She had so many questions—about Dad, the affair, why her parents had stayed together in the aftermath. But what did any of it matter? It was too disturbing to think about. A piece of her wanted to rail against her father, but what good would that do?
Aunt Lauren was here. She could rail against her.
But how did a person lash out at someone whose sorrow was near tangible? It wasn’t that she didn’t feel a degree of anger toward the woman, but it was mixed in with so many other emotions, she might not have known how to express it if she tried.
“How was it that Lucas could convince you to meet with me and I couldn’t?”
Aunt Lauren looked back to Jenessa. “I couldn’t take it anymore—wondering about you, missing you.” She offered a thin smile. “And in his first voicemail, he said something about how he’d prayed all day before calling. He sounded so sweet and endearing. And every maternal feeling I’d ever had toward you as a child reared up in me so fierce, I just had to come. I had to see you and meet this man who’s obviously head over heels in love with you. I had to make sure I approved.”
Her first instinct was to tell her aunt she didn’t have the right to approve or not approve anymore.
But she couldn’t. Not when there was finally one emotion clambering to the surface, doing its very best to drown out all the others. A childlike yearning to be safe and loved and secure. “I missed you so much.” Her voice broke.
She gave in and let herself cry.
“What is it with fathers?”
Lucas said it so quietly he wasn’t sure Jen had even heard it above the humming heater and the closing credits of the cartoon playing on the DVD system in the back. Cade had been asleep for an hour and Violet for at least the past thirty minutes.
He glanced in his rearview mirror. Colie leaned against the window, eyes closed.
“My dad, your dad.” His gone for most of his childhood. Jen’s physically present but emotionally distant. And after what Jen’s aunt had told her today—well, his father wasn’t the only one who shielded a tight secret. “I know we’re trying to keep an open mind about the Hollis dad, but fathers in general just aren’t looking so good in my book these days.”
Jen held out a bag of Twizzlers. He’d lost count of how many he’d eaten twenty miles ago.
“I happen to know there are some spectacularly good dads out there,” she said. “Look at Sam. He never gets all the time he wants with Mackenzie, but he pours himself into the relationship as best he can. He’d give anything to have full custody.”
She was right. And Marshall used to have a daughter. She’d died two years before he’d come to Maple Valley. Lucas had no doubt the man had loved her more than his own life. And if Marshall and Mara ever had kids, they’d be incredible parents.
“Look at your grandpa,” she added. “He might not have technically been your dad, but the way you talk about him makes him sound like he was everything a father should be—supportive, loving, hard-working.”
“And he loved my grandma. Not in a boisterous, showy way or anything, but just by quietly standing beside her through whatever came their way.”
Wispy clouds drifted over the evening sky, the waning rays of a burnt amber sun reaching out as if through flimsy gossamer. They’d made this trip stretch as long as possible. When he’d met Jenessa in the lobby of the hotel, her aunt had asked if she could treat them all to lunch. He’d looked to Jen before agreeing, wanting to make sure she was comfortable with it. Though traces of earlier tears had still been evident on her face, she’d nodded.
And he’d watched all through lunch at the restaurant as a timid hope bloomed in her. He could see it in the way she slowly opened up to her aunt, sharing about her college years, her stint as a paralegal, her efforts at the newspaper. She’d mentioned that high school boyfriend who she’d been with for too many years—shooting him a glance and grinning when he scowled.
When the kids were finally full and their table a disaster, he’d rounded them up while Jen hugged her aunt. It wasn’t the full, comfortable embrace he knew she was capable of, but still—there’d been fresh tears in both of their eyes. Her aunt had promised to come visit.
After that, they’d taken the kids to the Mall of America, let them spend a couple hours on rides before finally loading back into the SUV and hitting the road for home. They were about forty minutes from Maple Valley now, moving down I-35 and soon to turn onto Highway 30 and head west into the sunset.
He couldn’t help thinking it’d be nice to just keep going. Take these kids who didn’t belong to him and this woman who did—he really hoped she did, hoped she knew he belonged to her—and just keep driving.
Except that’d be kidnapping.
And Jen had the newspaper and he had the final touches to make on her garden before the gala, not to mention a father and half-brother who might still be waiting for him to acknowledge them.
Unless they’d given up and Dad had ditched town. But Kit would’ve said something.
Then again, maybe she had. He didn’t know when he’d last looked at his phone. For all he knew, she could’ve texted anytime today to say Dad had tired of lingering in Maple Valley. But he’d given his phone to Violet somewhere on the other side of the Iowa–Minnesota border so she could play a game and who knew where it was now.
“You sound a lot like him.”
“What?” He spared Jen another glance. Her dark hair was a riot of wind-blown waves and orange sunlight traced her profile.
“Your grandpa. Quietly standing beside your grandma. A person could describe you the same way.”
“I did quietly stand beside Grandma a lot. Especially in church during hymns, but then she’d give me that look that meant business and I’d finally start singing.”
Jenessa tapped him with a Twizzler. “You know that’s not what I meant.”
For all the strangeness of this week—knowing Dad was just a few miles outside of Maple Valley, dealing with the knowledge that he’d have to say goodbye to these kids soon, processing the fact that he had a brother and wondering how long they’d go on avoiding each other—there’d been this one ceaseless and wondrously bright spot.
Jenessa Belville had become the everyday presence in his life that gave new purpose to his days. She knew his secrets. He’d glimpsed her deeper emotions. Had he ever felt so connected to someone?
“I have to tell you something, Jen.”
She shifted in her seat, let the bag of licorice slide into the console between them. He steered onto the exit ramp.
“I made a decision. I’m not even sure when. It’s just that at some point it stopped even being a question to me.” He wished he could park the car and look in her eyes as he said this. But maybe it was enough to sense her gaze and savor the familiarity of it. “I’m not going back to Bridgewell.”
He heard her quick inhale. Glanced away from the road long enough to see the joy-filled smile she tried to contain.
“It’s okay. You can be happy about it. I’m happy about it.”
“Seriously? ’Cause, Luke, anytime we’ve talked about it, you’ve worn this look of pride—a good kind of pride, I think. You’re obviously good at what you do or else you wouldn’t have made the elite team. I don’t want to be the reason you lose something important to you. It’d be way too selfish of me.”