The You I Want For Life (A Mother's Love Book 2)

by Alison Kent

  Eden glanced from Annette to Molly and back. Her chest swelled. True friendship had never seemed so dear. So real. Or so needed. God, she missed Jace. “A baby shower?”

  Annette nodded. “We’ve invited every female, from nine to ninety. The upstairs room in The Emporium will be perfect.” She leaned back in her chair and tapped her chin with one index finger. “The only problem is color scheme. None of us know what you’ve planned for your nursery.”

  Eden pictured the color splashed over the nursery wall. Color scheme? Did Chloe even know the meaning of the term? “I never really planned anything. It just sort of... evolved.”

  “Evolved?” Annette asked. “How so?”

  Eden laughed. “It’s hard to explain. Why don’t both of you come by in the morning and see the room for yourselves?”

  Molly joined Annette in setting a time, then the two women went on to share stories of previous tiny and not-so-tiny additions to the population of Arbor Glen. Eden sat back and listened with one ear.

  The Emporium’s parking lot faced nothing but the wide open spaces at the edge of town. She watched the last streaks of pink-gold sunlight disappear behind towers of pecans, cedars and live oaks and searched for a sense of inner calm.

  It wasn’t any use. Her emotions ran high, gearing up to fight the battle that had raged in her mind since Jace had driven away on Tuesday night.

  Did she or did she not want Jace Morgan?

  That question was too easy to answer.

  She wanted him more than she wanted to breathe.

  The harder question was why?

  Jace made her happy. Because of him, she smiled. Because of Jace, she lost track of time. He filled her days with wild dreams, her nights with fantasies and a longing beyond bed and into the future. It was crazy, mindless, the way he consumed her every thought. And why did he?

  Because of the way he made her feel?

  Or because of the way she loved him?

  She wanted to be his candle, to light the darkness in his soul, to burn in the window and beckon him home. She wanted to be his rain, a sweet storm of the senses. She wanted to be his warmth, a solace to his soul.

  She wanted him more than anything but her children.

  Darkness settled and, one by one, the hanging lanterns along the beams flicked on, bathing the sawdusted parking lot with a spectrum of muted reds and greens, yellows and blues.

  Eden breathed deeply; mesquite smoke and wood shavings and barbecue sauce were familiar scents, swirling with the chaos in her mind.

  “So primary colors would be a safe choice?” Annette asked, clearly not for the first time.

  Eden fumbled for the thread of the conversation. “As safe as anything.” She pushed and pried her bulk from the chair, stretching her back when she stood. “Chloe painted a mural on the nursery wall. I don’t think she missed using a color on the wheel.”

  Annette latched on to Eden’s comment with the quick response of a reporter given a juicy lead. “You know Chloe well?”

  Knowing where Annette’s question was leading, Eden chose her response carefully. “I haven’t known her as long as you have, but we’ve spent a lot of time together. She seemed to need a mother figure who didn’t know much about her own mother’s past. I guess I filled the bill.”

  Molly picked up Eden’s plate and stacked it with her own. “Then Chloe must know you equally well.”

  Well enough to put pencil to paper and show my love for Jace.

  “I guess that’s a question only Chloe can answer. If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to run inside.” She turned a pleading glance to Annette. “You don’t mind, do you?”

  “Not at all. Inside the back door, second door on the right.”

  “Thanks. And I can’t wait for the shower. You’re sweet to think of me,” she said to Annette, then gave Molly a hug. “And thank you for being here. You’re not a bad surrogate mother yourself.”

  “You’re not leaving yet, are you?”

  Eden opened wide eyes. “And miss seeing you and Tucker two-step? Not a chance.”

  With a quick wave, Eden headed for The Emporium. This trip to the bathroom might have saved her from the immediate threat of facing Molly and Annette’s questions. But she still had to walk past the curious crowds milling around serving tables laden with smoked brisket, red beans, potato salad, and jalapeno peppers.

  And past the art exhibit, where speculation hung thick in the air and gossip drifted on the breeze behind the smell of red onions and Carolyn Hendricks’s barbecue sauce and bread and butter pickles.

  Murmurs and whispers followed Eden inside The Emporium. And even the act of latching the door behind her didn’t ease her emotional vulnerability.

  She knew Jace had worked this afternoon, helping set up the lighting for the dance floor. She wondered if he’d seen Chloe’s picture. If he had, she hoped he hadn’t returned tonight for the dance.

  Facing him after Tuesday night was going to be hard enough as it was. He’d loved her completely, taken her body on a physical quest, a search for what only he could give, perfection, reverence, an explosion of sensation so great she could offer no less in return.

  And she’d never be the same.

  Those moments of magic were private, a secret the two of them shared. But Chloe’s display was public and about as subtle as a billboard.

  And Jace, being the master of privacy that he was, was not going to be happy about the whole town knowing how much she loved him, when she hadn’t told him first.

  Chapter Fifteen

  JACE WISHED HE’D NEVER come. To this dance. To Arbor Glen. At least when he’d arrived in town, he should’ve had sense enough to stay away from Molly Hansen. Molly got him involved in things, and the reason he’d moved here in the first place was to stay uninvolved.

  Because of Molly, he’d met Eden. Because of Eden, he’d met Chloe. And because of Chloe, the entire town of Arbor Glen knew more about his feelings than any single person had a right to know— that single person being Eden Karr.

  He’d had to alter his opinion of Chloe after seeing her sketches. She wasn’t just weird. She was psychic.

  No way did he walk around with that lovestruck look on his face, the one she’d so pathetically captured. She had to have seen deeper, beneath his skin, straight into his lumpy gray matter and through the thick walls that hid the truths even he didn’t know.

  Jace straightened, took a step back and leaned against the trunk of an ancient spreading oak. Arms crossed over his chest, he turned his attention to the band, their warm-up riffs blending into his musings.

  “So what are you gonna do about it, man?” Stone Healen’s voice rolled through the air in a pitch as deep as the descending night.

  Shoulders hunched, Jace stuffed his hands in the front pockets of his jeans and propped one moccasin sole down on the base of the tree trunk. “About what?”

  Stone settled his larger-than-life body on a nearby picnic table and propped his boots on the bench. Leaning his elbows on his wide-spread knees, he rolled a toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other, then flicked it into a mound of sawdust and bent to retie his laces.

  Jace wanted to prod the other man into action but knew Stone’s stoicism rivaled the strength of his name. The man couldn’t be rushed. So Jace waited.

  “I don’t know much about you, Morgan. I’ve seen you around over the years. We’ve said a couple of hellos. You pitched in today like someone who has a stake in this town. I appreciate hard work in a man. And I can respect your privacy. What you do is my business only if you make it so. So you tell me if I’m outta line.”

  Still Jace waited, finding Healen’s deliberateness a trait he would’ve admired under any other circumstances. Right now he wanted the man to get to the point so he could get it over with.

  “Go on,” he nudged.

  “I’m figuring by now you’ve seen the school art exhibit.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “That Angelino girl’s a remarkable kid. You
do the frame for her pictures?”

  Jace nodded. “She told me you fixed the glass.”

  “That I did, but I figure she knew I’d do it before she even asked.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “After looking at the picture she drew, I think she knows me better than I know myself. It’s an eerie feeling, you know.”

  God, but did he know.

  “She did enough of whatever it is she does to make me think twice about the looks I give people. I don’t think I like being as transparent as the glass I work with.”

  “Believe me, no one sees the things Chloe sees.”

  “She’s got like a sixth sense then, I guess.”

  Sixth, seventh, eighth. Whatever it was, Jace didn’t like it. “Whatever she’s got, I don’t want anything more to do with it.”

  Stone laughed, a belly-deep rumble that rolled out into the night. “Can’t say I blame you, Morgan. She couldn’t have painted it any plainer.”

  He levered himself away from the picnic table, dusted the seat of his overalls and turned his attention to the dance floor.

  The band had moved from warm-ups to a full-swing “Orange Blossom Special.” Sawdust flew from beneath scuffling feet as dancers two-stepped their way around the parking lot. The hanging lanterns sprinkled circles of colored light on the couples twirling beneath them, and laughter filled the air.

  Jace pressed back into the tree, the isolation of the shadowed night comfortable, safe and easier to face than the questioning looks sure to come his way if he stayed.

  “So what are you going to do about it?”

  “I don’t know.” The answer was the best Jace could find when in reality all he could hear was Eden’s voice talking about the importance of friends.

  She was right. He’d missed having friends.

  “Eden’s starting a brand-new life,” Jace tentatively offered. “I’d only screw it up.”

  “Why don’t you let the lady decide that for herself? She might just feel differently, ya know?”

  Jace thought of the way she’d loved him in the truck, with no promises for the future, or thoughts beyond the moment. “I have a feeling she’s already regretting some of the decisions she’s made lately.”

  “You know her well enough to make that judgment?”

  “Yeah. I do.”

  “Then you know better than me. But if I had a woman looking at me with that kind of love, I wouldn’t hesitate to carpe diem.”

  Stone grew serious, from the stiffening of his stance to his somber tone of voice. “Seize the day, Morgan. It’s all you’ve got.”

  In the spring evening’s surprising warmth, cold took Jace, tightening his joints and pricking his skin like needles of ice. He couldn’t move. He could barely find his voice.

  “I thought we were talking about the way I was looking at her.”

  Stone turned sharply, his sandy hair falling over his forehead with the sudden movement, his eyes a study in puzzlement.

  Jace drew a deep breath. Something here was out of kilter. The man never moved that fast.

  A slow grin tipped the corner of Stone’s mouth. The smile grew, then broadened, and a smug delight crept into his eyes—as if he had a secret and was going to enjoy the hell out of making Jace squirm before he let him in on it.

  “Did you even look at the picture, Morgan?”

  Jace gave a guarded nod.

  “And you’re saying all you saw was your own ugly mug?” Hanging his head, Stone chuckled under his breath. “Well, my man, if love ain’t blind, after all.”

  Stone slapped Jace on the shoulder, jarring his bones and setting in motion the need to run, to escape, to write off this night as a moment in time that never happened. But he couldn’t leave any more than he could make himself look at Chloe’s picture again.

  Having his likeness on display was bad enough. There was nothing he could do about it now. He might have a private talk with Chloe later, but the damage was done. He wasn’t going to make it worse by offering his flesh and bones for further inspection.

  Besides, he didn’t want to chance running into Eden. Not tonight. Not this way, with the entire town salivating at her expense. So he stayed in the shadows, rooted to the ground like the century-old tree behind him.

  Stone took a backward step, stopping less than two feet from Jace. “You know, Morgan, there are worse things in life than taking on another man’s kids as your own.” He ran a hand over his jaw and sighed. “Like not being given a chance to have kids at all.”

  From the cover of darkness, Jace studied Stone’s face. The colored lights cast macabre patterns, torturing the man’s rugged features into the semblance of a mask—half devil, half saint.

  But by the time Jace blinked the visage was gone, and in its place was the handsome profile of a mountain of a man. The man could crack a skull as easily as a pecan, yet used his hands to work with glass—an enigma of proportions that earned Jace’s respect and at the same time stirred his curiosity.

  Stone dusted his hands together. “Well, my man, I think a change of clothes is in order. I see ladies in need of a good time, and it would be insensitive of me to deprive them of that God-given right, don’t you think?”

  He started to leave, but then stopped and turned, slanting Jace an audacious grin. “No need to worry, Morgan. I know which lady’s off limits.”

  Jace watched him walk away, not sure how to answer, so he didn’t. With darkness complete, the focus of the night became the color-splattered square of The Emporium’s parking lot, where streamers hung from the tops of the posts supporting the frame of lights.

  While dancers circled the sawdusted floor, children gripped the ribbonlike strands, wrapping the beams like maypoles. A fey female giggle caught Jace’s ear and he turned in time to see Chloe race off into the dark, a tangle of skirts behind her like the tail feathers of some exotic bird—and three teenage roosters not ten feet behind.

  A wry grin stole across his face and Jace wondered if those boys had any idea what they were up against—or of the mess Chloe could make of sixteen-year-old male hormones. Then he frowned and wondered about Chloe’s hormones, and decided that he was glad it was Nick’s problem, not his.

  He had enough hormonal problems of his own. Eden had tied him up until he felt like he’d never find the ends of the knot, or the frayed edges of what used to be a comfortable life.

  He shifted his stance, the bark of the tree biting through the white oxford button-down he’d donned for the occasion. He didn’t know why he’d bothered, especially since the white stood out like a beacon in the dark when all he’d come to do was see without being seen.

  He’d honestly hoped to catch a glimpse of Eden tonight, but the crowd enlarged as the minutes passed until all he saw was a blur of bodies whirling to the rhythm of the songs.

  This had been a stupid idea, thinking he could put things in perspective, that once he laid his eyes on Eden the memory of that night wouldn’t seem so hot, her skin so soft, her mouth pure heaven, her hands sweet agony, her scent... apricot and spring wind and... close.

  He knew she was there by the stirring in his blood, the sharpening of his senses, the storm of raw emotion that seethed in his soul. His hands shook, so he leaned back against them and watched her approach. Tiny steps carried her to him, and she seemed to bend beneath the burden she carried.

  He damned his inability to offer more than friendship.

  And then he damned his cowardice.

  Five feet away she stopped and ran her index finger along the edge of the table where Healen had sat. Her smile trembled, the corners of her mouth fighting her indecision. Whatever she felt, she was no more comfortable than he. That made him feel better. He guessed.

  “I didn’t know if you’d be here.”

  Quiet and testing, her voice drifted to him through the low-hanging branches of the tree.

  “Neither did I,” he answered, whether referring to himself or Eden he wasn’t quite sure.

  “Thought
I’d stick around a while, though. Make sure there’s no problems with the wiring.”

  “The place looks great. You all did a good job.”

  “Yeah, well, the lanterns were Molly’s idea. Those and the ribbons.”

  Eden twisted her hands until her fingers appeared bloodless. The nervous gesture increased Jace’s unease. He swallowed hard and looked up. His gaze devoured her profile; the colored lights magnified the extent of her exhaustion, the country and western guitar a background meter for her labored breathing.

  What the hell was she doing here?

  Staring toward the dance floor, she released a small sigh. “Once Molly sets things in motion, it takes an act of God to stop the ball from rolling.”

  That, or the act of a fool. “She’s a pistol, all right. Thinks the town would fall apart without her holding it together.”

  “She’s certainly done her best to keep me in one piece. I owe her a lot for sending you my way.” She glanced at him only briefly, as if eye contact was out of the question. “You did a good job, Jace. My kitchen. The shop. Everything looks great. I should’ve thanked you sooner.”

  Small talk. He hated it. “I’ve got some cleanup to do. I’ll try to get to that tomorrow.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I can—”

  “No. You can’t.” He cut her off, not liking the way she’d so quickly dispatched him from her house, from her life. “It’s my mess. I’ll clean it up.”

  “Fine,” she said, stiffening. “But I thought you’d be glad of the offer. You know, anything to keep you out of my house.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Give me a break, Jace. After the way you’ve avoided me all week, it’s obvious that the sooner you wash your hands of me the better.”

  He pushed off the tree and shoved both hands through his hair. “Is that what you think I’ve been doing? Avoiding you?”

  “Haven’t you?” She finally turned to face him.

  He let his hair fall, lowered his hands and settled them at his hips. “I thought I was giving you your space.”

  “My space?” Her eyes widened, flashing green fire. “When did I ever ask for my space?”