“I know you have.” Dawn’s voice was soothing. “But you’re doing everything on your own. Finances, the actual parenting, all of it. Sure, you can do it all by yourself. We’ve seen enough single parents make it work to know that it’s possible. But it’s not fun. It’s easier when you have partners helping you.”
“You help, my parents help, Andy helps.”
“But it’s not the same thing as having a dedicated partner in the endeavor.”
I sighed. Yeah, I could appreciate what Dawn was saying. And it would be easier if there was someone else helping to pay the bills, someone else who could put Sammy to bed, or take a turn playing with him so that I could take a nap, that kind of thing. Someone who could have patience during the times when I couldn’t. Someone who could really be there for me.
It was a lovely idea, a lovely dream. But it wasn’t my reality. Every once in a while, I had let myself wonder what if? What if some handsome man rolled into town, looking for a place to settle, and we connected? What if he provided a home for myself and my son, took Sammy in as his own?
As nice of a dream as it was, I didn’t indulge in it much. That way lay madness. I didn’t want to find myself wistful for something that would probably never happen. Maybe in a bigger town, yeah, but not in this small place. Everybody knew everybody, and few new people moved here. The chances of someone waltzing into my life to sweep me off my feet and be a father to my son were slim to none.
It would be more than foolish to indulge in that kind of daydream with Jace. It would be dangerous. And ultimately, it would only hurt me.
“I understand,” I admitted. “And I appreciate your advice, Dawn. Really, I do. But right now, I’m going to keep quiet.” I put on a smile. “If only because Andy’s going to go insane as it is, once he hears Jace is back.”
Dawn winced. “I should sell tickets to that fight.”
I glanced over at Sammy, who was happily eating away, making up stories using his meatballs. I reached over and ruffled his hair. Oh, to be five again, and have no idea about the complications of the adult world.
Hopefully this wouldn’t, as Dawn had said, blow up in my face. Only time was going to tell.
5
Jace
I’d been back a week, and I was ready to get my business off the ground. I’d created a website, since my uncle had never made one, but that had taken some time. I’d gotten my equipment in line, printed up some flyers, even put an ad out in the local paper—people around here still read that, if you could believe it. In some ways this town was still pretty old-fashioned.
Today I was going to put the flyers up around town, advertise. There were plenty of buildings that, speaking of old-fashioned, needed some work to be brought up to code and to the standards of today, aesthetically speaking. I could have a lot of business in the surrounding area, if I played my cards right.
My first stop was going to be Lanthrop Hardware. It was the shop that Leigh and Andy’s parents owned, one that I’d heard Andy was now running. That didn’t surprise me. Andy was a homebody, and he’d always planned to take over the store. I knew his dad was relieved about it—I don’t think the guy would’ve known what to do if his son had refused to inherit the family business.
It had been a long time since I’d talked to Andy. Not quite six years, but just about. I had called him a couple of times when I’d first started basic but it had been difficult and after I’d been pulled… I’d stopped calling altogether. I wasn’t all that sure about the kind of welcome I’d be getting. On the one hand, it had been six years. On the other hand, Andy had been my best friend, and he was the type who was quick to forgive.
Walking into the hardware store was like stepping into the past as a wall of memories hit me. I’d been on the contracting side of things, learning from Uncle Dave, while Andy had been on the construction end, learning from his dad, and we’d both spent a lot of time here. Hanging out, doing odd jobs, doing our homework in between helping customers since this had been Andy’s job growing up. I had never officially worked here, but it was as good as my job and Andy’s dad had slipped me cash now and again.
Standing behind the counter was the man himself. I grinned, taking in the sight. Leigh had damn near given me a heart attack last week and I was still struggling to recover from the blow that was seeing her with a child, living a life that I could never be a part of, so near and yet so far away. But Andy—Andy I was just damn glad to see.
“Long time no see,” I told him, walking up and putting a flyer on the counter. “How’s it been?”
I expected him to walk around the counter and hug me, maybe punch me in the shoulder for being gone for so long. What I didn’t expect was the look of absolute fury that crossed Andy’s face before it settled into something colder and more manageable.
Okay. A bit of anger, that I expected, but fury? That was new.
“Nice of you to keep in touch the last six years,” Andy replied, his voice sharp. “A few calls from basic and then nothing? You must’ve really missed us.”
I blinked a few times, surprised by the intensity of his anger. “I… I was selected for special forces pretty quickly. Top secret operative kind of stuff.” I huffed a little in amusement. “It’s nothing like the spy novels, y’know.”
There was no laugh in response, not even a loosening of the shoulders. Right. Andy was really pissed.
“I figured it was easier to just keep my distance rather than lie to you all the time about how things were going or what I was up to,” I explained. “I didn’t realize it would upset you so much.”
“You couldn’t have told me that? Something like… ‘hey, I’m being pulled into this new branch, can’t really talk about it, I’m going to have to go dark’ or something? Anything.” Andy folded his arms. “Anything other than total silence. We didn’t even know if you’d fucking died, for fuck’s sake.”
“I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry.” I spread my arms wide. “Obviously I didn’t think this all the way through.”
Was Leigh feeling that way as well? Was she that angry at me? Was that why she’d moved on so quickly to someone else, trying to channel her fury into something else?
“Why are you even in town?” Andy asked, his eyes narrowing in suspicion like I was here to burn the place down or some nonsense like that.
I tapped the flyer I’d put on the counter. “I’m taking over my uncle’s contracting business. Figured I could get the supplies from you guys.”
Andy snorted. “Yeah, I don’t think so. I think we’ve been getting on just fine without you for six years, we don’t need your business now.”
“What, you won’t even give me a chance?”
“You abandoned us,” Andy shot back. “You abandoned our friendship and everything. You just stopped it without even a word of explanation or an apology. And now you come back here expecting a warm welcome? Expecting me to roll out the fucking red carpet? Maybe you’d like some balloons to go with it, some confetti, huh, throw you a party? You can’t just walk out of someone’s life when you decide they’re disposable. You can’t just decide that you’re done with someone and then expect us to be fine when you swan back in again. Fuck that.”
I found myself at a loss for words. I wasn’t the most eloquent or talkative guy normally anyway but… this took the damn cake. I couldn’t exactly blame Andy for his anger, but at the same time, it felt a little… I don’t know. Maybe I had underestimated how angry Andy would be, but this felt almost over the top. I couldn’t understand.
Andy picked up the flyer, wrinkling it in the process, and shoved it into my chest. “Get out.”
“You’re the only hardware store in town, I’m going to have to come in for supplies.”
“You can find your damn supplies somewhere else. The world is wide. Plenty of hardware store fish in the sea. Get out, and don’t come back.”
The itch to punch the guy, or to grab him by the collar and shake him, was pretty damn strong, but I didn’t give into it. T
hat wasn’t going to solve anything. Andy was a stubborn son of a bitch, same as me, and I knew from experience that you couldn’t win a fight with him by escalating it. He’d wrestle me in the middle of the store, supplies be damned, to save his pride and prove his point.
It took everything in me, but I took a deep breath and then let it out slowly as I backed away. “Fine.”
The next hardware store would be a hell of a drive, but I could manage it. That didn’t matter so much as Andy’s behavior. What the fuck? Was it just me or was I missing something? Or had I really hurt Andy that much by no longer talking to him? Even if I had, surely six years would be enough time for him to cool down enough to hear me out and think about forgiving me.
It definitely felt like there was a piece of the puzzle that I wasn’t seeing, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what it was.
Either way, I was definitely going to have to give Andy as well as Leigh a wide berth. The former for Andy’s sake and the latter for my own sanity. Fuck. Coming home hadn’t been like how I had pictured it at all.
6
Leigh
I watched from the cracked-open door to the back office as Jace stormed out, and then I emerged. “What the hell is wrong with you!?” I hissed.
Andy turned to look at me, his face almost comical as it was torn between confusion and his lingering anger at Jace. “What are you talking about?”
“You can’t just send him packing like that!”
“You sure? Because it looks to me like I just did.”
“Andy.” I folded my arms. “You don’t think that maybe that was a bit of an overreaction?”
“Look, I didn’t tell him about Sammy, what more do you want?”
“He’s going to know something’s up if you’re after his blood that badly. What’s the point in not telling him if you’re just going to act awful to him anyway?”
“Well maybe he should’ve thought about that before he dumped you without any warning and left you knocked up.”
I held in a sigh. We’d had this argument plenty of times. “Andy. Jace didn’t know I was pregnant. I’m sure things would’ve been different if he’d known.”
Andy shook his head. “He still should’ve said a proper goodbye to you. He should’ve told you he was leaving, he should’ve done something. And he should’ve made it so we could contact him when you found out you were pregnant. You should’ve been able to call him and tell him.”
I couldn’t deny that Andy had a point there. But I felt that I also had a point. Jace hadn’t consciously abandoned his son, and I wasn’t going to hold that part of it all against him. No matter what Andy felt about it.
“You can’t keep acting like this,” I said instead. “We can’t afford to lose his business. We’ll need those orders that he’ll be putting in.” We were a family-run business in a small town. We needed all the help we could get. “And if you keep up this attitude, he’s going to figure out that something’s wrong and then he’ll know the truth and we can’t have that.”
“You can’t have that,” Andy grumbled.
I picked up the flyer that had fallen to the floor. It was crumpled, but still worked. Not torn or anything. Jace had done a good job with the design of it. He’d always been a smart guy and clearly he had a plan in place for making his business a success. Good for him, I supposed, except for the part where I was hoping that he would up and leave, leave me and my son in peace.
Sticking my tongue out at Andy, I taped the flyer up to the window of the shop. Andy rolled his eyes. “Real mature.”
“I’m being as mature now as you were with Jace.”
The door opened and the bell overhead jingled. “Mama!”
I turned and smiled, crouching down for a hug. “And how was kindergarten?”
“Great!” Sammy was grinning. He had been terrified of the idea of kindergarten when I’d first started talking to him about it, but now he loved it. I was both glad and upset. I knew that it was good for him—and good for me since I could get work done—but at the same time it was another sign of how quickly he was growing up.
Every day it felt like I blinked and he’d grown an entire year. Soon he’d be a teenager, then an adult, and I’d be wondering where the time had gone.
I ruffled his hair and brought him over to his little work area—a desk that we’d set up, with toys and such, behind the counter so that Sammy could play and do his homework out of the way. “Do you have anything you have to do for school?”
Sammy nodded, pulling some exercise worksheets out of his backpack and grabbing his crayons. I gave him a thumbs-up. He should enjoy the easy homework while he could. I still had memories of high school algebra that made me shudder.
“I’ll get you a snack,” I told him. “Carrots and peanut butter crackers?”
“Yes!”
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, please.”
I beamed. “That’s right. Very good manners.”
Once I got him settled in, I turned to Andy, who was watching Sammy with a loving but also frustrated look. He loved his nephew, so much. I could never fault him for that. But I knew he was also upset by the fact that Sammy’s father wasn’t in the picture, that Sammy’s father hadn’t done right by him.
It was a conversation, an argument, that I feared we would never really stop having. Not unless a damn miracle occurred.
Before I could say anything to Andy, the bell over the front door rang again, this time heralding the arrival of Mr. Withers and Mr. Jenkins.
“Right on time,” I said, walking out from behind the counter. “Coffee’s fresh.”
Why the two old men didn’t go to the local diner for coffee, I wasn’t sure, but I suspected it had something to do with how they’d both done a lot of do-it-yourself projects before they’d gotten too old to continue working with their hands like that. Growing up, I’d watch them come in and out of the shop all the time, building everything from a new porch to a bird feeder. Now they just came in every day to get coffee from the machine I had set up and then sit on the porch, shooting the breeze.
“Ah, thank you, Leigh, you’re a doll,” Mr. Withers said, smiling as I poured him a cup and passed it to him. “We’re lucky, here, y’know, none of those damn fancy coffee shops that are springing up everywhere else—pretentious, that’s what I call them.”
“He says it like he’d actually know good coffee from bad,” Mr. Jenkins replied, accepting his own cup from me. “The man thought the swill they served us in Korea was acceptable coffee.”
“It was acceptable. Never said it was good.”
“Eh, you burned off all your taste buds when you were a kid.”
“Or maybe you’re just a fussy eater, didja ever think of that?”
I stifled a laugh as I opened the door for them to go out onto the front porch. We had a couple of chairs set up there, chairs that the two men had actually each made, about a decade ago. They were sturdy, and beautifully made.
Sometimes it made me sad, to think that neither of them could indulge in the hobby they clearly so loved, but they didn’t seem all that upset. They liked just sitting and chatting, shooting the breeze, talking to people who walked by and making observations about the town. So long as they were in good spirits, I supposed, then it wasn’t so bad.
“Hey, Leigh,” Mr. Jenkins interrupted his friend, making Mr. Wilkins start on an indignant rant about politeness, “was that the Atkins kid I saw leaving here a few minutes ago?”
Mr. Wilkins stopped his tirade. “Yes, sure looked like him. Been a while, hasn’t it?”
“Some years, yeah.”
“Yes, it was him.” I forced myself to keep my tone light. “He stopped by, he’s starting something with his uncle’s old contracting business.” I gestured at the flyer that was taped to the window.
“Ah, well, good for him. Always wondered about that boy, what he was going to make of himself. He went into the military, didn’t he?”
“That’s right. Speci
al Ops.” Yes, I had been eavesdropping on Jace and Andy’s entire conversation. So what?
“I should thank him for his service,” Jenkins noted. “Next time I see him.”
“He should be thanking you,” Wilkins replied. “Boys got it easy these days with all that fancy gear and big toys. We were in Korea! Now that was a real fight!”
I looked over at Andy, who rolled his eyes. I found the bickering between the two men to be amusing. Andy found it less so.
“I’ll leave you to it,” I said, smiling. “You want a refill you just holler, I’m stocking shelves.”
The two men thanked me briefly and then went back to arguing over who had it worse in which war and who was lazier and who had done what—I could never keep track of it all, honestly. But it was still fun for me to listen in. My day was never boring when those two were around. And if nothing else, it definitely distracted me from Jace.
7
Jace
I had to go back to my truck and calm down for a bit, take some deep breaths. At least now the worst of it was over. I couldn’t imagine anyone in town giving me as much of a hard time as Andy had. Ripped the band-aid off, kind of, even if I hadn’t even realized there’d been a band-aid on in the first place. Once I got myself under control, I went out to the other businesses.
Most people were glad to see me, and friendly. A few were more distant, which I supposed was fair. Nobody seemed to have as big of a problem with me as Andy had. But then, I hadn’t been best friends with everyone else. Just with Andy.
Was Leigh angry with me too? I knew it was probably stupid of me to be wondering about her when it was clearly Andy who had a beef with me, but I couldn’t help myself. I wondered if I would run into her while I was out. Was she working in one of these other business? Maybe she owned one, with her husband, whoever he was. Maybe she was married and just didn’t wear a wedding ring.
Second Chance with Brother's Best Friend: A Single Mom Secret Baby Romance Page 3
