Jesse walked back to his bench on the square. No doubt about it, he was still alive. Best birthday in a long while.
Chapter 11
Jesse
Jesse Keaton thought about the baker while he worked alone on his small farm, but once he picked up the kids he didn’t have time to think of anything but homework, cooking supper, and getting everyone to bed. Then there was always laundry, and the dishes, and the bills to pay.
Zak had started helping with the dishes and Jesse liked the time with his oldest son. Sometimes he could see the man in the boy.
On Friday and Saturday nights, they’d play board games, with him and Sunny Lyn as partners against the boys, then they’d all cuddle under a blanket on the couch and watch a kids’ movie. By the time it was over, all were asleep, including Jesse. He’d finally wake up enough to carry each child to bed and think about how lucky he was. He’d lost Beth, but she’d left what she loved most for him to raise.
Jesse guessed there might be time for him to talk to friends, maybe even date when Sunny left for college. By then he’d be well into his fifties. Until then, he might as well change his name to Dad, for there was no time to be anything else. The baker was just a daydream, maybe a wish, nothing more.
When the house was dark and silent, he’d step out on the porch to watch the rain and think of Adalee. She’d said she bewitched him. That was probably why she came into his thoughts. If she’d put a spell on him, Jesse didn’t know if he wanted it removed. He liked having her lingering in his thoughts.
She was so real to him in the stillness of night that he could almost sense her beside him. She was pretty enough that any man would remember her, but she wasn’t putting thoughts in his head with witchcraft. There were too many of his own there. The way she smiled. The surprise of her wink. The low way she said his name. He wanted to talk to her, watch her move, and touch her softly, if only in his dreams.
“Adalee,” he whispered to the moon before he stepped inside and locked up. Just whispering her name made him smile.
As he moved through the silent house, he realized he wouldn’t know how to talk to her even if he had the time to stop by the bakery. The morning he went to the co-op was his only time in town on his own. All others were full. Besides, what would he say to someone like her? She was a flower and he was the weed standing next to her. Red hair. Green eyes. Full lips. Full breasts.
There was no room in his life to date, and he didn’t know how anyway. He and Beth had been best friends growing up, and one day when they were both fifteen she told him it was time they started dating. Three years later she said they should get married, and he thought it was a great idea.
He’d inherited a good piece of land from his grandfather, and both thought it would be a great place to live.
Heaven was living where they couldn’t see a neighbor’s light.
Beth loved kids. She used to say she wanted a dozen. They thought they’d wait a few years, then it would be easy, but it took a long time for her to get pregnant. Dear God, he was happy eight years ago when it finally happened. Beth made everything seem fun, even pregnancy. The only thing that bothered him about their years together was that he didn’t realize how happy he was. He had a lifetime of contentment and he hadn’t even known how great it was until he lost her.
Folks say the price of loving is loss. Only, how long would he have to wait to find peace again? The rest of his life, he figured. Even if he did have time to look for another wife who wanted to help raise his kids, it wouldn’t be the same. It wouldn’t be the perfect match. Some folks never find his kind of marriage. Maybe he should count himself lucky for having it at all.
It had been four years since he’d held Beth, but he knew she’d always be in his heart. The idea that he’d ever think of another woman in a loving way shocked him. Was there even room in his heart when he still loved Beth?
Yet, alone, working, he thought of Adalee. She had called him by his name and she’d kissed him. He had no idea what that meant, if anything.
Of course he’d see her again. The guys at the co-op wanted him to pick up scones. So when he saw her, what should he say? He had almost a week to think about it.
He hadn’t made much sense before, so there was a good chance she wouldn’t expect much conversation.
There would be no telling the truth, either. Jesse couldn’t ask for what he wanted. “Would you hold your body against me?” would probably get him arrested.
He wasn’t looking for a wife or even a date. He just wanted to be close to her one more time. He’d memorize her touch, her smell, the taste of her lips, then he’d go away and spend his time remembering that one moment that reminded him he was still alive.
Chapter 12
Honey Creek Café
Colby
When Piper didn’t return from her radio interview, Colby dressed and walked toward town, hoping to meet her. The morning was so cloudy it felt like twilight, and rain hung in the air like spiderwebs of ice just at the point of melting. He rounded his shoulders as if conserving body heat, and took long strides.
Colby didn’t mind the cold; his mind was too full of thoughts of Piper. Last night in her bed above the Honey Creek Café was paradise. They were perfect together, and the way they made love blocked all thought. But when she rolled away from him, she simply said she was tired and needed sleep. No lovers’ talk in the night. No promises.
An uneasiness settled across his shoulders like a weight he didn’t want to carry. He was comfortable back in Austin. He loved his work. Being a Texas Ranger was more a way of life than a job, and it fit him. But here in Honey Creek he couldn’t seem to get his feet planted flat on the ground. He didn’t know who he was.
The hero who saved the mayor from a fire five months ago?
The mayor’s boyfriend who was just visiting?
Or maybe only a sometime love? Piper was very career minded. He might be just a weekend getaway from a demanding job.
She had claimed him as hers with one great kiss in front of half the town after the courthouse fire five months ago. But he wasn’t sure he wanted to be a “boyfriend.” They were both in their thirties. To be more, they’d have to take the next step. Something he’d never done.
Colby smiled and kept walking. He wouldn’t mind being her full-time lover, but she seemed to want to keep that fact a secret. The hidden room upstairs at the café was proof of that.
He felt like he was playing poker with two cards. He might be sitting at the table, but he wasn’t in the game.
No surprise that he was gun-shy of commitment. His parents played ping-pong with their marriage. When he was five they divorced. A year later they started dating, then remarried six weeks later. That marriage lasted until he was ten. Mom moved out. Dad wouldn’t sign the divorce papers. They argued about it for a year. Dad won and Mom moved back home, with her demands posted on the refrigerator.
They had separate rooms from then on. The rest of the house was their battleground. In his teens they’d take turns slamming the door and moving out, but they always came back.
Colby finally figured that they simply loved to hate each other. Last time he called home, they were living under the same roof but not speaking to one another.