His father’s rough hand patted him on the knee. “That’s good, son. That’s exactly what I want to hear.”
Doubt dropped like a stone in Jon’s gut, as it always did when he traveled this line of thought. “I’m afraid I’m going to screw it all up.”
“I’m sure you will,” his father said definitively. “Men tend to screw shit up. I mean, look at me. I’ve been married to your mother for thirty-two years and I screw shit up every day. You just have to make sure you find a woman who’s willing to put up with you.”
“Yeah, but my baggage…” Jon hesitated, the words sticking in his throat. “That’s a tough pill to swallow. I’m afraid it’ll destroy everything when she finds out.”
Meeting his eyes, his father grew serious. “If she loves you, you’ll find a way to get through it. But, Jon, the problem here isn’t her, it’s you.” He looked out across the yard at their women. “At some point you have to forgive yourself and move on. You have to surrender everything, your past, your present, your future. If you want to be happy, you’re going to have to let go and surrender to love and trust that it’s strong enough to carry you through the worst so you can find your way through to the best. You’re going to have to tell her, son. The sooner the better.”
Swallowing thickly, Jon nodded, hearing the truth in his words ringing loud and clear. He was willing to surrender everything for a chance at something more with Patricia. Would she be willing to surrender her love to him after he revealed his secret to her?
So Stephanie put her in charge of the cash box. Patti wasn’t sure if that was a testament to the woman’s trust in her, or a test. Just the idea that it could be a test brought out the wicked and playful side of her. Had Stephanie been anyone other than Jon’s mother, she might have been tempted to stuff a couple of small bills in her pocket just to shake things up a bit. The girls would have had a real hoot over it, but she didn’t want to do anything that would engender any bad feelings.
She knew this was important to Jon, even though they hadn’t been together long, which meant it was important to her, too. Crazy how things just worked out sometimes.
She’d just finished counting out change to a woman who’d bought a country-style duck statue clothed in a dress when Jon and his father approached the table.
“We’re going to head across the street to give the Shelbys a hand,” Jon informed her. Sweat dampened his brow and stained his t-shirt darker under his arms and across his chest. Patti couldn’t help thinking about how delicious he looked, all hot and tired. His muscles bulged in places from the constant workout of lugging around heavy objects, but she wasn’t about to complain. Rather, it made her want to crawl over the table separating them and climb his body like a tree. She couldn’t wait until later when she had him all to herself. Oh, the things she wanted to do to his body. Sinful, wicked things that could get her arrested. The spot between her thighs, already saturated by their earlier lovemaking, clenched tight, and she felt the liquid heat of Jon’s semen wet the inside of her thigh.
How embarrassing.
It was a good thing no one else could see what was happening just then.
When she looked up at Jon, heat still lingering in his blue eyes, Patti felt herself blush all the way down to her toes. Not just because Jon was staring at her as if he wanted to eat her up all over again, but because Walter was standing right there, watching the silent communication pass between them as if he knew the details of the message being sent.
“Oh, okay,” she said, forcing her smile up a notch. “I would say have fun, but, well…” She shrugged. There was nothing fun about hard labor in this kind of heat, and they well knew it. She was sweating enough as it was, and she had the benefit of being shaded by a tree.
Jon winked at her, and then turned to walk away. Patti’s heart thumped wildly in her chest. Just being near him drove her wild. If she weren’t careful now, he might take her heart as his prize when he walked away. Because he would. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but one day. They always did.
But for now, Patti smiled to herself. For now, she had him, and she was going to enjoy him.
“Uh oh, I know that look.” Stephanie joined her at the table and dropped an armload of clothing on to it. Patti reached out and picked up a pair of jeans to help fold.
“What look is that?” she asked curiously.
“The one that says you’re hopelessly, madly in love with my son.” Stephanie flashed her megawatt smile at her.
Patti sucked air between her teeth and shook her head in denial, but the words that spilled out of her mouth surprised her. “What’s not to love? He’s intelligent, successful, confident, strong and…” She blew out a steadying breath as her eyes sought him out among the growing crowd. She found him, arms flexing, butt firm as he helped another man load up a mattress set into the bed of a truck.
“Hot?” Stephanie offered.
“Hot,” Patti echoed.
“Yeah, he gets it from his father,” she sighed whimsically. “When we were younger, I had to practically beat the girls away, until one day I got so sick and tired of keeping guard over him, I let him know it. And do you know what he said to me? He said, ‘Babe, you’re the only girl I see.’” They sighed as one at the sheer level of romance packed into that single statement, which surprised the hell out of Patti. She was not a sigher! “He knew he had me, and that was when I finally realized that I had him, too.”
“That’s a really sweet story,” Patti told her honestly. “Maybe one day I’ll find someone like that.” Okay, so maybe she was still suffering from a bit of denial. It would pass.
Dropping what she was doing, Stephanie placed her hand on Patti’s shoulder and turned her so they were standing face-to-face. “You already have. Jonathon might not know it yet, but he’s completely in love with you.”
Patti’s eyes widened. She didn’t know what to say to that. “How do you know?” Again, her gaze strayed to the house across the street, searching. When she found him, she felt a weird twisting sensation in her stomach.
“Because a mother knows,” Stephanie said beside her, following her line of sight.
Just then, as if feeling her eyes on him, Jon lifted his head and looked her way. His mouth turned up in that wide, sexy smile she loved so much, and suddenly, the rest of the world fell away. It was just the two of them, in their own little world, smiling at each other. And she knew, beyond a doubt, with one hundred and fifty percent certainty, she had fallen head over heels in love with the man.
Shaken by her revelation, she passed him a brief smile and got back to work. The next couple of hours passed with relative ease. Patti handled dozens of transactions, met what seemed like half the neighborhood during that time, all of which seemed to have already heard about her and Jon dating. They gushed over that, though Patti couldn’t understand why. It was as though everyone there was deeply embedded in one another’s lives, interested and invested in their happiness and success in life. She was so baffled by the close-knit community that she felt almost like an imposter. She had never in her life witnessed such caring between strangers. It was nothing at all like living in the city where everyone was out for themselves, too busy putting one foot in front of the other to bother caring about the person beside them.
Possibly even more disturbing: she never expected to feel so at home here. All the smiling faces, the innocent questions of people genuinely interested in her well-being, threw her for a loop, but it felt damn good, too. It gave her a new respect for Jon’s life while growing up as a child, and what it must have been like to know so many people cared. His parents alone were amazing.