Her Valentine Family (2 page)

He grinned, and the deep dimple in his left cheek winked at her. “Hey, it usually works.” Then he raised a dark brow. “So, why not?”

“I guess because the right person never asked.” She swallowed and wondered if she'd given too much away with that remark. The right one would have asked, she knew, if she'd told him the truth six years ago.

He took a small step forward, closer. “Jess, a lot happened back then, but I never really knew why you felt like you had to leave. Why wouldn't you return my calls? Or tell me exactly where you were?”

“You were going off to school,” she said simply. “And I needed to get away.”

“Without saying goodbye? To me?” He shook his head. “It never made sense then, and it doesn't now. Tell me the truth, Jess.”

Her heart thudded so hard she was certain she could feel it against her ribs. The truth. The truth was beautiful, wonderful, alive and exciting…and there was no way she could blurt it out now.

How would he ever forgive her?

“I told you, Chad, I needed to get away.” She glanced toward the parking lot. “And I really should go now. It's late—” she shivered “—and cold.”

“I'm sorry. I shouldn't have kept you out here this long,” he said, as caring and thoughtful as he'd always been. “But I'm glad you're back, and I'm glad I saw you tonight.”

“Me, too.” She turned to go but knew that she wouldn't
be able to walk away that easily. Chad wanted to know more about why she left six years ago, and he wasn't the type of guy to give up when he wanted to know something.

“Jess?”

She took a deep breath of cool air, then turned back toward those green and gold eyes. “Yes?”

“It's been a long time, but I still have a lot of questions about what happened, and I want to talk.”

She owed him that. Then she winced, recalling how he'd called her repeatedly and left her message after message telling her how much he cared for her, how much he loved her. She owed him more than a talk. She owed him the truth. “Okay.”

“What time do your classes end tomorrow?” he asked.

“Tomorrow's Friday. Stockville doesn't have classes on Friday, professor.” She winked at him, and he shook his head, obviously embarrassed by his mistake. Clearly, this meeting was as awkward for him as it was for her.

“I'll tell you the truth, Jess. Seeing you tonight has kind of thrown my world off kilter. I'd thought, well, I guess I thought I'd never see you again.”

Jessica knew exactly what he meant. But he would have seen her, whenever she got the courage to find him and tell him…everything.

“So let me try again,” he continued. “I'm assuming you just got out of class at seven-thirty, so is that the end of your day for Tuesdays and Thursdays?”

She nodded. “I'm taking one Monday-Wednesday class, so I'm done at five on those days. Taking two Tuesday-Thursday classes, so I finish up at seven-thirty.”

“Tuesdays and Thursdays are my late nights, too,” he said. “There's a little coffee and danish shop down the street. Would you want to go there after you finish your classes on Tuesday?”

She hesitated, ran her teeth across her lower lip. If she went home right after her last class, she might get a chance to put Nathan to bed. He was still getting used to his new bed, so she really didn't want to leave him to go to sleep without a good night kiss. “What about Tuesday afternoon, before my class?”

“I have classes straight through from noon until seven-thirty.”

“Oh.” She needed to talk to him, and she was certain that there was a reason she'd run into him on this campus. She was a big believer in God's plan, and she knew that He wouldn't have placed her here with Chad again unless she was supposed to do something. Who was she kidding? She knew what she needed to do. What she didn't know was…how.

“I promise I won't keep you long. A half hour,” he said.

“A half hour would be okay, I suppose.” She smiled, and turned to go again, already pondering how she would tell him the truth.

But Chad's next words caused her to stop completely.

“I have a daughter.”

Jessica's breath caught in her throat, and she had to replay the words to process them completely.

“I have a daughter.”
A
daughter
.

Gaining her composure, she turned back toward him.

“Her name is Lainey, and she's, well, pretty amazing.”
He smiled, the obvious pride he felt for his child undeniable in the statement.

Jessica's eyes started to tingle, and she prayed he'd believe the tears were from the cold. “I'm very happy for you,” she said. “I'm sure she's extremely amazing.” Then she swallowed, cleared her throat and said exactly what she hadn't planned to say to him tonight. “I have a son.”

The shock on his face matched hers upon learning that he had a little girl.

“You have a son?”

Jess nodded and smiled, her cheeks pressing upward and causing that tiny river of tears to spill over. Again, she prayed he thought it was from the cold. “His name is Nathan.” Then she laughed and added, “And he's pretty amazing, too.”

“I'm sure he is.”

They both stood there for a moment, a bounty of words and explanations tumbling through her thoughts but none spoken.

Then, after several heartbeats of standing there in that cool January air, Chad broke the uncomfortable silence.

“So coffee, Tuesday after class? And we'll catch up on everything we've missed.”

“Yes, we will,” she said, her words barely above a whisper as a result of the lump in her throat. Then she moved away from Chad Martin, away from the only man she'd ever loved and away from the man whose eyes were identical to the ones she'd see when she returned home…to his son.

J
essica drove mechanically back to Claremont, her mind processing the magnitude of what she'd learned on campus tonight. Chad was an instructor at Stockville Community College. He'd moved back to Claremont and was teaching. She shook her head at that. He'd wanted that medical degree so much. Why had he given up on that dream?

She'd kept her pregnancy from him to protect that dream, to make certain that he achieved that goal first before she told him about their son. Then when she'd come back to Claremont three years ago to tell him about Nathan, Chad's sister Becky had said he was done at UGA, that he'd actually gotten his bachelor's degree in three years and that he was going to Emory for med school and getting married. That was the last time Jess had spoken to her old friend, since Becky had also married and moved away with her army husband. She'd heard they were stationed in Alaska. And when Becky moved so far away, the two friends had lost touch without Jessica ever telling her friend she was an aunt…or telling Chad he was a daddy.

And Jess had consequently lost her primary link to Nathan's father.

Some time after that trip home, Chad returned to Claremont, had a daughter and got a divorce.

A divorce. Chad had confided in her repeatedly through their teen years about how much it hurt growing up without two parents and how he'd marry for life, that he'd do whatever it took to make his marriage work and that if he had children, he'd never, ever want them to go through life without parents who cared about them and without love in the home.

Yet he'd divorced. What had happened? What would have caused him to separate from his wife? Had she left him? Was she still living in Claremont? Becky had told her that Chad met his wife in Atlanta, while he was attending Emory. Maybe she was used to big cities and couldn't handle small-town life? No, Jess thought. They wouldn't have moved back to Claremont if that had been the case.

So many questions and not a single answer to be found. Yet he wanted them to get together for coffee so they could chat about what happened when she left six years ago. Well, Jessica wanted to chat, too, and learn what happened in the six years since—specifically, what happened to the marriage that had kept her from telling Chad about Nathan three years ago.

Again, Jess shook her head in disbelief. Why would anyone leave Chad? Maybe his wife had hurt him, so much that he simply couldn't stay with her. And Chad apparently had custody of their daughter.

A daughter. Chad had a daughter and, according to him, she was “pretty amazing.”

Tears trickled down her cheeks. The delight he'd
expressed when telling Jess about the little girl pierced her heart. It wasn't that she was upset he had a child with someone else. The thing was, he didn't realize that he had a pretty amazing son, too. He didn't know because Jessica still hadn't told him.

She wondered if the little girl, Lainey, looked like Nathan. Did she act like him? Did Chad get to watch her blond baby fuzz hair turn sandy and wavy, so much like his own? Or the blue eyes she'd been born with change to that stunning deep forest-green, with the tiny gold flecks and ring of dark brown around the edge. Were her eyes inquisitive, like Nathan's, always searching for answers, examining every tiny nuance of life around them?

Jessica suddenly had an immeasurable longing to see his daughter, get to know her and introduce her to Nathan. She wondered how old Lainey was, and she was instantly touched by the fact that Nathan was a big brother. He'd often asked her for a little brother or sister who he could teach things to. At the time, she'd tried to let him down easy, since that was nowhere near a possibility when she'd had no interest in dating; she'd only wanted to raise her son, for the time being. She'd thought maybe, someday, she'd find love again, but it certainly had been a distant dream. And in her heart, she wasn't sure she could ever truly love anyone but Chad.

She passed the sign that said Welcome to Claremont at the edge of town and followed the familiar roads leading home. She noticed the new subdivisions, houses on cul-de-sacs where cotton fields had once been. Square beams of light shone from the windows of the homes on the winding streets.

Chad lived in one of those houses. Chad—and his daughter.

At some point between Stockville and Claremont, it had started to rain. With the darkness and the water streaming in wet sheets down her windshield, she was taken back to the last time she'd seen Chad Martin. She'd driven to his house to tell him that they were going to have a baby, and she knew it'd be tough, but she'd known that the two of them would find a way to make it work. They'd get married and start their family.

But he'd had big news that night, too. And after he told her that he'd gotten the scholarship he'd dreamed of, a full ride to the University of Georgia, she simply couldn't tell him about the baby. And she'd driven home in the rain, crying the whole way. Then she'd called him and told him a lie.

The rain fell harder, and she slowly pulled her car into the driveway, then darted to the house. And like that night six years ago, her mother was waiting in the living room, sitting on the couch and staring at the door expectantly. The last time she'd been waiting to see whether Jessica would agree to move to Tennessee, live with her grandmother and have her baby. This time she was waiting for something else, and Jess didn't think it was merely to see how her classes went in Stockville.

“So, how was your night?” Anna Bowman asked, leaning forward on the couch. “How were your classes? Did you see anyone you know?” Her cheeks flushed slightly, and she clarified, “I thought, you know, with the campus being so close to Claremont and all, that you might have run into some of your old classmates.”

Jess suddenly realized that there was more going on here than she'd originally thought, more to her parents' interest in sending her to the college.

They knew.

“Where's Nathan?” she asked, trying to tamp down on her shock and control her voice.

“Your father is reading him a story before bed,” her mother said and smiled, but it didn't quite meet her eyes.

Jessica crossed the room, sat in the oak rocking chair that had been her grandmother's and began to slowly rock back and forth while she let her mind play over everything that had happened in the past few weeks. Her parents had called her in Tennessee and told her how much they wanted her to bring Nathan back here for school. She'd thought about it for a few days, a little hesitant about moving in the middle of the school year, but finally deciding that she wanted to do that, too, raise him in her hometown and near his grandparents. She wanted him to have some sense of a real family. But then they'd also wanted her to go back to school, and they'd wanted her to go to the community college in Stockville rather than the one in Claremont. They even paid her first semester's tuition as a Christmas present.

“How long have you known?” she asked softly.

A slight flush whispered up her mother's throat. “Known what?”

“That Chad was divorced and moved back here and that he was teaching at Stockville.”

Her mother cleared her throat. “Oh, well, you know how small towns are.” She waved her hands slightly as she spoke. “Everybody talks when someone comes back to town. Your father and I thought you might want an opportunity to see him again, maybe talk to him and tell him about Nathan.”

She'd always planned to tell Chad about their son. That's why she'd returned three years ago, but then she'd
learned he was about to get married and she'd returned to her grandmother's farm in Tennessee. But she'd always intended to tell him, and she assumed God would let her know when the time was right.

Evidently, He thought the time was right now, and He let her parents help set things in motion.

“So, you saw Chad tonight?” her mother asked.

“Yes.”

“We were planning to help you go back to school one day anyway,” she explained. “But when we heard he was teaching at Stockville we thought that was a sign we should send you there. God works in mysterious ways,” her mother added, smiling. “You forgive us for not telling you the whole story?”

“I do,” Jessica said. How could she be upset with them for wanting their grandson to know his father? But she wondered if Chad would ever forgive her for not telling him about his son. Soon, she suspected, she'd know, whenever she gained enough courage to tell him the truth. For now, though, she'd go see the other guy with green-gold eyes who held a large piece of her heart.

She hugged her mom, told her that she was sure everything would work out the way it was supposed to and then headed upstairs.

The door to the guest room, Nathan's room for now, was cracked open. She approached quietly and peered inside, eager to see the interaction between Nathan and his granddaddy. Nathan hadn't had a father figure in his world so far, and he hadn't spent nearly as much time with her father as she would've liked, so this scene was very special.

Her son sat against the headboard, his sandy curls leaning against her father's side as Nathan pointed to
a page of the book his granddaddy held. He tilted his head up and raised his brows, the same face he always gave Jessica when he expected her to answer one of his intricate questions.

Nathan never accepted anything at face value. Even at two, he was determined to learn exactly how his toy train whistled and took the thing completely apart, to the point that Jessica couldn't even attempt to put it back together. He wanted to know how things worked, why things happened, what caused what in the entire scheme of things. He was inquisitive, intelligent and witty. Never afraid to ask what he wanted to know. In other words, he was his father's son, and Jessica couldn't have been more pleased.

She recalled Chad's blunt query from earlier to night.

“Have you married?”
And then
“Why not?”

Tough questions, for sure, but she was used to tough questions. She got them often enough from Nathan. And he wasn't cutting her father any slack now.

She stepped into the room in time to hear him ask, “But
how
did the stone knock his head off?”

Her father's smile, and his adoration for his grandson, was absolutely breathtaking. And he didn't get frustrated by Nathan's confusion. Instead, he appeared to enjoy that Nathan wanted facts about the story. “You see, God was helping David, and that's how the stone knocked off the giant's head. Or rather, the stone knocked him down and then David cut off his head with a sword.”

Nathan's small hands instinctively moved to grasp his head.

“No one would want to hurt your head, so you have nothing to worry about,” her dad said with a low chuckle

Nathan squinted at his granddaddy, then apparently noticed Jessica's presence and shifted gears in the subject matter to what he knew was the most important item in her day. “Hey, Mama. Did you get it? Get that job you wanted?”

She'd called home and told her parents about the position at the day care center right after the interview. Apparently, they hadn't thought her little guy would be interested in her news, which proved they still had a lot to learn about their grandson. Nathan was interested in
everything,
and she loved that about him, just like she loved it about his Daddy.

“Well, did you?” Nathan repeated.

“I did,” she said, opening her arms and waiting, while he jumped off the bed and ran to give her his traditional welcome home hug. She inhaled his little boy smell—chocolate chip cookies with a hint of soap from his bath—and squeezed him tightly.

“Hey, I can't breathe!”

Laughing, she released her hold and placed him on the bed, where he crawled back to his spot beneath the covers.

“Sorry. I missed you,” she said.

“Missed you, too,” he said, “But maybe you won't miss me too much while I'm at big school if you have all those little kids to take care of,” he said, happily putting himself in the “big kid” category.

“Yeah, those little ones need someone to take care of them, for sure,” she agreed, enjoying the way his eyes beamed at her, and the way the gold flecks sparkled within the deep sea of green. She'd never gotten tired of those eyes six years ago, when she'd fallen in love
with Chad Martin. And she sure didn't get tired of them now.

“Now that you're going to work, Granddaddy says I can take the bus and it will pick me up right outside, by the mailbox.” Nathan pointed out the window toward the end of the driveway, where that big gold bus always picked up Jessica when she was his age. “And he said he'll wait with me in the morning and that MeMaw will help me pack my new Superman lunch box for school.” Exactly what they'd done with Jessica, except her lunch box had had Malibu Barbie on the front.

“What new Superman lunch box?”

“The one MeMaw bought him at Walmart today, I suppose,” her father said, grinning.

“I got new Superman shoes, too,” Nathan announced. “For school.”

“Sounds like MeMaw is spoiling you rotten.” Jessica cocked her head at her dad.

“Don't look at me,” he said. “You know I'd have said no.”

“Sure you would've,” Jess said, spying an empty glass with a hint of milk at the bottom and a crumb-covered plate on the nightstand, which explained why Nathan had smelled like chocolate chip cookies.

“You're getting me the backpack, Granddaddy,” Nathan said. “Remember?”

Her father shrugged. “Okay, guilty.”

“Let's stop the madness at the backpack,” Jessica said, pressing a finger against Nathan's nose.

“They've got Superman notebooks, too,” Nathan mumbled. Then he looked at his granddaddy and grinned. “And pencils.”

“Well, you certainly can't have the backpack and not
get the matching notebooks and pencils, can you?” her father asked.