His Best Friend's Baby

“I mean, how long will you be—” Ron and Agnes shared a look “—in California.”

Julia put her mug on the table. “I don’t have any plans,” she said coolly. “We can be on our way today.”

Agnes gasped and dropped a plate in the sink, a discordant crash that made all of them jump and Ben fuss. Julia turned to her son and tugged on his ear.

“Nana’s bringing you more pancakes, buddy,” she whispered, staring at her son to stall for time.

No rest for the weary. She quickly shifted to survival mode. She had the money that the army gave her each month as a widow, but she was still paying off most of Mitch’s debts. The remainder might cover rent some place, although she wasn’t sure she wanted to live in a place that could be rented for next to nothing. She’d need to find a job. She would have to get daycare for Ben.

She’d come all the way to New Springs and now didn’t have enough money to leave immediately. She’d have to stay until next month’s check—

“Do you have to go so soon?” Agnes asked, her hands clenching the counter. “I mean it would be wonderful to have you stay.”

“Stay?” Julia asked, not sure she’d heard correctly.

“As long as you like,” Agnes insisted. “You can stay here however long. Ron used to teach at the community college over in Lawshaw. I’m sure he could talk to someone there. Get you enrolled in the fall and you could get your degree. I remember Mitch saying something about you wanting a degree.”

And another lie from Mitch. Thank you,sweetheart.

“I hadn’t given it much thought,” Julia said and she really hadn’t. Mitch’s death, the phone call from Agnes, getting out of Germany, all of that had taken up every minute of her life.

“Well, you can be here and think about it. This house is so empty with just the two of us,” Agnes said. Ron stared at Julia levelly, his eyes warm and steadfast.

“You can get your associate degree for just about anything at Lawshaw, can’t she, Ron?”

“We would like you to stay,” Ron said, cutting through his wife’s chatter. “We would like to get to know you and Ben.”

“You know,” she said with a bright smile, solace like a cool stream of water sliding through her, gently eroding the tension that had built in the last few moments. “You had me with the coffee.” She lifted her mug and took a sip while Agnes and Ron laughed.

“What do you think, buddy?” Julia asked her son. “Should we stay?

Ben smiled, his face radiant and beloved and threw his arms in the air. “Pancake!”

“Sounds unanimous,” Ron said.

Julia watched her son clap his hands and she took a big sip of coffee, using both hands so that she wouldn’t do the same.

CHAPTER FOUR

JULIA INSISTED on doing the dinner dishes that night and spent a long time with her hands in the warm soapy water, washing Agnes’s great-grandmother’s china.

Her fingers traced the faded vine around the edge of a dinner plate and she tried to imagine owning something so old. So precious. There was such a feeling of solidity and permanence in this house that she craved to be a part of.

She put Ben to sleep after finishing the dishes and Agnes retired a few hours later, declaring herself pooped. But Julia was too awake to go to bed. In Germany she’d put Ben in daycare three days a week for two hours because she’d been worried that seeing only her day in, day out would stunt him in some way—make him a social outcast in kindergarten. So while he’d learned to share toys with other kids, Julia had taken long runs to drive out her worry, to banish her fears. It seemed a good tactic to use now.

“I am going to go for a walk,” she told Ron, who read in his easy chair. He and Agnes had accepted Julia so quickly, had taken care of her and Ben so readily, that she felt a little blank. What am I supposed to do? she wondered. She wanted so badly to believe that this comfort and family was real. Was hers. She could settle in, put her feet up and stop treading water. But part of her was still braced—ready for the rejection she still wasn’t entirely convinced wasn’t going to come.

“Ben is out like a light,” she said assuring Ron that she wasn’t going to run out and leave him to entertain her toddler.

“Of course, Julia, it’s a lovely night,” he said with a smile. “Grab my sweater there at the door.”

She took the beige cardigan, then stepped outside. The cool twilight embraced her as she admired the low stucco homes that made up the neighborhood. The sweet scent of night-blooming jasmine filled the air and somewhere nearby a dog barked and another answered. Julia gave herself a moment to imagine a life here. A family. Ben and a dog and a man who was honorable. Everything that she’d thought was possible when she married Mitch.

Mitch had loved New Springs—or at least his boyhood. That had been part of the attraction for Julia at first, what drew her to him like metal shavings to a magnet. He’d seemed so grounded, so focused. He’d told her all about this beautiful, fairytale-childhood with adoring parents and a best friend with whom he’d gotten into nothing but trouble.

Jesse.

More importantly, Mitch had claimed to want to recreate that experience with his own family—right down to the best friend and the trouble. She almost laughed at the spectacular failure he had made of that.

She remembered everything Jesse and Mitch had talked about that night in Germany. Every word was imprinted on her, including the directions for the shortcut between Mitch’s home and Jesse’s.

In this foreign territory, she longed for a trace of something familiar, even if it were only a tidbit from a story she’d heard months ago.

It had not been her intention to seek out Jesse’s house when she set out for her walk. But standing on the sidewalk with nowhere to go, her heart became a compass.

She looked around to get her bearings. Mitch’s street ended in a forested dead end and she walked toward it, then cut left across one dark lawn and another before finally jumping over a ditch to arrive at the next street. She turned right and saw a small house on the corner with a broken front window.

Jesse’s childhood home. Interior lamps cast a shallow pool of light on the porch through the damaged glass and a ladder leaned against the side of the house.

Her heart faltered, her breath clogged in her throat. Her skin pricked as blood rushed through her veins and the world seemed to swim.

Someone was home.

The house surely belongs to someone elsenow, she told herself, but her feet suddenly had wings. She crossed the street, hoping that somehow Jesse was there. The sidewalk ended abruptly and she stood on the grass in front of the house.

On the porch, a man sat in a rocking chair with his head in his hands. She couldn’t see his face, but chills ran down her arms, across her chest.

He leaned back in his chair, resting his head so he could look up at the sky. The light from the house that fell through the broken window illuminated part of his face—a long straight nose, and a strong chin, hair that gleamed black.

Jesse.

He was here.

She could have dissolved with relief while joy and hope nearly lifted her off her feet.

A dog lying beside him lifted his nose and barked once.

“Rachel?” Jesse said, but his voice was a harsh whisper, practically a growl, and Julia realized he stared at where she stood in the shadows.

He laughed, a weary broken chuckle and again something stirred in her memory. “Just come out, Rach. I’m too tired for this.”

“I’m not Rachel,” she said as she crossed the dark lawn. She took a step into the pool of light and smiled. “Hello, Jesse.”

He stood quickly and the chair tipped sideways. He took a lurching step to the left and looked as though he were going to fall, so Julia leaped forward to help him, but he caught himself against the railing.

“Is this a joke?” he barked.

JESSE BLINKED and shook his head, horrified that the pain meds had managed to crack the lock on this particular fantasy.