Sophie Oak - One to Keep

“Thanks, Mrs. Truss. I would very much like to join the Talbot men.”

The older woman nodded her head as though satisfied. She started out the door but turned. “Oh, and you have a call. It’s on hold. I had it transferred out here. Just pick up the phone on the nightstand, and it should come on. I’ll let the cook know to set up another place setting.

I’m very happy you’re here, Miss Jennifer. I think you’ll be perfect for the master.”

The door closed behind her, and Jen picked up the phone, wondering who would call her here. Everyone she knew would call her cell phone.

“Hello?” Jen asked, holding the phone to her ear.

Ten minutes later, soul utterly deflated, Jen got dressed, packed her clothes, and placed another call, this one to Callie Hollister-Wright. After arranging her transportation, she walked out of the guesthouse. She made her way to the main house and the breakfast room, her heart sick. She had to face Stef.

For the last time.

“Have you thought at all about what I said to you yesterday, Stefan?”

Stef looked up from his coffee as his father took the seat across the table from him. Had he thought about what his father had told him? He’d been awake all night thinking about his relationship with Jennifer, and his father’s words had played over and over again.

His mother had been certain she wanted a family. His father had said it himself. She’d been sure she wanted children, had pushed him for marriage and kids. Would it be the same with his Jennifer? Would he marry her and then be left behind when she realized how big the world was?

“Of course,” Stef said smoothly to his father. Stef found he’d softened toward him sometime in the night. He’d finally felt a true kinship with the man. They both loved women who could break them in two. “I want you to know that I don’t blame you. You wouldn’t have been happy here in Bliss. I understand, and I appreciate that you were willing to let me stay. It would have been easy for you to force me to go back to Dallas. I am truly glad I stayed here.” His father’s face flushed. “Yes, you made a family for yourself here. I can see that. But you’re wrong. I would have been very happy in Bliss. I was simply too afraid to stay.”

“Afraid?”

His father’s hands slipped around the mug of coffee in front of him. He took a drink before sighing and sitting back. His eyes were heavy as he spoke. “Yes, I was very afraid. I told you yesterday that I made a mistake in not staying here with you. I deeply regret it, and I hope you won’t make the same mistake I did.” The food in front of Stef suddenly didn’t seem as appetizing as it had before. He’d meant to come to the main house, grab some food, and rejoin Jennifer in the bed they had shared the night before. He’d meant to feed her from his hands and more than likely make love again. He’d realized the minute he walked into the house that he needed a bit of space. The night before he’d thought about keeping her in Bliss. He was making decisions based on his own needs rather than hers. He was heading down the same path his father had been down.

“I don’t intend to make the same mistake, Dad.” Stef forced himself to pick up his fork. “Why do you think I’ve made the arrangements I’ve made?”

Studying in France would give her the time she needed to make an informed decision. Of course she thought she wanted to get married and start a home. Stef knew Jennifer’s history. Her mother had been a bit of a drifter. Jennifer had gone to ten different public schools. It made sense that she would want roots, but she had no idea how famous she could be, how important her work could be. She should know all the facts before she decided how her life would go. It was the greatest gift he could give her.

Sebastian’s hands came down on the table, causing it to shake.

“You do not understand me. You are making the same mistake.

You’re walking out on a woman you love.” Stef sat back. His father’s outburst shook him a bit. The man had never raised his voice before. “Mom left you, Dad.”

“I’m not talking about your mother. I’m talking about Stella.” The fork dropped. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“This is what I’ve been trying to discuss with you. You think the biggest mistake I made was marrying your mother, but it’s not true. I was impetuous when I married your mother. She was lovely, and I thought it was time to get married. Your grandfather had turned over the reins of the company to me, and then he died. Mother had died the year before him. I missed my parents terribly. I threw myself into the relationship with Jackie. I wanted so badly to rebuild the family I had lost that I convinced myself I could love her. It wasn’t until I met Stella Benoit that I realized I had no idea what it really meant to love a woman.”

Stef sat, shocked at the way his father’s entire being softened at the mention of Stella’s name. Had he really had this whole life Stef had never known about? Somehow, he’d thought his father simply worked. In Stef’s mind, his father’s deepest relationship was with the company he ran. He’d never thought about his father’s heartaches past the wife who had left him.

“I met her the day we came to Bliss. You won’t remember, but I didn’t mean to stay here. We were going to visit my sister in Las Vegas. It was only chance that the car broke down here. It was only luck that a large section of land had just gone up for sale.” Stef searched his memory. He had a sudden image of himself as a child, a bit lost and tired from the long car trip. He’d been relieved when the car had died. His father had taken him to a diner. His feet couldn’t touch the ground from the booth. He’d sat there swinging his feet back and forth, back and forth. “It was supposed to be a hotel. A ski resort.”

“Yes. And we were only supposed to stay for the three days it would take to fix the car.” His father relaxed into his story. “I actually thought about calling to have another car delivered. I was going to make the call while we sat and had lunch, but those boys walked in.

They walked up and asked if you wanted to play. It was the first time I’d seen you smile in a month.”

Max and Rye. Oh, he remembered that. They had been grubby and disheveled from sleeping in the woods for days. They had explained that they were mountain men. Their momma let them sleep in a tent on the mountain they lived on. It sounded like a magnificent thing to Stef.

“While you played with the Harper boys, I talked to the owner of the diner. A few days turned into a week, a week into a month, and I bought the land from the hotel developers at twice the price.” And Stef had rarely left since. He’d gone on trips. He went to Paris and London. He’d traveled across Europe and Asia. He’d studied in New York, but Bliss was his home, his heart and soul.

Not really his heart anymore. Jennifer was his heart.

“Why did you leave? If you loved her, why did you leave?” A look of infinite sadness spread across Sebastian’s face. “I was afraid. When your mother left, I was devastated. I felt like the world was ripped out from under me. I put everything on hold. Stella was beautiful, but in every other way she was different from your mother.

In every way but one.”

“She was young.”

Sebastian’s head nodded briefly. “She was twenty-two years old when I met her. She was working the diner with her mother. She was even younger than Jackie. And I loved her more than I had imagined possible. I was in so deep with her. I told myself that it was a rebound fling. I fooled myself into thinking it was casual, but one night about a year in, I almost asked her to marry me.” He put a fist to his mouth as if to stop some great emotion that might come out. “I couldn’t. I couldn’t do it again. She said all the right things. She said she wanted to be your mother and wanted to have more kids. And I broke it off with her that night. I just knew she was too young to make that decision. I left soon after.”

A well of emotion caught Stef squarely in the chest. “She wasn’t too young. She stayed. She didn’t lie to you or falter. She was my mother in every way that counted.”

God, she had been. She’d been the one to make sure he had the things he needed. A thousand memories flashed through his mind.

Stella baking him birthday cakes.

Thanksgivings at the diner.

Shopping trips to buy him jeans, and later, she learned how to shop for art supplies.

Every year he’d watched as she’d matured into a woman the town depended on.

“She wasn’t,” his father repeated Stef’s words. Tears lit his eyes.

“She wasn’t Jackie, and she wasn’t too young. She knew her heart.

She was the other half of my soul, and I threw her away. Even though I walked away from her and broke her heart, she stayed and watched after my son.”

“Jennifer isn’t Stella.” The words were stupid and stubborn. He knew it, but they came anyway. Jennifer was an artist. Artists were different. Artists had needs. She was gifted.

“No, I’m not.”

Stef turned, and Jennifer stood in the doorway, eyes red rimmed and glazed with pain.

“Jennifer.” Stef began wondering exactly how much she’d heard.

Her spine was straight, and there was a bag at her feet. What was going on?

She held a hand out. “Don’t. I have one question and one question only for you. How were you going to make me go?” His stomach sank, but he attempted to keep a placid demeanor.

This might be a horrible scene, but if he could remain calm, they had a better chance at getting out of it without saying something neither could take back. “I take it the Sorbonne called?” Her green eyes had lost their sparkle. “Yes. They needed some information. Apparently no one told them it was a secret.” His heart fluttered as he realized just how hard she was taking this. The timing was perfectly awful on all counts. He’d certainly not meant for her to find out about it after the way she’d given herself to him the night before. And now, after making love with her and talking to his father, he wasn’t even sure if he was making the right decision.