by Cindy Kirk
Because he was watching, Jonah saw the muscle jump in Abby’s jaw when his mother’s gaze dropped to Eva Grace’s feet, to the stylish high-tops decorated with unicorns and rainbows.
Not that Jonah blamed his mother. They’d learned through a friend who worked at the hospital that Eva Grace had been born with a meningocele and had undergone surgery after birth and spent time in the NICU.
That was all Jonah had known until he’d seen her bounce out of her chair with those cherry-red lips for Show and Share.
“Abby.” Nancy Rollins’s voice was thick with emotion. “This is a wonderful surprise.”
Nancy glanced at Jonah as if requesting information. He gave his head a barely perceptible shake. Now was not the time or place for that discussion.
“Hello, Nancy. Michael.” Abby reached down and took her daughter’s hand. “We were just leaving.”
Before she could make her exit, Eva Grace spoke.
“Hi. I’m Eva Grace Fine. What’s your name?”
Nancy crouched down so that she was at eye level with the child. “My name is Nancy. I’m Jonah’s mother.”
Eva Grace’s face brightened. “You gave him the clown.”
Nancy glanced at her son for clarification.
“Abby recognized the clown cookie jar.” Jonah rested a hand on his daughter’s shoulder in a gesture that had Abby shooting him a sharp look. “I mentioned my mother had given it to me.”
“When Jonah was a little boy, I always kept that jar filled with cookies.” Nancy offered a stony-faced Abby a smile before refocusing on Eva Grace. “Your mommy used to help me bake when she was not much older than you are now.”
The child’s eyes brightened as she looked to her mother for confirmation.
“That was a long time ago.” Abby squeezed her daughter’s hand. “Well, it’s been—”
“I’m Michael Rollins.” Jonah’s dad stepped forward and extended his hand to the child. “I’m Jonah’s dad.”
Eva Grace released her mother’s hand and put her small one in his. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Rollins.”
Jonah knew Abby had been working with her daughter on manners, and the girl’s flash of a smile nearly undid his father’s control. His Adam’s apple worked convulsively in his throat.
“It’s a pleasure.” Michael’s voice sounded rusty as if it hadn’t been used in ages. He cleared his throat. “You can call me—”
Though Jonah truly hoped his dad hadn’t planned to ask the child to call him “grandpa,” just to be sure, he shot him a warning glance.
“Michael,” his father said after a tense second.
“There’s a Michael in my class at school.” Eva Grace lowered her voice. “He can be mean sometimes.”
Michael blinked. Then the experience of raising four kids kicked in. “I’m not mean, but I can be silly.”
Eva Grace giggled. “I like you.”
The remark had his father clearing his throat once again. “I like you, too.”
“We really must be going.” Abby’s tone remained polite but distant.
She held out her hand to Eva Grace, but before the child could reach over and take it, Nancy wrapped her arms around Abby for a long second, then stepped back. “It’s so good to see you.”
Jonah held his breath, not sure how Abby would respond.
Her face remained carefully blank as she took her daughter’s hand, then turned to Jonah. “Don’t worry about taking us home. I can get an Uber.”
“I’m driving you. It will just take a few minutes.” Jonah spoke quickly when her eyes flashed dark fire. “Mom, Dad, make yourselves at home. Abby and Eva Grace live close. I won’t be long.”
Without waiting for his parents to answer, he ushered Abby and Eva Grace out the door. They were nearly to the elevator before Abby spoke through gritted teeth.
“This is absolutely unnecessary. You have guests.”
“Who are perfectly happy relaxing for a few minutes while I take you home.” When the elevator door opened, Jonah shifted his attention to Eva Grace. “You have good manners.”
Eva Grace nodded, her expression thoughtful. “You have a mommy and a daddy. I just have a mommy.”
Over the child’s head, Jonah exchanged a look with Abby. How the heck did he respond to that?
“I remember when the clown was in Nancy’s kitchen.” Abby touched a finger to her lips as if a thought had just popped into her head. “Do you know what kind of cookies she put in it?”
Eva Grace’s eyes brightened. “What kind?”
“Name your favorites.” Abby kept her tone light and had a half smile on her face as they made their way to Jonah’s truck. “I’ll tell you if she made them.”
As they rode the elevator to the parking garage, Eva Grace listed a plethora of cookies, though Jonah didn’t think for one minute that chocolate-chip-potato-chip cookies existed.
When he lifted a skeptical brow, the child only giggled.
Abby stopped short when they reached the truck. She smacked her hand against the side of her head. “Eva Grace needs a booster seat.”
Jonah opened a door and pointed to a high-backed booster in the back seat. “When I moved here, I hoped we’d be spending time together, so I picked one up just in case.”
“It’s red.” Eva Grace squealed at the red-and-black seat. The girl shifted her gaze to her mother. “It’s my favorite color.”
“It’s top rated,” Jonah assured Abby as he opened the back door and with quick, efficient movements latched the seat into place. He’d done his research.
“It’s the same brand I had in my Kia.”
Taking that as consent, Jonah stepped aside to let Eva Grace jump in. He turned to help her buckle in and realized she didn’t need his help.
“Thank you,” Abby said grudgingly. “That’s nice of you.”
He shot her a wink. “I’m a nice guy.”
Before Abby could respond, Eva Grace piped up from the back seat, “What kind of cookies is Jonah going to keep in his cookie jar?”
Jonah smiled, knowing this conversation could take them all the way home.
By the time he opened the door to his unit, barely fifteen minutes had passed. He found his mother and dad on the sofa, enjoying a glass of wine.
“I hope you don’t mind.” His father lifted a glass. “Your mom and I felt we needed it after the jolt.”
Jonah ambled to a nearby chair and dropped down. “I understand a little of what you’re going through. The first time I laid eyes on Eva Grace and then on Abby, well, I felt as if I’d been sucker punched.”
“She looks so much like you.” Nancy blinked back a sheen of tears and took a sip of wine. “She appears perfectly healthy.”
Why did that comment grate? Jonah wondered. Was it knowing that Eva Grace was the type of child Veronica had always wanted: pretty and smart with no physical defects? Was it that he knew if Veronica saw her now, she’d want her, when she hadn’t wanted her before?
“It’s only within the past six months that she got the braces off her legs.” Jonah lifted his father’s glass of wine from the table and gulped down half of it. “It’s been a long, hard haul for Abby.”
“Abby looks wonderful,” his mother said into the awkward silence that followed. “And Eva Grace’s outfit reminded me of something I wore when I was a little girl in the sixties.”
“Hazel Green bills itself as a place where history comes alive. The merchants all try to dress in the clothes of various decades to make it more fun for the tourists.” Jonah’s lips lifted into a smile. “Abby says it’s like playing dress-up every day.”
“I love that.” The tension seemed to leave his mother’s shoulders. “I remember well how much she and Jackie loved to play dress-up.”
“We talked about those days,” Jonah admitted.
“And apparently about the clown cookie jar,” his mother said.
“Does this mean that the two of you . . . ?” His father paused as if waiting for Jonah to finish th
e sentence.
“We’re taking things slow.” Jonah expelled a heavy breath. “She feels I let her down and—”
“Did she really expect you to go against your wife?” his mother asked.
“Yes,” Jonah said. “She expected me to stand by the child I helped make. In Abby’s mind, it wasn’t about me making a choice between her and Veronica as much as it was making a choice between killing my baby or standing by my wife.”
Nancy inhaled sharply. “You never advocated killing your baby.”
“Didn’t I?” Jonah stared down into the glass of wine he realized he still held in his hands. “Oh, I tried to talk Veronica into holding to our agreement. I knew I could handle whatever we had to face. But as we continued to discuss the matter, it was clear to me, Veronica couldn’t. That incident with her cousin’s baby dying when she was in the room nearly pushed her over the edge.”
“You seem to forget, based on information at the time, there was also a quality-of-life issue.” His father spoke in a low tone, his gaze steady on Jonah. “You made what you thought was the responsible choice.”
“The responsible choice in regard to Veronica.” Jonah surged to his feet, the emotions swirling inside him too violent to let him sit. “But what about my baby? What about Eva Grace?”
He began to pace the area in front of the fireplace. “If it wasn’t for Abby, that smart, funny little girl wouldn’t even be alive. It makes me sick to think of my actions.”
Jonah collapsed onto the chair. He raked a hand through his hair. “I’m not certain Abby will ever fully forgive me. I sure as hell will never forgive myself.”
The three of them sat without speaking for nearly a minute while the grandfather clock in the corner loudly ticked off each second. It felt like an eternity. Still, Jonah was grateful his parents didn’t fill the silence with platitudes.
Finally, his father spoke. “I know about regret. At least when it comes to battle.”
His dad had served two tours overseas as part of the Illinois National Guard. He rarely spoke of those months away from his family.
Nancy reached over and took her husband’s hand. Their fingers locked together.
“You look at all the intel and make your decision. Sometimes it works out. Sometimes it doesn’t.” His father expelled a ragged breath. “When you look back, you think, Why did I do that, why didn’t I . . . ?”
“Hindsight is always twenty-twenty.” His mother spoke in a soft, soothing tone.
Jonah knew his father had commanded men. He could tell by the look on his face that some of the decisions he’d made had resulted in loss of life. Loss of men and women he knew. Men and women with spouses and families waiting for them to come back home.
“How do you live with it?” Jonah could hear the anguish in the words. He took a breath and tried to bring his rioting emotions under control. Emotions that had been stirred up ever since he’d come to Hazel Green and first set eyes on Eva Grace and Abby.
“You get up in the morning and put one foot in front of the other.” His dad’s gaze met his. “What I’m trying to say is often there is no easy answer. Life forces you to move forward. If you live long enough and are brave enough to live fully, at one time or another, you’ll disappoint someone you love, or you’ll disappoint yourself. Sometimes both.”
His mother’s slender fingers tightened around his father’s broad ones. They were a working man’s hands. Despite owning a successful construction company, in addition to his management duties, Michael still worked alongside his crew every day.
He’d taught his sons and daughters the value of working hard for what you want and the value of doing an honest day’s labor.
“I want to make things right with Abby.”
“You will,” his mother assured him. “You’ll show her she can trust you not only with her emotions but with Eva Grace’s as well.”
Jonah nodded. The thought of what would happen if he couldn’t convince her had his insides jittering. He’d had enough of this conversation.
He did what had worked so well for Abby and changed the subject. “I didn’t realize you were coming to Hazel Green.”
“It was a last-second decision.” His mother smiled at her husband. “Michael is attending a two-day conference in Chicago specifically geared to owners of small to midsize construction companies. At the last minute, I convinced him to let me come along.”
His father brought their joined hands to his lips for a kiss. “It didn’t take any convincing. Having you along makes this more of a pleasure trip than business.”
“That’s so sweet.” Nancy’s face glowed with undisguised pleasure before she focused on Jonah. “I thought since we’d made the three-hour trek from Springfield, it would be extra special to pop in on you and check out your new surroundings.”
“I’m glad you did.”
“Since you’d relocated here in the hopes of getting to know your daughter, we thought we’d come. Well, when I saw Abby and”—Nancy’s voice trembled—“our granddaughter, it was a dream come true.”
They’d talked enough about Abby and Eva Grace for one evening. “Let’s talk about the next few days. I’d like you to stay here.”
His mom and dad exchanged glances.
“We have reservations at the Palmer House,” his father said, sounding unsure. “That’s where the conference is being held.”
“Why don’t you see if you can cancel the room?” Jonah’s voice turned persuasive. “It’s a short train ride into the city. One of the stops is within easy walking distance of your meetings. If mom wants to do some shopping, she can go into the city with you, then hop on the train and come back whenever she wants.”
“That’s fine with me if it’s okay with you, Michael.” Nancy shifted her gaze to her son. “I’d also love the chance to explore your new town.”
“I have to work but—” Jonah began.
His mother waved an airy hand. “I’m quite capable of finding my way.”
When Jonah turned to his father, he realized his dad was on the phone with the hotel. After a second, Michael clicked off and dropped the phone into his pocket. “The room is cancelled.”
“I’m so excited my hands are shaking.” His mother’s laugh reminded him of Eva Grace’s. “I’ve got the feeling this visit is going to be something special.”
Chapter Sixteen
“Do you have a table for me?” Abby paused at the hostess stand and surveyed the dining area.
Only a couple of tables were occupied. Because it was Tuesday and after one, most of the lunch crowd that visited Matilda’s had already been and gone.
“I always have a place for you.” Matilda straightened from behind the stand and smiled. “How did the volunteering go this morning?”
“It was fun. Eva Grace seemed to really enjoy having her mom helping out in her classroom.” Abby studied her friend in an informal “guess the decade” game they often played with each other.
Matilda’s foundation was a shade lighter than normal while her red lips were darker than usual. Her auburn hair was piled up with side-slicked bangs.
She wore a faux-fur skirt with a crimson belt and a stretchy gold top.
Abby pointed. “Nineteen nineties.”
Her friend grinned. “What gave it away?”
“What didn’t?” Abby laughed. “The hair, the makeup, and that fur skirt that makes me want to pet you scream the dot-com decade.”
She followed her friend to a table in the dining room. Though Matilda insisted the intimate space worked for her, Abby knew that if there had been room, she’d have expanded.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t a possibility. The hotel had been granted historic status, which meant Abby couldn’t simply tear down an exterior wall. Even if she could have gotten a building permit, there was no space between her hotel and the buildings on either side.
That’s why it didn’t surprise Abby when Matilda occasionally brought up moving back to Oregon and opening a restaurant there.
“You decided not to dress up today.” Matilda made the observation as she laid the menu on the table.
Abby glanced down at her green floral midi wrap dress with ankle boots topped by an oversize cardigan. “Since I was just volunteering at the school, I decided to stick to this decade for a change.”
“Well, you look quite lovely.”
The scrape on Abby’s cheek was nearly healed, and a little well-placed foundation this morning had covered it completely. Despite the stress of seeing Jonah’s parents last night, she’d slept well and had felt “awesome” when she’d hopped out of bed.
Her plans were to enjoy a quick lunch, then take over front desk duties until it was time to pick Eva Grace up from school.
“Why this is a nice surprise.”
Abby froze, recognizing the familiar voice. She turned to face the woman who’d walked up behind her. Abby had thought the previous night would be the only time she’d see Nancy Rollins during her visit to Hazel Green. Apparently, she was wrong.
“Nancy, I didn’t expect to see you today.” Cognizant of Matilda’s curious gaze on her, Abby quickly performed introductions.
“So you’re Jonah’s mother.” Matilda’s smile was warm and friendly.
Surprise flickered in Nancy’s eyes. “You know my son?”
“Everyone knows our handsome new chief of police.” Matilda patted Abby’s shoulders. “I’ll let you two catch up. Angeline will be right over to take your order.”
Abby had hoped to entice Matilda to join her, but by the time the words made it to her lips, her friend was halfway across the dining area.
“Would you . . .” Nancy hesitated. “Care to join me?”
“I wouldn’t want to interrupt your lunch.”
“Actually, I just ordered, then went to the restroom to wash my hands.” Nancy gestured with one of those recently cleaned hands toward a table for two by the window.
A two top. A sense of relief flooded Abby. It didn’t appear Jonah was joining his mother for lunch.
Still, Abby hesitated. Making conversation the night before had been brutal. She really didn’t want to do it again so soon.
“Will you be changing tables?” Angeline, a mother of three who worked during the day while her children were in school, held a glass of ice water.