Worth It All(75)

She wished she could know. More than anything she wished she could take chances and not feel like she was standing on the precipice of a major fall. But she didn’t want to squash Jenny’s happiness. “It might be different if I didn’t have Casey.” Though she doubted it. She’d always preferred the sure thing over the maybe. How did Jenny have so much faith everything would work out? How did she have so little?

“I get it,” Jenny said. “I do. I just—”

“Yo! Jenny!” Mac yelled from the front. “There’s a man out here for you!”

She squealed again and wrapped Paige in a crushing hug, then literally bounced out of the break room. Paige peeked and sure enough, Simon stood in the middle of the diner, an enormous bunch of roses of every color clasped in his big hand. Jenny bypassed the flowers and took a flying leap right into his arms, wrapping her tiny self around Simon. It knocked him back a step, but he laughed and caught her against his chest.

The customers looked on smiling, a few people clapped.

She wished she had Jenny’s unbidden trust in life. The total lack of fear to take a flying leap into the arms of whatever or whoever life threw you without looking ten steps forward or ten steps back.

She prayed Jenny knew what she was doing. The same prayer she had for herself as she spent the rest of the afternoon trying to imagine giving in to her feelings for Jake without feeling like she was diving into the great unknown with Casey on her shoulders.

Later that afternoon Paige brought soda refills for a young couple cozied up on the same side of a booth by the window. “Can I get either of you anything else?”

“No,” the man said. “It’s about time for us to hit the road. We’re already behind schedule.”

The woman elbowed him playfully. “You and your schedule.”

Paige smiled at them; it was hard not to as they’d been practically beaming since they walked in.

“Yeah,” the man continued. “We got off for gas and got turned around.”

“He got turned around,” the woman said, but she gazed at him lovingly.

“Right,” he said. “I got turned around.” He covered her hand with his and his wedding band twinkled. “I should have listened to you, but we made it to this diner, right?”

“Yes. It’s all good. I mean, we’re on our honeymoon,” she said to Paige. “What could be bad?”

Right, Paige thought. What could be bad?

She understood singles who came in or moms with kids. She understood the couples at the bar and the ones who came alone hoping to leave with someone. But that? A man and woman both looking over the moon at the promise of forever? That’s not something she knew anything about.

This thing between two people that she hadn’t thought existed, yet she’d seen it with the McKinney couples, between his parents who’d been married for over forty years. And now here it was again; although new, the marriage-license ink barely dry, she could see it working. She could see this man and woman together for the long term without her usual sense of foreboding. Because of Jake.

The woman turned her face back to her husband, and he touched his forehead to hers. The moment felt too intimate for an onlooker, but she wanted to look. Chastising herself, she spun away. She brushed at the tears gathering and rushed around the counter, hoping to get to the back before they fell. Mac yelled out to her, but it was too late.

Her foot hit a wet spot, her legs flew out from under her, and she went down hard. The floor knocked the breath from her lungs, and the instant pain brought even more tears. “Damn. That hurt.”





Chapter 27


JT smiled as he pulled up in front of Paige’s trailer, happy to see her car was there and she hadn’t taken an extra shift today. She’d been working too hard since their return from Virginia. And he’d admit it bothered him even more than it had before. For her and for himself.

In addition to work and studying, she wouldn’t make a habit of sleeping at his house, which he understood even if he didn’t like it. And him sleeping at her place was out of the question. The most he’d gotten in five days were a few stolen kisses.

He definitely wanted more, to touch her, to kiss his way past her lips all the way down her spectacular body. But he also wanted to talk to her and look at her and lose himself in her eyes. He also wanted her to take a night off and he meant to make that happen. He’d take them out to dinner, maybe suggest a movie at his house, a Disney something or other, and then woo her into staying if Casey fell asleep. That was the plan.

He climbed the steps and knocked lightly before letting himself in. Casey sat on the couch, facing a video and dipping her hand into a bag of snack crackers. “Hey, Case. Where’s Mommy?”