Chapter 23

Chapter Twenty-Three

“You look happy, Jason.” Mildred lifted the cup of iced tea to her mouth and sipped it through a straw.

Jason leaned back into his seat at the restaurant he’d taken her. He’d driven one town over, not because he didn’t like Bunny’s or Brandywood, but because he wanted the privacy.

Happy? He was happy. He’d spent the past three days finding every creative method of spending time with Jen. They’d fucked all over Brandywood in his car several times and at the guest lodge once Colby was asleep. The damned chairs behind the front desk weren’t comfortable, but they were better than nothing.

Of course, they barely had time. Jen didn’t want to sacrifice time with Colby, so their meetups were between her jobs and in the little spare time she had.

He felt like a teenager. But he didn’t want to stop, either.

And it wasn’t just the sex, something he knew he could get on the regular when he wanted. Facts. But it was Jen herself. She’d been through so many tough times in her life, yet she had a vitality about her— raw exuberance— that wasn’t something he’d ever experienced in a woman. She was warm, real, nurturing, and kindhearted. And he found it hard to imagine ever letting that go. Letting her go. Kevin had been much braver than I could ever be.

TJ was irritated and exhausted with him. Trying to keep Ned away from Jen was proving to be a challenge. And Ned wasn’t keeping a low profile, either. He seemed to slink around everywhere.

“She makes me happy.” Jason sipped his Coke and then bit into one of the french fries on his plate. “I’ve never felt so much for anyone so quickly.”

Mildred laughed. “Oh ho, really?” She rolled her eyes. “One week and you’re in love. Sonny, I think you’re confusing nooky with love.”

“I didn’t say love.” His lips parted at her words. “Mildred—”

“Don’t you think it’s about time you call me something else? Grandma is just fine, thank you.”

I’ll give that some thought. He couldn’t really fathom the idea of calling her Grandma after all these years.

“I know it’s not love. That would be ridiculous. But I care about her in a way I haven’t really cared about anyone. Maybe ever.”

“Care about her so much you’ve told her the whole truth about why you came to Brandywood?” Mildred lifted her crab cake sandwich.

He’d meant to tell her. The thought had kept him up almost every night. But then he remembered the sweetness of her words and the way she’d forgiven him in the woods. He didn’t want to say anything until he was sure he’d found a way to assure her forgiveness again.

When Jason didn’t respond, she gave a self-satisfied smirk. “Didn’t think so.”

“I’m going to tell her.” The acid in the back of his throat was back. It’d been there each time he thought of this subject. Which was often.

“I can’t pretend to faint every time you need to tell the girl something you know. Which, by the way, you still haven’t thanked me for. What’d you think of my performance? I think I should get an Oscar, no?”

“It was brilliant, Mildred,” he deadpanned. “I still haven’t decided if I’m actually thankful for that, by the way.”

“No? Seems to me she’s still running around with you, so it couldn’t have done much harm.”

She was right, in a way. The sex had only gotten better, but by not telling Jen the whole truth that night, he’d delayed the inevitable. “I want to ask her to marry me. I’ll explain about the inheritance then—and I’m hoping that since we’ve deepened our relationship, it’ll be enough to get us through any problems that might arise.”

“Marry you!” Mildred cackled with a piece of crabmeat clinging to her lips. She shoved it into her mouth with the edge of her forefinger. “You think it will be ‘enough to get us through any problems that might arise.’ And here I thought you were the smart grandson.”

Jason narrowed his gaze. “It’s my best shot.” He tugged at the collar of his shirt, his gaze traveling over the nearby restaurant patrons. The restaurant was a small family-type place, where tables were close enough that someone could easily eavesdrop on their conversation. Not quite the privacy he wanted. The jangle of silverware and dishes and low conversations filled his ears.

She shook her head. “You really know squat about women, don’t you?” She leaned forward and hissed, “I don’t care how magical your penis is, son. She’s never going to trust you again.”

This time, he felt his face grow hot. He’d never met an old lady that talked like this. “Is that really necessary?”

“I am who I am, Jason. Your grandfather thought I was a coarse, trashy woman, and I loved every second of making that pig squirm. So maybe I leaned into it a bit. I’m too old to change now.”

“And the ladies from your church are fine with this?”

She tossed up her hands. “Who knows? That’s why I go to church, right? Forgiveness and such.” She wagged a finger at him. “Which is saying more than you. Who knows when you last stepped into a church. And now you’re dragging that poor Klein girl right into temptation with you.”

“I said I wanted to marry her.” Jason’s fist curled at his side. Why did she have to be like this? He’d felt they’d gotten somewhere the last time they had a genuine conversation. And now here she was, putting on a show again. She was exhausting.

“And I said that ship has sailed. The cat’s out of the bag. The cow is out of the barn. Elvis has left the building. Pandora’s box—”

“I get it.” Jason mowed her down with a cutting look.

She took another bite of her sandwich. “I get carried away sometimes.”

“You don’t say.” He was forgetting why he’d asked her to lunch in the first place.

Mildred adjusted the strand of pearls around her neck. “My Martha enjoyed performing, too. You know that’s how your father met her, didn’t you?”

He picked up his burger with both hands. “No, I didn’t.” He knew little about how his parents had met.

“She was singing in a band in her high school. They won a regional award and went on to a national competition. One where hoity-toity schools like the one your father went to mixed with the kids from small towns like Brandywood. Can’t recall the name of it right now, but it doesn’t matter. Your mother was a real artist, you know. Always painting and singing and playing the violin.”

No, he didn’t know . He never recalled her singing or playing the violin. Not once. Painting, occasionally, but never in front of him. Of course, she’d spent the last year of her life shut behind a door.

Her straw slurped in her tea. “Anyhow, your father heard her singing.” She covered her heart with one hand and closed her eyes exaggeratedly, swaying. “Fell in love. Which is apparently what you Cavanaugh men do when you see a woman you like. Your grandpa John courted me properly. Took me out for a full year before asking my daddy to marry me.”

His mouth curved in a smile. His father had fallen for his mother that quickly. “And then what?”

“And then your father stole her from me, that’s what. Martha came home telling me how she was in love. Instead of going to the local college, she graduated a few weeks later and eloped. And that was that. I lost my baby girl.” Mildred’s voice dropped, and she lost the joyful expression in her eyes. “After that, every time I wanted to see her, I had to make an appointment. She was young and vulnerable. Just turned eighteen. Your grandfather made that new identity for her, and she would have twisted herself up into a pretzel trying to please him—and your father.”

Eighteen? Huh. He’d never thought about how young his parents were when they’d gotten married. But the implication that his mother had been some shallow, immature, and uncaring daughter who had abandoned her parents bothered him. “There must have been some other reason she didn’t mind leaving her life behind.” He bit into the hamburger, then chewed slowly, staring at Mildred analytically.

Mildred’s eyes grew teary. “If you’re implying I didn’t love my daughter enough, you can stop right there.” She glared. “I’d kick you under the table if it didn’t mean I might break my toe. Your mother was the apple of her daddy’s eye. She couldn’t do a single thing wrong. That man died of a broken heart after she left.”

Jason swallowed. Her words reminded him of his own thoughts about his mother the other day. “I wasn’t trying to imply you were a negligent mother.”

“That house I live in was the house she grew up in, darling. Not too much to look at, is it? We didn’t have much—always struggled. And then your father came by and the world he took her into—jets to Iceland and weeks in Bora Bora or Hawaii. Days spent buying whatever she wanted, doing anything she wanted. Never having to worry.” Mildred sighed. “And before all that glimmer wore off, she had you boys. She really needed nothing else. Your father adored her, and she loved you boys. Gosh, did she love you.”

So that was it? His mother just left without looking back? “Didn’t she try to come back at all? To visit?”

“At first.” Mildred rubbed her forefinger against her thumb, dusting the crumbs off her fingers. “Then each time she came, she seemed to get more uncomfortable with home. First, she didn’t want to sleep there. She’d book a hotel a whole hour away just because they had sheets with the right thread count. Tried to send people to fix things around the house—poor John just felt awful when she did that.”

Jason set his hamburger down. “So you’re saying she became a pretentious snob who put money above the only family she had?”

Mildred gave him a hard, knowing look. “Is that so hard for you to believe?”

The hair on Jason’s arms stood on end as he stared at her. How she’d turned this around on him, he wasn’t sure. But she had. He’d come down to Brandywood with the same mindset.

“I want to do right by Jen and Colby, though. And you, too. I want to get to know you better.”

“Now. But those weren’t your original intentions, were they?” Mildred smiled at the passing server. “And if Jen ever finds that out, what do you imagine she’ll think?”

“She doesn’t need to know that.”

She clucked her tongue. “I thought you wanted to tell her the truth.”

“I do. And I’m going to. Speaking of the truth and ways to tell her, part of the reason I wanted to talk to you today is that I found out you own some prime real estate on Main Street in Brandywood.”

Mildred threw her head back and laughed. “Oh, why am I not surprised? You want whatever the shriveled hag can give you since old limp dick didn’t leave you anything.”

“Thanks for the crude assessment of my character, but no.”

“Well, I’m sorry to tell you, sonny, but I’ve already decided to leave that disaster to the town of Brandywood. It’s a worthless headache that only costs me money I don’t have in property taxes every year. Stopped even being able to get a renter for it about four or five years ago. I would have gotten rid of it, but no one will buy it off me in the condition it’s in. And to make it worse, the damn thing is on the National Register of Historic Places, so any updates to the place have to go through so much red tape that I’m going to let those law-making idiots deal with it themselves.”

“I already know most of that.” Jason crumpled his napkin and tossed it on his plate. “I didn’t know who you intended to give it to, but it didn’t take me too much research to figure out you’d probably benefit more if I burned it down for the insurance money.”

Mildred quirked a brow. “Is that what you’re suggesting?”

She seemed game for that.

He chuckled. “No.” Setting his forearms on the table, he leaned forward. “Jen mentioned that she’d love to fix it up and make a bakery out of it one day. I don’t know if the building caught her eye because of Colby or you or what, but obviously, she can’t afford to update it. But I can.”

“So you’re going to buy a building that’s worthless and fix it for her? That’s a hell of a bribe.”

Jason bristled. “It’s not a bribe. It’s just something I want to do for her.”

“She might see it as a bribe. I’ll think about it, though. We’ll have to talk numbers.”

The server chose that inopportune moment to come back to the table. “Can I get either of you anything else?”

“My grandson would like a big chocolate milkshake.” Mildred clapped her hands enthusiastically.

Jason shook his head. “I don’t want a chocolate milkshake.” What was she up to now?

The server looked from Mildred to Jason with a confused look on his face. “So . . .”

“A chocolate milkshake.” Mildred gave a firm nod, then smiled.

Arguing about this was pointless. The server looked at Jason, and he sighed, then gave a curt nod.

As the server walked away, Jason leaned forward. “Trying to run up the bill?”

She eyed him. “No. And if that’s what you’re worried about, you need to stop being so tight-fisted. I’m paying.”

God, this lady liked to argue. “You’re not paying.” He was in a much better financial position than she was, so having her pay would be ridiculous.

“Yes, I am. I may not be swimming in tubs of gold coins like your grandfather, but I can afford burgers and fries for my grandson. I won almost six hundred on the slots this weekend. And I asked for the milkshake because you need to relax. Those were your favorite as a kid. You used to beg your daddy for them, and he’d split them with you.”

Jason stared at her, trying to make sense of her. He hated his grandfather’s voice in the back of his head at moments like these, spouting off wisdom about logic. She was driving him nuts, but she was flat-out honest, and that was appreciated. Strangely enough, he liked Mildred—much more than he’d expected to. She was a simple, eccentric woman but surprisingly funny.

“Is there a reason you want me to talk about my father?” Jason crossed his arms.

“Because you need to.” Mildred wiped her mouth with her napkin delicately. “You’re never going to be truly happy until you do, Jason. Look what happened to Kevin. It ate him alive. And even Jen couldn’t fix that. She can’t save you.”

Jason winced at her words. At the parallel. “It wasn’t Kevin’s fault, though.”

“He still blamed himself for it. It wasn’t your fault either.” Mildred coughed into her napkin. “And I can tell you still blame yourself.”

Because she was wrong. It was my fault.

“I’ve talked to professional therapists.” Jason held her gaze. “I’ve talked about it plenty.” Not the complete truth, but she didn’t need to know the details of his therapy sessions.

“Then you need your money back. You have a chip on your shoulder, and it’s weighing you down so heavy you look like you’re going to topple over.”

Jason gave her a brittle laugh, shifting in his seat. “Mildred, this whole thing with the inheritance and Jen and Colby have nothing to do with my father’s death. They’re two separate issues.”

She pulled out her purse and took out her wallet, counting out bills. “No, they’re not.”

“Yes, they really are.” Now he was growing irritated. He felt it building in his chest. She was being stubborn and ridiculous.

Her bright blue gaze sliced through him. “You don’t think that the whole reason you’re so desperate to keep that company going, the main reason, in fact, is because deep down you know your daddy would be running things if he hadn’t died?”

His throat went dry. His palms broke out in an aching sweat, and he rubbed them softly over his thighs under the table.

The waves broke over his head, and he was kicking, kicking, exhausted. Water filled his nose, and he felt himself pulled by the currents. Powerless to get out of them...

He sucked in a sharp breath. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then looked back at that severing gaze. “People will lose their jobs if I don’t save that company.”

Mildred shrugged. “People lose their jobs every day, Jason. What you don’t want is for the Cavanaugh name to lose its importance under your watch. Because you’re the last man standing. And you don’t think you deserve to be.”