He reached into his pocket and pulled out a thick envelope and handed it to her. “It’s not much, not nearly what I think you ought to have, but it’s at least going to help you and it will compensate you for much of what you’ve had to spend and do alone.”
She looked at him quizzically as she took the envelope and then gasped as she opened it up to find a solid stack of hundred dollar bills inside it. Maggie’s eyes shot up to his face and he looked at her solemnly.
“It doesn’t make up for me being gone, but at least it will help. You’re going to have regular funding from me. I’ll make sure that you are both well taken care of. I just... I just want to make sure that I’m going to be able to be a part of Carly’s life. I want to see her all the time and be a parent with you. Is that going to be a possibility?” he asked, looking at her a little anxiously.
She nodded, amazed that he had handed her as much money as he had. She was fairly sure that she hadn’t yet spent that amount of money on her daughter, not even from the day she was born, but she knew she would be. The small smile on her face grew into a wide one, and she shook her head at Jonathon.
“This is incredible! Thank you so much... thank you for helping, thank you for wanting to be part of her life, and for being here for me. I can’t tell you what this means to me, and what it will mean to her. Of course you can see her any time you like, and I would be so glad to have you help out raising her.”
He grinned back at Maggie. “That’s the best news I’ve ever had. Thank you.” He laughed a little.
She tilted her head and looked at him. “So, where have you been all this time? You just vanished for two whole years. Where did you go?” she wondered, looking at him with incredulity.
He grinned. “Well, I left here, of course, but the really ironic thing is that I left because of you; because you inspired me to leave. I told you what I had told my parents, my friends, a couple of my teachers in school and some other folks around here—that I wanted to go explore the country, and all of them had always told me not to go, or not to bother, or just that it wasn’t a good idea. They said I had responsibilities here, they said my future was here, they said there wasn’t anything for me out in the world. They all held me back, held me down, and tried to bind my winds... but you, you were the only one who ever acted like it was a possibility. You were the only one who ever said ‘just go’ and made it sound like it was so easy to just get on a bus and leave, and it was!”
His eyes seemed to glaze over as he looked back in his mind to the night they’d met. “You and I, we had that incredible night... and that was the best night of my life. It still is, although now it is for more reasons... because that’s the night we made Carly, but after you and I were together that night, and you told me what you did not only about yourself but about me going, well, I could barely sleep and every moment that passed made it seem more real and possible, and I just decided to go. Right then. I left here, went home and packed a bag, and got on the first bus headed out of town that morning.”
Jonathon laughed and shook his head. “I was gone before the sun came up, and I didn’t look back. I went out to the coast, up to Washington, and went into Canada for a while, and then came back down through Seattle, all the way down the coast. Sometimes working, sometimes just relaxing and playing, and I stayed on the coast for months, going bit by bit through the redwoods and San Francisco down to Los Angeles until I got all the way down to San Diego and Tijuana, and then I went through Las Vegas, but I didn’t stay there very long. I went through the whole southern part of the country, from New Mexico all the way across the south to Florida, and then checked out Florida and the Florida Keys and the Caribbean. Then I made my way up the east coast, through the Carolinas to the capital, and then through Philadelphia up to New York and then even Boston and Maine. I had just gotten back to New York and been there for a few months when I met Janis, and we started dating. Then I told her I was coming back to Wyoming and she just couldn’t stand the thought of losing me. She said she wanted to come with me and stay out here with me. I told her I wasn’t likely to leave again and she still insisted, but she’s a traditional girl, so I asked her to marry me and she said yes right away, and then we came back, and now here we are.” He watched Carly playing on the floor and smiled at her.
“I just can’t stand it though,” he said a little more solemnly, “that it was you who gave me my wings and then I tied you down without knowing it, clipping your wings while you were already in flight. It’s such a cruel irony.” He frowned a little and took her hand in his, feeling her warmth, and as he touched her, he felt the electricity that first moved him the night they met, and it began to tingle through him, making him catch his breath as he looked at her.
“Have... have my parents ever seen her?” he asked curiously.
Maggie shook her head. “No, they made it clear that I didn’t ever need to go back out there, and I know Jackson is a small town, but we haven’t ever crossed paths again.”
Jonathon nodded and lifted her hand to his lips, kissing it gently. “I loved our night together, and I would have loved going through your pregnancy with you, and being there to see her be born. In fact,” he laughed just a little, “there’s no second guessing fate, but I probably would have wound up with you.” He shook his head and her eyes that had been locked on his handsome face looked away.
“Please don’t say that. It’s hard enough that I had to do it alone without hearing something like that from you. Especially now,” she said softly.
He nodded and let her hand go. “I’m sorry. I do just want the best for the both of you.” He spoke in a quiet voice. Then he stood up and walked to his daughter, picking her up and holding her for a few long moments, kissing her cheek and talking softly with her, and then he handed her to Maggie.
“I’m going to go home and talk to my parents and Janis. There’s a lot to work out,” he said, and then he pulled his cell phone from his pocket. “Could I get a photo of you two?” he asked with a smile.
Maggie grinned and nodded at him. “Sure!” she said as she held Carly in her arms and they blew a kiss at the camera. He snapped the photo and grinned at it. “It’s great! Thanks! Now I can show her off.” He winked at Maggie.
“I’ll come by again soon. Here’s my phone number. If you need anything at all, you call me,” he said seriously. She took it and felt a huge rush of relief wash through her. She wasn’t going to have to raise her daughter on her own at all. She was going to be able to have him there to help her the whole time, and she knew without a doubt that he meant it.
Everything in her whole world was changing so fast, and it was incredible to her. Carly was going to have the life she should have, with both of her parents, and it was all going to work out.
Jonathon hugged Maggie as he was leaving, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close to him, and as he did, he felt stirrings of the chemistry between them; the air seemed charged and warm and as he leaned close to her and kissed her cheek, he paused for a moment, almost wanting to kiss her mouth as well. She felt the same things he did, and as she kissed his cheek back, feeling his lips on her skin and his breath on her neck, she closed her eyes for a moment and then told herself to let it go.
He stepped back and smiled at her and then waved at Carly, heading out the door with a serious look over his shoulder to them. “I’ll be back soon,” he promised, and he meant it.
Chapter4
Janis strolled into the great room on the main floor of the ranch and found Eva and Keith sitting on the sofa talking about Jonathon. She smiled at them both in admiration and they smiled back and asked her to sit down.
“It’s so wonderful to finally get to meet you both and be here with you. He talks about you both all the time and tells everyone so many good things about you. I felt like I knew you both and cared about you before I ever even met you!” she said with her wide smile.
“I’m so glad that Jonathon and I are engaged.” A dreamy look came over her face
. “He’s so wonderful; I didn’t know that there were men like him out there, you know, good, honest, hardworking men, and now I can easily see where he gets it from; both of you are just like that too. I never met anyone like him, or like both of you. So warm and welcoming; so loving. You both have been so kind to bring me into your family as you have. You remind me of my own parents,” she said and her smile became sad and she wiped at her eyes, dabbing them gently. “It’s like being with family,” she said pointedly.
Keith blinked at her. “Well, you are marrying our son. You are family, now.”
“Are your parents all right?” Eva asked with concern in her voice.
Janis looked over at her and shook her head. “No, they’re having such a hard time right now. My father is struggling with cancer, and the bills are just too much for them. They’re living in Costa Rica and the medical care there just isn’t going to help him make it through. They were telling me just this morning that they are going to have to sell our family home there to have money for Dad and move back up to our house in the states. I’m so devastated. I spent half my life in that home, all my summers as a child and as a teenager. It’s so awful to think of it going to someone else, and it’s so beautiful, I know it will sell quickly to some stranger, and our family will lose it. I just wish there was some way to keep it; I wanted mine and Jonathon’s children to be able to spend summers there as well, and both of you with us, you know, big family summers together, or winters, if you wanted to go somewhere warm and sunny and get out of the cold snow and ice here, but now... now it’s going to be gone.” She began to weep softly and Keith and Eva shared a glance.
Keith cleared his throat. “Well, did your parents put it on the market yet? What does the place look like?” he asked hesitantly.
Janis looked up at them with wide blue eyes, wet with tears. She smiled a little. “Oh, Dad,” she said, using the term for the first time with him. “It’s such a beautiful place. Just look at this!” She pulled out her tablet and in a second there were photos displayed on it. She went and stood behind them as they were seated on the sofa and handed the tablet to them, showing them for a moment how to move back and forth between the photos.
The images they were looking at showed a palatial estate with huge towering trees around it, grounds covered in jungle plants and flowers, creeks and stones, and a massive home of wood, stone, and glass that overlooked a gorgeous beach and sat at the base of giant green mountains that reached up into the sky.
“That’s the private beach for the house; I used to swim in the sea there with the turtles and play in the sand. I wanted Jonathon’s babies to play there as well, growing up like I did, loving nature so much.”
She let them flip through the photos more, showing every single aspect and room of the incredible home. “That’s the indoor pool and it connects to the outdoor pool with a little river. There’s a waterfall here that spills into the outdoor pool. Well... I guess it’s not little,” she said with a smile.
Eva and Keith looked at all of the photos and their eyes grew bigger and bigger as they did. In one image, there was a photo of Janis with two older people who looked very happy.
“Are these your parents, dear?” Eva asked, looking at them.
“Yes, that’s them. Poor Dad, he’s so depressed that he has to leave his home there. We worked so hard to build it up into what it is.” She sighed unhappily.
Keith looked at Eva and Eva nodded. Then he motioned for Janis to come and sit beside them on the sofa.
“How much are your folks asking for this place?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Only a tenth of its value; they have to sell it as quickly as possible to get Dad back up to the states so he can begin to get the care he needs. They’re only asking two million for it.”
Keith blinked at her and then turned and looked at Eva and Eva bit her lip. They had a silent conversation, as only people who have been in love and been married for decades can do.
He asked her with his eyes and she agreed with hers.
Then they looked at Janis. “Janis, what would your parents say to us buying this property and then we could at least keep it in the family, and you and Jonathon could have it, like you wanted to? We certainly wouldn’t mind being down there in the winter time; it gets mighty cold up here in the winter, and as we’ve gotten older, it’s been tougher on our bodies each year. We’ve been talking about becoming snow birds.”
Janis’ eyes grew wide and her hands flew to her mouth. “Oh! Really?!” she gasped, and then grinned, but her grin slipped into a sad frown. “I don’t know if there’s enough time, we’d have to have the money within a week. There’s another land owner down there who wants it to turn it into a tourist resort, since the property is so big and it’s on the beach.”
Keith didn’t flinch. “We can get the money within a week. He won’t get it. Tell your folks that we can buy it from them and help them out. That’s what you do for family, you know, you help them out.”
She bit her lip. “Oh, I hope Mom and Dad haven’t already told him he could have it,” she said, looking enormously worried.
Keith grew serious. “I’ll call the bank in the morning. You call your folks and have them save that place for us, and we’ll buy it as fast as we can.”
She went to them and hugged them both tightly. “Oh Mom! Oh Dad! Thank you so much!” She wept happily. “This means so much to me!”
They smiled and hugged her back, and she stood up. “I’m going to go call Mom and Dad right now to let them know. Thank you!” She left her tablet with them and rushed off down the hall, and just then, the front door opened and Jonathon came in, closing it behind him.
“Mom? Dad?” he asked and then walked into the great room, finding them sifting through photos of the Costa Rica property.
They looked up at him and smiled until they saw the look on his face.
“Mom... Dad...” he sat down near them and they frowned slightly.
“What is it?” his mother asked.
“I found out some surprising news and I just can’t believe that the two of you have done what you have done. There was a girl who came to you just after I left, and she told you that she was going to have my baby. She said that you two told her I didn’t ever want to see her again and that I wanted nothing at all to do with the child, and you two never said a word to me about her coming here or about her being pregnant. Is all of that true?”
He looked at them with pain and anger in his eyes and spoke with a strained voice.
His mother’s mouth fell open slightly and she looked surprised. “There was a girl who came here a couple of months after you left, and she tried to tell us she was pregnant with your baby, but there was just no way that could have been possible, because you had been gone so long. We knew she was lying, and we thought she was just a girl trying to pin an unfortunate circumstance on you, not knowing that you’d left. You’re a popular man in this town, son, and any girl could make a claim like that. We didn’t want her to try and pin it on you, because we knew she was trying to use you when there was no way you could be the father. She had to have gotten pregnant after you left. She’d have been further along than she said she was. Don’t you worry son, we had you well taken care of. She hasn’t been back since.”
He stared at them, shaking his head in disbelief. “You were wrong,” he said as he became choked up with emotion. “I was with her the night I left. She did have my baby. I saw her in town and I saw my daughter, who is now just over a year old. She looks just like me, and she has my eyes. She has your eyes, mom. I would have come straight home, I would have been right back here helping her raise my baby if I had known, but you two turned her away and never said a word about it to me.” He shook his head at them and handed them his cell phone, showing them the picture he had taken of Maggie and Carly.
His parents stared at it as if they were looking at a ghost. “Oh my god,” his mother said as her hand went to her mouth and she looked at the image. “Tha
t’s her... that’s the girl... and that’s....”
“That’s your granddaughter. The one you turned away and told never to come back The one you blocked me from knowing about or seeing. I have a responsibility to that baby, and to her mother, and I want them in my life. I owe them everything. She had to go through her pregnancy alone, through the birth alone, and she has had to raise that child for the last year all on her own. She gave up finishing her degree, and she has missed out on a great job that she was working so hard for, because she had to get a job and work to support herself and the baby, and all the while I was out running around the country because the two of you turned her away. I can’t recapture that time that I’ve lost with my daughter, and I can’t make it up to her mother, but I’m going to spend the rest of my daughter’s life trying. If there’s one thing you two have taught me above all else, it’s that family matters, well, they are my family, and they are your family, and you should know it.” He watched them intently and they both went pale and looked immeasurably miserable.
His mother’s eyes filled with tears and his father looked away from the image in utter shame. Eva looked up at her son and shook her head.
“I didn’t know... I was sure she was lying. The timing was just too close...” she looked back down at the image. “I have a... a granddaughter!” she exclaimed as she began to smile and shake her head. “She’s beautiful!”
Keith sighed. “I’m so sorry, son. There is no way your mother and I can ever make up this mistake, but we are going to do our best to try. There’s no excuse or apology that can make it right, but we will go forward from this doing all we can to make it right and to be a part of that baby’s life. Can you... can you forgive us son?” he asked in a small voice.
The Baby Shower Page 83