by Sara Arden
Only life wouldn’t be like that. It wouldn’t be an average middle-class split-level. His house, their new house, was practically a mansion.
But maybe that was okay.
Maybe, regardless of what she and Reed felt or didn’t feel, they could give her that together.
She pulled out a book to study for her finals, but just as she did, Amanda Jane dragged Reed back from the ball pit and wanted a funnel cake.
Gina pulled out the small coin purse where Amanda Jane had saved her money and handed her the five dollars for the funnel cake.
“Are you sure you want to spend it on that?”
“Very sure.” She nodded emphatically.
“Okay.” Gina let go of the bill and Amanda Jane ran toward the nearest vendor.
“Do you want a funnel cake?” Reed asked Gina.
“No, thanks. I can barely fit into my work pants as it is. Too many nights eating at the Bullhorn.” Why had she said that? She sounded like some girl who was fishing for compliments.
“It’s funnel cake. Buy bigger pants.”
She laughed. She liked that he didn’t care. Liked that he didn’t rush to reassure her. It was refreshing. “Not so much. I’ll be pushing maximum density if I’m not careful. I ballooned freshman year because my diet consisted of ramen. I watch my carbs.”
“That sounds kind of miserable.” He wrinkled his nose. “I will never eat another cup of noodles. I think even if I was starving, I couldn’t bring myself to put them in my mouth.”
“Yeah, you ate a lot of them, didn’t you? We all did.” She nodded. “It was miserable. But so is being too big to do my job. So I’m going to just have to smell the deliciousness of the funnel cake.”
“I’ll make you a deal. Have the funnel cake, and go protein all week. I’ll do it with you. You can’t go wrong with steak and bacon.”
She decided it wasn’t the polo shirt that was the devil; it was him. That grin on his face made her want to agree to anything he suggested. “Fine, but the funnel cake and steak are your treat.”
“Of course.” He cocked his head to the side as if he couldn’t fathom why she’d even bother to say that, as if it were just something to be understood.
“And the new pants, if I need them,” she teased.
He frowned. “You do need them. Gray should have those accounts set up for both of you this coming week.”
She shouldn’t have said that. Gina had only been teasing him about getting fat after eating the funnel cake. “I wasn’t actually asking for money. I was teasing.”
“I want you to have the things that you need. And you were right, you shouldn’t have to ask for them.”
Gina felt like pond scum. She knew he was sensitive about being wanted for more than his money and she talked about it like she was entitled to it. She’d only been kidding, but she was the first to admit that sometimes those careless words could cut deeper and more precisely than the most strategically aimed barbs. “Money is a hard thing for people like us.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
“But it is. I wanted to say that maybe I should have tried to get in touch with you and ask if you knew about Amanda Jane. I just—” She sighed. “I’m sorry. If I’d been thinking, I’d have thought about how that made you feel. Instead, I was so angry that you had so much and I was working so hard for so little.”
His expression was unreadable. “Maybe if I’d seen things from your perspective, as well. I was an ass when I showed up at the Bullhorn.”
She found herself smiling at him and wishing maybe he’d try to kiss her again. “I guess we need to work on our communication skills.”
“And our needs pyramid.”
She snorted. “Don’t go using all your therapy weapons on me. I have no defenses.”
He laughed and was silent for a long moment. “Who would’ve thought all those years ago this was where we’d end up?”
“Not me, that’s for sure. I enlisted in the army and I thought that I’d stay in until I earned my MD. Then Crystal died.” She shook her head. “This isn’t anywhere near where I thought I’d be.”
“At turns, I can’t imagine you in the army, and yet, it seems like the easiest option to escape Glory. Do you still want to be a doctor, or is it just what you’ve trained yourself to want?”
The question startled her. She could admit that it had taken on some epic proportions in her brain. Becoming a doctor had morphed into a place she was going rather than a thing she was doing. It was wild how he seemed to know that. But that change didn’t make her want it any less. She knew logically that when she received her MD, that paper wasn’t going to be any kind of magic wand.
But it was a key.
It was a key to a world beyond the one she knew, not just financially, but in her heart, too. She’d have the means to help people and not just people who could pay. All people who were sick or hurting, she’d have the skills and the tools to help them.
Her own mother had died from a cancer that had a high survivability rate, if only it’d been detected sooner. But because she didn’t have the means or insurance, she let it go way too long before finally trying to get in at the clinic.
She studied Reed for a long moment. “I do. I’ll make a difference. Be someone.”
“You are someone.” His eyes studied her, as if he was trying to figure out exactly who that someone was.
“You know what I mean. I’ll be someone who matters. Someone people will listen to, and I’ll be able to help people.”
“How could you ever think you don’t matter, Gina? You matter a lot. Everywhere you go, you bring light with you.”
Her face flamed at the compliment and she hated both that his words affected her so and that he said them. “That’s some poetry right there.” She didn’t know what else to say.
“It’s true. It always has been.” Again, his eyes on her were almost like a physical caress.
She was thankful for the interruption when Amanda Jane bounded back over to them. “Missy is here. Can I go see her, please?” She pointed over by the strongman games where Sheriff Judd Wilson was currently trying to win a giant frog.
Missy waved for Amanda Jane to come over.
“Sure, but don’t wander too far.” She looked back over at Reed. “I thought you were bringing funnel cake?” She needed to put some distance between them. She had to remember her role.
“Done.” He got up and went off to procure the sweet.
Whatever this was happening between them had to stop.
Why, the voice in her head argued. Why did it have to stop? They were going to be a family. Maybe not in the traditional sense of the word.
What if things didn’t work out? What if this arrangement lasted much longer than she anticipated?
She desperately needed to stop thinking about all of this and study. She could angst later.
He returned all too quickly bearing the fruits of his efforts: four funnel cakes.
“What is this? Are you trying to kill me?” She laughed and noticed the plates were purple. They were from Sweet Thing, a still relatively new bakery in town opened by Betsy McConnell. Of course, relatively new in Glory meant it had been opened in the past ten years.
“I couldn’t decide. She had plain.” He pointed to one. “She had maple bacon, which I had to try. Modeled after her Better Than Sex donuts. Had to try that one, too.” He pointed at another one. “I thought Mrs. Beasley from the Bell Ringers Church Choir was going to have a stroke and then she ordered three.”
Gina grinned, imagining the stern-faced, be-kerchiefed little old lady in her orthopedic shoes ordering Better Than Sex anything. “What else did you get?”
“Cocoa and hazelnut, and there’s a peanut butter and banana.”
“Which one do you want?”
/> “All of them.” He arched a brow. “What about you?”
The Better Than Sex was just too appealing. “I’ve tried those donuts. So I think that funnel cake has to happen.”
She crammed a bite into her mouth. The flavors seemed to just melt into her tongue and when she inhaled, she could smell the maple, the bacon and something else that she couldn’t quite put her finger on, but she rather imagined smelled like happiness.
“What’s the verdict?”
“What?” she asked behind her hand, trying not to talk with her mouth full.
“Is it actually better than sex?” He took a bite of the peanut-butter-banana one.
Gina swallowed. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never tried the other.”
He choked around his bite and for a moment, Gina thought she was going to have to give him the Heimlich. “Don’t make me give you mouth-to-mouth while you’ve got food in there. That’s so gross.”
He made another choking noise and grabbed a can of cola and guzzled it. “Me, trying to kill you?” Reed managed, eyes watering with the effort of not dying.
“So you find my lack of experience as startling as I find four funnel cakes?”
“I find your lack of empathy for your friend choking to death startling.”
“If you can make noises, you’re still getting oxygen. You’re fine.” She smiled. Gina hadn’t meant to confess her current state of virginity. That wasn’t something he needed to know. But it had just come out, much like that bite of funnel cake that a bold pigeon snatched up and flew away carrying.
She hoped he’d just let it die, but his reaction told her he’d probably beat it to death. He’d teased her about it when they were in high school, but she’d been determined that she wasn’t going to let anything get in the way of her dreams.
The silence between them was suddenly heavy and she wondered if they were both remembering that same night when he’d offered to be her first, just to get it over with, if that’s what she wanted.
She remembered what it had been like wanting so badly to say yes, but the fear that kept her back. The fear of what it could mean not just for her future, but for her heart. She’d known then that he wasn’t in love with her. They were friends. He thought he was helping her, when all he’d done was break her heart.
Amanda Jane came back with Missy in tow and they spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying the games, the food and the people of Frogfest. She noticed that her grandmother was suspiciously absent. Gina just knew she was somewhere getting up to the dickens.
She was finally able to stop thinking about Reed and what all this meant for her and simply enjoy the time she got to spend with Amanda Jane.
It wasn’t until they got back to the house and Amanda Jane asked, “Gina-bee, can we have a sleepover?”
“Tonight?” she asked as they unloaded the car.
“Yes, with Daddy.”
She closed her eyes. How did she answer this one?
Reed stepped up and took it out of her hands. “If it’s okay with Gina-bee, how about I stay until you fall asleep? Then it’s like a sleepover, but not as messy.”
“Can we watch a movie until I fall asleep?” She eyed him carefully.
“Sure.” Reed looked at her. “If that’s okay?”
Gina wanted to say no. She needed a breather, space from him and all the feelings that he wrought in her. But when she looked down into her niece’s eyes and saw the excited hope there, she couldn’t say no.
There was no reason not to let him stay.
“He did promise you a story tonight. Story, then bath, then bed?” Gina offered as a consolation prize to denying the actual sleepover.
“Story, then bath, then movie until bed?” she countered.
“Okay.”
Amanda Jane darted into the house.
“Where does she get all that energy?” Reed asked.
“I’ve wondered the same thing. Specifically, if I could bottle it.” She was always tired these days, but maybe that would change when she wasn’t working a million hours, trying to study and taking care of Amanda Jane.
“Thank you for today, Gina.”
He scrubbed his hand over his jaw, the motion making her think he had more that he wanted to say.
She just couldn’t do it. She couldn’t process any more. “You’re welcome. Her favorite books are Goosebumps. She can read them herself because they’ve been read to her so many times, but she still likes to be read to. There’s a stack of them on her dresser. First door off the kitchen is hers.”
Gina took the time to sit down and get settled with a hot cup of tea to soothe the tension of the day. She found that since she was always on nitro speed, she needed something to signify to her brain that it was time to wind down—it was okay to be silent and still. She had little luck with anything but a steaming cup of chamomile. Even the ritual of preparing it immediately soothed her nerves and caused much of the tension in the back of her neck to slide away.
Hearing the sounds coming from her bedroom, Amanda Jane’s and Reed’s voice as he read her the book, it wasn’t something she thought Amanda Jane would ever have.
Agreeing to what Reed wanted was absolutely the right thing. If he stayed this version of himself.
She must’ve drifted off to sleep in her chair because the next thing she knew, the television had flipped to a blue screen and the DVD logo bounced across the space. Gina saw they’d watched something about a baby dinosaur.
Reed was sprawled out on the secondhand couch, his left arm dangling down to the floor, his left leg doing the same and his head tilted back on the edge of the couch. He completely dominated the tiny bit of furniture.
It hadn’t seemed so tiny when she’d hauled it from Goodwill by herself.
What got her, though, was the sight of Amanda Jane curled up on his chest like the most contented of kitty cats that could ever be found wearing superhero pajamas.
One of her small hands was up by her ear, and she tugged every so often in her sleep, almost as if she were making sure it was still there. Her tiny bow mouth was parted and her narrow back rose and fell with even breaths in time with Reed’s.
It was a lovely moment and she snapped a picture on her phone to commemorate the moment both for Amanda Jane and for herself.
Tears pricked the backs of her eyes like tiny little thorns. She’d never had this. Reed had never had this. Was it possible that wanting to get it right would be enough? They had no idea how to be a functional family unit.
She clutched the phone, looking at the picture rather than the actual tableau because she needed a barrier between her and this thing. Seeing this made real, a father and his daughter, all the things that she’d been taught a father was supposed to be, it ignited her fears.
Fears about permanence. If he’d get tired of playing house with them and leave. She knew what that was like. Knew how it felt because her father had done the same to her mother. She didn’t want him to get close to her if that’s how it was going to end, but she was no fortune-teller. She couldn’t predict the future.
Or maybe she could. All things considered, the way they both grew up, how could it end any other way?
She thought about her grandmother and the absolute surety with which she’d declared Gina should marry him. Her grandmother was old-fashioned to be sure, but she was also her role model. The guiding hand that had helped her come this far. She wouldn’t put Gina and Amanda Jane’s happiness after some outdated idea.
No, she and Amanda Jane were her grandmother’s number one.
She’d had faith in the woman thus far, she could trust her a little more. She could try to trust Reed.
Gina could try to trust herself.
CHAPTER NINE
REED AWOKE TO a singular sensation: discomfort. He’d spent the
whole night on Gina Townsend’s couch. He felt like an old man, his joints twisted like the root system of some ancient tree.
Not exactly what he’d had in mind when he imagined spending the night with her, but he hadn’t ever believed in a world where Amanda Jane Townsend was possible, either.
He’d have to fix that, as well. He wanted her to have his last name. Gray was probably working on that already, but he dug around for his phone and sent him a quick text.
Reed realized the child was no longer on his chest and looked around for her and Gina. Gina, who wouldn’t be Gina Townsend anymore, either, but Gina Hollingsworth. His wife. The thought floored him. He hadn’t really expected things to go this way.
They were at the kitchen table and Gina was studying flash cards, and Amanda Jane was helping.
Gina seemed to sense his presence and looked up at him. “Coffee’s on the counter.”
“You get going early out here, don’t you?” His voice was scratchy with disuse.
“There’s a farm down the way that has roosters. They always wake me up.”
“Did you know, Daddy, that roosters don’t crow at dawn?”
“They don’t? When do they crow?” he asked as he poured a cup of the steaming black brew into the other cup that was on the worn Formica counter.
“Whenever they want to. They crow for food, they crow to warn of predators, they crow to—other stuff I don’t want to talk about.”
He laughed. “Okay. Fair enough.” Reed sat down at the table with them, his eyes still heavy and gritty with sleep. “What are you two doing today?”
“I called Johnny at Hart’s Automotive. He came out and got your Audi,” Gina supplied.
“On a Sunday?”
“Yeah. One of the perks of small-town living.” She shrugged. “And I promised him a plate of Bullhorn’s three-alarm special on the house.”
“Thanks.” He sipped the dark gold and sighed as it clicked the wheels and cogs in his brain to life. “I was thinking that today maybe I could take Amanda Jane to the house and let her pick out her room.”
