A Time To Come Home

She smiled wryly. “Not following the fun, that’s for sure.”

“Oh, no. Why’s that?”

Regretting her too-frank answer, she affected a shrug. “Life’s not as simple as it was when we were kids. I have responsibilities now. I didn’t go to college. I’ve worked secretarial jobs mainly, with some waitressing thrown in. But making enough money is always a struggle.”

“You’re a single mom, right?”

Diana nodded. She’d left Bentonsville before her pregnancy showed, so she couldn’t be sure how many people knew about Jaye. But Chris wasn’t just anyone. Growing up, he’d spent so much time at her house he’d seemed like a third brother.

“Yeah. Her name’s Jaye.” From the look that passed over Chris’s face, she gathered pointing out she’d named her child after her late brother was unnecessary. “She’s smart and sweet and the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“I’d love to meet her.” He sounded sincere, a quality she’d always associated with him. “Is she with your mother?”

She hesitated only briefly before saying, “She’s staying with Connor in Silver Spring until I get settled.”

Her brain spun, devising new replies should he ask follow-up questions but he fastened on something else.

“Until you get settled? What do you mean by that?”

“I’m in the process of moving to Gaithersburg. I’m starting classes this week at a career training center not far from there.” Before he could ask when Jaye would join her, she continued, “But enough about me. What are you up to?”

Chris had always been shrewd. His dark piercing gaze told her he still was, but he let her get away with changing the subject.

“I’m the director of a community center that started up a few years back. I love it. We’ve got programs for seniors, aerobics classes, day care, community theater and meeting room space. We’re always hopping.”

“That’s great, Chris. It seems like you’ve found a job that suits you.”

He tapped a finger on his chin. “Is that another way of saying I’ll never be rich and famous?”

“As though you want to be,” she teased. “If making money was important to you, you never would have gone into social work.”

He lifted both of his hands, palms up. “You’ve got me there.”

She perched her elbows on the table, balanced her chin in her hands and made her eyes dance. “Okay. On to the good stuff. Are you married? Engaged? Seeing anyone?”

His hesitation was so brief she thought she might have imagined it. “Nope, nope and nope. How about you?”

“Ditto,” she said, removing her elbows from the table. She’d dated some over the years but had never felt as intensely about anyone as she had about Tyler. She’d forced herself to put him out of her mind a long time ago, spurred by the crushing knowledge that despite the lies she’d told he would have come after her had he really loved her. “I always thought I’d get married some day, but I’m starting to think I was wrong.”

“I hear you,” Chris said.

Her brain whirled as she tried to figure out how to bring the topic around to Tyler. The more she knew about him, the better prepared she would be to tell him about Jaye. “I imagine a lot of people we went to school with are already married.”

He nodded. “That’s true.”

What to say? Diana wondered. How to say it? “Funny, I just happened to see one of our ex-classmates when I was driving through town. Tyler Benton.”

This time she was sure she didn’t imagine Chris’s body stiffening. She tried to sound nonchalant. “Is Tyler married?”

The seconds ticked by before Chris answered, marked by the heavy beating of her heart. Things would go more smoothly if Tyler wasn’t married, she told herself. Not all wives would be accepting of a child from another relationship.

“No,” Chris finally said, causing the knot in her stomach to unfurl. “Although I don’t expect he’ll wait much longer.”

The knot balled up again. “Do you mean he’s engaged?”

Chris fidgeted in his seat. “Not as far as I know. I meant the right kind of wife can help further the career of a guy like Benton, and the woman he’s dating fits the bill. Any particular reason you’re so curious?”

“Not really, except we used to be friends,” she said quickly while she wondered what kind of impact the sudden appearance of a child would have on Tyler’s life.

“That’s right,” Chris said. “I vaguely remember that now that you mention it.”

“We weren’t all that close,” she said, deliberately downplaying the connection. Until she told Tyler about Jaye, she couldn’t afford to get tongues wagging, not that Chris had ever struck her as a gossip. “I probably wouldn’t have much to say to him even if I had stopped and talked to him. Because, like I said, we weren’t close.”

Shut up, Diana, she instructed herself.

It appeared as though her long-winded explanation had piqued Chris’s curiosity instead of sating it. But when he spoke, it wasn’t of Tyler. “Getting back to the career training center you mentioned, what are you planning to study?”

She relaxed slightly. That question was simple enough to answer. “Business administration.”

“Do you have a job lined up?”

Another easy question. “Yeah. I was waitressing at a Scarlet Pimpernel in Nashville. Do you know the chain? There’s a restaurant in Gaithersburg.”

He tapped the top of the table with the fingertips of one hand, and she could almost see gears turning in his brain. “What I’m going to say might sound crazy, but would you consider working for me instead?”

She felt her jaw drop. “Here in Bentonsville?”

He smiled. “That is where the community center is located.”

Bentonsville was also the place of so much hurt for her, the place where Tyler and her mother still lived. Merely driving here had been emotional. “Working in Bentonsville never occurred to me.”

“That’s because you didn’t know I’d offer you a job. My office manager left last week. Doing both jobs is getting to be a strain. I wouldn’t expect you to step into her position right away, but I could sure use the help, and from someone I know I can trust.”

“You’re serious.” She read the verification on his face. “But don’t you have an application process where you need to interview other candidates?”

“We’re a nonprofit organization that operates under a grant that comes up for review every few years. I don’t answer to anyone other than myself on personnel issues.”

“But you don’t know anything about me anymore.”

“That’s not true,” he said. “I know you’re a single mom with secretarial experience who used to live in Bentonsville. I also know you’re the sister of the guy who used to be my best friend.”

Chris and J.D. had once been as tight as two people could be, hanging out in the weight room, on the football field, in the halls at school. But they hadn’t been close at the end. If guilt festered inside Chris, it was a different variety than the kind Diana lived with every day of her life.

“This is just about J.D., isn’t it?” she asked quietly. “That’s why you’re offering me a job.”

He glanced briefly away before his eyes settled on her once again. “I’ve always felt bad about how we drifted apart. So, yeah, J.D. has something to do with it. The fact that I used to think of you as a kid sister does, too. But the bottom line is I need to hire somebody soon, and you need a job.”

“I have a job lined up.”