“I can’t make you any promises,” he continued, “but I can tell you that I care for you a great deal.”
“I care for you, too.”
“That’s a starting point, and where it leads neither of us can know.” He smiled at me with those devilish blue eyes and I understood that Brad Goetz wasn’t going to turn tail and run at the first sign of trouble. He was a man I could trust. A man I could lean on. A man who was my father’s equal in every way.
45
CHAPTER
JACQUELINE DONOVAN
Jacqueline knew she should give her son and daughter-in-law time alone with Amelia, but she couldn’t make herself stay away. The baby had filled a deep emotional void in her, one she’d ignored for years. But the love that blossomed in her heart refused to be ignored. Whenever she held Amelia, the ties that bound her to her granddaughter seemed to grow stronger, more constant and enduring.
Amelia was in her arms now as Jacqueline gently rocked her to sleep. She breathed in the baby’s pure scent, and in a rush of nostalgia remembered holding Paul just this way.
“You look so peaceful,” Tammie Lee said, coming into the nursery with a new package of disposable diapers. She set them on the dresser and turned to watch Jacqueline with Amelia.
Jacqueline glanced up. “Peaceful is how I feel.” She supposed she should apologize for dominating so much of Tammie Lee’s time. She’d been over to the house every day since Amelia had come home from the hospital, and some days she visited twice.
“I don’t mean to make a pest of myself,” Jacqueline murmured, a bit embarrassed at her own behavior.
“Nonsense.” Tammie Lee dismissed her concern with a wave of her hand. “I don’t think it’s possible to give a baby too much love.” She walked to the dresser and pulled out a new infant’s outfit. “Too many clothes, though—that’s something else. I’m not sure she’ll ever be able to wear everything you bought her.”
Jacqueline tried to hide her amusement. “I did go a little crazy.”
“Paul says he’s never seen you like this.”
“I had no idea I was going to love her so much.” Jacqueline cringed whenever she thought about her longheld resentment of Tammie Lee, and her anger when she’d first learned about the pregnancy. To her horror, she remembered calling Tammie Lee a “breeder,” certain she was manipulating Paul. Instead, Jacqueline had finally discovered what everyone else had seen about Tammie Lee from the beginning—she was a genuine and compassionate woman.
“You can love her for my mama,” Tammie Lee whispered. “I so wish she was well enough to travel.”
The idea of sharing Amelia with another grandmother made her feel shockingly possessive, but Jacqueline couldn’t begrudge Tammie Lee’s mother her precious granddaughter.
“Mama already has five granddaughters, though. And three grandsons.”
“A bounty of riches.”
“That’s what my mama says, too. She says she’s the luckiest woman in the world to be blessed with such beautiful, talented grandchildren.”
“Amelia’s the most incredible baby in the universe,” Jacqueline insisted. Tammie Lee chuckled, and Jacqueline didn’t bother to explain that she wasn’t joking. This was one special baby to have four sensible adults completely wrapped around her little finger. Denying this child anything was incomprehensible.
Tammie Lee sat on the end of the bed. “Between you and Paul, I swear Amelia’s in someone’s arms twenty hours a day.”
Jacqueline smiled as the infant slept contentedly. Her tiny mouth moved in a small sucking motion in her sleep.
“Even Reese wants to hold her.”
“Reese has been over?”
“Almost every day, and he always brings her a gift. It’s so sweet the way you two spoil her. Amelia’s just a week old.”
Jacqueline pinched her lips together at this news about her husband’s visits. She hadn’t known that Reese was regularly dropping by, but then she knew very little about his comings and goings. Resolving not to dwell on it, she glanced at her watch. Five-thirty. Paul would be back from work soon and it was time for her to leave.
“I should be heading home,” she said reluctantly. The house had never felt emptier than it had in the last few weeks, nor had she experienced such bitter loneliness. Ever since the night Reese had left her so abruptly, claiming a work emergency when she’d known what he was really doing … She refused to imagine Reese with that other woman.
“Is Reese like his son? Does he like to have dinner precisely an hour after he gets home?”
Tammie Lee asked the question in a joking manner, and that was the way Jacqueline should have responded, but at the moment, her granddaughter in her arms, pretense was beyond her. She’d been living a lie for so long, anyone might think it would be second nature. But she discovered, to her dismay, that she couldn’t do it. It was as if holding this innocent child made anything other than the truth seem wrong.
“Reese doesn’t come home on Tuesday nights,” she said starkly.
“Oh, I didn’t know. Does he bowl?”
The question brought a brief smile. Only Tammie Lee would assume that Reese was part of a bowling team. Jacqueline shook her head.
“Mom?”
For a long time Jacqueline had disliked the easy way Tammie Lee had slipped into the habit of calling her “Mom.” Now it felt like the most natural thing in the world.
“He … has another commitment,” she said.
Tammie Lee didn’t say anything for at least a minute. Then she did something completely unexpected. She sank down on the carpet next to the rocking chair and put her hand on Jacqueline’s knee. The gesture was simple and comforting, and it touched her deeply.
“Did I ever tell you about my uncle Bubba and my aunt Frieda?” She didn’t wait for Jacqueline to answer. “It seems that Bubba—well, actually, that’s not his name, it’s really Othello, but everybody calls him Bubba. It’s a southern thing. Anyway, he took a fancy to the waitress over at the Eat, Gas & Go off Pecan Avenue. Started hanging out there at all hours of the day.”
Six months ago, Jacqueline would have stopped her, but after hearing Tammie Lee’s stories, she’d grown accustomed to the folksy wisdom her daughter-in-law freely dispensed.
“Anyway, Aunt Frieda got wind of what was happening, and she put up the biggest fuss you can imagine.”
“Did she go after the waitress?”
“Aunt Frieda? No way. She tackled my uncle Bubba. She told him she was all the woman he could handle, and if he didn’t believe her, then she’d just have to prove it to him. She told my mama she’d married Bubba and by golly, she wasn’t going to let any waitress lure him away. Next thing I knew, Uncle Bubba was walkin’ around town with a grin as big as a sink hole. Far as I know, he never went near that Eat, Gas & Go again.”
Jacqueline was amused by the story but she wasn’t foolish enough to believe that making a fuss over Reese would change anything. “More power to your aunt Frieda,” she said.
“No, Mom,” Tammie Lee said, staring up at her intently. “The power is yours, too. And you can use it as you wish.”
Her daughter-in-law’s words still rang in her mind as Jacqueline drove home. She pulled into the garage and entered the dark and silent house. Martha had left a chef’s salad in the refrigerator for her dinner; she sat down at the kitchen table and nibbled at it, but