Small-Town Mom

by Jean C. Gordon

  “There’s no place else in the building she could have gone without our seeing her?” he demanded.

  She shook her head. “I checked the storage closet to see if she was hiding in there. She wasn’t. The only other room this hall connects to is the one we were in.”

  Eli stepped in front of her and pushed the door open wider.

  “I called Jerry, our maintenance guy, to look for her. He’s out on the snowmobile.”

  He stared out at the expanse of snow-covered terrain. His chest tightened. He’d lost Jamie’s daughter. “Thanks. I’ll go try to follow her footprints. It shouldn’t take me long to catch up with her.” He checked his watch. How long had she been gone? Had she even used the bathroom or gone right out when she’d left him?

  Her footprints tracked through the snow, meandering around a small pond before mixing with a hundred others—some heading up the hill, some going toward the parking lot and the road.

  Eli closed his eyes. Please, Lord, keep Opal safe. He looked up the hill and didn’t see Jamie’s jacket among the figures congregating at the top. But he did see Drew, who waved him up.

  When he reached Drew, Eli’s heart was pounding—much more from fear about Opal than the exertion of sprinting up the hill. “Where’s Jamie?”

  Drew looked at him sideways. “She had to take Rose to urgent care.”

  The pounding picked up tempo. “Oh, man. I’ve lost Opal.” Eli glanced from side to side to make sure none of the teens had overheard him.

  Drew burst out laughing.

  “What’s so funny?” Eli’s fingers itched to wipe the grin off his friend’s face. Hadn’t Drew gotten what he’d said? “Opal got mad at me at the clubhouse and took off. I can’t find her.”

  Drew caught his breath. “She’s fine. She’s with Jamie. Sara saw her outside the clubhouse and walked her back. Opal does stuff like that all of the time. It drives Jamie crazy.”

  Drew was driving him crazy. “It didn’t occur to you to send someone down to tell me that?”

  “No, I thought you’d asked Sara to bring her back. Opal said something about you talking with a lady at the snack bar.” Drew arched an eyebrow. “Didn’t want to interrupt anything.”

  “Right, Karen Hill. Was Jamie mad?”

  “About what?”

  Drew had to be kidding. “My not bringing Opal back. I’m not Jamie’s favorite person as it is.”

  Drew’s eyes narrowed and one corner of his mouth tilted up. “But you’d like to be. Go for it. She didn’t seem mad at all to me. As I said, Opal’s done that before.”

  His friend’s ribbing rubbed him the wrong way. But he was too drained to answer the challenge. “It must be about time to go. I’ll start rounding up the kids.” As he walked away, his earlier thought echoed in his head. Jamie wasn’t a woman who would suffer a fool.

  * * *

  “Mommy,” Opal said as Jamie drove the girls home from the urgent care center. “I’m glad Rose’s knee is okay.”

  “That’s nice of you to be concerned about your sister.”

  “Yeah, you know the father-daughter dance at school is next week.”

  Jamie’s chest tightened. She didn’t know why Opal was so focused on the event. The elementary grades had the dinner-dance every year. Originally, it had been called the father-daughter dinner-dance, and that name had stuck even though the school hadn’t called it that in years. Officially, it was the Winter Dinner-Dance. The idea was to get dads more involved, but escorts weren’t limited to fathers. Brothers, uncles, grandfathers, friends and even mothers were welcome.

  “I don’t think you’ll have to take us.”

  “Is that right?” Opal must have asked Drew to take them. Jamie would be sure to tell him he didn’t have to, as he had enough to do with his own family.

  “Yes. Mr. Payton is going to take us.”

  Jamie swallowed wrong and choked. “What?” she coughed out.

  “I asked him when he bought me hot chocolate.”

  “Sweetie, why?”

  “It’s lame to go to a daddy dance with your mother, and Mr. Payton seems like he’d be a good daddy.”

  Jamie blinked back tears. Opal seemed to have accepted John’s death the easiest of the three kids, probably because she’d seen him so rarely. He’d been deployed to the Middle East most of her short life. She glanced at her daughters in the rearview mirror. Or had she been so wrapped up in Myles acting out that she’d missed her daughters’ needs?

  She swallowed and tried to imagine Eli’s reaction to Opal’s request and how it may have affected Opal. A snapshot of his lopsided grin when he’d pulled the green bandana from her hand to start the toboggan race imbedded itself in her brain. She loosened her grip on the steering wheel. Opal’s assessment of Eli might be right. He was good with kids. She shook his picture from her mind. Thinking of Eli as daddy material was a dangerous direction she needed to steer Opal, and herself, clear of.

  “What exactly did you say to Mr. Payton?”

  “I told him that if you liked him… You do like him, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I like him.” She did like him, even if they had their differences.

  “I said if you liked him, he could be your boyfriend, and he could take me and Rose to the dance.”

  No wonder Eli sent Opal back up the hill with Sara. He probably needed to recover from that bomb.

  “You are such a baby to tell him that,” Rose said.

  “Am not.”

  “Rose, no name-calling.”

  “But, Mom. Can you imagine what he thought?”

  Jamie could imagine, and that was a problem.

  “Let your sister finish.”

  Rose leaned back in her seat and crossed her arms in front of her.

  “And Mr. Payton said he would take you to the dance?”

  “No.” Her answer was almost inaudible. “He said he couldn’t be your boyfriend just because I wanted him to be.”

  “I told you it was a dumb thing to say.”

  “Rose,” Jamie warned, “you’re close to losing your TV privileges.”

  Her older daughter snapped her mouth shut. They’d just gotten a movie on DVD this morning that Rose wanted to see.

  “So, Mr. Payton didn’t say he would take you and Rose to the dance, did he?”

  “No, but he didn’t say he wouldn’t.”

  Rose snorted.

  “Let’s stick with our original plan,” Jamie said.

  “We’ll see,” Opal piped up from behind her.

  Jamie bit her lip to keep from laughing at how much her daughter’s response sounded like her.

  “Mom, don’t forget the pizza,” Rose said as they approached DC’s Pizzeria on Route 9.

  Jamie flicked her directional. “Don’t worry.” But she had forgotten, which wasn’t like her. She didn’t know what was making her so scattered these days. Or did she? Ever since she’d met Eli Payton, her whole life had been a little out of step.

  * * *

  The kitchen door opened, letting in a blast of cold night air. “Hey.” Myles surveyed the pizza boxes. “Did you save any for me?”

  Jamie looked up, her gaze bypassing Myles to Eli walking in behind him.

  “Mr. Payton brought me home.” Myles strode over to the table to more closely inspect the pizza situation.

  “So I see.” She smiled at Eli, who was still standing by the door, to let him know she wasn’t going to light into him again over driving Myles home.

  “Want to join us?”

  “Thanks, but I just wanted to check on Rose.”

  “No, stay,” Opal prompted. “You can sit next to Mommy.” She pointed at the empty seat by Jamie.

  Jamie felt her cheeks flush. “Rose is fine. The physician’s assistant popped her kneecap right back in place. I wasn’t able to this time.”

  Eli winced, and Jamie bit back a smile.

  “Seriously, join us. There’s plenty.”

  Myles’s expression questioned that, but she ignored him a
nd moved her chair toward Opal’s so Eli could take the seat next to her.

  “All right. I’d like that.”

  “Myles, take Mr. Payton’s coat.” She eyed her son’s coat slung on the back of one of the kitchen chairs. “And hang it and yours up.”

  He grabbed Eli’s ski jacket and hung both on the coat pegs by the door.

  Eli sat down and reached over to take a slice of pizza from the box in front of her.

  He seemed to take up so much space at the table. She wrapped her ankle around the chair leg and scooted the chair to the right.

  “Mommy, you’re squishing me.”

  Jamie’s face grew warmer. Maybe Eli would think her cheeks were perpetually rosy.

  He placed his pizza on the paper plate Rose had slid over to him and bent his head.

  “What are you doing?” Opal asked.

  “Giving thanks.”

  “We don’t do that anymore. Mommy said our food comes from the grocery store and not God.” The little girl shot a glance at Jamie. “But when we did, my favorite was ‘God is great. God is good. So we thank Him for our food. Amen.’”

  Jamie braced herself for disapproval. But he looked sad rather than condemning.

  “That grace has always been one of my favorites, too,” he said.

  She nibbled her pizza slice. The prayer had been one of her favorites, at one time. She’d learned it as a child. Jamie placed her pizza on her plate. That she and her kids no longer said grace as a family was her call. But she wasn’t going to make an issue of it with Eli. Not in front of the kids. She glanced around the table to see all three of them absorbed in eating their dinner.

  Eli caught her gaze, and the lull in conversation became deafening.

  She searched her mind for words to fill the silence. Where was Opal’s constant chatter when she needed it? “I wanted to thank you for having Sara walk Opal back up the hill. I hated to impose on you and Drew to watch her while I took Rose to Urgent Care.”

  Eli and Opal shared a silent exchange.

  He cleared his throat. “I—”

  “Mr. Payton didn’t ask Sara to bring me back. I asked her to.”

  “Did you tell Mr. Payton you were going with Sara?”

  Opal pushed her pizza crust around on her plate. “No.”

  “We’ve talked about this before. Mr. Payton must have been looking for you.”

  Eli gave Jamie a curt nod.

  “He was probably worried about you.”

  Opal looked past her to Eli.

  “I was concerned and relieved when Drew told me Sara had brought you to your mother.”

  “Sorry.” Opal’s gaze dropped back to her plate.

  “Apology accepted.”

  “If you’re done with your pizza, you and Rose should go upstairs and put on your pajamas. Then you can watch the movie.”

  “Okay.” Opal and Rose slipped away.

  “I hope Opal didn’t give you too much trouble this afternoon.”

  “No, it was okay.”

  “Even her pitch to take her to the school dinner-dance?”

  “She told you about that?” The smile lines on either side of his mouth deepened.

  “Yes. I’m a bit embarrassed,” Jamie admitted.

  “Don’t be. She’s what, six? And I’m sure she misses her daddy.”

  “Seven. Don’t let her hear you saying six.” And I’m not sure she misses John as much as she simply misses having a daddy.

  Eli moved his chair back, and a compulsion to make him stay, to not have an empty seat at the table, washed over Jamie.

  “Where are my manners? Would you like a drink? We have milk and iced tea. I’m afraid Myles finished off the soda.”

  Her son pulled his attention from his food. “There wasn’t that much left.”

  “I know.” She didn’t want the good day and her good mood broken by an argument with Myles. “I could make coffee if you’d rather have something hot.”

  “Milk is fine.”

  Jamie rose and crossed the kitchen to the refrigerator.

  “I’m going to work on my computer.” Myles tossed his paper plate in the trash and put his glass in the sink. “Talk to her about what you told me,” he said in a lower voice as he passed by Eli at the table.

  “Something I need to know?” Jamie placed Eli’s milk in front of him and sat with her tea.

  “Thanks.” Eli shifted in his seat, and she couldn’t get past the similarity of his demeanor and Myles’s when he and Tanner were cooking up something.

  “I was talking to some of the guys in the youth group about the teen programs at the American Legion.”

  Jamie tensed. So much for her pleasant day. “I see.”

  “I told them I would talk with their parents and give them more information.”

  “Good move. I won’t need any more information.”

  Eli inclined his head. “I understand how, given the circumstances, you might not want Myles involved in an American Legion program.”

  He had that right. She’d meant it when she’d told him the military had killed John. And she didn’t want Myles anywhere near anything or anyone who would encourage him to follow in his father’s footsteps. She couldn’t lose her son, too.

  Eli hesitated as if remembering their last meeting and her displeasure at Myles going to the youth group meeting and Eli driving him home. “As I said, I was talking to the group, not just to Myles.”

  Jamie was torn between anger at Eli for including Myles in his discussion when he obviously knew her feelings about her son participating in anything military-related, and appreciation of his ready acquiescence to her opposition.

  “Sorry I was so short. I know you weren’t talking just to Myles.” She eyed his empty glass. “Do you want more milk?”

  “No, thanks. I should be going.” Eli followed Myles’s lead and cleared his plate and glass from the table. “Got to be up early for church tomorrow. Speaking of which, I meant to tell you that I’m glad you’re letting Myles come to youth group.”

  Was that a dig? She scanned his face. No, it was just Eli. She was so sensitive to everything lately. There were certainly a lot worse things Myles could be doing than going to youth group with Tanner. Her chest tightened. As long as Myles remembered what she’d told him when they’d stopped going to church, to not slip into the complacency of trusting in a higher power that wasn’t there. Myles had to learn that he was responsible for himself.

  “Thanks, again, for the pizza.” He grabbed his coat from the coat pegs by the door and let himself out.

  “So, Mom.” Myles bounded into the kitchen. He had to have been lurking around the corner in the living room. “Did he tell you?”

  “Yes.”

  “About the rifle class? He’s going to be teaching a rifle class.” Myles’s voice rose in excitement while her heart plummeted. “Did he give you the information and registration form? He had it in his coat pocket.”

  “We didn’t get that far. I told him I didn’t need to know more.”

  “Mo-om! I thought he could talk you into it. I guess it didn’t work.”

  “Mr. Payton knew better than that.”

  “You’re always against me. Now you have Mr. Payton against me. You’re at me all of the time to do something constructive. He wants me to get involved in group activities. I come up with something I want to do and you shoot it down.”

  “I can’t let you.”

  “Dad would have let me,” he spat back.

  “Your dad…” Her voice cracked. “Is why I can’t.”

  “Doesn’t matter. You know I’m going to blow this town and enlist as soon as I’m old enough.” He stormed from the room.

  She let him go, but not without wishing Eli hadn’t gotten Myles going on the course, no matter how good his intentions might have been. Her life had become as up and down as a roller coaster ride since Eli had entered it. Things might have been better if she could have held on to her initial dislike of him. But the more she saw Eli, t
he more she liked Eli. To maintain any semblance of tranquility, her best plan might be to avoid him. Her heart tripped. Tranquility might not be all that it was cracked up to be.

  Chapter Six

  “TGIF,” the birthing center office assistant said as she and Jamie left the center. “Autumn joining the midwife practice has taken some of the pressure off Kelly, but it’s upped my workload—at least this week.”

  “You’ve got that right.” After a hectic week with an unusually high number of deliveries at the birthing center, Jamie was more than ready for one of her rare weekends when she wasn’t on call.

  “Got plans?” the other woman asked.

  “Bowling league tonight and nothing else for the rest of the weekend, except shopping with the girls Sunday afternoon. They’ve both outgrown the shoes they got for school back in August.”

  The woman laughed as she opened her car door. “Good luck with that. I’m not a shopper and am so glad my daughter is old enough to shop on her own.”

  Jamie waved goodbye. She was surprised at how much she was looking forward to bowling again. Soon after she’d first moved to Paradox Lake, Karen Hill had asked her at church one Sunday if she bowled. When Jamie admitted to being on her high school bowling team, Karen had talked her into joining the Friday Fun league she and her husband belonged to.

  It had sounded like a good way to get a break from her single-parent role one night a week. She’d hired Neal Hazard’s daughter as her regular Friday night babysitter until Autumn had left Paradox Lake to pursue an advanced degree in nursing. Then, Myles had watched the girls for her until she’d found out he was breaking the house rules and having people over when she was out. She’d more or less dropped out of the league last year.

  Jamie hummed as she let herself in the house. But now she was back bowling. A call to the bowling alley last week had verified that the league had openings in its winter-spring session that had started last week. And now that Autumn was back in town, she had offered to watch the girls.

  She kicked off her nursing clogs and traded her scrubs for a soft pair of well-washed jeans and a turquoise cotton sweater. She hummed to herself as she tied her athletic shoes. For tonight, at least, she could forget her week. Forget the messages Leah had left offering Eli’s help in installing the heat valve she’d already installed herself. Forget the call from Leah that Opal had answered when Jamie was working one evening. Opal had explained her idea about Eli taking her and Rose to the dance. Leah had thought that was a great idea and had told Opal she would talk with Eli.