“Luke gave us the nickname ‘Stiletto Mafia.’”
“Well, if the shoe fits...” Ben said, causing Lisa to groan at his pun.
Ben looked down at the floor then at her. “I’m glad you made the decision to stay in bed.”
Lisa’s eyes narrowed, but when he grinned at her, her expression cleared. “Me, too, although—” she looked at her laptop “—it’s going to be hard.”
“As my grandmother used to say, ‘It’s only worthwhile if it’s hard to do.’ She had a strong work ethic.” He smiled. “You do, too, Lisa. I don’t think we have to worry about our kids being lazy.”
Her answering smile was slow to form and sweet to see. Warmth spread through him as he let his gaze rove over her, noting that her face was flushed and her hair was a little messy, not smoothed into its usual soft curve. He liked her in her baggy T-shirt and shorts, so different from the chic perfection of her usual attire.
He admired the way she always appeared professional, how hard she worked and the way she gave her all for their town, even while maintaining her friendships and professional relationships. He liked her sassiness and determination to do what was right. In fact, if he was ever to settle down with someone, get married, it would be with someone like Lisa.
Or Lisa herself.
Surprised by that thought, he shifted and broke his gaze away from hers.
“Speaking of businesses, what about yours? Your Oklahoma Heritage Horse operation, aren’t you needed there?”
“I’ll go over and check on things. The truth is, Zach can run the whole operation just fine without me. In fact, I probably get in his way. I’ve been learning from him, though. If this is going to be successful, I need to know what to do. He might drop by here, bring me some paperwork to handle.”
Ben didn’t want Zach, with his charm and roving eye, to stop in at all. As he watched, Lisa turned on her side and lay back against the pillows. Her chocolate-brown hair spread across the pillow in a fan and her blue eyes regarded him with interest, as if she really wanted to hear all about Zach and the wild mustangs.
No, she was too appealing, Ben decided. There was no way he was letting Zach near her.
“And your football camp?”
“I talked to the coach at the high school. He and his football team will handle it for the next few days. Last day is Friday.”
“Sounds like you and my friends have this all wrapped up,” Lisa said around a delicate yawn. “I’m completely out of a job.”
“I’d think the one job you’ve got going would be enough,” he said, pointing to her belly.
“I know, but until the babies arrive, I’m going to be bored.”
“Do you know how to play chess? Checkers? Poker?”
“No, no and no.”
“I’ll teach you. Dinner will be ready in a few minutes. I can’t cook, but I can punch a mean microwave button.” He turned toward the kitchen and then glanced back. “By the way, what do you want me to do with that box of books under the bed in the guest room?”
That snapped her eyes open. Lisa propped herself up on her elbow and shook her head. “What box? There shouldn’t be anything under that bed. I don’t keep boxes of things around that I don’t use.”
“It was definitely a box of books. I bumped into it when I was stowing my gear in there. I’ll get it.”
He went into the room next to Lisa’s, scooped up the box and carried it back. “The flaps were open like that so I saw it was books.”
“They must be Maureen’s,” Lisa said, peering inside. “I didn’t notice it when I changed the sheets.”
“The toe of my boot hit it. My feet are much bigger than yours, which is probably why I ran into it and you didn’t.” He started for the kitchen. “Maybe you can find a good book to read.”
Ben heated up the meatballs and tried to make a meal that covered all the food groups while also sticking to all the restrictions of the pregnancy diet Lisa had clipped to the refrigerator door. He looked at the list of do’s and don’ts and knew he would have to ask his mom about some of it, but he knew exactly how to measure grams of protein and Lisa needed to be packing away enough for three people.
His mom and dad desperately wanted to be involved in doing whatever was best for Lisa and the babies. His mom was a great cook and would probably love to come over and cook up meals for him to freeze. Also, they could stay with Lisa when he had to run out to Riverbend or take care of other errands. They would see it as part of their “grandparental” duties.
Even after he left for India, he knew he could count on them to look after things. He paused in his efforts to slice celery for the salad.
Maybe he should be looking at this the other way. His parents wouldn’t be the ones on temporary duty, taking over to help out while he was gone. They would be on permanent duty with him striding in and out of his children’s lives, passing through on his way to a charity event, a new project or business opportunity.
His dad had been making noises about retiring full-time. It wasn’t until this moment that Ben understood it was so that he could help Lisa and be with his wife and grandkids.
That was a huge change from the workaholic life Jim McAdams had pursued so far.
But that was his dad’s choice, Ben thought, and he was grateful for it. He would be free to pursue the important things he had to do all around the world. That was what he wanted. Wasn’t it?
Ben tapped the flat of the knife against the cutting board. After his football career had ended, he had built his entire working life on his determination to not let work rule his life the way it had ruled his dad’s. And, by extension, affected his mom and him. He could remember endless numbers of dinners where he and his mother had eaten without Jim. Retirement would be a complete one-eighty for him, but he must have thought it was worth it.
Returning to the task at hand, Ben thought about his reasons for the path he’d chosen. Impatience with his father’s quest for more and more deals, more and more money, had been one reason he’d been driven to the charity work and projects he pursued. He might be just as busy as his father, but what he was doing was good, worthwhile. There were too many people and organizations depending on him. Plans were set, wheels in motion. He couldn’t quit now.
Again Lisa’s voice echoed in his head with that quote from Jackie Kennedy about nothing else mattering if you bungle raising your children.
With an annoyed growl, he shoved all those thoughts out of his mind and finished making dinner. He placed two filled plates on a tray, added napkins and cutlery and carried everything into Lisa’s room. He intended to eat every meal he possibly could with her and refused to let her relegate him to the kitchen table.
With a flourish, he swept in the door and found Lisa sitting up in bed weeping and shaking, the contents of the box spread out around her.
* * *
“LISA, WHAT’S WRONG?” Ben asked as he deposited a loaded tray on top of the dresser and came to sit beside her on the bed. “Are you in pain? Why didn’t you call me? I’ll get Gemma—”
“No.” She held up her hand. “I’m fine.”
He grabbed her hand and then took her into his arms. Frantic, with distress, she tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let her go.
“Ah, Lisa, honey, don’t cry,” he said against her hair. “It kills me when you cry. And...and it’s probably bad for the babies. You have to look out for the babies, you know, they’re—”
“Oo-ooh,” she moaned. He had opened the floodgates once again.
Ben turned to grab the tissue dispenser from the bedside table. Doing so dislodged a pile of the books she’d taken from the box he’d found.
He handed her some tissues as he said, “I’ll gather up these books and get rid of them. They’re in the way and—”
“No!” Lisa hiccupped and repe
ated, “No. I want to read them. They’re Maureen’s journals, my mom’s diaries.”
“Wow. Really?”
Lisa picked up a slip of paper. “She left me a note saying I could read these if I wanted to, that they would explain some things.” Sick with anguish, she crumpled the paper. “But I’ve talked to her so many times since she left. She never mentioned these.”
“Maybe she didn’t know how to bring it up since you two barely have the start of any kind of relationship.”
“That could be it. She might have been embarrassed about them, might have wanted to leave it up to chance that I would find them. I’m not sure, since I still don’t know her well.”
He didn’t release his comforting hold on her, but he looked more closely at the books. Some were ordinary spiral-bound notebooks, others were cloth-covered or had brightly printed paper-stock covers. “I didn’t even know people still kept diaries anymore.” He stared at them curiously. “Anything I need to remember goes in my phone.”
Lisa gave him a tremulous smile as she leaned into his comforting arms. “These start from when I was a baby. No one had cell phones then, and I’m sure she didn’t have a computer.”
“So...these are about you, aren’t they? That’s why you were crying.”
She nodded and picked up a spiral-bound one. “The later ones mostly talk about her friends in Chicago, the restaurants where she worked, recipes. But the early ones are very different. Look.”
He opened it to the first page.
“Read it out loud,” Lisa said, gesturing to the yellowed pages.
Even though he gave her an unsure look, he started reading.
I’ve got a job washing dishes in a café. The pay is lousy, but Aunt Violet says I can stay with her until I get on my feet. That will take years. It’s winter. I’ve never been so cold.
I wonder if Lisa is cold at home. I left my baby! I left my little girl! My mom and dad are raising her in that house where no little kid should live. I can’t go back and face the shame of leaving her. I can’t. I miss her every minute of every day. I wake up in the night hurting for her. My arms are empty and I can imagine I hear her crying for me. I see her blue eyes looking at me, trusting me, even though I was someone she can’t trust, can’t depend on because I left her. I couldn’t stay. I was trapped. Leaving her with Mom and Dad is better. Right? At least they’ve got money to take care of her. I don’t have anything and I can’t support her by working at the Burger Barn. But leaving her hurt so bad. It’s like a knife in my heart, twisting, every day, twisting. I wonder if it hurts very much to die. Who am I kidding? I’m too much of a coward to kill myself.
“Wow,” Ben said, closing the notebook. “That’s horrible, unbelievable. I thought she left you because she didn’t want a baby, but—”
“That’s what I thought.” Lisa dabbed at her tears and blew her nose. “All my life I thought she didn’t love me, that I was so ugly or repulsive or...messy, that she couldn’t stand me.”
“No, Lisa. How could you think that? You’re beautiful, and kind, and...and sweet.” He kissed her forehead with each word, which brought another flood of tears. She needed the comfort, so she clung to him while she wept.
“It...it wasn’t until she showed up here in February that I was able to start understanding a little about why she left, but this explains so much more.” Lisa shifted away from him and looked around for her phone. “I need to call her.”
“Not now,” Ben said, releasing her and standing. Apparently he’d been sitting on her phone, and knew it, because he reached down and snagged it before she could get it. “You need to eat dinner and you need some rest. It can’t be good for you, or the babies, to be getting upset like this.”
“But I want to tell her I’m sorry.” Lisa held out her hand. “That’s my personal property,” she reminded him.
“I get that, but now that you’ve started reading her personal property, don’t you think it would be a good idea to go ahead and finish? Get a complete picture of everything she’s been through since she left?” He shrugged. “It might help you understand her even better.”
Lisa blinked. “When did the big-time football player get so sensitive and touchy-feely?”
He rolled his eyes. “Since I slaved over dinner and I don’t want it to get cold. Punching those microwave buttons can really take it out of a guy.” He returned to the tray and picked it up. “Come on. Time to eat. You can read more journals later, but if I see even a sign of too much stress—”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re calling Carly and Gemma.” Lisa picked up her fork. “Maybe if you’re lucky, they’ll make you an honorary member of the Stiletto Mafia.”
Ben took his own plate from the tray and sat in the bedside chair. “They should be so lucky.”
Lisa laughed and began eating. In spite of the emotional upheavals she’d experienced today, she was famished, and ate everything Ben had prepared. The food her mother had left for her was almost gone. Lisa wondered what Ben would make to replace it.
Her mother. Ben was right about needing to read all of Maureen’s journals before she called her. She finally had the answer she’d been looking for, the one piece of the puzzle that had eluded her, even after she and Maureen had talked. Somehow, spoken words of how unhappy Maureen had been didn’t express the true depth of her anguish as well as her written words did.
Finally she understood that she wasn’t at fault for Maureen’s departure. It had been excruciating for her to leave her baby behind.
“I guess I always knew it wasn’t about me,” she said slowly. “It was about this place.”
“What do you mean?” Ben asked.
“She was desperate to get away from the overpowering, overwhelming mess she lived in. That we all lived in. I can understand that. It’s why I moved out and got my own place at eighteen.” Lisa paused. “But she couldn’t do what I did because she had a baby at sixteen. Now I think I understand her need to escape.”
“Is she the reason you cleaned this place up, stayed here, didn’t sell the whole mess and move on?”
“Well, I...I don’t—” She broke off and stared at him. Her fingers went slack and the fork clattered to the plate.
“What’s wrong?” Ben started forward in concern.
She held up a hand to stop him as thoughts raced through her mind. “I never made the connection before,” she said. “That must have always been in the back of my mind, cleaning the place up meant my mother might come back. And she did.” She grimaced. “And I was horrible to her.”
“Never too late to fix that.”
Ben gestured for her to finish her food, which she did quickly so she could get back to reading Maureen’s journals.
“Is that why you’re so...fixated on this town, too? On improving things and being mayor, and everything else you do?”
“Maybe.” She shrugged. “Probably. And I didn’t want to be one of the unambitious, weird Thomases. Really, I was raised more by Gemma’s and Carly’s parents than by my grandparents. They taught me what it was like to have goals and plans, to be people who mattered. Doing all I can for Reston is a way of paying them back, paying the community back.”
Ben nodded, considering. “I never gave any thought to what it was like to have any kind of parents other than my own,” he admitted.
“You had a happy childhood. Your parents are awesome.” She paused when she heard a vehicle pull up outside. “And they’re here.”
Ben scooped up their plates. “I’ll let them in and then I’ll clean up the kitchen, or I’ll hear about it from my mother.”
Lisa smiled and began organizing the journals by date so she could read them in order.
* * *
“YOU’VE BECOME WAY too good at this,” Ben grumbled, staring at the checkerboard.
“I believe in doing well at wh
atever I attempt.” Lisa was lying on her side on the sofa. The board was on top of the coffee table and Ben sat opposite, leaning forward with his forearms on his knees.
“It’s working for you.” He studied the board again. His eyes lit up and he said, “Aha,” and moved his checker to a new position.
“You’re making this way too simple for me,” she said, and easily defeated him.
“Why do I never see that coming?”
“Because you think one move ahead instead of several.” Lisa raised an arm over her head to work out a stitch in her side. “Which is surprising because you would have had to carry football plays in your head all the time.”
“Smug much?” he asked. “Maybe I’m out of practice. Another game?”
“No. I’m tired.”
He gathered up everything and put it away in the box, then sat across from her.
Lisa laid back and tried to relax, though she was heartily sick of lying around. She knew Ben was doing his best to distract her because company was coming today—someone she never thought she’d meet.
“Are you nervous?” Ben asked. “About meeting your father?”
“Yes, but it will help that Maureen and Clive will be here, too.”
After she had read all Maureen’s journals, she had called her mother and they’d had a long talk, with tears, apologies and the beginning of forgiveness on both sides. Since then, Lisa had come to understand where she’d gotten her own need for independence.
Maureen had brought Clive to meet her. It was the first time spending time together had been easy and natural. Ben and Clive had hit it off and if the Marine had thought it odd that Ben would soon be heading to India, he hadn’t let on.
“I’m grateful that Maureen found John and convinced him to come meet me.” Lisa clasped her hands nervously. “I don’t know what to expect.”
“That’s understandable.” Ben wandered around the room, peeked out toward the road, then sat again. “Do you want me to call Gemma and Carly for backup?”
She smiled. “No need. You’ll do.”
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