Some Bright Someday (Maple Valley #2) - Melissa Tagg Page 0,28

literally never even had a speeding ticket.”

“Please, slow down.”

“No, I’m asking you to slow down. Don’t force these children away from a place where they’re stable and comfortable, maybe for the first time since their mother died.” Or maybe even since before she died, if the hints of past unhappiness she’d picked up just in the past couple of days were on the mark. “Come back and check on us as often as you need to, but don’t take this away from them.”

Don’t take them away from me.

The force of her own desire surprised her even as it coursed through her, settling deep into her bones. For the first time since her own mother had died, she felt needed. Purposeful.

Sam had said she was bored at the newspaper. And he was right. She’d been restless for months, using her busyness, maybe even her friendships, as a distraction from her lack of direction. Full days were a cover for the buried emotions she’d been just as reluctant to sort through as all her parents’ belongings, for the sense of discontent she didn’t know what to do with.

For her . . . loneliness.

I’m not lonely. I have Mara and Marshall and Sam and Lucas. She had Paige at the paper and a town full of people she’d known her whole life.

Yes, but do they know you?

It wasn’t the first time she’d entertained the thought that no one knew the real her. Not even the friends she’d wrangled into a family. Truth was, this house she’d avoided for so long had seen more of the real Jenessa Belville than her friends had. It had witnessed the anxiety that had riddled her teenage years, the angst of her guilt over all that had happened with Mom and Dad . . .

The tears she saved for nighttime after Aunt Lauren left.

She looked up, meeting Carmen’s brown eyes. “I was only a little younger than Colie when I lost someone very close to me. It’s not the same situation, but I think . . . I truly think I have something to offer her, to offer all three of them.”

Carmen’s studying stare bore into her.

“Please give me a chance.”

“Not that the B&B is a five-star hotel or anything, but we’re giving up rooms there for this?” Noah dropped his duffel bag to the cottage floor and it sent dust and dirt pluming at their feet.

Okay, so it was dirty.

And dark despite the sunlight flooding the sprawling back lawn of Belville Park. Removing the dingy curtains from the main room’s windows would help with that. And the city utilities office had promised to send someone out by the end of the day to turn on the electricity.

“A little cleaning and it’ll be plenty livable.” Lucas crossed the room, passed the small kitchenette against the back wall, and peeked into one of the two tiny bedrooms. No bed, but he’d slept on hard ground plenty of times through the years. A sleeping bag on the floor would suit him just fine tonight.

And if Noah didn’t like that, well, he could take that faded couch in the main room.

Point was, they were Army men, former soldiers. They’d get by. Because whatever else the cottage might lack, it offered two things the Everwood didn’t—privacy and space.

He’d realized first thing Sunday morning that he and Noah couldn’t stay at the Everwood. Noah had already shot him a strange look when he’d made vague introductions to Mara, Marshall, and Sam. And though none of his friends had necessarily pried for information, they’d asked just enough questions to convince Lucas he’d be better off finding somewhere else to stay.

“Grab the bucket of cleaning supplies from my truck, will you? I’m going to check out all the faucets.” Supposedly the water already had been turned on, but whether the sinks and shower and toilet would work after years of disuse, who knew.

But Noah didn’t budge from the doorway. “So . . . what? We live in a sardine box and clean up a yard that looks like it was hit by a tornado?”

Lucas twisted the faucet handle over the kitchenette’s small sink. After a second or two, a trickle of water dripped into the rusted drain below. “Actually it was hit by a tornado. We got a bad one in 2014.” And for once, he’d even been around at the time.

After serving out his prison sentence, he’d gone straight to work with Flagg. But three years into his time with Bridgewell, he’d received the