Girl Gone Viral (Modern Love #2) - Alisha Rai Page 0,22
he was injured and lived on the farm or in their small condo for the last fourteen years. Easier for them, not for him.
That worry was the reason he hadn’t told them about the potential pardon for McGuire. His mother had wept when Jas had come back home. For his injury, for what he’d seen. He couldn’t tell her now that she might have to relive that. “I did, yes. Thank you.”
“I’m going to get ready for bed,” Gurjit announced. “Good night, son.”
“Good night.”
There was the unmistakable sound of a brief kiss, and though it was his parents, Jas smiled. He didn’t know his biological father. He’d been fourteen when his mom had met and married Gurjit. He was glad his mother had found happiness with a man who loved her dearly.
Tara came back on the line, and Jas could tell she’d taken him off speaker. “I called to ask if you were going to come to the parade,” she said quietly, in a rush, and Jas knew immediately that his stepdad had probably told her not to ask him this exact thing.
He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “That’s a while off.”
“Not that far now. A few weeks.”
“I haven’t gone to the parade in years.” Not since he’d come back from Iraq, for sure.
“I know.” Her voice dropped lower. “They’re honoring your grandfather this year.”
“I’m aware.” He shifted. There it was, that tug of longing followed by fear. How to tell his mom that while he deeply missed their hometown’s annual Sikh parade, and would give anything to attend it again, the event was too big and loud and crowded for him. He avoided such places to the point that he used to have to delegate security detail to other guards back when Katrina and Hardeep had gone to areas where there might be fireworks or intense crowds. “Mom—”
“It would mean so much to him. And to me. But really to him.”
“I see Grandpa all the time.” He kept the emotion out of his tone, which pleased him. He definitely saw his parents more, but he did see his grandfather quite a bit, even went to the farm for monthly dinners with the whole family. He never stayed more than a night, but he went.
“He’s all alone and he’s getting older. This is all he wants.”
“Did he say that?”
The beat of silence told him that his grandfather hadn’t said anything of the sort to his only daughter.
Stubborn old man.
“He would have told me, but our calls have been so rushed lately. He’s out of the country for the next couple of weeks. He had to go to Mexico to work on that school he’s established.”
Is he well enough to make a trip like that? Mexico wasn’t far, but his grandfather wasn’t young. “Does he have someone with him?”
“Yes, he took a few employees.” His mother tried a different tack. “We’re all going to be there that night. It will be so apparent if my eldest isn’t here. What will people say? Come for me?”
His lips twisted. His mother played dirty. Yuba City was a relatively small and gossipy town. His absence would be felt.
“You can stay at the little house. It’s all yours. No one will bother you there. You can have your privacy and come to this one little award ceremony and then you can either go back to Santa Barbara or stay in your own home on the farm.”
When Jas was nineteen, his grandfather had deeded over the empty house his great-grandparents had built, as well as a small tract of the surrounding land. No one was living in it, his grandpa had said, so Jas might as well have it.
Deep nostalgia shot through Jas. He loved that house. Jas had known it was a lure and a bribe when his grandpa had given him the deed. A way to tie him to a business and life he didn’t want.
He had few emotional ties to the huge home his grandpa had built later in life and now lived in, so it was easier to pop in there for their monthly dinners and leave. The farm sat on hundreds of acres. He didn’t even have to see the little house.
Jas tugged at a loose thread on his comforter. Oh, but he missed every inch of that place.
It might be different now. You could go and see. Not the parade, but at least the house.