‘You and me both.’ His amusement was only evident for a split second. ‘But not at the expense of my kid’s happiness.’
‘That’s because you’re a real father,’ Lily whispered. A real man, she added silently.
Because that was what men did, they put their children’s needs before their own. Measured their success not by money, but by moments. Memories. By the things they shared with their family.
Jason’s throat moved visibly. ‘I try to be. Being a father is the best thing that ever happened to me. Hands down.’
‘I hear you. It was unexpected, but now, I can’t imagine being anything but a mother. My own mother always told me that would happen, but I didn’t believe her until I experienced it.’
‘She’s in Sherman?’ Jason asked softly. ‘Your mom?’
Lily shook her head slightly. ‘It’ll be three years in October since she passed away from a stroke.’ Before Jason had the chance to utter the socially mandatory apology for her loss, she gave him a fleeting smile. ‘I’m just glad she got to meet Eden.’
‘That’s good.’ He paused. ‘You said at Nancy’s that your mom got remarried when you were a kid, so you’ve got a stepfather, then?’
‘Mom was wonderful, but unfortunately she wasn’t very lucky in love. My own dad left when I was three, moving to Lansing. I lost contact with him years ago. And let’s just say that my love affair with satin and silk that came from Mom’s second marriage lasted much longer than the union itself. It was just her and me after that.’ She sighed. It felt freeing to talk about her own life, the parts that were hers and hers alone, no matter how unorthodox those parts might be. ‘My mom was a good mother.’
‘So are you,’ Jason reminded her. ‘Just in case you forgot.’
‘Like you do?’ she challenged, one corner of her mouth lifting. ‘You’re a good father, too, Jason.’
‘It’s hard only getting to see her every second weekend.’ He cast a glance toward the front seat of the truck, where his daughter laughed unabashedly at the cartoon movie. Her effervescence was a stark contrast to the pain glazing over her father’s eyes. ‘I’m no fan of your ex and his decision, but there’s one thing he said that rings true to me—this isn’t how I planned out our life.’
‘I take it your split from her mother wasn’t amicable.’ Lily matched his soothing tone, taking note of the way he had spoken of the girls without using their names so as not to catch their attention.
‘It wasn’t,’ he admitted. ‘I think I thought I could show her that we could have it all, right here, together. I think I was so hellbent on it that I’d convinced myself that things were working out between us better than they actually were.’
‘Sometimes, we only see what we want to see,’ Lily whispered. ‘I’m just as guilty of that. But I don’t think we did anything wrong by believing in the people we loved.’
‘I thought you weren’t an optimist?’ He leaned over and nudged her shoulder.
‘I might not like it, but in the end, I believe in love. I believe people are good.’ She shrugged, not wanting to sound like an over-romanticized walking cliché. ‘Besides, I wasn’t always a pessimist.’ She smiled. ‘Sometimes, the old ways manage to crack through the foundation.’
‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ Jason whispered, a taunting smile playing on his lips. ‘You’re a closet optimist. I didn’t see that coming, either.’
‘Don’t get used to it.’ She shifted, allowing her limbs to sink into the soft seat fabric. ‘Were you and Natalie together long?’ She winced at having to mention the name aloud, but Lily’s intrigue outweighed, barely, her fear of the unknown. She had confessed the truth about Michael to Jason. Maybe talking about Natalie would be just as cathartic for him.
‘A while,’ he replied. ‘Three and a half years. Engaged for the last six months of it. But it’s been about two years since she decided this wasn’t where she wanted to be.’
‘In Port Landon, you mean?’
‘With me.’ He averted his gaze, focusing on a frayed thread on the knee of his jeans. ‘She didn’t want to be stuck in a small town anymore. Said there wasn’t enough to hold her here.’
‘My gosh, I’m so sorry, Jason.’ Lily’s heart ached for him. He had tried to make a life with someone that wasn’t meant to be, desperate to hold on to a sliver of hope that things might get better. That things might be different. She knew a thing or two about that.
‘No need to be sorry. It was a long time ago.’ The tight set of his jaw announced that it hadn’t quite been long enough. ‘We both made mistakes, and we both held on too long. I think that’s what it comes down to. Foolishly, I hoped getting engaged, showing her how serious I was about her and our family, would fix things. And just as foolishly, I think Nat said yes just to give us one last shot. To try.’ He shook his head at the silliness of it all. ‘But things didn’t change. They couldn’t. I couldn’t leave my hometown. I had my own business, my own home, and people depended on me. Nat depended on me, too, but in the end, there was no way I could give her what she wanted.’
‘And what was that?’
‘Someone else,’ he said, a sad grin forming on his mouth. ‘Everything she disliked about the small-town life was everything I was. Everything I am. She wanted more than Port Landon had to offer her. I thought I was the kind of man who would give her anything she asked for, but she proved me wrong. I couldn’t give her a different version of me, but only because it didn’t exist. Still doesn’t.’
‘You shouldn’t have to compromise who you are to be with someone else.’ The urge to reach out and squeeze his arm was almost debilitating.
He nodded, somber. ‘I know. Nat moved to North Springs when she was only two.’ He nodded toward the front seat. ‘I don’t even know if she remembers what it’s like to have me around for more than a couple days at a time. I think that’s what bothers me most. Technically, she sees her mama’s new boyfriend more than she sees me, I think.’
Lily didn’t even know what to say. There weren’t words in the English dictionary that expressed how deep her sorrow went for Jason Forrester. It was one thing to be Michael, a man who signed over his legal parental rights to his own child and left his family without looking back. It was another to be a man with only a fraction of the life he so badly wanted, unable to stitch the tattered fabric of his heart back together because the missing threads were from something that would never be able to exist again.
‘I can’t fathom what that must be like,’ she whispered. She bit down on her tongue, willing herself not to utter another apology.
‘And I can’t fathom how a man walks away from his unborn child, so I guess we’re even.’ He tilted his chin up slightly.
‘Even? This isn’t a competition.’
‘You’re right. But if it was, we’d both be neck and neck for first place in the Saddest Single Parent Story award.’
‘Please tell me that’s not a thing.’ She covered her face with her hands, feigning dread.
‘It better not be,’ he chuckled. ‘Because I’m not sure I’d want either of us to win.’
‘Me neither.’ Against her better judgement, Lily reached out and touched Jason’s arm, hoping he found some semblance of solace in the gesture. ‘If it’s any consolation, I think you’d be in the running for Best Dad In The World, too. Especially if your daughter gets to vote.’
‘In the universe, actually.’ He grinned wryly. ‘I happen to think you’re doing a pretty good job as a mother and a father. That’s got to be a tough gig.’
‘Some days you feel like you’ve got it all together, running a well-oiled machine. Others, your kid is eating strawberry Pop-Tarts straight from the packaging and you’re telling yourself it’s a serving of fruits. We’re all just doing the best we can do with what we’ve got, Jason.’
‘And what have you got?’ he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
Head still leaned back, he faced her, watching her every move. His eyes never left hers, and Lily didn�
�t know when his fingers landed on top of her hand, touching just above her wrist. He was just there suddenly, his warmth seeping into her skin and keeping her grounded. Time ceased to exist. Nothing was real except the moment, and the feeling within it.
‘I’ve got my dreams,’ she replied with a trembling breath. ‘My baby girl. And I’ve got Port Landon, for now.’ The corner of her mouth lifted. ‘Which, as it turns out, isn’t half bad, after all.’
‘And me,’ Jason added. ‘I know this wasn’t part of the plan, but you’re not alone in this, Lily.’
Her breath caught, unsure what this was. Did he mean her blundered trip to Chicago, her unexpected stay in his hometown? Or was he talking about this, right now, the way he robbed her of her breath as well as her cynicism, giving her reasons to believe he was the furthest thing from her plan but a pivotal part of a greater one?
‘I know,’ was all she managed to squeak out, and her voice cracked with the weight of it. She didn’t know what she was agreeing with, or whether it mattered. All that did was that Jason was there, his hand resting on hers, telling her something she didn’t understand but wholeheartedly believed. Every word that fell from his lips, only inches from hers, was rooted in truth and as intoxicating as aged red wine.
Jason’s shoulders moved as he raised his head slightly, his dark gaze reflecting the neon glow of the movie screen. He came closer, his gaze searching hers as his thumb caressed the top of Lily’s hand.
‘I know,’ she said again, this time more solidly, if for no other reason than to give herself—to give them both—permission to fall.
‘Mama, shh!’ Eden craned around in her seat, shaking a finger defiantly. ‘The movie’s on!’
Lily and Jason both snapped away from each other as though lightning had struck between them. And perhaps it did. Lily didn’t know how else to explain the smoldering embers left searing her hand where Jason’s fingers had been only moments before.
She cleared her throat. ‘Sorry, baby.’ She waited for the little girl to whirl around in her seat before Lily chanced a look in Jason’s direction.
The same embers warming her skin were alight in his eyes, paired with a crooked grin that would haunt her just as much as the ghost of his touch. Lily had said that she couldn’t fathom what Jason was going through. But right then, in the darkness of the truck cab, she was struggling with the idea that anyone would want more than this tiny town had to offer.
Or more than Jason.
Chapter 12
Jason
There was a domino effect to everything in life; Jason believed that, deep in his gut. It was impossible to know which event or action was to blame for the next sometimes, just as it was futile to try to think of how things might have been different if he had simply knocked over a different domino from the beginning.
Call it confusion or just a plain thick skull, but he couldn’t figure out how fixing a white Corolla with one wheel in the grave had led to uncovering his grandfather’s car, which led to offering up some of Carlie’s belongings because he knew money was tight, which then led to sneaking an offer to come to a drive-in movie past the oversized ears of Sonya Ritter and coming so close to kissing Lily that he could still feel the faint brush of her breath against his cheek.
What in the world had he been thinking?
From the start, he knew Port Landon was only a stop in her journey. He knew it when she stared at him for the first time as the headlights of his truck highlighted the disappointment in her eyes. He knew it when she took the job at the coffeehouse so she would make money quicker with the hopes of leaving town faster. And he knew it when he sent that text message, using Carlie’s budding friendship with Eden as an excuse to invite Lily along to the movie.
He knew it, but it didn’t mean he fully realized the expiry date on their friendship. Now, it was all he could think about.
Well, that, and the kiss that never happened.
Something happened, though. There was no other way to explain how he could have let his guard down and spoken about Natalie to her as though he had known Lily for years instead of days. He felt the difference, the shift that had unsteadied the foundation of his defenses. Obviously, he wore that difference like a brand-new baseball cap, because his eagle-eyed mother seemed to see it as well.
‘What’s gotten into you?’ Bettina Forrester could rival the likes of Sonya and Nancy when it came to her shrewd observation. She didn’t miss a thing, but unlike the two overbearing sisters, Jason’s mother only spoke of her thoughts and feelings when asked. And when they involved her son. ‘You seem … distracted.’
Jason felt distracted. Setting another place at the oak dining table in his parents’ cramped kitchen, a heady disconnect flooded his body, like the part of him that was moving was completely separate from the part that was overrun by his thoughts. He had never been an overthinker. Now, it felt like that was all he did.
‘Just thinking about Carlie.’ It was a low blow, but he knew that mentioning his daughter would ease Bettina’s insistent chatter.
The Sunday evening dinners at his mom and dad’s apartment were just as much a part of his routine as the drive to and drop off at Natalie’s place in North Springs. Fridays were good days for him—he was gifted the entire weekend to be with his daughter. Sundays were the opposite, the day he had to give her up again for real life. The only two things that made that trade-off bearable were knowing the countdown to seeing her again would start once more and getting a big ole’ homecooked meal at his parents’ place.
‘Did you two do anything fun this weekend?’ she asked.
Roderick and Bettina’s two-bedroom apartment was small, but the cozy ambience made up for the lack of room. Little things reminded Jason of the childhood home he’d once grown up in—the home he now owned himself—despite the apartment being nothing like it. His Grandma Mary-Jean’s crystal platter graced every Sunday dinner table spread, the familiar framed photo of his parents from their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary that had once hung on the wall beside his dad’s recliner now took center stage on the electric fireplace’s mantle, flanked by candid shots of Carlie and himself. The dinnerware was still the chipped, faithful Corningware he had eaten every meal from as a child. All the pieces were there, they just fit a different puzzle. It wasn’t home, but home was there, in the details.
Placing forks onto the bamboo placemats, then knives, Jason nodded. ‘There’s a glittery painting of a unicorn on my fridge, as well as a handful of glitter ground so far into the living room carpet I might never get it out.’ He smiled, lost in the memory and the table setting task at hand. ‘And Cars 2 was playing at the drive-in, so we took Lily and Eden—’
He froze. Across the open-concept room in the kitchen, his mother did, too.
It was too late; the mistake had already been made.
‘You and Lily took your daughters to a movie,’ she finished for him, barely able to contain the glee in her aqua eyes. It wasn’t a question, but a nudge. She dragged out the last word, urging him to continue. Which only meant one thing.
‘You already knew.’
Bettina tapped the soup ladle down on the spoon rest, stepping away from the pot of homemade potato and bacon soup, big enough to feed an army. Watching her in the kitchen always amazed Jason. Her eyesight might not be 20/20, but in her own environment, with her own belongings and her internal familiarity to guide her, it seemed inconceivable to think his mother couldn’t see her surroundings with the same vivid clarity he did.
She shrugged. ‘I may have heard about your date.’
‘It wasn’t a date.’ He wanted to ask who was to blame for his mother’s intel, but it was probably better for him not to know. There was no stopping the information highway that ran straight through Port Landon.
‘You took a pretty girl to a movie,’ she reasoned. ‘That’s a date.’
Jason pointed at her in warning. ‘Carlie asked if Eden could come with us; they’re friends. I couldn’t very well not ask Lily to
come along. She has no one else.’ The lies toppled off his tongue far easier than he expected.
‘And Lily, she’s your friend?’ A challenge burned in her gaze, daring him to argue differently.
It was a fight he wasn’t going to win. If there was anyone who could read him like a book and predict what he was going to say before he said it, it was his mother. Bettina knew him better than anyone, which was both a blessing and a curse. ‘Yeah, I guess she is.’
Bettina grinned as she placed the salt and pepper shakers on the table. ‘What a pretty name … Lily.’
Inside, Jason cringed. His mother was already swooning at the mere thought of a love interest in his life. Except, that’s not what Lily was. ‘Mom, Lily’s leaving in a few days. I should have her car done by tomorrow, then she’ll continue on to Chicago. Obviously, your secret sources forgot to mention that part.’
‘Oh, I know about all that business.’ She waved a hand, swatting away the truth like a pesky housefly. ‘If you like the girl, what’s a few hours, Jason?’
‘Everything.’ He had completely forgotten to adamantly deny his interest in Lily, too flooded with memories of just how much difference distance made the last time he tried to love someone. ‘North Springs is closer to Port Landon than Chicago is, and I still couldn’t make it work with Natalie.’
‘Jason, she’s not Natalie.’
Hearing his ex-fiancée’s name on his mother’s lips was equivalent to hearing a curse word. Bettina didn’t say her name if she didn’t have to.
‘Not only that,’ she added, ‘But I don’t think she wanted things to work between you two. I know that’s hard to hear, son, but Natalie didn’t want to be with you, just as much as she didn’t want to be in Port Landon. And if that was the case, then the girl didn’t deserve either of you.’
He scoffed. Leave it to his mother to personify their hometown. Port Landon wasn’t the one who had been left with a broken heart when Natalie left. Still, he knew Bettina was right. Jason drove back and forth to North Springs all the time, for Carlie and for his parents.
A Wildflower Summer Page 16
