Bring On The Night

Jonah couldn’t resist brushing Henry’s head lightly. When the boy turned to look up at him, Jonah smiled. Henry smiled in return and then his attention went back to the food spread before him. In minutes he had a tray filled with fried chicken, the gelatin, mashed potatoes and gravy. When he pointed to some corn, Kate spoke up.

“Henry, you have enough. You’ll never eat all of what you’ve taken.”

“Let him get it, Kate,” Jonah said quietly, and then he turned to Henry. “I told him to get whatever he wants and I don’t mind. If it’s all right with your mother, go ahead, Henry. Get the corn and whatever else you want.”

Kate looked at Jonah and then nodded to Henry, who took the dish of corn. Next, he wanted a fluffy white roll, and then chocolate cake.

They sat at a table by a window, where they could see across a grassy expanse to cars moving on the busy thoroughfare.

Henry cleaned up the bowl of gelatin first and then started on his fried chicken and mashed potatoes. While he ate, Jonah turned to Kate. “We need to work something out.”

She nodded and gave him a worried glance. “We’ll work out a schedule, but please understand, Jonah, I have to get settled and get him into a day care facility.”

“When are you moving your things from North Carolina?”

“There wasn’t much to move. I sold nearly everything before I left, and we’re sort of starting over now.”

Surprised, Jonah remembered the house he had shared with Kate, a comfortable three-bedroom home in a booming neighborhood. Kate’s parents’ house had been a desirable two-story in a pleasant, older suburb. In the divorce he had let Kate have the house and one car.

She kept her eyes down as she ate, and he studied her again, sure her clothing and jewelry were inexpensive.

“You sold both houses and you didn’t keep any furniture—not what we had or any of your folks’ things?” he asked, giving her close scrutiny.

“I kept a few little things, which I have in the car with me,” she replied, shaking her head.

“Kate, what happened?” he asked, puzzled by her answer. “Even if our possessions gave you bad memories, you loved your parents’ things. I can’t believe you let them go. What did you do with them?”

“I sold them,” she said, busily cutting a thick slice of roast beef. “This is a delicious lunch, Jonah.”

“So you don’t have furniture? Are you going to rent a furnished apartment?” he asked, surprised again, and realizing things must have gone really badly for her to sell both houses and all the furniture. Yet where had the money gone?

“Yes,” she admitted with obvious reluctance.

“Why, Kate? You had a rewarding job and your dad had his own business.”

“I’m sure you remember that Mom and Dad had the roller rink.”

“Sure, I remember. It was a thriving operation,” he replied.

“It was up until the time that we married, but it started slipping then. By the time we divorced, the neighborhood had changed and a bigger, newer rink was built in a better part of town. Instead of getting out, Dad held on. During that time he lost their health insurance because he couldn’t keep up the premiums. Finally he lost the business.”

“Sorry, Kate,” Jonah said tightly, still consumed by anger over Henry, and trying to listen as well as think ahead and make some plans. “What happened then?”

“Dad got a job selling furniture, but it wasn’t an adequate salary and he didn’t have benefits. Then he had a stroke.”

“Sorry,” Jonah repeated, remembering Kate’s father, with his bushy brown hair and his booming voice. The man had seemed so jovial and strong.

“Mom had a part-time job,” Kate continued. Jonah gazed into her wide, hazel eyes, his gaze lowering to her full, red lips. He didn’t want to look at her mouth or recall her kisses, but he did remember vividly, far too clearly. He caught the faint scent of her perfume. Memories from the past mixed with anger from the present, and he had to struggle to focus on what she was telling him.

“…but she had to quit to take care of Dad, and then suddenly I was taking care of both of them. They sold their house and moved in with me.”

“So why don’t you have your things? Surely you didn’t sell them, too.”

She nodded. “Yes, I did. I had to, because of their heart troubles. Without insurance, the medical bills were astronomical, and I had to quit my job to take care of them.”

“You have an aunt and uncle and cousins. Didn’t any of them help?”

“No, they didn’t,” she replied, shaking her head. “They have their own families to take care of. But I managed and didn’t have to go into debt, and I have some money saved for us to start out on. Also, I think I have a promising job lined up. This was a temporary setback, and we survived it.”

He gazed into her luminous eyes and knew if anyone could cope with tough times, it would be Kate. There was a practicality to her, enabling her to get to the essentials. He had always admired her for her ability to handle the tough moments, until the tough moment had been her decision to leave him. But then, that survivor instinct of hers might have been what caused her to walk out on him.

“I’m sorry about your folks,” he said, truly meaning it because he had liked her parents.

She nodded. “They were relatively young to have that all happen, although Dad was thirteen years older than Mom.”

“How’d you find the job here?” Jonah asked.

“Through the Internet.”

She wiped her mouth daintily, and he looked at her lips again for a moment, then tore his gaze away. He didn’t want to remember sexy nights and hot kisses and a myriad other seductive moments with Kate.

He watched Henry, who was steadily eating every bite of food in front of him. So was Kate, and Jonah wondered if they had been going hungry. Again he noticed how thin both of them were. Kate’s blouse looked a size too large.

If she had had a hard time, he was sorry, but it angered him to think that his son had been in dire straits. If she had only let Jonah know, Kate could have so easily avoided any hardships. As swiftly as he thought that about her, Jonah realized that Kate was independent enough to shoulder her own burdens and not expect help from others, much less from an ex-husband who didn’t know about their child.

“Who are your friends, Henry?” he asked, turning his attention to his son.

“Matthew and Billy,” the child answered.

While Jonah talked to Henry about his playmates back in North Carolina, Kate savored her potatoes and spinach. For the past few days, during the long drive to Texas from North Carolina, they had lived on peanut butter sandwiches and cold cuts and whatever else she could buy cheaply and pack in the car.

While he talked to Henry, she studied Jonah. He looked even more handsome than when they had been married. Tall, black-haired, with those midnight brown eyes that Henry had inherited, Jonah had an air of self-assurance and command that he hadn’t had before. Eyeing his navy knit sport shirt surreptitiously, she could tell he had filled out with solid muscle.

During their initial encounter in the drugstore, she had thought she would faint. Never had she expected to see Jonah in this part of Texas. She had always known she should tell him about his son, but it was easy to put off contacting him, and at first, anger at him got in the way. By the time they had parted, she had been furious with him for sticking to his wild lifestyle and staying in Special Forces, which trained him for dangerous assignments.

When she had walked out on him, she hadn’t known she was pregnant. She’d discovered that the first week she was on her own, but in her anger, she hadn’t wanted to tell Jonah or go back.

She had intended to tell him about his son eventually, but it got easier and easier to put it off. When she went through childbirth, Jonah was out of the country on an assignment, and by the time he was back home, she didn’t want to tell him at all.

Finally, enough time passed that she didn’t want to face his wrath or the complications he would cause. When their paths didn’t cross for a year, she’d begun to believe they might never cross again. When her parents both became terminally ill, she couldn’t think about anything except their care and looking after Henry. With her excellent job gone, times had been harsh and lean, because every penny went into caring for the three people dependent on her.

With a rush of warmth, she looked at Henry. He was a lovable little boy, an easy child to raise. She knew he was solemn and didn’t have the preschooling he should have had at this age, but he was bright and affectionate, and she loved him with all her heart.

Her gaze shifted to Jonah, noting that imperial nose, his prominent cheekbones and thickly lashed eyes. As her gaze drifted down to his mouth, she remembered too clearly moments of passion and how Jonah’s kisses could turn her to mush.

She was surprised he hadn’t remarried, but then, his career was his life, and it stood in the way of other commitments. Still, he was breathtakingly handsome, and a lot of women were drawn to men like Jonah. He had an old-world courtesy about him that females liked. Kate had been fully aware of the fury he had controlled today when he had learned about Henry.

Jonah had never lost his temper with her—not in their bickering about his career, not even in the last bitter argument when she had walked out on him. He had always kept his voice down, always kept his wits about him. But she had once seen him wade into a fight to save a slender guy who was being beaten by a gang of men, and Jonah had been wild and fierce and frightening. And he had ended the battle in seconds.