Her Minnesota Man (A Christian Romance Novel) (27 page)

BOOK: Her Minnesota Man (A Christian Romance Novel)
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"It's not about that," he said. "It's something good. Something you'll really—"

"Jeb, I have to go," she interrupted
. "Millie's on the other phone and there seems to be some kind of problem. I'll try not to be too long at the hospital, okay?"

"Take your time," he said. "And give Mrs. Lindstrom my best wishes."

The crabby old lady was never going to change. But she mattered to God, and now she mattered to Jeb, too.

 

"How are you feeling?" Greeting her longtime neighbor with a determined smile, Laney set a vase containing three yellow roses with some greens and baby's breath on the table beside the hospital bed.

Mrs. Lindstrom pressed a button; the bed whirred softly as it moved her to a more upright position. "I can't complain." She frowned at the flowers. "Yellow. Those are almost as nice as pink ones, I guess. Thank you."

"You're welcome," Laney murmured. She'd purchased the modest arrangement with her own hard-earned cash rather than with Jeb's credit card, and now she almost wished she hadn't bothered.

Her day had begun well, but she'd had a rotten afternoon, and she just wanted to go home and cry her eyes out. But no, she'd had to come here and be nice to Mrs. Lindstrom.

"The lady over there." Mrs. Lindstrom gestured to the empty and neatly made-up bed next to her own. "She had a dozen pink roses, but she took them with her when she left this morning. I don't know why she didn't just leave them for the sick people to enjoy."

Laney had been acquainted with sulky Mrs. Lindstrom all her life, but she still didn't know how to respond to statements like that, so she just smiled harder and tried to hold on to her patience. Ten minutes, fifteen at the most, and she'd be out of here.

"Where's Jackson?" Mrs. Lindstrom demanded.

"He wasn't sure of his welcome," Laney said carefully. "But he sends his best wishes."

"Not sure of his welcome." Mrs. Lindstrom harrumphed. "That boy saved my life!"

Laney's heart warmed several degrees. "So you think he might be good for something, after all?"

The old woman bristled. "I hope I'm a big enough person to admit when I'm wrong. I guess he isn't like his father, and you can tell him I said so." Her gaze dropped to her fingers, which were plucking at the bedcovers. "You can also tell him Snowball and I said thank you."

As Laney's heart swelled, Mrs. Lindstrom looked up sharply and waved a cautioning finger. "But if he expects sugar syrup from me, he's going to be disappointed."

Laney's smile died. "You don't have to worry about that," she said with a touch of asperity. "In his whole life, Jeb has never expected 'sugar syrup' from anybody."

Mrs. Lindstrom eyed her shrewdly. "You love him," she said with evident satisfaction. "I always thought you did."

"Not the way you're thinking," Laney said without experiencing even a tingle of guilt over the lie. It was true, heartbreakingly true, that what she now felt for Jeb was the kind of love she'd sifted through a long parade of nice men to find. But there was no way she was going to confess to Mrs. Lindstrom what she was trying so hard to teach her own heart to forget.

Chapter Sixteen

"J
eb, I know it's unfair to dump this burden on you," Laney said as she stepped wearily inside his brightly lit screened porch. "But if you don't make me smile right this instant, I'm going to burst into tears."

Sitting cross-legged on a padded wicker chaise, an acoustic guitar resting on one long thigh, Jeb looked past her and ran the tip of his tongue over his bottom lip.

"Okay," he said finally, his gaze shifting back to her face. "Have you heard the one about the wildly talented guitar player and the depressed but beautiful and brilliant tearoom owner?"

She chuckled. "No, I haven't heard that one."

He hunched over his guitar and began picking out a complicated melody.

"I'm waiting," she reminded him. "What's the punch line?"

He looked up, all innocence. "Hmm?"

"What's the punch line?" she repeated.

He feigned surprise. "Princess," he said with exaggerated patience, "that joke was so good it didn't need a punch line. You laughed, didn't you?"

"You're deranged." Chuckling again, she set her bag on a side table and sank onto one of the massive wicker chairs, her black mood already several shades lighter.

As he watched her, Jeb's self-congratulatory smile faded. "Did Mrs. Lindstrom upset you?"

"No more than usual." Laney crossed her legs and tugged the hem of her floral "tearoom" dress down over her knees. Leaning back in the chair, she rested her elbows on its broad arms and inhaled deeply, willing herself to relax.

Catching a wisp of rising steam in her peripheral vision, she looked at the hot tub. Jeb must have been in it last night; he was always forgetting to replace its energy-conserving cover.

"Yeah," he said, following her gaze. "I'll get that in a minute. How's Mrs. Lindstrom doing?"

Recalling their neighbor's ungracious acceptance of the expensive roses and her expressed hope that Jeb wouldn't be expecting any "sugar syrup", Laney sighed and said, "Oh, she can't complain."

"Yes, she can." One side of Jeb's mouth hitched up. "And she does. Incessantly."

Laney snickered, but then carefully tamped down her amusement. She ought to be more charitable toward Mrs. Lindstrom, especially after what the poor old woman had gone through last night.

Jeb's thoughts must have been moving in the same direction, because he quickly sobered. "She's okay, then?"

"Just fine. They'll release her in the morning."

"To go where?"

"Right next door."

Jeb's eyes widened in alarm.

"Not
my
house," Laney said quickly. "The brick house next door to hers. Remember Mrs. Schultz? Her husband died about five years ago, and she hates living alone
. S
o she's invited Mrs. Lindstrom and Snowball to move in with her."

"Was the house insured?"

"Yes. But she won't rebuild because she was already thinking about trading down to a condo. She seems to be dealing with the shock okay. As much as she likes to complain about little things, she's really a strong woman."

Jeb unfolded his legs and bent down to set his guitar on the floor. When he straightened, he studied Laney's face for a moment and then said, "So why'd you come in here threatening me with Kryptonite?"

"Kryptonite?"

"Tears," he said gruffly. "You know what it does to me when you cry."

A gust of nippy autumn air pushed through the wall of screens behind Laney, making her shiver.

"Let's go inside," Jeb said.

"Not yet. Maybe this fresh air will revive me." As she spoke, Laney grasped the edges of her cable-knit cardigan and tugged until they overlapped against her chest, making a double layer of warmth. She tucked her hands under her armpits, and then lifted her chin to accept the brisk evening breeze on her face.

Other people seemed able to function on just a few hours of sleep, but Laney didn't have that knack. She'd started the day with a cheerful outlook, but exhaustion had claimed her after just a few hours. And thanks to that disturbing phone call, she'd been extra grouchy all afternoon.

Jeb continued to watch her, waiting for an answer to his question. Staring back at him, Laney fiddled with the top button on her sweater and wondered how to broach what was always a difficult subject, even with Jeb.

"Just spill it, princess."

"All right." Like a swimmer about to plunge off the high dive, she deliberately filled her lungs. "Remember on the phone today when I said Millie was on the other line and seemed to be upset?" She waited for Jeb's cautious nod before continuing. "She was talking to my father."

Jeb huffed out a breath; his disgust was palpable. "What's it been? Ten years since his last phone call?"

"Something like that." Laney had never understood how a man she'd never met could hurt her so much. "I guess he hinted about needing money again."

"Where does he find the nerve?" Jeb muttered.

Laney shrugged. "All I can figure is that he thought the Graces might be getting too old to remember how he took their money and—"

"They haven't forgotten, Laney."

"No," she agreed. "Caroline says he's not even mentioned in their wills. I'm their sole beneficiary."

That thought warmed her, even though she'd never see any of the Graces' money. What they didn't spend on their charities, they'd surely use up in their old age, but that was fine. The gesture itself meant the world to Laney.

Jeb scooted to the end of his chaise to sit directly in front of her. Leaning forward, he rested his forearms on his knees
.

"Did he ask about you?"

"Millie didn't say. But why would he, when he never has before?"

She had never seen her father, never spoken to him on the phone, never received a card or a letter from him. She was nothing to him. Nobody.

"I don't know why I let this upset me," she said bitterly. "I've done just fine without a father. I don't
want
him in my life. A man who can turn his back on a woman who's pregnant with his child is no man at all."

Jeb blanched, and she realized that talking about her father had dredged up his own unhappy memories. She leaned forward to lay a hand over one of his wrists.

"I'm sorry, Jeb. I know it was ten times worse for you."

She'd suffered by her father's complete lack of interest in her, but his cruelty wasn't personal. How could it be, when he'd never even seen her? Jeb's father, on the other hand, had rejected a son he'd seen every day.
That
was personal.

And mind-numbingly brutal.

"Let it go," Jeb said quietly.

"Not this time." She squeezed his wrist, determined to break this familiar impasse and help him begin to heal. "Jeb, I'm no expert on fathers, but I can tell you that yours wasn't normal. I'm not talking about the alcoholism, but about the way he—"

"
Don't
." Jeb pulled away from her grasp and sat up, stiffening his back like a soldier at attention.

"He was emotionally deformed," Laney insisted. "I don't know how or why. But you have to stop thinking that you somehow deserved his animosity. A normal man doesn't treat his son the way your father treated you."

"Actually
 
.
 
.
 
." Jeb drawled the word, imbuing it with wry resentment. "He believed I was his brother's son."

"
What?
"

"He told me when I was seventeen. He was drunk, naturally. He said his brother died in a car wreck the week before my mother—" Jeb stopped abruptly, averting his gaze. Nearly two decades after the fact, he still couldn't bring himself to say the words,
my mother killed herself
.

So Laney said them for him. "You mean he actually implied that your mother killed herself because she'd had a—an illicit relationship—with his brother, and she couldn't go on living without him?"

"There was no 'implying' about it. That's what he said."

"And you never told me," Laney breathed.

"It doesn't matter." He slid his hands behind him on the chaise and leaned back on his braced arms, assuming a relaxed posture that didn't fool Laney for a second. "I don't know if it's true or not," he added. "But I never mentioned it to you because I didn't care."

Of course he cared. He'd deny it to his last breath, but he did care.

"Your parents didn't deserve you." She meant the words to be comforting, so she flinched when they elicited a derisive snort instead.

"Oh, I'm sure I was exactly what they deserved." Jeb gave her a cynical, tight-lipped smile. "What is it Mrs. Lindstrom always says? That the apple doesn't fall far from the tree?"

"Stop it," Laney commanded. "You're a wonderful, caring person. If the world didn't see that before you ran into a burning house to save a crabby old woman who never had a kind word to say about you, they've sure figured it out now. It's all over the news that you're a hero."

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