Carmen pushed her mug away. “What about school? We’re already nearly a month into the fall semester. Colie and Violet should be there right now. And I’m assuming you have a job. What are you going to do with Cade while you’re working?”
“I’ll figure it out. My job’s flexible. I own the local newspaper. I’m financially secure.” Frankly, thanks to the money her parents had left her, she could shut down the paper today and have plenty of savings to live off of for years to come.
“Jen.”
“Do a background check on me. I’ve literally never even had a speeding ticket.”
“Please, slow down.”
“No, I’m asking you to slow down. Don’t force these children away from a place where they’re stable and comfortable, maybe for the first time since their mother died.” Or maybe even since before she died, if the hints of past unhappiness she’d picked up just in the past couple of days were on the mark. “Come back and check on us as often as you need to, but don’t take this away from them.”
Don’t take them away from me.
The force of her own desire surprised her even as it coursed through her, settling deep into her bones. For the first time since her own mother had died, she felt needed. Purposeful.
Sam had said she was bored at the newspaper. And he was right. She’d been restless for months, using her busyness, maybe even her friendships, as a distraction from her lack of direction. Full days were a cover for the buried emotions she’d been just as reluctant to sort through as all her parents’ belongings, for the sense of discontent she didn’t know what to do with.
For her . . . loneliness.
I’m not lonely. I have Mara and Marshall and Sam and Lucas. She had Paige at the paper and a town full of people she’d known her whole life.
Yes, but do they know you?
It wasn’t the first time she’d entertained the thought that no one knew the real her. Not even the friends she’d wrangled into a family. Truth was, this house she’d avoided for so long had seen more of the real Jenessa Belville than her friends had. It had witnessed the anxiety that had riddled her teenage years, the angst of her guilt over all that had happened with Mom and Dad . . .
The tears she saved for nighttime after Aunt Lauren left.
She looked up, meeting Carmen’s brown eyes. “I was only a little younger than Colie when I lost someone very close to me. It’s not the same situation, but I think . . . I truly think I have something to offer her, to offer all three of them.”
Carmen’s studying stare bore into her.
“Please give me a chance.”
“Not that the B&B is a five-star hotel or anything, but we’re giving up rooms there for this?” Noah dropped his duffel bag to the cottage floor and it sent dust and dirt pluming at their feet.
Okay, so it was dirty.
And dark despite the sunlight flooding the sprawling back lawn of Belville Park. Removing the dingy curtains from the main room’s windows would help with that. And the city utilities office had promised to send someone out by the end of the day to turn on the electricity.
“A little cleaning and it’ll be plenty livable.” Lucas crossed the room, passed the small kitchenette against the back wall, and peeked into one of the two tiny bedrooms. No bed, but he’d slept on hard ground plenty of times through the years. A sleeping bag on the floor would suit him just fine tonight.
And if Noah didn’t like that, well, he could take that faded couch in the main room.
Point was, they were Army men, former soldiers. They’d get by. Because whatever else the cottage might lack, it offered two things the Everwood didn’t—privacy and space.
He’d realized first thing Sunday morning that he and Noah couldn’t stay at the Everwood. Noah had already shot him a strange look when he’d made vague introductions to Mara, Marshall, and Sam. And though none of his friends had necessarily pried for information, they’d asked just enough questions to convince Lucas he’d be better off finding somewhere else to stay.
“Grab the bucket of cleaning supplies from my truck, will you? I’m going to check out all the faucets.” Supposedly the water already had been turned on, but whether the sinks and shower and toilet would work after years of disuse, who knew.
But Noah didn’t budge from the doorway. “So . . . what? We live in a sardine box and clean up a yard that looks like it was hit by a tornado?”
Lucas twisted the faucet handle over the kitchenette’s small sink. After a second or two, a trickle of water dripped into the rusted drain below. “Actually it was hit by a tornado. We got a bad one in 2014.” And for once, he’d even been around at the time.
After serving out his prison sentence, he’d gone straight to work with Flagg. But three years into his time with Bridgewell, he’d received the call about Grandpa’s passing. He’d actually come home for a couple of years then, worked the orchard at Dad’s insistence before Kit had moved back from London and taken over.
But he’d known all through those two years that he didn’t belong at the orchard. Probably didn’t even belong in Maple Valley. He’d itched to get back to Bridgewell. Never had understood why Dad had turned the orchard over to him, especially considering the years of distance between them, his father’s refusal to so much as shake his hand when he’d finally come back to the States.
Of course, Dad hadn’t known about Bridgewell. Probably thought Lucas needed the work, the discipline. Probably thought he was doing me a favor.
Right. As if Dad had ever gone out of his way to actually be a part of his son and daughter’s lives.
“And somehow playing gardener is supposed to get me ready to join Bridgewell Elite?”
Oh, they were going to do more than garden. It’d take a full day alone to saw that fallen tree into smaller pieces and haul it away, along with all the debris from the destroyed shed. Then they’d need to rebuild the shed. Between that and the neglected gardens, the broken fountain, the landscaping, they’d have plenty to keep them occupied for the next month, at least.
And frankly, he liked the challenge of it. Of the physical labor, anyway, if not necessarily the company. But he couldn’t forget that Noah was his work. His mission.
“Noah, Bridgewell Elite is a team. It’s a close-knit group of soldiers who haven’t just mastered a series of skills and tools. We’ve perfected the art of working together. It’s not the physical training that makes us elite, it’s the fact that we can communicate silently, read each other’s minds.”
Well, almost anyway. He hadn’t picked up on Courtney’s, uh . . . feelings or anything. Nor had he done a good job—or any job at all—silently communicating his break in protocol when they’d been in Venezuela.
Still. He might’ve taken a bullet, but he’d completed the mission.
And he’d complete this one. No matter how many scowls Noah sent his way.
“We need to start tackling this place if we want to be able to sleep tonight without inhaling dust. I thought maybe while we work, you could tell me a little about your experience in Iraq.”
“Flagg said you’re my mentor, not my counselor.”
“Yeah, well, he also told me he could see promise and potential in you. Maybe he misled both of us.” Probably not the best thing to say to get on the guy’s good side, but just how much was he supposed to put up with here? He sure as heck hadn’t been this insolent when Flagg had first taken him under his wing.