Joy held her breath while her pulse ticked in her wrists. Would he recognize them as his daughters now?
“Sit here,” Kinsley ordered Chase, pointing to the chair beside her.
“Please,” Joy reminded her, watching Chase closely. If he had any suspicions, he didn’t show them.
“I’d be happy to sit beside you,” Chase answered, “but you better not try to steal my lasagna.”
Kinsley’s dimpled grin lit up her face. “I eat all your lasagna!”
“Not if I can help it.” Chase laughed with the little girl and Joy’s heart squeezed at the sight. From the moment she knew the girls were on their way, to this moment now, she had always wondered what it would have been like if Chase had chosen her over his family money. All throughout her uncertain pregnancy, while she was giving birth and in the long months afterward when she was trying to finish college and get a job, she had been so angry at him. As a child, she had promised herself a different life for her children than the one she had been dealt—yet here she was, a single woman, trying to do the work of both mom and dad. She couldn’t even guarantee a place for the kids to live.
Harper sat across the table from Kinsley and Chase, uncertainty in her dark brown eyes. She was the least likely of Joy’s children to embrace a stranger, but when she allowed someone into her heart, she held on to them fiercely. Joy had witnessed it in the Sunday school classroom, in her preschool classroom and in their interactions with neighbors and friends. Would Harper ever embrace Chase?
“Hello, Harper.” Chase must have noticed the little girl’s frown as she stared at him.
Harper didn’t respond, but put her head down on her folded arms.
The food was already on the table, so Joy took a seat beside Harper and laid her hand on her back. “Harper is just a little shy around strangers,” she tried to explain—though why she felt the need to clarify anything to Chase was a mystery to her. After the way he had left her, he deserved very little from her or the children.
“Let’s say grace.” Joy took Harper’s and Jordan’s hands and bowed her head, but she kept her eyes open to see how Chase would handle praying with the family. When he had been in Timber Falls the last time, they had spent hours talking about their questions concerning God. It wasn’t until after the girls were born, and Mrs. Thompson had introduced Joy to the members of her church, that Joy had embraced her faith. Had Chase become a believer, too?
He didn’t hesitate, but took Kinsley’s hand in one and Ryan’s hand in the other. He also bowed his head, but caught her watching him before he closed his eyes. His smile was soft and gentle, but it made her cheeks burn.
Closing her eyes tight, she prayed, “Lord, thank You for this meal, this family and all Your provisions. Amen.”
“And thank You for Chase,” Kodi added quickly. “And the tree fort he’s going to build us.”
“Amen,” everyone else echoed.
“Tree fort?” Kinsley’s eyes grew wide. “I come to your tree fort?”
“No, Kinney, you’re too little,” Kodi told her as he took a piece of bread from the basket passing by.
“I not too little!” She frowned indignantly, crossing her arms.
Chase smiled. “Would you like some salad, Miss Kinsley?”
Her frown deepened and she wrinkled her nose. “Carrots are yucky.”
“Then pick them out,” Joy told her daughter.
Kinsley started to pick out the carrot sticks on her plate. While Chase was helping Jordan, she quietly set the offensive vegetables on Chase’s plate.
“What’s this?” Chase asked when he finished with Jordan. He hadn’t placed anything on his plate yet, so the carrots were obviously not his.
Kinsley took a bite out of her garlic bread. “They’re yucky.”
“Then why would I want them?” he asked.
“Because you’re an adult,” Kodi supplied, as if the answer was obvious. “And adults eat their vegetables. Right, Mom?”
Joy nodded, hiding a smile. “Kids should eat their vegetables, too.”
A chorus of complaints filled the kitchen and then the conversation shifted in a dozen different directions. Since Chase was new to the kids, he was the center of their attention, and he answered all their questions patiently.
Joy watched him interact with the kids while a deep sadness overtook her. Why couldn’t things have been different? Why had he told her he loved her four years ago, when he didn’t plan to stick around and prove it to her? Were they just flowery words, used to get what he wanted?
It didn’t matter anymore. She had learned her lesson.
She’d never trust Chase Asher again.
“It’s getting late,” Mrs. Thompson said as she set her coffee cup in the sink. “Here I’ve been, talking your ear off, and you’re probably tired from all your traveling today.” She set her hand on Chase’s shoulder as she took his dirty plate. “You should head on down to the carriage house and get some sleep.”
The sooner he was out of the mansion, the better. Joy stood and took her plate to the sink. The kids were watching TV in the front parlor while Mrs. Thompson and Chase had visited. Over the past thirty minutes, she had discovered that Chase graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles, the year after he left Timber Falls, had gone on to work with his father directly after college and was now living in Seattle. When Mrs. Thompson had asked if there was a special lady in his life, he had evaded the question and changed the subject.
Was there someone else in his life now? Did that someone know he was in Timber Falls with the mother of his children at this very moment?
Joy checked her thoughts and forced herself to stop thinking about Chase’s love life.
“Let me help clear the table,” Chase said.
“Nonsense.” Mrs. Thompson took a dirty glass out of his hand. “I’ll call the kids back in and they can help with the dishes. You should go with Joy and she’ll show you around the carriage house.”
The sun had already set, so the last streaks of daylight were splayed against the sky in pinks and purples. If she wanted to get him settled before it grew completely dark, they’d need to hurry. She’d prefer to send him there alone, but she still didn’t know how his conversation had gone with his father and she hadn’t wanted to ask in front of the children or Mrs. Thompson. If it hadn’t gone well, she’d find a way to tell them herself.
“I’ll grab the keys to the carriage house, if you want to drive your car down the hill,” she said to Chase.
He nodded and cleared another plate off the table, despite Mrs. Thompson’s protests. “Thank you for the delicious meal.”
The older lady’s cheeks glowed at the praise. “Anytime.”
While Chase went out to his car, Joy grabbed the keys from a drawer in the foyer.
Stepping outside, she inhaled the fresh scent of early summer. Ducks quacked in a nearby pond, birds chirped from the treetops and squirrels pranced around the lawn. Deep green foliage filled in the space between branches, offering lushness to the great outdoors.
She walked down the hill to the white carriage house at the bottom and waited for Chase to park his rented Jeep Wrangler. The canvas top was down and he looked every bit the carefree son of a millionaire.
What would he think of her silver