by Regina Hart
“So am I.” Aliyah paused. “Thanksgiving is less than four weeks away. I thought they’d come home for school break.”
“What makes you think they won’t?” This would be the first Thanksgiving he’d spend without his family in nineteen years. Benjamin rubbed his chest to ease the weight crushing his heart.
“Well, for one thing, they’re not returning my calls.” Aliyah’s words wobbled around a forced chuckle.
“They’ll come around.” It was time to get off the phone. He couldn’t control his emotions much longer.
“What are you doing for Thanksgiving, Ben?”
Benjamin gritted his teeth. Why was she asking? What did she expect to hear? “I’ll probably spend it with my brothers.”
“I’d forgotten that Zach had moved back to Trinity Falls as well. Now all of the Brooks brothers are back in town.”
Benjamin didn’t find her observation amusing. He loved Trinity Falls, but he’d had a family and a life in Chicago—before the woman who’d promised to love and cherish him until “death do us part” had cheated on him. Repeatedly.
“I hope you and the kids enjoy Thanksgiving. I’ll call.” Benjamin pushed himself up from the recliner.
“Spend Thanksgiving with us.” Aliyah’s request rushed down the cell phone connection.
Benjamin froze. “You want us to be like a family again?” She must be kidding.
“I want the kids to spend Thanksgiving at home. I also want them to see us getting along.”
Benjamin rubbed the back of his neck. “What about Larry?”
Larry Cox had been Aliyah’s lover for almost two years. He’d also been Benjamin’s boss at Hughes & Coal Corp., the Chicago-based financial investment company for which he’d worked for almost twenty years.
“Larry and I aren’t seeing each other anymore.” Aliyah’s admission was surprising.
She’d waited until their divorce to break off her extramarital affair. What, if anything, should he read into that?
“I’ll call you and the kids on Thanksgiving Day.” He started to end the call.
“Ben, please. They’re not speaking to me.” Aliyah’s voice broke. “I’m not too proud to ask for your help.”
“There’s nothing I can do for you. Terry and Zora need time.” Benjamin touched the screen to end the call.
Hopefully, time was all he needed as well to banish the bitterness and anger in his heart. June’s pitch for the center’s Christmas dinner dance came to his mind. Benjamin shook his head. How could he approve the event? He wasn’t exactly in the Christmas mood.
June’s cellular phone rang just as she entered her home Monday evening. She fished the device from her purse as she locked her door. The caller identification listed her son’s name.
“Wow, two phone calls in one week.” June kicked off her shoes, then crossed the entryway of her colonial home. “To what do I owe this bountiful pleasure?”
“Real funny, Mom.” Noah’s words held suppressed laughter. “How’re you doing?”
June hung her emerald winter coat in the closet before walking to her family room. She collapsed onto the welcoming cushions of her foam-green love seat, a match to her sofa and armchair.
“About the same as I was when we spoke yesterday. How are you?” She turned up the volume on her Mom Hearing. She and Noah had always been close. But this evening, June sensed something more than that behind his attentiveness.
“Are you settling in okay in Trinity Falls?”
June’s brows knitted at the concern she heard in her child’s voice. Why is he still worrying about me? “Noah, I’ve told you I’m fine. This is your freshman year. You should be focusing on your classes.”
Her heart swelled with pride that her son had earned a full academic scholarship to Columbia University in New York. She gazed at the photos lining her fireplace mantel and the ones mounted to the walls. With very little effort, she relived events from her son’s birth to young adulthood: first day of kindergarten, first communion, confirmation, pee wee football, high school graduation and moving onto Columbia’s campus. She blinked away tears. Has any son ever made a mother prouder?
June swallowed the lump in her throat. “How are your classes?”
“They’re all right.” There was an echo behind Noah’s voice and muted conversations in the distance. He must be using his cell phone in the hallway again. Is he getting along with his roommate?
June arched a brow. “After ten weeks of classes, the best review you could give me is ‘all right’? Are you keeping up with your readings?”
“Yes, ma’am. It’s hard, but I’m making it work.” His sigh stirred all her maternal instincts. Is he getting enough sleep? Is he eating right? He gave up football. Is he still finding time to exercise?
June took a breath to ask him all of these questions again, but Noah spoke first.
“How was the Books and Bakery Halloween party?” His tone was too casual.
“It was nice. I had a good time.” Didn’t we talk about this yesterday?
June had attended Books & Bakery’s annual Halloween party and children’s story time on Saturday, which had been Halloween. Trinity Falls’s residents had crowded the bookstore and café. They were dressed as historical figures, or popular characters from comic books, novels, movies and television. June had gone as Florence Nightingale. She’d always admired the historical figure. She still wasn’t sure what Benjamin had been. Dressed in jeans, flannel shirt, and a tool belt, he’d claimed to be a handyman. June and Megan McCloud, Books & Bakery’s owner and the organizer of the Halloween event, had given him a D for effort.
“Are you sure you had a good time?” Noah persisted.
The virtual lightbulb came on in June’s brain. I’m going to ground him. “How long have you been using Darius to check up on me?” Silence. “Noah?” She used her best warning tone.
“I didn’t ask Darius to spy on you, Mom. I promise. You told me you were going to the party. And Darius told me some people have been giving you a hard time. I was worried something might have happened at the bookstore.”
“Noah, I can—”
“Take care of yourself. I know.” He sighed and June pictured her eighteen-year-old son taking on the weight of the world. “But just like a mother worries about her son, a son worries about his mother.”
June was momentarily speechless. Look at him, using my words to turn the tables on me. “Noah, I appreciate your concern, but I need you to remain focused on your future.”
“I wouldn’t be as worried if you were still living in Sequoia. Sequoia is familiar.”
June rose and paced across the room to the fireplace. “Neither of us expected Making an Event would file for bankruptcy the week Darius and I moved you into Columbia.”
She should have realized the marketing and event-planning company for which she’d worked for the past fourteen years was getting ready to close its doors forever. But she was a single parent, working a demanding job, and helping her son prepare for college.
“I guess Mayor Lopez offering you the job with Trinity Falls’s community center was like good news, bad news.” Noah still sounded troubled.
“It was all good news.” She injected even more confidence into her voice. “We must remember to count our blessings instead of our burdens. This job is an exciting change. It’s a promotion. The pay’s better. I was fortunate to sell our home quickly and for enough money to put a decent down payment on this one.”
“I remember what it was like when people in Sequoia rejected you. I don’t want you to go through that again.” The pain in her child’s voice ripped her heart in two.
“It’s not the same, Noah.” She wasn’t a young woman on her own with a baby to protect. She was a much more mature and battle-tested woman who’d single-handedly raised an impressive young man. “I already have friends in Trinity Falls.”
“People who aren’t that friendly are there, too.”
“What can I do to convince you that I’
m fine?” June paced back across the room and dropped onto the sofa.
“Tell me if people are giving you a hard time.”
“What will you do?”
“I might not be able to do anything, but I at least want to know. Promise me.”
Tension drained from June, bringing forth a smile. “Well, if you want to know about the difficult people I’m dealing with, let me tell you about my new boss.”
“Is he as bad as Miss Gina?” Noah’s voice sounded lighter. She pictured the smile on his handsome, young face.
Gina Carter owned Making an Event. She was a nice person, but her lack of planning had often caused chaos for June and the rest of the staff. At least she could reason with the older woman. Benjamin Brooks was distractingly attractive. But once you got past his good looks—no easy feat—he also was distressingly unreasonable.
“He might be worse.” June was only half joking. Or maybe she wasn’t joking at all. “But first, tell me about your chemistry professor. Did you meet with her about your class project?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Noah launched into an amusing account of his meeting with his professor to get clarification on his chemistry report. Thankfully, the anecdote, which had a happy ending, seemed to distract her son from worrying about her. At least for now.
June listened to Noah with one half of her mind while the other continued to brood over her boss and an idea for their year-end fund-raiser. Ever since Benjamin had shot down her Christmas dance idea that morning, she’d been struggling to come up with a substitute event. But The Iceman wasn’t being helpful. He knew what he didn’t want, but he had no idea what he wanted.
Was it the event itself or the Christmas theme that he was opposed to? Did he have something against the holiday?
To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.
DAFINA BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2015 by Patricia Sargeant-Matthews
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the Publisher and neither the Author nor the Publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
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ISBN-13: 978-1-61773-566-0
ISBN-10: 1-61773-566-3
First Kensington Mass Market Edition: September 2015
ISBN: 978-1-6177-3566-0
First Kensington Electronic Edition: September 2015
