Page 29 of Country Road Romance

“Well, since you’re both here, you can help me with some of the canning that I was planning on doing this weekend,” Doug interjected. “I have a whole bunch of frozen cherries in the freezer, and I want to make sure I get them made into jam as soon as possible.”

“You’re canningagain?” Jared asked. “Didn’t he just get done doing that a few weeks ago?”

“Well, dear, you know how your father is when it comes to that damn canning machine. He says that you can’t have too many jars of jam waiting for you in the cellar.”

“I can speak for myself, you know.”

“I know you can, dear,” Joyce said as she passed behind Doug, patting him (more than a little patronizingly) on the arm. Looking at the two of them, it was pretty clear that Jared had gotten various aspects of his personality from each of hisparents. While he had Joyce’s fussiness, he also had his father’s dogged determination.

What’s more, looking at them he found himself wondering what it would be like to be in a long-term relationship with Jared, whether they would bicker like this when they got old.

“Don’t get the wrong idea,” Jared said, interrupting his thoughts. “My dad isn’t some kind of doomsdayer or survivalist or anything. He just doesn’t like to be caught unprepared for any eventuality, no matter how unlikely.”

“You never know how likely or unlikely something is until it’s actually happened,” Joyce said.

“There’ve been a few times when someone in the house lost their job, and it was a bit touch and go there for a while,” Jared said.

Charlie could see at once that this was the kind of conversation that made Joyce and Doug uncomfortable, so he decided to smooth things over and keep it moving.

“I always say that you can never be too careful when it comes to money and being prepared. I sometimes think that a lot of people in California should learn that lesson.”

Joyce nodded her head approvingly at this, and Charlie congratulated himself on once again being able to get on well with a set of parents.

“You’re a very nice young man,” Joyce said, reaching up and patting his cheek. “I hope we’ll be seeing a lot more of you.”

Charlie didn’t know what to say to that, so he said nothing.

Doug, not being one to stand on ceremony, announced, “There’s no time like the present. Let’s get canning!”

He got to his feet and stepped swiftly to the kitchen, leaving Jared and Charlie no choice but to follow him.

As he’d promised, two bags of cherries were already laid out on the table, along with sugar and jars and everything else that making cherry jam required. It wasn’t long before Jared and hisdad were elbows-deep in the process and trading light-hearted jokes and jabs while Joyce reminded them to clean up the kitchen when they were done.

There was something almost magical about watching the way Jared interacted with his family. Theirs was clearly a deep bond, and while he had no doubt that they had their fair share of stresses and strains like any family, they’d clearly found a way of working through them and creating something powerful and unique. It was especially refreshing to see Jared be able to let his hair down a little and become a little less guarded. True, he’d begun to open up a bit on the drive here, but Charlie could sense that he was always keeping a little something back. Here, though, he truly looked carefree and joyful, and that made Charlie happy.

Suddenly Jared seemed to remember that he was standing right there and that he had yet to meaningfully contribute to any part of the canning process.

“Charlie, would you mind handing me that bag of sugar?” he asked. “I know this is a bit out of your wheelhouse, but you could at least try to be a little more helpful.”

“Jared, be nice to Charlie. He’s a guest in our house,” Joyce said reprovingly. “Honestly I don’t know who raised you to act like that in front of company.”

Jared rolled his eyes good-naturedly. As Charlie had still not handed him the sugar, he made to do it himself, and as they both reached for it their hands just barely brushed each other. Jared’s face turned that delicate shade of pink again, and even Charlie felt himself feeling a little blush creeping up the back of his neck.

“Sorry,” they both said in unison, followed quickly by “jinx.”

Charlie’s gaze flicked to Doug to see if he’d noticed anything, but his attention was strictly on the bubbling cherries. He could swear, though, that he saw the ghost of a small on the other man’s face.

The rest of the canning process passed in a bit of a blur. As Jared had said, this was very much out of Charlie’s realm of experience. However, there was something almost magical about the way that Jared and his dad went through the various steps of the process, from the pouring of the cherries into the little mason jars to setting the jars in the canner. Soon enough the kitchen was filled with numerouspopsas the jars sealed.

There came a ring at the door just as the last jar wentpop!.

Oh crap,Charlie thought.Here it comes.

Even though, as he’d told Jared, he wasn’t exactly the type of person to have paparazzi knocking down the door to get to him for a scoop, there would always be those who wanted to get a good story on him. After what had happened at the Stonewall, he had no doubt that there would be at least a few publications who would pay top dollar to figure out where he was, what he was doing, and who he was seeing.

Sometimes I wish I could just disappear.

As it turned out, though, the new arrivals weren’t some story-hungry reporters from TMZ or some other gossip rag. Instead, they were a cluster of people that Charlie could only assume were members of Jared’s family. Or some of them, anyway.

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