Buch lesen: «His Hometown Girl»

CHAPTER ONE

“TYLER, WHAT COLOR?”

Jodi Chapman peered from the blue card to the psychologist crouched before her autistic four-year-old, holding her breath. Please get this, Ty. A good evaluation meant entrance to this specialized school that would help him talk again.

But instead of responding, her towheaded only child yanked off his eyeglasses band and threw them at his feet. Her hopes fell with them.

“I’m sorry.” Jodi slung an arm around Tyler before he bolted for the train table. She’d known it’d be hard for him to focus when he’d pointed to it after entering Wonders Primary’s playroom. Her mouth felt like a desert as Beth’s pen scratched across the evaluation sheet. After an hour of assessments, Tyler wanted out when they desperately needed in.

“May I ask what you’re writing, Beth?” She struggled to put on Tyler’s glasses with one hand while holding him in place with the other. “Tyler, you can play with the trains in a little bit.” As a single mom, she wished she had three arms instead of two. Yet even that wouldn’t be enough some days. If only this wasn’t one of them.

“Keeping his glasses on will be a behavior goal if he attends school here this fall.” Beth lowered her clipboard, her khaki pants and green polo shirt lacking the wrinkles embedded in Jodi’s suit.

Jodi dragged in a deep breath and held Tyler tighter as he escalated from resistance to flailing.

If. Beth had said “if.” Jodi inhaled the childhood smells of crayons, apple juice and glue, her gaze darting around the vibrant room that’d be perfect for her son. Warm sunlight streamed from a round skylight, illuminating a large foam-sided circle that resembled a kiddie pool, filled with books and toys. A child-size cardboard castle stood beside a trunk overflowing with dress-up clothes. Floor puzzle pieces lead to its entrance. It was a far cry from the small apartment where her kind neighbor cared for Tyler.

Six children rocked and fidgeted on a circle of colored rug squares while their teacher read them a story. Aides walked the group’s perimeter, pulling some of the children’s hands away from their ears while others applied shoulder pressure to those flapping their hands.

“Show me the blue train, Tyler.” The psychologist pointed to the table and held out a hand, but Tyler batted it away.

“No hitting, Ty.” Jodi felt her lower eyelid twitch. The break in Tyler’s daily routine unsettled and overexcited him, the perfect storm for lashing out, poor baby.

“Do you want to play trains?” Beth tried again.

The psychologist tucked her clipboard under her arm at Tyler’s nod and headed toward the table. Before following, he squeezed Jodi’s knees, the sweet, unexpected gesture catching at her heart.

She blinked back tears when he wobbled on tiptoe after Beth and picked up a green train instead of the blue. Green was his favorite color. It might be the wrong answer for the evaluation, but it was right for him. Her chest tightened when the psychologist frowned and scribbled something on her clipboard, a brief glimpse showing a heavily marked page. Jodi imagined the comments. If only Wonders Primary knew the boy who patted her cheek until he fell asleep, the one who dressed Ollie, his stuffed elephant, in different outfits every day, the child who’d cried for a week after his father had walked out, and then never spoke again. Guilt churned in her stomach like a live thing.

* * *

“MRS. CHAPMAN?”

Jodi turned and smiled unevenly at a distinguished woman with close-cropped brown hair and an arched nose, her picture familiar from the school’s website.

She discreetly brushed her damp palm against her skirt and held out her hand. “It’s Ms. actually.”

“Ms. Chapman. Welcome. I’m Mrs. Garcia, school director.” Her hand was gripped, then released. “Thank you for coming in so quickly. Hopefully our last-minute opening for this fall will work out. You’ve been on the waiting list for—”

“Tyler’s doctor referred him a year ago,” she answered, though it’d felt longer than that. It’d been an anxious twelve-month involuntary wait to see if her application would be approved. Given the number of children around the country who attended this highly recognized school, she’d been told Tyler might not have this chance for three years. Or at all.

“If you’ll meet me in my office, I’ll join you once I’ve spoken with Beth. It’s the last door down the hall.”

Jodi glanced at the train table where her son ripped up tracks and smashed bridges. “Should I take Tyler with me?” Without her around, he might act out, give the wrong impression. Her heartbeat hammered.

“Our aides will watch him while Beth and I consult. Then Beth will take over when I join you.” Mrs. Garcia studied Jodi over rimless bifocals. “He’ll be in good hands.”

Jodi hesitated, then nodded, feeling helpless. There was nothing more she could do. Fate had taken the wheel and would steer them where it would.

At the door, she called, “Mommy will be right back, Ty.” But he continued playing without looking up and missed her reassuring smile. When he noticed she was gone, would he feel scared? Alone? With difficulty, she kept herself from running back to him.

She watched Beth hand Mrs. Garcia the clipboard, and their heads bent together. Jodi’s grip tightened on the doorknob. What verdict were they reaching?

“I’ll see you later, Tyler,” she yelled, louder now. Several children in the reading circle looked up, but not her son. Her chest squeezed as he zoomed the green train around a wooden building. Did he care that she was leaving? The harsh truth was that she honestly didn’t know.

She trudged down the hall and gave herself a pep talk. From everything she’d read, Wonders Primary excelled at working with challenged students. Hopefully they’d see Tyler’s potential. Believe in him the way she did.

Inside the wood-paneled office, she paced to the window and peered out at the foggy Chicago skyline, grateful to be here. Until now, the path to Tyler’s recovery had seemed as murky as the weather, her despair darker still. She rested her head against the cool windowpane and tried not to worry.

“Thank you for waiting, Ms. Chapman,” Mrs. Garcia spoke behind her a couple minutes later. “Would you have a seat?”

Jodi strode to a leather chair in front of an imposing desk and sat, her white knuckles contrasting against the brown upholstered arms. “How’s Tyler?”

“He’s in the right place at the right time.” Mrs. Garcia smiled, her red lipstick matching her manicured fingernails, which were splayed against the desk calendar. “We’d be happy to welcome him at Wonders Primary this coming fall.”

Jodi sagged in her seat. Finally. She wasn’t alone anymore...and she wouldn’t fail Tyler. His care would have the order and predictability they both needed.

“Beth and the rest of the assessment team recommended that Tyler receive physical therapy, sensory-integration occupational therapy, speech therapy, social-skills training and behavioral training. We have every confidence that he’ll make solid gains with us.”

The news knocked the wind out of Jodi. She knew her son needed help. His therapist and doctor had said as much. But hearing the long list made his condition seem graver and more severe than she’d let herself imagine. She clamped a hand over her jittering knee. It was unfair. Tyler hadn’t asked for this.

“I see,” she managed at last.

“I realize this is short notice.” Mrs. Garcia poured two cups of tea from an electric kettle on her credenza. “However, we’ll need a ten percent tuition deposit to hold the spot.” She offered Jodi a steaming mug. “Cream and sugar?”

Jodi shook her head and stared at the dark liquid, her wide eyes reflected back at her. In the excitement surrounding yesterday’s surprise call from Wonders Primary, she hadn’t asked about the cost.

She gulped her tea and the scalding liquid splashed down her throat. “And how much is tuition?”

Mrs. Garcia’s brows met over her prominent nose. “Sixteen thousand. We don’t provide that information on our website, but our secretary should have informed you when she called.”

“She might have,” Jodi admitted, her pulse thumping. Sixteen thousand? That couldn’t be the price. “Tyler was having a tough time over...well...something and I’m afraid I only wrote down the appointment time. Did you say sixteen thousand a year?”

Mrs. Garcia scooped out her tea bag and laid it on her saucer. “No.”

Air escaped Jodi in a rush. Thank goodness she’d heard that wrong. Her salary wouldn’t cover such a large fee, even if her ex-husband contributed. And that was a big if....

“It’s sixteen thousand a semester,” the Wonders Primary director corrected, “and each semester runs six months.”

Jodi splashed tea on her hand, too shocked to feel the burn when she set down her mug.

“But that...seems high.” And impossible.

“Yes.” The administrator’s spoon clanked against the sides of her cup as she stirred in a packet of sweetener. “However, our board feels the fee is justified given our specialized work and reputation. Nevertheless, I understand if this is more than you expected and wish to look elsewhere.”

Elsewhere? She’d tried everything and had nowhere left to turn. Jodi’s hands twisted. She was failing Tyler and she couldn’t let that happen. Not again. Disappointment settled around her slumped shoulders.

“I’m sorry to pressure you, Ms. Chapman, but there are many anxious families that would appreciate the chance to attend if you plan to withdraw.”

“Please. A moment.” Jodi strove to keep the panic out of her voice. She opened her purse to search for her calculator and found a Post-it note with her optimistic reminder: “Wonders Primary 10 a.m. J.” How could she have been so naive? Expert care like this didn’t come cheap. For people like her and Tyler, it might not come at all.

Her fingers encountered her cell phone and her screen saver flashed on. It was a picture of her and Tyler as she held him on her hip while he pointed at a hot air balloon. The festival had been a wonderful day, one of his better ones. They needed more of those after a year spent struggling through nightly therapy that ended with both of them in tears. Somehow this had to work.

“I’ll take the spot,” she blurted, then pressed her phone to her chest. What had she done?

Where Tyler was concerned, she tended to think with her heart.

“A wise choice,” said Mrs. Garcia, her self-assured voice doing little to soothe Jodi’s worries. “We’ll need your deposit by the end of this week and the balance of the first half at the start of the fall semester. We split our tuition into biannual payments to make it more accessible to families.”

“Yes,” Jodi agreed, her voice faint. Her body felt limp and light, as though she could blend with the white clouds billowing by the Tribune building across the street.

“Excellent. We’ll look forward to seeing Tyler in September.”

Despite Mrs. Garcia’s warm tone, Jodi shivered. September. Only three months to raise twice her current savings balance.

* * *

AFTER DROPPING OFF Tyler at her neighbor’s apartment and returning to work, she sat at her desk, numb. Her ex-husband, Peter, hadn’t returned her voice mails and her eyes lingered on her bare left hand, her mind inventorying her belongings. She shouldn’t have flushed away her wedding rings—even though she’d been pushed to her limit by Tyler’s wails for his vanished father. They would have helped to pay for the tuition to Wonders Primary.

Impulsive, her mother used to call her, just like her father. And look where that’d gotten him. How it had affected their family. She shrank from the memory but it found her anyway. If she hadn’t accepted a friend’s last-minute invitation rather than going home for chores, she would have been there when a borrowed skid loader dislodged and the auger her father had been lifting crashed down. Because of her absence, he’d been pinned for two hours before her mother returned from work and discovered him, the delay costing him his arm and their family their livelihood.

She buried her head in her hands. Her parents hadn’t blamed her, but she’d never forgiven herself. Never again would she put what she wanted ahead of duty. Yet when she’d tried keeping her failing marriage going for Tyler’s sake, that had backfired, too.

Her phone buzzed and she snatched it off her desk when she recognized the number.

“Peter?” It was a rare day when he returned her calls. Thank goodness today was one of them.

“We need to talk.” His distracted, impatient voice sounded as distant as ever.

“Yes. About Wonders Primary—” she began, knowing it was a long shot to ask, but for Tyler, anything.

“What? No,” he barked, and she flinched, recalling previous times he’d used that tone with her. And Tyler. “I’m getting remarried.”

Her mind skittered over that thought like a tongue probing for a cavity. After a moment, she relaxed. No pain. Tyler was her only priority, and the reason, according to her ex, that they’d split. For the hundredth time, she regretted her impulsive decision to marry Peter. On the other hand, that rash decision had brought her the greatest joy in her life: her beautiful boy.

“Congratulations,” she said, hoping he’d found a partner who would give him a “perfect” child. He’d resented having a son who couldn’t keep up with the other kids, who brought stares and snide comments from strangers. Her nightly research for autism treatments and insistence that Tyler’s condition was beyond her or their son’s control had only angered him further.

“I’m suing to lower my child support.”

Her office seemed to tilt and spin. He might as well have reached into her chest and seized her heart.

“No!” she exclaimed. “Tyler needs more money to go to a school for autistic children.”

“That was your label,” Peter blustered. “Not mine. You spoiled him. All that coddling. That’s why the kid wouldn’t walk until he was two.”

Jodi squeezed her eyes shut and counted backward from ten. “It’s a medical diagnosis, Peter. It’s not my fault.”

“Look. I don’t have time for this. My lawyers are sending papers over this week.”

She heard a beep, then silence, yet she kept the phone pressed to her ear for a moment, willing him to come back on, to say that he’d help.

Hands shaking, she dropped her phone in her purse and opened a file. Anything to steady her. At first she saw only a blur of numbers until her whirling mind settled enough to make out a purchase agreement. The Idaho farmers had agreed to sell their land to her employer, Midland Corp. Several families had even accepted her company’s offer to let them stay in their homes, rent-free, as contracted workers. They’d farm their old land for a paycheck instead of profits.

Despite her day, she felt some satisfaction in this hard-won deal. It was one of several she’d made that had helped Midland become the world’s largest food producer and owner of agricultural land.

“Ms. Chapman?” Her secretary’s voice came through the intercom.

“Yes, Linda.”

“Mr. Williams would like to see you in his office immediately.”

Jodi rubbed her throbbing temples. Of all the times to get a summons from her boss. “Please tell him I’ll be right there.”

The familiar sound of fingers tapping on keyboards, phones ringing and fax machines spitting out paper filled the corridor as she strode toward Mr. Williams’s office.

“Hi, Gail.” Jodi placed her hands on the granite counter before her boss’s door, noticed her chipped nail polish and yanked them down to her sides. “Mr. Williams wants to see me?”

Gail slid a candy bowl her way and lowered her voice. “You might want reinforcements.” She glanced at the door behind her. “He’s in a tear.”

Jodi’s stomach twisted and she ignored the treats. Focusing on work instead of her crisis felt impossible. Facing an irritated boss on top of that might be more than she could handle.

Well. There was nothing for it.

She took a deep breath, put on her business face, knocked and then strode inside. Her boss half rose from his seat and waved her to a chair. He was an imposing, florid man whose white comb-over contrasted with his helter-skelter black eyebrows. His thick glasses made his eyes seem to look everywhere and nowhere at once. When she perched on the edge of her seat, he shoved a folder across his desk.

“Got another acquisitions deal for you, Jodi.” He tugged at the striped tie that half disappeared into his neck roll. “Espresso?”

Knowing better than to argue, she accepted the minimug and sipped, careful not to make a face. It sure wasn’t chamomile, and she could have used the soothing blend to settle her jangling nerves.

“Good, eh?” Mr. Williams beamed and Jodi nodded, bolting back the rest of the foul brew.

“Did you mention something about a new deal?” It took every ounce of her dwindling energy to keep her voice steady.

Her boss held out the folder. “I believe you’re familiar with this area.”

Jodi grabbed the file while her mind replayed her conversations with the Wonders Primary director and her ex. How would she find a way to pay for Tyler’s care if her husband wanted to contribute less?

She started when Mr. Williams cleared his throat, and then she flipped the file open and froze at the location typed on the cover sheet.

Cedar Bay, Vermont. She dropped it back on his desk, blinking rapidly.

“This looks like a large deal. Surely Jake or Micah—” She sought to rein in her rising voice. “Brady—” Logic, not emotion, she reminded herself. She’d made too many mistakes in life by ignoring that rule.

“Don’t have the connections there that you do, and we need this land to stay ahead of the competition.” Her boss twisted the end of a gold-plated pen, the point appearing and disappearing. “Besides, they already tried, with the exception of Brady, who’s still tied up in Mexico. Look, Jodi, it’s your hometown.”

“I haven’t been there since I left for college.”

“You still have family there.” Her supervisor pointed his pen at a nearby picture. In it, the executives mugged in red Santa hats or antler headbands. “I met your aunt at last year’s holiday party. Grace, I believe?”

Of course Mr. Williams would remember that detail, just as he stored every tidbit, small or large. Her mind worked frantically. How could she get out of this? She needed to stay in town and sort things out for Tyler.

She rose. “I’m sorry, Mr. Williams. But Cedar Bay will be a conflict of interest.”

“A conflict for whom, I wonder?” Her supervisor waved her to take her seat again. After a tense moment, he opened the file and read from it.

“Layhee, Trudeau, Drollette...” His voice droned on through the long list, each familiar last name making her pulse pound harder than the last. “...and Remillard,” he finished.

His sharp gaze met hers. “Recognize any of those?”

All of them, Jodi thought. “A few,” she said.

“Then that’s the in we need. We’ve been trying to take over this prime dairy land for years. Put all of our best men on it.” He pulled out his pocket-handkerchief and dabbed at his glistening forehead. “I mean, we put our best senior executives on it, but we haven’t made any headway as a result of some fellow by the name of—” he glanced down at the chart “—Daniel Gleason.”

Jodi wasn’t surprised. Of course Daniel would be behind the resistance to Midland’s buyout. His family had farmed in Cedar Bay for centuries, and if anyone could hold out against her corporation, it’d be charming, clever, stubborn Daniel.

“Says here he’s twenty-seven. That’s your age.” Mr. Williams peered at her through his thick lenses. “A friend of yours?”

“Hardly.” Irritation rose as she recalled how often her popular ex-classmate had bested her throughout their childhood, from being the first to cross the monkey bars to edging her out as valedictorian. Then there was that moment of weakness when she’d nearly fallen for him. “The opposite, actually.”

Mr. Williams grunted, then nodded at a painting of the company’s former CEO. “I was once a junior exec like you, Jodi. But my mentor taught me the secret to moving up in life. Know your enemy. This Gleason fellow’s our enemy. Who better to make our case than someone who knows him well? Plus, you can take your son with you. Stay at your aunt’s for a couple of months and get Tyler out of the city for the summer. Fresh air and all that. Once you’ve acquired five thousand acres, you’ll be back in time for the Bears preseason.”

Five thousand acres? The small hairs on the back of Jodi’s neck pricked. This was a large deal, a herculean task, even with her connections and a summer to accomplish it. And just how well had Mr. Williams gotten to know her talkative aunt? She always praised the benefits of country air in hopes of tempting Jodi out for a visit.

But Jodi remembered how unpredictable and dangerous farm country could be. It was the reason her parents had left town once Jodi finished her senior year in high school. As for why she hadn’t accepted her aunt’s offer to stay with her during college breaks, that story ended with a different kind of heartbreak.

More important than her tumultuous hometown history, however, Tyler did best with routines, things he knew and expected. She couldn’t imagine a worse place for him.

She cleared her throat.

“I haven’t spoken to Daniel Gleason in ten years, so I’m afraid I wouldn’t be of much help.” She edged toward the door. “If I may be excused, sir?”

Her employer intercepted her. “Jodi, I’ve seen your talent and ambition. In fact, you remind me of myself at your age. Look how quickly you wrapped things up in Idaho and every other deal we’ve given you. Succeed on this, and I’ll give you a promotion to midlevel executive.”

Jodi gripped the doorknob, afraid her weak knees would give out. Midlevel? Even her fellow junior executive, ambitious Brady Grayson, couldn’t hope for such a steep corporate climb at their age. Her mind ran over the numbers that came with the promotion’s raise, seeing that Wonders Primary would be in reach. Almost. If her ex’s lawsuit failed, it might work.

“And of course there’d be a closing bonus of, say, five thousand.” Her boss waved the folder beneath her nose like a matador.

Jodi blinked at him, disbelieving. Suddenly her dreams were within her grasp, the chance to provide the care her son needed, a brass ring at her fingertips. She wasn’t going to fail after all.

“Fine.” Mr. Williams sighed at her extended silence. “How about eight thousand? But that’s my best offer, Jodi.” Mr. Williams raked his fingers through his hair wisps. “You drive a hard bargain. Do we have a deal?”

She nodded and felt her palm pumped up and down. A tide of joy rolled through her before unease dragged it away. Going home meant returning to a place—and a person—she’d vowed to forget.