The Bachelor's Sweetheart

by Jean C. Gordon

  Josh grabbed Tessa’s hand without a thought of all the people watching and sucked in a breath as Hope eyed the goal and held the attention of the other team’s goalkeeper. Then Hope gave the ball a sharp kick to the right, passing off to her friend Sophia, one of the substitute players. Sophia slammed it into the right corner of the net. Half the bleachers went wild, and Tessa hugged him and jumped up and down. Anyone who didn’t already see them as a couple before would now, and that didn’t bother him a bit—at least not at the moment.

  The ref waited until the crowd quieted and restarted the clock at forty-five seconds. The opposing team kicked off. With the ball halfway down the field, the timer went off.

  “We won!” The Hazardtown Hornets raced off the field and circled Tessa and Josh, Hope, Owen and a few others hugging their legs.

  “What did I tell you before the season started?” Josh shouted to the mini melee surrounding him.

  “That we’re champions!” the kids shouted back.

  “And you are, each and every one of you,” Tessa said, surveying the circle.

  Josh’s heart nearly burst when he noticed that she spent an extra moment on the second-string players. Tessa was so beautiful inside and out.

  “Line up, guys,” Josh said. “Let’s show the Tops Tigers they were worthy opponents.”

  The team walked out, formed a line adjacent to the Tigers’ line and started walking down shaking their opponents’ hands.

  “Good game.” The opposing coach—someone neither Josh nor Tessa had met before soccer season—walked over and shook their hands. “The dark-haired girl. She your daughter?” he asked Josh. “She looks like a pip.”

  Josh felt a tug to claim Hope as his. “No, my little sister, and she is a pip.”

  “Get you next year,” the other coach said.

  “We’ll take that as a challenge.”

  “Congratulations.” Connor and his father slapped Josh on the back, distracting him from the direction his thoughts were straying, to next year and Tessa.

  “You and Tessa make a great coaching team,” his father added.

  Josh flung his arm over Tessa’s shoulders. “Did you expect any less?”

  His father’s quiet “No,” sent Josh’s thoughts back to Tessa, the future and the kids. Maybe, like his brothers, he did have the whole marriage, kids and happily-ever-after somewhere deep inside him.

  “Hey, team, everyone.” Josh caught the kids before they started leaving. “What do you say you check with your parents and see if you can meet Coach Tessa and me at the soft serve stand on Paradox Lake for an ice cream cone? My treat.”

  “Yay!” they shouted as they took off to ask their parents.

  Josh glanced at Tessa talking with his father. The absence of the knee-jerk protectiveness he usually felt anytime his father got near her startled him. He took off his ball cap, ran his hand over his hair and replaced the cap. He’d mull over the meaning of that and his earlier thoughts later when he’d come down from the rush of the past couple of weeks and his head was clear. For today, he’d assume his usual carefree MO and just enjoy himself.

  * * *

  “Tessa, you want to go for coffee?” Jerry Donnelly caught up with her as she left the Elizabethtown meeting Thursday night.

  Her gaze darted to the open door of the empty Al-Anon meeting room, searching for Josh. Tessa wasn’t looking for any surprises like the last time she’d been to the meeting here, not when things between her and Josh were going so well. They’d worked on the stage construction every evening this week. Today he’d texted that he had to work late. She’d told him that was fine. She’d work on the wall taping with Myles and they could catch up on Saturday when all three of them were there. Then, this afternoon, she’d been overwhelmed by an ominous feeling that everything was going too well and had called Maura, who’d suggested a meeting.

  “Coffee—well, tea for me—would be good,” she said. “Anyone else coming?”

  “No. I have something I wanted to talk over with you. I’ll meet you there.”

  Over the short driving distance to the diner, Tessa’s mind wouldn’t stop trying to second-guess why Jerry wanted to talk with her. It kept circling around to Josh. He hadn’t said anything to her, but last Saturday at the game, he and his father had seemed to have come to some kind of truce. Tessa wasn’t sure she could talk with Jerry about Josh, not without violating Josh’s trust, and she wouldn’t do that. Her loyalty was with Josh.

  Jerry met her at the door and, when they were inside, asked for seating in a booth in the back. She slowly followed him to the booth, stopping to acknowledge some of the other people from the meeting along the way. She slid in across from him.

  “What’s up?”

  He unwrapped flatware and arranged it on the table in front of him. “We live nearby, attend the same meetings...”

  Tessa relaxed. This wasn’t about Josh at all. Jerry probably wanted to share rides to meetings, or it could be something about the garage painting. But the painting was done, and her grandmother had been the one who’d hired him, not her.

  “What can I get you tonight?” the waitress asked.

  “I’ll have tea,” Tessa said.

  “Coffee for me, and was that strawberry-rhubarb pie I saw on the way in?”

  “Yes, it was.”

  “I’ll take a slice.”

  The waitress added the pie to their order. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Josh is a fan of strawberry-rhubarb pie, too,” Tessa said.

  “So is Jared,” Jerry said. “Edna makes the best.”

  “Yeah, she gave me her recipe to make one for Josh. But you didn’t ask me here to talk about pie.”

  “No.” Jerry leaned back in the booth so the waitress could place his coffee and pie on the table. “You know my sponsor lives in Saranac Lake.”

  She didn’t, but nodded anyway to see where he was going.

  “He thinks it would be a good move for me to have a sober support buddy closer.”

  “You’re looking for suggestions?” Tessa’s mind inventoried the guys she knew who attended the meetings she and Jerry did. “I know you and Ray are old friends, but he’s probably too recently sober.”

  Jerry sliced the tip off his pie and moved it around the plate. “I have someone in mind.”

  “And you want my input,” Tessa said, as if she could reroute where she thought he was going.

  “Tessa, I don’t want input. My sponsor suggested you. I’m asking you if you’d consider being my sober support.” He raised his hand to stop her from saying anything yet. “I admire you and your sobriety. We live minutes away from each other. Hey, we’re almost family,” he joked.

  That was a big almost. And with Josh seeming to think he needed to protect her from his father, spending time with Jerry wasn’t the way to draw her and Josh closer.

  “I meant you and Josh coaching Hope’s team...and everything.”

  Her face must have given away her uncertainty about being his sober support and about her and Josh.

  “Think about it,” he said. “I don’t need to know right away.”

  “I will.” And pray hard. She finished her tea in silence. “I’d better get going. I’ve got to be over to the Majestic bright and early so Myles and I can get in some work on the renovations before showtime.”

  “How are they coming?”

  “Pretty good, except Josh found carpenter ant damage, and that means we need to replace the stage. Myles and I tore out the old one while Josh was in Boston, and Josh and Myles and I have been building the new one this week.”

  “That’s tough. Your grandmother said you wanted to be set to open the dinner theater Memorial Day weekend.”

  “Barring any more unforeseen delays, we should be able to.”

  “
Before you go,” Jerry said, “let me give you my phone number, so you can get back to me when you decide about the sober support.”

  Tessa pulled out her phone. “Ready.” He rattled off the number and she punched it in her contacts. “I’ll be talking to you.”

  “Maybe I’ll swing by tomorrow and take a look at the work you’ve done at the theater when I pick up the paint your grandmother let me store in her garage.”

  “Sure.” Not that it should matter, although somehow it did, Josh had a rush project he had to finish at GreenSpaces so only she and Myles would be there.

  When Tessa got home, her first thought was to call Josh. He was her usual go-to person for decisions. But he wasn’t exactly a bipartisan sounding board for his father’s sober support request.

  “Is that you, Tessa?” her grandmother called from upstairs.

  A nervous giggle bubbled up inside her. What would her grandmother say if she replied, No, it’s a burglar who jimmied the lock and let myself in. She took a calming breath. “Yeah, it’s me.”

  “Okay, see you in the morning.” Tessa checked the back door, shut off the lights and went up to bed.

  After a restless night that three cups of coffee with her breakfast didn’t wipe out, Tessa dragged herself to the Majestic at eight o’clock. From the sidewalk, she spotted Myles and Kaitlyn ready and waiting by the back door. She frowned. Not to throw cold water on young love or turn down free labor, but she hoped Kaitlyn wasn’t staying. Wednesday when she’d come by after classes ostensibly to help Tessa and Myles, the girl had spent most of the time acting helpless and asking Myles to “show me how.”

  “Hi, guys,” Tessa said.

  Myles turned and she saw his right arm in a cast held by a sling.

  “What happened to you?”

  “After last night’s movie, Kaitlyn and I went over to the school field where some of the guys were playing midnight football.” Myles spoke to his feet. “I kind of tripped and fell and broke my arm.”

  “Trespassing. Playing ball in the dark. What were you thinking?”

  He shrugged. “It sounded like fun when the guys texted me.”

  “You’re okay?”

  “Well, it’s broken and will be in a cast for at least four weeks. Kaitlyn drove me over to see what we can do together to help. I know you’re on a tight time frame for the opening and all.”

  Tight was right—only sixteen days until the scheduled opening on Memorial Day. Tessa thought about the advertising she’d already started and paid for and the reservations she’d taken for opening night, not to mention the food arrangements and local players she’d hired. They wanted to do at least the dress rehearsal at the theater.

  “No, that’s okay,” she said. She could probably get more done on her own. “I’ll talk with Josh, and we’ll come up with something”

  “I’m really sorry,” Myles said.

  “I know. Take care.” Tessa let herself in, walked over to one of the theater seats and dropped into it. What was she going to do? Myles had come up short on any friends looking for work, except Kaitlyn.

  “Tessa?” The morning sun lit a male silhouette in the doorway. She jerked to her feet. She hadn’t even heard the door open.

  “The door was ajar. I thought I’d better check it,” Jerry said, as her eyes focused him in. “What are you doing sitting in the dark?”

  “Getting my work crew—me—ready to start.” She walked back to the door and reached past Jerry to flick the light switches on.

  “I thought Myles was helping you.”

  “He managed to break his arm last night, horsing around with his friends.”

  “Oops. I don’t have anything lined up for today if you want me to stick around and help you.”

  “I can’t pay you.”

  “I didn’t ask you to. Think of it as my giving back to the community.”

  She considered the progress she and Josh had been able to make on the stage Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings and how much was left to do. Josh might not like it, but it wasn’t Josh’s theater. “When you put it that way, how can I refuse?”

  “I don’t have any work lined up during the day next week, either, just a painting gig Friday evening.”

  Tessa weighed whether to see Jerry’s work today first against the way that might sound to Jerry and the need to get the job done. “You’ve got work now,” she said.

  His return grin, so much like Josh’s, hit her with a double shot of relief and apprehension.

  Working with Jerry was a lot like working with Josh. It made her wonder if some of the friction between them was because they were too much alike. She gazed at Jerry measuring and remeasuring the lumber for the stair risers before making a cut. Except for alcohol, and maybe there, too. As far as she knew, Josh never drank, hadn’t even experimented with it as a teen. Could it be he subconsciously sensed it was a weakness in him, or did she want that to be the case so he could understand her and his father?

  “Want a drink?” she asked near quitting time when the buzz of the circular saw Jerry was using stopped.

  Jerry looked up and blinked.

  “A soft drink. I can go out to the lobby and get us each a cup. Then why don’t we call it a day?”

  “Sounds good.” He pulled the saw plug from the wall. “Make mine a large cola.”

  “Got it.”

  A couple of minutes later, Tessa pushed the inside theater door in with her hip and turned to see Jerry and Josh facing off on the dining floor.

  * * *

  “What are you doing here?” Josh demanded.

  “Helping me,” Tessa said.

  Josh looked toward the back of the theater to see her tearing down the center aisle juggling two large cups. “Where’s Myles?”

  Tessa brushed by him and handed his father one of the cups. His father nodded thanks.

  “I’d guess Myles is home nursing his broken arm,” she said.

  “Myles broke his arm? How?” Concern drained some of the protective outrage he’d felt at expecting to surprise Tessa with an offer to pick up burgers before showtime tonight, and seeing his father instead.

  “Tessa, I’m going,” his father said.

  “I’ll see you Monday at eight,” Tessa said.

  His father tapped the brim of his cap.

  “What’s that about?” Josh asked. “A meeting?” He hated the way the last two words came out as almost a snarl. If only it wasn’t his father who’d stepped in to help Tessa today. So much for the absence of malice he experienced at the game last week.

  “Your father’s free during the day next week and volunteered to help me here. He told me to think of it as giving back to the community.”

  “Do you think that’s wise?” Josh asked. More amends. The old man was grasping that with two hands, not that he didn’t owe a lot of people around here.

  “What do you mean? You can see how much we got done today.”

  Josh looked at the completed work. Yes, that was the problem. All he could think of was that his father could give Tessa a full day’s work every day and he could only give her a couple hours an evening and Saturdays. And, with today as an example, he couldn’t guarantee Saturdays. Josh tried, but couldn’t crush the feeling that the theater was his and Tessa’s project. The feeling that his father was taking it from him as he’d taken much of his childhood by abdicating his family responsibilities, leaving Josh and Jared to shoulder them.

  “It’ll take some of the pressure off you,” she said. “You know with the new job in the wings and getting all your drafting projects completed.”

  He could live with the pressure to get more time with Tessa. “I still have those vacation days scheduled. I can run them by Anne again.”

  Tessa’s face lit with surprise, as if she knew what he was
offering. But then she said, “Thanks, but your new job comes first. Jerry and I can handle things.”

  His job had always come first, until now, and she was brushing that off with a thanks, but your father is just as good. Maybe he—or anyone—was in this case. Josh had always focused on his job, his career and making money flipping houses. He was on solid ground there, knew he was good at what he did. As for relationships, he’d never gotten past mastering the superficial. Tessa knew that as well as he did. His logic told him it was time to step back into the friend zone and do some reconnaissance, while the rest of him wanted to be the white knight swooping in to rescue Tessa and her theater project.

  “Okay.” Josh gestured with one hand. “Here it is. I don’t want you to depend on my father and be disappointed when he doesn’t show and the work falls behind.”

  “I don’t think I will be.” Tessa touched his arm. “Your picture of him is too colored by the past. I know him as he is now.”

  She thought she knew his father better than he did? He wanted to laugh and shake off her hand, but pathetically he couldn’t give up the reassuring warmth. Nor could he bear to hurt her with the truth she wouldn’t accept. “I have a bad feeling about you spending so much time with him.”

  She drew back her hand, leaving a cold spot beneath his flannel shirtsleeve where she’d touched him. “Sit with me.” She led him to one of the tables. “I like your father. He reminds me of you in some ways.”

  Josh bit his tongue to not interrupt. He was nothing like his father. He’d built his life on not being like his father.

  “We work together well, like you and I do. He understands my past in a way that I’m not sure you do.” She stopped and looked at him, her dark eyelashes framing her warm gaze. “I know you’re trying to.”

  He thought he did understand.

  “He respects me and what I’ve accomplished.”

  “You don’t think I respect you?” Josh didn’t care that he let the hurt show in his voice. “You’re the most beautiful, talented, compassionate woman I’ve ever known.”

  Tessa blushed. “I meant about my addiction. He asked me to be his sober support buddy.”