Chapter 1 #3
Jenna’s hands fisted, and her eyes turned fierce. Jenna would always protect Cam and Cash. “That’s…that’s utter, rotten pickle juice!”
I slid my lips past my teeth to keep from smiling. Jenna was colorful in her commentary. It rarely made sense to anyone but her, but darn if she wasn’t cute when she was lit with fire.
“Might be, but that doesn’t change the fact he’s terribly worried about you.”
Some of the starch slipped out of her posture as she considered my words. She picked up the mug, cradling it in her hands. “I’ll talk to him.”
“Good.” I scooted over and wrapped my arm around her shoulder, just as I had for her husband earlier. “Want me to call your mama?”
Jenna sniffled. “No. I want you. And Cam. And Cash. I want…I want to not feel so broken. My mother…well, she can’t understand like you do.”
“She loves you, darling girl.”
“I know, but she never fails at anything.”
Except at loving you, at putting you before her husband. I didn’t say the words, but they were there in my mind.
“I hate being like this. Feeling like this,” Jenna said through clenched teeth.
She turned into my shoulder and sobbed. But these, even more so than that first bout, were healthy tears. I held her, adding a few of my own, until she wore herself out.
“Mama?” she asked, her voice raspy.
“Yes?”
“Do you think… Am I greedy for wanting another baby?”
I couldn’t help but smile. “No, sugar pie, you’re not. You don’t yet feel your family is complete, that’s all.”
She raised her head and licked her lips.
Cam would be beside himself if he saw her now.
Jenna’s face was red, splotchy, her eyes puffy and bloodshot.
But her expression was calmer. Her body wasn’t drawn as taut…
as if waiting for the next blow. She was doing the hard work of accepting, and I wished more than anything, once again, that I could take that burden from her.
“How do you know?” she rasped.
“Know what?” I sat back enough so I could see her face. As expected, the much-needed cry had ravaged her features. Her lids were swollen and her eyes bloodshot. Her cheeks were wet from her tears and splotchy. Her nose ran.
She looked much better than when I’d arrived. I smiled as I tucked her hair behind her ear, then reached forward and grabbed her a few tissues from the container on the coffee table. She offered me a smile as she daintily dabbed her nose with one before using another to mop her face.
After she blew her nose, she settled back against the cushions. I handed her the mug of cocoa, and she sipped. I did the same.
After a moment of companionable quiet. Jenna settled the mug on her chest and peered at me. “How do you know when your family is complete?”
“Well…” My chest ached. I looked down at my hands wrapped around the travel mug. I didn’t recognize them sometimes. They were older, the first age spots on the backs of them, the skin thinner and dryer than they used to be. “I don’t rightly know. I…er…well, I never got to that feeling myself.”
Jenna’s eyes widened. “You wanted more kids?”
I smiled, the glow of love rising up with a sharp speed that left my chest warmed as wonderful memories danced through my mind.
“Oh, I could have had a dozen. I loved the diapers and midnight feedings and ripped knees and the hooting and hollering while the boys bulldozed down the hall. Well, Cam bulldozed,” I added with a soft smile. “Carter followed.”
Jenna smirked. “Sounds like my man.” She picked up the mug and took another long drink. She rested it on her chest before turning back to me. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Jenna might be anxious from time to time, but she had a huge well of empathy and an intuitiveness that helped her create special, personalized guitars for each of her clients.
I grimaced because I didn’t like her turning her abilities toward me.
“Mama?” she prodded.
I sighed as I scooched down on the couch cushion. Still, if I couldn’t talk to my family, who would I tell? “Perhaps more than the kids, all of whom I love—”
“Which they know, I know—everyone knows,” Jenna said.
I shot her a terse glare because she was going to pick at this like a buzzard at a carcass.
“Fine. I wanted another love. A genuine love, not just a…a…”
“An adultering shit bag who felt bigger by taking swipes at a teenaged boy who was already so much more of a man than he’d ever be?”
“Well, that would be a description of Laurence.” I smiled at Jenna, and she smiled back.
Now that we’d started the conversation, I found it easier. “Yes, I want—wanted—a lover. Partner. Someone to share my life with…” I shook my head. “That wasn’t in my cards once Jensen died.”
“Why can’t it be now?” Jenna asked. She perked up, a glint forming in her eye. Oh, hell. She was going to make me her purpose. That wouldn’t do. Not at all.
I wagged a finger. “Stop it right there, young lady. I told you because you deserved the truth. But I am too old for—”
“If you say ‘love’, I’m going to guzzle your hot chocolate,” Jenna threatened.
I gasped as I clutched my mug with both hands out of her reach. “You’re a real stinker.”
Jenna shrugged, but she also laughed. It was short, over almost before it began, but, oh, how that sound brought me joy.
“You wouldn’t be the first one to call me that.” She raised an eyebrow. “Now, about that lover…”
I shook my head as I rose from the couch, still holding my mug. “No, ma’am. I’m not getting into this with you.”
“Who else should you talk to but your daughter-in-law? I’m family, and safe, but not actually related, so I won’t gross out like Cam or even Kate. Though I know your daughter would like you to have someone in your life. Same goes for Cam and me. We want you to be happy. Fulfilled.”
Jenna seemed to mull over some previous conversation with my daughter.
“My love life is mine.”
“Maybe if you had one…” Jenna raised an eyebrow.
“Just because I’m discreet doesn’t mean…”
“Mama, you have met no one in the years I’ve known Cam.”
“That’s because I’m not interested in…in…an affair.” My words were prim, silly. I grimaced. “Anyway, my interactions are between me and that one other person.”
“Well, thanks to Cam’s fame, his fans and the media believe my love life is the world’s to pluck apart. So, I really wouldn’t know what you’re talking about.”
I pressed my lips together as I settled back beside her. “You, my darling girl, don’t play fair.”
She held my gaze, hers steady, the shadows deep—too deep for someone her age.
“Life isn’t fair, as we both know. But I get what you’re telling me.
I really do. I’m married to a wonderful man.
We have plenty of money, so we have lots of opportunities.
We have a healthy child, but that doesn’t mean life’s perfect. ”
Tears gathered in her eyes and she blinked them back with a ruthlessness I respected and worried over.
She wanted to move on, and she would, but grief took time—needed the space for healing.
“I always wanted a few kids, you know? Cash is a pleasure, but he’s so wild, not interested in hugs, and I just want more snuggles, more love… ”
She turned away, her jaw clamped tight. “My body betrayed me.”
“It sure did. And you have every right to be angry about that.”
She sipped her drink, studying me over the rim of her mug. “But?”
“No buts.”
Her smile turned wry. “But don’t let it drag Cam and me to an unhealthy place. Don’t let my sadness affect my work. Don’t let my grief take away from all the good in my life. Doesn’t that sound just about like the conventional wisdom everyone will spout at me?”
She meant her mother.
“Pfft.” I waved my free hand in the air. “Who wants conventional? And who says that bull doodoo is wisdom?”
Her smile turned warm, real, so I reached out and cuddled her closer, just like I would for my Katie Rose…
.Kate, as she preferred me to call her now.
Jenna held such a tender place in my heart.
What she’d been through in her short life…
it defied all conventions that she’d survived, let alone thrived.
I sighed as I pulled her close again. “You, my dear girl, are so special.”
“I bet you say that to all your daughters.”
I kissed the crown of her head. “Only to those who deserve it.”
Her cheeks rose again in a soft smile. Good. She was finding her footing, finding herself. That was an essential step. The rest of the process would be filled with the setbacks before Jenna found the ability to move forward.
“Your little man can pack away nearly as much pie as your grown one,” I said into the warm silence.
We’d finished our drinks and were content with each other. Oh, how lucky was I for these moments…
“He’s growing so fast,” she said, tone wistful.
“They do that.”
“Thanks, Mama.”
“For?”
“Being you.”
“Oh, sugar. That’s too sweet. Now, do you think you’re ready to face the day? We got things to do.”
“Like?” Jenna rose and stretched.
There’s my girl.
“Loads of stuff. Mucking stalls, exercising a horse, working on a guitar, starting the cooking for tonight’s feast…”
“I’d like to help you cook,” Jenna said, voice small.
I drained my mug and rose. “Then, let’s get to it before you-know-who butts in. I swear if that man tries to tell me how to bake a pie...” I grimaced, but it wasn’t because of the possibility of Steve critiquing my crust recipe.
“What will you do?”
“I may just whack him with my wooden spoon.” I shot her a side-eye and a smile so she’d know I was joking.
Jenna walked beside me toward the door. “What’s up with you two? I could have sworn you and Steve got along great before Nash and Aya’s wedding.”
I held open the front door while Jenna snatched up a fleece hoodie from the rack next to it. She slid her arms into it while she shoved her feet into a pair of brown Uggs.
“We did.”
That was before—before I lost my head and kissed him. Before Steve lost his good sense right back and made love to me. There was no other word for it—we’d made something beautiful, perfect. And I’d fallen into the trap of a dream that wasn’t mine.
He’d set me right back into reality when he up and left my bed so the kids wouldn’t find out he’d been in it.
I turned away because I didn’t want Jenna to see the hurt that must shine in my eyes.
For the first time in decades, my heart had tangled with a man. It had been a heady rush, and I’d been half-way in love with Steve…until he smashed my burgeoning dreams and my heart to bits.