Breakup in a Small Town

by Kristina Knight

  “Kiddo?” He caught Frankie’s gaze and chucked the little boy under his chin. “You’re my hero.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  THE DAY OF Adam’s follow-up MRI, Jenny pulled the SUV into the parking lot of the doctor’s office in Springfield with two minutes to spare. The secretary had left three voice messages and sent one very long email, ignoring Jenny’s insistence that Adam A) no longer lived at the house by the lake and B) had a different phone number than hers.

  When those things didn’t work, she decided to remove her phone number and email from his charts in person. The last thing she needed right now were more phone calls and emails reminding her of the man who’d walked out on her.

  Twice.

  Inside, the receptionist pointed her down the hallway and into a waiting room. Jenny sat in the hard plastic chair and folded her hands in her lap. She swiveled when the door opened, and her heart seemed to stutter in her chest.

  Adam was here.

  How had he gotten here? The office had been calling the house nonstop for three days, looking for him.

  Jenny stood. “I was just leaving.”

  “Don’t go. They have the results for the MRI. You might as well hear them, too.”

  She would rather be anywhere than in this small, sterile room with Adam, but she did want to know that he was all right. Or at least as all right as he could be, considering his diagnosis. Jenny sat.

  Adam took the chair across from her and rolled a magazine from the rack in his hands. “How have you been?”

  “Peachy. You?”

  “I’ve been better.”

  “Pity.” She knew she was being mean-spirited, but she didn’t care. Seeing Adam had set her world off balance once again. Not that it had been all that balanced before she walked into the doctor’s office, but it had been getting there. She’d gotten through two whole days without breaking down in tears or throwing that stupid pillow at the wall.

  The door opened again and Dr. Lambert walked in. His pants and shirt were as wrinkled as ever, and his hair looked a little windblown. Not the picture of steadfast intelligence. Maybe the doctor was the problem. Maybe Adam needed someone who didn’t look as if he’d just stepped out of some crazy lab test.

  “Jenny, Adam.” He sat across from them and pulled a stack of papers from the folder on his desk. “This marks the third week since the last seizure. How have you been? Blurred vision? Weakness?”

  “Not since last week.” Adam reached out to pat Sheba’s head. Funny, Jenny hadn’t noticed the dog when he’d came into the room. Or when he’d surprised her at their house a couple weeks before. Her house, she reminded herself. Adam had walked out of it, leaving her with the mortgage and a paper saying he was releasing her from sharing any of the profits of the home, should she choose to sell it.

  As if selling was an option. The boys had been through enough. She wasn’t going to sell the only home they’d known out from under them. She would continue dealing with the mortgage payments and upkeep schedule. It shouldn’t be much harder than the schedule she’d had this past summer.

  The doctor was talking again, about more of the warning signs. He checked Adam’s vitals while they spoke, marking a few things down on the tablet beside him.

  “As you both know, we have the final MRI results in.” He put the slide on a screen on the wall and flipped on the light. The image of Adam’s brain filled the space, dark scarred areas scoring it. Jenny shivered, wondering if she would ever get used to the sight.

  Not that it mattered. This was going to be her last visit to this doctor’s office. If Adam didn’t want to share his life with her, she was certainly not going to partake in any of these checkups.

  The doctor clicked the keyboard and another image of Adam’s brain was illuminated. He pointed from one to the other. “As you can see, the scarring is beginning to recede in the newest image. The recession may not seem like a lot, but it is a significant improvement over what we saw after the last seizure.” He typed on the keyboard again, and a third picture appeared. “And from the images taken after Adam was found in the rubble.”

  Jenny concentrated on the screen. The ugly scars still dominated the images, but Dr. Lambert was right. The tentacle-like scars were smaller, and seemed less dense now. She glanced at Adam, but couldn’t read his expression.

  “What does this actually mean?” she asked. Maybe he couldn’t see the differences in the MRIs. After the last seizure, he’d said things were fuzzy. Maybe his vision was still impaired a bit.

  “The more the scarring dissipates, the less likely Adam will have another incident. Now, we can’t say it will completely disappear, but the reduction is enough that I feel confident there is a chance of a full recovery.”

  “Full?” The word squeaked out of Jenny’s mouth.

  The doctor beamed. “It will take a while, and you should remain on the medications, continue taking all of the precautions and working with the service dog. But there is a chance that the seizure you just had will be the last.”

  Adam cleared his throat. “And if it isn’t?”

  “If it isn’t, we consider other medications. We keep an eye on the scarring. Time is our friend in this case. The longer you go between seizures, the better the chances of your brain healing.”

  Jenny swallowed. Healing. That was the best word she had heard in a long time.

  * * *

  LONG AFTER THE doctor left the room, Adam sat in the chair, trying to process what he had heard.

  The words full recovery echoed in his mind. That meant he might get his life back. He looked at Jenny from the corner of his eye. The only problem with getting his life back was that she might misunderstand just what he wanted. He wanted her. He wanted to choose her, and work through whatever came at them, together.

  And now he didn’t have a hope in hell of making her see that he’d been ready to move forward before hearing what the doctor had to say.

  Jenny rose from her chair. Sheba sat up.

  “Well, that was good news.”

  “The best.” Adam took a deep breath. Whether she believed him or not, there were things he needed to say to her. Starting with his five hundredth I’m sorry. Somehow, the apology didn’t seem like the right place to start.

  “I love you.” The words slipped from his mouth before Adam could stop them. Jenny stared at him for a long moment. “Loving you is the best thing I’ve done in my whole life.”

  “Adam, I can’t. I can’t go down this road with you again. You love me, you don’t. You want me in your life, then you walk away. I’m happy for you, I really am, but I can’t let myself get pulled back into this again.”

  “I’m not trying to pull you back in. I just wanted to explain that I was trying to protect you, and before you get mad about that, I know you don’t need protection. You’re a smart woman and you’re stronger than me. But my instinct is to protect the people I love, especially from myself.”

  “Oh, Adam.” Jenny shook her head and closed her eyes.

  “I have loved you for nearly half of my life. I never wanted to hurt you, Jen, and I’m sorry that I did. I was so afraid of hurting you that I tried to shut you out, because I thought if there was distance between us, you wouldn’t wind up hurt.” He paused. “You deserved better than that. So did the boys. I’m sorry.”

  Jenny held her bag to her chest like a shield. “I’m sorry, too.”

  “I don’t want to be alone, and if you’re not with me, no matter who else is around, I’m alone. You’re my level, Jen. You’re what holds me true.”

  She shook her head, slowly, then faster. “I can’t let myself fall back down this rabbit hole with you,” she said, and fled from the office.

  * * *

  JENNY DROVE HOME in a fog. She didn’t remember taking the highway out of Springfield, or
seeing the big sign announcing the city limits of Slippery Rock, or making the turn from downtown to their quiet street along the lakefront. A mixture of echoes filled her mind. The doctor saying Adam might have a complete recovery. Adam saying that without her he would always be alone.

  He’d nearly gotten her with that one. Because she didn’t want to be alone, either. Since he’d walked out of their lives, she’d done everything she could to fill the time. She spent most of her days at Buchanan’s, had started volunteering at school activities, had scheduled play dates with the boys’ friends. She’d accepted every invitation from Mara and Savannah, which meant she’d paid about a semester’s worth of fees and books to Sadie for babysitting. Through all of that, she remained alone.

  Not just lonely, but alone. As if she were locked in some kind of bubble and no matter who she was with, no one could break through. She heard her friends talking, listened to the boys, to her in-laws. No one seemed to hear her, though.

  Jenny put the car in Park and walked through the backyard gate. She blinked, thinking she had to be hallucinating, but the scene remained.

  Fairy lights hung from the trees. Enlarged pictures of her, the boys and Adam were propped on easels and hung along the fence. She swallowed. Some of the best moments of her life were spread out before her, and she wanted to die.

  “I love you, Jenny.” Adam spoke from behind her and she whirled around.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I paid a fortune to an Uber driver to get me here before you. He missed the window by about two minutes. I’m late.”

  She gestured to the yard. “How?”

  “The guys hung the lights while we were at the doctor’s office.”

  “I don’t understand.” Her heart beat fast in her chest. This didn’t make sense. And that Uber driver had to have cost a fortune.

  “I thought, when we ran away to that justice of the peace nine years ago, that we were joking when we said the for-better-or-for-worse part. I mean, who expects worse at age nineteen?”

  Jenny certainly hadn’t. She’d thought they would get married and have a couple kids and live the charmed life of TV sitcoms. Boy, had she been wrong.

  “Most of the worst can be laid at my feet. I didn’t listen to what you wanted, I didn’t know what you needed, and after the tornado, I tried my hardest to shut you out completely because I was afraid you would finally realize that you didn’t want or need me.”

  Jenny shook her head. “I’ve always wanted you. Always needed you.” She didn’t care if admitting it made her weak. It was the truth.

  “We got some good news today, and as I was listening to the doctor tell me things were going to get better, I couldn’t help thinking they weren’t. Because without you in my life, nothing is better. Nothing is okay. It’s like those moments after a seizure. The colors are a little too bright and the shapes are too fuzzy and everything sounds a little too muffled. I’m there. I can feel myself going through the motions, but without you there, I don’t really know what’s happening.”

  She knew that feeling, all too well.

  “I gave you nine years of worse, but if you’ll let me, I’d like to give you sixty or seventy years of better.” He knelt in the grass and pulled a small box from the pocket of his jeans. “Will you marry me again, Jenny?”

  She put her hands over her mouth, trying to take in what was happening. “It wasn’t all bad,” she managed to say. With trembling fingers, she reached to open the box. Nestled inside was a ring, encircled with diamonds.

  “I can get you a whole new ring, if you want. But you know, there is that old-and-new thing that goes with weddings.”

  And it was the perfect symbolism for them. He’d given her a small diamond when they eloped nine years before. The ring in the box would stack nicely below it. Close to her heart. Just as Adam had always been.

  “What about the borrowed and blue parts?”

  “The SUV is blue.”

  That made Jenny laugh.

  “And all these twinkle lights were borrowed from our friends. Who are quietly waiting on the other side of the fence to hear if we’re going to have a wedding.”

  Jenny looked around, taking in not only the lights and the pictures, but the people. Aiden, Levi, Savannah and Collin stepped through the side gate. Her parents and Adam’s had been standing near the door on the patio. Mara, James and little Zeke stood near the gate to the beach.

  “Oh, my God.”

  “No pressure, but they’re all rooting for a yes,” Adam said, a smile in his voice. Jenny laughed, and the laughter quickly turned to tears.

  “Don’t cry, Momma.” Frankie and Garrett rushed from their position on the porch with their grandparents.

  She hugged them close. “It’s okay. Happy tears,” she said.

  “Is that a yes to the proposal?” Adam asked.

  Jenny nodded—she couldn’t force words past her lips.

  “We’re going to need one of you to go after a justice of the peace,” Adam said. “She said yes, and I’m not giving her time to change her mind.”

  Their friends laughed, and Jenny saw several phone screens light up the evening sky.

  “I do love you, Adam Buchanan.”

  “And I love you, Jennifer Anne Buchanan. I just forgot for a while that love isn’t just a feeling.” He kissed her gently on the lips.

  “What is it, then?” she asked, smiling up at the man she had loved for most of her life.

  “Love is what you do.”

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from THE LITTLEST BOSS by Janet Lee Nye.

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  The Littlest Boss

  by Janet Lee Nye

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE GUY IN the produce section of Publix was about to make an amateur mistake with the avocados. He had two of them in his hands, ripe and ready to eat by the look of them. The way to do it, Tiana Nelson knew, was to buy one for now and one for later. Swap one of those for one a bit more green, she thought. You’ll be glad you did a few days from now. What to do? Approach and tell him? She was tempted. That arm. He wasn’t even flexing it, just had it angled enough so he could give the lush fruit a little squeeze, and Wow. Okay. That’s a well-built fella. The jacket he was wearing didn’t conceal his muscles at all, did it? Hard curves moved beneath the fabric.

  She maneuvered he
r shopping cart, trying to get closer without being conspicuous, dodging a flustered mom who was trying to snag a singing child in an Adventure Time sweatshirt pirouetting between the apples and the bananas. There was something about the guy with the avocados—besides the fact that he was exceptionally easy on the eyes—but it wasn’t until he glanced over at her and she caught a spark of recognition in his expression that she understood.

  I know him. He knows me.

  She was running all the possibilities through her mind—work, school, gym, here—when he grinned at her and it clicked. That grin. She knew that smug, snarky grin. Sugar sticks! That smart-alecky maid. What was his name?

  “Nurse Ratched!” he said, setting the avocados in his basket and looking entirely too pleased with himself. “I’d recognize that scowl anywhere.”

  And then she did actually scowl, and frowned at the realization that she’d done so, and immediately tried to cool her expression into a kind of bemused grin. Oh, that guy. One of Josh’s guys from the Cleaning Crew. She waved a hand toward the juice aisle and said, “Did they call for a cleanup in aisle two, Man Maid?” She felt a flush of heat in her neck and cheeks as she said it.

  He laughed and strolled closer to her with a purely casual confidence that irked her. All at once she was acutely aware of how she must look, straight off the end of a long, crazy shift in the ER, in wrinkled blue scrubs and beat-up Asics that probably should have been swapped out six months ago. Wait, there isn’t vomit on my pants or anything, is there? Random bodily fluid stains were always a possibility on her shift. Tiana pulled her coat closed and tried to keep her expression casual, amused but disinterested. But darn if he wasn’t a fine-looking man.

  “They actually let you take care of people now?” he said. His grin had reappeared—big, wide and goofy, making everything feel like it was all in fun.