LOVING ELLIE (8 page)

Ellie liked this side of Lucas.  More at ease.  Almost playful.  She was glad she’d convinced him to stop, even if she had nearly fainted
again
.  Otherwise, she would have missed seeing him with some of his walls down.

They followed Mrs. Mulrooney inside and back to a small sitting room located just off the main entryway.  Ellie took in the room around her.  Deep cherry shelves lined with assorted knickknacks filled the walls. Two wingback chairs and a loveseat sat atop a large oval braided rug, all three facing the fireplace.  A warm fire flickered in the hearth, casting a golden glow over the room.  In the far corner, an oak pedestal table was home to several framed pictures.

Ellie walked over and picked up one of two boys, one probably thirteen or so, the other a few years younger.  They were dressed in tattered clothes and covered in dirt and were looking up at the camera with huge, toothy grins.  Her heart tugged.  There was no mistaking the faces looking back at her.  Jarrett and Lucas.

Alice Mulrooney walked over to stand next to her with a wistful smile.  “They were so proud of themselves that day.  The two of them had built a dam in the creek out back that could rival any beaver’s.”

Lucas chuckled.  “And right after that picture was taken she made us take our masterpiece down.”

“It would have flooded my garden,” she reminded him.  “Boys,” she said with an exaggerated roll of her eyes.  “Now you two have a seat by the fire while I go fix a plate of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies for you to nibble on.”

“Mmmm,” Ellie moaned as she returned the picture to its spot on the table and walked over to the loveseat.  “I never turn down cookies.  Especially when they’re chocolate chip.”

Lucas followed with a grin.  “Something tells me we’ve just discovered the way to your heart.”

Ellie placed a finger to her lips.  “Shh...my weakness for chocolate chip cookies is not to leave this room.”  Not that her heart was in any danger of someone ever really touching it.  She wasn’t even certain she’d know what to do if someone ever did manage to find their way to her heart.

“I’ll be sure to send a few extra cookies home with you when you leave,” Mrs. Mulrooney said with a smile and then turned to Lucas.  “And I expect to hear all about what you’ve been doing for these past three years when I get back.”  That said she scurried from the room.

“You’d best get comfortable,” he warned Ellie after Mrs. Mulrooney had gone.  “This could take a while.”

She laughed.  “I don’t mind.  She’s such a sweet woman.”  Besides, she wasn’t about to pass up the chance to get to know who Jarrett’s older brother really was.

                                                        *              *              *

Try as she might, Victoria couldn’t push what had happened that morning from her mind.  Over the years, while she’d lain in bed alone at night, she’d dreamt about Blaine.  About seeing him again.  Of all the things she would say to him.  But real life hadn’t gone anything like her dreams.

Not at all.

Instead, she’d come face to face with her past in a moment of chaos, surrounded by runaway cows - again.  History repeating itself in a cruel jest.  And her
‘past’
hadn’t been nearly as overjoyed to see her again as he had been in her dreams.  There had been no warm welcome.  No loving kiss.  Just icy contempt.     

She looked up as her aunt entered the kitchen from the adjoining laundry room.

“Oh, honey,” her aunt said with a frown as she placed the basket of clean clothes she held in her arms on the table, “are you still fretting over what happened this morning?”

Her first thought was to deny it, but her aunt knew better.  “I wish you hadn’t of called Blaine to come help.  I could have gotten the cows back into the pasture without him.”

“And repaired the fence, too?”  Reaching into the basket, her aunt pulled out several of J.B.’s t-shirts and began to fold them into neat little squares.  “You would have frozen to death before you got those stubborn cows to move their sorry hides.”

“Sheriff Cooke didn’t seem to have any problem coaxing them back into the pasture.”

Her aunt looked up at her across the table.  “Sheriff Cooke is it?”

Yes.  Because saying Blaine’s name aloud was far too painful. 

“And about those cows,” her aunt said, not giving her a chance to reply, “the sheriff grew up on a ranch.  You did not.”

No, she had been raised in the city.  She knew about flagging down taxis and ordering mocha lattes.  Nothing at all about herding farm animals.  “Still...”

Her aunt lowered the shirt she was folding with a sigh.  “Honey, you were bound to run into Sheriff Cooke sooner or later.  He lives here.”

“But I didn’t know that.  I could have moved somewhere else.”
Anywhere else.
 

“Nonsense,” her aunt said, clicking her tongue.  “This is where you and your son need to be.”  Her aunt pushed a stack of J.B.’s clothes across the table to Victoria.  “With family who loves you.”

Victoria struggled with the choice she’d made to move to Eagle Ridge with her son.  Not only because of Blaine and the bitterness he very clearly harbored towards her, but because her son was still lashing out at anyone and everyone he could.  Her great aunt and uncle included.  It wasn’t fair to them. 

“Honey, you’re going to leave creases in your brow if you keep on frowning like that,” her aunt warned.

Ellie placed her son’s clean clothes into the laundry basket she’d set on the chair beside her.  “Blaine was right.  You and Uncle Jed have enough to deal with without my adding to it.  I shouldn’t have come here.”

Her aunt stepped around the table to place a comforting arm around her shoulders.  “Get that thought right out of your head.  Your uncle and I are so happy you’re here.  Truth is having you and J.B. around has breathed life back into your Uncle Jed.”

“But my son is out of control,” she said, feeling the sting of tears.  “I knew he was mad at me for everything that’s happened, but I never thought he’d take his anger out on you and Uncle Jed, too.”

“The boy’s hurting, Victoria.  He’ll work through it.”

She wished she could believe that.  But her son had been acting out since the divorce was final, nearly a year before.  And his behavior was only getting worse.

“Maybe I should have him talk to someone,” Victoria said, her heart aching.

“You’ve only just arrived.  Give the boy a chance to settle in first.  See how he does.”  Her aunt gave her a loving squeeze and then walked back around to the other side of the table where she reached into the basket and pulled out a pair of J.B.’s jeans.  “In the meantime, we need to keep talking to him.  Need to assure him that he’s loved.”

Not by his father.
  “I’m trying, but J.B. keeps shutting me out.  He blames me for the divorce and maybe he’s right.”

“Hogwash.  You did everything you could to make your marriage work for J.B.’s sake.  But it had to work for you, too, and it wasn’t.  Somewhere out there is a man who will make you happy again and give your son the ‘father’ figure he deserves.”

The last thing she needed was another man in her life which meant she would have to find some other way to give her son a male figure he could look up to.  Maybe there was a Big Brothers organization in the area she could contact.

“Maybe Sheriff Cooke would be willing to spend some time with J.B.,” her aunt suggested.

“No,” Victoria blurted out.  “Aunt Myra, promise me you won’t say anything to Blaine about my son.”  She’d hurt Blaine enough without rubbing salt in the wound that still festered in his heart.

“I won’t say anything, dear.”  Her aunt picked up the empty laundry basket and started for the laundry room, pausing in the doorway.  “But seems a shame not to seeing as how he doesn’t have commitments other than work.  It’s beyond me how a young man that handsome never found the right woman.  But then...” her words trailed off as she continued on through the doorway and into the next room.

Then what?
  Her heart skipped a beat.  Blaine had never married?  She wanted to think it was because he stilled loved her, but she knew better.  Love wasn’t the emotion he had been emitting that morning.  Another possibility, her actions all those years ago had left Blaine unable to trust another woman.  If that were true...

Unable to live with herself if that were the case, Victoria crossed the room and grabbed her purse from the kitchen counter.  Digging out her car keys, she called out, “Aunt Myra, I have to run out for a bit.  Is it okay to leave J.B. here?”

Her aunt returned with a basket of freshly washed linens.  “He’ll be fine.  You be careful out there.  Those roads are still slick in spots.”

“I will be,” Victoria assured her as she shrugged into her coat.  “I won’t be long.”  Opening the back door, she let herself out, intent on her mission.  She owed it to Blaine to set things right.  To make him understand that he had nothing to do with her pulling away that summer.  Even if it meant drudging up a past she’d just as soon forget.

              *              *              *

A light tap on the open office door had Blaine turning from the window.  Victoria stood in the doorway, her thickly-lashed green eyes studying him intently.  The sight of her set his traitorous pulse to racing.  Just as it had all those years ago.  He mentally cursed himself for reacting to her presence at all. 

He tore his gaze away and walked back to his desk.  “Is there something you need?”  He tried, but failed to keep the bitterness from his voice.

“Your forgiveness to start with.”

The softly spoken words only served to fan the flames of his anger.  “There’s nothing to forgive.” Refusing to look at her, he busied himself with rifling through papers on his desk.

She stepped into the room and closed the door firmly.  The sound succeeded in drawing his narrowed gaze her direction.  “I know you hate me,” she said, the words catching in her throat.  “And I don’t blame you.  But I can’t bear the thought of living here, knowing we’ll be running into each other, and having this
thing
hanging over us.”

His jaw clenched.  “This
thing
only exists in your mind.  I moved on a long time ago.”  The lie clawed at his gut.  Her earlier words finally made their way fully into his mind.  “Did you say
living
here?”

She nodded.  “J.B. and I are going to be staying with my aunt and uncle until I can find a place to buy or rent.”

Panic set in.  “Permanently?”

“Yes.”

You can’t do that,
he wanted to argue.  But she could.

“I hope our being here won’t be a problem for you.”

For him?  What about her?  She’d been the one who’d led him to believe they had something special only to break off all contact the moment she went back to school at the end of that summer.  Her cutting him out of her life that way had destroyed any feelings he’d once held for her.

“Will J.B.’s father be joining you?” he asked with a glance at her ring hand.  “Or did you run out on him, too?”  The spiteful words were out before he thought better of them.   

“No,” she said, before he could offer an apology.  She ran her slender fingers over the spot where her wedding band used to sit.  “He won’t be joining us.  We’re divorced.  And to answer your question, he ran out on us a long time ago.”

His first thought was what goes around comes around, but there was a child involved.  “How old is your son?”

“What?”

“J.B.,” he replied.  “How old is he?”

She hesitated before answering, “He’ll be ten in a few months.”

It only took a moment for the truth to settle in.  “You were pregnant that summer?”

Unshed tears glistened in her eyes.  “Yes.  But I didn’t know it at the time.”

“So what was I, Victoria?  Your summer fling?”  Muttering a curse, he stood and crossed the room to the door, yanking it open.  “Never mind.  Don’t answer that.”

“Blaine, please...”

“You need to leave,” he said through painfully clenched teeth.

She held her ground, much to his surprise.  “Not until you give me a chance to explain.”

He crossed his arms and waited, hearing the stubborn determination in her voice.  She wasn’t going to leave until she’d said her piece.

“It won’t change anything.”

“Maybe not, but I owe you an explanation.”

A little too late for that. 
He kept that thought to himself.  “Whatever helps you sleep at night,” he muttered.

“I met J.B.’s father in college.  We dated on and off, mostly off.  I was young and stupid and thought sleeping with him would fix whatever was wrong with our relationship.  It didn’t.  So I broke things off for good.  Or so I thought.”  She walked over to the window he’d been standing at when she arrived and stood staring out.  “That summer I met you.  Everything was so perfect.”

Blaine’s hands clenched at the memory of the time they’d spent together. 

“Until I went home and discovered I was pregnant.”  She turned to face him with tears in her eyes.  “I wished more than anything that J.B. had been yours, but that wasn’t even a possibility.  The day I saw that little blue line across that wretched stick, I knew my happiness no longer counted.  I had to do what was right for my son.”