The Bachelor's Brighton Valley Bride (Return to Brighton Valley) (14 page)

In spite of the fame and fortune, his life was small and empty. He’d been missing something all along—something that he’d found in Megan.

He’d never felt so warm, so loved, so complete until he’d returned to Brighton Valley, stripped off the Clay Jenkins persona and let Peyton Johnson take the helm.

In a way, Peyton was the real him—not the geeky kid who’d struggled to be loved and accepted or the CEO who could buy himself fame and a place in the world.

And Clay had to show Megan that he was all three people—the kid, the man and the CEO—all wrapped up into one messed-up package who loved her more than he knew how to admit.

Yep, that was what he’d do. Then he’d ask her to marry him and move to Silicon Valley. And if she’d rather live elsewhere, that was fine with him. It was her choice. He would make it happen for her.

He was just about to place a long-overdue phone call when he heard a key turn in the lock on the front door of the shop. He assumed it was her arriving at work early, which was good. His confession would take some time, and he’d like to keep that closed sign up for as long as it took.

But when Megan stepped through the door, she wasn’t wearing a smile or carrying a foil-wrapped breakfast treat.

“You lied to me,” she said. The fire that lit her eyes damn near nailed him to the wall, and he knew that she’d learned the truth on her own.

“I can explain.”

“Don’t bother,
Mr. Jenkins.
I don’t want to hear anything you have to say.”

Then, before he could try and say anything else to smooth things over, like beg her to listen to his reason for maintaining a secret identity, which no longer seemed to hold an ounce of water, she turned on her heel, walked out of the shop and slammed the door so hard the bell clanged to the floor and rolled to his feet.

Clay stood there for the longest time, trying to make sense of it all. Her anger he could understand. But his pain and the crushing disappointment had sideswiped him, and he wasn’t sure what to do about it.

In the past, he could pick up a phone and call Zoe. With all the money at his disposal, his creative executive assistant was able to make any number of things happen for him.

But something told him he’d just lost the one thing he wanted and needed more than anything else in the world. And there wasn’t any way he was going to be able to buy her or coax her back.

* * *

Megan cried all the way back to the farm. When the kids had asked why they weren’t going to their summer programs today, she’d given them the reason she’d always hated to hear as a child: “Just because.”

But she couldn’t very well tell them that she had to drive into town earlier than the program started and that she wanted to be alone when she did it. Nor did she want to explain why she wasn’t going into work today—or ever again.

Tyler, of course, had figured it out.

“Are you mad at Mr. Johnson—I mean, Mr. Jenkins?” he asked.

“He lied to us. And there was no reason for it.”

The boy merely dropped his head.

They sat on the living room sofa for nearly thirty minutes, lost in their thoughts, their disappointment, their sadness. The ringing of the telephone finally drew Megan from hers.

She reached for the receiver, snatched it from the cradle and answered. “Hello?”

“Ms. Adams?”

“Yes.”

“This is Harvey Swenson with Fowler Markets, the retail chain out of Dallas. We talked at the farmers’ market yesterday.”

“Yes, Mr. Swenson. What can I do for you?”

“Well, Ms. Adams, it’s what I’d like to do for you. I told our CEO, George Fowler, about your products after I’d tasted them at Caroline’s Diner a while back. And then I presented them to him early this morning, after buying them yesterday. And he’d like to sell them in our stores. So we’re prepared to make you an offer.”

“Like I said before, I’m not willing to sell the recipe.”

“No, we understand that. We’d like to purchase the product. You’d hold all rights. You’d be in business for yourself—we’d just like an exclusive right to sell your jams, jellies and preserves through our stores. So what do you say?”

This was the break she needed. Her financial troubles were going to be a thing of the past.

“I’m definitely interested, Mr. Swenson.”

“Good. We’d like to talk more with you in Dallas on Monday, the seventh of July. Are you available?”

“Yes, I can be.”

“Good. I’ll set up the meeting with our board of directors and then give you the details later. Welcome to the Fowler family, Ms. Adams. I think this is going to be a very lucrative venture for you.”

She certainly hoped so. It was time for her luck to turn. And maybe it would help her heart to heal, too. She hadn’t needed Todd Redding or his family money.

And she didn’t need Clay Jenkins, either.

Chapter Twelve

C
lay hadn’t realized how much he would miss
having Megan—or her homey touches—in the shop until he’d had to spend ten days
without her. But he was running things at Zorba’s until Don came back from
vacation.

The doctor had released the man to return to work, but Clay had
figured an all-expenses-paid trip to San Antonio to visit family would be a nice
break for the couple, especially since Cindy had finally finished her last round
of chemo.

With one phone call to Zoe, he could have had corporate send a
temporary replacement manager here in less than a day, but abandoning the shop
now would be akin to giving up, and he wasn’t a quitter.

Besides, he had something to prove—not just to Megan, who might
never forgive him, but to himself.

Funny thing, though. Everyone in Brighton Valley now knew who
he was, thanks to the confession he’d made to the Carpenters and later to Sally
at the diner. Yet they weren’t treating him too much differently than they had
when they’d known him as Peyton Johnson. In fact, because he was once one of
them before he’d made it big—or so they’d figured—they seemed to have embraced
him.

He supposed that he owed a lot of that to Megan, who hadn’t
gone around telling everyone that he was a lying jerk. She’d kept her anger and
her assessment to herself. And that made him love and respect her even more. It
also made him feel even worse about deceiving her and more determined to prove
that she could put her trust in him again someday.

As he sat behind one of the last computers left to repair,
putting the panel back onto the hard drive he’d just rewired, the reattached
bell on the front door jangled.

“Be right with you,” he called out.

He wiped his hands on his jeans, which he’d started wearing
when he realized he no longer had to hide his identity in town or impress anyone
by looking like a corporate bigwig.

When he made his way to the front of the store, he spotted the
Franco sisters at the counter, the two elderly women who’d been eating at
Caroline’s Diner the first day he’d arrived in town.

“Morning, Clay,” said the one wearing a light pink blouse.

“Hello, ladies. What brings you into Zorba’s today?”

“Sister and I were in the grocery last week,” the one in blue
said, “and we heard y’all have them laptop computer gizmos for sale down here
for one hundred dollars.”

Sister, the one in pink, nodded to confirm this.

Clay wanted to kick himself for ever making that crazy deal
with Riley. At this point, nearly every citizen in Brighton Valley had picked up
a thousand-dollar laptop for a tenth of the price. But there was no way he’d
refuse the Franco sisters the same deal, especially when he knew they were on
such a limited income.

“Unfortunately, that special ended. But just between the three
of us, I happen to have one of those special-deal computers set aside for a
fellow who never came to pick it up. So I can let you have it at the same
price.”

“See?” the one in pink said. “I told you he was a good man,
sister. He didn’t have to offer us that deal. He could have put that machine
right back on the shelf and sold it to someone else at full price. But no, he
didn’t. He let you and me have it.”

“You did at that. ’Course, I was the one who recognized him
from that old magazine I saw down at the Laundromat. And I told you he was rich
as old fury. Didn’t I, sister?”

“Yes, you did. You also said he looked a lot like that boy who
worked here with Ralph several years ago, but I thought you were going daffy on
me, just like poor Aunt Thelma.”

Clay cleared his throat. “So do each of you need a laptop?”

“Oh, no, dear,” the pink sister said. “Just one will do.” She
placed a liver-spotted hand on the other woman’s shoulder. “We share
everything.”

“All right. That’s good.” Clay couldn’t imagine the Franco
sisters needing all the bells and whistles or the ultra-storage capacity of the
Geekon Blast. “Now, in order to get you the best machine, what exactly are you
looking to do on your laptop?”

“We mostly want it for getting emails and pictures and whatnot
from our nephew out in Washington and our cousin in Des Moines. And then sister
likes to tinker in the garden.”

The blue sister, he realized, would be the gardener.

“Mrs. Fosley down at the library said she can get lots of good
gardening articles off of that internet place. I like to get my papers every
week, but our house is so small I feel like I’m running out of room with the way
they can all stack up like they do. Someone said we can get them on a reader-e.
So we’d need a reader-e feature.”

“You mean an e-reader?” He tried not to chuckle.

“Is that the same thing we can get our books on?” the pink
sister asked. “After Glenda’s bookstore closed, we haven’t been able to find our
favorite romance novels. And the library doesn’t stock enough.”

“The library doesn’t have enough books?” he asked.

“Not romance. And that’s what we love to read. Don’t you favor
a good romance?”

He certainly would, but he’d pretty much crashed and burned in
the only one that had meant anything to him, although he was doing his best to
get back in Megan’s good graces, even if he was starting at the bottom and
working his way up. “I guess I’d better read more books.”

“It would certainly help, although you’re a nice looking fellow
with lots of money. I’d think the gals would be fighting to have a chance to
date you.”

Not the one he really wanted.

“What’s wrong with Megan?” the Franco sister wearing blue
asked. “She’s the little redhead who works here. She’d be a fine match for any
man. She’s pretty and a good cook.”

Her sister gave her a nudge with her elbow. “She’s got
children, and a lot of bachelors aren’t interested in dating women with
children, even if they would make a fine wife.”

“Just for the record,” Clay said, “I am interested in Megan.
And there’s not a thing wrong with her. She’s perfect. And she’d make a fine
wife. She’s also a wonderful mother, and that makes her even more
appealing—strange as that might sound to you or to other bachelors. And it
wouldn’t bother me a bit if you spread that piece of news around town.”

At that, the sisters giggled.

“As for the e-reader,” Clay said, “you can also get your books
on them.”

“That’s what we hear,” the pink sister said. “But we don’t know
the first thing about ’em.”

As he went over technology basics with the Franco sisters, he
realized there was a market not only for computer classes but also for
affordable and simple user-friendly e-readers for folks who wanted to download
books by their favorite authors, dabble in emails and search the internet but
weren’t fully committed to diving into the digital age.

When the ladies pulled out their coin purses to start counting
out their quarters and carefully folded one-dollar bills, Clay didn’t wait for
them to get to fifty.

He told himself it was a businessman’s impatience and not his
generosity that made him refuse their money. But he was embracing the new
Brighton Valley version of Clay Jenkins, who was now wearing jeans and giving
away laptops to dear old ladies for almost nothing.

The sister in pink nudged the one in blue. “I told you he was a
good man.”

“You sure did. And now, with the money we saved, we can donate
to the Brighton Valley town council so those scrooges will reinstate the
fireworks.”

Clay had forgotten that the big Fourth of July festivities
would take place on Friday. The parade and festival would be followed by a
fireworks show, which had always been one of his favorite summer memories when
he’d worked here.

He’d enjoyed getting lost in the crowd and blending in with the
locals. Plus, he’d always been a sucker for pyrotechnic displays and booming
colors in the night sky. But what had the sister in blue said about the town
council not providing fireworks this year?

“We’ve lived here all our lives and this will be the first time
in more than eighty years that they haven’t had the money set aside to pay for
the fireworks. It’s a shame.”

“A real shame, sister. But maybe if enough of us donate, the
town can afford a few rockets and airbombs and bangers. If not, we can have Mr.
Perkins drive us over to the next county to see if we can find that firecracker
stand outside of town so we can set a few off ourselves.”

Clay had no idea how the two elderly sisters knew the
terminology, but it was a little unsettling to think of them trying to set off
their own illegal display.

He bit his tongue until the ladies shuffled out of the store.
Then he looked up the number for city hall and placed a call. When he told the
receptionist his name, it took her only a minute to connect him to the mayor’s
cell phone.

He was finally fitting in around town and didn’t like drawing
attention to himself, but he wasn’t afraid to use his status when he wanted to
get something done.

“What can I do for you Mr. Johnson...I mean Jenkins?”

Boy, it would take some time to live that down.

“Please, call me Clay.” Without waiting for the mayor to call
him anything, he cut to the chase. “Listen, I heard there was a funding issue
with the fireworks show.”

“Well, to be honest, the town council has a tight budget this
year with the way the economy is and all. They put in that new lighting at the
Little League field. And they had to vote on whether to pay for new computers
for the elementary computer lab or to use the money for the fireworks display.
Needless to say, the students come first. I know it’s a big letdown for the
townspeople, but we’re still having the summer festival and the parade. And
there will be buses to take people over to Wexler to see their fireworks
show.”

Clay thought about the town of Wexler and how it had never felt
like home. He didn’t like to think of them one-upping Brighton Valley with their
Fourth of July festivities.

“How much does it cost to put on a good fireworks show?”

“Normally, the council spends about twenty thousand.”

“Suppose an anonymous donor was willing to be a sponsor for the
event? Is it too late to put the show together before this weekend?”

“I suppose if this anonymous donor also happened to be one of
the most famous anonymous computer entrepreneurs of our time and had enough
anonymous connections, we could get the anonymous ball rolling anytime you say
so.”

Clay could almost see the man grinning through the phone,
teasing with him as if he were a regular Brighton Valley resident and not some
mega-millionaire who could buy and sell this town ten times over.

“I’ll tell you what. Geekon will contribute fifteen thousand
dollars toward the fireworks. And we’ll also donate the computers to the
school.”

“That’s very generous, Clay.”

“I’m glad to help. Besides, I messed up with Megan Adams and I
know there’s not a lot of hope for me with her. But I wouldn’t mind having her
think that I do have
some
redeeming qualities. So if
you can spread the word around town that I’m an upright guy and
well-intentioned, Geekon will also throw in some tablets and printers for the
school while we’re at it.”

“I think most of the town already knows that about you, Clay.
And although I’m happily married, I still won’t pretend to understand how my
wife’s mind works. But I can tell you this. Women have their pride, and actions
speak louder than words. So I’ll put in a good word for you, but you’re going to
need to stick around and convince Megan yourself. I can tell you that my own
proposal came after a bit of heartfelt groveling.”

When the call had ended, Clay emailed Zoe to give her a
heads-up on what he’d promised so she could start the ball rolling and call the
mayor to find out where to send the check.

Clay and Zoe had kept in touch daily over the past few weeks,
and he’d been amazed at how well Geekon Enterprises had been running in his
absence.

He’d chosen a good team, and it was good to know that he could
run the corporation from wherever he decided to put down roots.

As he looked out over Main Street, he felt those roots taking a
firmer hold. He was really beginning to like this town, as well as the people in
it—everyone from the Franco sisters to Sally at the diner to Mayor Mendez.

Plus, now that he’d reconnected with Rick, it was nice to have
a sense of belonging, maybe for the first time. And to feel as though he’d
finally come home, even if it was just an apartment over the shop.

If only he could reconcile with Megan, she and the kids would
be the icing on the cake, the family he’d always longed to have.

A familiar face passed by the glass window, and before Clay
could run out onto the street, Tyler opened the door and made his way
inside.

“It’s good to see you,” Clay said.

Tyler gave him a nod. “Hey.”

The boy appeared a little nervous, as though he might want to
tear into Clay for lying, too. And if he needed to get it off his chest, then so
be it. Clay figured he owed him that much, and that he might as well make it
easy on him.

“What are you up to?” he asked.

“Lisa has another game at the park. I just kinda missed the
shop and wanted to stop by and see the computers and stuff.”

Clay could certainly understand that. He wondered if Megan
would be okay with her son talking to the last man she probably ever wanted to
see again. “Does your mom know you’re here?”

“I told her I was going for a walk. She knows I hate going to
those boring sports games. So what’s up? You got any new computers in?”

“No, not yet. But Geekon is going to donate some new ones to
the computer lab at the school. And some tablets and printers, too.” Clay knew
he sounded pathetic and that the boy had to know he was trying to buy himself
back into his good graces.