Riding and Regrets (4 page)

Gertie glanced out of the window at the red-haired cowboy and little girl. “No idea. He needs help with that baby girl, though. He’s awful stiff with her.”

Frowning, Noel studied the pair. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, he doesn’t seem comfortable with her. See how he’s holding her? She keeps sliding on his hip. He doesn’t know how to seat her there right.”

“Could be he’s just too skinny to have a seat for her in the first place.”

Gertie whacked Noel’s hand. “Be nice.”

“I wasn’t being mean!” he protested, rubbing his hand where she’d smacked it. “Ow!”

“Anyone able to walk on their own can carry a baby, except for little kids themselves, but you know what I mean,” Gertie said. “He just don’t know how. She’s squirming and he’s looking like he’s got a burr on his butt. That boy is as lost as any man ever has been when it comes to kids.”

“Boy or man, Gertie? Make up your mind.” Noel wrinkled his nose at his aunt. Was he wrong about the guy’s age?

“Man in years, but not much more’n a kid in the other ways, like common sense,” she said just as their food arrived. “Hey, Jen, you know who that kid out there is?”

Noel murmured his thanks as Jen set the veggie burger in front of him.

“Oh, sure, that’s Jody Bates. He works with my son. Heard he got a surprise earlier in the week.” Jen nodded towards the man and toddler. “His daughter, Priscilla. But I don’t want to gossip, and I’m not saying more.”

Gertie got a look on her face that gave Noel goose bumps. “Oh, he works at the Mossy Glenn? He single?”

Jen glanced from Gertie to Noel then grinned. “I’ll have to ask Barney about that and get back to you.”

Noel hissed at his aunt. “Stop playing match-maker! I don’t need a man.”

Gertie snorted as she laughed. “No one
needs
a man or a woman, not if we’re strong and independent. Doesn’t mean you don’t want one, or that your life wouldn’t be more fulfilling with one.”

“Aunt Gertie…” Noel gazed out of the window. The man—
Jody
—and his daughter were gone, having either gone in a store or got in a vehicle and left. Noel put his attention back where it needed to be, on his food. He picked up his burger. It had some grease to it, unlike most veggie burgers, which tended to run dry as a toothpick. Noel waved Jen back over. “Is this cooked with lard? Or on the same part of the grill meat’s cooked on?”

Jen arched one brow at him and Noel wanted to slip right under the booth. “Now, young man, when I tell you something is vegetarian, it’s vegetarian. We use a little portable countertop grill for the vegetarian burgers, and cook adds some vegan butter to them and the buns to keep them from tasting like sawdust. You want to come back and see?”

Properly scolded, Noel ducked his head. “No, ma’am. Sorry.”

Jen tutted and Gertie chortled. Noel considered flipping his aunt off, but in the end, he wanted to live and eat his burger. “It’s not funny,” he groused. “I’ve had people slip me meat-cootied foods or just meat before.” He took a big bite of his burger.

“I bet you have,” Aunt Gertie teased and Noel choked and sputtered. Just when he thought he was going to need the Heimlich manoeuvre, the food went down the right way and he gasped.

“Not nice,” he told his aunt. God, it felt like everyone in the diner was staring at him.

“But funny,” Gertie said. She took a bite of her bacon avocado burger and moaned happily as she rolled her eyes back. “Stho good.”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full.” Noel preened a little at getting to nag his aunt. As soon as she kicked his shin, Noel gave up on being smug. “You’re a meanie, Gertie.”

“You love me anyway.”

There was no arguing about that. They ate the rest of their meal in short order, then Gertie threatened to brain him unless Noel let her pay the bill.

“You’re not working,” she said. “And I know your folks are richer than God and all, but they’re selfish pricks. I bet you haven’t seen a penny from them since your birthday.”

“Not even then. They didn’t bother with a card or a phone call. Guess they forgot.” Noel had tried not to be hurt, but when your own parents didn’t remember your birthday, or they didn’t think you were worth remembering, it couldn’t help but hurt, deeply.

Gertie growled like a pissed off Chihuahua. “I’m going to take a switch to the both of them, forget them being older. I’m definitely meaner. I’m sorry you got saddled with such lugs for parents. If it helps any, I love you more than you’ll ever know.”

“It helps. Thanks, Aunt G.” It didn’t undo all the pain and damage his parents had caused, but it did make Noel feel as if he wasn’t completely unlovable. Just not worth his parents’ love, or that of any of his exes’.

Gertie took his hand in hers and patted it. “Parents just screw kids up sometimes. Mom and Dad were too strict on us, and it made us all kinda wild. I still grew up. The others, not so much. I reckon I got lucky with getting to help raise y’all. Y’all were good kids to start with,” Gertie informed him. “Now, enough of this memory lane hogwash. Let’s get to the tour of the daycare. You can meet the other employees and see if you think you’d like to give the place a try.”

“I don’t know.” Noel actually thought he might panic if he had to deal with a bunch of screaming kids. “Aren’t there classes I need to take or something? First aid? Anything?” God, he wasn’t even sure he wanted to stay in Ashville, not that he had anywhere else to go. The job market surely sucked monkey nuts there.

“You can take a first aid and CPR course at the VFW hall in three weeks. There’s classes required for fancier places, but this is a small town, and people are different here. I wouldn’t let anyone work for me who failed a fingerprint background check, and even then, if they don’t feel right to me, they ain’t working with my babies. You won’t be working with them, either, not ’cause I think there’s anything wrong with you, but because I need someone up front doing all the phone answering and scheduling field trips and finding out which new educational material’s the best. I suck at that stuff.” Gertie covered her mouth with one hand then uncovered it. “Oh, and we have to watch our mouths. No words like suck and crap, even. I do miss being able to cuss like a sailor.”

“I remember that, actually,” Noel told her, grinning. “You stopped after I told my second grade teacher to kiss my ass.”

“That woman was a total bitch,” Gertie seethed. “And she’s worth using a filthy word on. I swear she had it in for you just because you were more interested in playing dolls with the girls than playing football with the boys.”

“That’s the truth. Even knowing who my mom and dad were didn’t scare her out of being such a bigot, but you got me put in Mrs Kennedy’s class and she was awesome.” She hadn’t been a fan of his parents, either, but she’d seemed to know what a needy child he was. “I was lucky to have adults in my life that cared about me.” He’d kept in touch with Mrs Kennedy until her death two years ago. And he’d cried harder and mourned her loss more than he probably would his own parents when they passed away, unless something miraculous occurred.

Gertie unlocked the door to the white passenger van with multi-coloured polka dots and flowers painted on it.
Gertie’s Good Kids
was stencilled on the sides. “You were, but you’ve always been a loving person with a pure heart. I hate that it’s been damaged, Noel. I really do. You’re determined to put up walls that will kill that sweet heart of yours.”

Noel huffed as he opened his door. “When did you become the drama queen in the family?” He couldn’t help it—her words had stung and made him bitter. “I might as well just throw myself at the first available man then, otherwise I’ll die all alone and miserable.”

The look on Gertie’s face was gut-wrenching and he instantly regretted his words. “I’m sorry. I didn’t—”

“Don’t worry about it.” Gertie got in and shut her door.

Noel did the same and tried again to apologise. “No, I’m really sorry. That was incredibly bitchy of me, and immature. I’m an ass, and I don’t deserve an awesome aunt like you.” All of which was merely the truth.

Gertie buckled her seatbelt then put the keys in the ignition. She started the van then rested her hand on the gearshift as Noel waited for her to speak. He needed her forgiveness. Gertie was the one person who loved him completely in this world.

“The thing is, Noel, I did give up a lot of things for you, Josie and River, but I have never regretted it, not once. I’d do it all again, but you don’t know. You just don’t know.” She shook her head and put the van in reverse.

“What don’t I know?” Noel asked, his heart in his throat. He had the feeling that she’d given up someone she’d loved, or could have loved.

Gertie ignored the question and got the van on the road. Noel wanted to keep prying, but he didn’t have the right. He wondered what exactly Gertie had lost, spending her twenties and thirties raising him and his siblings. Wasn’t that people’s prime of life? Now she was forty-five, middle-aged, and what if she’d lost the opportunity for love and a family of her own? She’d said she couldn’t have kids. There were other ways, though, like adoption.

“Stop fretting about it,” Gertie said when they reached the daycare. “My past is my own, and I’m responsible for any and all choices I made. Me. Not you or anyone else. I refuse to ever let someone else take the credit or the blame for my life.”

Noel’s heart fluttered as admiration coloured his view of his aunt. More admiration, actually. “Wow, Aunt G. I want to be you when I become a man. I feel like a selfish little prick.”

“Sometimes you are. Sometimes we all are.” Gertie shut the van off then unbuckled. “It’s part of being human. So is growing and becoming better people, if anyone has an ounce of a soul in their body. This society, it encourages selfishness, greed, all that crap. We push perfection in body and face, beauty that is attainable for very few, and that beauty is lorded over everyone else. And we let it happen. Oh, listen to me ramble. Let’s go on in.”

But Noel knew he’d think about what she’d just said. It wasn’t going in one ear and out the other like lots of other things did. Something about her words dug right into his core.

“Today’s one of the slower days, that’s why I could take it off,” Gertie said as they approached the building. It wasn’t far from the town centre. The building itself was old, like all the other buildings in town, red faded brick with cream doors and trim. “I wish I could paint the outside of this place and make it more colourful, but the Chamber would poop poodles if I did. They want everything to match just so.”

Noel sputtered over the poodle bit then noticed a beat-up-looking truck parked a few spots down from the can. “Hey, is that the guy, Jody? Isn’t that the truck he drives?” Well, he’d certainly given away the fact that he was kind of eying the man.

Thankfully, Gertie didn’t rub it in. “I think so. I mean, it’s a ranch truck, and he’s in town. I don’t think that’s his truck, specifically, though.”

“Oh.” So it could be someone else.

But who else would be parked down here by the only daycare in town? Who else from the ranch, that is?

Noel’s pulse rate escalated and he tingled all the way down to his toes. “Are you taking new kids in?”

“We don’t turn anyone away,” Gertie said. “I keep it a small child-to-adult ratio, and there’s a few people I call in to work part-time or on an as-needed basis if we get past that ratio. Right now we have room for one that’s older, but newborns, they take more attention. With things like Sudden Infant Death possible, I like them to have one-on-one care.”

Which was her way of telling him her daycare could take on Jody’s little girl.

And if Noel agreed to work there, in the front office or front desk, whatever it was, he’d maybe get to see Jody every day, possibly twice a day. As much as he kept protesting that he didn’t want another man, why was his heart pattering like a tap dancer going for the world speed record? Why did he want to smile, and why oh why did his spirits suddenly feel lighter?

Noel pushed his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. He gave himself a stern lecture on how he’d done nothing but settle for men who were terribly bad for him, and he surely hadn’t had time to learn any lessons about that.

Yet when they walked into the daycare, and his gaze went right to Jody’s, Noel’s reservations crumbled. There was just something indefinable about the young man that called to him.

I should pack my bags and run for the hills. Or mountains. Or the coast. I haven’t ever seen the east coast.

Instead he smiled and from the way his cheeks ached, he was likely coming off looking totally nuts. “Hey,” Noel said, tipping his chin up a little.

“Hey,” Jody replied in a voice just a shade deeper than Noel’s light tenor. He darted a glance at Gertie.

“I’m Gertie Cuthbert. How can I help you?” She held out her hand to Jody and they shook.

Jody jostled the little girl on his hip. “I, uh. I guess I need to see about what it’d cost for Prissy to come here, and if y’all’s hours would work with mine.” Jody blinked. “Oh, and, um, if you have any openings? Please tell me you have openings.”

Gertie cocked her head. “This is my nephew, Noel, and he’ll be working here starting tomorrow.” She kept talking as Noel shook hands with Jody. He really liked the dry, callused skin sliding over his own smooth skin. Noel was a very tactile person and he appreciated the difference between them.

“We do have an opening. How old is she?” Gertie asked.

“She’s two. She’ll be three in a couple of months.” Jody bit his bottom lip and looked from Gertie to Noel. “I’m kind of new at this.”

Gertie was kind enough not to point out that she’d already made such an observation. Instead she got them into her office, then called up someone named Seana who appeared and asked if she could give Prissy a tour.

The relief on Jody’s face was evident as he handed the toddler over. “Thank you. If you need me, you know where I am, I reckon.”

Seana flashed him a flirty grin. “That I do, cowboy.”

Jody blushed and watched her lead Prissy away. “I’m so lost with all of this.” He took his cowboy hat off. His red hair was flattened where the hat had covered it, but the rest of it was a mass of wild curls. He ran a hand through the smashed hair then put his hat back on. “Sorry. I didn’t know I was a daddy until five days ago. Kind of a shock for me.”