Her Valentine Family (14 page)

Her father was still listening to the person on the other
end of the line, a person who Jess suspected was not her mother. Who had her mom's phone? And why?

The muffled echoes of the person's words weren't clear enough for Jessica to make out what the man was saying. But she was sure it was a man. The voice was deep and commanding, evidently informing—or maybe even instructing—her father about something. Something to do with her mother.

“No, I'm glad you got the phone and called. Thank you. And we'll leave right now.”

Then it hit her. “Nathan.” Nathan had been so excited about going to buy that bread and those pencils and notebooks. And her mother had been so nice to offer to take him since Jessica had such a rough night. But what if—what if they'd been in an accident? “Dad? Tell me what happened.”

Her father closed his eyes and nodded to the voice on the other end of the line, his mouth clamped shut and his knuckles stark white as he clutched the phone. Finally, he disconnected, moved to the door and grabbed his keys from the wooden hook on the wall. “Come on, Jess. We've got to go to the hospital. They were in an accident, and they're both banged up. The guy who called saw everything and called 911.”

She stood so fast her chair fell, but she didn't bother picking it up. At once she was by his side and hurrying out the door. “What happened?” she asked, fear radiating through her at the possibilities. “And what do you mean by banged up? What exactly happened?”

“They were in the turn lane, waiting to turn into the shopping center, when a guy ran a red light.”

“He hit them?” Jessica jumped in the car, slammed her seat belt into place.

“Apparently, from what the guy on the phone said, he hit another car, and that car lost control and hit your mother and Nathan.” He quickly backed out of the driveway, pressed the button for the flashers and started down the street. “Jess, he said your mother's going to be okay, that she has some cuts and bruises but that she was conscious at the scene. She gave this guy her phone and told him to call us, tell us to come to the hospital. She's…she's with Nathan.” He swallowed thickly, his jaw tensing as he pressed the gas pedal to the floor.

“What about Nathan?”
Let him be okay. Please, God, let him say that Nathan is okay.

“Jess, he's unconscious,” he said, and a thick tear slid down his cheek with the words. “Evidently the back of the car spun around and hit a light post. Even with his seat belt on, he was jostled hard. Or that's what the guy on the phone said. We'll know more when we get to the hospital.”

The back of the car spun around and hit a light post.
The back of the car. Where Nathan, her precious little boy, was sitting.

Her father's phone rang again, and he handed it to Jessica. She didn't recognize the number but assumed it was someone from the hospital.
God, let him be okay. Please, please, God, let him be okay.

“Hello.”

“I was trying to reach Bryant,” the voice on the other end said. “Is this—is this Jessica?”

She recognized Brother Henry's voice. “Yes, it's me,” she said, barely aware that she was speaking, her senses were so consumed with fear for her son.

“Mary just called. She was coming home from shop
ping and thought she saw your mother's car—” he said, hesitating.

“They were in an accident,” Jessica confirmed. “We're on our way to the hospital.” Then she added, “Brother Henry, please pray for Nathan. He's—the back of the car was hit hard and he's unconscious. And I'm—I'm so scared. Please pray.”

“I will,” he promised. “And I'll call the phone tree. We'll have the entire church praying, and I'll meet you at the hospital. I'm leaving now.” He disconnected and so did Jessica.

“He's calling the church to pray for him.” A piercing sob pushed from her throat, and she couldn't stop the tears. “I can't lose him, Daddy. He's my world.”

Her father pressed the pedal harder, and the car jolted through the familiar neighborhoods that now became a blur of houses, trees and sidewalks. Jess couldn't make them out at all through her tears. Her head started throbbing, pulsing against her eyes, and her stomach pitched, threatening to lose the only thing it held, that one cup of coffee.

“Oh, God, he's so precious. And he's so happy.” Jess could see Nathan, telling her all about the notebook and pencils he was going to get and squealing about how much fun he was going to have at the park.

The park!

Chad.

Jessica's gasp was so loud that her father took his eyes off the road to see what was wrong.

“Jess! What?”

“He doesn't know. Chad doesn't know about Nathan and now…now Nathan's hurt…he's unconscious, and I
don't know what's wrong. And Chad doesn't know. Oh, Daddy, what am I going to do?”

More thick tears slid down her father's cheeks. “Call him, Jess. You have to get him to that hospital. He needs to be there. Nathan is hurt. His son is hurt, and he should know. He should be there.”

She pulled her phone out of her pocket while her father turned on the street leading to Claremont Hospital. The building ahead looked ominous and cold, not at all the type of place for a five-year-old boy. Not at all the type of place where Nathan should be. A huge red sign reading Emergency centered the entrance on their left, where her father steered the car. Her son was in that hospital, in that emergency room, and he was unconscious. Her son…and Chad's.

God, be with Nathan,
she prayed. And then, pressing Send on the phone, she prayed,
God be with Chad, and please, dear God, be with me.

 

Chad hadn't been with the guys since October, when their fall baseball season had ended. The men's team from Claremont was composed primarily of guys in their mid-twenties to early thirties. Young enough to remember how to play the game but old enough to know they weren't invincible. Case in point, Chad had thrown out his shoulder last spring, and he'd merely been warming up. He'd had to take a good deal of heat from them over that…until Mitch Gillespie broke his foot attempting to slide into second base. Then all the attention, jokes and “old man” terminology turned to Mitch. Guys would be guys.

The day was absolutely gorgeous, with enough of a breeze to keep them cool in spite of their exertion and
enough warm sunshine to remind them that spring—and baseball games—were just around the corner. Which meant they needed this practice.

Practice, particularly the first practice of the season, for the team was extremely-low key. Mainly, they were getting the feel of the game again, working the muscles that hadn't been used nearly enough in the winter and attempting to burn off the extra pound or two that they'd accumulated during those Thanksgiving and Christmas meals. During a real game, they got down to business and concentrated on the main event. At this practice, however, they were more focused on having fun and catching up.

Chad listened as the ones who had kids talked about what their little guys and girls were currently doing, and he naturally joined in with Lainey's latest adventure of losing his phone. Then they all chatted about their wives or girlfriends, as the case may be. Chad didn't offer anything toward that conversation, thinking he'd merely wait and bring Jessica to meet the group when the time was right. But Claremont was too small a town for his secret to go unnoticed.

“Hey, Chad, Jana said she was sure she saw you last night when we were taking in the light display at Hydrangea,” Mitch said, grabbing his glove from the bench and then taking a big sip of Gatorade before returning to the field. “I couldn't tell, but whoever it was in that gazebo had a really pretty brunette by his side and looked like he was having a fairly intense conversation with her.”

Adam Finley, the third baseman and leadoff batter, heard the comment and cocked his head toward Chad. “That so? You found something serious, Martin?”

The group had played ball together and hung out
together since elementary school. They were friends and close enough that all of them knew that Chad hadn't been in any kind of real relationship since the downfall with Kate. Even if they didn't know exactly what had happened to end his marriage, they knew enough to know that he'd been burned and wasn't getting back into another serious relationship until he was certain that wouldn't happen again.

They didn't know the details about Lainey's paternity, and Chad certainly never planned to tell them. She was his, and that was all that mattered. But he also knew that these guys wouldn't mind seeing him happy. All of them had been lucky in love, either marrying their high school sweethearts or meeting someone in college, someone who actually cared about them and stayed with them. A few of their wives had naturally tried to fix Chad up over the last year, but nothing had worked out. He knew it was his problem, not theirs.

He had trust issues. He simply hadn't been able to trust his heart with anyone again. No one, that is, except Jessica. He'd told her the truth last night. She was the one who'd never let him down—his best friend and his first love. And, if he had his way, his last love.

The smile that took over his face didn't go unnoticed.

“All right, that does it. Who is she?” Adam asked. “All this time Lisa kept trying to find the right friend for you, and you already had someone in the wings?” Adam's wife had set Chad up with practically every female she knew, but none of them had set off any sparks, and none of them had even been introduced to Lainey.

“Actually, they were in the gazebo,” Mitch said, laugh
ing. “But Jana also thought you looked pretty intense, and I'd have to agree.”

It was Chad's turn to bat, so he grabbed his favorite Louisville Slugger and headed for the plate. But John Cutter, the pitcher, had been listening to the conversation taking place in the dugout and stood on the pitcher's mound contently tossing the ball in his hand. “We're waiting on an answer, Martin,” he called from the mound.

Chad heard Mitch laugh again. And to think, people thought women were the ones who fed on gossip. They obviously hadn't met his friends. “I wanted to bring her to the field sometime and let you figure it out on your own,” he said. He'd actually envisioned Jessica, Lainey and her son in the stands cheering him on as he attempted to act like he was still in high school again. Maybe he wouldn't throw his shoulder out again in front of them.

“So we know her?” John still tossed the ball.

“It's Jessica,” Chad said, and he knew there was no need for a last name. They'd all been together in high school, and when Chad's world ended during the spring of that senior year, when Jessica left Claremont, these were the guys who helped him pull through, often by bringing him out to the field and letting him work off his stress with a ball and bat. They'd continued playing together that year well after the high school's baseball season ended—not so much because they loved the game but more because Chad needed it.

“Jessica? Your Jessica? She's back?” Mitch asked, his dark brows disappearing beneath the bill of his cap as they shot upward.

His Jessica. That's the way it was back then, and that's
the way it was again. He smiled. “Yes, she's back, and that's who you saw me with in the gazebo.”

A whistle sounded from the mound, and John Cutter bobbed his head as though everything made sense now. “Bowman is back. No wonder you're smiling. Never understood why you two split up or why she left,” he said, not really to Chad but more to himself.

“Me, either,” Mitch said. “And back then, you didn't understand it yourself. So, I'm assuming you finally found out what made her go, back then?” Mitch asked. “It'd better have been a good reason, for all the mess we had to go through that spring trying to get you to join the ranks of the living again.”

Chad smirked. “And to think, I thought we were hanging out because we liked each other.”

Mitch grinned. “Yeah, that was it. Anyway, I always thought something must've happened with her family, maybe they'd upset her somehow, but they always seemed pretty tight. I remember she went to live with her grandmother. Was that it? Was she sick or something?”

Chad rested the bat on his shoulder because obviously John had no plans of pitching to him in the near future. On the contrary, the entire team had moved in closer to hear all about what had happened to Jess way back then. He didn't blame them. He was a royal mess that spring and summer, and they really had worked hard to cheer him up. But there was no cheering him because he'd known why she left, and the problem had been…him. He was the one who hadn't stopped them from going further than they needed to on that one afternoon at his house. She had sensed them getting too close to the edge and had told him she should go home, but Chad
had encouraged her to stay. And she'd been right; they hadn't stopped.

Then she'd left town, unable to stay and live with what they'd done.

“We're still working through what all happened then,” he said. Chad would give anything if he could go back and change the things that happened and caused her to leave, but he couldn't. However, he could make certain that now that she'd returned to Claremont—now that she'd returned to him—he'd never do anything to lose her again. And this time, he planned to follow through on those promises he made to her back in high school. He would marry Jessica Bowman, and he would marry her for life. “But she's back, and I'm planning on getting it right this time,” he told them.

“Back in Claremont, you mean? For good? Are you sure?” Adam asked. Chad knew why he asked. His friends may try to act like they were tough guys, but every one of them knew how much he'd hurt when she left, and he knew Adam's questions were an attempt to make sure that didn't happen again. They were protecting their friend, and he appreciated them for it.