The Bachelor's Sweetheart (13 page)

* * *

Tessa stood on the Stowes' deck and smoothed the skirt of the very feminine retro sundress her grandmother had encouraged her to wear to the party. It was her mother's, from one of the boxes that had been in the garage apartment, and back in style. She looked over the backyard, where the guys had all congregated, leaving the women inside. Her original jeans and short-sleeved plaid shirt would have been a more comfortable choice. But the day had turned unusually warm and Grandma had looked so nice and spring-like in her green linen sheath.

She spotted Josh with Harry next to the brick grill at the far side of the yard and walked in that direction, the soft blades of spring grass brushing her toes. At least she'd stuck with her Tevas, so her feet would be comfortable, if not the rest of her.

Josh's voice drifted to her. “When Mrs. Hamilton and Tessa get here, do you mind if Tessa and I disappear for a while? I thought we'd hike up to Crystal Flow.”

She pursed her lips. She'd told him that she didn't want to go to Crystal Flow. Tessa stopped. Well,
more specifically, she'd said she wasn't sure about the hike.

“We'll be back in time for dinner,” Josh said.

“It's fine with me, and I'll cover for you with your grandmother. She thinks it's time you fixed whatever is wrong between you two anyway.” Harry winked at him.

How did the Stowes know? Tessa shook her head. Time to make her presence known. Tessa stepped past Josh and gave the retired high school principal a hug. “Happy Birthday, Mr. Stowe.”

“Thank you. And you look exceptionally pretty today. Doesn't she, Josh?”

“Um, yeah. Nice dress.” Josh scuffed his athletic shoe against the grass.

Tessa smiled at Mr. Stowe's compliment and Josh's discomfort.

“It's turned into such a nice day,” the older man said. “Why don't you two take a walk and enjoy it? We won't be eating until an hour or so.”

Tessa restrained her smile at Mr. Stowe's covering for Josh with her, too.

“How much of that did you hear?” Josh asked as he took her hand and tugged her to the empty middle of the yard.

“Of which part? Us hiking to Crystal Flow despite what I said or us fixing what's wrong between us?”

The bright sun highlighted the tint of pink on Josh's tanned cheeks. “Let's go with would you like to take a walk and talk? I can't stand the wall between us.”

“I can't, either, but taking it down won't be easy.”

Josh repositioned their hands and laced his fingers through hers. They walked in silence across the grass to the break in the woods behind the yard where the trail started. While a part of her welcomed his touch, it didn't help her jumbled nerves. The undeniable physical attraction was new to her. But she could handle it and was onto Josh's usual kiss-it-and-make-it-better approach with women. It wouldn't work with her. Attraction wasn't enough to dismantle the wall and repair their friendship. And she'd learned from her mistakes. Friendship—like Josh's brothers and their wives had, Grandma and Grandpa had, even her parents, despite their other faults, had—was what she wanted in a relationship. Friendship, trust and love.

From Josh.
The thought whispered on the breeze rustling the budding tree branches overhead.
Don't even go there; you know where loving someone who can't love the real you leads
. The face of her former fiancé breaking their engagement flashed in front of her.

“You're awfully quiet for someone who agreed to talk.”

“Collecting my words, thoughts.”
And storing the personal ones away.
“We have to maintain at least a business owner-contractor relationship until the theater renovation is done. I can do that.”

“What if I want more?”

Her pulse quickened.
Lord, please help me not give in
. They reached the flow and the bench Harry had built on the edge of his property overlooking the water.

Josh dropped her hand and motioned her to sit, giving her some time to pull herself together. He sat beside her, not touching.

“Is the answer that hard? I thought we were friends.” He ran his hand over his hair. “Sure, Thursday threw me for a loop, and I acted like an idiot ignoring you. I'm sorry.”

She lifted her hand from her lap to brush back the lock of hair that had fallen on his brow, stopped herself and placed her arm on the bench's armrest.

“I'm ready to move on,” he said.

“Are you?”

His eyes darkened at her challenge.

She cleared her throat and stared unblinking at the rushing waters until her eyes watered. “If you knew all about me when we met, would we still have become friends?” Tessa held her breath as the seconds ticked by.

“No,” he said in a low voice.

Her breath whooshed out, along with the glimmer of hope she'd held inside. “Thanks for being honest.”

Josh placed a finger on her cheek and turned her face toward him. “But I'm working on that. I went to another meeting with Connor. I listened. I shared.” His voice hitched. “About you. I'm learning. One day at a time.”

She gripped the armrest. More than anything, Tessa wanted to lean into Josh, feel his strong arm around her shoulder. “So you're working on accepting that I'm a recovering alcoholic and you can't change that. What about your father?”

Josh tensed. “This is about you and me. He's different.”

“No, he's not. I'm an alcoholic. Your father is an alcoholic. Yes, we're different people. But we're both alcoholics going it one day at a time. I've gone two thousand and two days. When I spoke with him at church, he'd gone three hundred and ninety-seven days.”

“That was this morning.” Josh smirked, adding cement to the wall. “On my way over here, I saw his truck parked in his old drinking buddy Ray Sinclair's driveway.”

Ray was in the program, too. She'd met him at both of the meetings she attended regularly. But that wasn't for her to share.

Tessa pinned Josh's gaze with hers. “Either of us,
either
could have a relapse today, tomorrow, next week. Until you accept that, work on healing things with your father as well as me, I can't let us be more than business partners.” Her voice caught despite her best efforts to keep it strong and unemotional.

Josh's pupils dilated until they were almost black, and a muscle worked in his jaw. He leaned closer, drawing her to him like a magnet and setting off an almost nauseating flutter of anticipation and fear. Their lips touched, his questioning, hers answering with what she felt rather than what she'd reasoned. He rested his hands on her waist and she automatically raised her arms and placed them around his shoulders before she caught herself. She pushed him away gently, the effort nearly draining her already depleted resolve.

“That doesn't change things,” she said.

“I know, as much as I wish it did. But it can't be undone, and you can't say our kiss didn't affect you.”

“No, I can't say it didn't affect me.”
More like rocked me to my core
. “But we can't repeat it.”

“Is that what you want?”

She dropped her hands from his shoulders. “Being this close to you, I don't know what I want.” Her heart tripped when she saw no triumph on his face.

“Tessa, I'll try with Dad if it will help you and me.”

She held firm. “It has to help you.”

“I'll try. It's all I can say.”

“And pray, pray hard and listen to Him. That's what's gotten me to where I am.” Although she hadn't heard many clear answers lately.

Josh nodded. “I hear you.” He stood. “We'd better head back before Gram sends my brothers looking for us.”

He offered her a hand up and she took it. As much as she thought she should avoid his touch again, she knew they were both too fragile right now to brush away his offer. She let him pull her to her feet and squeezed his hand before she dropped it.

Josh gave her a wobbly smile that opened a crack in her armor just wide enough to let the glimmer of hope for them she'd lost earlier slip back into her heart.

Chapter Ten

J
osh was barely in the front door of Jack and Suzi Hill's house the next evening when Owen had him by the hand and was dragging him through the front hall. “Coach Josh, I have everything all set up for us in the workshop in the basement.”

“Slow down. Let me check in with Mr. or Mrs. Hill. And were you supposed to open the door without one of them in the room?” That was one kid rule they hadn't had at his house, but he'd picked up on it from Jared and Becca.

Suzi appeared in the doorway of the living room. “No, although he did shout that you were pulling in.”

“I recognized his truck.” Owen faced Suzi. “I knew it was him.”

“House rules,” Suzi said.

“I know.” Owen dropped his chin to his chest. “I'll remember next time.”

“Okay. I told Owen earlier that the brownies I'm baking should be done and cool enough to sample when you guys are finished. They'll be in the kitchen.” Suzi went back into the other room.

“Brownies are one of my favorites,” Josh said.

“Me, too.” Owen glanced back at the window. “Is Coach Tessa coming to help us?”

“No, it's just us guys.”

“Oh, okay. The workshop's this way,” Owen said.

He followed Owen through the kitchen and down the basement stairs, his curiosity getting the best of him. “Why did you ask about Tessa?”

The boy jumped off the last step and shrugged. “You always come to soccer together, and sometimes you sit with her at church. And the last time Mom took Dylan and me out for pizza, you and Coach Tessa were there getting pizza.”

Owen made them sound like a couple. Was that how everyone saw them? Everyone but Tessa. His heart dropped. He'd be fortunate to work his way back to friend status. “Ah, I'm helping her do some work on the theater. When we get hungry, we go over and get pizza.”

“Do you do the hard stuff for her, at the theater?” Owen walked to Jack's workbench and scrambled up the stool beside it. “My mom says she misses having a guy around to do the hard stuff. So I try to help her. But I think she just misses Daddy like I do. Hope said your daddy went away, too. Did you miss him?”

What was it with Owen and questions? Or, he thought about Hope, was it all kids and questions? He scratched the back of his neck. “I was a lot older than you when my father went away,” he said, as if that was an answer. “How about you show me the car kit so we can get started?”

“I've already got all the pieces out here.” Owen swept his arm down the workbench.

“Got any ideas what you want it to look like?” Josh asked.

Owen's eyes sparkled. “A cool, fast race car.”

“I thought you might say that.” Josh whipped a folded paper out of the back pocket of his jeans and spread it in front of Owen. The little boy looked at Josh's drawing and gave him a wide smile.

“Did you make this with the computer program you showed us at school?”

“I sure did.”

“Cool! Mr. Hill said the saw we need is hanging up there.” Owen pointed at a coping saw on the wall behind the bench.

Josh lifted the saw from the hooks and breathed a silent sigh of relief that he'd diverted the conversation from Tessa and fathers. Josh understood that the little guy might need to talk, but he wasn't the person to talk to. Not about fathers. That was way out of his element.

“Hand me the pencil and the straight edge,” he said.

“You mean this ruler?” Owen asked.

“Yep. I'm going to make two lines to show us where to cut the wood, here and here.” Josh ran his finger across and down the wood block that would be the body of the car. He looked at his diagram and drew the lines. “Ready to make the first cut?”

“You're going to let me, by myself?”

“It's your car. You have to do the work.” Josh stepped behind Owen. “Put your hand on the front of the block.” He placed his hand over the boy's. “Here's the saw. Stop here.” Josh pointed to the intersection of the two lines he'd drawn.

“I pull it back and forth like this, on the line, right?”

“You've got it.”

During the minutes it took for Owen's short back-and-forth motion to cut through the block, Josh went back in time to another project, a birdhouse for a fourth grade science project. Dad had stood behind him, just as he stood behind Owen, guiding him in cutting and nailing together the pieces. After they painted it and hung it in the tree next to the garage, Dad had taken him—only him—to get a kid's meal at a fast food restaurant in Ticonderoga. Then, one night the next week, after a pair of robins had laid eggs in the birdhouse, Dad had drunkenly stumbled into the birdhouse, knocked it down and kicked it across the yard, putting an end to the robins and the project and the memory of the fun they'd had.

“Done,” Owen said, stopping his sawing where Josh had shown him to.

The boy's smile shot through Josh, warming and saddening him. He'd have to be happy with this and being a big brother and uncle. There was no way he'd ever be a real dad. Not with the fear he held inside that he might parent as his father had.

Josh helped Owen slide the saw out of the cut.

“What I sawed is going to be the spoiler, right?”

“Right.”
The spoiler
. That's why he couldn't accept Dad, as he was trying to accept Tessa. Dad always ended up spoiling everything good, and Josh couldn't let him spoil him and Tessa.

Owen flexed his fingers. “My hand's tired. Can you do the other cutting?”

“Sure.” He figured other fathers—and mothers—must help their kids. Besides attacking the wood block would work off some of the resentment his memory had kindled. In no time, the triangular woodcut curving up to Owen's spoiler fell to the bench top.

“That was fast,” Owen said.

“Hey, you want to get to the fun part, painting and detailing, don't you?”

Owen bobbed his head up and down in agreement. “I want to paint it red. My daddy had a red Charger. It was fast. He had to sell it to pay Dylan's doctor's bills.”

Owen's father might be a felon, but it sounded like he'd taken more responsibility for his family than his old man had. Dad had let everything fall on Mom. Josh squeezed the bridge of his nose.
Unbelievable
. He was jealous of a little boy whose father was in prison and mother was in a coma in the hospital's intensive care unit.

“Red's good. What do you say to black details?”

“Yeah! Will we get to paint it tonight?”

Josh studied the rough-cut block. “Not tonight. All the edges need to be sanded smooth like in my drawing. I'll show you how, and then I think it's time to go test Suzi's brownies. We can paint next weekend, Saturday after the soccer game.”

“All right.”

A few minutes later they were upstairs at the kitchen table with two brownies each in front of them and big glasses of milk Owen had poured.

“Can I ask you a question?” Owen said between bites.

“Shoot,” Josh said, expecting something about the car.

“Hope says you don't like your father since he came back. Do you think when I'm bigger and Daddy comes back I won't like him anymore?”

Josh choked on his mouthful of milk. Shouldn't Owen be talking about stuff like this with the Hills? They had foster parent training. He couldn't tell the kid he'd never liked his father.
No, that wasn't true
. But he hadn't in a long time.

“Your situation's different.”

Owen eyed him with a solemn expression.

“My father just left us. We didn't see him for years and years.”

“Yeah, Hope told me she never saw him before he moved here.”

“You see your dad. You told me you and your mom moved here so it would be easier to go see him.”

Owen nodded. “And I write him letters about school and soccer, and I'm going to send him a picture of my race car when it's done. Mom and Dylan and I pray for him, too. She said she thinks it's working. The last letter we got, Dad said he'd gotten a Bible and was looking up all the verses Dylan and I told him we're learning in Sunday school.”

“That's good.” The brownie Josh had eaten sat in his stomach like a lead bullet.

“Mom says we'll be okay when Dad gets out. We just have to be
positive
and
encouraging
until then.”

“Your mom's a smart lady.”

Owen smiled. “You could try being positive and encouraging to your father.”

Like Tessa keeps telling me
. Josh stared at Owen for a moment, feeling as if the boy was the adult and he was the child.

Suzi poked her head in the kitchen. “Time to get ready for bed, Owen.”

Josh rose, glad he'd dodged having to respond to Owen. “Work on that sanding so it's finished by next Saturday afternoon.”

“I'll have it done.”

“Good man.”

Positive and encouraging
. Owen's words stuck with Josh as he let himself out. If only he could hold on to the good memories like Owen and not let the bad ones crush them. If Al-Anon and God could show him how to do that, maybe he could support his father and bury his fear that Tessa might become one more of Jerry Donnelly's casualties.

* * *

Tessa's heart bled for the two little boys who stood by the graveside at the Hazardtown cemetery behind the church, clutching the hands of a tall, dark-haired man in leg irons. Two New York State Correctional Officers flanked him, overseen by the county sheriff and a deputy for good measure. A tear ran down her face and Josh squeezed her hand he held in her lap. Letting him take her hand had seemed so natural, even though she was trying to discourage anything personal between them unless he could come to terms with his father.

Pastor Connor finished the service with the twenty-third Psalm. “Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

The man and the boys stepped forward, and Connor handed Owen and his brother each a white rose. They let go of their father's hands, took the roses and placed them on their mother's grave. Their father dropped to his knees. The correctional officers lurched toward him, and the sheriff and his deputy rose from their folding chairs. Connor waved them back as the man rested his hands and forehead on his wife's casket.

“He's not going anywhere,” Connor said.

The officers allowed him his grief. Rhys Maddox straightened and hugged his boys to him before standing and allowing the officers to lead him away.

“Those poor babies,” a woman behind Tessa and Josh said.

“That poor man,” Josh said for Tessa's ears only. “I'm glad Connor was able to help Jack and Suzi get permission for him to come.”

“Me, too.” Tessa unwrapped her hand from Josh's and wiped another tear from her cheek. “Are you coming back to the church? The ladies' group is having a light lunch, as they usually do for the families. Or do you have to go in to work?” She reached for her purse on the ground beside her seat.

“I took the whole day off. I need to be there for Owen. He's my little buddy. I hope they put the guy who did this to him behind bars for a good long time.”

The intensity of Josh's words chilled her.

“What?” he asked.

“Let's leave the judgment to God.”

“You're right.” He stood and looked into the distance. “I thought I'd stain the new floor at the Majestic this afternoon, since I have the time. It'll make up for tomorrow afternoon, when I told Owen I'd help him finish his race car. Want to help me?” he asked, focusing back on her.

The uncertainty in his eyes undid her. “Sure.”
It was business
. “I didn't know you and Myles finished the new floor.”

“Yeah, we worked late last night. It looks great, if I do say so myself.”

“I wouldn't expect any less.” She and Josh followed the other mourners to the church.

“What do you think will happen to Owen and his brother?” Josh asked.

“Suzi says for now, they'll stay with her and Jack. Their father has an appeal coming up. Evidently, there's some new evidence about the robbery.”

“So that's what he's serving time for. I didn't know.”

She touched his arm. “But don't say anything to Owen. The counselor the boys are seeing thinks it's best not to get their hopes up about the possibility of their father being released early.”

“You know me better than that.”

She did. Despite Josh's protests that he didn't know anything about kids, she knew he wouldn't do something he thought might hurt Owen.

“I have enough experience having fatherly expectations dashed. I certainly wouldn't get Owen's hopes up about his father unless it was a done deal.”

“Sit,” she said, pointing at the block and stone wall around the Memory Garden on the church side of the cemetery. The funeral had catapulted her seesawing emotions about Josh and her and his father into a tailspin. “I've had all the ‘poor little Josh' I can take.”

He had the grace to look chagrined. They sat on the wall and waited for the people who'd been walking the path behind them to pass.

“I meant it when I said I'd try with Dad, try to forgive him. Maybe I should have gone to the meeting last night.” His gaze searched hers. “But I like the Saturday night one better.”

“I'm not counting your meetings or approving your choices. That's your journey,” she said.

“You're not going to give me any slack, are you?”

“How much slack have you given your father?” Tessa bit her tongue, expecting him to get up and leave. No, go inside. Josh wouldn't leave without seeing Owen.

Josh rubbed his face with his palms and released a harsh laugh. “Monday night Owen shared some advice from his mother. He told me I should try being positive and encouraging to my father.” The vulnerability in his expression when he raised his head stopped her questions before she could ask them.