by Anne Conley
“Is there something else around there he’d like to do? I’d say take him out to the shop, but he’d probably scream at all the changes you’ve made.”
Jason could just picture it. “Yeah, I’m not ready for him to see the shop yet. Let me get a month or two under my belt so I can show him the changes are profitable, then I’ll take him there.” He ran his hand through his hair in thought. “I can probably figure someplace to take him. There’s gobs of small-town touristy type shit around here that’s right up his alley. It’ll be good to see how he acts in the general population. Or if he’s just crazy for me.”
Chapter 11
Renae listened to the preacher speak about Proverbs 14: A wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands, the foolish one tears hers down. Of course, the preacher was giving examples of the wise woman versus the foolish woman, and Renae tried to concentrate on the words, but her own thoughts were running away with her.
Which was she?
She knew her diminutive mother in the pew next to her would consider herself a wise woman. A cattle-rancher’s wife, she had raised two children and kept her husband happy on an income of next to nothing. Mary Colt had never worked a day in her life, staying home to take care of the house, the children, and at times, the cattle. She did it all alongside her husband until he died. After his death she had seen both her children ensconced safely back in Serendipity’s arms before moving into a retirement center.
Neither of her children had made the choices she would have chosen for them, but Renae and Dalton had both made it to adulthood. Dalton had two step-children with Alyssa and a newborn son. Renae had Kelly. Mary had always wanted Renae to find a man to take care of her, but Renae’s first choice in that department had been so poor that she had decided to forego the hunt and hunkered down to raise her daughter alone.
She thought she’d done a pretty good job with it. She’d gotten a job at a bank as a teller and had decent working hours if not stellar pay. She scrimped and saved and managed to provide Kelly with everything she needed growing up.
If Renae had been presented with the sermon before she’d looked at her calendar this morning, she would have put herself in the wise woman category. Without a doubt. But seeing that dot on today’s date on the calendar, a week before her forty-fifth birthday, and knowing what it meant definitely brought some foolishness into the picture.
She had managed over the past few weeks to push thoughts of Jason into the background. He was gone. Back to Houston. Back to his life, whatever it was.
She was dealing with that dot alone. That dot, signifying the start date of a period that hadn’t come. For the last twenty-five years, she’d been regular as clockwork except for when she’d been pregnant with Kelly, of course. Thoughts of pregnancy had never entered her mind that night with Jason. No protection. Nothing.
She couldn’t decide if she had been too drunk or just didn’t care in all the excitement of Jason. But the fact of the matter was she’d missed her period, and now she was facing the consequences of that night.
It was time for communion, and after partaking of her tiny piece of bread and plastic cup of grape juice, Renae sat and watched the rest of the church file up the aisle and become one with Christ, trying to tamp down her feelings of hypocrisy.
An ancient couple, the Jeffers, walked down the aisle, Mr. Jeffers cradling Mrs. Jeffers in his arms. She’d had hip surgery in the past year and had recovered well, but her mobility had been compromised. The entire church had watched as Mr. Jeffers cared for his wife through the procedure, helping her with her walker, then her cane, now nothing. Her tiny frame leaned into his as they shuffled together to the front railing. They both stood there, accepting the symbolic body, and Renae felt herself tremble. They had been married nearly seventy years, raised children together, grown old together, and Renae felt a longing she couldn’t suppress.
Her eyes tracked them back up the aisle to their seat, Mr. Jeffers mumbling into his wife’s ear, while she smiled up at him.
Renae wanted that but knew it wasn’t in her future. Cody had ruined her for anything real. Her friends all had found something real with each other, and the Jeffers were a shining example of something real. But Renae knew she would never have that. She’d screwed up with Cody, hadn’t had anything since, and now Jason was gone. All she had left was Kelly, who was gone too, and her dot.
The preacher droned on about committing your life to Christ, Renae barely paying attention anymore until it was time to rise for the final hymn. When it was over, Renae hugged her mother and made her own way back up the aisle to the back of the church and freedom. She didn’t usually feel this way about church, but today the stained-glass subdued the light instead of filtering it. It was oppressive, and she needed out.
She was stopped by a wheelchair. “Renae! When are you coming to my shop to meet my son? He’s decided to stay a little longer than he’d originally planned, and I think he needs some friends his own age.” The pruny old man grabbed her fingers and held on with a death grip. His watery gaze held the depths of despair, and Renae wasn’t sure he was still talking about his son. He mouthed the words “Help. Me.” And his eyes flickered to the bored-looking youth manning his wheel chair.
“Mr. O’Niel, I’ll be out there next week. I’ve got a care package to get to Kelly for midterms. I promise.”
Mention of her daughter’s name brought the dot back to the forefront of her mind where Mr. O’Niel had briefly eclipsed it.
Oh God. How would she tell Kelly?
Chapter 12
Renae made the stoic decision to not tell anybody for a while. She didn’t know how to do it. Some reptilian part of her brain had saved Jason’s number in her phone three days after she’d met him, back when she’d thought she might call him again for another night of bliss before he left. But now she had no idea what to say to him.
Honestly, she didn’t know anything about the man. Was that his normal operation? To pick up women at bars and take them home? He wasn’t in his twenties, so it was hard to say. She didn’t really know many men who did that at her age. But then again, she didn’t really know many men period. Les was all she knew, and he was always in love with someone, it seemed. Right now, it was her, but she knew that was some infatuation, and he’d get over it. Was Jason the same way? He certainly wouldn’t want to be saddled with a baby from a one-night-stand. He wouldn’t move back to Serendipity from Houston to take care of it. And she didn’t want to marry him. Great sex does not a marriage make.
To avoid the entire issue, Renae made a date with her friend Jessie to go out to her farm and learn how to make cheese. It was sort of a birthday present to herself and something she thought she could do alone. Renae had always loved cooking and creating things in the kitchen. If she knew how to make her own cheese, it would give her something to do while she was alone now that Kelly was gone. Not that she had to worry about it too much longer. She wouldn’t be alone anymore.
Later that day in Jessie’s farm kitchen, Renae’s thoughts were wandering back to when Kelly was a baby. The sleepless nights, the diaper changes, the midnight feedings, teething, colic… Of course, she had Cody around for most of that, but he’d never really gotten out of bed to help her, so essentially she’d done it alone. The nighttime stuff anyways. Cody hadn’t died until Kelly was nearly out of diapers. So this time wouldn’t be all that different. Would it? She’d done it once. She could do it again.
But this was so not how she’d imagined her life would go. She was in her mid-forties for crying out loud. Already, the morning sickness had started. It wasn’t bad, just a general nausea in the morning which generally went away after a granola bar. But how would she feel with an extra forty pounds on her relatively small frame? She wasn’t as physically fit as she had been when she was twenty.
“You’re letting the milk get too hot, Renae. Are you paying attention?” Jessie’s voice interrupted her.
Jessie wasn’t living at the farm anymore. She came out tw
ice a day to milk her goats and tend her gardens but she lived in town with her husband Connor and she’d just had a baby herself. Maybe she should ask Jessie how she did it. She was thirty-eight. Was it incredibly hard for her?
“Sorry. I was gathering wool.” Renae grabbed the hot pads and pulled the pot off the heat. Putting the thermometer back in, she saw it was right at the perfect temperature.
“Okay, Grandma.” Jessie handed her the lemon juice, and Renae added it to the goat’s milk. “Isn’t your birthday next week? Do you have plans?”
Renae swallowed. She’d hoped this wouldn’t come up. She didn’t really feel like celebrating this year.
“It’s today, actually.” She managed a shrug.
“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me? I would have remembered to get a damned present at least!” She towered over Renae, with her hand on her hip and a twinkle in her eye. Jessie was pissed, but she’d get over it.
Another shrug. “I don’t know. It’s forty-five, you know? I don’t really want a big deal made. This is my present to myself, a day with a friend learning how to make cheese.” Desperate to change the subject, she asked, “How’s Emma? Is she sleeping well?” It seemed as if all her friends had babies these days. She wouldn’t be alone in her endeavors this time. Was there something in the water?
“I guess. Connor’s the self-proclaimed night nanny. You know, he takes his responsibilities as a dad very seriously and pretty much does anything I ask. He’s amazing, really.” Jessie’s voice had taken on an uncharacteristic swoony quality. It was odd. The Jessie Renae had always known had been sort of a bad ass, love ‘em and leave ‘em kind of girl before she’d met Connor. Now she was experimenting with her softer side.
Renae smiled absently. “You’re lucky to have him around.” She didn’t want to point out the obvious contrasts to her own life, as it was something Jessie had actually been around for. Renae had gone to school with Jessie, albeit several grades ahead of her. In fact, Renae had babysat Jessie a time or two, and they’d been friends until Renae had gotten married and eschewed friendships for the married life she thought would be perfect. Then, when Cody had been killed in the car accident, some of her friends had come out of the woodwork to support her in her time of need, but she’d been so distracted by raising Kelly that she hadn’t really done much to let them.
Her life had ended up so different from her friends’ lives. She found she couldn’t relate to anyone anymore. And seeing them fulfill her own dreams of college and satisfying careers had been too difficult to stomach when she was younger. Jessie was one of the few who’d tried to understand her motivations behind her reclusiveness and stuck by her anyway.
Jessie had set the timer for the curds to form and laid out the rest of the supplies to finish the cheese. “I’ve got a man bringing his elderly dad out for a tour of the farm this afternoon. He’s trying to find things to interest the old guy. You probably know them. Mr. O’Niel? He runs the mailbox place downtown? I was hoping we’d be finished by the time they got here, but they’ll be here any minute.”
“That’s okay. I think I know what to do after this. I cut the curd with that knife and pull it out with that strainer thing then put it in the cheesecloth?”
“Yeah, pretty much.” Jessie cocked her head sideways. “I think that’s them.” She wiped her hands on her apron. “Let it set about five more minutes and it should be ready to cut.” As she went outside to greet the car that had driven up, Renae peeked out the kitchen window to see the son Mr. O’Niel had told her about so many times.
A gasp escaped her throat as she saw a familiar brown head emerge from the driver’s side of the Buick sedan. She could see Mr. O’Niel sitting in the passenger seat, a vacant smile on his face, but what completely stole her attention was Jason in a pair of jeans and his worn out motorcycle boots climbing out to shake Jessie’s hand.
Her memory hadn’t been playing tricks on her. He was still as good-looking as she’d imagined. Reminding her of the way he looked when she’d hit his motorcycle, his hair was messy, as if he’d recently showered and just ran his hands through it. His piercing blue eyes surveyed the farmhouse as he ambled around the car to the trunk to get out a wheel chair and rolled it around to help his dad out.
He was wearing a brown t-shirt stretched taut over muscles Renae had traced with her fingertips on that fateful night, watching them ripple as she tickled them. Now, her fingers clenched with the desire to repeat the process. Jason started pushing the wheelchair behind Jessie as they made their way to the house, and Renae was suddenly filled with panic.
He wasn’t supposed to be here. He had gone back to Houston. Renae wasn’t supposed to ever see him again. She had to tell him she was pregnant, but she still hadn’t figured out how.
Heart thudding in her chest, Renae quietly let herself out the back door as Jessie led them in the front. She looked around for a hiding place, realizing immediately the childishness of it all. She should just face him, but in all the ways she had imagined telling him, in front of his dad and her friend weren’t a possibility. And with the inevitability at the forefront of her mind, not telling him wasn’t possible. It would probably be the first words out of her mouth.
Renae ducked past the windows lining the porch and sprinted towards the greenhouse. They probably wouldn’t go back there, as it was too small for a wheel chair to fit in between the plants. She managed to get inside, hopefully without being seen running full-tilt across the yard. If they were walking slowly, they wouldn’t have seen her.
Hands on her knees, Renae took in gulps of air, trying to calm her racing heart. If sprinting across a yard did this to her, she really needed to start working out. The idea flitted across her racing mind as a possibility of an alone time activity as she immediately ducked down further out of sight.
He was here. She needed to talk to him, and all of her reasons for not calling him fled her mind like remnants of a dream upon waking. She couldn’t remember why she hadn’t called him to tell him he was a father. Now wasn’t the time, she hadn’t seen him in a month, hadn’t returned his calls. She couldn’t just throw it at him out of the blue now. That would be awkward. Who was she kidding? It would be awkward anyway.
She was sitting cross-legged on the ground behind a bench of tomato plants, still trying to calm her ragged breathing when she heard the greenhouse door open.
“Renae? I saw you come in here.” His smooth deep voice washed over her, sending prickly goose bumps over her flesh, even inside the warmth of the greenhouse. She inhaled sharply, attempting to hold her breath. “I heard that.” His tone of voice was mocking as if he were laughing at her. “Come on out,” he coaxed. “It can’t be too hard to find you in here.” She heard boot steps crunching on the pea gravel Jessie had covered the ground with as he walked further into the greenhouse, coming closer to her hiding spot. “Why are you hiding?” His delicious voice was close now, and childishly, she put her face between her knees in an ‘I can’t see you, so you can’t see me’ move.
She heard a rustling next to her and looked over to find him sitting cross-legged beside her, his blue eyes piercing her with questions. He didn’t say anything else, just watched her.
Renae was trapped. She felt stupid for hiding from him in the first place. It was a cowardly move, an attempt to not have to face him, to talk to him. Even now, with him two feet away from her, his body heat reached over and caressed her skin, making it difficult to think, much less say anything, certainly not anything meaningful.
“I thought you went back to Houston.” She didn’t mean for it to, but her voice sounded accusatory, and Jason flinched.
“Is that why you didn’t call me back?” He rubbed his hands on his thighs, and Renae’s eyes were drawn to the motion, watching the denim material cling to the muscles there. “Dad had more problems than I realized, and I stayed. I’m working on some things for him, trying to get his shop back in shape and figuring out what to do with him. I’ll be here a while.”
; How long would a while be? A month? A year? What was she supposed to say to that?
“I’m sorry your dad’s not doing well.” Her fingers idly traced patterns in the pea gravel floor while she avoided his eyes.
“Yeah, me too. I’m also sorry you never called me back. I had a great time with you that night.”
“About that…” Renae found herself fidgeting with the hem of her own t-shirt. “I’m afraid you got the wrong impression of me. I don’t typically go out and do stuff like that. I’m not—”
“You don’t go out and have a good time? You don’t like meeting interesting people who you connect with?” She looked up at him then, and the edges if his eyes crinkled with mirth.
Heat flamed her face. “It’s not that, it’s just… I don’t sleep with people I’ve just met. I don’t know what happened that night, and I’m sorry, I just can’t do it like that again.”
Jason reached out like he wanted to touch her, but stopped himself and Renae found she wanted to be touched. Ached for it. A pent up breath she didn’t know she was holding escaped.
“I think you are a beautiful woman who needed to unwind that night. Mission accomplished.” He paused and looked at her through hooded eyes, possibly re-living the same memories that were flashing through Renae’s mind at that moment. “I also know that I want to get to know you better. Not just more sex, although that was amazing, but I want to take you to dinner and talk to you. Laugh with you. Find out what makes you happy or sad. I want to know why you never called back.”
“I don’t know if I’m looking for that. I’m trying to figure some stuff out right now.”
