He couldn’t deny it. What had started as Jase helping out with bookkeeping and ordering supplies for his mom’s little craft shop had developed into Jase subbing for her on cable TV’s most prominent shopping network. He’d felt silly at first, standing beside the show hosts, describing his mom’s handcrafted wooden and ceramic birdhouses, wall decorations, lawn ornaments and colorful bakeware. Before long, though, her products grew so popular that she’d had to sign on with a manufacturing company to mass-produce her can’t-get-them-elsewhere items. Even before the money started rolling in, Jase looked forward to monthly flights to Florida to do live shows during which audience members, mostly women, called in to ooh and aah over Colette’s Crafts...and flirt with him.
“You’ve been a huge help to me, honey. If not for you, I’d still be operating out of this office-slash-parlor-slash-library-slash-craft room.” She hesitated. “You know, if you need a break, we’re doing well enough to afford to hire an actor to take your place on the show.”
“Why would we do that?”
“So you can get back to your music, part-time, of course, because I need you as CEO. And maybe even tell Whitney that you love her, too, settle down and start a family.” She sniffed. “At the rate you and Drew are going, I’ll be a decrepit old woman before I become a grandmother.”
“Wait. Too?”
“Don’t look so surprised. We’ve sort of become friends. And friends confide in one another.”
Things like I love your son?
“For one thing, the subject of love has never come up.” He wished he hadn’t just told Dora that it might. “For another, I don’t much appreciate finding out that my mother and the woman I’m dating are talking about stuff like that behind my back.” He cringed. “It’s creepy.”
“She’s more than just the woman you’re dating.”
He could only stare in disbelief.
“She’s your girlfriend.”
“Mom...”
“Well? Do you?”
“Do I what?” As if you didn’t know...
“Good grief, Jase, don’t be so obtuse. Do you love Whitney, or not?”
Jase could admit that he enjoyed spending time with her. And that it felt pretty good, seeing a twinge of envy on other guys’ faces when he entered a room with the gorgeous blonde on his arm. But love?
“Mom, I—”
“Are you hesitating because you’re still in love with Lillie?”
“No way.” He tried to sound like he meant it. “You’re right. She messed up my head, bad. I have no desire to go through that again.”
“Not even now that she’s home again, supposedly cured of her addiction?”
Whitney couldn’t have told her about that, because to his knowledge, Whitney knew almost nothing about Lillie’s drug history. Unless...
“Please tell me you didn’t discuss Lillie’s past with Whitney.”
“What difference would it make if I did...if you’re over Lillie?”
“Whitney told you we ran into her and Liam today, didn’t she.”
“Yes. So?”
“So I don’t appreciate having my personal business broadcast all over town.”
She and Dora had both accused him of having trust issues. Was it any wonder!
Colette clucked her tongue. “First of all, I realize I’ve gained a few pounds, recovering from the TIA, but I’m certainly not big enough to be referred to as a whole town. And second, you were with Whitney when you ran into Lillie. I’d say that makes it her business, too. And if she wants to share a thing like that with me...” She shrugged. “Jase. Honey. I just want you to be happy.”
Almost word for word what Dora had said. Seemed a pretty feeble way to excuse their intrusion into his personal business.
“I pray every night that Whitney is the woman who’ll make your heart skip a beat, who’ll take your breath away. That she’ll make you smile just by walking into a room. Your father made me feel like that, right up until the end.”
And that, Jase believed, was part of the problem. As Lillie disappeared down the rabbit hole, over and over, he’d lost faith in her. Lost his confidence in his ability to tell the truth from a lie. How was he supposed to connect with a woman—or trust one for that matter—when he couldn’t trust his own judgment?
He was in too deep to change the subject now, so he said, “I don’t mind admitting, I’m a little envious of what you and dad had.”
“There’s something to be said for old-shoe comfort, for that spark that makes you...well, you know.” She giggled. “I tell you, that father of yours had the power to make me go weak in the knees with nothing more than a look. And when he kissed me?” She rested a hand over her heart, then finished with a mischievous wink. She threw back her head and laughed. Then, as suddenly as it began, her laughter subsided. “I have a question for you, son.”
“Uh-oh,” Jase said. “I’m almost afraid to hear it.”
She went on as though he hadn’t spoken. “When you kiss Whitney, does your heart skip a beat? Does the breath catch in your throat? Do your knees go weak?”
“That was three questions.”
“Despite my advancing age and allegedly frail condition, I’m not that easily distracted.”
Jase could answer all of her questions with a single word: no.
Because he’d felt that way only with Lillie.
He’d loved her, maybe too much, and it galled him that she’d chosen drugs over him.
Seeing her today proved two things. First, despite his denials, he still felt something for her. And second, self-preservation told him that he needed to smother it, fast.
Love without trust was a recipe for agony.
And he didn’t believe he had the mettle to lose her again.
“THERE SHE GOES AGAIN,” Molly said, “with her ‘back in the old days’ reference.”
Since returning home, that was how Lillie referred to her life before the accident. The phrase inspired relentless teasing from her siblings—a whole lot easier to bear than the standoffish behavior they’d displayed prior to the repayment of every dollar borrowed and stolen—and her heartfelt apologies.
In response to her sister’s latest dig, Lillie said, “At least I didn’t commit marital alliteration. Matt and Molly, I mean really.”
“Marital alliteration?” Her brother reared back with mock surprise. “She dragged the dictionary out for that one, and much as I hate to admit it, she’s right!”
Arms crossed, Molly huffed. “You’re a fine one to talk, Sam, marrying a girl with the same name.”
Liam’s laughter filled the sunny yard as his wife said, “All right you guys, if you want to eat later, get back to work!”
The construction crew had completed the exterior work and moved inside to put the finishing touches on the kitchen addition. That left the outside clear for Lillie’s family to work on. Plants that had grown in beds around the old porch now stood in lopsided plastic pots along the back fence.
“Lillie,