Her Valentine Family

Some time after that trip home, Chad returned to Claremont, had a daughter and got a divorce.

A divorce. Chad had confided in her repeatedly through their teen years about how much it hurt growing up without two parents and how he’d marry for life, that he’d do whatever it took to make his marriage work and that if he had children, he’d never, ever want them to go through life without parents who cared about them and without love in the home.

Yet he’d divorced. What had happened? What would have caused him to separate from his wife? Had she left him? Was she still living in Claremont? Becky had told her that Chad met his wife in Atlanta, while he was attending Emory. Maybe she was used to big cities and couldn’t handle small-town life? No, Jess thought. They wouldn’t have moved back to Claremont if that had been the case.

So many questions and not a single answer to be found. Yet he wanted them to get together for coffee so they could chat about what happened when she left six years ago. Well, Jessica wanted to chat, too, and learn what happened in the six years since—specifically, what happened to the marriage that had kept her from telling Chad about Nathan three years ago.

Again, Jess shook her head in disbelief. Why would anyone leave Chad? Maybe his wife had hurt him, so much that he simply couldn’t stay with her. And Chad apparently had custody of their daughter.

A daughter. Chad had a daughter and, according to him, she was “pretty amazing.”

Tears trickled down her cheeks. The delight he’d expressed when telling Jess about the little girl pierced her heart. It wasn’t that she was upset he had a child with someone else. The thing was, he didn’t realize that he had a pretty amazing son, too. He didn’t know because Jessica still hadn’t told him.

She wondered if the little girl, Lainey, looked like Nathan. Did she act like him? Did Chad get to watch her blond baby fuzz hair turn sandy and wavy, so much like his own? Or the blue eyes she’d been born with change to that stunning deep forest-green, with the tiny gold flecks and ring of dark brown around the edge. Were her eyes inquisitive, like Nathan’s, always searching for answers, examining every tiny nuance of life around them?

Jessica suddenly had an immeasurable longing to see his daughter, get to know her and introduce her to Nathan. She wondered how old Lainey was, and she was instantly touched by the fact that Nathan was a big brother. He’d often asked her for a little brother or sister who he could teach things to. At the time, she’d tried to let him down easy, since that was nowhere near a possibility when she’d had no interest in dating; she’d only wanted to raise her son, for the time being. She’d thought maybe, someday, she’d find love again, but it certainly had been a distant dream. And in her heart, she wasn’t sure she could ever truly love anyone but Chad.

She passed the sign that said Welcome to Claremont at the edge of town and followed the familiar roads leading home. She noticed the new subdivisions, houses on cul-de-sacs where cotton fields had once been. Square beams of light shone from the windows of the homes on the winding streets.

Chad lived in one of those houses. Chad—and his daughter.

At some point between Stockville and Claremont, it had started to rain. With the darkness and the water streaming in wet sheets down her windshield, she was taken back to the last time she’d seen Chad Martin. She’d driven to his house to tell him that they were going to have a baby, and she knew it’d be tough, but she’d known that the two of them would find a way to make it work. They’d get married and start their family.

But he’d had big news that night, too. And after he told her that he’d gotten the scholarship he’d dreamed of, a full ride to the University of Georgia, she simply couldn’t tell him about the baby. And she’d driven home in the rain, crying the whole way. Then she’d called him and told him a lie.

The rain fell harder, and she slowly pulled her car into the driveway, then darted to the house. And like that night six years ago, her mother was waiting in the living room, sitting on the couch and staring at the door expectantly. The last time she’d been waiting to see whether Jessica would agree to move to Tennessee, live with her grandmother and have her baby. This time she was waiting for something else, and Jess didn’t think it was merely to see how her classes went in Stockville.

“So, how was your night?” Anna Bowman asked, leaning forward on the couch. “How were your classes? Did you see anyone you know?” Her cheeks flushed slightly, and she clarified, “I thought, you know, with the campus being so close to Claremont and all, that you might have run into some of your old classmates.”

Jess suddenly realized that there was more going on here than she’d originally thought, more to her parents’ interest in sending her to the college.

They knew.

“Where’s Nathan?” she asked, trying to tamp down on her shock and control her voice.

“Your father is reading him a story before bed,” her mother said and smiled, but it didn’t quite meet her eyes.

Jessica crossed the room, sat in the oak rocking chair that had been her grandmother’s and began to slowly rock back and forth while she let her mind play over everything that had happened in the past few weeks. Her parents had called her in Tennessee and told her how much they wanted her to bring Nathan back here for school. She’d thought about it for a few days, a little hesitant about moving in the middle of the school year, but finally deciding that she wanted to do that, too, raise him in her hometown and near his grandparents. She wanted him to have some sense of a real family. But then they’d also wanted her to go back to school, and they’d wanted her to go to the community college in Stockville rather than the one in Claremont. They even paid her first semester’s tuition as a Christmas present.

“How long have you known?” she asked softly.

A slight flush whispered up her mother’s throat. “Known what?”

“That Chad was divorced and moved back here and that he was teaching at Stockville.”

Her mother cleared her throat. “Oh, well, you know how small towns are.” She waved her hands slightly as she spoke. “Everybody talks when someone comes back to town. Your father and I thought you might want an opportunity to see him again, maybe talk to him and tell him about Nathan.”

She’d always planned to tell Chad about their son. That’s why she’d returned three years ago, but then she’d learned he was about to get married and she’d returned to her grandmother’s farm in Tennessee. But she’d always intended to tell him, and she assumed God would let her know when the time was right.

Evidently, He thought the time was right now, and He let her parents help set things in motion.

“So, you saw Chad tonight?” her mother asked.

“Yes.”

“We were planning to help you go back to school one day anyway,” she explained. “But when we heard he was teaching at Stockville we thought that was a sign we should send you there. God works in mysterious ways,” her mother added, smiling. “You forgive us for not telling you the whole story?”

“I do,” Jessica said. How could she be upset with them for wanting their grandson to know his father? But she wondered if Chad would ever forgive her for not telling him about his son. Soon, she suspected, she’d know, whenever she gained enough courage to tell him the truth. For now, though, she’d go see the other guy with green-gold eyes who held a large piece of her heart.

She hugged her mom, told her that she was sure everything would work out the way it was supposed to and then headed upstairs.

The door to the guest room, Nathan’s room for now, was cracked open. She approached quietly and peered inside, eager to see the interaction between Nathan and his granddaddy. Nathan hadn’t had a father figure in his world so far, and he hadn’t spent nearly as much time with her father as she would’ve liked, so this scene was very special.

Her son sat against the headboard, his sandy curls leaning against her father’s side as Nathan pointed to a page of the book his granddaddy held. He tilted his head up and raised his brows, the same face he always gave Jessica when he expected her to answer one of his intricate questions.

Nathan never accepted anything at face value. Even at two, he was determined to learn exactly how his toy train whistled and took the thing completely apart, to the point that Jessica couldn’t even attempt to put it back together. He wanted to know how things worked, why things happened, what caused what in the entire scheme of things. He was inquisitive, intelligent and witty. Never afraid to ask what he wanted to know. In other words, he was his father’s son, and Jessica couldn’t have been more pleased.

She recalled Chad’s blunt query from earlier to night.

“Have you married?” And then “Why not?”

Tough questions, for sure, but she was used to tough questions. She got them often enough from Nathan. And he wasn’t cutting her father any slack now.

She stepped into the room in time to hear him ask, “But how did the stone knock his head off?”

Her father’s smile, and his adoration for his grandson, was absolutely breathtaking. And he didn’t get frustrated by Nathan’s confusion. Instead, he appeared to enjoy that Nathan wanted facts about the story. “You see, God was helping David, and that’s how the stone knocked off the giant’s head. Or rather, the stone knocked him down and then David cut off his head with a sword.”

Nathan’s small hands instinctively moved to grasp his head.

“No one would want to hurt your head, so you have nothing to worry about,” her dad said with a low chuckle

Nathan squinted at his granddaddy, then apparently noticed Jessica’s presence and shifted gears in the subject matter to what he knew was the most important item in her day. “Hey, Mama. Did you get it? Get that job you wanted?”

She’d called home and told her parents about the position at the day care center right after the interview. Apparently, they hadn’t thought her little guy would be interested in her news, which proved they still had a lot to learn about their grandson. Nathan was interested in everything, and she loved that about him, just like she loved it about his Daddy.

“Well, did you?” Nathan repeated.

“I did,” she said, opening her arms and waiting, while he jumped off the bed and ran to give her his traditional welcome home hug. She inhaled his little boy smell—chocolate chip cookies with a hint of soap from his bath—and squeezed him tightly.

“Hey, I can’t breathe!”

Laughing, she released her hold and placed him on the bed, where he crawled back to his spot beneath the covers.

“Sorry. I missed you,” she said.

“Missed you, too,” he said, “But maybe you won’t miss me too much while I’m at big school if you have all those little kids to take care of,” he said, happily putting himself in the “big kid” category.

“Yeah, those little ones need someone to take care of them, for sure,” she agreed, enjoying the way his eyes beamed at her, and the way the gold flecks sparkled within the deep sea of green. She’d never gotten tired of those eyes six years ago, when she’d fallen in love with Chad Martin. And she sure didn’t get tired of them now.