“I offered to pick up Jordan for her, that’s all,” Sara explained. “I’m already in town and I have to pick up Amy. I could bring Jordan here so she doesn’t have to run in.”
“Sounds like a good deal to me,” Jase agreed, but Marissa was still frowning.
“If I let you do that for me, then you have to let me watch Amy if you need a babysitter. That would only be fair. And if I want to work late, I could just give you a call and tell you to leave Jordan at day care.”
“Perfect.” Sara was so mired in debt, she didn’t want to be indebted any more, to anyone.
“And speaking of babysitters, you’re both going to need one Saturday evening.” Jase’s smile was wide and did funny things to Sara’s equilibrium.
Marissa snapped her fingers. “The Raintree Soiree.”
“Yep. All the staff are invited, of course. But, Sara, I’d like you to come, too.”
She wasn’t exactly sure what kind of invitation this was. Was Jase asking her because she lived on the property? Or was he asking her because this was sort of a date?
“It’s a glamorous event,” Marissa said as if that would convince her.
But that just caused anxiety. “My wardrobe got wiped out.”
“I know how to fix that,” Marissa told her. “We’ll talk.”
Sara wasn’t sure what Marissa had in mind, but she already knew she could trust her.
“It’s settled, then.” Jase waved his hand behind Amy’s other ear. “Here you go. Thanks for being so patient while we talked.”
Amy held a coin in each hand. “Look, Mommy, doggy-bank food.”
They all laughed, but Sara was already nervous about Saturday night. She wished Jase’s magic trick included an answer to the question of what she should do about him.
Chapter Five
Sara was watching Amy plop a spoonful of chocolate chip cookie dough onto a baking sheet the following evening when there was a rap at the door.
“Anyone home?” Jase called.
“Come on in. We’re baking our bedtime snack.”
The aroma of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies filled the small cottage as Jase came in and sniffed appreciatively. “I thought I smelled cookies when I was walking over here. If he gets a whiff, you’ll soon have Liam here, too.”
“That’s fine. I haven’t met him yet,” Sara said as she put a tray of cookies in the oven. She patted Amy on the head. “That’s the last tray. Can you get ready for bed now?”
Amy nodded, smiled shyly at Jase and ran into her room.
“You’ll have a chance to meet Liam Saturday night,” Jase assured her. “That’s one of the reasons I came over.” He pushed a small envelope across the counter. “That’s your official invitation. There will be increased security around and you’ll need to have that with you.”
“Do you get many gate-crashers?” she joked.
“You’d be surprised. Once in a while a celebrity shows up and we’ll have a tourist or some paparazzi try to get in to take a look. My father guards his privacy and he knows others do, too.”
“Do you guard yours?”
“Usually.”
Sara pointed to the baked cookies cooling on a rack. “Interested?”
“Sure am,” he said with a look that made Sara wonder if he was interested in her, too. If he was handing her an invitation to the Raintree Soiree, they weren’t having a date. She was simply attending a party thrown at his house. That settled that question.
“Speaking of privacy, there’s something I’d like to discuss with you,” Jase said.
Amy ran in, her pink Disney-princess nightgown swirling around her. “Cookie time?”
Jase took a cookie from the rack and offered it to her. “My guess is that you’re going to need milk to go along with that.”
“Three milks, coming up!” Sara wondered why Jase would want to talk to her about privacy. She’d soon know.
After cookies and milk all around, Sara said to Jase, “It’s past Amy’s bedtime. Do you mind if I put her to bed before we talk?”
“Can Jase read me a story?” Amy asked.
“Oh, I don’t know, honey, he might not want to.”
But Jase seemed to be considering her daughter’s request. “I can read you a story. What’s your favorite one?”
Amy took his hand and with her cookie in the other, pulled him toward her bedroom, chattering about the books she liked most. Sara didn’t know how she felt about Jase being part of the bedtime ritual. Conrad had never chosen to take part in it. He was either working late at the store or at his home computer and that had always caused such mixed feelings inside her. On one hand, she admired him working so hard to give them a good life. But on the other...had she chosen a man who wouldn’t put fatherhood first? For her, putting Amy to bed was one of the best parts of motherhood.
The buzzer rang on the stove and she called to Jase and Amy, “I have to take the cookies out. I’ll be right in.”
A few minutes later, Sara stopped in the doorway to Amy’s room. Both Amy and Jase were sitting on her single bed. Jase hardly fit, propped against the headboard with his long legs stretched out in front of him. Amy sat close to him, engrossed in his reading of Clifford, the Big Red Dog. The book was one of her favorites and Sara was mesmerized by the sound of Jase’s voice, too, as he put expression into the words and let Amy study the picture on each page.
Whether he wanted to believe it or not, Jase Cramer was daddy material. He was so good with kids. Yet a distant father and unfaithful fiancée made him doubt his ability to be part of a family. Certainly that double combination was enough of an impediment, but Sara had the feeling there was something else Jase wasn’t telling her. Something more. What had happened to him in his childhood before he’d come to live with Ethan? Did he ever talk about that?
Amy’s room always made Sara smile. Even though they hadn’t lived here that long, it was pure little girl. The pink-and-white gingham spread and curtains reflected Amy’s bright personality. Her colorful toys were stacked on shelves along the closet wall. There was also a blue egg crate, specifically for the doll someone had donated and the clothes that fit her. Moppy, the stuffed dog that Jase had given Amy, was already tucked under her daughter’s arm as she sat beside him on the bed.
In some ways, Jase looked out of place here. He was so masculine in a girlie-girl room. But in other ways, specifically the way he related to her daughter, he absolutely fit in.
Jase looked up and saw her standing there. There was a flicker of something in his eyes. Sara wasn’t sure what that was about. In so many ways, he was a mystery to her. Knowing about a person didn’t mean knowing a person. How well she understood that...how well Conrad had taught her that.
Entering the room, Sara perched on the rocker on Amy’s side of the bed until Jase finished the story.
When he closed the book, Amy reached over and hugged him. “You read good.”
He was tentative at first, and then he hugged her back. “You listen good.” Easing off the bed, he stood and set the book on the nightstand. Then he laid his hand on Amy’s head and pulled a pink ribbon from under her earlobe. “Look what I found,” he said. “You can tie this in your hair and look as pretty as your mom.”
Amy wrapped the ribbon around her finger, smiled up at Jase as if he’d given her a precious gift and scooted down on her back in the bed. “Look, Mommy, a pretty ribbon.”
“I see. Here, let me put it on your dresser. I’ll tie it in your hair tomorrow.”
Jase’s gaze went from mother to daughter, then back to Sara. “I’ll wait in the living room.”
“I won’t be long.”
And she wasn’t, because Amy’s eyes were almost closed by the time she said her prayers and Sara kissed her good-night. She left a hot air balloon nightlight burning and closed th
e door about halfway, remembering all too well the other night and what had happened on the sofa. Whenever she walked into that living room now, she remembered the feel of Jase’s hand on her skin, the firmness of his lips on hers, the demanding hunger that she’d been so tempted to meet.
They’d stick to chocolate chip cookies if they were hungry tonight.
Stopping in the kitchen, she put a few on a plate and brought them over to the coffee table. “If you’d like more, feel free. I packaged the first batch up for Marissa. If your dad would like some, I could send a few over for him.”
“They’re excellent. He actually might like a few.”
“Okay, just let me get some tinfoil—”
Jase caught her wrist. “Come here a minute first. I have something I want to tell you and something I want to ask you.”
His grip was firm but gentle, too, and she didn’t get the feeling that this was anything too serious. She was hypervigilant these days, her antennae always quivering with awareness, just waiting for the next crisis or problem. If she and Amy just had a little bit of a break from disaster, they might get their optimism back again. Amy sure seemed as though she was on the road to happiness.
From his jeans pocket Jase pulled a sheet of paper that had been folded into quarters. He unfolded it, smoothed it out. “I would have emailed this to you, but I know you lost your computer in the fire.”
“And I don’t have a smartphone. I just wanted basic charges.”
He nodded as if he understood, then handed her the article. “This is my first article on The Mommy Club—who they are, how they help parents. I’ve also covered the food drive and summer lunch program, giving contact numbers if anyone wants to help or needs help. Just tell me what you think. Be honest.”
She could see he was serious about the honesty part. Did he feel rusty? Had writer’s block plagued him the past couple of years? Had everything he’d seen and experienced locked up his heart until he couldn’t open it to let it pour onto paper?
As she read the article, she was sitting only a few inches from him on the sofa. When he took a cookie from the coffee table, his leg brushed hers. She didn’t move away. She also didn’t think he felt the nonchalance he was trying to show her. This article mattered, not only to him, but to the community at large. She knew how important it was.
When she’d finished, she set the article on her lap.
“Well?”
“You’re a smooth, professional writer, and you know how to make a story come alive.”
“I used to.”
“And there was a reason you used to. You whittled down a story to one, two or three children and you told us all about them. You made us care about them. That was always the strength of everything you wrote.”
“And now?” he prompted.
“Now, I think this is a great first piece, but it would be even better if you spotlighted someone The Mommy Club had helped.”
“Like you?”
That hadn’t been at all what she was thinking when she suggested it, and she said quickly, “Oh, no. I don’t want to go public. The news story was bad enough.”
“I talked to two other women who essentially told me the same thing. So finding that specific story, and going into detail, isn’t going to be that easy if no one will cooperate with me.”
“But you’re such a good persuader.”
“Then let me persuade you.”
“Jase—”
“I want you to think about it, Sara. I only have to go as far as you want me to go. We can make the article about you moving in here, how grateful you are to have a place to stay, how Amy seems to be her old self again, how you’re making new friends. It can be a positive story. That’s the point. My details don’t have to have anything to do with your marriage, or your debts, or the insurance investigation. That’s not the focus of these articles. The point of the articles is to show the community supporting its residents.”
“I need to think about it.”
“That’s fine. Think about it. I’m going to drop this off tomorrow and I’ll have a week until the next one’s due.”
“And if I say no?”
After a long, studying look that made her feel totally self-conscious, he said, “If you won’t do it, I’ll find someone who will. Kaitlyn can give me a few more names of women to talk to, but I really think your story is the epitome of what The Mommy Club is about.”
“Because it’s sensational,” she said with a sigh.
“Not just sensational. It showed an immediate need that The Mommy Club met. That’s what I’d like to focus on. But I won’t pressure you.”
Just gazing at Jase created a wellspring of pressure inside of her, desire begging to be released. So she concentrated on something else. “Speaking of pressure, did you feel pressured when Amy asked you to read her a story? She doesn’t like the word no, but she understands it. When she looks up at me with those big brown eyes, I know she’s going to be a heartbreaker.”
“Reading a story was no big deal.”
“It was to her.”
He cocked his head and studied her again. “Would you have preferred if I had said no?”
There was a hint of defensiveness in his voice, but curiosity, too.
“Amy has never had a male role model except for Conrad.”
“Was he a good dad?”
“I don’t think she remembers him. He didn’t interact with her very much. Maybe because he was older.” After a pause, she was honest with both of them. “No, that wasn’t the reason. I just don’t think he was a man who enjoyed being around kids. He didn’t like to get down on the floor, on her level. It was hard for him to play silly games. But she was used to him being around, and after he died, there was a hole in her life.” She shrugged. “I haven’t dated, Jase. I haven’t brought any men home.”
He understood exactly what she was trying to say. “You’re afraid she’ll get attached to me.”
“She doesn’t ask just anybody to read her a story.”
His voice turned tender when he said, “You’re a good mom, Sara.”
“I just try to protect her. I don’t want to see her get hurt.”
He reached out to her and ran his index finger slowly across her lip. “And you don’t want to get hurt, either.”
The tip of his finger was rough and sensual. Her lip felt on fire and that fire was rushing to other parts of her body. How could one little touch make her feel so restless and excited and hungry? Still, she pulled her thoughts together and turned the question around on him.
“Do you?”
He looked as if getting hurt again wouldn’t happen if he didn’t want it to. “I don’t get hurt easily anymore.”
“Is that because you don’t jump in...because you keep walls up?”
“You don’t pull punches.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. You can have a little fun without bringing Amy into this.”
“So you’re interested in fun?”
“I don’t have the answers to your questions, Sara. I just know there’s an attraction between us I haven’t felt in a very long time.”
A very long time. Since his fiancée? That was a question she didn’t ask because she knew the answer. Ever since he’d come home, Jase had walled himself off from loving and caring, either in a man-woman relationship or with his father. She didn’t have to be a therapist to see that. So what were the chances he could become vulnerable with her? What were the chances she could become vulnerable with him?
“I don’t compartmentalize very well,” she admitted.
“Maybe not. But some day your needs as a woman could break out over your need to protect Amy.”
“That won’t happen.”
He gave her a look that told her she was in deni
al, too. Then he backed off and changed the topic. “Think about the article,” he said.
Sara switched gears to follow him. “Did you ask Marissa?”
“I did and she said no.”
“Probably for the same reasons I did.”
“Kaitlyn’s thinking about it. I’d really like to get her interview since she’s one of the main organizers of The Mommy Club. I’d like to get yours because the fire’s already news.”
“Oh, Jase, I—”
“No more pressure,” he said, holding his hands up. “I promise. I’ll respect your decision either way. But just think about how getting your story out will help other parents. Isn’t that the best way to show your gratitude?”
He was good...and even somewhat convincing in more matters than just the article. But she wasn’t going to do anything impulsive or reckless. She just wasn’t.
* * *
The next day, Sara treated her last client of the morning—a microbiologist with neck and shoulder tightness due to too much time spent at his microscope—with the certain knowledge she could help the man manage his profession and his recovery if he was willing to make a few changes. Change was so hard for anyone, including her. Could she change her thinking about becoming involved with a man again to explore her attraction to Jase? The soiree might be the first step.
Before she could attend the party, she had to find something to wear. She realized she might not be able to find anything in the half hour she had at lunchtime. However, she was going to try. Marissa had seemed confident she’d find a dressy dress at Thrifty Solutions. But when Sara thought about the winery and the main house and Ethan and Jase, she knew she needed something classy and maybe even a little spectacular.
Knowing the odds of that, she decided to settle on the classic little black dress. That would have to do.
Thrifty Solutions sported a green awning with green-and-white trim. The window display was attractive, with both men’s and women’s apparel. When Sara entered, she was surprised at the amount of racks and clothing. Lots of residents must donate and that made her feel good. Ever since the fire, she’d realized Fawn Grove was a giving community, and she and Amy were a part of that.
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