Chapter Five
“W e’re here,” Adam said, a half hour later as he cut the engine in front of the cottages.
Lee turned around and glanced at Jessie. “She’s conked out in her car seat.”
He glanced back. Sure enough, the baby’s head lolled to the side as she slept.
They’d stripped her wet clothes off, put on a fresh diaper and a T-shirt that he’d had the foresight to keep in the diaper bag. Her hair, still baby-fine, had long since dried.
Looking at Jessie, something twisted in his heart.
“She had a good day.” That’s what he wanted for her, a lifetime of good days. He still wasn’t any closer to deciding if he’d be the best one to give her those, or if her grandparents were.
That’s what Jessie deserved…the best.
A childhood of happy days.
As if reading his thoughts, Lee asked, “Have you made any decisions?”
“No. I know that Paul and Cathie wanted me to raise her, but…”
He let the sentence die.
But.
There were a myriad of buts .
But he had his business.
But he had his baby-free life.
But—the biggest but—he wasn’t sure he could do it.
He thought about what Lee had said…. Parents had to put their children first. Maybe he was too selfish to do that.
He’d built Delmark from scratch. Now with Darius onboard, the company was ready to expand into an entirely new market.
Could he put aside his myopic focus from his business and shift it to Jessie?
Again, it was as if Lee read his mind. “But you worry you won’t be a good enough parent.”
That was the biggest but of all. “Yes.”
“I understand.”
The wonderful thing was, he knew she did. He felt connected to someone, aligned with someone, for the first time that he could remember.
Lee took his hand and patted it. Just a small comforting touch. A touch that left him wanting more.
She understood, and didn’t demure, but simply slid closer and moved into his embrace.
There was no explosion as they kissed, just a gentle connection. Soft, inviting, comforting—it tugged at him, pulling him toward her, prompting him to deepen the kiss.
Again, Lee met him halfway and joined him.
His hands slid to her shirt, pulling it from her waistband. He caressed her bare stomach, sliding his hand higher, higher—
A bright light flooded the car.
“What the—”
Lee pulled away and straightened her shirt. “My parents.”
“They’re flashing a light on us?” he asked, amusement overriding his feelings of frustration.
“Are you having high-school flashbacks all of a sudden, or what?” she asked, laughing.
He turned. “They’re standing outside the RV, looking our way. And they don’t look as if they’re going to go in until we come out.”
Just then, Jessie stirred in the back and started whining.
“Sounds like our quiet time is over anyway.”
“Maybe we can pick things up again later, when Jessie and your parents are asleep?”
“I could sneak over with a bottle of wine.”
“Well, at least this isn’t high school and you don’t have to climb out the window.”
“No. Not quite. I think it’s time I had a chat with my parents—set some ground rules for this visit. And you should probably go bathe Jessie. I think she brought half the beach home in her hair.”
“Later then?” he asked.
“Later.” Lee watched Adam unbuckle Jessie from her car seat and bundle her into the house before turning her attention to her parents, who still stood outside the RV.
Taking a deep, calming breath, she walked over to them.
“What was that all about?” she asked as she approached them.
“We decided to step outside and look at the stars, so we turned on the light,” her mother said innocently.
“Ha.”
“Fine. It’s unseemly for a woman your age to be parked in a car, making out with a man.”
“First, I think it’s important to remember that this is my home, my driveway, and I can park with whomever I want. I’m certainly of age. But even if I weren’t, you wouldn’t have any right to stop me.”
“I’m your mother. It’s my job to stop you from making foolish mistakes—to worry about you.”
“Really?”
Most of the time Lee was able to put aside childhood resentments and accept her parents as they were. But every now and then, the feelings bubbled to the surface. “It seems like a strange time to remember that fact. It might have meant something when I was in grade school, or even high school, but now, it’s too late. Don’t try to pretend you worry—that I matter. Just because you’re at loose ends and not sure what to do without the business, that doesn’t mean you can barge into my life and try to keep yourself busy by pretending you care.”
“Lee…”
Her mother didn’t say anything else. Part of Lee wished she’d say, We love you. I love you. We’re sorry we ignored you all those years. Let us make it up to you now. And part of Lee knew she wouldn’t know what to say in return. So maybe she was lucky her mother didn’t say any of those things. She simply turned around and walked back into the RV.
That was fine with Lee. It wasn’t as if she expected any great mother-daughter moment.
She turned and went back into her cottage, trying to ignore the hollow feeling in her chest. She’d spent years tamping down feelings of neglect, of being ignored. She tried to pretend coming in a distant second to her parents’ work schedule didn’t bother her.
But sometimes pretending didn’t work and the feelings spewed over and she found herself saying things she knew had hurt her mother.
She banged around in her kitchen, looking for a bottle of wine she knew she’d bought a few months ago, but couldn’t remember where she’d put it.
Finally she found it under the sink, and hurried out of the cottage toward Adam’s.
She wanted to be held.
She wanted to tell him about what she’d said and have him understand. She wanted him to tell her she had to go apologize tomorrow, because as much as she knew she should, part of her had wanted to say those words for so long. Apologizing for them would be hard, even though she knew she had to.
She knocked softly on his door.
There was no answer.
Maybe he was putting Jessie into bed.
She opened the door and let herself in, expecting the living room to be empty.
Instead, she saw Adam in the rocking chair holding Jessie, both of them sound asleep.
She wasn’t sure how long she stood there simply drinking in the sight, but somewhere along the line, the change that she had felt earlier began to shift a bit. She realized that she felt more than an old kinship with Adam. More than a simple camaraderie.
She felt something much richer and deeper.
A feeling that scared her.
Adam was a businessman. She’d been there and done that. First her parents, then her ex. Lee tried not to repeat her mistakes.
And Adam would be a mistake. She had to remember that. Because if she forgot, she just might fall in love with him. And she knew that loving a man who put business first and her second again would break her heart.