The Single Dad Finds a Wife (20 page)

“Gram, you and Mom are good people, and so was Grandpa. I've always wondered how Dad went so wrong.”

She shook her head. “I don't know. He was already grown when I took the teaching job at Schroon Lake and met your grandfather. But we don't want to talk about your father.”

His father was a subject Jared usually avoided, but, surprisingly, he did want to talk about him now. He wouldn't press Gram, though, if she didn't want to.

“You sure hit it off with Becca's kids,” she said.

He shrugged and took a big bite of his sandwich.

“I've always liked Becca Norton,” she said.

He swallowed the bite. So had he. From afar.

“Weren't you in the same grade?

“No, she was a year ahead of me.” One more thing that had put her out of his reach. Jared pictured Becca as she'd looked the first time he'd seen her, at the beginning of his freshman year. Her waist-length hair. Her bright friendly smile. Her hair was shorter now, but the smile was the same.

“That's right,” his grandmother said. “She came to Schroon Lake Central from Lakeside Christian Academy the year Harry became principal.” Her eyes went soft when she mentioned her husband of three years.

Jared reached for his tea. With a kindergarten-through-twelfth-grade student body of less than three hundred, any new student at Schroon Lake Central School stuck out. But Becca had even more so—at least for him. He'd told his buddy he'd be taking her to the homecoming dance. His friend's derisive laugh had made him more determined—until his father had gone and ruined everything before he'd even gotten to meet her. He gulped the rest of his drink.

“Becca and I taught together for a couple of years before I retired. I think both Josh and Connor had her for history at least one year. Which reminds me. Do you know if Connor has made up his mind yet? I think Becca would be perfect.”

Connor and Becca?
He gripped the empty glass. “Isn't he a little young for her?”

His grandmother's lips twitched. “I don't see what Connor's age has to do with hiring Becca to be the substitute head teacher at The Kids' Place, the church day-care center, for the summer. She could use the money.”

“Nothing.” He studied a small chip in his sandwich plate, most likely courtesy of him or one of his brothers or cousins. Gram had been feeding them sandwiches on the same plates since they were kids. “My mind was elsewhere.”

The twitch turned into a knowing smile. Except Gram didn't really know anything about it. Becca Norton was an adolescent dream he had no intention of pursuing as an adult. They had been too different then and were too different now.

“Would you like a piece of strawberry-rhubarb pie?” She stood and turned to the counter behind her chair. “I baked one this morning. I remember it was always your favorite.”

Jared pursed his lips, irritated that Gram's smile bothered him.

“It's not that big of a decision,” she said making as if to place the pie back on the counter.

“Sorry, Gram. I'd love a piece of your pie.” He lifted his empty plate toward her, and she cut and placed a large slice on it.

“Something's bothering you.” It was a statement, not a question.

“I'm fine.” He bit into a forkful of pie. “This is great.”

“You haven't said anything about what the lawyer said this morning. I assume it was about Bert Miller's will.”

Jared chewed the pie, savoring the combination of sweet and tart. “He left Connor a trust for the church, paid off Josh's student loans and gave me that land he owned west of the lake.”

His grandmother's eyes widened. “Did you know?”

“Not about Josh and Connor.”

“But about the land?” she pressed.

He tapped his fork on the side of the plate before setting it down. “He sent me a letter a couple of months ago.”

“Oh.”

“He used to do that, send me a letter every so often.”

Gram tilted her head and studied him. “Bert always did like you boys.” She hesitated as if weighing her next words. “Said you were the sons he never had.”

“He was with Dad that night...you know...he told me in one of his letters.”

“I know.”

Jared jerked his head up. From what Bert had said in his letter, he'd gotten the idea that fact wasn't common knowledge.

“Your father told your grandfather one night when he'd been drinking.”

Jared stifled a snort. That could have been about any night.

“Your grandfather told me your dad and Bert had been best friends since kindergarten. Until then.”

Gram was the only grandmother he remembered. But she hadn't married his widowed grandfather until after Jared had been born. She'd always been able to talk about Dad with a lot more detachment than he or either of his brothers could.

He pushed away from the table. “I should get going.” Now that Gram wanted to talk about Dad, Jared wasn't sure he did anymore.

“JJ.” His grandmother reached across the table and touched his hand.

He pulled away from her touch at the use of his childhood nickname, short for Jared Junior. “Don't call me that. Please.” He softened his tone.

“You're not your father.”

Jared released his pent up breath. “I know, but I did enough stupid things before I left Paradox Lake, and some after, to make people think I am.”

“Honey, you weren't the first or the last teenager in Paradox Lake to be stopped driving while impaired.”

“I'm the only son of the town drunk who was, after knocking over the Sheriff's mailbox and running down his front fence.”

“You paid back Sheriff Norton for all the damages to his property.”

“After which he strongly recommended I take myself elsewhere as soon as I finished high school.”

“He was harsher on you than he might have been on someone else. There was bad blood between him and your father. But now you're back. And I, for one, am glad you are.”

“Yep, I'm back.” And there wasn't anyone or anything that could make him leave again. At least not before he cleaned up the Donnelly family name and made amends to his brothers for bailing on them and his mother.

* * *

Becca kept an eye on Brendon and Ari from the kitchen window that overlooked the backyard as she put away the groceries she'd picked up in Ticonderoga. Her son was racing his bike around Ari and the jungle gym her father had built for them before he and her mother had moved to North Carolina. Probably pretending he was Jared. He and motocross racing were all Brendon had talked about on the drive home from Edna Stowe's house.

She closed the cupboard and walked out to the deck to call the kids in to get their things ready to go to their other grandparents' for the night.

“Hey, Mom, watch.” Brendon rode his bike up a small rise behind the jungle gym and sped down, yanking on the bike's handle bars and doing a wheelie for several feet across the yard. She stifled a screech as he circled around and laid the bike down on the grass in front of the deck steps.

“What do you think?” He beamed.

What she thought was she was likely to be completely gray by the time she was thirty-five. “Impressive,” she said.

“Do you think if I asked Dad, he would buy me a dirt bike for my birthday?”

Becca closed her eyes and breathed in and out. If her ex-husband knew how much that thought terrorized her, he probably would and count the cost as child support. She'd never shared it with Matt, but her parents had instilled a fear of motorcycles in her when she was a child after a close friend of theirs had died in a bike accident.

“I think you should wait a few more years on that one.” Brendon was only nine going on ten.

“Aw, Jared could teach me how to ride. The story in the magazine said that he's going to start a school to teach kids like me how to race motocross, with a real motocross racetrack and everything.”

“I don't think he's building his racetrack here.” Jared Donnelly hadn't been back to Paradox Lake for more than an occasional short visit since he'd left fifteen years ago. Even if he were in town for an extended visit, she doubted he'd build his motocross school here in the North Country where he could only operate it part of the year.

The disappointment on Brendon's face made her chest tighten. He was just a little boy, even though he often seemed older because of his self-appointed role as the man of the family since her ex had left them.

She draped her arm over his shoulder, expecting him to duck out of her loose embrace, and her heart warmed when he didn't. “You and Ari need to get ready to go to Grandma and Grandpa's. They'll be here soon to pick you guys up for the pizza movie night at church. Is Ian going?”

“Yeah.” Brendon shrugged away. “His parents would probably let him get a dirt bike.”

Back to that.
Becca was pretty certain her son's best friend's parents would no more buy Ian a dirt bike than she'd let Brendon have one. “Go on and get your sleepover stuff ready. I'll be right in with Ari.”

Brendon stomped off.

“Ari, we need to pack your things for Grandma's.”

“Okay, Mom.” She jumped off the swing and skipped up the stairs to the deck.

A few minutes later, Becca watched her former in-laws and her kids drive away. Fortunately, they'd been running late, so she hadn't had to talk with them much beyond finding out when they'd be bringing the kids back tomorrow. She walked to the kitchen, poured a glass of ice tea and took a carton of yogurt from the refrigerator before going back out onto the deck. Brendon had left his magazine on the umbrella table. She sat on the matching chair and leafed through the magazine to a page with a picture of Jared standing beside a racing bike with his helmet tucked under his arm. His hair was tousled as if he'd just taken off the helmet, and he oozed masculine bravado. In the accompanying article, Jared talked about starting a motocross school for kids, particularly underprivileged and fatherless kids.

She closed the publication and placed it on the table. Brendon wasn't underprivileged, but she often felt he was growing up fatherless. She'd taken her wedding vows seriously. Tried and prayed so hard to keep her marriage together, and, despite knowing better, couldn't shake the final remnants of failure that she hadn't been able to. As if to block out the pain, her mind went to Ari and Brendon sitting on either side of Jared on his grandmother's couch looking at Ari's storybook. A perfect family picture. Something beyond her reach. Obviously, she wasn't cut out for marriage if she couldn't make a go of it with someone she'd grown up with and had known as well as Matt. Or thought she'd known.

The picture of Jared with her kids popped back into her head. She had no idea why her mind was flitting from him to marriage and back to him. Regardless of what he'd said at his grandmother's about getting used to Adirondack winters again, she couldn't imagine he was back to stay. What attraction, besides his family, could Paradox Lake hold for someone who'd traveled all around the world?

Becca pushed Jared and her failed marriage out of her head. Looking past her yard beyond her property to the meadow and woods that Bert Miller had owned, she wondered what would become of the acreage. Her ex-mother-in-law had been sure Bert would leave it to her, his only relative. But that didn't seem to be the case. She placed her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her entwined fingers. Last year, she and the two other families on Conifer Road had heard Bert was considering selling it to a resort syndicate that was vying for one of the gambling casino licenses New York State had up for grabs at the time. They'd banded together in an informal homeowners association, ready to oppose that project or any other undesirable one that might endanger the quality of life they wanted for their families.

She hoped it wouldn't come to anything like that. Recently, hanging on to her property had become enough of a fight for her. She didn't need another one. Raising two kids and paying the mortgage on the
dream
house she and her ex-husband had built was tough on a teacher's salary, especially a teacher's salary at a small school such as Schroon Lake. She nudged a stone under the table with her toe. Getting the job she'd applied for running The Kids' Place at church for the summer would really help. Disappointment welled inside her. She'd thought she would have heard back by now. The only other jobs available were in the tourist trade and wouldn't pay enough for her to make any money once she'd paid for day care. Unless she asked her ex-mother-in-law to watch them, which she wasn't about to do. Ari and Brendon could come with her to The Kids' Place. She kicked the stone and watched it arch up and hit the deck rail before landing on the grass several feet away.

She rose to go inside. Why did she always have to second-guess herself and overthink everything? Why couldn't she simply accept God's plan for her? Her mind flashed back once more to Jared reading to her kids and she halted midstep.
That
couldn't possibly be what He had in mind for her.

Copyright © 2015 by Jean Chelikowsky Gordon

ISBN-13: 9781460381472

The Single Dad Finds a Wife

Copyright © 2015 by Felicia Mason

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