Harlequin Superromance September 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: This Good ManPromises Under the Peach TreeHusband by Choice

by Janice Kay Johnson

  Security would be there soon.

  Jenna pulled a weed. Carefully added it to the small pile she’d begun to form between two closely planted trees.

  She’d broken her number one rule. Be aware of your surroundings. At all times.

  How could she have been so foolish?

  Or felt so safe?

  This place had gotten to her. Given her a false sense of security. It was a lesson to her that even she could be wooed into letting her guard down.

  A lesson that could cost her.

  When she heard another twig snap, Jenna slowly stood. It would be far better that Steve get her now rather than giving him a chance to hurt anyone else. She’d leave quietly with him.

  And figure out the rest from there. Security should be there in seconds to protect everyone else.

  She just didn’t want anyone to get hurt. With very little fear, she turned.

  And saw a body bending over by the base of a tree. And farther off in the distance, another body. And on the other side of her, even farther away, a third.

  Residents. Her sisters. Helping her pull weeds.

  And she’d thought no one knew where she was.

  “WE ALL HEARD Darin the other day,” Renee, the weed picker who’d been closest to her, walked with Jenna as she left the Garden almost an hour later. Security had been and gone. “Julie saw what you were doing and called up to the main building to let anyone who was free know that you could use some help.”

  She didn’t know Julie well. But had recognized her as the woman sitting alone on the bench in the Garden when she’d taken her walk earlier.

  “I didn’t even know you guys were there.”

  Renee shrugged. “Everyone knows the Garden’s a place for quiet contemplation. Some people contemplate while pulling weeds. As busy as you are, I figured you had something pretty important to work on to be out there pulling at dirt.”

  It was as direct a question as Renee would probably ask.

  Feeling the weight of responsibility for the example she set, just by existing among needy women who looked to each other for help and support, Jenna shrugged.

  “I’m not used to the attention I’ve been getting here lately. I needed a...break.” She picked the words that she could speak.

  And left the rest.

  “You do a lot of weeding in your past life?”

  “Nope.” Not until she’d moved in with Max. And even then, she did more spraying and hiring of landscapers than actual weeding.

  “I grew up pulling weeds in my mama’s garden,” Renee continued, walking easily beside her.

  And strangely, as they talked, Jenna didn’t mind the other woman’s presence. In spite of the fact that she’d gone to the Garden looking for escape.

  * * *

  “WHEN MY BRIAN was little he lisped....” Renee was holding one end of a sheet and Jenna the other. They were alone in the laundry room Monday night. Renee had signed up to do TLS laundry once a week, which included anything used in any common areas, including physical therapy and the cafeteria. Towels mostly.

  Jenna had offered to help. It gave her a chance to get her own few things washed. And to keep busy.

  She’d been so tempted to go back by Max’s house that morning after she’d seen Olivia. The bus stop was only one past hers. She’d thought about it the whole way. And then watched out the window as the familiar area sped past.

  Movement cured all ails. Or it had to this point in her life.

  Was there a cure for seeing the man you loved with another woman?

  “The kids at school teased him and my instinct was to coddle him, to fight his battles for him. Gary insisted that we make him tough it out and go to school and stand up to the bullies....”

  They came together and Jenna took the sheet, finishing up the last fold and placing it on the large table that currently held over a hundred towels all washed and neatly folded, while Renee picked up another sheet, found the ends and handed two to her.

  “I wish I’d stood up to Gary then,” Renee continued. “Brian was such a sensitive creature. We should never have forced him to go against his nature....”

  Renee needed to understand her abuser. And she was the mother bear, protecting her young at the same time.

  An untenable position.

  Far worse than having an abusive husband.

  Far, far worse than knowing that your husband would have someone to help him bear the pain you’d caused.

  “My little brother lisped,” Jenna said, jumping at the first thought that came to her brain that wasn’t about Steve, or Max and Chantel. The sound of the machines running, tubs filling, the cottony spring scent of softening sheets, even the warmth generated from the dryers were nice. Steady.

  Familiar.

  Renee glanced at her as though she was waiting for more. There wasn’t any more. Chad had had a lisp.

  “That’s partially why I became a speech pathologist,” she said. Everyone at the Stand knew she was one. Nothing to hide there.

  “Did he have troubles at school?” Renee asked.

  “Yeah. I remember him coming home from kindergarten with a fat lip. He wasn’t crying at all. But when Mom made him tell her why he’d gotten into a fight, and he’d had to admit the kids said he talked like a baby, he started to bawl. And I remember the woman who came to our house a lot after that, doing mouth and tongue exercises with him. By second grade the lisp was gone. I kind of missed it. It was cute.”

  “The last thing boys in school want to be is cute.”

  Caleb was cute. And in one of his last pictures, looked just like a picture she had of Chad, too.

  Would he also have his uncle’s lisp when he fully started talking?

  “I didn’t know you have a brother. You’ve never mentioned family.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Chad.” And now it was time to get the next batch of towels from the dryer. These were smaller, from the kitchen, rather than the larger ones used in physical therapy and the gym.

  “Is he local?” Renee’s tone had changed, becoming more like Lila’s every second. Jenna tensed.

  “No.”

  “You don’t want to talk about him.”

  “No.” She gave her refusal gently.

  “Of course you know that they say when you don’t want to talk is when you should.”

  She couldn’t tell Renee about her plans, couldn’t tell any of the women that the programs that worked for them, that they were supposed to believe worked for them, didn’t work for her.

  “I don’t talk about them because my family was killed,” she said, taking the folded sheet from Renee and putting it with the last one they’d done.

  And while Renee stood there, hands empty, she rolled the cart over to the dryer and pulled out the next load of towels.

  Her few things were done. Underthings neatly folded. Clothes hung and ready for her to take back to the bungalow where she could have done her laundry. If she hadn’t been helping Renee.

  “Killed how?” Renee didn’t fold. She just watched her.

  Picking up a towel, Jenna made short work of the task at hand. “In a car accident. It was a long time ago.”

  So long ago she hardly thought about it anymore.

  “How long ago?”

  “Twenty years.”

  “You were just a kid.”

  “I was twelve.”

  “Oh, my God, Jenna, I’m so sorry. What a horrible thing to have had happen. I don’t know what to say....”

  “No one ever does. Which is why I don’t talk about it. It was horrible. But like I said, it was a long time ago.”

  “Was it just the four of you, then?”

  “In the car? Yes.
”

  A towel hung in Renee’s hands. “I meant in your family.”

  “Yes. They were my whole family.”

  “You were in the car with them?” Renee asked next.

  “Yeah.” Jenna looked at the towel. Heard a clank as something went around and around in one of the dryers. Probably a fastener in some of the donated clothes Renee was sending through the wash before putting on the shelves in the store room.

  “And you were the only survivor.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I can’t imagine....”

  She folded. “I know.”

  “Were you conscious? Do you remember anything?” Renee’s tone held more compassion than Jenna could take at the moment.

  “Unfortunately, I remember it like it was yesterday,” she said. Because they weren’t talking about Steve. And she wasn’t having to think about Chantel and Max and Caleb. About how she’d feel if she lost her men in a car accident when she hadn’t even told them goodbye....

  “I used to have nightmares,” she said. “But I don’t much anymore.” Not one since she’d climbed into bed with Max Bennet. Until last week, when she’d climbed out again.

  “We were hit by a garbage truck. On the driver’s side. The guy had fallen asleep at the wheel.” She was the only one who’d been thrown free. She’d been hurt, but hadn’t felt any pain. She’d jumped up, run back to the car, pulling at the mangled steel. She could see her little brother’s hand. Her mother’s hair. Part of her father’s shirt. And couldn’t get to any of them.

  And if she’d let Chad sit where he wanted to....

  “I was told they were killed on impact.”

  That had been the only blessing she’d carried away from that day. The fact that her family hadn’t suffered. Or even known that something horrible had happened.

  But they must have known that she didn’t go with them.

  “Did you have relatives?”

  “A grandfather who wasn’t in good health. An aunt with six kids who fought with my dad more than she was nice to him.”

  “Who did you go to?”

  “I went into foster care. Neither of them had the financial means to care for me.”

  She’d known, even back then, that neither of them had wanted to take her in. Her grandfather, she understood. He’d died within a year of the accident. But had come to see her every single week until he got too sick. And then he’d arranged for her to travel to see him.

  “Oh, my...I’m so sorry, Jenna. Such a little girl, too young....”

  Renee had tears in her eyes.

  Jenna shook her head. “No, really, it was a long time ago,” she said, wishing she hadn’t said so much.

  She never said that much.

  Not even to Max. It served no purpose. Except to make people feel sorry for her.

  She folded. And stacked. And moved another load from the washer to the dryer.

  “I imagine, being the only one left behind, would be a hell all in itself. Even apart from losing your loved ones.”

  She’d had counseling. “I had things left to do here.”

  Renee’s arm slid around her waist and, surprised at the contact, Jenna jumped back and dropped her towel.

  “I didn’t mean to startle you,” the other woman said. “But this isn’t just another room and another conversation, Jenna. I’ve trusted you with my deepest pain. And you understood, without judging. It was the greatest gift anyone has given me.

  “And I’m thinking maybe you need a gift, too. Maybe you need someone to understand that someplace inside you you’re still that little girl who’s had to carry the weight of the world on her shoulders all alone.”

  “No.” She shook her head. Picked up a towel. “I’m fine, really.”

  “There was a young woman at church once who was having a hard time staying out of trouble. Brian counseled her in our home and I couldn’t help overhearing a few things through the door. She and her twin sister had been out in a storm and a tree had been struck by lightning and fallen. The twin sister was struck in the back and was paralyzed. The girl blamed herself. And spent the next several years involving herself in every destructive behavior she could think of, punishing herself....”

  “Luckily, I got counseling.”

  “You don’t think denying yourself the right to ask for what you want, to demand what you need, is destructive?”

  Renee didn’t know that that was exactly what Jenna was doing. She was demanding her right to be done with Steve, once and for all.

  “You blame yourself, don’t you? For not dying with them?”

  She’d wondered many times why not her. “I just know that I was left on this earth for a purpose and so I try, every single day, to give as much of myself as I can give to those around me, hoping that I’m fulfilling that purpose.”

  “To justify living when the others didn’t?”

  Counselors didn’t get as in your face as Renee was doing. But anyone who’d been through counseling would be able to ask these same questions. She’d been through them all. More than once.

  “To make lemonades out of lemons,” she said, quoting the slogan of The Lemonade Stand. She glanced at the wall opposite them with the full mural of a lemon grove and the words painted in colorful script winding through the trees.

  She knew she was on the right course. She’d applied herself to the programs and counseling.

  If she’d blamed herself for anything, it was that she’d lived and Chad hadn’t.

  But she knew that it had been fate that had taken her little brother, not she.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  MAX KNEW THAT Chantel was off on Monday. He just didn’t expect her to be in Santa Raquel. He’d suggested, the night before that, until there was something more to go on, she stay home and get caught up on her life there.

  He’d been trying to tell her nicely that he didn’t think it was a good idea for them to be spending so much time together.

  For her to be staying over so much that Caleb was getting used to having another woman there.

  It had been two days since the toddler had asked for his mother. He hadn’t asked for Chantel, either, but when she showed up at their door just before nine, catching him watching the end of yet another Disney movie with his son—keeping the boy up an hour past his bedtime to boot—Caleb said “Chan,” from his place on Max’s hip.

  “Hey, Caleb,” Chantel said, pulling a teddy bear from behind her back. “This is Henry. He’s a friend of mine and he wanted to meet you.”

  “Hen’y.” Caleb took the bear, but didn’t smile. He was sizing up Chantel. And when she leaned in a little farther toward him, he leaned back.

  “He’s a tough egg to crack, isn’t he?” she said, depositing her duffel bag on the floor as she walked into their home.

  “He’s a lot like his mom,” Max said. He needed Meri there.

  “I know I’m taking a huge liberty packing a bag and showing up without calling first,” Chantel told him, following him into the living room where the movie was on pause.

  “Ca....” Caleb made the demand without an ounce of little boy excitement. “Ca,” he said again, as though to be sure that Max had clearly understood what had to happen next.

  Max picked up the remote control and restarted the Cars video for him.

  “I’ve got news, Max,” Chantel said, sitting on the edge of the armchair perpendicular to the couch.

  His gaze flew to her.

  “That’s why I’m here. Wayne’s off in the morning and I’m meeting him to check out a few places.”

  “Is it—” He glanced toward Caleb.

  “She’s fine. Still at the same place,” Chantel said. “Planning a pool party from what I understand.”

  “She told Wayne to tell m
e that?”

  “No. Just something he overheard and told me.”

  “Because he doesn’t think she’s on the run. He thinks her reasons are the ones she gave.” He chose his words carefully, in the remote chance that his son was following any part of the conversation.

  “Correct.”

  “But she knows that Wayne is reporting to me?”

  Chantel shook her head.

  “So whoever she’s staying with is keeping me informed?”

  “That’s correct.”

  Good. They were getting someplace. “So whoever this is must think that there’s a chance for our marriage.”

  “No.” Chantel’s eyes filled with that damned sympathy again and he was starting to feel pathetic.

  Is that how he looked? Like some kind of sap who couldn’t accept that his beautiful wife had left him?

  Is that what he was?

  Wallowing in disbelief rather than accepting facts and getting on with his life?

  “Wayne understands your concern and doesn’t want you to worry that she’s in danger. That’s all. On another note, we might have something on Steve.”

  She had news. That was what mattered. And he had to get his son to bed so that he could find out exactly what Chantel had driven all this way to tell him.

  * * *

  JENNA FINISHED WITH the laundry, walked partway to Renee’s bungalow and continued on to her own, her arms laden with clothes. She put her things away. Stopped at the kitchen table to ask her roomies how the brownies were. Latoya had done the baking. And Latoya and Carly were sitting over a plate of them with glasses of milk.

  “Good. You want one?” Carly asked, jumping up. “I’ll get you some milk.”

  “No.” Jenna chuckled. “But thank you. I’m still full from dinner.” Or from the knot in her stomach. She wasn’t sure which.

  “I cleaned your bathroom and vacuumed your room for you,” Carly piped up. “I hope you don’t mind. It was my week to do the living area and your door was open.”

  Making a mental note to herself to keep her door shut—not because she didn’t trust Carly in her room, but because she wasn’t going to have the younger woman think that she had to do special favors for her now—Jenna said, “Oh, Carly, what a sweet gesture. Thank you. You didn’t have to do that.”