Christmas Homecoming

Gabi got in behind Dawn, hoping she’d be able to eat. It might be hard, with a Hamilton man sitting across the table. Jeremy stood there, staring at them.

“Jeremy, are you coming with us?” Dawn asked, grinning.

Jeremy looked directly at Gabi. “I don’t want to intrude.”

Dawn, for once, stayed quiet. But she quirked a brow toward Gabi.

“You’re not intruding,” Gabi finally said, sure she’d regret this later. “Please, join us.”

He stepped into the elevator and silently pushed the button to the lobby, his gaze moving over Dawn’s smiling face before his eyes settled on Gabi. Then he gave her that hesitant little half smile she was beginning to recognize. “Lunch with two lovely women. I think my day just got a whole lot better.”

Chapter Four

Jeremy’s good mood changed the minute they entered Betty’s Bake Shoppe and Bookstore. The crowded dining area went still as everyone in town, it seemed, glanced up and right at him. The silence that followed only added to his humiliation. He wanted to turn around and leave, but one glance at Gabi and he knew he couldn’t do that.

She sent him a challenging look, followed by a soft smile. “You’re a Hamilton, remember? Act like one.”

Surprised at the spunk behind that whispered statement, he actually managed to smile back. “But they all know the truth,” he said through gritted teeth. “Maybe I should just—”

“Don’t you dare,” Dawn said, giving him her own determined look.

Gabi stood on one side and Dawn on the other, closing ranks around him. Dawn leaned close. “The truth is that you will always be Jeremy Hamilton. Are you gonna let the gossips win?”

Jeremy mulled that over, his head coming up, his gaze scanning the crowd. He might be confused and disillusioned, but he’d never been a coward. Nodding, he lifted his head even higher and met the compassionate gaze of Betty Owens herself.

“Jeremy Hamilton,” Betty said, a nervous lilt to her greeting. “C’mon on in here and let me get you something to eat.”

Jeremy breathed a sigh of relief. Betty had never been chummy with him, but she’d always been polite at least. “Thanks, Betty. It’s good to see you.”

“Good to have you back.” Betty fidgeted with the menus, her head down. “Y’all can have a table near the window. I’ll send Justine over to take your order in just a jiffy.”

Jeremy had always admired Betty’s work ethic. She was a fixture here at the Bake Shoppe, greeting customers, smiling and comparing good stories with the many book buyers. She also loved to tell juicy stories too, mostly gossip. Betty always knew anything around town before anyone else did. Maybe he should have a long talk with her. She might know who’d been leaking all these scandals to the Observer.

Then a thought occurred to him. Could it be Betty? No, that wasn’t possible. She might like to gossip, but Betty Owens would never deliberately hurt another human being with malicious intent. In fact, she’d always been a bit close-mouthed and standoffish regarding the Hamiltons.

Which made Jeremy even more curious, now that he thought about it. He appreciated her business sense as well as her book smarts. But he’d never figured out why she always seemed so distant and nervous around him, as if she couldn’t open up with him the way she did with most of her customers. Today, she looked tired. Drained was a better word. Maybe she just needed a break. He could certainly understand that concept.

Glancing around after Betty walked away, Jeremy ignored the stares and whispers, concentrating instead on the few friends who took the time to wave and smile at him.

His brother Chris’s partner on the police force, Jason Welsh, called out from the next table. “Jeremy, you old hound dog. Chris said you were home. Good to see you.”

“Thanks, Jason,” Jeremy said, waving a hand. “Where’s my brother today, anyway?”

Jason’s smile lit up his face. “He’s with Felicity. Those two are an item, don’t you know?”

“I do know,” Jeremy replied, happy for his baby brother. His half brother, he reminded himself.

He turned back to find Gabi staring at him, a pleased expression on her pretty face.

“See, it’s not so bad,” she said, her dark eyes watching him with an intensity that almost made him feel even more uncomfortable. Except that he saw no hint of pity in her eyes. More like admiration and pride.

She shrugged it off. “We’ve all been the center of gossip at one time or another.”

“It’s not easy,” he admitted, wondering when in her life she’d been in this kind of situation.

“No one is going to mess with you,” Dawn said, her tone indicating she wouldn’t allow that.

Jeremy sighed, then pretended to read over the menu.

“You two make a formidable team, but I can handle this.” He dropped the menu, his gaze moving over Gabi. “Thank you.”

Gabi sent him a warm, shy smile. “I owe you, remember?”

“You do?”

“Yes. You single-handedly painted the church daycare and nursery, didn’t you?”

He chuckled. “Yeah, and most of the floor and myself, too.”

“You did a great job, Jeremy,” Dawn said, nodding her approval. “But don’t get too comfortable. Your work at church is not done yet.”

He groaned. “Is that why you insisted on bringing me to lunch? So you could bribe me into more hard labor?”

“Maybe,” Dawn said, grinning. “Hmmm. I think I’ll have a chicken salad sandwich. How about you, Gabi?”

Jeremy waited, watching Gabi’s face as she studied the menu. “My usual, probably. A vegetable plate.”

“She thinks she has to watch her weight,” Dawn pointed out to Jeremy.

Jeremy gave Gabi another once-over. Her long dark hair fell around her shoulders in gentle waves. Her blue button-up sweater was a nice contrast to her crisp white blouse. Her clothes were nothing fancy, not like the designer outfits his sisters and his mother wore in various forms and fashions, but she looked dainty and feminine just the same.

“You look fine to me,” he said, then quickly averted his eyes to glance out the window. He hadn’t meant that to slip out.

Gabi looked down at her menu, clearly embarrassed. “My mother is an excellent cook, and I rarely have time to exercise. I have to be careful.”

Dawn shook her head. “You get plenty of exercise, running after those two girls.” Then she waved a hand in the air toward Jeremy. “Oh, you should try Mrs. Marquez’s tamales, Jeremy. They are so good.” Lifting her brow, she turned to Gabi. “Think your mom would feed this poor man?”

Jeremy gave Gabi a mock-pathetic look, just to see if he could make her blush again. “I do love tamales.”

“You’d have to get in line,” Gabi said, very pragmatically. “I have four brothers and a sister. We know the boardinghouse reach very well at my parents’ table.”

“I know that same reach, even if I was only allowed to do that whenever my mother wasn’t looking,” Jeremy said, then he looked down at the table. “Although it’s been a while since I’ve been to a Hamilton family dinner.”

“All the more reason to try dinner somewhere else for a change,” Dawn suggested, shrugging. “You don’t have to mind your manners so much at the Marquez house.”

“We have manners,” Gabi said, grinning. Then she looked from him to Dawn, clearly confused at her friend’s suggestion. “My mother will feed anyone who wants a good meal, though.”

Jeremy laughed again. “Such a nice way of saying c’mon by anytime, right? I think I get the picture. Maybe I’d better stick to my own family dinners, even though they can be a bit stuffy at times.”