The Bachelor's Sweetheart (16 page)

“You can tear down the old stage, but I need to be here for the construction.”

Tessa bit back an argument. Josh wouldn't have said that if he thought she and Myles could handle the work without him. He wouldn't put his ego ahead of getting the work done.

“I'll get revised plans to the town zoning board before I leave for Boston tomorrow.”

“Josh, it's okay,” she said with more bravado than she felt. “Put it away for now. We're celebrating. To your new job.” She lifted a meatball in toast.

“To my new job.” He did the same.

“We'll just have to work double-time on the theater when you get back.”

Josh gulped down some water. “About that. With the new job, I'm not going to be able to take as much vacation time as I'd planned to work on the theater.”

She cleaved the meatball in half with her fork. He wasn't going to bail on her now that he got his promotion, was he?

“But don't worry. I'll blank out all my evenings and Saturdays for you and ask Myles if any of his friends want to pick up some work. We'll make your planned Memorial Day weekend opening.” He reached across the table and squeezed her hand. “You and I have too much going between us for me to let you down. Not after the way you've put up with me all these years and been there whenever I've needed you.”

Tessa let his words flow over her and squeezed his hand back, caressing the callused palm. “You do know I'm not infallible?” she asked, not quite achieving the lightness she wanted.

Silence hung for a moment.

“Yes, I understand what you mean and accept it.”

“Do you?” She might as well lay her heart open. “Because I think we're on the edge of something special.”

His face lit as if her words had lifted a burden from him. “So do I. No one is perfect. You have your inner demons. I have mine. With God's help, we can overcome them together. I think it's a battle worth fighting.”

Josh's admission was more powerful than even her grandparents' unconditional support. “With troops like that,” she said, “how can we lose?”

Chapter Twelve

T
he manager job was everything Josh had expected and wanted. The people he was training with in the Boston office were great, almost as great as his co-workers in Ticonderoga. Not seeing Tessa for eleven days was another story. They'd talked on the phone almost daily, but late at night after Tessa had finished working with Myles at the Majestic. And it wasn't the same as talking in person and seeing her expressions. He'd admit, to himself at least, that he had it bad. But not bad enough to suggest Skypeing, not enough to let her know how much he yearned to see her smile. This new road they were taking was still under construction. He hadn't identified all of the possible land mines yet.

Josh's cell phone
choo-chooed
an alert to a text message from Hope, pulling him from his thoughts and bed.

Where are you? We're done setting up the field.

Josh blinked and refocused on the phone screen.
Eight-forty. The match was at nine.
When he'd glanced at the alarm clock a few minutes ago, he'd thought it said seven-thirty. He stretched. After going out to dinner with the guys from the Boston office, he hadn't even started his four-hour drive home until after nine last night.

Better get a move on it.
He started grabbing clothes. This was the championship game he'd boasted that the team would make at the beginning of the season. What kind of coach would be late for the championship game? Not the kind he wanted to be, nor the kind he realized he'd been all season.

“About time,” Hope shouted before he'd even reached the field, drawing the attention of the people on the bleachers.

He strode to her and Tessa and ruffled his sister's hair. “The game doesn't start for another five, and I'm sure you and Coach Tessa have everything in hand.”

“Late night with the drive home?” Tessa asked.

“More like early morning.” He stopped himself from rubbing his eyes. “The guys wanted to take me to dinner before I left.”

Josh scanned the front bleachers for the usual Donnelly contingent and didn't see them. “Where are Jared and Becca and Connor and Natalie?”

“Don't you remember?” Hope asked. “Brendon has his big motocross race today at Jared's track. He gets Jared, Becca and Natalie. I get you, Connor and Daddy, except Connor got a phone call and is going to be late.”

“I did forget.” Josh laughed at the way Hope and Brendon had divvied up the family and rechecked the bleachers. “How did you get here?”

“Daddy.”

“Where is he?”
If he'd just dropped Hope here and left...

“Way up there.” She pointed to the top corner of the bleachers. “He didn't know he was supposed to sit in front, and I had to help Tessa, so I didn't tell him yet. Mr. and Mrs. Hill are saving seats for him and Connor.”

Josh shielded his eyes from the bright morning sun and found his father sitting alone in the top left-hand corner. “I'll tell him.”

The smile Tessa flashed him confirmed that he'd actually spoken the words. He raced up the stands in double-time before he thought of a reason not to.

“Hey, Dad.”

“Josh. Isn't the game about to start?”

He glanced at the field below. “Yeah, but didn't Hope and Connor tell you that the Donnellys all sit front and center?” He could set aside his ill feelings about his dad for the morning—for Hope, for Tessa.

“I...”

Josh waved off any argument his father might have. “Come on. I've got to get back down.” His father matched him almost bound for bound down the stands.
Not bad for an old guy
.

Tessa gave Josh a hidden thumbs-up as the Hills welcomed his father, and he took the seat they'd saved for him. Josh scuffed the toe of his athletic shoe in the shorn grass between the bleachers and the field, glad that the referee's shrill whistle signaling the teams to take the field prevented Tessa from saying anything.

The kids played fierce and fast, ending the first half with the score tied zero to zero. Josh and Tessa fielded dirty looks from some of the kids and spectators, along with a few jeers from the stands, when they rotated in the less-skilled team members after the half. They'd agreed ahead of the game that everyone on the team deserved to play in the championship.

With minutes left and the score still tied zip-zip, the opposing team got in a bullet shot that looked to be a sure goal. Owen raced from the left of the goal where he'd fielded the last attempt and propelled his compact little body like a rocket to the right side of the goal, knocking the kick out and landing facedown on the field. Before the referee could whistle a stop to the game, Owen leaped to his feet and waved that he was okay, a move that gave Hope time to get the ball and dribble it down the field into scoring range.

Josh grabbed Tessa's hand without a thought of all the people watching and sucked in a breath as Hope eyed the goal and held the attention of the other team's goalkeeper. Then Hope gave the ball a sharp kick to the right, passing off to her friend Sophia, one of the substitute players. Sophia slammed it into the right corner of the net. Half the bleachers went wild, and Tessa hugged him and jumped up and down. Anyone who didn't already see them as a couple before would now, and that didn't bother him a bit—at least not at the moment.

The ref waited until the crowd quieted and restarted the clock at forty-five seconds. The opposing team kicked off. With the ball halfway down the field, the timer went off.

“We won!” The Hazardtown Hornets raced off the field and circled Tessa and Josh, Hope, Owen and a few others hugging their legs.

“What did I tell you before the season started?” Josh shouted to the mini melee surrounding him.

“That we're champions!” the kids shouted back.

“And you are, each and every one of you,” Tessa said, surveying the circle.

Josh's heart nearly burst when he noticed that she spent an extra moment on the second-string players. Tessa was so beautiful inside and out.

“Line up, guys,” Josh said. “Let's show the Tops Tigers they were worthy opponents.”

The team walked out, formed a line adjacent to the Tigers' line and started walking down shaking their opponents' hands.

“Good game.” The opposing coach—someone neither Josh nor Tessa had met before soccer season—walked over and shook their hands. “The dark-haired girl. She your daughter?” he asked Josh. “She looks like a pip.”

Josh felt a tug to claim Hope as his. “No, my little sister, and she is a pip.”

“Get you next year,” the other coach said.

“We'll take that as a challenge.”

“Congratulations.” Connor and his father slapped Josh on the back, distracting him from the direction his thoughts were straying, to next year and Tessa.

“You and Tessa make a great coaching team,” his father added.

Josh flung his arm over Tessa's shoulders. “Did you expect any less?”

His father's quiet “No,” sent Josh's thoughts back to Tessa, the future and the kids. Maybe, like his brothers, he did have the whole marriage, kids and happily-ever-after somewhere deep inside him.

“Hey, team, everyone.” Josh caught the kids before they started leaving. “What do you say you check with your parents and see if you can meet Coach Tessa and me at the soft serve stand on Paradox Lake for an ice cream cone? My treat.”

“Yay!” they shouted as they took off to ask their parents.

Josh glanced at Tessa talking with his father. The absence of the knee-jerk protectiveness he usually felt anytime his father got near her startled him. He took off his ball cap, ran his hand over his hair and replaced the cap. He'd mull over the meaning of that and his earlier thoughts later when he'd come down from the rush of the past couple of weeks and his head was clear. For today, he'd assume his usual carefree MO and just enjoy himself.

* * *

“Tessa, you want to go for coffee?” Jerry Donnelly caught up with her as she left the Elizabethtown meeting Thursday night.

Her gaze darted to the open door of the empty Al-Anon meeting room, searching for Josh. Tessa wasn't looking for any surprises like the last time she'd been to the meeting here, not when things between her and Josh were going so well. They'd worked on the stage construction every evening this week. Today he'd texted that he had to work late. She'd told him that was fine. She'd work on the wall taping with Myles and they could catch up on Saturday when all three of them were there. Then, this afternoon, she'd been overwhelmed by an ominous feeling that everything was going too well and had called Maura, who'd suggested a meeting.

“Coffee—well, tea for me—would be good,” she said. “Anyone else coming?”

“No. I have something I wanted to talk over with you. I'll meet you there.”

Over the short driving distance to the diner, Tessa's mind wouldn't stop trying to second-guess why Jerry wanted to talk with her. It kept circling around to Josh. He hadn't said anything to her, but last Saturday at the game, he and his father had seemed to have come to some kind of truce. Tessa wasn't sure she could talk with Jerry about Josh, not without violating Josh's trust, and she wouldn't do that. Her loyalty was with Josh.

Jerry met her at the door and, when they were inside, asked for seating in a booth in the back. She slowly followed him to the booth, stopping to acknowledge some of the other people from the meeting along the way. She slid in across from him.

“What's up?”

He unwrapped flatware and arranged it on the table in front of him. “We live nearby, attend the same meetings...”

Tessa relaxed. This wasn't about Josh at all. Jerry probably wanted to share rides to meetings, or it could be something about the garage painting. But the painting was done, and her grandmother had been the one who'd hired him, not her.

“What can I get you tonight?” the waitress asked.

“I'll have tea,” Tessa said.

“Coffee for me, and was that strawberry-rhubarb pie I saw on the way in?”

“Yes, it was.”

“I'll take a slice.”

The waitress added the pie to their order. “I'll be right back.”

“Josh is a fan of strawberry-rhubarb pie, too,” Tessa said.

“So is Jared,” Jerry said. “Edna makes the best.”

“Yeah, she gave me her recipe to make one for Josh. But you didn't ask me here to talk about pie.”

“No.” Jerry leaned back in the booth so the waitress could place his coffee and pie on the table. “You know my sponsor lives in Saranac Lake.”

She didn't, but nodded anyway to see where he was going.

“He thinks it would be a good move for me to have a sober support buddy closer.”

“You're looking for suggestions?” Tessa's mind inventoried the guys she knew who attended the meetings she and Jerry did. “I know you and Ray are old friends, but he's probably too recently sober.”

Jerry sliced the tip off his pie and moved it around the plate. “I have someone in mind.”

“And you want my input,” Tessa said, as if she could reroute where she thought he was going.

“Tessa, I don't want input. My sponsor suggested you. I'm asking you if you'd consider being my sober support.” He raised his hand to stop her from saying anything yet. “I admire you and your sobriety. We live minutes away from each other. Hey, we're almost family,” he joked.

That was a big
almost
. And with Josh seeming to think he needed to protect her from his father, spending time with Jerry wasn't the way to draw her and Josh closer.

“I meant you and Josh coaching Hope's team...and everything.”

Her face must have given away her uncertainty about being his sober support and about her and Josh.

“Think about it,” he said. “I don't need to know right away.”

“I will.”
And pray hard
. She finished her tea in silence. “I'd better get going. I've got to be over to the Majestic bright and early so Myles and I can get in some work on the renovations before showtime.”

“How are they coming?”

“Pretty good, except Josh found carpenter ant damage, and that means we need to replace the stage. Myles and I tore out the old one while Josh was in Boston, and Josh and Myles and I have been building the new one this week.”

“That's tough. Your grandmother said you wanted to be set to open the dinner theater Memorial Day weekend.”

“Barring any more unforeseen delays, we should be able to.”

“Before you go,” Jerry said, “let me give you my phone number, so you can get back to me when you decide about the sober support.”

Tessa pulled out her phone. “Ready.” He rattled off the number and she punched it in her contacts. “I'll be talking to you.”

“Maybe I'll swing by tomorrow and take a look at the work you've done at the theater when I pick up the paint your grandmother let me store in her garage.”

“Sure.” Not that it should matter, although somehow it did, Josh had a rush project he had to finish at GreenSpaces so only she and Myles would be there.

When Tessa got home, her first thought was to call Josh. He was her usual go-to person for decisions. But he wasn't exactly a bipartisan sounding board for his father's sober support request.

“Is that you, Tessa?” her grandmother called from upstairs.

A nervous giggle bubbled up inside her. What would her grandmother say if she replied,
No, it's a burglar who jimmied the lock and let myself in.
She took a calming breath. “Yeah, it's me.”

“Okay, see you in the morning.” Tessa checked the back door, shut off the lights and went up to bed.

After a restless night that three cups of coffee with her breakfast didn't wipe out, Tessa dragged herself to the Majestic at eight o'clock. From the sidewalk, she spotted Myles and Kaitlyn ready and waiting by the back door. She frowned. Not to throw cold water on young love or turn down free labor, but she hoped Kaitlyn wasn't staying. Wednesday when she'd come by after classes ostensibly to help Tessa and Myles, the girl had spent most of the time acting helpless and asking Myles to “show me how.”