His Surprise Son. Allie Pleiter

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ feeling stunned and rattled. What on earth to do now? Dad had always called her The Queen of Solutions. But today, even Mayor Matrim, The Queen of Solutions, came up short. She hadn’t the slightest idea how to solve her newest, biggest dilemma: how to introduce Joshua Tyler to the son he didn’t know he had.

      * * *

      Jean Matrim.

      Mayor Jean Matrim, and Violet’s wedding planner to boot.

      Sometimes life took a swing at you that you never saw coming.

      The woman behind the lunch counter at Watson’s Diner stared at Josh as if he were a science experiment, an oddity to be analyzed rather than a customer to be welcomed. As if asking for a BLT on wheat toast marked him as someone foreign and suspicious.

      “We don’t do turkey bacon, you know,” she declared, even though he hadn’t asked for it. “We only do real food.”

      “Big fan of real food myself,” he said, offering a smile she did not return. The woman grunted what he hoped was approval, after which they stood in awkward silence as the cook started to make his sandwich. There was no one else in the quiet place, and Josh wondered if Wanda could hear the fierce growl of his stomach as the sound of bacon frying filled the air.

      “How long has Jean Matrim been mayor of Matrimony Valley?” he asked. Jean would be turning thirty next year, same as he—how’d she get to be mayor at such a young age?

      “Well, now, that depends if you count the year Miss Jean was mayor of Matrim’s Valley. Before—” Wanda waved a dismissive hand “—all this business.” Wanda clearly saw no point in hiding her lack of enthusiasm for the town’s new identity, even to a customer. That might explain why Watson’s Diner seemed to be the only local business without a wedding-themed name.

      “Well, all totaled, then.”

      “Hasn’t even been two years.” Wanda drew herself up a bit. “My Wayne stepped in as mayor when her daddy first passed. Then she up and ran against him in the last election. Not too long after that she got the scheme in her head that turned us into...this other thing.”

      “You’re not a fan of the whole Matrimony Valley campaign?”

      “I’m a fan of staying in business, I give you that, but I can’t help thinking there could be a dozen other ways to do it than turning ourselves into the Las Vegas of the Smoky Mountains.”

      Josh stifled a laugh at that. He’d been to half a dozen tech conventions in Vegas, and this valley was in no danger of giving that city a run for its money. “It’s a pretty place,” he offered, the urge to defend Jean rising up from some surprising long-ago part of him. “My stepsister Violet’s thrilled to be your first bride.”

      Rather than offer a response, Wanda gave him a look that roughly translated to “I can just imagine” and hit the cash register key with a declarative finger. “Fries or chips?”

      “Chips. And coffee. And everything to go, if you can.”

      “Of course.” Wanda shouted, “To go, Wayne!” back to the cook, who barked “Okay” in return.

      “Wayne and I, we’re no big fans of ‘to go,’ but that’s the way you young people all seem to eat these days. Next thing you know, Her Honor will be asking us to put in a drive-through window.” She nodded toward a rack of chip bags on the wall behind her. “Regular or barbecue?”

      “Barbecue, thanks.” He probably shouldn’t inquire, and he suspected her answer, but Josh couldn’t stop himself from asking, “So do you think Mayor Matrim’s idea will work? Matrimony Valley?”

      “Well,” she said after looking him up and down, “you’re here.”

      I am indeed, Josh thought as he paid for his meal and accepted the white paper bag and foam coffee cup she handed him. What are the odds of that?

      “I’m not knocking a single mother trying to make her way in the world, bless her heart,” Wanda went on. “I just think we didn’t have to turn ourselves inside out like this to survive. Matrim’s Valley has been here for three generations and survived its share of hard times without changing the name of everything in sight.”

      Josh had taken two steps toward the door before he fully absorbed what she’d said: single mother.

      Jean was a mother? She had said “family obligations,” hadn’t she?

      It shouldn’t have surprised him—Jean had always been the type to want marriage and a family. She’d worked in a bridal shop all through college. She’d given an eager “yes” to his proposal. They’d planned on a family, eventually, once the business stopped eating his every waking moment. Things never got that far. And now she was a mother.

      But a single mother. A barrage of questions rose up in his mind as he crossed the street back toward the inn. For a guy who made his living on the internet, he’d been way out of touch with college friends. Did she marry? Whom? When? And what had happened to end it?

      It should have been him she married. Of course, he had no right to say that now, but there had been a time when he felt that way. They’d been madly in love back in college. His senior year, he’d been king of the world, watching everything in his life line up to launch him toward the stars with Jean beside him. Nothing was beyond his reach. His final semester was a blur of parties and congratulations and that one spectacular night spent with Jean reveling in his golden future.

      Things went too far after that night—and they both knew it—but they would have been making a new life together in San Jose, so it hadn’t felt like a mistake. In truth, he’d thought that night marked the end of her second thoughts about joining him in California. He was so full of himself back then that he’d simply assumed he’d won her over.

      She came to California, but she never really settled in. His relentless pace bothered her in ways it never had in school. She couldn’t seem to make friends, claiming Silicon Valley’s posturing grated on her down-home sensibilities. She grew so moody and distant that by the time news came of her father’s illness, they’d both used it as an excuse for her to disappear back east “just until things got better.”

      They never did.

      There were emails and phone calls, but the lapses grew longer as the flat-out scramble of a software start-up consumed his attention. He had always meant to call her but somehow never did. A part of him knew he’d have to face the wrong of that someday, he just didn’t count on it being here and now.

      He’d gradually shut down his connection to her, telling himself Jean was never really the kind of woman to take to West Coast life. It wasn’t that he couldn’t find her—he was a brilliant man with a fortune in technology at his disposal—he just never managed to follow through. He’d let her slip from his life, telling himself he didn’t regret it.

      Only he did regret it. And it felt like life was getting ready to show him how much.

       Chapter Two

      Josh paced his room while he waited for his chief of operations, Matt Palmer, to respond to his text. He’d asked, “Can you video chat right now?”

СКАЧАТЬ