Small-Town Mom (17 page)

“That would be up to your mother.”

“What would be up to her mother?” Jamie walked across the room to them. His heart thumped with each step. She wore the same light purple sweater she’d had on the day they’d insulated the attic—before she’d changed into her Buffalo Bills sweatshirt—and fitted slacks that showed off her attractive figure.

“Whether he can take us to the dinner-dance now that he’s your boyfriend,” Opal explained.

A blush tinged Jamie’s cheeks. “Aren’t you supposed to be helping Rose and Myles with the dishes?”

“But you didn’t answer.”

“Go.” Jamie pointed to the doorway.

“You can call me tomorrow and tell me what Mommy says. She can give you the number,” Opal called over her shoulder as she scooted away to the dining room.

Eli struggled to keep a straight face until the little girl had disappeared into the other room. Then he looked at Jamie and they both burst out laughing. “She doesn’t give up, does she?”

“Never.”

“I could take them. I don’t have any plans for next Saturday.”

Jamie raised her face to him, all traces of her laughter gone.

He should have kept his mouth shut.

“Let’s go to dinner and I’ll think about it.”

“You could come, too. I could take all three of you.”

“For cheeseburgers? No, the girls have already eaten.”

“I didn’t mean…” He stopped when he caught the gleam in her eyes. “Got me.”

He lifted her coat from her arm and held it for her. A light floral scent tickled his nose, enticing him to lean closer. She turned her head and he drew back, but not before he noticed the flash of sparkle on her ears. Jamie’s date-night earrings, Opal had said the last time he was here. A good sign that she had accepted his invitation as a date.

“Thanks.” Her smile lit her face and his heart.

* * *

Jamie was surprised at how busy the diner was. The winter months drew far fewer tourists than the warmer ones. She’d expected only another family or two, not for almost every table to be taken.

“The food here must be really good,” Eli said. “Look at the people.”

Jamie looked around again. He didn’t need to remind her how crowded it was. Crowded with people she knew from the birthing center, from the school when she worked there, from the kids’ activities. Family people. All of whom would see her and Eli together.

“What’s wrong?” Eli asked.

“Nothing.” She covered her concern with a short laugh that came out more like a cough. “I’m just surprised to see half the population of Schroon Lake
and
Paradox Lake here.”

“A regular Friday night family hot spot.”

Her tension ebbed. Eli was right. It was a family place, not a romantic spot, the kind of restaurant where good friends might go for a meal. Friends like her and Eli.

“Hi,” the hostess greeted them. “Booth or table?”

Eli looked at her.

“Table, please,” Jamie said. The kids always insisted on a booth when she took them out. Tonight was Friday, her adult night out.

“You’re going to have to wait awhile. All we have free right now are booths, unless you want to sit at the counter.”

“No, not the counter.” She felt as if all the eyes in the room were on her and Eli standing here. Eating front and center at the counter would be worse.

“A booth will be fine, more private.” Eli took the final decision from her. He shrugged. “What can I say? I’m hungry.”

“This way, please.” The hostess led them to a booth a short distance away.

Jamie slid down the bench on one side of the table. A booth
was
a better choice. The walls offered privacy. Eli sat across from her.

“Your waitress will be with you in a minute.” The hostess handed a menu to each of them.

Eli flipped open his menu. “You don’t have to get the cheeseburger special.”

Jamie rubbed her finger along the edge of her menu. His insistence on treating her to anything she wanted felt too datelike to her. They weren’t on a date. They were friends having dinner together. “You don’t have to buy my dinner. Why don’t we split the bill?”

“Hey, no reneging now. You said I could buy you the cheeseburger special. Besides, call me old-fashioned, but I think a man should pay for a date.”

The teenage waitress approached their booth. “Hi, Mr. Payton.”

“Hi, Sara.”

“And Mrs. Glasser, Myles’s mother, right? You were at the sledding party. Your little girls are so cute.”

“Thank you.”

“Are you ready to order?”

After Sara had taken their orders, Jamie unrolled the silverware. She didn’t know what had gotten into her. She’d wanted to come tonight, and deep down she knew the evening was a date, despite her rationalization to herself. And she shouldn’t be surprised he took charge. That was Eli. But when he’d said they’d take a booth, something clicked inside her and put up a wall of resistance. Truth was she wouldn’t mind someone else being in charge for a few hours for a change.

“So, how was your week?” she asked. That seemed like a neutral enough topic.

“Busy. With midyear Regents exams over, I had some parent conferences I’d have preferred not to. Other than that I’ve been working on ideas for Career Day, and the rifle class I’m teaching at the American Legion has started.”

Jamie smoothed the napkin on her lap. The rifle class that Myles had begged her to let him take. “I’ve started working on my booth, too. The Medical Center public relations officer is sending me some materials from job fairs she’s done in the area and pamphlets to hand out.”

“Sounds good.”

No, it didn’t sound good. It sounded stilted and boring. Why was she having so much trouble talking with Eli and enjoying herself? Could be she was just plain out of practice socializing. She’d shut herself off these past twenty months. And—she looked at Eli, the masculine jut of his square jaw, the fine line of his patrician nose, his long fingers with their squared off nails flicking the edge of the paper placemat—she hadn’t been on a date with a man other than John since she was sixteen years old.

Sara reappeared with their drinks. “Here you go, hot chocolate and coffee.” She placed them in front of Jamie and Eli. “Your dinners will be out soon.”

“Thanks,” Jamie said, thankful for the interruption to the growing silence.

“Thanks,” Eli echoed.

Silence fell over them again when Sara left. What was it that all those women’s magazines she used to read recommended? Get the guy to talk about himself. Not that that had ever worked with John. He was more of the strong, silent type, even more so with every deployment to the Middle East.

“Tell me about yourself.” She slid her cocoa mug an inch closer. That sounded as if they’d just met each other. But in a way they had. This was the first time they’d planned something together, just the two of them.

He shrugged. “Not a lot to tell that you probably don’t already know from my mother. I grew up on Paradox Lake. My dad was a trucker, killed in an accident the winter I was fourteen. I joined the Air Force right out of high school with a lot of encouragement from Sheriff Norton after a ‘harmless’ prank some of the guys and I pulled turned out not to be so harmless.”

She sipped her cocoa. So, Charlotte—or escaping Charlotte—wasn’t the reason he’d joined the service.

“I started out in tactical aircraft maintenance, flew a few missions over the Desert, did that stint on the recruiting team and, after I’d gotten my college degrees nights and weekends whenever I could pick up a class, I finished off as an instructor at Maxwell Air Force Base. Now, here I am.” He lifted his arms and spread his hands wide over the table, almost hitting Sara, who’d returned with their food.

“Cheeseburger special.” Sara set Jamie’s plate in front of her. “And rib eye steak. Do you need anything else?”

“No, we’re good,” Eli said with a wide smile before Jamie could open her mouth to say the same.

“Okay, let me know if you do,” Sara said before she left.

Jamie breathed in the tantalizing aroma of grilled beef. “I don’t mind if you want to go ahead and say grace.” She waited in surprisingly comfortable silence while he briefly bowed his head.

“Now,” he said, “it’s your turn to spill. I’ve known most of the people around here for, well, always. But you’re not from Paradox Lake.” He stated the obvious.

“Funny. Anne Hazard and I were talking about that. How everyone seems to know everyone. Sometimes we feel like we’re at play practice without a script.”

He laughed. “My script on you is blanker than I’d like. How’d you end up in Paradox Lake?”

“Anne’s husband, Neal. He was a friend of John’s. John was stationed at Fort Drum and Neal’s National Guard unit trained there. When John’s unit deployed time before last, I wanted to get back into nursing but had trouble finding a job that worked out with the kids. Neal let me know when the school nurse job opened up at Schroon Lake Central.” Jamie took a bite of her burger and swallowed. “That’s where I worked before the birthing center.”

Eli nodded. “And where’d you grow up?”

“A suburb of Buffalo, a place much larger than Paradox Lake. My folks still live there. I thought about going back after John’s death. My parents wanted me to. But the area has gotten kind of rough. Paradox Lake is a better place for kids. Safer.” After losing John, she wanted to keep them out of harm’s way was as best she could.

“Paradox Lake is a good place to grow up. I can vouch for that.”

“And we like it here, even though Myles claims he’s out of here the minute he graduates high school.”

The rest of the meal passed quickly with them sharing stories of their childhoods.

“Are you ready for dessert?” Sara asked when she came over to pick up their finished plates.

“None for me,” Jamie said.

“I’d like a piece of the apple pie I saw on the menu and more coffee.”

“Coffee sounds good to me, too,” Jamie said.

* * *

Rather than digging into his pie when it arrived, Eli tapped the flakey crust with his fork, weighing whether or not to tell Jamie about the paternity test results. They
had
been talking about the past and filling in the blanks. He looked across the table. She ran her fingertips around the rim of her coffee mug, a soft half smile on her face. His vocal chords froze.

Eli cleared his throat. Might as well get it over with, even though it would probably mean an end to the evening. He owed it to her. Letting her know had been the reason he’d asked her out tonight. One of his reasons. The others had had more to do with the way her dark curls caressed the sweet curve of her cheek, how she moved her graceful, capable hands to emphasize a point when she spoke and her fierce-mother protectiveness over her kids.

“If you were one of my kids, I’d ask you whether you were going to eat that pie or play with it,” Jamie teased.

“I’m going to eat it. Definitely. But first I have something I want to tell you.”

Jamie set her coffee mug down and looked at him intently.

“I got the results of the paternity test.” He didn’t see any need to tell her what the results were.

She wrapped her hands around the mug as if she needed to hang on to something and trained her eyes on his face.

He swallowed. “I called Charlie and went over to talk with her Wednesday night when the kids weren’t there. They go to Patrick’s every other week.”

Jamie nodded. She probably knew that from Rose and Katy being friends.

“Charlie seemed to take it okay. She didn’t make any kind of scene.” As he’d feared she might. “She just got quiet and looked very tired.”

“So that’s taken care of,” Jamie said in an even, almost monotone voice that struck him as out of character for the vibrant woman he’d come to know.

“I called Patrick when I got home. We’d talked about Charlie and Brett over coffee at the diner after the Career Day committee meeting last week. Patrick said Charlie isn’t well. He’s trying to convince her to get help.” He knew he was running on, but he needed to see some reaction from Jamie. “Patrick agreed I’d done the right thing. For everyone. He’s been concerned about the kids.”

Jamie’s uplifted face was a blank slate.

He should just stop, but he couldn’t. He needed to see some emotion from her. His past had hurt Jamie and her family. “Patrick called me this morning and said Charlie had seemed okay when he’d brought Katy and Liam back later that night, calmer than he’d seen her in a while.” He caught his breath. “And that Brett had said she seemed fine when he’d stopped in at the hardware store to see her yesterday.”

“Thank you for telling me.” She shifted her gaze away from his.

Yes, he’d torpedoed the evening. But it was better that she hear it from him. He mumbled a “You’re welcome” and attacked the pie, which tasted like wet cardboard.

“More coffee, cocoa?” Sara asked as she breezed by with another table’s order.

“Not for me.” Jamie placed her hand over her mug.

“I’m fine, too.” Actually, far from it. But he had had enough coffee.

“I’ll get your check, then,” Sara said.

“I appreciate your telling me,” Jamie repeated, breaking the silence Sara’s departure had left. She twisted the paper napkin she’d taken from her lap, her eyes meeting his again, almost as if she’d made some kind of decision.

He held his breath, waiting for her to kick him to the curb.

“I know Charlotte’s actions weren’t your fault.”

His heart lightened. “They were, in a way. I did some things I’m not proud of. If—”

Jamie interrupted before he could say more. “That was a long time ago. It’s just that Charlotte hurt my kids.”

“I know, and for that I’m sorry.” One thing he’d learned about Jamie was that she protected her kids with the ferocity of a lioness.

Her lips curved up. “I think I know of a way you could right some of it, with the girls, at least.”

Was that a glint in her eye?

“You could take Opal and Rose to the dinner-dance at school.”

It was a glint, definitely a glint.

“Believe me,” she said. “That’s more of a payback than you might think.”

“I think I can handle it. On one condition.”

“And what would that be?”