He let go of her reluctantly, then gestured to the far end of the porch, where a white swing hung from two chains and a single slatted rocking chair creaked in the evening air. She hesitated for a moment, then took a seat in the rocker Mandy favored.

  “It’s beautiful out here,” she commented, staring past the porch rail. “Is that the Eberhardts’ cornfield at the edge of your front yard, or yours?”

  “Eberhardts’.”

  “Good neighbors, I bet. Carolyn Eberhardt’s mother was friends with my grandmother. She managed the funeral arrangements for my grandmother when Opa passed. She was fabulous that way.”

  The motion-sensing light that had turned on in the driveway when she approached clicked off, casting the porch in semidarkness. He realized he’d forgotten to turn on the porch light, but it was early enough in the autumn that he could still make out her features in the dusk when aided by the light from his front windows.

  “Yeah, they’re great. Used to babysit Mandy for me, back when she was little and I could barely afford to pay them.” He didn’t want to talk about the Eberhardts, though, and figured she hadn’t broken off their kiss to discuss the neighbors, either.

  “So tell me,” he began, “why’d you originally turn me down for the date? Whatever the reason, it was pretty important to you.” Because it was patently obvious to them both that chemistry had nothing to do with it.

  He glanced at his battered truck, parked next to her shiny, late-model Volkswagen. Once again he wondered if maybe it was an education thing. He’d never attended college, whereas she’d obtained her degree. She’d opened her own successful business, while he worked for his younger brother.

  Or maybe she was bothered by the fact he was the father of a seventeen-year-old. Most fathers his age were getting their kids potty trained, rather than talking them through the college application process.

  She leaned forward in the rocker. “You cut right to the heart of things, don’t you?”

  “No sense in doing otherwise. I take it that’s what you wanted to talk about?”

  If she was going to tell him they weren’t right for each other, that their backgrounds were too dissimilar, he needed to hear it up front. Katie didn’t seem the judgmental type, but then again, Corey hadn’t seemed the type to bolt when the going got tough.

  “Actually, no. Though at some point I suppose we should talk about that.’’

  “Ah. So it’s me.” He forced himself to crack a smile. “Well, I apologize if I’m a rotten kisser, then. At this point in my life, it is what it is.”

  Chapter 7

  “That’s not a problem, either.” Katie’s voice was low as she added, “I mean, you’re not terrible, and I think you know it.”

  ‘‘Good to hear it.”

  If it’d been noon instead of twilight, he was certain he would see her flush, but her voice was level as she continued, “I actually wanted to talk about Mandy.”

  Mandy? So much for the temporary thrill at discovering she enjoyed their kisses as much as he did. “Thought we did that this afternoon.”

  He raised an eyebrow, not that she could see him very well. But despite the darkness, he wasn’t sure he should invite her inside, not until he figured out what gnawed at her and whether or not she wanted to be invited in.

  “This is something new.”

  “Okay, then shoot.”

  “I don’t want to violate her confidence, but she’s already called her mother. She told me this afternoon that she left a message and hasn’t heard back.”

  “I can’t believe—”

  Anger and a sense of betrayal flared in him, though he knew on a cerebral level that Mandy’s action had nothing to do with him or her relationship with him.

  “I think she regrets it already, but I wanted to give you a heads-up.” Katie bit her lip, sympathy and concern mixing in her expression. “She’s planning to tell you about it, but she’s afraid that when she does you’ll be angry with her. Do your best not to be. She’s at an age where being without a mother is tough, and it has nothing to do with wanting her mother around at the wedding if she marries Kevin.”

  He dropped onto the porch swing and stared out into the night. “I won’t be angry with her.” Well, at least he wouldn’t tell Mandy he was angry. “I know better than anyone how hard seventeen can be. But thanks for the warning.”

  As the sun disappeared behind the hills, leaving only a shard of the moon to illuminate the whisper-thin clouds skittering overhead, a sudden memory popped into Jared’s head. He could picture Mandy, as clearly as if it’d occurred yesterday, flashlight under her bed sheets a
t two in the morning, reading to herself on an early autumn evening much like this one.

  She’d been five years old at the most. She was still reading aloud to herself and sounding out each word syllable by syllable. Though he probably should have told her to go to sleep, he’d simply backed out of her room and into the hall, listening through the open door as she whispered about Curious George and his adventures with the Man in the Yellow Hat. His heart had been so full of love, watching the circle of light as it shone through the thin sheet.

  “She’s almost grown up, in many ways.” Katie’s voice was as soft as the fragile clouds overhead.

  “So she tells me.”

  “But she’s not there yet. She knows that, in her heart, and she’ll act accordingly when it counts. You survived your late teenage years. So will she. And I have a feeling you had it a heck of a lot worse than Mandy.”

  Jared hazarded a glance at Katie, and she reached across the space between the rocker and the swing to put her hand on his knee. “She’s a smart girl, Jared, and a kind girl. You’ve raised her well under what had to be very difficult circumstances. You should be proud of yourself and proud of her.”

  He leaned forward, stretching across the space between the swing and the rocker, to grab the rocker by the arms and pull it closer, then he wended his fingers in between hers so she couldn’t withdraw.

  How did women do all the things they did with such small, delicate fingers?

  “I only vaguely remember Mandy’s mother,” Katie said after they’d sat in silence for a while. “You two dated your entire senior year, didn’t you?”

  Was this the other reason she needed to talk? He looked down at Katie’s hands in his. “We started going out our junior year of high school, then through senior year.”

  “And she got pregnant.”

  “An accident, as you probably guessed.”

  “But you didn’t get married? I get the impression you wanted to get married but she didn’t.”

  Jared shook his head. He’d never talked about it, not since he was eighteen and tried to hash out the whole situation with his parents, who’d cried, then yelled, then cried some more. But the way Katie approached it, he didn’t mind the subject. She wasn’t one of the town busybodies, either trying to gather gossip or pass judgment. She asked because she cared.