in her life.
Today he had been as honest with Annie as possible. All the way home to Guthrie he had allowed himself to imagine the life they could have…one built around the children.
Jared knew this weekend would be the test.
Once they arrived home, he put the boys into bed, knocking on Caroline’s door as he passed by.
“You can come in, Uncle Jared.”
She sat in the middle of her bed brushing her hair. She had the sweetest face and a gentle smile. Somewhere there was a woman who would never see this girl grow into a young lady, achieve, succeed and be happy. Jared would never understand. He had given up trying.
Caroline had been close to him before her parents’ death, but now she was his shadow. He’d even noticed that she’d tried to assume more responsibility. On more than one occasion he’d had to sit her down and remind her that he was the adult. She could still be a big sister, he had told her, but she didn’t have to try and be a grown-up, too.
That would come far too soon.
He’d wanted her to understand that she didn’t have to carry any burden, that her childhood was precious.
“I have something to tell you.” He sat down on the edge of her bed.
She looked at him, moisture in those big blue eyes, her chin quivering just a little. “Is that lady going to make us go away?”
Jared reached out and touched her hair, wanting to give her comfort, wanting her to feel secure. “No, she isn’t. But that is part of the reason I went into the city today.”
She waited, wide-eyed, a cautious expression on her face, her hands stilled now and resting in her lap.
“I’m bringing someone home this weekend to meet you and the boys. Her name is Annie.”
“Is she going to be our baby-sitter?”
“No, but I’m hoping she’ll be my wife.”
Caroline looked toward her window, eyes fixed on the night sky outside. “I didn’t know you had a girlfriend.”
Jared called on all his patience and love to help her understand this. He was the only person she would trust to explain it to her.
“I don’t. I knew Annie when she was a little girl. She was a friend of your mother’s.” He reached out to cup her chin in his hand, bringing her gaze back to him.
“Caroline, she’s a good person and she wants to help me take care of you, Luke and Toby. I promised you I wouldn’t let you all be split up and sent away. I’m doing everything I can to keep that promise.”
“Then let her be our baby-sitter or our nanny. You don’t have to get married!”
“Sweetheart, nothing will change if I get married.”
She cast him a dark look. “Everything will change,” she said, placing the hairbrush on the nightstand and pulling her knees up to her chest.
“Caroline, this won’t be like when Janice got married,” he said, knowing she didn’t call the woman her mother. That word was reserved for Sara alone.
She looked back at him. “I want to be by myself now.”
He’d handled that like a real pro! Caroline had pulled up the drawbridge and set her walls in place. Jared just had to pray he hadn’t lost her trust or confidence.
He leaned over and kissed her forehead, then reached out to turn off the bedside lamp.
“Leave it on…please.” Her voice was so tiny, her tone unsure and tinged with a fear he knew only time and love would banish.
“You look like Rudolph.”
Annie looked across the desk at Lewis Devereaux. He’d grown up in Guthrie. He was a family friend and had gone through both high school and university with Jared. He was funny, compassionate and he told it like it was. He was also the one person Sara had trusted to handle Toby’s adoption. Since then he’d been a good friend to Annie.
“It’s been an emotional twenty-four hours.”
“Was I wrong to tell him you wanted to see photos?”
Annie shook her head. Lewis was such a sweet man. He might try to pull off the hard-nosed lawyer attitude but it never worked with her. He was a big-hearted softie but he had sworn her to secrecy when she’d mentioned it to him.
“It’s probably a good thing that I get this out of my system now. I can just imagine what kind of look I’d get from Jared if I burst into tears the minute I saw Toby.”
“The lunch meeting must have gone well. He’s told me to get all the paperwork in order so, barring any unforeseen events this weekend, you two can be married as soon as possible.”
He gave her a look of admiration. “I have to say, I didn’t think he’d go for it once you told him about Toby.”
“I didn’t get to tell him. And I found out why you told me not to.”
Lewis looked thoughtful. “And I can see you’re already beating yourself up about not telling him.”
“Lying is wrong. Not only that, but it just makes more problems.”
“You could look at it from the other point of view.”
Annie raised an eyebrow. “Which is?”
“It wasn’t a lie…it was an omission.”
She shook her head and wiped her eyes and nose again. “It’s a lie no matter what way I look at it, Lewis, but there isn’t anything else I can do. It’s for me to reconcile within myself…if I can.”
“Jared is a good man but a little too closed off when he wants to be. Nobody gets close to him easily. And he has a lot of baggage, most of it to do with his birth mother.”
“That’s what I don’t understand. The Campbells gave him a good life. He told me that himself. He saw how the lives of those children improved when Sara and James adopted them. How could he be so shortsighted about it when it brought good things into his life?”
Lewis came around the desk, propping his hip on the edge of it. “He’s seeing it from the other side. You know what it’s like to have to give up a child. He was a child given up. And he wasn’t a baby. He was almost a teenager.”
Annie blew her nose again. She felt sad for the child he had been and for how it had affected the man he was today.
“It’s like I told you at the start, those children need you. Jared needs you, too. It doesn’t matter why he’s marrying you. The fact that he’s willing to do it to keep those kids together is a start.”
She left his office determined not to cry as she walked to the bus stop at the end of the block. People rushed by her, but Annie didn’t notice them.
The
