Page 62 of The Last Second Chance
Jax picked up the soup spoon and dug in. “What?”
“What the hell are you doing, Jax?”
The bite of chili lodged in his throat and he coughed until he could breathe again. “I’m trying to eat chili, Mom.”
“You know what I mean. Don’t play dumb with me.”
“You’re going to have to be more specific.”
“How about I tell you what I see with my all-seeing mother’s eyes and then you tell me what’s really going on?” Phoebe suggested. “I see you pushing yourself to exhaustion between the farm, this place, and your writing. Not to mention chasing that lovely young woman behind the bar. You’re putting down roots but you’re digging them so fast and deep you’re running yourself ragged. So I ask myself, what are you trying to prove and to who?” She frowned. “Whom? Damn it.”
Jax twirled his glass on the table.
“Did Dad ever feel like he wasn’t good enough?”
Phoebe blinked and then laughed. “Every damn day.”
“Be serious now,” Jax sighed.
“I am being serious. Your father always wondered if he was doing the best he could as a farmer, a father, heck, even a husband some days.”
Jax shook his head. “That’s ridiculous. He was the best at everything.”
“Kiddo, that’s part of being an adult. Holding up a mirror to yourself and seeing those glorious flaws.”
“Dad didn’t have flaws.”
Phoebe shot him a look. “I think you meant to say, ‘My stunningly beautiful genius of a mother doesn’t have flaws.’”
Jax cracked a grin. “That’s definitely what I meant to say. Even though you are a deeply, beautifully flawed human being.”
“Takes one to know one.” She stuck her tongue out at him, her nose scrunching behind her glasses, and he loved her just a little bit more because of it.
“Very mature, Mother.”
She laughed and took his hand.
“I just want to be as good as Dad,” he admitted quietly. “I don’t want to be a screw-up anymore.”
“Sweetie, you’ve never been a screw-up. Mule-headed, sure. Too adventurous for your own good, absolutely. But your father and I never, ever looked at you like a screw-up.”
“Come on, Mom. What about after the accident?”
“Which accident? The one where Carter backed your grandfather’s truck through the garage door? Or the time Beckett’s car ended up buried in Carson’s cornfield because he tried to spin a donut in the snow to impress Moon Beam Parker?”
“Theaccident, Mom. The Joey’s-in-the-hospital-unconscious accident.”
“It was a deer, you idiot,” Phoebe squeezed his hand. “Don’t carry that around with you because one of God’s creatures decided to a cross a road that you happened to be using. And don’t try to turn that into some kind of martyrdom where you don’t deserve to be happy until you’ve accomplished this or made up for that.”
Jax stirred the chili.
Phoebe laid a hand on his arm. “If we waited to go for something until we feel worthy, no one would ever do anything.”
“But if I can make a go of this place—”
“If you can, you can. If you can’t, you’ll do something else. That’s what life is all about. Living. Trying. Loving.”
His gaze darted to Joey behind the bar, working the taps and the crowd like a pro.
