The dirt road wound along and finally, at the end of it, big buildings came into sight; an enormous ranch with three floors, the lowest of which opened up onto a field behind the house, and the highest of which overlooked a great pasture that stretched far out until it met the trees. There was a metal warehouse, a big red wooden barn, and a smaller wooden barn near it. There was a guest house near the big house, and there was an enormous five car garage that connected to the lowest level of the house.
In front of the ranch was a winding walk and there were smooth, rounded river stones that had been set into a staircase that led up to the wide front deck, where sat two swings, a table, and two rocking chairs. There were massive columns of wood and river stone around the deck, and set back from the deck, there were two great doors that were closed together. On either side of the door were large windows that were set close together all around the house, so that sweeping views of the valley and the mountains could be enjoyed from within the ranch.
His hand reached for the handle on the front door and he pushed the door open, stepping inside and grinning as he called out, “Mom? I’m home...” He looked around and saw no one, and for a moment it was silent, but then there was a cry of joy that sounded from far to the right of the main floor, and as he stepped in fully, his hand holding her hand and leading her in with him, his mother came rushing into the room to him, her eyes filled with tears and a wide smile on her face.
“Jonathon!” she shouted as she flung her arms around him. “My god, Jonathon... I didn’t think I was ever going to see you again! I can’t believe this! You’re home!” She held his face in her hands and gazed at him, looking like she might never let him go.
“Keith!” she called out loudly. “Keith! He’s home!”
There was a crash in the basement and a few moments later the sound of footsteps on the stairs as his father came hurrying up them to reach him. He stopped at the top of the stairs and caught his breath for a moment and then he hurried to his son and wife, and wrapped his arms around them both.
“Jonathon! My god, son! I wasn’t sure if you were ever going to come home!” he cried out happily.
Jonathon hugged his parents back and then finally let them go and they all three turned to look at the woman who was standing behind him.
She was tall and slender, with very light blonde hair that was pulled back in a bun at the nape of her neck. She had big blue eyes and a thin line of red lips, and a fine delicate bone structure. Pearls were held in her ears and around her neck, and she was dressed in a silk blouse and jeans with sandals.
She smiled at them, and Jonathon took her hand and introduced her to his parents. “Mom, Dad, I want you to meet Janis Preston. Janis, these are my parents, Keith and Eva Tanner.”
He took a deep breath and smiled at them. “Mom, Dad, Janis and I are engaged.” He grinned happily and his parents could not have been more surprised.
Eva blinked and stared for a moment and then smiled and extended her hand to the younger woman. “Engaged! Well! Congratulations and welcome to our home my dear!” She leaned forward and hugged Eva and then stepped back as Keith did the same.
Then Eva looked at her son and shook her head as tears filled her eyes once more. “I can’t believe you’re here! It’s been almost two years! I...” She closed her eyes and pressed her hand to her mouth.
Keith wrapped an arm around his wife’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze as Jonathon reached for her hand. “I know I’ve been gone a long time Mom, but I’m home now, and I don’t think I’ll be going anywhere again for a long time.”
She smiled at him and wiped her eyes, taking a deep breath as she looked around her at all of them.
“Well! We can’t just stand here at the door!” She took Jonathon’s hand in hers and said, “Let’s go into the kitchen and sit down. It’s obvious that we have a lot to catch up on.”
They followed her into the kitchen and sat around the table, Eva on one side of Jonathon, and Janis on the other side of him. Keith helped his wife with refreshments and soon they were sharing wine and some of the surprise and excitement had died down a little bit.
Eva kept looking at her son as if she wasn’t really sure that he was there, but now and then she would look at the young woman beside him and smile, her eyes quietly taking all of it in.
Jonathon felt the nerves in his stomach begin to ease up. He’d been anxious and excited to get home, and nervous about how his parents would react when they saw his new fiancée.
“You know, when you called and said you were coming home this week, I wasn’t sure if I should believe you or not,” his mother chastised him. “After all, here you are, gone for two whole years and you have not come home even once, not even for holidays, and then the last time we talked, you said you were coming home and I just didn’t know if I would believe it until you walked in the door, and now that you’ve walked in, I still don’t know if I believe it.” Eva laughed and shook her head, taking a long drink of her wine.
Jonathon nodded. He knew she would be saying a bit to him about having been gone so long, even though they had talked about it on the phone so many times.
“It’s good to be here, Mom, and you look beautiful.” He smiled at her and squeezed her hand. She sat there in her blouse and slacks, her brown and silver hair neatly curled and set, and her blue eyes, eyes that matched her son’s cobalt blue ones, were steady on him.
Keith sat up in his chair and leaned toward his son. “I still don’t understand why you ever wanted to leave in the first place; after all, just about everything you need is right here. Except, I guess, for this lovely young lady. Tell me,” he said, smiling kindly at them both, “how did you two meet?”
Janis grinned and looked at Jonathon, reaching her hand over to him and covering his hand with it.
Jonathon smiled back at her and launched into the story of how they met.
“Well, I had been living in Manhattan for the last few months and I was in one of the nice shops on Fifth Avenue when I saw Janis in the same store. I talked to her and she was shopping for her mother in there, the same as I was. She said she was just visiting New York and didn’t really know her way around. I’d been there long enough that I told her I could give her a good tour of the city, so we went out to lunch and then we spent the next few days looking at the city, and then those next few days just kind of spilled over into a couple of months. When I said I was coming home here to the ranch, she was heartbroken that I was leaving and she said she just couldn’t lose me after all we had shared, so I asked her to marry me, and she said she would come out here with me.” He rubbed his thumb over her hand and smiled at her.
Eva blinked a few times and then nodded at the couple. “That’s a sweet story. Jonathon always was really good about helping people out, no matter what they needed, but I guess you noticed that right away, didn’t you? I just never thought it would be something that got him engaged! It’s so wonderful, and of course we are so glad to have you here in the house. You’re welcome to stay as long as you like.” She nodded to them both.
Jonathon looked at his parents and raised his eyebrows. “Well, I was thinking that we could buy the guest house from you and stay there.”
Keith looked stunned. “Buy it? Jonathon, this whole place is as much ours as it is yours. That guest house is yours if you want it.”
Jonathon nodded and grinned. “Thanks, Dad. I think we’ll stay up here in the big house with the two of you for a little while, maybe a few weeks or so, while we get the guest house all set up for Janis, and then we’ll get moved into that.”
He looked at his mother and smiled. “Janis was wondering if you might want to help her plan the wedding, as we want to get married real soon; maybe within a couple of months at most.”
His mother lowered her brows at him slightly. “Oh of course, dear!” she said with a smile, but then her look changed to concern. “That’s a very short engagement. Is there some reason that you want to be married so soon?” she asked c
uriously, eyeing Janis.
Jonathon laughed. “No, Mother, no reason other than that we want to be married. That’s it.” He winked at her and Eva blushed slightly and drank more wine.
“Well, Janis, where are you from?” Keith asked, looking at her with kind eyes.
She smiled a little and tilted her head to him, looking serene. “I’m from Boston, actually, but my parents moved to Costa Rica and bought a place there, so I stayed in Boston for a while, but then I thought I’d give New York a try, and that’s when I met Jonathon. He’s so wonderful, I just fell in love with him right away. He’s so good, so sweet and thoughtful, and he’s so kind and generous.” She turned and looked at both Keith and Eva. “And now I can see where he gets it from.”
The older couple smiled at her and Jonathon felt like everything was going to go very well for all of them. He might not have seen his parents in two years, but he had certainly kept in touch, telling them where he was and how he was doing, sharing some of his adventure stories with them as he traveled around the United States, but he had not told them about Janis at all; it had happened so fast, right before he had left New York, and he had wanted to keep it a secret until he got to them, so they could hear the news in person, rather than over the phone.
They talked for a long while, discussing places that Jonathon had been to on his long, adventurous trip around the country, and then he looked at both of his parents and asked, “So what’s been going on here? Anything change? Any news at all? You two never tell me what’s going on here.” He laughed.
His mother pursed her lips and shook her head. “No, dear, nothing has really happened here at all.”
Keith looked at her and caught her eyes and she shook her head almost imperceptibly, and then he smiled broadly at his son and lowered his brow, “Well, Harold Kemp became the sheriff, which I was none too pleased about, but that has been about it.”
Jonathon shook his head and smiled. “I’ve kind of missed the simplicity of small town life. It’ll be nice to be home. I’m looking forward to seeing most of the folks in town,” he said as he stood up and stretched.
“Well, we had a long day traveling, we should get to bed for a nap and then we can get up for dinner in a while,” he said with a yawn.
His parents stood up and he looked at his mother. “Mom, we’ll need to put Janis in one of the guest rooms, please.”
His mother looked at him in surprise. “In a guest... oh... uh, certainly!” she smiled and led Janis down the hall to the nicest of the guest rooms where she got her settled and showed her where everything was, and then she came back out to her son who was waiting patiently for her.
He was hopeful that they would like her, and he looked at his mother in anticipation as she came back into the kitchen.
“Is she settled in, Mom?” he asked hopefully.
His mother nodded and smiled a little. “She is. Why isn’t she staying with you in your room?” she asked curiously. “I mean, if you’re getting married...”
Jonathon cleared his throat. “Well, she’s a traditional girl, so she wants to wait until after we’re married to share a room and a bed.”
Eva and Keith both looked at him in amazement.
“Well my goodness! I haven’t seen a girl like that in a long time. I’m so pleased!” his mother said with a wide smile.
“Do you like her?” Jonathon asked his parents with hope in his heart.
They nodded, almost in unison. “She’s a lovely girl. I’m sure she’ll fit in here nicely.”
He hugged them both. “Thank you, Mom and Dad; you two are the best. I couldn’t ask for more understanding, compassionate, loving parents, than you both.”
They hugged him back, and his mother held him tightly. “I’m just so relieved to have you back here in our home with us,” she said as another tear rolled down her cheek.
He shook his head. “I won’t leave again,” he said. “This is where my family is, and nothing is more important to me than my family.”
Chapter3
Maggie walked slowly up the sunny sidewalk, looking in the windows of the shops as she walked, waving to people she knew, and talking to her daughter Carly who was sitting in the stroller in front of her, babbling and waving to everyone around her as they went along.
It was a nice day; peaceful, slow moving, with not much going on at all, and Maggie was thinking about taking Carly to play in the park when a couple walked out of a restaurant and stood on the sidewalk right in front of her and Carly.
She stared for a moment, unable to believe it, but then she gasped as the realization hit her and she said his name with almost more emotion and anguish than she could bear.
“Jonathon? Jonathon Tanner?” she breathed as she stared at him.
He turned to her and the moment he saw her, he recognized her; her stunning beauty, her sea green eyes, her full sweet lips, the elegant curve of her neck and her graceful body. He felt his heart skip two beats and begin to pound in his chest as memories of the last night he saw her flashed through his mind and heated electricity shot through him.
“I can’t believe it!” he exclaimed happily as he took a step toward her, his eyes feasting on her. “I can’t believe you’re here!” he said excitedly.
She stared at him in shock and shook her head. “I can’t believe that you’re finally here!” she replied, and then her shock began to give way to deep anger.
He missed the anger at first as he grinned and spoke to her. “I thought you were going back to California to graduate school and go work for that earth company!” he said with a smile and then he turned to the slim blonde beside him who had been so still that she could have easily passed for a mannequin.
“Maggie, this is Janis, my fiancée, Janis, this is my friend Maggie. My inspiration and muse, actually; it was because of her that I ever left to go on my wild adventure. She believed in me when no one else did and told me to go for it, and I did, and now here we all are!” he grinned.
“Why are you still here?” he asked Maggie with some surprise.
She stared at him and felt hot anger rising up in her, but not wanting to explode on him and cause a scene in front of anyone around them, especially her baby girl, she lowered her voice and spoke in a low and bitter tone. “I couldn’t go back, Jonathon, because I was too busy trying to make ends meet here while I went through my pregnancy alone and then had to raise our daughter by myself. What, did you think that I could just go back to school on my own and take care of all of my classes and work, and graduate and then get hired on at the company while I was pregnant and having a baby? What the hell is your problem anyway? How could you do this to me, and especially to her? Your own daughter, Jonathon! How could you walk away from your own daughter?”
Her voice was vicious and filled with pain as she was finally able to stand before him and voice all of the hurt and loneliness she had felt over the two years he had been gone. Two years in which she had found out she was pregnant on her own, gone through the whole pregnancy alone, then had their daughter alone, crying sometimes at night, wishing for some sort of release, wishing for some sort of justice and help, for some support. Every day that she raised her daughter, though, she knew that Carly was the greatest blessing of her life, but every day she felt as if she was just that much further from her dream of graduation, which had been put on hold, just like everything else in her life had been put on hold for the sweet baby girl sitting in the stroller in front of her.
Jonathon stared at her, feeling the full force of her anger and emotion, frozen in shock as his eyes drifted from her down to the stroller at her feet and the little girl, just over a year old, who was looking up at him with his own blue eyes, his mother’s blue eyes, and clapping happily at him as she waved her little hand at him and laughed.
He stared at the baby. She had soft dark brown curls of hair, the same color as his, and she had his eyes, but she had her mother’s skin and her mother’s beauty. She was unequivocally the most beautiful baby he had eve
r seen. She squealed at him and his heart began to thud heavily in his chest.
Jonathon slowly raised his eyes to meet Maggie’s eyes. “You must be kidding... I... this is my... this is our...?”
Maggie glared at him through narrowed eyes. “This is our daughter, you know, the one you didn’t want anything to do with?” She shook her head at him in disgust.
He looked at her in confusion. “What do you mean the one I didn’t want anything to do with? Maggie, why didn’t you ever tell me? Why have you kept this a secret from me?”
She clamped her mouth shut and gritted her teeth, her eyes wide on him for a moment and then she closed her eyes and breathed deeply as he moved toward her and watched her closely, looking down at their daughter every few moments.
“How dare you! I didn’t keep this a secret from you, Jonathon! I went to your ranch, I went to your parents and told them about her, and about us, and they kicked me out and told me that you didn’t ever want to see me again, and that you never wanted to see this baby! They said you wanted nothing to do with us and I believed them because I haven’t ever seen you since you left me in my bed! You’ve been gone two years and all of a sudden you just walk out of a restaurant here and now you’re standing here acting like you don’t know what’s going on? Are you serious?” She was livid. Her hands were clenched tightly around the handle of the stroller and she shook her head in deep anger at him, amazed at his gall.
Jonathon was floored. “What are you talking about? I left to go travel around the country like you said I ought to do, and I just got back yesterday! My parents have never said one word to me about you or about this baby! I didn’t even know that you were still in town or that this little girl even existed... that I had a... a daughter...” he said as tears stung his eyes and he looked down at her, shaking his head and slowly kneeling in front of her.
The Baby Shower Page 81