Page 69 of Noble Neighbor
The past month had been filled with tremendous highs, but also a few lows. The sex was phenomenal — and regular — but he hated the secrecy Sunny was insisting on. He wanted to acknowledge they were in a relationship, but they snuck around as if they were doing something illegal. Something dirty.
“I like Sunny,” he said, then shifted under Vera’s sharp scrutiny and amended his statement. “I love her. And her girls. They’ve crept into my heart.”
Vera cocked her head. “I sense a but.”
“Yeah.” Oliver exhaled sharply. “Sunny … she doesn’t want permanent.”
“So, it’s, uh, progressed,” the older woman prodded, a far too knowing, and pleased, look on her face.
Oliver lowered his eyes to his food and shoveled a few mouthfuls in. “Guess so,” he mumbled. Was he really discussing his sex life with his late wife’s mother? He chanced a side-eye. Yep, she was sitting back in her seat. Gloating. “Do you have to enjoy my discomfit so much, Vera?”
“It’s just great to see you take an interest in another woman.”
Her cheerful smile creased her ageless face, and for a heart-stopping moment, Oliver saw Christie sitting beside him, not her mother.Only nineteen years apart in age, they’d been identical and often mistaken as sisters.
“Uh-oh.” Vera sighed. “What’s wrong?”
As always, he was truthful with the woman. “For a moment I saw Christie, not you.”
Vera grabbed his hand, clasping it between hers. “Christie would’ve been happy for you. And for Clem.”
“Whoa, Mom. Don’t get your hopes up.” Dratted woman had been on him for ages to take an interest in the opposite sex. “Even if Clem’s a boy, he needs a mom, Oliver,” she’d said to him a few times over the last years.
“Right.” Vera nodded. “So Sunny — love her name by the way — is skittish?”
“No. She’s …” He pursed his lips. “It’s more than skittish, Mom. She’s a closed book about her past, refusing to talk about it. It’s just her and her girls. The girls’ father is deceased, and although she says he wasn’t abusive, something about him is suspect. Could be he was a criminal. Whatever it was, it was enough for her to start over in a new town with a new name.”
“Hmm … seems you have a hard task ahead of you.”
“Dad’s satisfied with his relationship with Lorena. But …”
“You’re not Frank,” Vera completed for him.
“Yeah. I … I don’t know if I’ll be able to settle for … second best.” Oliver met her gaze. “Again.”
“Oh, Ollie.” Vera grabbed his hand, squeezing hard. “Christie loved you.”
He looked away, his vision clouding. “But I was second.”Second husband. Second choice. Substitute. “She never even took my name, Mom. That rankled. No, let me be honest. It hurt.” That Christie kept the name of her first husband — a man who died a hero fighting for his country — was the proverbial stone stuck in the craw of his marriage.
Vera reached over and fingered the chain of his St. Michaels shield. “I remember the day my daughter showed me the medallion.She sat exactly where you are now and told me she wanted to make sure she never lost another man she loved. Shelovedyou, Oliver.”
“Then why—”
“She was also a businesswoman. After Abe’s death, she threw herself into her career, forming her own company, and became one of DC’s most successful realtors.Keeping the Newton name after marrying you was a sound business decision. But here” — she tapped his heart, tapped the medallion where it lay beside his heart — “where it counted, she was yours. Did she ever give you any sign to the contrary?”
Oliver huffed, then admitted, “No.”
“And tell me … this love you have for Sunny. Is it less than what you felt for Christie? Would Sunny be getting second best?”
Hell no. “No.”
“You fought for Christie. Now fight for Sunny.”
19
Strawberry shortcake
“Wow,” Kenzie gasped as they stood on a corner of the town square with the rest of Clearbrook’s population.
