by Judy Duarte - The Bachelor's Brighton Valley Bride (Return to Brighton Valley)
So Megan was the girl Todd Redding had gotten pregnant and married?
“He must have loved you,” Clay said.
“He said he did, but he’d been offered a partial athletic scholarship at a college in Houston, and he was pretty upset about the pregnancy. He didn’t want me to have the baby, but I couldn’t do that.”
“So he married you,” Clay said.
“Not without a lot of pressure from his family, especially his grandfather, who insisted that he ‘do the right thing.’ And being young and naive, I believed love would solve a slew of problems. So I agreed.” She scanned the crowd, probably looking for eavesdroppers—or, more likely, the kids—then continued. “We got married at the end of June and stayed with his parents until it was time to move to Houston. Thankfully, Todd’s grandfather was able to supplement the scholarship so we could afford to live on campus in married housing. I’d never been one of the studious kids, so I was uncomfortable living in a college setting, but I made the best of it.”
Clay probably ought to say something, but he had no idea what. And even if he did, his gut was twisting something awful. He’d known her ex was a football player, that he’d been a jerk....
She looked at him, a shadow dimming the light that had once brightened her eyes. “You pretty much know the rest.”
Yes, he did. But he hadn’t realized that her ex-husband had been Todd Redding, his high school nemesis. “Listen, if you don’t mind, I’m going to look around and check out the rest of the market.”
“Okay. I’m not going anywhere.”
He tossed her a smile, then took off, eager to put some distance between them. He just needed time to reassess what it all meant to him.
Sure, he cared about Megan. He might even love her. But did he really want to get involved with Todd Redding’s family? He hated Todd, and the last thing he wanted was to associate Megan with the guy who had made his teen years a living hell.
Did he really want what Todd had left behind? What if Todd came back someday and wanted them back? Where would that leave Clay?
Did he want to come clean at all? If he made his excuses and left Brighton Valley now, hiding behind the geeky kid who still lurked inside him, he could keep his secret and his dignity.
Besides, in his experience, the girls who’d gone for Todd never would have settled for someone like Clay.
* * *
Megan sold out of her jams and jellies right after lunch, so there wasn’t any reason to hang out in town square much longer. The chamber of commerce, who’d set up the event, had asked the venders not to tear down the booths until after two, but she could certainly put a sign out for customers and then slip off to find the kids and Peyton.
The only problem was, the kids had been checking in with her off and on, but Peyton had been pretty scarce.
Why was that?
There could be only one reason. He regretted their lovemaking.
Disappointment poured over her, making it difficult to hold her chin up and keep a smile on her face. But she tried to shake it off. After all, she’d known nothing would come of a relationship with Peyton. He’d be leaving town soon. In fact, he might even be packing now. Was that where he’d gone?
Just as she’d regretted getting intimate with Todd back when they’d been in high school, she was feeling that same way about Peyton now. Making love with him, as wonderful as it had been—was a mistake. He’d pulled back—no matter how kind he might have been, how different from Todd he might be—and her only defense at this point was to withdraw, too. And to pretend as though nothing was wrong.
So she gathered up the kids and told them they were going home. There she would lick her wounds. All the while, she would try to put on a happy face so that Lisa and Tyler wouldn’t know how badly she hurt.
Apparently, the ploy worked because they jabbered between the two of them all the way home, which she really didn’t mind. The buzz of the sibling banter allowed her to keep her melancholy mood to herself.
Once back at the farm, she told the children that she’d unload the truck herself.
“Cool,” Tyler said. “I’m going to work on my report.”
As the kids scampered off, leaving her to mull over the bittersweet memory of the one amazing night she’d spent with Peyton, she placed the broken-down parts to her booth into the shed in back of the house.
She assumed the relationship was over. She’d probably dashed it all by talking too much about Todd the morning after. But maybe that was for the best. What would have become of her and Peyton anyway?
Still, a small part of her would grieve for what could have been because, like it or not, she’d come to care for Peyton.
Care for him? She may have even come to love him.
Once the truck was unloaded and parked back by the barn, she entered the kitchen, washed her hands and prepared to fix dinner. She decided on meat loaf, mashed potatoes and green beans.
She’d no more than pulled the ground beef from the refrigerator when Tyler called out, “Mom, come here!”
“I’m busy,” she hollered back. “You’ll need to come into the kitchen if you want to talk to me.”
“But you gotta see this. And it’s on the computer screen. I can’t bring it to you.”
“What is it?” she asked, not the least bit interested in looking at whatever he felt compelled to show her.
“It’s a picture of Clay Jenkins, the head of Geekon Enterprises. And he looks a whole lot like Peyton. If you take off his glasses and shave his beard, the two of them could be brothers. Or maybe even twins.”
The CEO of Geekon Enterprises? No, it couldn’t be. But her interest was definitely piqued, and she left the package of meat, the carton of eggs and the mixing bowl on the kitchen counter.
As she started toward the den, Tyler called out, “OMG. It really is him. And I can prove it.”
Megan’s senses reeled, and she wasn’t sure what moved faster, her feet or her mind, as she hurried to see what Tyler had uncovered.
“What did you find?” she asked her son as she stepped in front of the computer screen.
“I was doing my report on Bill Gates but decided to do some research on Clay Jenkins just because I was curious about him. And I was looking at photos of him. I thought he looked a lot like Peyton. And then I found this.”
It was a series of photos taken of Clayton Jenkins over the years, showing the metamorphosis of the geeky teenager to the stylish, mega-rich software mogul.
Her heart stood still, then dropped into the pit of her stomach, setting off an emotional metamorphosis of its own—from shock to disbelief to flat-out anger.
It hadn’t been her talking about Todd that had silenced him yesterday. It had been her pointing out her disgust of liars and men she couldn’t trust.
The jerk had felt guilty. And he darn well should have.
Even when she’d poured out her own heart and soul to him, he still hadn’t had the decency to tell her the truth.
And just like Todd, he’d taken her to bed, sharing the most intimate act between a man and a woman, but all the while she’d given herself freely to him, he’d held something back from her.
He’d hidden the man he really was.
* * *
When Clay saw that Megan had left town square early yesterday, he figured she’d sold out and had driven back to the farm. He’d used the time away from her to think about things, but he hadn’t come to any conclusions. He’d expected to hear from her eventually, since women tended to chase after him and he’d never had to pursue them.
But by evening he hadn’t heard from her, so he figured he’d better call. But he still wasn’t sure what to say. He continued to struggle with the dilemma until the hours before dawn.
Finally, as he woke up alone in the small, empty apartment and he
aded downstairs to the shop, which they’d cleaned and organized together, his thoughts came together.
In spite of the fame and fortune, his life was small and empty. He’d been missing something all along—something that he’d found in Megan.
He’d never felt so warm, so loved, so complete until he’d returned to Brighton Valley, stripped off the Clay Jenkins persona and let Peyton Johnson take the helm.
In a way, Peyton was the real him—not the geeky kid who’d struggled to be loved and accepted or the CEO who could buy himself fame and a place in the world.
And Clay had to show Megan that he was all three people—the kid, the man and the CEO—all wrapped up into one messed-up package who loved her more than he knew how to admit.
Yep, that was what he’d do. Then he’d ask her to marry him and move to Silicon Valley. And if she’d rather live elsewhere, that was fine with him. It was her choice. He would make it happen for her.
He was just about to place a long-overdue phone call when he heard a key turn in the lock on the front door of the shop. He assumed it was her arriving at work early, which was good. His confession would take some time, and he’d like to keep that closed sign up for as long as it took.
But when Megan stepped through the door, she wasn’t wearing a smile or carrying a foil-wrapped breakfast treat.
“You lied to me,” she said. The fire that lit her eyes damn near nailed him to the wall, and he knew that she’d learned the truth on her own.
“I can explain.”
“Don’t bother, Mr. Jenkins. I don’t want to hear anything you have to say.”
Then, before he could try and say anything else to smooth things over, like beg her to listen to his reason for maintaining a secret identity, which no longer seemed to hold an ounce of water, she turned on her heel, walked out of the shop and slammed the door so hard the bell clanged to the floor and rolled to his feet.
Clay stood there for the longest time, trying to make sense of it all. Her anger he could understand. But his pain and the crushing disappointment had sideswiped him, and he wasn’t sure what to do about it.
In the past, he could pick up a phone and call Zoe. With all the money at his disposal, his creative executive assistant was able to make any number of things happen for him.
But something told him he’d just lost the one thing he wanted and needed more than anything else in the world. And there wasn’t any way he was going to be able to buy her or coax her back.
* * *
Megan cried all the way back to the farm. When the kids had asked why they weren’t going to their summer programs today, she’d given them the reason she’d always hated to hear as a child: “Just because.”
But she couldn’t very well tell them that she had to drive into town earlier than the program started and that she wanted to be alone when she did it. Nor did she want to explain why she wasn’t going into work today—or ever again.
Tyler, of course, had figured it out.
“Are you mad at Mr. Johnson—I mean, Mr. Jenkins?” he asked.
“He lied to us. And there was no reason for it.”
The boy merely dropped his head.
They sat on the living room sofa for nearly thirty minutes, lost in their thoughts, their disappointment, their sadness. The ringing of the telephone finally drew Megan from hers.
She reached for the receiver, snatched it from the cradle and answered. “Hello?”
“Ms. Adams?”
“Yes.”
“This is Harvey Swenson with Fowler Markets, the retail chain out of Dallas. We talked at the farmers’ market yesterday.”
“Yes, Mr. Swenson. What can I do for you?”
“Well, Ms. Adams, it’s what I’d like to do for you. I told our CEO, George Fowler, about your products after I’d tasted them at Caroline’s Diner a while back. And then I presented them to him early this morning, after buying them yesterday. And he’d like to sell them in our stores. So we’re prepared to make you an offer.”
“Like I said before, I’m not willing to sell the recipe.”
“No, we understand that. We’d like to purchase the product. You’d hold all rights. You’d be in business for yourself—we’d just like an exclusive right to sell your jams, jellies and preserves through our stores. So what do you say?”
This was the break she needed. Her financial troubles were going to be a thing of the past.
“I’m definitely interested, Mr. Swenson.”
“Good. We’d like to talk more with you in Dallas on Monday, the seventh of July. Are you available?”
“Yes, I can be.”
“Good. I’ll set up the meeting with our board of directors and then give you the details later. Welcome to the Fowler family, Ms. Adams. I think this is going to be a very lucrative venture for you.”
She certainly hoped so. It was time for her luck to turn. And maybe it would help her heart to heal, too. She hadn’t needed Todd Redding or his family money.
And she didn’t need Clay Jenkins, either.
Chapter Twelve
Clay hadn’t realized how much he would miss having Megan—or her homey touches—in the shop until he’d had to spend ten days without her. But he was running things at Zorba’s until Don came back from vacation.
The doctor had released the man to return to work, but Clay had figured an all-expenses-paid trip to San Antonio to visit family would be a nice break for the couple, especially since Cindy had finally finished her last round of chemo.
With one phone call to Zoe, he could have had corporate send a temporary replacement manager here in less than a day, but abandoning the shop now would be akin to giving up, and he wasn’t a quitter.
Besides, he had something to prove—not just to Megan, who might never forgive him, but to himself.
Funny thing, though. Everyone in Brighton Valley now knew who he was, thanks to the confession he’d made to the Carpenters and later to Sally at the diner. Yet they weren’t treating him too much differently than they had when they’d known him as Peyton Johnson. In fact, because he was once one of them before he’d made it big—or so they’d figured—they seemed to have embraced him.
He supposed that he owed a lot of that to Megan, who hadn’t gone around telling everyone that he was a lying jerk. She’d kept her anger and her assessment to herself. And that made him love and respect her even more. It also made him feel even worse about deceiving her and more determined to prove that she could put her trust in him again someday.
As he sat behind one of the last computers left to repair, putting the panel back onto the hard drive he’d just rewired, the reattached bell on the front door jangled.
“Be right with you,” he called out.
He wiped his hands on his jeans, which he’d started wearing when he realized he no longer had to hide his identity in town or impress anyone by looking like a corporate bigwig.
When he made his way to the front of the store, he spotted the Franco sisters at the counter, the two elderly women who’d been eating at Caroline’s Diner the first day he’d arrived in town.
“Morning, Clay,” said the one wearing a light pink blouse.
“Hello, ladies. What brings you into Zorba’s today?”
“Sister and I were in the grocery last week,” the one in blue said, “and we heard y’all have them laptop computer gizmos for sale down here for one hundred dollars.”
Sister, the one in pink, nodded to confirm this.
Clay wanted to kick himself for ever making that crazy deal with Riley. At this point, nearly every citizen in Brighton Valley had picked up a thousand-dollar laptop for a tenth of the price. But there was no way he’d refuse the
Franco sisters the same deal, especially when he knew they were on such a limited income.
“Unfortunately, that special ended. But just between the three of us, I happen to have one of those special-deal computers set aside for a fellow who never came to pick it up. So I can let you have it at the same price.”
“See?” the one in pink said. “I told you he was a good man, sister. He didn’t have to offer us that deal. He could have put that machine right back on the shelf and sold it to someone else at full price. But no, he didn’t. He let you and me have it.”
“You did at that. ’Course, I was the one who recognized him from that old magazine I saw down at the Laundromat. And I told you he was rich as old fury. Didn’t I, sister?”
“Yes, you did. You also said he looked a lot like that boy who worked here with Ralph several years ago, but I thought you were going daffy on me, just like poor Aunt Thelma.”
Clay cleared his throat. “So do each of you need a laptop?”
“Oh, no, dear,” the pink sister said. “Just one will do.” She placed a liver-spotted hand on the other woman’s shoulder. “We share everything.”
“All right. That’s good.” Clay couldn’t imagine the Franco sisters needing all the bells and whistles or the ultra-storage capacity of the Geekon Blast. “Now, in order to get you the best machine, what exactly are you looking to do on your laptop?”
“We mostly want it for getting emails and pictures and whatnot from our nephew out in Washington and our cousin in Des Moines. And then sister likes to tinker in the garden.”
The blue sister, he realized, would be the gardener.
“Mrs. Fosley down at the library said she can get lots of good gardening articles off of that internet place. I like to get my papers every week, but our house is so small I feel like I’m running out of room with the way they can all stack up like they do. Someone said we can get them on a reader-e. So we’d need a reader-e feature.”
