by Lisa Childs
“Sure…” Belinda giggled. “He’s not interested.”
“That’s right!”
“What about you?” the other woman persisted. “Do you want…Chance?”
The phone rang and saved Jessie from having to make any more denials. Anxious to escape her cousin’s teasing, she grabbed up the cordless without checking to see who was calling. “Hello?”
“Jessie?”
Her pulse quickened, but she steadied her voice, not wanting to broadcast her reaction to the sheriff’s call to her nosy cousin. “Yes?”
“It’s Chance,” he needlessly identified himself. “I’m sorry I haven’t phoned earlier.”
“I figured you would when you found out something.” Her heart constricted. She hadn’t doubted Chance would find Tommy’s dad; she just hadn’t believed he’d do it so quickly and that she would have to deal with the consequences of the choices she’d made so soon. “You found him?”
“I’m not calling about Keith.”
She glanced out the window toward the Johnsons’ house. “Is it Tommy?” She hadn’t just walked him down the sidewalk; she’d gone inside and had watched him carry his bag up to Christopher’s room. Had he run away from the Johnsons?
Maybe she should have told him that she’d asked Chance to find his father. But she hadn’t wanted to build up his hopes, only to have them dashed if it wasn’t possible to locate Keith. There was always the possibility something horrible had happened to him in the past eight years. As she’d told Chance, she hadn’t searched for her ex-boyfriend at all—not on the online social networks or in obituaries, either. She had no idea where Keith was or what might have become of him. Or if he would want anything to do with the son he’d never known about…
“No, I’m calling about Matthew.”
“Did his mother cancel the visit?” she asked, her heart hurting for Chance now. He would be so disappointed if he had to wait any longer to see his son.
Belinda rose from the couch and stepped in front of Jessie to mouth, “Is it him?”
She shook her head and mouthed back, “Not now.”
Chance released a shuddery sigh. “No. He’s coming as planned. Tomorrow.”
“That’s great,” she said with relief. But Chance stayed ominously silent. “Isn’t it great?”
“I hope it is.”
“It will be.”
“I want everything to be perfect,” he said.
“Did we forget something?” she asked, mentally reviewing all they’d done. “Don’t you think he’ll have everything he needs?”
“I don’t know,” Chance said. “I don’t know my son anymore. It might be uncomfortable with just the two of us. Could you and Tommy be here…when he gets dropped off?”
She caught herself from shouting out the yes she longed to utter. “I want to meet Matthew,” she said. But most of all she wanted to see Chance’s face when he saw his boy again, wanted to be there for him if he needed support or comfort. “But we can’t be there when he gets dropped off.”
“No? You have other plans.”
“No,” she admitted. “It should be just the two of you then and probably for the first few days. You need to reconnect, and Tommy and I would just be in the way.”
“You wouldn’t—”
“You two need some time alone to get to know each other again,” she pointed out. As Chance had told her after they’d kissed, they each needed to focus on their child. She didn’t want to distract him from that.
She could hear his sigh through the phone. “You’re right. Of course you’re right. It’s just that…”
“You want everything to be perfect, and it will be,” she assured him, “if it’s just the two of you.”
“Thanks.” He sighed again. “Thanks for everything.” He clicked off before she could say anything else. But she wouldn’t be able to forget that he called.
And apparently neither would her cousin. Belinda stood in front of her, gaze focused on Jessie’s face.
“You don’t understand what that was about,” she began, trying to forestall more false assumptions.
“There are no secrets in Forest Glen,” Belinda reminded her. “I know that his son is coming to visit him.”
“Then you know why I can’t be there. After all this time that they haven’t seen each other, it should be just the two of them for a while.”
“But it’s not going to be just the two of them,” Belinda pointed out. “His ex-wife will probably be there, too, dropping off their son.”
Jessie shrugged as if it didn’t matter to her that Chance would once again be seeing the woman whom he’d once loved enough to marry, with whom he’d had a child. If seeing each other again brought back their old feelings, it was none of her business. “So what if she is?”
“So maybe you should be, too,” Belinda suggested. “Stake your claim, you know.”
Incredulous, Jessie laughed. “I have no claim to stake.”
“That’s what you think.”
JESSIE WAS RIGHT. He needed to do this alone, and he’d never felt more alone than he did now. He paced the length of his front porch, waiting for Robyn’s lawyer to drop off his son for their weeklong visit. A week wasn’t going to be enough time to make up for all they’d lost. That was why he wanted full custody—not out of spite, but because he’d vowed to devote himself to being Matthew’s father. While Robyn was always at the hospital, too busy to even drive their son up for his visit, Chance didn’t need to be in the sheriff’s office 24/7. All he needed was his cell, and Mrs. Applegate’s driver’s license, to maintain law and order in quiet, crime-free Forest Glen.
The purr of a powerful engine drew Chance’s attention to the street as Trenton pulled his sports car into the driveway. Now he regretted any ribbing he’d given his friend for being a high-priced lawyer. Trenton deserved every dollar and then some of his fee. Chance hadn’t expected him to show up today for support. But as well as being a good friend, the big-city lawyer seemed to be curiously drawn to the country.
Chance had expected Jessie might come despite what she’d told him last night on the phone. Pushing aside his friend’s warning against getting involved with her, he’d called her in a moment of weakness. He’d needed her comfort and support. But she’d refused—with good reason.
Still, he was relieved that Trenton had shown up. But the passenger’s door opened before the driver’s and a boy stepped out of the low-slung car. Trenton had driven him instead? Chance’s breath caught. It couldn’t be Matthew. He couldn’t have gotten so tall—not in the little over a year that they hadn’t seen each other. His legs trembling slightly, Chance descended the porch steps to the walkway. “Matthew?”
The kid’s eyes widened, and his dark head bobbed in a brief nod. He stared back at Chance, as if unable to believe what he was seeing, too.
Did Chance look different to him? Had he aged so much during his last deployment that his son didn’t recognize him? He wouldn’t have put it past Robyn to have wiped out all trace of Chance from their lives: the pictures, and the letters and e-mails he’d sent from Afghanistan.
“Hey, kid,” Chance greeted him, his voice choked with the emotion overwhelming him. “I’m your dad.”
“I know.” The boy spoke quietly, his voice quavering slightly.
“Of course he remembers you,” Trenton assured Chance, as if the lawyer represented the kid now. “He remembers everything about you.”
Tears stung Chance’s eyes. Maybe he was rushing things, but he couldn’t stop himself from reaching out for his son. Instead of drawing back in resentment, as he’d feared, Matthew threw his arms around Chance’s waist and clung to him.
Just as Tommy had cried in the tree house, Matthew cried now. Silently. Tears streaked down his face while his slight shoulders shook with the sobs he was too proud to release.
“I remember everything about you,” Chance told him. “Everything from the minute you were born—two weeks early because you were too impatient to wait
for your due date. I remember when you took your first step, around the coffee table. You fell against it and had to get five stitches above your eyebrow.”
Matthew pulled back and wiped his face on his sleeve. Then he touched the faint scar above his dark brow. “You remember that?”
Chance nodded. “Everything.”
“Everything that happened while you lived with us,” Matthew said, “before you went away. You don’t know what happened after you left.”
Chance shook his head, his heart hurting from the loss they had both suffered. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to leave you, but I felt like I needed to go.”
“To protect me and all those other people,” Matthew said with a quick glance at Trenton.
His friend had no doubt spent the three-hour drive from Chicago telling Matthew all kinds of war stories—stories Chance would have preferred his son never had to hear. “I thought your mom’s lawyer was bringing you up,” he said.
Matthew shook his head. “I didn’t want to ride with her. She’s not very nice. So I begged Mom to let me ride with Mr. Sanders.”
“That was very nice of your mother to agree.” And nothing short of a miracle, given how Robyn felt about him and his friends; unlike Matthew, she hadn’t understood why they’d actually wanted their guard deployed. She hadn’t understood that they’d wanted to do their part in defending their country. “But I don’t care how you got here,” Chance admitted. “I’m just so glad you’re here.” He pulled his son in for another hug.
And the boy, despite being older than Tommy, who often claimed he was too old to suffer his mother’s frequent displays of affection, clung to him, too.
Over his head, Chance mouthed “Thank you” to his friend.
SOMETHING JUMPED AROUND in Tommy’s stomach when he and his mom climbed the steps to Chance’s front porch. It wasn’t butterflies; that’d be crazy. Had to be nerves…because sometimes when he got worried about something and couldn’t eat, his mom told him he had a nervous stomach.
Maybe she was right about this, too—about leaving Chance and his son alone. But waiting three days before meeting Matthew had been driving Tommy crazy. Since it was spring break, he hadn’t even had school to take his mind off Matthew playing alone in the tree house and sleeping alone in those bunk beds. And Tommy not even knowing what he was like…if he was as cool as his dad was.
Tommy missed Chance, too. He’d gone too long without seeing him. But maybe they shouldn’t have interrupted him and his son. Maybe Chance would be mad at them. He had his real son now; he didn’t need Tommy to play catch or build tree houses. He had Matthew.
And Matthew would probably be really mad, too, that it was Tommy who’d helped build the tree house, and got his dad unrusty playing catch, and slept first in the bunk beds. He probably wouldn’t like Tommy at all—let alone want to be like a big brother so that they could all be like a real family.
“Can you knock, honey?” his mom asked. Her arms were wrapped around a brown grocery bag full of all the food she’d cooked. She’d made the cookies Tommy loved, the ones with the big chocolate chunks instead of puny chips. But his stomach had been too nervous for him to eat any of them, even when they’d been all gooey from the oven.
He hadn’t touched the lasagna, either, and he really liked peeling off the cheese that burned up against the sides of the pan. When Mom had offered him the cookies and cheese, he’d told her he wanted to wait to eat with Chance and Matthew. But she’d warned him that the Draytons might not invite them to stay. That since Matthew was only going to be here a week, that he might want his dad all to himself.
Tommy didn’t blame him. If Chance was his dad, he probably wouldn’t want to share him with some strange little kid, either. But if that kid was his brother, it’d be different—he wouldn’t be getting just a dad but a whole family.
“Honey?” his mom asked. She shifted the bag of food into one arm and lifted her hand and knocked. Then she focused on him again. “Everything all right? Do you feel okay? You wouldn’t eat earlier, and you look kind of pale right now.” She brushed her hand over his forehead, probably checking to see if he had a fever.
Tommy’s throat too dry to swallow, he just nodded.
Her free arm slid around his shoulders now, and she squeezed. As he leaned against her, he felt her heart pounding really hard—like she was nervous, too. But before he could ask her about it, the door opened.
Chance’s body blocked the light from inside the house and anything Tommy might have been able to see around him—like his son. His deep voice rumbled out with surprise, “Hey. I didn’t think you were coming.”
“We didn’t want to intrude,” his mom replied. “But we wanted to bring some things by and make sure you’re getting enough to eat.”
“Is that someone else bringing food?” another voice asked. “What is it this time?”
Chance turned to the side so the boy could look out, too. Like his mom had warned Tommy, they hadn’t gotten invited inside yet. It was weird. When he and his mom had been working on the house, they’d sometimes just walked in without even knocking. Well, he had. Mom hadn’t. And she’d tried to stop him before he’d thrown open the door.
So it was really funny that tonight he hadn’t even been able to knock, like some baby. He wasn’t a baby, though. He cleared his throat and answered the kid’s question. “Mom made cookies—the really good kind—and she doesn’t leave ’em in the oven so long that they get dried out and hard.”
“Cool,” the kid answered, like he meant it. He looked like a short version of Chance with the same blue eyes and black hair instead of Tommy’s weird orangish-red.
“I also brought lasagna,” his mom said with a smile. “And a salad.”
At the mention of vegetables, Tommy crossed his eyes and squeezed his lips sideways. Matthew laughed at his fish face.
Chance chuckled and said, “You didn’t have to bring us dinner.”
“No,” Mom agreed.
“But we really appreciate it,” Chance said, and he took the bag from her hands. “Thank you.” He glanced down at his son, and his eyes smiled, like he was so happy he was busting. And proud. That must be how dads looked at their sons.
Tommy sighed.
“Matthew.” Chance said the kid’s name like he looked at him, with love and pride and happiness. “These are my very good friends—Jessie Phillips and her son, Tommy.”
Tommy glanced up at the sheriff. Had Chance just said his name like he had Matthew’s? Like he was proud of him? Like he was happy he was there? Like he might love him?
No. Tommy must have imagined it. It wasn’t like he was Chance’s son or anything. He had his own dad out there. Somewhere.
“It was Tommy’s idea to build the tree house for you,” Chance was explaining to Matthew. “He designed it and helped me build it.”
“Cool,” Matthew said again—like he meant it. “I’ve never seen a real tree house before. I can’t believe I got one. Do you have one?”
Tommy shook his head. “No. We don’t have any trees big enough.”
“So we’ll share mine,” Matthew offered, “since you worked so hard on it.”
Tommy fought the frogs out of his voice. “That’d be great.”
“Want to go up now?” Matthew asked him. He didn’t wait for Tommy’s answer before he turned to his dad. “Can we hang out in the tree house for a little while?”
Chance looked at Tommy’s mom. “Can the two of you stay for a while?”
“Sure,” she said and stepped inside the house and reached for the bag again. “I can warm up the lasagna and put the salad into bowls.”
“Then you’ll have to eat with us,” Chance said.
Tommy blew out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. They hadn’t just got invited inside; they’d gotten asked to stay for dinner and to play. This was what he’d been dreaming about ever since Chance had told Tommy his son was coming to visit.
“What about your dad?” Matthew asked Tommy
as they headed through the house to the backyard.
“What do you mean?” Tommy asked.
“Is he gonna come over and eat with us, too?”
Tommy shook his head. “Nah, I don’t have a dad.”
“You don’t?”
“Well, I never met him.” He waited for Matthew to offer to share Chance like he’d offered to share the tree house. But the kid didn’t say anything about that; he just opened the back door and headed out into the yard.
Tommy didn’t blame him. Sharing a tree house was one thing. But sharing his dad…
Chapter Ten
“I thought you weren’t coming,” Chance said over his shoulder as Jessie followed him down the hall to the kitchen. “Matthew’s been here for three days already, and you didn’t even call.”
Was that hurt she glimpsed in the depths of his dark blue eyes? Or was she just imagining it?
“We always intended to come over and meet your son. I just thought you needed a few days to get to know each other again. And your first meeting with Matthew definitely needed to be just the two of you.” She bit her lip to hold in the question she was dying to ask. But had it been just the two of them? Or had his ex-wife been here, too?
“It was,” he replied, as if he’d instinctively known what she was dying to ask. “Well, except for my lawyer. He drove Matthew up from Chicago.”
“His mother wasn’t able to come?”
“She couldn’t get away from the hospital.”
“Hospital? Is she all right?” Jessie felt guilty that she’d been a little bit—okay, more than a little bit—jealous of the woman.
“She’s fine—she’s a doctor,” he said with nearly the same pride with which he’d introduced his son.
“Oh, that’s impressive.” Especially to Jessie, who’d been struggling to take one night class per semester. But, with Belinda babysitting Tommy while she was at class or needed time to study, Jessie had kept at it the past seven years and would soon have her nursing degree.
“Let’s hope the judge doesn’t think so, too,” he murmured as he placed the bag on the butcher-block counter that complemented the white cabinets and the pale yellow walls of the country kitchen.