The Bachelor's Sweetheart Read online

  Several people in the lobby, including Maura and Josh’s father, looked in the windowed wall.

  Tessa touched Josh’s arm, and he jerked it away. “I can’t deal with this. You. I can’t.” He charged out of the room, brushing by Maura and the others in the lobby, glancing back at her through the glass before disappearing out the main lobby door.

  Anger, hurt, she could take. But the look of pure disgust on his face cut her to the core in a way that might not ever heal. She crumpled in a chair, buried her face in her hands and wanted a drink with a fierceness she hadn’t felt in years.

  The sound of the door opening and closing made her lift her head. Maura walked over, righted the other chair and sat.

  “That wasn’t how I wanted him to find out,” Tessa said.

  “I know.”

  “I should have told Josh long ago, like you said.”

  “That time’s gone. It’s a new day. Focus on tonight,” Maura said. “Do you still want to go for coffee with Pete and Jerry? I think you should.”

  Josh’s father. He’d been at the meeting tonight, and when she pointed him out to Maura, her sponsor had suggested they include him and his sponsor, Pete, in their usual after-meeting coffee group.

  Tessa looked out the window. “Where is Jerry? He didn’t go after Josh, I hope.” She shuddered at what that confrontation could do to both of the Donnellys.

  “He did, but Pete stopped him. They went ahead to the diner.”

  Tessa bent and picked up her bag from the floor. “I’ll go. I don’t trust myself to go home.”

  “Do you want to pray?” Maura asked.

  What she wanted was to crawl into a hole somewhere, preferably with a bottle of something. “I think I’d better.” For the first time in a very long time, Tessa had doubts that it would help.

  By the time Tessa pulled her car behind Maura’s SUV in the diner parking lot, she felt marginally more in control. Maura waited at the door while she trudged her way across the parking lot.

  “If you’d rather not go in,” Maura said, “I can text Pete, and we can go back to my house instead.”

  “That would be the easy way out,” Tessa said more to herself than her friend.

  The corner of Maura’s mouth quirked up. “The idea isn’t to make things as hard for yourself as you can.”

  “But that’s my usual approach.” Tessa stepped by Maura and opened the door. “And getting to know his father better may be the only way I have to salvage my friendship with Josh.”

  “Keep in mind that friendship involves two people. If he can’t accept you for who you are...”

  Tessa lifted her hand. “I’m only too aware of that, and I don’t know whether he can accept me or if I should even expect him to.”

  Maura shook her head, a signal that she wasn’t going to join her pity party. “There’s Jerry in the back booth.”

  Tessa’s gut clenched when she saw Jerry motion to them with a smile that was pure Josh. Or Josh’s smile was pure Jerry.

  “Where’s Pete?” Maura asked as she slid into the booth seat after Tessa.

  “He has an early day tomorrow. I assured him I was in good hands with you ladies.”

  Tessa swallowed the distaste of Josh’s father flirting with them, everything she’d heard about his womanizing rushing through her head.

  “Yeah,” Maura said. “Pete mentioned he’d taken on a second job as a substitute morning school bus driver.”

  Tessa stared at Maura’s non-reaction to Jerry’s comment. He was old enough to be her father. Didn’t she catch the inflection in his words? Jerry’s phrasing was different, but his voice sounded exactly like Josh’s did when he was talking up a woman.

  “He told me they had more openings, but I don’t have ten years of a clean license like he does. I just got mine back. Never had a license in California after my old New York one expired. The tip Pete gave me about the painting gig at GreenSpaces panned out, though.”

  Tessa set her jaw. GreenSpaces, the garage apartment and the trim on Grandma’s house. Everywhere you can be in Josh’s face.

  “And—” he nodded to her “—Tessa’s grandmother was kind enough to offer me more work,” Jerry said, “on the flimsy reference that I used to mow her mother’s lawn for her when I was a kid.”

  “Sounds like a good start establishing your business,” Maura said.

  The arrival of their waitress saved Tessa from having to add her encouragement. She admitted to herself she’d agree if Jerry wasn’t the catalyst that had started the chain reaction that was causing her friendship with Josh—her life—to implode.

  “What can I get you?” the waitress asked.

  “Do you have chamomile tea?” Tessa asked.

  “Sure do,” the waitress answered.

  “I’ll take a cup.”

  Jerry glanced at Maura, who was reading a text on her phone. “Make mine coffee, black,” he said.

  Another way he was like Josh. She had to stop the comparisons before she fueled her tension into a killer headache.

  “Nothing for me.” Maura put away her phone, and the waitress left. “That text was from my husband. He got a call from work to come in and fix an equipment malfunction. I have to meet him on his way over there and retrieve the kidlets. That offer to stay at my house tonight is still open, Tessa.”

  She wavered. “I’m okay. I’d like to stay and talk with Jerry.”

  “Talk to you tomorrow,” Maura said.

  “Going to read me the riot act?” Jerry asked once Maura was out of hearing range.

  Tessa rubbed her temples. “For what?”

  “Being an alcoholic, being Josh’s father, returning to the area—take your pick.”

  She took a packet of sugar from the sugar caddy while the waitress placed two mugs and a small stainless-steel teapot on the table, poured Jerry’s coffee and left. How much of their conversation had the woman heard? She ripped the top off the packet. What did it matter? She didn’t know the waitress.

  Jerry watched her over the rim of his mug. His eyes, at least, were different from Josh’s, more hazel than blue.

  “No riot act. Just a question. Why did you come back to Paradox Lake? I know, to make amends. But why stay? You must have been doing all right in California to be where you are with the program.”

  He lowered the mug to the table. “When I hit rock bottom, I realized that the only things I’d ever had of value in my life were here. I’ve lost Gail, Josh’s mother, for good. She has someone else, and I’m truly happy for her. But the boys.” His voice went gruff. “They mean the world to me.”

  “Me, too,” she said.

  He cocked his head.

  “About hitting bottom and reaching for the best part of my life when I started to climb out, coming home to my grandmother and grandfather. When I was growing up, I spent a lot of time with them and my other grandmother in Batavia. She’s gone now. My parents are missionaries in Africa,” she said, as if that explained things.

  “Your grandmother said you’re close to Josh, too.”

  Tessa sipped her tea. “We’re good friends, or we were good friends.”

  “He thought you were at the meeting with me?”

  “No, he didn’t know I’m an alcoholic.”

  “Oh.” Jerry tapped his fingers on the table. “The other day at the theater, I assumed he did. I’d seen you at the Saranac meeting before we met.”

  “I should have told him. Maura’s hammered me on that enough times.”

  “Was it because of me? I mean his opinion of me?”

  She placed her mug on the table with a thud. “Everything isn’t about you. But you scarred him bad, and he believes once a drunk, always a drunk—or so he’s said repeatedly. He has no confidence in AA or any other recovery program.”


  “But you got him to go to an Al-Anon meeting. I thank you for that. I hate to see him—any of my boys—in pain, especially because of me.”

  “No, I suggested he try a meeting. Connor and Jared probably have, too. Josh made his own decision to go.” She half snorted, half huffed. “My surprise may have put him off going to any more.”

  “It’s a start to his healing.”

  “Or a test of mine,” she said under her breath.

  “Pardon?”

  “Maybe God is testing me. I want a drink tonight more than I have in years.” She crossed her arms on the table and leaned toward Jerry. “My recovery has been relatively easy. I came to Grandma and Grandpa’s from rehab. They were one hundred percent behind me. The first people I connected with were from the singles group at church. That’s where I met Josh. Like Josh, the others don’t drink, so they didn’t think it odd that I don’t. Josh, the theater and church and civic activities keep me busy. Maura is the perfect sponsor. I’ve had it easy.”

  “How long have you been sober?” Jerry asked.

  “Going on five and a half years.”

  “Continuous?”

  “Yes.”

  “And before that?”

  “I wouldn’t admit I had a problem. I thought I could control my drinking. How about you?”

  “I got my one-year chip before I came back here. I had six months before that, before I relapsed a second time. We don’t get do-overs, which in my case I don’t deserve. The past is the past. But one thing the program has shown me is that we get start-overs.”

  Tessa sat back in the booth. “Can I ask you a favor?”

  “Ask away.”

  “I know it’s a little out of your way from the parsonage, but would you follow me home and see me into the house?” Her pulsed raced. “I want to make sure I don’t make any stops on the way.”

  “Sure. You’re the first real lady who’s asked me to escort her home in a good long time.” He winked at her.

  “Hey, work the program, and I may not be the last.”

  As she drove the winding mountain roads home with Jerry’s truck reassuringly behind her, Tessa mulled his words about starting over. Could her coming clean with Josh be a start-over for them, for their friendship? An opportunity for their relationship to become more? Her heart skipped a beat. All she had to do to find out was get him back on speaking terms with her.

  Chapter Nine

  Josh couldn’t avoid Tessa forever. Nor did he really want to. But he was making a good show of it. Exhibiting far more cowardice than he’d felt during all his military service, he’d called Tessa at her grandmother’s house number last night, Friday night, when he knew she’d be at the theater. He’d left a message with Mrs. Hamilton to tell Tessa he wouldn’t be at the soccer game. Much to Hope’s disappointment, he’d let himself be talked into working today. His sister had been quick to text him that they’d won anyway without him.

  He pulled his truck into the parsonage driveway to pick up Connor for another Al-Anon meeting tonight. This one was men only. He’d told Connor coming with him was payback for all the times he’d protected him from Dad when he was a kid, but knew his baby brother would have come just for the asking. Josh honked the horn when Connor didn’t come right out. He didn’t want to risk running into their father, who was staying there, and being reminded that Dad and Tessa had been together at the AA meeting. Over the past two days, somehow her being friendly with his father had started bothering him more than the fact she’d been an alcoholic. She didn’t fit the picture he had of a drunk, recovering or not. He’d never seen her take a drink, let alone drunk. More likely, she’d drunk too much in college like lots of people he knew and had blown that out of proportion.

  “You in a hurry?” Connor asked as he climbed in the cab.

  “Not so much as I didn’t want to see Dad.”

  Josh could tell by his brother’s expression that he was biting his tongue. But they’d discussed Dad as much as he wanted to when he’d stopped in Connor’s office at the church after work yesterday.

  “How are you doing?”

  “Better since we talked yesterday. I read the Bible verses you suggested. But like I said, I thought Al-Anon would give me some control.”

  “You didn’t cause it. You can’t cure it. You can’t control it.”

  “Smart aleck. So why am I going back?”

  “I wasn’t being flippant. You have feelings for Tessa and, no matter how much you deny it, for Dad, and they’ve both brought chaos into your life.”

  “That’s the understatement of the year. I’m thinking more and more that it’s time for me to take my life out of the chaos.”

  “Bingo. That’s what Al-Anon is for. Reclaiming your life.”

  Josh slowed the truck for the turn into the mental health clinic in Ticonderoga. No chance of seeing Tessa or his father here. Tessa was working, and he’d checked to make sure there was no concurrent AA meeting. But that didn’t stop him from scanning the lot for his father’s truck. He should have done that Thursday.

  “I was thinking more along the lines of taking my life elsewhere,” he said, ignoring the pang he felt. He was so messed up he didn’t know if it was about leaving the Paradox Lake area or about subjecting himself to another meeting. “I heard there’s going to be an opening for a drafter at the GreenSpaces main office in Boston.” He turned off the truck and pulled his door handle to signal the end of conversation.

  Connor wouldn’t let him off that easy. “I thought the cost of living was too high there compared to the pay to take anything less than a project manager.”

  Josh sat, door half open, not wanting to take their conversation public in the parking lot. “I can cut my personal expenses, save less.”

  “So you can run away from Tessa and Dad, rather than face reality. You, my childhood hero, playing the coward?”

  Josh got out of the truck and slammed the door. “I’ve said all I need.”

  “Hey, I was goading you, except for the you being my childhood hero part, bro, to get it all out.” Connor sprinted to catch up to Josh. “Tessa is still Tessa. You still have your friendship or whatever it is the two of you have going on.”

  “I know. That’s the problem.” Josh stopped and pressed the key fob to lock his truck. “And, as far as I know, Dad is still Dad.” He turned Connor’s words against him, itching for an argument to fill his hollow insides, to give him an excuse to turn around and go home. Despite his National Guard training and all he’d seen in Afghanistan, he was a coward. He didn’t want to face reality and work things out between him and Tessa. He wanted to go back to where they used to be.

  Josh yanked open the clinic door. “After you.”

  He let Connor go in first and followed him to the meeting room. Of course, Pastor Connor marched right down and took a seat at the front table. He sat next to him and stretched his legs out into the open space between the table and the wall.

  “Hey, Connor.” A guy their age Josh didn’t know sat on the other side of his brother and began talking to him.

  “Josh,” Connor said when the guy paused, “this is Michael.”

  Michael reached down the table to shake hands. “Nice to meet you. You’re new here?”

  And Connor wasn’t by the looks of things. “Yes, I am,” Josh said.

  A few more men arrived, not nearly as many as had been at the Elizabethtown meeting. Most greeted Connor by name. Before Josh had time to question his brother about that, a man who’d been there when they’d arrived started the meeting.

  “Anyone else want to share?” the leader asked after most of the men had spoken. Connor raised his hand.

  “I’m Connor,” he said, although Josh strongly suspected they all knew that.

  “Hi, Connor.”

  “I’ve b
een coming to this meeting off and on for a while. More on since my alcoholic father moved back to the area and in with me. I want to thank everyone for the support you’ve given me.”

  Connor glanced at Josh as he sat down. Was that some kind of cue? Was he supposed to jump up now? He stared at his feet. He wasn’t Connor. The metal folding chair became harder and more uncomfortable as the remaining men shared. Finally, only he and Michael were left.

  “Anyone else?” the leader asked.

  Michael nodded. “Hi, I’m Michael.”

  “Hi, Michael.”

  Michael proceeded to give a progress report about his recent reconciliation with his alcoholic wife and how he was working the steps.

  When the man sat down, Josh felt all the eyes in the room on him, closing him in. He studied his fingernails. He’d come to learn not to teach. Besides, what did he have to share that would help anyone else?

  The chair scraped the floor as he pushed back from the table to give himself some breathing room. But it didn’t help. The desire to get the meeting over and leave, as much as anything, propelled Josh to speak. “Hi, I’m Josh.”

  “Hi, Josh.”

  He crossed his arms. “I’m Connor’s brother. My father is an alcoholic.” He dropped his arms. “And I just found out two days ago that my girlfriend is a recovering alcoholic.” Connor’s side glance stopped him.

  “Friend, girlfriend, close friend.” Josh stumbled on. What did the name tag matter? He gave a factual recap of Thursday night, leaving out the emotion. Or, at least he thought he had.

  “That’s tough, man. Give the pain up to God,” one of the group members said.

  Some of Josh’s darkness lifted. God knew his pain. These guys, especially Michael, did, too. “That’s it. Thanks for listening,” he said.

  “Thank you, Josh. Anything more?” the leader asked. “No? Then let’s close. We say the Serenity Prayer,” he said for Josh’s benefit.

  “Courage to change the things that should be changed, and the Wisdom to distinguish the one from the other,” Josh repeated with the others. “Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time... Trusting that You will make all things right, if I surrender to Your will, so that I may be reasonably happy in this life, and supremely happy with You forever in the next. Amen.”