“For two nights,” he said. “My grandmother apologized to me for years for that, but she couldn’t stop it. It took her a few days to get an attorney and get me back.”
Which meant the bond between Chance and his grandmother was the strongest force on earth.
And if she had any shot of something with the man in this room, she had to go through Rhea Drummond first.
21
GOOD ENOUGH
There was something going on with Jocelyn and he didn’t know if he was the cause.
She was quieter than normal. Then she was asking questions and he could tell she was uncomfortable.
Wrong.
Hewas uncomfortable.
He didn’t need her sympathy.
He didn’t want her pity either.
It’s not like he got much of it as a kid and wouldn’t have wanted it then.
“Do you want to talk about your mother?” he asked. “You brought up that we had something traumatic happen to us both at the same age. They aren’t really the same in my eyes.”
Her mother lived. Her mother cared. They had a family.
He never had a proper family in his life.
Just him and his grandmother, and he always thought it was good enough.
When he joined the fire department, he got a second family. One he enjoyed, but it wasn’t the same thing as what the McCarthys had.
“It was a hard time,” she said. “I still struggle when I think back. Thirteen is a rough age.”
“All the teenage years are a rough age,” he said, laughing. He put more pasta on his fork and ate. “This is good. Thanks for cooking.”
“You can return the favor for me one day,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows.
“I will if you really want to see my place.”
“I’d like to, but I didn’t mean it that way. You could cook for me here if you wanted to.”
“Whatever works for you.”
It’s not as if he was hiding his place from her. Not likeshewanted to hide what they had from people they knew.
She busted his ass over what they had being just fun, butshewas the one putting it in a box and closing the top, not him.
He supposed the fact that her family accepted him was a step in the right direction.
What the direction was, was anyone’s guess.
“As for my mother—it was hard to find out she had cancer. We, as kids, knew what it meant. She had to go through chemo for several months. Was tired, weak, lost her hair, got sick. She worked when she felt up to it. She didn’t want any of us to see her down.”
“I think you’re a lot like your mother and don’t want people to think you’re weak either.”
“Exactly. But we saw it. Gabe stepped up. He took over being bossy to me and Jayce.”
